Does anyone remember my threads from early in the year? Well...

[YouKnowNothingoftheKABOOM]

I could do with a bit of advice.

Again.

The short version goes like this:-

DH depressed for 2 years. Became emotionally abusive last year while I was pregnant with dc3. Everything was my fault he would scream at me, headbutt walls next to me, blame me for ruining his life. And so on and on.

I finally had enough and with an awful lot of support from MN asked him to leave - for the sake of my mental health and the children.

He changed his medication, changed therapist and moved back in just before dc3 was born. I told him that if he shouted or scared me once more he was gone. And he never has.

Over the Summer things were shaky and I spent a lot of time away with the children. DH started CBT which had dramatic, positive results. When September came and I was home again he was like a different man.

It was like my old DH had come home and we were a team again. Things were really good. We started dating when we could get a babysitter, and he started doing nice little things for me, and actually thinking about what I want instead of just his needs.

So here is the last bit. In the last couple of weeks he has been slipping again. I've caught him out in some small and pointless lies, he seems weighed down and very low. He admits that he is struggling.

And I can't go through the last year again. It was unbearable. I can't begin to describe how I felt, all the pressure of keeping things normal - I thought my head would pop.

He knows that I will leave him if he steps over the line. I know that he needs my help. He wants to talk about things - which is great and productive and necessary. But I don't want to. The suggestion that he is slipping makes me feel so angry with him.

How dare he let himself go back to that place after everything I did for him and everything he did to me?!

But that's not helpful.

So here is the question:-

How can I help him when his illness makes me feel so hurt?

How can I help him when I am aware that he used my help in the past as a rod to beat me?

How can I listen to him when I feel so angry about having to do this again?

Ok, that was more than one question, but you see where I'm going - the main one really is how can I help him and protect me?

I don't want to be flamed for this. I'd have put this in AIBU if I did.

I don't want judgement for staying with this man either. I believe this could work (and even if I'm wrong I still have to try).

I read through the previous threads I started and I don't recognise him or me in them anymore.

Could someone wave a magic wand please and just make this all better?

TIA

Perhaps he can change the medication to another one...

I didn't mean that Cancer and Depression are similar illnesses btw, just that they are real and need treating. My depression didn't wax and wane, it just got worse and worse until I took the pills. Then I got myself better, as I knew that it had got out of hand. Can't explain it any better than that really.

I think OP, that you can seize on the One bad day is all it takes comment and say, One bad depression day is not going to be the breaker. One more abuser day WILL be. Tell him in that respect he's on a yellow card. You can not simply be expected to keep giving and giving, helping him get through this depressive illness and be abused on top of that... Explain that 'Them's the rules'! and that's all he needs to worry about. That and getting as much help as he can from wherever he can to get better.

Tell him to tell his GP/counsellor that he's seemingly getting worse... it could be that he's at that stage tho, where it does get bad before it gets better...

He just has to find the way to drag him self up by his boot straps, what it'll take to do that, I don't know...

Running would be a GREAT idea, all those endorphins etc! Can you go with? it might help the both of you?

youknow i don`t know what to say

But send you a ((((hug))))

"He then collapsed completely and cried for ages about the fact that he might have to move out. I pointed out that he wouldn't have to if he behaved appropriately, but he just kept saying things like "One bad day is all it'll take and I'll have to go!"

After a while I got angry and pointed out (calmly but firmly) that he was so upset about having to move out, and not shedding one tear for his potentially hurting me."

I've been depressed. I've been hospitalised twice because of it. (At my own request, because it wasn't fair on my immediate loved ones to live with it when so acute. I went home when my medication was really lifting my mood sufficiently that that was a reasonable situation.) I was at times snippy and grumpy, but mostly I was sleepy and appreciative and very, very sad and flat. I needed a lot of sleep. I hated being alive. What I didn't do was try to take someone apart from the inside. There is no excuse and no justification, and the fact his main concern at this point is what will happen to HIM if he treats you like dirt is worryingly indicative to me.

Manipulative narcissism is not depression. Depression does not make people manipulative and narcissistic. When he posted last year I felt sickened, tbh, because it was glaringly obvious that he was trying to undermine any notion in his or your heads that you had a genuine, not a token, right to object to his behaviour. He was worried about how he was perceived, not how he was behaving. And fuck you if that meant he was cutting off all sources of support.

I'm so incredibly sorry. Depression is hell, but so is what you've gone through. In fact after what you've had to handle I'm pretty astonished you aren't depressed yourself.

