Struggling with husband's depression

[changedmyname24]

I'll start this by saying that I love DH very much, he's my only love & a great dad & I've always seen us being together forever. We've been together 24 years, married nearly 20. 3 DSes, 15, 13 (with SEN) & 10

Just lately DH has been struggling massively. He is fine when we/he are out & makes a big effort with the DC but sometimes I can tell it's hard for him. But in the house, and particularly when it's just us 2, he is hugely unhappy. Will sit with eyes closed, not talking, not doing anything, looking very blank & distant.

We have talked & he says that he wants to make the most of life because he is aware that we may not have long left, because his mum died relatively young (72) from dementia & he has heard of school friends dying. We are 46 & 47. So what he wants to do is sell our house & move anywhere, so we can be mortgage free & go on more holidays & not have to work. We have about 20 years left on the mortgage & some debts. Cannot remortgage because our credit score is poor, but improving & should be ok in years (we had a Debt management plan that we are paying off).

He has no real friends where we live & currently no job after being made redundant. He says he finds it hard to talk to people, although there are some friendships he could develop eg fellow football dads, some couples we both know & he is starting to get hints of work. I have lots of friends, a job I love (although not what I did degree & MA in) & parents round the corner. It seems to me that he resents this. Obviously if we move, none of us would have any if these things. I really do not want to move, nor do the DSes & I feel it would be very difficult & disruptive. I also am not sure it would actually make him happy.

If you have read all that, well done & sorry! But where do I go from here? How do I handle the tense atmosphere & him being so unhappy so much? It is bringing us all down 😔 I don't want our marriage to end but it can't stay like this!

And I agree with other posters saying absolutely, under no circumstances should you move.

You and your children are happy where you are - that's four of you to his one, and he doesn't seem to be able to rationalise exactly why moving North is going to make him any happier than he currently is.

His problem is in his own head and until he starts to understand and address that, nothing external is going to help.

For me, the crunch is that he didn’t mention the dcs and the impact on their study/friends/contact with family.
Nor does he seem to think about the impact on you.

And yes that’s probably the sign of him being depressed. But ….

I agree with you about leaving him think about it and do all the running. If, by any chance, he starts being more proactive than just saying ‘I want to move’, then I’d ask questions. About life organisation, the dcs, your work etc…

Id still push him to get some counselling too. In my area, you can self refer too. It takes several months from contacting them to having the counselling but I think it’s worth pursuing if he can’t go private.

I said I'd leave my depressed husband unless he got help, and I meant it. It was dragging me down too. I couldn't cope with him researching places to live, going for job interviews in places we were never going to move to. And there was no thought of the impact on me and my life and career.

I think you have done a lot of supporting for someone who isn't helping themselves. You have to put yourself and your kids first, as he can't, and to a large extent ignore what he is doing.

But I'd say it's time to give him an ultimatum, get help, start doing the stuff that is suggested for depression, medication, exercise etc etc. Or you and the kids will have to look after yourselves.

I'm not dismissive of depression, it's a horrible, horrible thing...but the effect on you and your kids can't be ignored.

"He is looking for work, but has said himself he is being very selective & only looking at one type of job that he wants to do. He keeps saying he will have to look further afield but this is accompanied with a big sigh & an evening of sulky silence or a night of not sleeping."

So I take it he's 'acting out' meaning he is doing a lot of huffing, and sighing and when he can't sleep he makes sure 'Mummy' knows it by not being quiet or even starting depressing conversations at 1am on a weeknight about how he's struggling?.

He's depressed and he needs to go and see his GP. End of.
Do not entertain any more Woe is Me, We are Doomed, It's Life Wot Done Me So Wrong, Not my Fault, Can't you see I'm Stressed, Stop being Mean to me! It's OK for you, etc etc.

Running away up north to get a cheap house, so he can basically sit at home doing fuck all isn't the answer.

He lost his job. That's a massive blow. He's ashamed of himself. It's knocked him off his perch and he needs to ASK for help himself.
He should go to the GP, and also look at low cost counselling services or ask the GP for a referral to the free SilverCloud CBT programme.

