How do we survive this?

[LittleAndOften]

I've posted bits and pieces about this on other pages but I'm at breaking point so just going to put it all out there. DH and I have been together 7 years. We have ds3 and another due in a few weeks. He's had a total breakdown and is taking it out on me through angry rants which are happening more and more frequently, over trivial things. I love him, but I'm reaching my limit of what I can take emotionally.

This all started in July when he was hospitalised for a mystery illness affecting his central nervous system and it brought out all the mh issues he's been suppressing for years. Childhood abuse, ptsd, anger, huge anxiety. He's really been struggling and had to wait ages to see mh services (he's seeing a psychiatrist today). He's still physically unwell too and has gastric issues so can't take tablets (namely anti depressants).

DH has always been a perfectionist and a control freak. We clashed in the past because I was the opposite - quite laid back, messy and creative. Over time I have changed and become much more organised, tidy and responsible. However it's become clear recently that deep down he still sees me as the disorganised person he first met and has deep seated anger because of this (he accepts this is irrational but can't control it). It's all coming out now. Example - yesterday I asked him to get out the storage bags of baby clothes for me to sort out and put in the nursery (I can't bend or lift as have chronic pgp). He decided this meant I actually wanted to leave everything for him to do (his key phrase "I know what will happen") and launched into a tirade and character assassination about him always having to do everything, when I actually just wanted to get on with a job that needed doing. His words were brutal and cutting, ending up with him saying he had 7 years of anger about me and I was a huge part of the problem and we should separate. It broke my heart. I've never cried like that before. I felt broken. Since then he's been apologising and has backtracked on all of it, which happens every time. He has no coping strategies for his mh which I get, but my tolerance has limits. I'm the only adult he sees so in the firing line daily. I'm also in massive pain and can barely walk which has ground me down.

My future, our future as a family hinges on whether he can get past this. I've been a SAHM for nearly 4 years and he's the breadwinner. We are in a difficult place financially which isn't helping matters and DH is feeling under pressure to return to work. I try to earn a bit through freelance writing but it's sporadic and I haven't been able to pursue new work over the past few months that DH has been in crisis. The one saving grace is DS3 having his free nursery hours.

I've been as patient and supportive as I can throughout this time but I have nothing left to give. We have no support network locally (that's another story), his parents live nearby but his dad was his abuser (emotionally, physically) so we aren't seeing them. My parents live 3 hours away. They've helped where they can.

I've tried to get support for myself through perinatal mh services but they said they can't help because it's all circumstantial - I'm not depressed just massively stressed. DH is a wonderful man and I've coped so far by attributing his behaviour to his illness, but i can't just keep taking it. I don't have close friends to talk to.

DH is a wonderful, kind man and amazing dad who has broken down partly because of the pressure he puts on himself, and partly because of everything he has suppressed for so long. I don't excuse his behaviour and neither does he, but he can't seem to stop it happening. The question is, how do we survive this? With 4 weeks until my due date, I just don't know what to do.

First of all, mental health issues are not a valid excuse for being an arsehole and not ate gastric issues an excuse for not taking medication. Gastric issues require medication so that excuse doesn't fly. I have chronic gastritis and silent reflux along with a few other conditions. I take 25 tablets a day to control it all. He's making excuses to not help himself.

The most important thing here is consider the mental health of you and your children. You are at risk of PND and your ds must be living in a very stressful and unhappy environment. He doesn't deserve that and neither do you. Nor do your baby when it's born.

It's not up to you to fix your husband. He has to want to get better and it sounds like he doesn't if he won't take medication.

I don't see an option here except leaving this toxic environment. Maybe give women's aid a call and talk things through. 0808 200 0247 Take card of yourself and your dc

I agree. Mental health is neither reason or excuse for abusing you. I would give him an ultimatum. Behave or get out.
Take care of you and your children.

Saying he's a wonderful man on a loop won't make it true OP. He is abusive and you are painting him as a victim to excuse it. Of course physical and mental health issues are hard but they are not excuses to behave as he is doing. If he 'can't stop' his behaviour I would take that to mean you will be subject to more of it. I would focus on your own health and what is a safe and happy environment for your DC and start working out how you can remove yourself from this rather than work out how to endure or survive it. That is not your job in life.

If he finds you such a trigger then clearly it is best to be apart, at least until the situation with his MH is clearer and a treatment plan and diagnosis are made.

If he finds you such a trigger then clearly it is best to be apart

This is my biggest fear. Just getting treatment has been a battle and I don't even know where we'd begin with any kind of separation, I'm financially dependent on him. I really need him right now (and he always had been wonderful before July ), I can't have this baby alone. God this is the hardest time of my life.

