miserable

[annachuter]

11 years ago I met my husband, he is English, I am Dutch. After three months I moved to England to be with him and we married one year later. We went through a rough time right in the beginning of our relation when my husband couldn't cope with things from my past (jealousy) and five years ago when I suffered from mania caused by bipolar illness after the birth of our youngest daughter. I met someone else and my behaviour caused by the illness split us up for while. Things were very very bad but we managed to get it back together.

Unfortunately, things are gradually getting worse again. I have managed to overcome my illness and although I am on a low dose of antidepressants I have been stable for a number of years. My husband used to get very stressed out in the summer because of the nature of his work. He has a painting and decorating business and although it was not easy I managed to learn to cope with it. The last two years it has become unbearable and both last year and this year he became almost permanently depressed and miserable. He is always negative and there is always something wrong. If there isn't, he will find something wrong and that would usually be something in our relationship, like our sex life. My interest in sex is very low, I can't help it, it's almost always been like that. I can't make myself like it more, wish I could. At the moment I hate it because he moans about it all the time, so I feel I have to.

Anyway, I have had depressive illnesses myself and I do understand that it is something you can't just shake off. Last year he went to the doctor and the doctor prescribed him antidepressant and got him enrolled in an anti-anxiety course which he attended once or twice and decided he didn't like and didn't need. This year he went to see the doctor again (with me) and she told him she could give him more antidepressants but he really needed counselling. He promised me he would and I helped him find counsellors but he never contacted them or went through with it. She referred him to a psychiatrist and again I went with him to make sure he was talking to her. The psychiatrist said later she was glad that I had come and that I seemed very supportive and understanding to her. I tried not to butt in but to help explain what had been happening. One of the things we told her was that my husband uses cannabis and she urged him to stop as it can cause long term depression. I had been telling him the same thing myself but he wouldn't believe it. He promised me though that if the psychiatrist would say the same he would stop. Did he? Of course not. He was referred again to a anxiety management group this time in another region as he was worried he'd know people in his group from our own region. He has promised to go, but I am not so sure he will. He doesn't seem to want to accept help and seems to enjoy feeling unwell. Even the use of anti-cold remedies to relieve symptoms he won't take. I really think he relishes in being unwell.

Our summer has been so miserable, we have had major fights and they're getting so bad (although not frequent) that the last time we both really got hurt by what the other said and it actually ended up with him having both hands around my neck, I admit I threw a box of eggs at him. He denies that happened but it is true. He said he would leave as he felt he couldn't control himself anymore, but after a few days things calmed down.

You see, it isn't easy to break up because we have two beautiful girls, aged 7 and 10 and I don't want them not to live in a complete family. I have already got one marriage breakup behind me and it is the worst thing ever to experience!

In September I started a Maths degree at University and its a full time study which I really enjoy. One of the reasons I am doing this study is (apart from the fact I always have wanted to go to University) that I want to have a professional qualification. So that when I have finished I can find a good job and my husband can work less or stop. He is 14 years older than me, but there is no reason why I can't work when he retires. He says he supports me with it but now says I am giving it 200% and things are not good at home. He doesn't want me to stop though.

I haved organised everything at home and childdminding for the children and my husband said he would help with the housework. In practice though he hardly ever does, I do all the cleaning and cooking and organising the girls myself. The girls each have their own little task but that causes major tantrums every day from them too although I am not giving in. I do believe that they are old enough to clear out the dishwasher and help with the washing once a day. I appreciate my husband's life is really busy too, but his life just seems to revolve around him and his ailments. If he is not depressed he has a sore neck. If he hasn't a sore neck he has a cold or is tired or has sore feet, it never stops and I am ashamed to say that I am fed up and not coping very well anymore! I got really snappy myself and although I had managed to stop taking my antidepressants I had to go back to the GP to get some more as I couldn't cope with him and the children as well as my study and the housework. He is terribly defensive when I try to talk to him, I feel that he would rather not talk, it is nearly always me who is initiating talk.

