Mum and sisters think I should divorce husband

[ElatedLimeHam]

My husband suffers chronic pain so he's hard to live with (often depressed, seldom works and doesn't contribute financially). He is not motivated to do anything advisable (eg. Exercise, physio etc) just scrolls on his phone all day (when not spending the day in bed) and vapes or smokes stronger stuff. He mismanages the pain medication from his dr and regularly goes through cold turkey. However, I love him and our family unit. On his good days hes great. He is an excellent loving father to our 8 year old son and does do a share of childcare and activities with him (just not reliably). Further, if we were to split he would not have the means to support himself and would return to his native NZ leaving my son fatherless. Despite this my mum and sisters all think I should divorce him because of his lack of effort to improve his pain situation and manage his medication. I've spent years getting stressed trying to motivate him but am now just working on acceptance - you can lead a horse to water. I vowed in sickness and health but am I a mug?

Please listen to them they are correct, they have seen what you can almost see yourself.
A life away from this absurdity of a father and husband.
Look into solicitors tomorrow, you will not regret it.

in Sickness and in health- so I’d hope they don’t mean because he’s sick and not good at managing his pain or that he doesn’t contribute financially- if he can’t control his health (Id assume the medication isn’t magic, it just helps but not enough to change the situation?) it all comes down to what he adds to the house outside of that. Does he appreciate you at all, do you love him? Does he love you? Do you chat, talk, laugh? If not you both need to talk, yes he can be depressed but you need something.

I wouldn't want my son growing up thinking this is normal tbh, your husband isn't taking care of his health, physical or mental! Anybody living with chronic pain or illness have it really rough, but as a lot of people on this thread have said, they manage to actively parent their children consistently, to work, at the very least manage their medication to aid their symptoms.

Your son will also see you running ragged trying to make ends meet and your husband not respect you, which will lead to either him not having a relationship with his father later down the line, or worse thinking this is how men treat women.

Where is he finding the money for cannabis?

Your DH doesn't sound like a good role model for your DC. If he doesn't take his meds properly he is contributing to his illness.

You can get divorced for any reason. You can also decide that you don't want to divorce for your own reasons. You don't deserve to live an unhappy life, would your DH be more motivated to look after his health if he knew your marriage was at risk? Perhaps there are ways your mother and sisters could be more helpfully supportive to you.

You said good and bad days. Whats the percentage of good days to bad days? Are his bad days because he's not taking medication and going cold turkey? Its a tough one without knowing more details. You have said yourself he should be doing more and you have to motivate him what is he bringing to the table or if u where to get sick?

I have terrible chronic pain. I manage it by forcing myself to exercise every day, stretching and cardio. It's painful but much better afterwards. I changed my diet totally to remove all the aggravating factors. This took a lot of work but made a huge difference. I fight through the pain and hold down a full time job and have 3 kids.
I also have bipolar so understand mental health difficulties but make sure I do everything I can to improve my mental health. Mindfulness, exercise, reading not screens
If I didn't I would understand DH leaving me as it would impact our kids.
I manage to live a good life but it could be very different if i laid about all day and made no effort.

You have incredibly low standards OP probably because years of him doing the bare minimum has ground you down.
Hes not a good guy. He’s lazy entitled and a terrible role model for your son.
Listen to your mum and sister they see your relationship for what it is a farce.
Leave or chuck him out , your life would be so much better without him sucking the joy out of everything

Your husband is lazy. My DF has suffered with chronic pain for the last 40+ years. He is close to 80 years old and still goes to work, doing manual labour because his pension doesn’t cover his bills. He is in agony every day and is on a list of medication as long as your arm daily but it doesn’t stop him and he doesn’t even have kids at home to take care of. Your husband is just plain lazy.

What's causing the chronic pain? It's hard to have sympathy for someone who doesn't help themselves and continues poor lifestyle choices. I think anyone's patience would wear thin. It's different when a person is trying, even if it fails.

You're a mug. I'd dump him in a heartbeat

I'm in a similar but not identical situation. My wife has a chronic condition, I have been her carer for 15 years, brought up two children who are now well functioning adults.

Her condition fluctuates sometimes you wouldn't know, some times she has stoke like symptoms and relies on me heavily and requires a wheelchair.

She has previously worked but this was unsustainable.

This causes me a lot of stress and definitely has an cool impact on my health. In my opinion she could manage her condition better and maybe be more capable day to day. I am also aware that she is often in constant pain, cannot sleep and has lost a lot on her life due to illness.

I have had to leave a career I loved and have the daily burden of working full time whilst juggling her care.

I posted on here some time ago about how this was getting me down and that I was tempted to leave and or get a fwb. I wrote this post keeping gender out of it and most replies told me to leave and that my "husband was taking the Mick". I'm still here as her illness is not her fault and it is the illness that causes the problems and stress. Yes she could do more but pretty sure this causes her depression and life is hard for her. This is not her fault.

On here it seems that all men are bastards and all women are saints. Would the advise I was previously given have been different if I had stated that I was the male? I think it probably would have been and that I would then be the bastard abandoning his wife in her time of need.

