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?

You aren’t ready for this but I strongly recommend you prepare yourself for separation. He is not motivated to get better so he won’t. If he were able to be aware of the harm he does to you and the children he would drag himself to therapy and do more than take sertraline. But he isn’t motivated. Slowly you have shrunk your world and your demands until they are almost nothing

All of this. Sorry, but I think his autism will mean he cannot be motivated to change as his autism means he is not able to aware of the harm he is causing to you and his children. This was the case with my Ex.

Sorry OP, I just don't see there is any fixing this. Even if his depression magically disappeared, (it won't) the autism would still remain. I feel you may be blaming the depression for behaviours which are actually due to his autism. And they will never change.

This is an interesting observation. I've been trying to decide if it's worth having counselling with ASD husband before we seperate and increasingly I think no because he has no insight and thinks he is the perfect husband.

OP he may have ASD but equally he could just be a selfish prick. The two can overlap quite happily.

He does work yes, he is senior management in retail and he hates his job. Won't do anything about it though.

I did want to find out if this is normal or if I'm just used to it. Also to let out my frustration as I have nobody in real life to talk to.

I will not just be upping and leaving. I owe it to my children to be able to say I tried everything before I make that decision.

He does often take the eldest fishing with him. Only goes on his own when he has a day off in the week.

He also does all drop offs and I do all pick ups as this works with shifts.

My children are 11 and 8.

I will defend him to those who ar being deliberately unkind about mental health. As I have stated very clearly. I do not deny his depression. But I also cannot continue this way anymore.

I think an actual psychiatrist is an I terestkng idea. What can they do that a doctor can't?

She's lived with him for years, you've read a couple of paragraphs giving a brief summary of the problems in their relationship from her point of view.

You know more than she does?

He is very manipulative and the threatening to "down tools" amounts to nothing more than "if you try and make me do 50% of the work, I'll stop doing the 10% I do now"

This post assumes he does not have autism. My H genuinely believed he did ' 'everything' . Its because his autism means he could only really see what he did. Not what others did. Autism can be very ego centred and his was.

It sounds to me like he needs firstly that big dose of straight talking reality, and then some structure. He won't like to be patronised I'm sure but it sounds like you literally need a household rota where the labour is split evenly and everything happens at a particular time. This could genuinely help him to function if you think he lacks executive functioning skills, but also it puts a stop to this "I do loads!" when he actually does fuck all. It will be there in black and white
Again this would not have worked with my autistic Ex. You could prove things with basic maths and he still would not concede you were right and he was wrong. He would have found a reason, which would have genuinely believed, as to why it was impossible for him to comply with the rota and why the rota was not reflecting the reality of the enormous amount he did.

For some people with autism, it means they live in a very different reality which feels as real to them as ours is to us.

He is depressed. He has been diagnosed and is medicated. His wife of 10 years recognises that he is depressed. How arrogant do you have to be, as a random nobody on the internet, to believe that you know better?

Crikey, initial investigations indicate a psychiatrist is in the £100's per session.

Maybe not then.

Try a psychologist, ours is £55 an hour and is amazing. DH is a changed person.

What's the difference?

He could see a counsellor for £50 a session. He could start with weekly sessions and then drop to fortnightly and then monthly. It can be effective for depression. He might need to try a couple before finding one he finds helpful. I think it’s a good investment.

My one experience of a relative with depression was my Gran - and what you have described is exactly what she felt. She said all she could do was sit and stare out of the window. The consultant got her to set up and stick to a routine of activities until she found her way back to positivity so to speak. So every day she read 2 chapters of a book and knitted 30 rows, or whatever. She had to stick at it - she didn’t actually want to do these things. So I must admit I’m always sceptical of people who say they’re depressed but seem to find joy in their hobbies - I’m prepared to accept that I’m wrong but it seems very convenient.

My DP was very similar for years. Said he was depressed, I firmly agreed but he would do nothing about it. Managed to ruin most events or put a negative in everything. Used to threaten to kill himself fairly regularly (to the point I’d think about how I might re decorate if he did). I was going to leave when our DD went to uni.
Then he had a very big health scare and needed a life saving operation, and it seemed to make him realise that he wanted to live. He changed a lot (still grumpy but you know) and we are a lot happier.
I would have left though. Sorry you are in the same position.

Yes absolutely. Which is why I say it "could" help. I do still believe that the behaviour OP is describing is manipulative though. Threatening to down tools is manipulative, regardless of ND or depression.

