Struggling without time alone

[Redfizzy]

My DH is unemployed at the moment and will be for the foreseeable future (he has ongoing mental health issues eg depression and anxiety). We have savings which we are dipping into to tide us over, and I work part time, so financially we are ok for now.

However, I am really struggling with the lack of time alone. I work 3 days one week and 4 days the next, and spend my time off doing housework, life admin, exercise etc. I really value time and space to myself where I don't have to interact with anyone and can be in silence if I want to.

Time on my own also helps me recharge and de stress - in fact it has always been essential for my mental health.

We have DC and the weekend and school holidays are busy and filled with family activities.

Since DH has been off work, I have started to feel very stressed due to the lack of alone time. He is in the house all day, usually just on his laptop. I don't know if I am too sensitive, but I can "feel" his energy. He is often stressed and anxious (he always has been like this), and it's like I absorb it. He tends to want to talk to me about problems throughout the day - admin issues, things that need fixing, general problems, his mental health. I feel like my head is exploding.

This morning I couldn't take it any more. He had spent a few hours yesterday talking to me about various issues and I felt exhausted. I said to him that I can't keep listening to all his problems, and he got hurt and said "that's what normal couples do, they support each other". He says that's it's normal for couples to just randomly talk to each other about problems/admin throughout the day. I totally get that we need to communicate about stuff, but now that he's here all the time, I would rather that he/we saved up any issues we want to talk about and maybe agree to talk about them at a set time, otherwise it seems like we are talking about problems throughout the day and I find it draining.

I said that I really needed my own space during the week (I was apologising for saying it, and said that I know I am very sensitive to people's moods) and again, he got hurt and annoyed and said "Fine, I'm not allowed in my own house now. Where do you want me to go?"

I don't know what to do. He is depressed and on anti depressants - I feel that soon I will need to be on anti depressants.

It's hard as he is not always like this, but I think his depression can make him difficult to be around - and that's currently about 80% of the time. I was even thinking maybe I could go to stay in a hotel for a night once a month, but it's just too expensive.

He does occasionally get out of the house for exercise, but it's not very often. I just miss the head space and time alone in the house and feel like I'm going to explode if I don't get it on a regular basis. Even if he's in a different part of the house, I can't really relax, as I can sense his energy, and feel that he may at any time want to talk to me. I don't know if that's normal/ unreasonable or not, but it's how I feel.

Not sure what I'm asking really- maybe if anyone has been through something similar and had any advice?

I just would not have any respect for the man . It's one thing to have depression and do your utmost to recover but your OH seems mired in victimhood .
Give him 6 mths to sort himself out and get a job , even part time to start , or you will leave .
In that 6mths I'd be researching and devising an escape route .

YANBU. But it's his house too so you need to make plans to be elsewhere for your alone time eg a cafe.
Is he doing his share of the housework etc?

My husband also has had depression/stress for a lot of our marriage. It has at times been very difficult to live with. He has now retired early due to ill health as a result. I similarly feel suffocated as when I’m home from work he is here.
However after the first couple of episodes where he was under care of psychiatry (clinic not inpatient) I did insist that he did at least try mindfulness, meditation, regular exercise, journal writing something each time. I’m lucky I could afford to leave and do sometimes fantasise about it! But because he has been willing to try and be active about improving I have not felt the need to.

He’s treating you like his carer / parent and that is in turn making you feel like one.

It’s absolutely, wholly unacceptable for him to have no plan to return to work, no plan to get help for his MH and to just expect to sit around on his arse claiming depression and frittering away your savings (whilst you work and simultaneously have no feelings or needs of your own).

What does this dynamic teach your two children? That men can just sit on their arses like victims and everyone has to tiptoe around them? That if they have MH issues, then everyone must kowtow to their needs and they don’t need to take responsibility for themselves.

Having depression doesn’t mean exemption from financial responsibility, parenting, being a partner.. Mental health needs treatment in the same way physical health does - you have to speak to professionals and get help.

I suspect what’s really happening here is 18years of him manipulating and guilt tripping you into submission. Whilst he sits around pointing the finger of blame to everyone and everything in his life. I bet none of this is his fault. No doubt he has a trail of people he can blame for one thing or another.

OP, you’ve had 18 years of this and he hasn’t changed, in fact, he has got worse and now he’s not working, frittering savings and hinting at never going back to work again. You’ve said yourself that you’ve been the one doing all the heavy lifting when it comes to his depression for years, whilst he sits back and lets you.

You are not a rehabilitation centre for this GROWN ADULT MAN. You need step away and to stop enabling him and think seriously if he is going to change? If the answer in your gut is no, then if you want a better life for you and your kids, you will need to leave - happiness and freedom from this exhausting blood sucker is that way —->>>

If my H said "I would love to be a stay at home dad" he would be met with the list. The list I do.

Found shopping, house admin, cleaning, cooking, school uniform, homework, admin, taxi, basic DIY, gardening, cooking, clear up, beds, cleaning windows.

He cooks and is "on his laptop all day" or wants to follow you around and talk to you.

I would just get to the point where I wouldn't back down OP. But it might mean the beginning of the end.

As your savings dwindle what are you going to do? What does he say to that? You can ask him calmly during one of your many long conversations about admin. Ask him. Keep asking him. "In a year babe no money there won't be a fucking house to sit in, what about the kids? They need driving lessons, clothes, a teenage what about them? This isn't just about you."

Give him a list of things he HAS to do :

Do most chores around the house
Some house admin
Be in work of some sort within a timeframe you decide, it could be working from home.
Leave the house every day when you’re there, every day for at least an hour
Do stuff with the dc
He stops playing victim and guilt tripping you

Or you leave him

Its a mixture of these two approaches what a depressed person needs. But he needs to in charge of himself and exporing what helps him and what doesnt. Its ok to take some time off to do literally nothing when the things are really bad, but its not a long term solution. What he seems to be doing is a typical men§s behaviour "I dont want to do anything, I am not happy with the life I got into as I dont like having responsibility for the family, children and home and all I want to do is being cared for like I am a baby and waited on hand and foot". He needs some structure to his days, he needs to get off his devices as that is self-destroying, he needs to go outside in sunshine and fresh air, a walk in the park, fields, seaside and engage himself in running a household. He is activelly destroying your life by behaving like this. Its not depression alone thats making him behave like this. Depression isnt an illness that comes out of nowhere. Depression comes when you are not happy with your life and its your own, his own I mean, responsibility to manage it. That includes getting outside help - psychotherapy and possibly medication, and using your own mind to work out how to function.

You are definitely not unreasonable at all. I understand you need some headspace and him out of the house. You are not too sensitive to feel his angry moods.

Hope you can find a way forward. Sending you a hug.

Sounds like you've inherited another DC to support tbh.

I have been in a very similar situation OP. Had thought it was, I found the only way forward was to seriously consider and be prepared to follow through with leaving. Then came (several) very frustrating conversations (we have been together more than 20 years) where I laid down boundaries. Along the lines of, I can support you and your mental health. But not at the expense of my own, or the DC. You need to help yourself and commit to a plan. Otherwise leave (when he would have had to work anyway to afford to live). My OH chose to stay and make changes and they were (and still are sometimes) difficult, 2 years down the line he is working part time in a different field (outdoors/physical job not desk based) and does 50/50 at home and has attended some self help courses. His mental health has improved. And I feel more in control and more supported.
I wish you strength and luck x