Being a carer is hard, very hard. I have been in the military and served in conflict zones. Being a carer is more challenging.

I do lose my patience, I do get down and frustrated, I have thought about cheating (but haven't). Overall I keep going as she didn't ask to be ill and I think about how I would wish to be treated should I find my self in a unfortunate position outside of my control.

Maybe look at some carers sites or face to face groups, look at pip and carers allowance.

Make your own moral decisions and be aware that the collective coven on here often provide one side advice.

Maybe something to reflect upon.

Does your DH pick up son from school, stay home with him if he's sick, is at home with him during school hols. That is quite a saving in Childcare.

If you have family who could do all that then DH's contribution is not so useful.

The difference is your DH is trying to improve the situation, OPs DH is not doing the things which can help with the pain.

He’s a work shy, lazy, awful addict of a husband and father.

Your child is growing up thinking this is normal behaviour. Do you want your child to be the same type of person as your husband???

Your family are right and you and your child deserve better.

I think we need more info.

Does he get disability benefits? If he doesn't why not?

Can he manage to do the things he enjoys? ie sex?? If he's unable to do things he enjoys them I'd have more sympathy but if he's prioritising doing the things he enjoys and then suffering and not managed to do the boring every day part of parenting/husbanding then he's being selfish isn't he? I've got chronic pain and I have to miss out on doing loads of stuff I enjoy even though half the time I could probably manage it because I know I can't bring in pain that will stop me fulfilling my responsibilities.

What is the cause of the chronic pain? If being inactive is making it worse then yes you should leave him. I have pain and my ex left me when I had a bad stint and was unable to do as much around the house. That was an incredibly nasty selfish thing he did- but your not describing this you are saying this has been years and he's not doing what he can to improve things? I got left with 3 children one of which is disabled. I still parent reliably. I can be in tears from the pain but still making packed lunches and cleaning the toilet.

I do understand mismanaging pain meds I'm guilty of that at times. But I take more than I should so I can parent or so I can keep moving as bieng mobile helps with the pain. If he's doing it to get a high then he's an addict. If he's doing it so he can get through quality time with his child and keeping the pain hidden it's obviously not good but I'd say understandable.

An unreliable parent is not a good parent. One of mine was unreliable sometimes present sometimes not and you feel like you can't trust them, you can't turn to them as you don't know how they will be. He was a crap parent as I got older and independently able to care for myself but when I was younger he was the playful parent while mother did all the hard graft of parenting. I did think he was the better parent as a child but as time moves on it negatively impacts you. And when you see them making an effort for other things then you start to feel you must just be worth less. Mine was an alcoholic, he did work and bring in a wage and was never violent or anything like that. He just showed me over the years I was less important to him that booze. And that bubbling resentment coming off my mother damaged my relationship with her. She was a poor parent for other reasons but the fact she never left and allowed him to drink so much money away and shape our lives around his need for the pub means I can't respect her either. And I grew up not knowing what a healthy relationship looked like or how a decent man prioritises his family so made terrible choices myself and now live with the consequences of having kids with an idiot.

Not to mention the example being set for your child. That a man doesn't have to do the housework/parenting/work if he has an excuse and the woman has to do it all regardless. A woman's role is support human? Do you ever get sick? Do you stop parenting when you have a sickness bug etc?

Not being abusive and playing with the kid when it suits him doesn't make him a good father!! I'm an avid believer that one good parent is enough for a child and is better than two present but not good parents. And I don't think you can be a good parent if you model to a child that supporting a lazy addict is ok and such selfish people need pandering to by their family.

If your mum and sister say leave him I'm assuming they will be supportive of you? Should you need a bit of help with childcare or whatever when husband not about to do what he does they would step in? What is their motive for telling you to split? Because they dislike him and want him gone or because they live you and think you shouldn't be treated this way?

You say you love him. Why? Does he show you he loves you? Or does he just say it and he gave you your child whom you love? I can believe if you say he is a great husband when he's able and he does x y z to make you feel it and then when the pain is too much he can't do anything but survive. I had my own phase like that and I absolutely neglected my ex it's why he left me. But in my case it was a very bad phase and I was neglecting ex because I was killing my self parenting doing the little I could around the house and trying to keep working. I live in fear I will have such a bad phase again and if it happens I will have to stop playing with my kids and literally only do the bare essentials to get through to a period of manageable pain. I do have some times I don't do the physio because it just hurts too much even though I know it helps (and like I said sometimes I take more meds than I should just to be able to do it). Constant agony is debilitating and it's really hard to think of anything else at times but when you have things in your life like a partner and a child you fight on through because they mean more to you than wallowing in selfish pain. I also nag drs for refferals and buy random stuff like pillows and weird mobility aids to take the strain off. I'm always trying to improve/stop deterioration of my functioning. And I think that's the key thing you need to think about. You vowed in sickness and in health yes but is he following his vows? Is this his best at least most of the time? Your post didn't sound like he's trying