What I have decided to do is give it a deadline

If I feel like this in "whatever " 12 months I AM OUT

I can`t take anymore

BUT then I can look at the Dcs and know I have given it my best
My health is more important
It is his problem not mine anymore

Bump

I think the thread is a bit one sided. I apparently have depression but am not looking for excuses. Over the last 7 years my wife has had to deal with my issues. As long as I can remember I have always dealt with difficult issues/confrontation by bottling it inside and shutting down. This also showed itself by me being sarcastic but this was just another way of trying to avoid any confrontation or deal with the issues. I hate arguments as I cannot deal with them and it makes me feel terrible. Trouble is I now know this makes everything worse. This had caused me to ruin everything I cared about for which I am deeply ashamed and I would give anything to turn back the clock. M ywife says she doesn't feel that I loved her how could I if I treated her like this. This couldn't be further from the truth. I am not treating the depression as an excuse I know what I did was very wrong and know it might be too late to show her how I really feel and what she means to me.

I understand why my wife feels betrayed and very angry (understatement) but I just want to be able to show the real person who has been hidden away for the last 7 years. I probably don't deserve another chance having had plenty to deal with the issue but I can't explain and don't expect anyone to understand why I haven't done anything about it before as I don't know why myself.

She thinks that I couldn't have loved her as I would not have been like that but I know deep down that I do and thought she would know this. I now understand that this is stupid as how was she supposed to know what I felt if I didn't communicate it to her.

Whilst your stories are sad they are very personal and every situation is different and you seem to be generalising by explaining your own predicaments. It is not always as straightforward as you make out. I certainly don't feel like it is otherwise I would have known how to deal with it earlier.

I desperately hope it is not the end as I think I am a very loving person at heart and have a lot to offer if we can make a fresh start and I can guarantee that I will not return to the way I have been. I know this is a long shot as a lot of hurt has been caused but want to be able to put this right

This thread is to support your wife. If you want support, start your own thread. Stop hijacking your wife's.

Wow you are one nasty self absorbed selfish manipulative bastard arent you??

Wallace: if you're being truly honest here, then you do know what you have to do. You also know, when you aren't in the black fog, that your wife is a fair and decent person who will stick by you as long as you really are giving it your best shot. She is not looking for an excuse to ditch you - quite the reverse - read again what she's written about wanting to support you, and believe it. If she didn't care, she wouldn't be hurting.

BUT: nobody outside yourself can "fix" you or "make it right" for you. In fact often the life partner is least able to help, being emotionally involved with the person and the one most directly affected by the problem (after yourself of course). It is not her duty to fix you because it is not within her ability, or any single human being's, to do so; therefore she is NOT letting you down. You are letting yourself as well as her down when you don't move heaven and earth to make yourself better, for her. She is not punishing you. You are punishing yourself, for whatever demons are lurking in your head, telling you you are unworthy. Unfortunately when you're in a family, the punishment you inflict on yourself spills over to the other members. And it is a parent's first duty to protect their children. Your duty, her duty. It overrides any obligations to each other. You should be prepared to tear the world apart for your children; all you're being asked to do is take some pills and exercise! It may be more complicated as you say, but that is no reason to fail on the simple bits.

Oh, and to be honest - honest with yourself, your wife, your doctor. Demons hate honesty.

Annie - he did this last year. Please, if people want to talk to him, get him to start another thread? This is supposed to be about hiw wife, yet he's trying to manipulate it round to him. Again. Please, please don't engage here - there's nothing whatosever stopping him from starting a new thread. Except he fact that he can't then control and derail the one his wife's on, of course.

He's not here to ask.

My MN was logged out.

Did he really post that?

Oh God.

OK, fair enough, no more engaging. I hope it was clear enough from my reply, though, that I DO think Youknownothing doesn't have any more to do/prove and that it lies with Wallace to get off his arse. In a sense it IS all about him; including what he needs to do. Not what other people need to do for him, or put up with from him.

Probably bringing a fair amount of my own baggage to it as well, but then who doesn't?

Annie I still appreciate what you said to him (if it is him, still reeling slightly)

Well, it's some bloke in the same situation if not. I'm sure he's not the only one.

IT'S NOT HIM!

At least, it's not my dh (Nifty? Couldn't be yours could he? Are you ok?)

I am so relieved.

Wallace, you need to prove it in your behaviour towards her. You need to show you love her by making an effort to think of her feelings and needs. It will take effort on your part. It is not easy. But if you love her then that will drive you.

What I have said to my DH many times, is that he can show his love by doing everything in his power to get better. That means chasing treatment, seeing GP regularly, taking ADs. Because above all I want my DH to be well and happy.

But not at my expense.

And depression is not the same as abuse, abuse is a separate thing that you choose to do (or not to do). And I don't know if that applies to you at all.

So show your love by chasing treatment. See your GP, ask them if they can support your DW too. See if there are support groups for her.

Protect her from the terrible sadness you are feeling, and through action you may find yourself feeling better to.

I wish you luck

Wallace: whoever you are, butt out and work on sorting yourself out. The world does not revolve around you and your partner needs to have support from other people (as you are too far up your own arse to offer her any) without you butting in.

