Fucking fed up oh my husband and his depression

[CaptainCabinetsTrappedInCabinets]

He basically, cannot cope with life. Anything with the tiniest bit of responsibility and he crumbles.

It's been 10 years like this (together 12) and I'm just fucking fed up and sick of it.

He claims to do 'everything' except the washing and cleaning the bathroom. Does he fuck.

We've just had a massive row because I asked him if he could please do a dump run soon as the pile was getting bigger and I got a shitty response back.

Every single time it's always about his mental health and how I'm pissing him off by asking him to basically take part in family life.

He has a hobby (fishing) that he does on every day off that takes him away from the home for 8-10 hours. And he spends all evenings and any other time on his fucking computer gaming.

He threatened to down tools and show me just how much he actually does. I said if your going to start threatening me with that petty shit then I will just leave.

I'm starting to not care. We hardly have sex. But who would want sex with a depressed person?

Am I crazy? Am I the one at fault here?

These sound very interesting, thanks for the update OP, and very best wishes to you and your family.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Had-Black-Dog-Matthew-Johnstone/dp/1845295897

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Black-Dog-Name-Depression/dp/0740757431

Only time will tell.

I think you need to be on the lookout for him saying the meds/the therapy/his life etc isn’t working or he will start missing appointments and give excuses about why he doesn’t want to go anymore.

If he genuinely wants to get better he will do everything in his power to get better however he is so used to weaponising his depression I think there will be some fight back and reluctance to completely make himself well again

I'm glad to see your updates, @CaptainCabinetsTrappedInCabinets . Fingers crossed some progress, for both your sakes.

Best, best wishes. I think this whole thread demonstrates that talking about it and having wishes and dreams that it could get better is important. It led to a crisis that caused dh to ask for help rather than accepting the status quo.

Really glad to read you spot slivers of hope and that he is engaged in a process towards recovery.

You asked what made the difference with my DH. There were two things.

1. We had a big talk in which he told me my accusations that he was checking out of family life were false and all in my head. I told him that whatever he thought, one simple fact was that I was deeply unhappy. After that I stated just behaving like a single mum: didn't ask him to get up in the morning, just did everything with the kids without him. And he started to respond positively. I think he didn't like the feeling of me being actively uninterested in him. One poster on here said that old fashioned as it is, I needed to give him a chance to chase me again. I rolled my eyes but honestly the change was instant.

1. After this he independently saw the GP to discuss a potential diagnosis of autism. It's the first stages in that, will take ages I suspect, but that appears to have given him some hope too.

Things are much better for us, but I'm also aware it could be transitory. I'm trying to save a back up fund that would allow me to make the choice to leave if things changed again. I hope things improve for you too.

Things have been really tough the last couple of weeks.

Nobody we call seems to want to help. We are still struggling with the bupa referral (though they assure us constantly that we are covered)

I tried to access support for myself and him through my works EAP. They cancelled the appointments we had made.

His doctors just want to dick about with his meds which is is scared to do without having seen a psychiatrist as he's tried various AD in the past and not all have been successful and cause some very scare side effects.

This is so awful. Why does nobody want to help us?

I asked him to leave on Monday, stating that if he can't pull himself together enough to not ruin the kids half term it was best he went to his siblings for a while.

It's been a little better since then.

Oh to clarify. He didn't leave. I gave him the choice to stay or go but staying meant he had to really try to pull himself up by his bootstraps for this week.

Well, that is good news. Keep it up changing meds is scary but if the current ones don’t work then what is the alternative? I know it’s a cliche, but if things don’t change, they stay as they are.

There is a lot of "we" and "us" in that post.
You have to mentally and emotionally detach, keep yourself apart from his depression, or you will get dragged down too.
You can't fix it. He has to do it.

It is okay to help out with the odd phone call or appointment if it is convenient for you, but this is not your job to arrange and organise and get him to the appointments, he has to take responsibility.

Never let a drowning person drag you under the water with them.

You have to look after yourself and the children first.

I know, but he wants to be able to do it with the advice of a mental health specialist (the phychiatrist)

GP's do not always know enough to be able to help effectively.

It's been most of his life for him and it's time he was taken seriously and saw a medical proffesional.

It's all gone in a blur but I don't know if I mentioned there is suspected underdiagnosed neuro diversity which could be contributing to his mental health issues.

Sorry but we and us is what you sign up for when you get married.

You don't have to martyr yourself. What are you modelling to your children?

Look: I am very interdependent with my DH so I get what you are talking about. But there was s a difference between interdependence and co dependence. In interdependence you take turns supporting each other and encourage both autonomy and growth of the partner. In codependency (hate the term but it is what it is) the “healthier” or more conventionally functional partner—the one with social skills, or money, or social capital, or education or other attributes takes on too much of the role of rescuer and the so called sick person falls into the victim re and passively waits to be rescued.

The more you do the less he does. Independence, resourcefulness, ambition, desire are all mental and emotional muscles that atrophy from disuse and need to be excercised. This is why people recommend stepping back and putting your own mask on and having higher expectations of him. He will live up or down to your expectations to the best of his ability. Its definitely going to be painful and scary for him—and you. But that’s life.