If I kick him out he will kill himself

[BillywigStings]

Over the years I have been coming to the realisation that my husbands mental health means we won’t ever be a normal family and at the moment I’m struggling with what to do with that info.

Essentially everything relies on me. I cook, clean and work full time and look after the kids. I’m mentally exhausted and poor so I have purposefully ended my social life by letting friends drift away. Occasionally my husband gets a job, but it never lasts as his depressions sets in, and he ends up being fired for being late or not turning up (he forgets to go in).

Obviously as we have been together 13 years and have three kids (well I’m still pregnant with the third) together we have had good times and he still is often a wonderful person. However his depression is like a horrible disease which has taken over him and I’m just so damn tired of being a single parent with no one realising how much I have to do alone. I don’t want other peoples sympathy, I just feel so frustrated. It’s just me, and I’m working or looking after the kids, or cleaning ALL the damn time plus trying to be a therapist for my husband who seems to be on the edge of ending it all most times I talk to him about it. I just kind of silently enable him by not talking about it (at his request). In the past I confronted him and tried to force therapy etc and he reacted badly, having breakdowns and going through worse patches.

I’ve tried convincing him and even threatening him with splitting up if he won’t see someone about his problems but he insists he is on the edge of sorting himself out...he pretty much resists the idea of therapy and the last time I just said ‘well I can’t take this anymore we might as well split up’ he actually left. He turned around later and came back and said he would have killed himself. I know he really wanted to leave though. I also know he would have killed him self within 24 hours, he didn’t need to tell me that.

This isn’t bravado, or selfishness, he is just mentally sick. He said it matter of factly and I thank god he turned round because I know he wouldn’t have done it.

On good days he is wonderful with the kids, on bad days he is absent. He just leaves and walks until he is alone and just sits out in a field, a park, anywhere. Other times he goes to spend time with his friends and stays so late he falls asleep at their house and often doesn’t crawl home till 1-2am or later. He refuses to get an early night and falls asleep alone on the sofa with the dog.

If he’s feeling argumentative he will say the lack of kisses and cuddles and sex from me is one of the main reasons behind his depression and essentially tries to get me to provide all this (and I do try but I just don’t feel it, it feels fake) but after years of him being like this I just can’t seem to make myself show physical affection. I feel like he’s more like an extra child who I keep around to lift heavy things for me or do DIY work.

What I’m trying to say is he is only capable of drifting through life. He can’t take challenges or pressure. If I wasn’t providing a home base for his existence he would have killed him self long before.

What do I do? I know I could cope without him, probably would thrive as I wouldn’t constantly be hoping for help and support I don’t get, but I love him and want to help him. At the very least I can’t kick him out as he has nowhere to go. I would have to set him up with a flat and an income (benefits I guess) in secret (because if he knew about it he would just leave right away to save me the hassle and again after sleeping rough a few nights at most, he would end it.

I just don’t know what to do.

I split with the ex 5 years ago. There had been angry rages, he was neglecting the kids while I worked. He was depressed and it was all my fault and my responsibility to fix apparently. He became homeless as his mum subsequently chucked him out. Since then he has managed to get himself accommodation and now a job for the first time in years. Now he is giving me money. When I think of what I went through..,

And there is a system called IAPT, I believe, for self referral. Not that this is your responsibility to look up.

I know it's simple, also that OP said he has rejected medical intervention in the past.

But it is the case that OP is not a practitioner, and she is his DP not his therapist, and it's very unlikely that she can help in the role. Whatever the difficulties in accessing the right support, that does not mean that he does not need proper medical intervention.

It's one thing stagging on when you know someone's on a waiting list and is trying to get proper support. It's another to feel you are the only therapist so act in that role. That's really not going to help,the OP, her DP or the future (if there is one) of the relationship.

I have every sympathy with someone who is ill. But that does not give carte blanche to damage others during the illness, nor does it make it OK for a partner to attempt to act as a therapist. All is does is delay securing proper support, and leave the 'therapist' partner feeling trapped because

@Ihaveoflate

This was my parent's marriage.

Now my father is dead (not related to MH) and my mother is free. However, I have a very poor relationship with her because I have so much repressed anger toward her for not protecting us from their toxic emotion abusive/ enabling dynamic. She used to tell us that dad would kill himself if she left. I used to feel sorry for her but now I'm just angry.

You are not helping by staying - you are enabling his helplessness by providing a sticking plaster. Put you and your children first - they won't thank you for staying.