He needs to see that he himself is a factor in his issue. His thoughts and his feelings are out of kilter, and thus, he's going to have an unbalanced perspective.

There is also the MoodGym online programme. There's a link here.
https://www.moodcafe.co.uk/further-resources/online-counselling-cbt/

It says it's £23 now for a year's access.
Something like that might just make him look more inside himself for answers rather than seeking the external 'escape' solution.

@Seaweed42 great post- I think OP said it's TV - and hence why London or Manchester- I would say if he gets an offer in Manchester then maybe think about it - but let him go on his own for 6 months and see how it goes before even 'considering it'

There is definitely an element of that! I do also wonder if it's delayed grief from his mum's death a couple of years ago. Certainly he says this is the reason he wants to 'make the most of life' & have no debts/mortgage so we can go travelling- because he has realised his own mortality.

We had an agonising hour earlier where he got me to sit & look at a spreadsheet that he had painstakingly planned out & various houses around the North Midlands (I think) that he had picked out as being suitable & affordable. None of them anything special & all smaller than our own. Only difference I can see is that we could own outright.

In the end, I got him to agree that we can't move until next summer at the very earliest because of DS1'S GCSEs. And I'm hoping that in this time, he can get a job & we can pay off debts, he can build more friendships where we are & we can do some work on the house we have so it is more appealing to stay in.

He was fairly upbeat at the end of that chat & I hope it lasts (although I'm sure it won't) 😏

He's had two losses then, his mother and the job. A lot of men identify themselves through their job, it's like they've no other eyes for viewing themselves.

BUT all that said, life is tough. You both have committed to those kids, who are teens and have their lives locally right now in your current town.

Your DH is looking back into the past and then looking forward into a sort of idealized pain-free future free. But he's struggling in 'the now'.

I'd suggest he either go traveling himself for a couple of weeks and/or get therapy.

I think you'll find he doesn't want to go traveling on his own because he's afraid, so he has to try to manipulate you and family to go with him.

Either that or he'll find a new job and his current problems might dissolve.

Has he thought about getting career coaching? It's the support he needs in new ventures, but doesn't recognise that.

Certainly he says this is the reason he wants to 'make the most of life' & have no debts/mortgage so we can go travelling- because he has realised his own mortality.

Has he said what he thinks ‘travelling’ will look like and this will help him ‘make the most of his life’?
I mean your youngest is 9yo. Unless he is planning to go away on his own or just the two of you, what sort of travel does he think he’ll do?

If it were me, I wouldn't agree to move anywhere.
What real reason have you for moving, except that he's frustrated and you need to soothe his difficult feelings.

What do YOU want to do?

Buying into this cheap house plan up north, and uprooting all your kids, is this something YOU want in your heart?

Don't be dictated to by a grumpy person's emotions.

The impact on you and your children must be considered.

@changedmyname24 I think best you can do is what you have done- situation may well change and this will then go away as a 'fad' - I'm originally from north midlands- I suspect your H if he's in 'media' type job will really not like it- it's shit for work and he wouldn't 'fit in' in most places- he's looking there because it's cheap- and that's it

I mean this kindly but you seriously need to stop enabling his misery fest. He's a father, husband and doesn't just get to sit and feel sorry for himself while you shoulder 100% of the mental load. I would insist that you both attend the GP, and if he won't engage, make it clear that there will be consequences to it.

You may think I sound harsh but DH had depression that he wouldn't see anyone about and for 2 years he made our family home a miserable hell hole. It took my sister pointing out to me how much our DC were struggling for me to find me anger and tell him to sort himself out or he had to leave. I feel awful now that I let him subject our kids to his mood. We went to the GP together, he took a course of antidepressants that 2 weeks later he declared were making him worse and miraculously the threat of me kicking him out was enough to make the change. In hindsight, he was horribly selfish and I allowed him to be.

He was fairly upbeat at the end of that chat & I hope it lasts (although I'm sure it won't)

Yes, because he thinks you've agreed with him! Even though you've said 'not until next summer' he has taken away that you've said 'yes'

He really needs to see someone - probably at the very least his GP to deal with his depression, but he could also benefit from counselling, I think.

