Can you be honest with me...

[Forthebest]

hello,
Thought I would ask an honest bunch a question as my friends are too biased.
Been with DH for over 15 years. Have 2 DC.
We aren't getting on at all. It really feels like we have broken down. There is no real communication and the rows are harsh and hurtful.

He was made redundant 5 years ago and time has just stayed still for him while I work fulltime for all of us.
He does some token housework, and cooks the evening meal ( to keep me from nagging - his words ) but I pay for everything, and deal with the girls 100% including taking them to school etc.

I think he is depressed. He makes NO effort to go to the GP though, even though I have asked and asked. he would rather sit on the p.c all day and night.

I am so resentful of our rubbish life, and have been for a good year that I feel like I have withdrawn totally. I dont, hug him or kiss him and I tend to " give in " to sex to avoid an argument. I know he must feel that.

He is now angry at me all the time as there is no affection ( sex !). he says I am cold and he has now also withdrawn. he keeps anti social hours, he will stay up till 3am then sleep in while me and the DC are at work/school.

Today was DC2 5th birthday. He stayed awake all night as he said he couldnt sleep. This was because of me and how angry he is with me. It meant that I opened all the presents, and cards with her while he SLEPT on the sofa in the same room and ignored her !!!!!!

We keep talking things over and over, and all we ever discuss is hoiw cold I am and how there is no affection. If I mention the reasons why he just brushes them aside.

Am I in the wrong ? I know its not nice to live with someone who is not very affectionate, but neither is it nice to live with someone who refuses to work, keeps antisocial hours and pays absolutely NO atention to their children except to tell them off !!

I really feel like its time to end this. We go round and round. I will be miserable without him but I know I could cope and this is hell !!he says all he wants is me but I want a family unit !! I want a future and Im not going to have it while I have to support him and keep him for the rest of his life ??

Any thoughts please ??

"he feels his life isnt worth living and that he cries himself to sleep most nights ?? WTF !! All this did was annoy me really. I just want to give hima kick up the arse and tell him to sort it out ! If I say go to the GP then he just says " yeah and what are they going to do !!" Its a neverending circle, and now thanks to you guys mainly I really am starting to see that all this self pity and misery is his own doing !""

yes absolutely.

he is citing the same script as my exP.

my exP still cites the same script. it will be two eyars in april since i uppped and left physically moved with dcs...

it wont matter if he with you or not - he will still be misery..

but YOU can have a much better life without this dark cloud in the house. less of a house "pet" more of a malevolent spirit....

Hello everyone,
Not sure if anyone remembers my ramblings at the begining of the month but i'm still here.

OH and I called an uneasy truce as were edging closer and closer to christmas and I can't bear the thought of disrupting everything for the DC.

Its not the same though. We can try and kid ourselves but its really not. We have nothing to say to each other, get irritable with each other and the sex thing is just ridiculous. After a lot of coaxing and hints ( and vodka on my part ) we slept together last weekend. There has been no talk of him geting a job, retraining or anything and I have juts been gritting my teeth. He is still staying up late and sleeping in while the girls and I go to work and school. He has even been leaving me notes asking me to to lock the front door when he leaves so he is secure !!! Nothing will change as he has no reason to change. I know this. I am enabling him as a PP said :0(

Anyway last monday I lied, and said I had my period. I cant actually believe it has come to that. I am a grown woman for gods sake in a responsible job and I am lying about having a period in order to avoid being pressured for sex.
I feel bad about lying and more to the point I am annoyed I feel I have too !!
So life has gone back to the way it was.
he is moping about saying he feels unloved and miserable and in the meantime I am working allday and dealing with the kids when I get home.
Last night he did the sleeping on the sofa routine which meant I had to get the girls ready upstairs. he stayed asleep the whole time. They dont even question it anymore.

I can't do this. I really, really need the strength to leave. I know I should. I know all the reasons, I know in time I would be happier. I know the girls would adapt eventually. I would be better off emotionally and financially.
Every time it gets to the crunch I panic, freeze and start getting all sentimental . Walking around Matalan doing my xmas shopping earlier in the week I was reduced to a gibbering wreck and started imagineing him as a cross between brad pitt and dad of the year. When I am away from him all I remember is how nice he can be, but put us ina room together and its awful. The reality is, we shouldnt be together.
He hasn't and wont change. he has no intention of getting a job and this is how it will be.

Im not sur eof the point of this post. I think I juts wnated to get it down. I cant use the p.c at home as he tracks all my history. It will be useful to come across this again and hopefully my life will have changed.
Will I ever be strong enough ?