Last night when I had been up and busy from 7.00 in the morning and finally sat down at 8.00pm he moaned at me because he was doing something that frustrated him and he wasn't feeling well and the cat was asking for food. I was so tired I said I was not going to do it and he got really cross with me implying that I didn't know what hard work was.

I am sorry if this all sounds a bit muddled, but I am feeling really unhappy at the moment. I used to love having him around me but now I dread it. Last weekend he made me feel really awful by talking about our sexlife and that it was affecting his love for me and at the moment he is really grumpy because he has a cold and feels I am not taking him seriously. Holidays have become a thing to dread because he is always stressed out and we always end up having a really big fight.

Another problem is, he is always accusing me of not caring about him and I am trying so hard! Now I don't know what to do to show him that I do care, but perhaps I am getting to the point where I don't anymore.

Every day I think I will try to just go on and sometimes it is ok. I am not saying that I am an angel myself, I have been very grumpy myself lately but I am trying hard to find a way to ease things. I am in the process of trying to find an aupair to help out with the girls after school and do some housework and cooking. Hopefully that will take the stress out of me. The girls are not really happy at the moment either, with being at the childminder nearly every day after school.

I do not want to give up my study, throughout my whole life I have had to give things up because of outside factors, this time I won't. I am 39 years old and I really want to make something of my life. I still love my husband but the situation at the moment is hurting me a lot and affecting me a lot. I love being at University and I love my girls with a passion. I just don't know what to do anymore with my relationship with my husband.

Thanks for reading this, it has been good for me to write it down. I don't really have anyone to talk to. My mother always gets very upset and I don't want to bother the few friends I have with my problems all the time.

[Helen]

Annaschuter,

Your story sounds so similar to my own it's scary. I had identical problems with my ex when I was doing my degree. He said he was supportive but actually, he resented the time and attention I gave to studying. Instead of talking to me about it though, he confided in my ex sister in law, who told him I was neglecting him and it was dreadful and she would never do anything like that to him if she were married to him...

While I was doing my degree, I was working full-time. So I would go to work for 7 in the morning, work until at least 5 in the afternoon (more often than not, later than this) and then go home, cook and do what I could around the house (including helping my son with his homework, talking about his day at school and dealing with any major correspondence) before studying. Most nights I would not sit down with my books until at least 10pm and I often studied and took notes until 2 or 3 in the morning. I took one day out a week to write up my notes and try to turn them into an assignment.

My ex worked from 6 in the morning until noon most days. Then he was free for the rest of the day. Yet, like your husband, he always moaned on about how much he did. In truth, yes he did do stuff around the house too. For example, he did the laundry most of the time, the ironing and the washing up. He also washed the kitchen floor periodically. But when the house needed serious cleaning (i.e units cleared for dusting, paintwork, toilet and bathroom cleaning, beds changed, windows washed, etc) I did all that. My ex played the martyr for so many years and despite knowing how much I had on my plate, all he did was moan about the lack of sex and the fact that he felt I didn't have time for him due to my job. This was despite the fact that he was never here in the mornings when I went to work and I was still coming home at my usual time in the evening. So in reality, nothing had really changed. He just resented the fact that I was getting yet more qualifications and more degrees while he was content to stay in a dead end job and moan about the fact that I had a bit of ambition.

He also complained because he felt I should give more money to the household than I was. At that time I was paying out £1500 a month in private school fees and towards running the household but he didn't feel it was enough. Now that I live on my own, the TOTAL running costs for my home are about £1500 a month (including my personal loan and the costs of our food); if our son were still at school, they would be £2100. So, in effect, he was left to pay just £600 a month out of his own salary (less than this even because I am talking 2 years ago) yet he still thought it was too much! I did suggest to him that since he was home so early, he might want to think about getting a second, part time job. The man screamed at me, telling me that he already had a job and he wasn't going to get another. What is a woman to do? I told him I could not give him any more and even if I could, I wouldn't. I was leaving myself just £400 a month to live on (at that time) and out of this I had to pay for my personal loan and take myself to work each day. I honestly did not have a spare penny.

