How do I tell DH I want him to move out?

[Cherry85]

My DH has a number of mental health issues since having covid last year including anxiety and depression.

I have asked him to get help on multiple occasions and the doctor has even asked him to make an appointment to discuss his mental health - he never has as he doesn't think he needs it. It is now impacting our son and I need to ask him to move out until he gets help - I appreciate this could be a long journey.

Aside from being verbally abusive to me and doing nothing to contribute to the running of the house despite not working, he is in a cycle where he feels out of control and like he doesn't get any affection or respect from our 3yr old. He then tries to instigate it by telling our son there is a scary monster behind him, or that his favourite Teddy is evil and telling daddy to get him, DS then runs to him crying for protection and hw gets a hug. Later DS then doesn't engage with DH cos he doesn't like daddy scaring him and the cycle continues. He has also started speaking about how we need to discipline DS more as he doesn't listen to him - I am not ok with this!!

How do I say to my husband that I need him to move out and get help? He seems to be oblivious and keeps talking about how happy we make him and is oblivious to the fact we are bloody miserable!! We are in Scotland so both entitled to 50%50 of the house but I am hoping that in time if he gets help that we may be in a position to starting over.

If I go to my mums it means taking DS out of nursery and a 40 min drive each way for him to see DS - if he goes to his mums we can stay at DS nursery and DH will be a 3 min walk away and can see him after nursery every day.

How much of this is really due to anxiety and depression against he being an abusive arse?. Depression and anxiety do not in themselves lead a person into abusing another and besides which it’s no excuse for his treatment of you. You do not have to be his support human any more. If he had not sought help to date there is nothing to indicate he would want to seek help now. Nothing has changed.

The only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none and you’re already being verbally abused by your H. The emotional harm also being done to your son continues too and for that alone I would divorce him. He does not want your help or support and you cannot make another person seek help if they do not want it.

Would you really want your son to continue to see his dad even on an informal basis or particularly without supervised contact at a contact centre, I would think again. After all your current husband is a man who tells your son there is a scary monster behind him not just to say that your son’s fave teddy is evil and out to get him?.

i would seek legal advice re separation and divorce asap. you do not have to act on such straight away but you both need to get away from him sooner rather than later.

With the way he is treating you and your son, moving further away would be better.

He is emotionally abusing your child.

Call Womens aid for help.

Tell your childs GP the truth.

Ask him to leave.

If he won't, tell SS that he is abusing your child and you will have to leave.

Get legal advice to divorced him.

His main MH issue is being a twat. I'm afraid there's no treatment for that.

"I am hoping that in time if he gets help that we may be in a position to starting over".

That's what I thought, I suffered the same abuse for years from my ex partner, then after a breakdown he was put on antidepressants and referred for counselling, he was pretty much back to normal in six months and he managed to kick the drinking for two years then it all kicked off again, without sounding flippant you're not dealing with a bad dose of flu here, when you're dealing with this type of thing there's never a "...and they all lived happily ever after". It dawned on me that I deserved to be happy too and left, you have two lives to think about, do you want your son impacted by these behaviours for the rest of his life ?

OK so any actual answers to the actual question lol? I wasn't actually asking for random assumptions on our relationship - more the actual steps?

You can’t make a selfish person unselfish. You just can’t. The root problem can not be tackled because he does not HAVE a problem with his situation or his behavior. You do, though! And his behavior is also a problem for your son as it will eventually destroy him.
So, sure, you can try to disentangle slowly with DH’s consent but from what you have told us about him he will simply refuse to put you or your son’s welfare on the mattering map. So ultimately you will be faced with the choice to fight to force him out or to move away.
Its up to you how many interim steps you feel you need to take to defenestrate him but the end is fore ordained.

Well legally you can't make him

So either you go yourself or he sees sense and he goes

Not sure if there's any 'steps' to follow if he's not abusive enough for you to call authorities and get them involved

How do you tell him? Just say it?

Tell his mum that he needs to stay with her. Then tell your husband that he needs to stay at his mum's house.

I think you are all over reacting. He is not abusing his son but acting very foolishly towards him. He needs to hear very clearly this behaviour is not helping a 3 year old to feel secure and so it has to stop. So if you want your marriage to end I would suggest you move out taking your child with you.

I think that the 'random assumptions' are around your son being abused actually. So, not so random.

Assuming you’ve talked at length about the impact of his anxiety/depression on you and your dc

id chose a time when dc isn’t at home (eg spending the weekend at your parents)
id tell your DH something along the lines of
’we’ve talked about your anxiety before and how it makes things really hard work both for me and our dc. I think it’s best if you move out until all of that is under control. We can’t carry on living like this.
Could you move to your parents whilst you are getting the support you need?’

See what he says…l

As you know he is abusive and causing great harm to your child by his behaviour, you’re right to tell him to move out.
You could just tell him to go.
You could enlist the help of his family, his mum , maybe a sibling that would help him see how he is affecting you and his child and help him to move out.
You could contact Women’s Aid for advice and help.
You can speak to your GP in case she/he can enlist help.

I think you have to consider carefully whether him seeing your child every day is a) good for your child and b) helping your husband’s recovery. If he continued to see his son daily and your son is scared of him this is going to have long term effects on your son.

A difficult situation but your have to put your child first in this.

I agree with the advice @billy1966 has given

The way I solved this - I moved out with DD