Wallace, my reaction when thinking you might be my DH, was "Oh my God! He cares more about what the online community think of him than he does about my feelings! How dare he cut off my support?! Why would he say this on here? Why doesn't he show me through action? He is SO much more ill than I thought!"

So posting here was ENORMOUSLY inaproppriate. You certainly imply that this is in reply to your "wife".

I'm doubly relieved because DH is angry and appalled at Wallace, his comment? "Wow, he says his depression isn't an excuse, but the rest of the post is him making excuses because he's depressed. He sounds really ill. And I speak as someone in his position. He didn't even consider the damage not making it clear he is not me might do to my relationship. I'm horrified."

He's also quite embarrassed that he was like that, and admits that he was like that. And admits that what he needed in that position was a change in meds.

MAybe Wallace has unwittingly opened up a line of communication in this house

Wallace is my H
He signed on last night
he has never been on MN before but guess he is getting desprate

I keep re-reading his post and thinking pity

Why could`nt he have been like that for 7 years why wait till now when I have switched off

Nifty, I am sorry but !!
(1) signing on and writing on YOUR thread is so inappropriate and rings so many alarm bells for me
(2) that post is so amazingly self absorbed and self pitying it is funny, it shows almost no concern for you and is all about him

What is his defense??

He did he says to show that he does love me and that he is really sorry for his behaviour over the last 7 years
He wants a second chance to put it right and now he is getting help
He knows I want out

In fact most of the people that "know" in our circle feel he is doing what I have wanted for years so i should give him another go

I don^t know if I can forgive

Unlike youknow I don`t know if I want my h back

Nifty, this is what my DH would have done at the height of his... well, I want to say depression, but narcissism is more accurate when it deals with behaviour.

Even my DH (the one suffering, the one self-obsessed, the one "ill") is worried about you nifty. (And I know that sounds odd, because he did similar, but when he did it, it was not because he cared)

Nifty. If I had been through 7 years of this (and not just 1-2) then I would be walking away.

At no point in his post does he acknowledge the feelings of those posting - it is a complete dismissal.

This man is currently the monster my dh was (the one I am terrified he will turn back into), manipulative and trying to protect himself.

My only advice is look at his behaviour, ignore all his words for a week and just look at his behaviour.

Does he ask you to justify your feelings? Rather than comfort you and accept them. Does he think of his own needs/desires/wants first, but tells you you are the only one he wants to be happy? IS he doing everything in his power to get better, knowing that he is currently hurting you?

I was so terrified this morning when I read his post, because it would have meant throwing away the past 8 months of work, and falling straight into the worst moments of my life.

You are suffering what I have suffered. And I want to help - but I'm probably the worst person to help, because I stayed and suffered more

Get out. If he gets better and this is meant to be, then he will come back well. I threw dh out. He got worse before he got better.

Have some time apart and you will get to see the real him.

If there is still love there then it can do no harm, but if there isn't? Then you'll see the real him.

Youknow you know what you want
You want your DH back to man you fell in love with and respected and he you

I dont know if I do Since August h has transformed himself into a "lovely" man trying really hard no nasty comments being civil and loving I just want to scream and say NO tooooo late he is fucking up my head because its wearing me down and I am starting to feel i am wrong for wanting out I dont think he would go back to pre-August BUT I actually don`t know what i want and am scared of making the wrong choice

The head doc said it was not a good idea him moving out at the moment

I am sorry that you were worried when you saw H post earlier and you thought it was your dh

You and i have lived at the wrong end of "depression" and carried the lead weight of neglect round our necks

I really hope you and Dh work through this
its been really "lifting" to read your thread and other posters views and to Know i m not living alone
There are others out there
thankyou for listening and posting back to me

nifty and youknow - I have been in similar situation with my DH who is doing well now - there was abusive behaviour at one stage but that was a long time ago and was never violent or aimed at DCs - those would be my deal breakers

The abuse has long gone when he realised what it was and although it's been a long road he is doing well now.

I found what Anne Sheffield has written about depression fallout very useful - there is a website also. The behaviours of someone with depression to those closest to them are listed there and are not well recognised by doctors or therapists but they rang very true for me - helping me see it wasn't my fault, how I could better deal with things without escalating situations and how I can better protect my emotional health.

Depressed people can be hard to cope with but as a partner we have to choose where are limits are and stick to them or risk getting into a spiral of emotional abuse. I have been lucky.

All the best

I feel so guilty for wanting out
I have been at the end of it for 7 years
NOW he has a reason... he did what I wanted and is getting help BUT it took 7 years
I can`t leave NOW what would the dcs think my family etc etc
he needs me
BUT he left our marriage years ago then decided to come back in August.When I left

I want to sob
I can`t do this BUT I have to