Like you, I had periods of depressive illness (mine was due to my unhappiness with the marriage). I also suffered from Graves Disease, although I didn't know about this. Amongst other things, Graves caused insomnia (hence working through the night a lot), depression and diminished sex drive. The marital-caused depression also affected my sex drive. Yet despite knowing about the depression, did my ex understand why my sex drive was diminished? Did he hell as like! He didn't care. So, like you, I would do the deed with him to keep him happy. Did it keep him happy? Not a chance in hell.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make was some men are just miserable so and sos and nothing you do is ever good enough for them. Forget 'good enough' nothing is ever 'enough'. So they whine on and on and even when you are killing yourself to keep them happy and do your job, be a good mother, keep the house, all they do is complain because there is slack somewhere. Like you I was fed up with being run ragged. I too had running battles trying to get my ex to go to counselling or see the doctor (he too was stressed, highly strung, had violent temper tantrums and was depressed). My ex flat out refused to go. He behaved pretty much like your husband for much of our marriage and could not see the damage he was inflicting on me. He made me feel like everything was my fault and went off and confided in my brother's wife, telling her deeply private and personal things about me. She then told him what an awful woman I was for not 'being there' for him (he wasn't there for me when I suffered from post natal depression - something which he conveniently 'forgot to tell her') and she would not do this to him if she were ever 'lucky enough to be married to 'someone' like him'. Of course, idiot that he was, he allowed this woman to turn his head after she had massaged his ego and looked meaningfully into his eyes a few times and he ended up having an affair with her. And he still doesn't see what he did wrong! He still blames me for him going off with her.

I always told him that I would not be studying forever but men like my ex and like your husband resent the fact that our attention is not 100% on them. Believe me, if he were not moaning about your study, he would be moaning about the fact that you give your girls more attention than you give him. When your husband moans on about the fact that you do not appreciate his suffering, etc, what he is saying is he wants you to wait on him hand and foot and mollycoddle him. In other words, find time you haven't got to indulge his neurosis. Never mind the fact that you have kids, house, degree and life to get on with too - as you say, he thinks his wants and needs must come first.

I am not sure how to advise you. You are doing all the things I did to try to make everything work and my ex still found a way to a) find fault; b)have an affair and c) blame me for it. Men who are intrinsically selfish cannot be swayed without outside help and if your husband is refusing to go through with the counselling/visits to the psychiatrist there is not a lot you can do to force him. The only bit of advice I can give you is do not put up with this situation for as long as I did. I honestly think, for the sake of your sanity, that it is ultimation time. I would tell him he either goes to counselling, on his own or with you or the two of you split. I would tell him a split is the last thing you want, especially for the sake of your girls, but you honestly cannot cope with his mood swings and associated behaviour any more.

Incidentally, my ex too was a hardened cannabis smoker and I agree it does cause all sorts of problems, including lack of motivation, outbursts, highly co-dependent behaviour and selfishness. It also causes paranoia. My ex refused to see this and I honestly believe his drug use was ultimately to blame for our marriage not only ending but also for our lack of intimate relationship generally (because he never bothered with niceties like talking to me) and his affair. He told me that he felt like he was in a fog, in a dream world, when he started the affair. He even told me he was 'dating' my sister in law for six months before their affair started. I asked him how on earth he could be dating her when he was married to me? What on earth was he thinking? He couldn't offer any answers because there weren't any. The whole situation was farcical, although it did not seem funny when I found out what was going on.

I do think for the sake of your sanity, you are going to have to put your foot down and start making demands of your own and let your husband know what the consequences will be if he doesn't toe the line. And mean it. I wish I had done this 10 years ago. Instead, I carried on scurrying around trying to please him and he turned around and crapped on me and my brother from a great height anyway - all because weed had messed up his head to the point where he didn't know which way was up any more.

I think I have said enough. I do hope he does come out of his weed-induced fog for long enough to know just what he stands to lose if he doesn't buck up his ideas.

Do take care, Anna


Helen