Hand hold please, husband not sure he wants to remain married.

[mummabubs]

Hi all, I literally can't believe I'm in the position of writing this post but could just use a hand hold if that's OK.

Abridged version is: Known DH 7 years, been married for 3 and have a 2 year old DS. Seven months ago we were about 5 months into TTC #2 (had always discussed together about how we wanted two children since relatively early on in the relationship). DH suddenly told me that he no longer wanted 2 children and was happy with only having our DS- gave lots of reasons. This has been hard for me to adjust to and I've been very upset at the thought of our family not looking as we always thought it would. DH's position over a lot of things has felt chaotic since then- wanting another child, then not, wanting to move house, wanting to stay here, wanting to move 200 miles away to be closer to our families... In all honesty it's been exhausting to try and just keep going for me never knowing what he wanted.

Last night he came to bed and it emerged he doesn't think he wants to stay married. Says that he still loves me and feels utterly shit about the situation but he also wants to be by himself for a while and not have the pressures of marriage or parenting. Consequently I've had no sleep, feeling miserable one minute and then numb the next. Crying constantly. I've come into work (NHS frontline staff) but feel utterly useless.

I know there's not necessarily an 'answer' to the situation but I can't talk it through with friends (all mutual here) or family at this point, so think in my little pity bubble I just selfishly want someone to acknowledge that this is just crap. Thanks for reading.

@Dolorabelle. You’re right, mothers don’t generally have the luxury of dropping out of parenting but some do. Likewise some men suffer from PND and have breakdowns.

You don’t know me or my wife or what we went through regarding the birth of our child. You don’t know that I was a stay at home dad for 9 months as my wife went back to work so please don’t assume I didn’t do any intensive infant care as you put it. I did, which in a large part led me to feel a failure.

I stand by my criticism of some responses on here as they assume that all men are the same.....selfish bastards. We are not and every man and woman is different and unique. Some men are bastards and some women are too. That doesn’t mean the automatic go to should be to assume the worst without giving people a chance. OP put this post up for advice and a lot of that given was to say that he is a selfish prick and to kick him out, oh and he must be cheating and Even when OP said her DH was seeking help she was told he was selfish. There is always a deeper backstory and not everything is black and white.

It is still all about him isn't it though OP. He may be upset about the fact he didn't anticipate this for his life, and doesn't want it theoretically but it doesn't change the fact that ultimately he spoke the truth when he said he wanted to leave, did not enjoy his life in the marriage etc-mental health concerns or not. We can certainly wish we hadn't fallen out of love, and still have done so. His tears are for himself at his situation being overwhelming and there being no way out that doesn't leave him feeling bad I wouldn't take them as evidence of deep regret or deep love for you- his actions seem to continuously say the same thing. If he could walk away guilt free, he would.
No change he makes to your lifestyle makes it work for him, he doesn't want to be in any deeper than he has to be in case he wants to leave which is why a second child is a big no.

I understand wanting to support him and wanting to stay with someone OP but I wouldnt dedicate my life to accommodating someone that treated me like that or had made clear I was a prison sentence, let alone expressing the same about his own child.

Living with someone with depression is very bloody hard and with all the will in the world seems never to leave anyone particularly emotionally happy or well, I would seek your own therapist as well OP and talk this over with them because he has you over a barrel a bit here, whatever he does he is excused and your feelings seem not to matter much.

Men like this really get on my nerves. You're a goddamn grown up pal, you have a wife and a child and you should stand up and accept that you are responsible for the situation.
OP I am really sorry for your problems and the stress that this weak ass man has caused you.
I was 19 when I meet my werife and she already had two boys. Our third came along quite soon and I always knew my place, it was the kids first then her then me. As a man I was and am the support act.
Yes she takes time out to make me feel special but even now we help our kids by looking after our grandchildren.
You DH made decisions on conversations with you and came to an agreement. Now it doesn't suit he wants to bail out and leave you as the only adult in the room.
Someone needs to shake him by the scruff of his neck.
Too many men are failing to act like men today. They are too selfish, too concieted and too damn weak.

OP, your update resonated with me. I have 2 DCs. When I'm having bad days, I ask my husband if they'd all be better off without me. It's not because I'm selfish or a cock, it's a genuine question because I worry that my snappyness, bad temper will affect the DCs negatively. I've also struggled with adapting to parenthood. I find I pick up after a good discussion and get back to being a good mum. Hopefully, your DH's recent admission will lead to a happier time as he'll feel better for explaining how he feels and you've been reassured that he does love you. Good luck, it does get easier as they get older, mine are 5 and 8 and I love them!

Hmmm.

I also watched my husband sob. I have never seen so many tears in my life, in the end I gave up trying to comfort him.

He absolutely was depressed. He absolutely was having a crisis.

He was also fucking OW and treating me extremely disrespectfully.

It is such a shame that men who are struggling, behave in such destructive ways.

I am afraid I still think there is an OW in the background.

@ScreamingLadySutch - yes indeed - the guilt sobs.
I got the same from my ExH.
While of course he was 'struggling' with life, blah blah blah.
And of course - there was an OW!!!
They are mostly so fucking predictable!!!