I’m so sorry you are in this position 💐 Can I suggest you get some one to talk to about these feelings, or even talk to your mother about why you are angry

I am a mother in this situation- it would break my heart that my kids would be angry becuase I couldn’t leave. In my case it wasn’t that he threatened suicide but just because he did try to get help whilst the kids were still living at home. He didn’t ask to be ill, it is horrible for him too, and I took my vows to say I would stay with him in sickness, worse, poorer . Even though it was shitty, exhausting and sometimes scary, I felt trapped and helpless. I married him before he became sick, I loved him so much then, and I hoped we could someday get back to that. Hope is an incredibly powerful emotion that makes you normalise and endure the most horrible of circumstances.

He is horrible and manipulative. I had some sympathy until he blamed the lack of sex etc for his depression.
I know an elderly woman who spent her whole life with a horrible, manipulative man like this, because she was afraid he would kill himself if she ended it. Fifty years ! Both her children wish she had left him when they were little.
His life is not your responsibility. You have one life, I am sure you don’t want to spend it like this, always on eggshells around someone else’s feelings. You are trapped by the constant firefighting and stress and guilt, but it is he who should feel guilty. In the end the man I mention above became like a giant toddler, totally dependant . The woman wasn’t able to do anything without him. It was a textbook terrible relationship.

He is manipulating and exploiting you.

Your DC don’t have a functioning father - he is both emotionally absent and emotionally destructive to them.

They only have one parent and that parent is drained, distracted and preoccupied an emotionally manipulative and abusive partner. Whilst your finite energy, headspace, time and emotion is drained by this emotional leech you have nothing left to attune and attend to you DC. They are missing out here by having two emotionally distracted parents, one threatening and brooding and the other exhausted at the end of her tether.

This will leave them anxious and stressed and they will develop their own behaviour issues and likely chronic MH issues in their teenage years.

This is not an appropriate environment to raise children.

OP, It is clear you will not leave for your own sake. So read this and think of your DC.

If you think it''s too far fetched, it isn't. It happened to me and my DC.

My Ex was abusive. He had severe depression as well, although had a job. He used his depresssion to verbally, emotionally, financially and sexually abuse me. He coerced me into sex acts I didn't want or like.

And remember, coercing someone into sex is illegal.

He was abusive to the DC, although not sexually. And his misogyny showed, as he was more abusive to our DD than DS.

I left after 30 years with teen DC. I was broken.

Both DC have MH issues as a result of the abuse. Depression and anxiety, but both are recovering well, it's over 3 years since we left.

And yes, my ex "attempted" suicide a few times. Nothing serious, turned out they were attempts to reel me back in. I didn't go to him, I called the police on 101 and asked for a welfare check. I realised that if it were genuine, he'd get help. Or, if it was manipulation, the police would have a word. The "attempts" stopped very quickly.

On the first anniversary of us leaving, he pulled a big stunt and involved our DD in that. I'll never forgive him for that. But I got black and white evidence he was lying about taking an overdose. I kept this evidence to use if he began to try and hassle us again, but in the end I never needed it.

He died late last year from an aneurysm, kids inherit everything.

@BillywigStings, I've read all your posts, and I think you need to take those rose tinted specs off.

This is NOT a nice man. Not the "sweetest, kindest human". Nice, decent men don't coerce their wives into sex, nor do they blame the lack of sex for their "suicidal" thoughts. And that's before we even get into the other behaviour or the refusal to get help.

You need to leave, for your DC and yourself. Sooner, not later.

If you stay, this is your life forever. And it'll get worse, not better.

@30julytoday can you see the difference between your situation with your DH and that of the OP’s DH?

No one is saying abandon an ill person - they are saying separate out the abuse manipulation and exploitation and protect yourself and your DCs from that toxicity.

Tell him he needs to take some self responsibility, sort himself out and start pulling his weight. You're fed up of carrying him and won't do it any more. You can't change/fix him, only he can do that himself.

He may be mentally sick but he is well enough to manipulate you.

@30julytoday if you could send your past self a message, would you tell your younger self to stay or to go? I ask because my situation sounds like yours - his mental health is poor, our families and backgrounds are traditional and expect that marriage is for life, and if it were just he and I, I would stay... But I wonder if my children will be mentally healthier, with better relationships down the line, if we stay apart as we are now.

@OverTheRubicon doesn't everyone expect marriage to be for life? That's part of the overhwhelming sadness of letting go. But it shouldn't be a life sentence.

He couldn’t go stay at a friends? You couldn’t get the friend to watch out for him? His parents, are they not in the picture? Even your parents if it keeps him alive for the kids?