I am so sorry that you are in this place in your life right now. For what it's worth, to me it sounds as though you are in the process of gathering strength to make the necessary changes in your life. Change will come very soon for you I don't doubt. In the end by forcing change, you will be doing everyone a favour in the long run. Including your DP. But the absolute most important reasons for you to act as soon as you can are your children and you. Good luck. Keep strong.

All in good time, all in good time. I think you've done the right thing in not doing anything before Christmas. Another poster on this thread said something about January 2nd. I think that you've now got to decide what to do and to follow it through.

Start making plans. Get all the information you can. Forewarned is forearmed. Don't make the mistake of getting sucked into the what could have been's - because they ain't real.

Hope you find the strength for you and your girls....

but that is the point - he CAN be nice (and maybe he looks like brad pitt???) but he certainly chooses not to be nice...he chooses to be irresponsible and needy and attention seeking.....

he is making a choice in this - a choice to be miserable and sleep on sofa and leave you to do all the work.

you cannot change his choices - only he can do that - but you can make choices to make your life (and the girls' lives) better.

yes: lock the door - and remove all keys so he cant get out at all.... and ignore all texts/phone calls...

you cannot change him - but you can change things for yourself. have him leave or move yourself. new year, new life...

Yes I keep saying that to myself. New year New life.
Sometimes I wonder if I have too idealistic an idea of what single parent life is like. But all I can imagine is a life where I feel relaxed at home, no one is moping about, sleeping in all day, being miserbale, telling me they are ill, I can actually go out with friends !! I can feed, eat, clothe the kids in how I see fit. I can't see a downside, except maybe a bit of loneliness but I feel lonely anyway. And who knows, maybe one day I might meet somebody else ? Im only 35 and not too hideous.

January 2nd is his birthday ironically. I have a feeling he might leave of his own accord in the new year anyway. I am sooo dreadful and cold to live with after all !
My poor girls. What a stupid choice I made for a father for them :0(

Hi, there. Still here; don't worry, you are not alone on this thread.

As for the last line on your post, feeling sorry for your girls: by all means feel sorry for them, but cut the thought there and do not go on to "What a stupid choice I made for a father for them :0("

How the hell could you know? This whole mess is crazy and unreasonable, and no dount part of the reason you posted here was to get an outside perspective on whether this sort of thing was normal/acceptable. Crazy things can become normalised, after a while. However, you ought not to start beating your breast for having been "weak", "foolish", etc., etc., etc. I realised a long time ago that that is a poisonous attitude which will get in the way of recovery and make other problems worse. For goodness's sake, however many problems you have, don't let shame be one of them.

If he's tracking your usage it's could be that he knows he's on the way out? My husband is similar to yours and he opens my mail and tries to track my pc usage as I feel he knows he's in trouble.

Was he like this pre redundancy as if not I wonder whether it's a combination of depression and laziness.

I have to say my dh is like your dh. He does work, long and antisocial hours but he chooses to go to bed very very late and hence sleep his way through his dc's childhood. My ds also is very quiet in the mornings as not wake him. Again, opening presents is not done before 11am - any family outings (we're talking once possibly twice a year) have to organised by me and ruined by him. Takes no interest in ds yet wants his love. Has not taken him to the park once this year and possibly about 4 times in dc's entire 3.5 years. He's antisocial with my friends who are backing off but treats his mother as a combination of a chid and godess - he ONLY comes alive if he's with his people - with my family he lasts 5 mins before sulking and going off the bedroom to SLEEP.

And refuses to take repsonsibility for ANYTHING - even to the point if we are going out, he'll run out of the house first as he wants me to have the repsonsibuility of locking up - this drives me nuts. He cocks everything up - he'll park in the wrong place, knowing he has, and get a ticket and then go bonkers. I have to shop for his family. I have to book all his medical dentist appointments and then he misses them - he's spent £kkk on dental/treatment only to fall back into bad habits and get the problem back. Nothing but nothing is done properly - lights and tv left on at night. If playing with ds which is rare - he'll have the tv blaring with his attention mainly on that. If alone with ds (rarely) will get him to sleep with him (even from 3pm-6pm) so then I've got a kid wide awake being entertained by me while he sleeps at 10pm - 12pm then to wake to watch tv again till 3pm.
Yep, and then feels bad that I am remote - I dont have the time to be super nice to someone who contributes nothing other than a wage.He's also verbally very abusive and I think it's because he knows he's so wrong on many levels but cannot be bothered to start being better.

You might find the more you do the less empowered your dh becomes and you have to step up your game to ensure things get done and so he does less and so the cylce continues.

But I do think your dh is suffering from some kind of shut down. I'm now a sahm and I find my life so tiny that I struggle with the smallest amount of stress where as a few months ago I was coping quite happily with much.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL for a partner or a father - if he won't get help then that's not fair as he's making it your issue.