Mine too - sitting sobbing on the sofa but no mention of the OW at that point.

Ok, there must be some kind of root cause to this ridiculous behavior (ie thinking he can temporarily opt out of his current life). My husband went through something similar recently. Turns out it was nothing to do with me or our kids but he really lacked coping strategies to deal with other issues in his life (death of a friend, a redundancy and some other life events). We went to counseling as a couple which highlighted these issues he was having and then he went to counseling on his own.
I would strongly recommend that you attend counseling together, if he ‘doesn’t think it will work’ I would point out that a counselor is much cheaper than a solicitor.
It could turn out that he really is just a massive dick head but at least you’ve given it a go. Good luck.

Thank you so much for all the responses, I never expected so many people to give up their time to reply it to share experiences, thank you. Your comments of support have really helped and I've read each one.

I guess just to clarify I'm not absolving DH of the hurt that this situation has caused me, and he's well aware of that. Equally I think what's been clear to both of us during our talks is that we both want our marriage to work and to be happy together, both intimately and as parents. That's going to take time to repair the ruptures that are current in our relationship and also a lot of work from both of us. I'm committed to this and I can only go on what he tells me, which is that he is too. I promise if it ever transpires that there was an OW I will update so that those who believe there is can feel validated. I personally still have confidence that this isn't the case.

I also understand what some have said about how women don't have the option to drop responsibility and that this is unfair. I certainly think women stereotypically don't see ourselves as having that option (even though physically there is no more or less to stop us from walking than men). It just wouldn't occur to me to do so as I suspect it doesn't for many others - both mums and dads. I actually wonder if after the initial struggles with DH to connect I consciously/subconsciously took on most things as I believed I was the 'better' parent to do so. Over time I've also become quite bitter about this position so I will criticise DH when he does try to do things differently to how I would do them. I can see how over time this has probably contributed to DH's lack in confidence. Again, I'm not absolving him of his actions but relationships are also two way street are they not?

Sorry, I've gone on a bit of a ramble there and I'm also guessing this crappy app version will unformat my paragraphs, so sorry in advance!

Men don't usually leave their partner unless there is a good chance of regular sex from someone else.

Usually someone at work or from online dating.

My friends husband did exactly this. Almost to the word. I’d known him for 10 years. I could t believe what he’d done but I was adamant there wasn’t another woman. I knew him. I knew what he was like

I was so very wrong. Because not only was there another woman. There was another 3 women! My jaw had to be removed from the floor when I found this out. I couldn’t believe it. I would of sworn blind he was a good guy.

He left my friend. He moved in with the OW. Oh and how wrong he got it. The grass wasn’t greener on the other side. The woman he’s gone too is violent. He can’t go out. He can’t see his kids.

It doesn’t even sound like the guy I thought I knew

Turns out. You can’t know anyone 100%.

Beware the OW OP, maybe she's starting to give him ultimatums.
Sounds like he's checked out, anyway.
Get to a solicitor, find out what you are entitled to, I'm sorry you don't seem to be looking at this, it might mean you come worse off.
He'll have had however long the affair has been going on to prepare.
They all cry at the guilt of letting their family down, your oh is following the script, almost word for word.
Ask him who she is and how long it's been going on, tell him you know everything and his future depends on how honest he is with his answers.
You should get much of the truth then.

You are already compromising what you want re having more children.
Has he asked how you feel about this or is it al me me me.
I would do some shopping just to protect yourself.
I wouldn’t feel safe in the marriage now.
I hope he’s agreed to counselling.
Good luck,

The sobbing and pity party were just more of his self-absorbed dithering that has caused you to feel so unsettled and diminished.

It’s not clear if he is still taking his ‘break’ from marriage and parenting to find himself. If so, why is he still at home? I would set boundaries. Send him away. He needs to be out of your space and responsible for his own meals, washing, etc. You need space to reevaluate this relationship.

He has been creating distance between you for a good while, probably because his emotional energy has been channeled elsewhere. He is likely involved with a colleague, perhaps a rescuer type, and things have escalated, hence his latest crisis.

Tricky

If it is a mh crisis then of course you must support him but not to the great detriment of you or the child.

There are still things he can and must be expected to do and that includes getting the appropriate help and fully engaging with what he's advised to do. Self care is very much part of that but so is taking responsibility.

I wouldn't yet assume there definitely isn't an ow either - the 2 aren't mutually exclusive.

Guilt, shame, panic, the stress of keeping lies straight can all also contribute to a mh problem.

So protect yourself financially whatever the scenario - also advisable if it's mh issues in case he becomes incapacitated or likely to act erratically. It's honestly just common sense and will also limit any bother he can get himself into if he only has access to his own funds and not a lot in the way of debt too.

Debt and mental illness are also massively linked, Martin Lewis has done a lot of work on the matter.

I have ocd etc myself currently housebound but I've had times where my mental health - either not checking account regularly enough and not spotting issues or having periods of being overly optimistic and over spending - seriously affected my finances.