If it is the case that this man is unable to share the load in a family setup then after a certain point it's irrelevant if that's because of ND or a diagnosed MH condition anyway. If he's not capable of being a functioning adult given the responsibilities he has chosen to jointly take on, then OP needs to decide whether she's willing to do the work of both parents/adults while he spends his days fishing and gaming.

I meant to quote a PP - don’t know what happened there!
In response to OP, my gran’s consultant was a psychiatrist and he was brilliant. She was on medication but was able to reduce the dose gradually as the regular activities thing helped her.

If he will not engage with therapy of any sort I fail to see how he is actually going to attend a couples therapy session. He dropped out after 3 sessions last time around citing nothing to say.

If he refuses to go I would go on my own as you need to be able to talk in a calm and safe environment.

Where is your own line in the sand re him?. Why can't you tell your children now that you've tried everything because realistically what else can you do particularly if he will not engage with any of it?. He does not want your help or support here.

Make no mistake OP, whilst all this is going on with our H you and in turn your kids are suffering in this household. They're seeing both parents falling apart, what are they going to remember in the main about their own childhoods. They could well be in a therapist's chair themselves the way things are going here.

Crying in his own bed isn't manipulative. The attitude towards depressed people in this thread is awful.

He sounds like he needs to be reassessed, at the very least, if you suspect ASD as an underlying condition. I also have to stress that whether it is ASD or straight clinical depression if nothing changes nothing changes but thats not really true because things can actually get worse.

If it were my husband I would start from the assumption that its not ASD, which in any event is not a “get out of jail free” card but just a piece of the puzzle. He has a basic duty to his children and to you to try to function more appropriately in his roles. If that means fighting with his GP and the NHS to find the right drug then you, with his agreement, need to do that.

In the US and Canada there is a test they can give the patient that will indicate which class of antidepressant will work for that patient and which won’t. In the NHS it may or may not be available but it might be available privately.

CBT and depression focused therapy might be good for him—at least he would have someone other than you to dump on. Refusal to engage meaningfully with attempts to get better would be a death sentence for the marriage, to me. He just doesn’t have the right to destroy everyone’s life.

Poor guy and poor OP. It's so horrible depression.There has to be some better help out there somewhere.
OP you were shocked at the cost of private help but sadly I think this is the only route open to you.

Well he's being an awful father. I'm not for one second denying his depression but he needs to be doing more to help himself get out of it and to help his family.
I've cried in front of my own children sometimes but I try and reassure them that I'm OK and other age appropriate stuff. I don't just ignore them!

And this is the problem, every single time.
Men know that they can strop off and piss about with their hobbies or sulking somewhere because they know damn well the woman will sort stuff out because she can’t let the kids suffer.
I don’t know what the answer is.

He absolutely sounds depressed to me. Retreating from ‘family life’ is the first sign that my depression is making its horrible way back into my head.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors who specialise in mental health. They can diagnose and prescribe.
Psychologists are not doctors, but they may have advanced qualifications in mental health from a thoughts, behaviours, and interactions point of view. They may be qualified as psychotherapists.

Counsellors are usually not qualified to the same level and in fact anyone can do an online course and call themselves a counsellor. By contrast, psychologists and psychotherapists have professional and regulatory bodies they are governed by.

You need counselling for you. Just let go of this mad idea that you need to sort HIM out in order to improve YOUR life. No-one can do this to another.

What has been lost and buried is what YOU need and what makes YOU so invested in this dynamic. Sorry, 'owing it to your children' is just bollocks. What a parent owes a child is a happy, sane, stable home life, not matyrdom and exhaustion and anger and shame in their mother (quite apart from the listening to their father crying - how does that make your DC feel about themselves??). Your children's father will still be their father and will still have his relationship with them if you make a home without him.

You need someone who is on your side and can objectively help you unpick your feelings. Someone professional, because you defending what you perceive as "other's" unkindness to MH or whatever, is just a part of what is paralysing and trapping you in this dynamic. It is a need to feel self-worth in yourself in some small way because otherwise the situation would be starkly revealed as unendurable. It is a protection mechanism...

I can tell you that I recognise all this, but that is meaningless to you unless you can begin to see it too. So please, be kind to yourself and seek some help, find someone who is acting for YOU and for your mental wellbeing.

Who is financing his fishing and gaming lifestyle?

Very well said.