He's not a wonderful kind man. My stbexh is the same - I am the root cause of his misery. I know that's not true, and you know you aren't the cause of your 'd'h's either. He is choosing to treat you this way - it'll happen again and again (I know this, I'm only escaping now after 11 years) and you are worth more than his resentful approval

It would be over for me.
I would call it a day and let him go off to survive whatever it is he needs to get over.
Fuck that, in other words.

Could you go to your parents?

Honestly OP if you've no other options to get out I would go to your parents if they'll have you. You've said yourself you have nothing left to give so you have to use what energy you have left to get yourself and DS into a peaceful environment before your baby is born.

If your parents aren't an option I would seriously consider refuge if you can get a place, and yes it is that bad. You are about to bring a newborn baby into what sounds like a toxic, abusive and extremely stressful household, that's just not on, for you or DC.

This is self preservation now OP, his MH is almost a side issue at this point because you are undergoing such severe abuse that getting you away from it has to be priority, regardless of why it's happening. You're at breaking point, you've acknowledged that and this very much comes under putting on your own life jacket before you can help anybody else, you will drown if you don't

I'm honestly shocked by your responses. I wasn't prepared for that at all. I'm not close to my parents and they live in a flat, tbh I'd rather be by myself than attempt to live with them (big personalities, big clashes), that's not an option really. Certainly not a stress free one!

My current mindset is to fight to keep our family together. I'm not ignoring what you're all saying, but I just can't process it at the moment. So much is here - DS has his nursery, I've got physio and the mw tomorrow, hv on Thursday, I tutor English to several kids and am saving my cash from that. Maybe I'm just unable to make decisions right now. My physical limitations are a massive factor too - I could barely walk this weekend. I'm rambling I know. Just thinking aloud.

If we did separate it would need to be planned over a longer period. And I can't get my head around that with an imminent birth. I'm sorry if that sounds pathetic, I just can't.

This is helping though. I really do have no one in r/l to talk to.

Does your husband realise that you're at breaking point?

'I know what will happen' is, I'm afraid, a really disrespectful and contemptuous statement. It sounds like maybe he loves you on some levels, but on a deeper one he doesn't respect or trust you.

Are there calmer times you could talk about your feelings with him? Or send them in an email?

Why do you want to keep your family together when being with him is destroying you and is/will be damaging your DC? Because they can't fail to be damaged by being brought up around what you describe, however hard to try to shield them.

Have you looked into stuff like benefit entitlement if you were on your own? What about your housing situation, rented or bought and in whose name?

Fight to keep together?

Surely fighting (since the entirety of fighting so far has been instigated by him) is the last thing you need to be doing?

So his life has been shit. Doesn't mean he has to make sure that yours and your DC's lives are just as bad. I don't verbally abuse my DP or beat him up because my mother and my ex did me. I appreciate his wonderfulness - and tell him when he's being a twat. Because none of that was his fault, anymore than it was mine. I can't take certain medications at all, so if I have something that I can't be medicated for, I use fucking self control when relating to him. Because I'm not an abuser like my mother or ex

You're disabled, you're in pain, you're heavily pregnant. And you're being abused.

A safe refuge with a tiny, vulnerable baby, maybe claiming benefits for your financial independence would be a relief - because you wouldn't have to take his abusive shit anymore and could enjoy him/her without fearing being screamed at about an envelope you forgot to post seven years ago proving it's totally unreasonable to pick a nappy up out of a packet or whatever shit he will come out with to make him feel big and clever, just like his Daddy.

He does know that I've reached my limit, yes. I told him last night I cannot and will not be on the receiving end any more. He agreed, but whether he is going to be able to stop himself being triggered, time will tell. He is making some progress and becoming more insightful as he learns to observe his own behaviours and triggers. It's horrible to watch him struggling but I've put myself second for months and I can't ignore my needs now.

@Echobelly he doesn't trust anyone, by his own admission. I think being let down by both his parents (abuser, enabler) as a child means he takes charge of everything, whether it's necessary or not. It's a coping mechanism. He said it was a revelation to him when he was hospitalised and I organised everything and he realised I was capable of so much more than he'd previously thought. He knows logically that this is his own skewed thinking. And he knows how I feel and thinks I'm perfectly reasonable, but it's not always enough to override his ingrained behaviour now that Pandora's Box has been opened. Part of me wants him to go back to how he was, but he can't go back to suppressing everything, it's what led to his illness in the first place. However I can't be his outlet either.