Don't lead him on. You need to make it clear that you don't want to move.

I might be off the mark here, but I just wanted to say that being depressed becomes a sort of identity for some people. They find a sort of comfort in the misery.

He might complain that his life isn't this way or that way, but actually, he might not have any real intention of doing any of the things he's told you about so far, like travelling or adventures. That would take away his main reasons for moaning and almost wallowing, and performing that in front of you.

It's sort of like an infant who wants to be coddled. People can get like that when they feel vulnerable, but if it's quite an ingrained aspect of his character, then careful as it can become a bottomless pit. You can give & give & give and squeeze so much effort from yourself but it won't have much of an effect.

You won't easily buy a decent 3 bedroom home in a nice area for 150k. If he's browsing Rightmove, it won't tell him things about horrible neighbours or things like paper-thin walls. You might be able to get a 2 bedrooms maybe, but not one one where the 3rd bedroom is more than just a cupboard, where the owners have simply split what used to be 1 normal sized bedroom into 2.

I know because I used to live in a town very close to the outside of Manchester. It wasn't a particularly posh town, but even a few years ago in 2018, small 2 bedroom houses that weren't shit holes were at least 210k +. Many of them had roofs that would need replacing in a few years, which was about 10k in costs back then. Many were on the sides of busy, noisy roads.

My exh was 'depressed' and walked every day to help with it. However he was having a mid life crisis and the walk went to ow house who had left her husband in Brighton and came to central Scotland, having met my DH online. His 'depression' made us walk on egg shells, he treated me and the children really badly.
Do you want to have a life travelling? Do you want to move house? He's not thinking of you or the children at all in this grand plan. I think you have delayed the inevitable conversation where you tell him you are not moving and he walks out. Stop trying to create a social life for him. He's a grown up and can either make his own friends or not. It's just another thing he will hold against you.

Oh God he sounds like my dad when my dad was that age.

He wanted to move, had also been made redundant and recently lost his mum.

My mum refused to move and he eventually moved out and very quickly started a relationship with another woman (he'd been married for 25 years with three kids!!)

I think he was very depressed and has suffered with depression for a long time however rather than deal with that be managed to hurt everyone that loved him.

In your situation I would tell him that you're not moving as you don't want to. He needs to get help for the depression ideally medication and therapy.

Yup this was the same scenario as my ex.

@LadyMacbethssweetArabianhand what a totally manipulative tosser if you don't mind me saying so .

I don't mind in the slightest!

Well, I don't want to speak too soon, but hopefully an hour of indulging his house dreams (& the sunshine) seem to have helped matters!

DH has been a lot brighter the last couple of days. He accepted a deviation on his walk (via a stream & tree swing which made it more interesting for the DC), has decided to go back to his shed for job hunting & writing & has also gone to Bowls Club this morning (he is a member but didn't go last year). So, pretty small things really but he is back to not being miserable & it's so much better! I will also get the house back during the week, which will help massively as I don't feel it's good being under each other's feet all the time.

.

His life in the here and now is you, the kids, your present house, where he is now and he's wasting his life not addressing what is actually wrong.

If he got some work you could stay in that house, pay debts and travel. How much are you down whilst he sits around waiting for someone to hand the perfect job on a plate? Thousands I'd wager.

Marriage is in sickness and in health of course it is, but not involving professional medics if the sickness is prolonged shows no respect for anyone else.

I hope you guys sort it out but you looking at a spread sheet and him now being all jaunty is fucking suspicious in my mind.

Keep your wits about you OP.

Sounds like he thinks you've agreed to move OP. Knock that idea on the head asap or he'll end up guilt tripping into a move which will leave all of you depressed.

Sounds like he thinks you've agreed to move OP. Knock that idea on the head asap or he'll end up guilt tripping into a move which will leave all of you depressed.

@changedmyname24 You 'indulging' him is actually being really unfair. You're allowing him to think that you have agreed with him, whereas in reality you're just stringing him along.