[quote Alcemeg]@OverTheRubicon doesn't everyone expect marriage to be for life? That's part of the overhwhelming sadness of letting go. But it shouldn't be a life sentence.[/quote]
Not everyone expects marriage to be for life in the same way. My friends from Western /European families generally go into marriages very much hoping that they will be for life. But in my family there is no-one divorced at all, no matter the abuse, the addictions, the cheatings... It's truly for life.

My DH was also too depressed and had too many mental health problems to get a job or even fill in the forms to sort out benefits on his own, he told me he'd kill himself if we broke up, or get a tent and go live in the woods...well, when I did finally make him leave, he suddenly learnt how to fill in all these forms and sort out money and accommodation and everything really quickly, and no sign of killing himself yet, from the little contact I now have with him.

You have to put your own oxygen mask on first OP.

I’m sorry to say this but he’s taking the piss.
He does what he wants when he wants.
He’s depressed!!!!!
I’m not sure he is - he’s up for sex, well a lot of people who are depressed aren’t motivated for this.
He goes to see friends and buggers of to the park.
FFS - he’s a lazy bastard.
Time for him to get his act together.
He’s made you responsibly for his life!!! No healthy man or parent would do that.
Get rid.

Has he ever been to his GP ?

As someone who has suffered from bad mental health for 20 years, I can tell you this is not on you.

You cannot fix this
You are not responsible

But you have a responsibility to your children.

I speak as someone, who has struggled for years with mental health, medicated, cbt etc even had one to one person to take me out of the house. That was years ago. I've since had dc and they have been my lifeline, I've coped with my mental health for their greater good.

However , right now. I'm at crisis point. I'm being proactive ive got another face to face review tomorrow at the docs as the medication they have me on is not working. Difference is... I'm doing everything for my family, for myself x

I have depression but I can't relate at all to how your DH carries on.
I would 100% kick him out no guilt whatsoever. You can't sacrifice yourself for someone else.

@BillywigStings

Iv been watching the sweetest, kindest human I have ever met be devoured by this

I'm truly sorry that you are going through such a truly horrendous time, but if the 'solution' or 'cure' was to love him and endure, then he'd be 'better' already..................

And if he was the ''sweetest, kindest human'', then he'd have felt so terrible about what he's putting his wife and children through, that he'd either have accepted that he needed more help and actively sought help out, or he'd have actually followed through with the threat of ending his own life (so as to spare his family from the constant upset/misery that his illness was causing).

If you've already exhausted all the options you have, i.e supporting him, engaging with him, talking to him, excusing him from helping you 'shoulder the load' of supporting (financially and emotionally), and it's not enough, then WTF are you planning to do exactly ?

I get that you all love him, I get that he's ill. I'm just trying to see if you actually have a plan ? or if you're simply going to carry on carrying on ?

If so, until when ? When do you get to put you and your mental health first ? When do your children get to come first?

Is it fair on you/them to forever 'prop up' your DH ? Is it fair to deny them a more 'carefree' childhood just because he won't get, or even ask for professional help, to spare his family ?

I think you've all done all you can to help him. Now it's his turn to take control of his OWN mental health/illness.

I think you need to sit him down and explain that you cannot continue doing this any more. You love him, and want him to get better, but that only an idiot would continue to do the same thing repeatedly, and yet expect a different outcome , and you know that neither of you is an idiot.
You will contact your local mental health team with him tomorrow, and start the ball rolling.............and if he says ''well I might as well kill myself then !'', you're going to have to call the police and report it so that they can keep him safe until he is assessed by the mental health team.

Nothing will change, until YOU do

@BillywigStings

How are you OP 🌸

Depressed or just bone idle? Forgets to go to work. Hmmm. Workshy! You're putting him first and you need to stop. He'll let you carry on until it's you that needs help. Ultimatum time. How are you going to cope financially if you're pregnant with two DC already? He's not earning, you won't be working full time. Seriously I'd kick his lazy ass into next week.

Oh god, just saw he's a sex pest too. Ugh. Let him go, he won't kill himself and if he does, it's not your fault. You'd be free of all this shit either way.

@Bluecomfort

He sounds completely manipulative. Depression does not make you forget to go to work. He’s a useless sack of shit, and he knows it to the point where he’s emotionally blackmailing you to allow him to stay. He knows you can do so much better

How can judge someone so horribly when you haven't even set eyes on him. Depression effects people in different ways. No the OP shouldn't have to be put in this situation it's selfish but it goes a bit far to call him what you have.