Sorry I've missed some replies while writing. I'll catch up in a bit.

Oh OP. You need to separate from him. It might come right in time but it won't as long as you're in the same house.

My exdh was like this. It was excruciating. In the end I realized, although he loved me he didn't trust me and resented me to the bottom of his soul. I still love him, but we did part because I saw with terrible clarity that my DC were learning that love means never trusting and never having peace.

@Hidingtonothing I actually have a UC appointment tomorrow because DH is only on SSP (he moved jobs after his hospitalisation as they worked him into the ground, so has no benefits for 6 months). We've had to take a mortgage holiday for 3 months. Another cause of stress! I dont know what happens regarding the mortgage etc if we separate. I'll have to do some research.

@MitziK I'm so sorry you've been through such trauma. I'm struggling to gain perspective on how he is with me - I guess I'm too entrenched, I'm just going day to day. He's been so good with me today, it makes things very confusing. We've been crying together a lot.

With parenting DS, DH is acutely mindful of how his dad treated him so removes himself if he gets frustrated. He has lots of patience with DS, but yes I do worry about what DS has absorbed from how DH has been towards me recently.

@rvby your situation sounds similar to mine. I don't know how he's going to be on the other side of this, we both hope it will bring a change for the better. I just feel I have no one else to turn to until this baby is born, and deep down I'm afraid to take action. Not afraid of him, afraid of being on my own with two children. I'm not prepared for this.

My dad was like this. It is of course to an extent replicating his own upbringing- not that he's an abuser of your son, but he is to an extent abusing you, and in a way you're enabling it insomuch as it's continuing, but I understand that it's just been a short term thing so far, that you hope will let up.

Your DS will pick up on all this eventually, and I'm sorry to say that if it continues for long, it will contribute in various ways to messing him up in later life- I would know.

You need to see evidence that he's trying to get better, and that he's trying to improve his behaviour towards you- when it's not ok, please tell him, as it's not on.

How did he get on with the consultant? What did they suggest and is he going to do it? I'm sure there's some medication he could take- there are hundreds of them. If he didn't try one I'd be really pissed off.

Hugs xxx

If his consultant suggested a med and he refused to try it, I mean. Also, if one med doesn't work/has bad side effects, he can go back and they can try him on one of the many other ones. I have very little patience with people who don't keep trying with meds- sooner or later they tend to hit on one that suits the person, if the person doesn't give up trying meds they're prescribed.

@Interestedwoman thank you. You have articulated exactly where I am right now with this, viewing it as short term. I am also getting much better at telling DH when he's out of line. He has been desperate to fix himself and has developed health anxiety from his obsessive self-diagnosing (he is an HCP). He has tried 3 types of mh meds, but his esophagus is inflamed and swallowing is agony - it's not for want of trying, he's lost over 20kg in weight. Anything that relaxes him like diazepam causes laryngopharyngeal reflux at night. He's managed to get a couple of things in liquid form but these are for physical not mh problems.

I'm under no illusions about this angry behaviour needing to stop. After the baby comes I will be in a stronger position. I certainly won't let DS be witness to this long term.

Forgot to say, the psychiatrist was useless today. He did what lots of HCPs do when they meet DH - talk shop. He didn't even do a proper assessment just sent him down the CBT pathway. So more waiting. He's seen 3 other mh professionals who've referred him on because they said he wasn't ready for CBT. It's ridiculous. He's also waiting for gastro-enterology at the hospital but that will be months. He's been passed around depts there too. Just being sent from pillar to post.

Stop making excuses for his appalling behaviour.

As if talking to him is going to make a change. He's a nasty bully hiding behind his illness to excuse what he's doing.

You're nothing but his doormat, sorry, and you need to find some backbone. Your DC deserve better, let alone you.

Did you go to the appointment with him today?

@DtPeabodysLoosePants no his sister did (she's got bipolar), apparently the psychiatrist was a Norwegian guy who just spent the whole time saying how much better the Norwegian system was 🙄. They were in there just 20 mins.

DH has always been a perfectionist and a control freak. We clashed in the past because I was the opposite - quite laid back, messy and creative. Over time I have changed and become much more organised, tidy and responsible

You may have changed but he hasn't. The subtext of your words, above, is that he's always been bully and you've allowed him to bully you into a pale shadow of your former self.

As so many pp have said, he attempting to hide his true character under these recent alleged mental health issues as he's not prepared to modify or change his behaviour and, with yet another dc imminent, he's almost marking his territory by making sure that he will continue to be the centre of your attention.