And banks etc are not particularly understanding!

One friend of mine her husband suffers from bipolar and he once literally took as much as he could from cash machine and just gave away to strangers on the street!

So be cautious on this.

If there isn’t another woman, then he needs to think about how he can step up and improve his relationship with his child. 2 year olds are hard work. I remember when we had ours and every weekend was just a struggle of tantrums, naps, everything was a battle with very little reward. My DH used to say that he would go back to work on Monday as a rest and did tell me that sometimes he thought about staying at work later to miss the battle of dinner bath and bed (our eldest was particularly trying!).

But he didn’t give up, we discussed how to get through it together and now our boys are 9 and 7 and he has such a strong bond with them because he threw himself into it while we were in the trenches and it paid off.

Some of the things we did were taking it in turns to have one on one time, picking our battles, trying to get outside for walks, trying to be silly together to have a laugh, and really supporting each other if one of us was finding it particularly hard.

It is a hard age but it does pass but he needs to do the work now to build that bond so it’s there for the fun times later.

All the posters saying that the DH sounds self absorbed - if he has depression he wont be capable of NOT being self absorbed. It's an intrinsically self focused illness, and therefore not a choice.

Because depression tends to come on in an incremental way, it is often hard for the sufferer and their family to recognise it, even if they do work in MH.

Women with PND may be less predisposed to abdicating responsibility for their babies (though it does happen, more often than you would think, but families tend to pull together and conceal the fact), but I really don't think that women's tendency to not run away is due to them being inherently "better" than men, or because all men are bastards.

Hormones, physical issues after childbirth, finances, societal shame and expectation may all play a role. The difference is, many women don't admit that they want to abdicate responsibility and run away, because there are societal double standards which condemn then for doing so.

Ironically, posters who push the woman/saint Vs man/bastard, are reinforcing those double standards with their comments.

@SirChing. Well said.

@SirChing agree with your comments, however it does not absolve men from the destructiveness of their depression:

1. when they are having a crisis, whereas women tend to look inward (what's wrong with me - even when the depression is a situational reaction to abuse), they look outward (its not me, it must be the wife/my marriage/my responsibilities/I must get away)

1. Men really do use sex to make themselves feel better/feel something/feel alive. 'What she needs is a good seeing to'. How many times have we heard men in this belief that sex is a cure all?

Because they are so powerful physically, emotionally and financially, men's temper tantrums can be very destructive to the people who love them.

Instead of dealing with their feelings via a therapist, they go and fuck an OW blame their wives and blow up their families. And no, I am not some nasty man hating viper, I hung in for 8 scarring years trying to save my family.

But you can't save a marriage single handedly because there is nothing wrong with him, I just need to STFU and get back in my box and lets carry on as though nothing has happened.

when they are having a crisis, whereas women tend to look inward (what's wrong with me - even when the depression is a situational reaction to abuse), they look outward (its not me, it must be the wife/my marriage/my responsibilities/I must get away)

I totally disagree. Men who are pissed off do that. Men who are depressed tend to internalize it. The number of depressed men I nursed who found it hard to even function, let alone blame others, was huge.

It's also why lots of men who die by suicide have families who never saw it coming. Because the men tend not to say anything in the same way that women do.

And most men with depression as opposed to being pissed off, tend to go off sex.

Sure, there are always exceptions, but out of the hundreds I have nursed and counselled, those are the trends.

Just to add: OPs DH presents exactly as I would expect a new father, who has been struggling with depression, to present.

@ScreamingLadySutch In fact, what you have just described tends to be the behaviour of emotionally manipulative and abusive men. Sure, they can get depression too, but those features you identified tend to feature in some one with a disordered personality, who is also abusive and so, when they become depressed, their negative behaviour ramps up.

If a person doesn't have a disordered personality or is not abusive, then those traits tend not to be prevalent in a depressed man.

Good comments @SirChing and@ScreamingLadySutch

So let me get this straight:

so if a man has an ow/affair/ emotion affair- even though he 'maybe' depressed it because he has a personality disorder ?

Things is having an ow is not always about sex.

It's seems men use these ow to shore up feelings of loneliness, sadness etc.

It's easier to receive an Ego boost than face the difficulty of working on the marriage.

I think part of the problem here is, as a PP said, you can be mentally ill and still also be a selfish arsehole.

The problem for the OP (and others in her situation who’ve posted in Relationships) is untangling the arseholeish behaviour that is just always there, and behaviour which is the result of mental illness.

It’s difficult because, IME of living with a depressed but also increasingly aresholeish partner (been there, got the T-shirt), depression can make a person self-centred and apparently unloving.

And requiring wives to put up with that behaviour is fully buying into the “woman as saint” stereotype, actually. Adults need to take responsibility for their health.

People who blame depression on why they cheat and absolve themselves from responsibilities are inherently self absorbed and always have been.
People don’t become depressed and change entire personality including all their moral values.
It’s quite likely that losing your freedom in someone who is naturally self absorbed will make them feel depressed, as it doesn’t fit with their natural desires