So little backstory - my partner has suffered with depression and PTSD ever since he left the military two years ago, basically they didn’t treat him very well and he ended up very depressed so he found a new job and left.
Flash forward to March this year and our beautiful baby girl was born - unfortunately it feels like his depression has worsened. I’m not an expert when it comes to this kind of thing because I have never suffered from depression myself, but it seems to come on in what I call ‘dark episodes’ so for example we will have a small argument or disagreement about a random thing, or he will snap and me and I will stand my ground and it will result in maybe 1-5 days of him going into a depressive state, he says this isn’t because he’s angry with me - it’s because he’s angry with himself for causing the argument in the first place.
He will barely talk to me during this and when he does it feels forced, this makes me feel extremely isolated and anxious in the house, he basically treats me like a roommate. He will also display signs of the ‘martyr complex’ and during this time he will basically go around looking for ways to be a martyr, example: he will walk around with our baby in his arms, does all the feeds, all the nappy changes, bath times, and when I try to do something he will say something like ‘I can do that, you can just relax, I need to be doing more because I’m being a shit dad’ even though he does considerably more chores around the house than myself. He won’t shower, sometimes won’t even eat and he says things like ‘sorry I stink but I’ve been looking after you all day’ to our baby or ‘I haven’t eaten but it’s my fault for not buying enough food’
He also becomes very destructive and careless during these periods. He used to throw things and break things deliberately (me and baby have never been in the room when he does it) but he was always careful to only break things that he has paid for. I gave him a big telling off for this and it seems to have calmed slightly but not completely. Just yesterday during an argument he broke our daughters nappy bin, I didn’t realise at the time until I found it in the bin smashed up, I know if I ask him about it that he will say he dropped it and it smashed or something but I saw him on our cctv throwing it at the car when he went to empty it and it smashed the bin lid. What upsets me most is that the bin was a gift from my baby shower, I doubt that even crossed his mind though.
He also has started to throw things in the bin that are perfectly fine. He threw our daughters bottle teats away (the next size up for when she was ready for them) he said he must have done it accidently when clearing out the kitchen but they were screwed onto her bottles so he’s obviously unscrewed them and thrown them away intentionally. He threw his perfectly healthy cactuses in the bin stating that ‘they didn’t look right in the kitchen so I just threw them away.’ Other things in the house will randomly vanish and I can only assume they’ve been thrown in the bin thoughtlessly during one of his bad days. Sometimes he will make a point of telling me he has thrown something away like he wants me to react and of course I do, because I just don’t understand how he could be so thoughtless, other times he won’t tell me and just say it he must have done it accidentally when I ask.
What’s bothering me most is the fact that these episodes seem to be triggered by me. He will say something in a rude way and because I call him out on it, this results in an argument which leads to the usual things that I described above. So it usually goes like this - I’ll give yesterdays argument as an example cos we’re currently in the middle of a ‘dark episode’:
I had a funny turn in the night - must have been a bit dehydrated- almost passed out during the night feed but pulled through and went to sleep. Woke up the next day feeling pretty shit - he asked me if I was okay now and I said yeah, not 100% though.
So later in the day when I’m having a rest on the sofa, he comes in from working outside and I’m talking quietly because baby is asleep and I’m not feeling too well - he assumes I’m mad at him for some reason. I go upstairs to get ready for going out and he feeds baby downstairs - only the tommy tippe machine is empty so he gets pissed off - the bottle has a bit of residue on it- he gets pissed off. Her formula tub needs refilling - by this point he sounds really pissed off so I go downstairs to see if I can help, he throws a bottle in the sink and says ‘can you make sure the bottles don’t have bubbles on before you put them in the machine’
I say ‘yeah but I didn’t actually clean that bottle, you did. I just took it from the sanitizer machine.’
This basically resulted in an argument about me apparently being ‘defensive’ all day and he said if I wasn’t feeling well just say that instead of ignoring him, I said that I did tell you I wasn’t feeling well. Later on I asked him if we could try and draw a line under it because I’d been looking forward to this day out and didnt want it to be spoiled by a silly argument - he gets even worse, suddenly he wasn’t in a bad mood but now he is because I suggested he was. This is seemingly when the nappy bin was broken - he must have thrown it outside on his way to emptying it.
I feel like I need to state that he’s not angry with me. He’s not throwing and breaking things because I’m not allowing myself to be controlled - I firmly believe that to be true. In his words he is frustrated because of his own actions- how he responds to things, how everything he does ‘turns to shit’ how he can’t just be a normal partner/dad etc. He is a very good dad and partner when he’s feeling good. He is supportive, caring and always cooks our dinner. He respects me 100% and I firmly believe he would never ever hurt me or our daughter. Sometimes I catch him swearing in frustration when our baby won’t stop crying and that does upset me, I really don’t know how you can swear at a baby when they are clearly upset about something but that’s just me.
I also should add that he’s recently started therapy - and that I probably should try being a little more patient and optimistic that change is coming but it’s really hard to see it that way when I feel the way that I do. I don’t want to break apart this family but every single time this happens I feel like I’m getting closer to having to leave him. What can I do?