Marriage ending and mental health

[BeetlebumShesAGun]

This will be a long one so buckle in.

Married to DH for 10 years, been together for 15. 3 children age 11, 9 and 2.

It hasn't always been smooth sailing. I have posted on here before under various names about DH's drinking. We almost separated in 2020, lockdown brought us back together. I had an emotional affair in 2019/2020 which DH knows about and we worked through it. I was very depressed in 2021 and was suicidal. He has had bouts of heavy drinking, sobriety. Both of us have struggled with our mental health but mine has fallen off a cliff this year. In May I took 2 months off work. Started going to the gym, getting healthy habits in place. However I went back to work in July and started to get worse again. In August DH became very distant. We have spoken before about our different styles of communication - when he feels bad he goes silent, whereas I need to talk and have lots of reassurance. One of our children is autistic and needs lots of support at bedtime so I often sleep with her.

DH was noticeably distant from August. I kept asking him what was wrong, as I am anxious and always think I have done something wrong, He kept saying he was fine. This really didn't help my mental health and I felt worse and worse and questioned if I was imagining it. He also had a period of about 2 weeks where he was going out a lot, which was odd as he pretty much hates everyone and never goes out. Pub quiz every week with his work mates, which i encouraged. Then he was meeting up with his best mate, his dad another time; to the cinema with another friend.

Last week my depression hit a new low and i am having repeated intrusive thoughts of harming myself. It all came to a head on Friday when I had to call him as I had a knife in my hand and was very scared I would hurt myself. He held me and stayed with me for the afternoon but then went back to work and out to the cinema with his work friend.

I have been a total mess this week and have been begging him to tell me what his problem is; he understandably would not tell me as I think he was worried it would tip me over the edge. Eventually last night he admitted he is unhappy in the marriage but when I push him to tell me if this is the end he says he doesn't know.

I am in bits. My parents split when I was 11 and I swore I would never do that to my children. I really want to make this work. He says I am always angry and critical - i have in the past expressed that I feel i do everything in the house and for the kids on top of working a demanding job and my breakdowns have been a result of that. He works for his family business, gets out of bed 10 minutes before he starts work while I get everyone ready.

I don't know what to do. I swing between crying, feeling suicidal, to angry and "fuck it I can do it alone" but i cannot imagine telling my children. My experience as a child led me to be the mess I am as an adult today.

What I think is job one is to get a handle on your mental health problems. Are you being treated at all, on any medication and/or seeing a therapist? With a problem as serious as suicidal ideation you can't work it out on your own. Concentrate on that and put the problem with your husband on the back burner until you are well enough to deal with it. It may very well be the end. Otoh, if you get better, it may help to improve your marriage. Living with a mentally ill person is very stressful and some people go the cowardly route and pull away rather than try to insure you get the help you need. Your husband sounds avoidant and escapist. I had one like that. They don't change without extensive therapy, and even then it's not very likely. Otoh, you have been avoidant and escapist yourself by engaging in an emotional affair rather than trying to work things out, so you can hardly be outraged by how he is handling his feelings. You both need therapy IMO, and you need pharmaceutical intervention.

The other matter is his refusal to do his share around the house. This would be a dealbreaker for me. He sounds entitled and selfish. Maybe it's best that after you deal with the mental health situation, the marriage should end? It sounds like you're basically functioning as a single parent anyway.

Sorry, but it sounds like he has met someone else OP. Classic behaviour that messes with your head exactly as you describe. Especially when they start rewriting history to make you look bad. That's so that they don't look like such a baddy themselves - it gives them a "reason" why it is OK for them to cheat on you.

If this is an affair, note that confronting them does not (usually) help as they find ways to turn it around, to confuse you, to deny, deny, deny.

When I was in the position of not knowing wtf was going on, someone here on Mumsnet said it was probably an affair. I googled the signs and it made more sense. It was extremely helpful to me, I may be wrong about your husband, but I'm suggesting it as a possibility as it helped me.

@Maltipoo thank you. Yes I agree the priority is to get better first, I need to do that for my children at least. And perhaps if I am easier to live with he will feel better.

@80s I thought affair too. I directly asked him and pointed out the sudden going out. I even checked the cinema listings for Friday - I couldn't see a showing of the film he said for the time he said, he was outraged and offered to show me his banking and bring the work friend round to vouch for him. Plus he was really devastated by emotional affair so I can't imagine he would do the same. I think perhaps he has unresolved feelings around that and 6 years on, maybe he has realised he can't forget or forgive so I deserve it really.

I just can't imagine putting my wonderful children through a divorce. My poor big girl, she is the same age as me when my parents split and I can't do that to her.

Would you indeed put your kids further through this awful example of a relationship rather than divorce?.

What do you want to teach them about relationships and what are they learning here? Don’t you think your kids have seen and heard more than enough already between his heavy drinking over the years, your emotional affair and your depressed state (likely to also be as a direct result of his drinking and other behaviour)?.

It’s not the divorce process in itself that harms children. They get harmed if and when the divorce becomes adversarial. That may be why you feel as you do. But staying in such a marriage for what have really been your own reasons will harm them more. Why are you two still together at all?

For me, it wasn't the affair that was the issue, it was the mindfuckery that accompanied it. The rewriting of history, making me feel like the worst person in the world just so that he could feel entitled to mess me around. Nobody "deserves" that treatment. If I was that nasty he could have left first and got together with someone else afterwards, without being a shit about it.

And with a divorce, it's the same: it all depends how you do it. There are ways to make children feel loved and prioritised. Them living with an alcoholic dad and a depressed mum in an unhappy marriage is not ideal either, is it?

I feel like a lot of that is said to make adults feel better about divorce. My mum had an affair - she later admitted she should have worked on things with my dad but didn't ever bother to tell him she was unhappy and regretted leaving him and the way her life turned out. My dad's life has been pretty much a disaster since then, he's a manchild that will never grow up. If she had told him her issues he could have worked on them but she didn't bother. And I got all that "better a happy mum than a sad one" bollocks from her. Obviously if there is abuse in any way then separation and divorce is needed.

Everything has always been kept from the kids and we on the whole were very happy most of the time, it's this past month where everything has fallen apart.

I am going to work on myself, get better and hopefully if I am less of a nightmare to live with he will see that and try harder too. I just wish he would give me a hug when I am crying. That is what is really hurting right now. He won't even give me a hug.

We talked tonight.

he claims he has felt unhappy for "years" and I have too. He wants to separate. He just keeps saying he isn't happy and doesn't know when, and denies that his behaviour suddenly changed, then changed tack and said he just couldn't cope with pretending any longer.

He is still carrying a lot of anger about my emotional affair. He was very angry and I accept that. We never really worked it out. I said we can have counselling. He doesn't want to. I think we should try, and I pointed out his drinking and my depression as key factors. I said we can both have relationship counselling together and individually.

He then started going on about finances and how he would have 50/50 custody. I lost my shit at this point and said if you think I'm sending my children to you to come downstairs to twelve beer cans in the kitchen every morning and you being too hungover to get out of bed some days you are fucking crazy. He then cried and said he couldn't believe I would use that against him.

I'm at a total loss. I can't believe this is my life.