Husband w/mental health issues, poor executive functioning
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Anonymous
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I am just beside myself with my husband, and I am moving towards the point of just asking him to leave the home but financially and emotionally the stress of having him move out right now at the end of the school year would be so difficult and would upset the kids so much that I don’t think it’s even worth it. One of my kids is autistic and has ADHD while the other has ADHD. I also have ADHD & anxiety. My husband has anxiety, depression and while evaluated, it was inconclusive for ADHD. We suspect he may be on the spectrum.
His overall functioning has continued to deteriorate over the past few years in all areas. It’s honestly like having a 3rd child with high needs AND having to do everything on my own AND having to clean up and fix all of his messes around me. He doesn’t follow through with just about anything. He will do the dishes but doesn’t consistently do the dishes every day and will ONLY take out the trash when it is completely overflowing once a week. If something falls on the ground or is placed somewhere - that’s where it stays until I personally pick it up and do something with it. There is no initiative to do anything with the children, our home, our yard, our cars, nothing. He takes our older son to cub scouts and to karate weekly but doesn’t stay connected at all with special activities, things to work on at home, connecting with other parents to set up meet-ups or weekend events and so our son barely participates in any of that. I manage all of their academic, therapy, social-emotional learning, behavioral, discipline, holidays, birthdays, play dates, family outings, family vacations, home organization, home cleaning, supporting the kids with learning chores, yard work, all family shopping (clothes, hygiene, ect.), managing health concerns & questions though he will physically take them if asked but I have to send specific questions and usually don’t get much out of those appointments. I am the one who has to essentially be the parent with the children and make sound decisions. He doesn't try to support positive routines, habits, and is deeply inconsistent with his parenting....sometimes he lets them do whatever they want and barely supervises them while other times he demands they do what he asks NOW or else he's taking away their tablets for a whole week in 5 seconds (he's incredibly unrealistic). I have to constantly redirect and give parenting information to him (he hardly uses any of it) and be the one to enforce the rules. It's harmed our kids because while I try to be super consistent, engage in using natural consequences and model how to regulate, do chores, ect.....my husband does not do any of that. He sometimes grabs them up slightly forcefully to move them to put on their pj's and the kids start crying (they are not actually injured or bruised, more startled) but then he's like, "i wasn't trying to hurt them, you're fine, you're fine'. I’ve tried everything! I started encouraging him more than 10 years ago that I was concerned with his mental health and he needed to be evaluated and work with a therapist and maybe 2 years ago I gave him a deadline that he needed to at least meet with a psychiatrist to explore medication, schedule an appointment with a therapist, and also schedule an appointment to check into his physical health with his snoring and he did those things at the very end of the deadline (6 months) and was diagnosed with sleep apnea, sees his psychiatrist in person but did actually wait another year for therapy and meets virtually once a week. I’ve told him I think that his meds are not correct, that I’m really concerned about his well-being and how it is impacting our entire family and that he really needs more intensive therapy in-person…..he’s not open to really exploring that. We have broken down the list of what he does vs. what I do, we’ve talked about weaponized incompetence and how he does in fact use that regularly to force me to take over tasks but me “dropping” his chores is ineffective because it results in unsanitary conditions or essentially neglecting the children or it harms them. I meet with a therapist myself and she is worried about the amount of labor I do and how I am literally doing it ALL for everyone and managing a very high-stress job and the biggest stressor is the impact with my husband. I have written down my thoughts and feelings on this and shared it with my husband (when I’m calm and I can think when I’m not exhausted) and he said that he read it and has been thinking about it but literally comes up with ZERO solutions. I’ve told him that we need to hire a house cleaner and someone to help fix things around the house and help actually with some of the chores (maybe a mother’s helper) but he has turned this down and said that he will do the work. I told him that we MUST pay for the help because he simply CANNOT or WILL NOT do the tasks himself and if he needs to get an extra part-time job to do it, so be it. He hasn’t responded. He chose to sign up for a very important professional licensing exam over our son’s bday & when we can take a family vacation and adamantly refused to change it, saying how important it was and refused to go with us on another special trip. He asked me to take the kids out of town for the week before his test, so I am and I told him not to blow these sacrifices, money, and time….my parents have even offered to help pay for a freaking tutor for him because I told him he MUST have a tutor because it’s been so long and he needs 1-1 support, not just a virtual general class. He literally never followed up and I have not seen him study literally at all. He’ll specifically do tasks when I directly ask him to do that specific task but simply does not think more broadly about what needs to be done around the house. Instead of thinking about the kitchen as, “I take the food out of the wrappers/peel/cut/cook and throw away the trash and put away the seasonings as I cook and then put the pans in the sink and soak them and then ask a child to help wash the dishes with me and teach them and load the dishwasher together, wipe counters, sweep the floor, take out the trash if full…..nope. He will make dinner (usually extremely late even if the easiest, quickest dinner) and will leave out all the trash, seasonings, pots, pans, everything all left around….. I sent him another email with specific questions, concerns, and requests for our child’s birthday (today) and he failed to read it and then essentially defended NOT doing the things I asked because “I was busy at work and I only had time to skim it”. I asked him to assemble the goody bags (I bought EVERYTHING myself) and they just literally needed to be assembled and should have taken maybe 15-20 min max…..1.5 hours later with a huge pile of trash all over the floor, he was done. I had asked him to set up the streamers and put the 2 balloons in the living room with the bday banner up for our son to see when he woke up and nope, he ignored it entirely so I was rushing around this morning. He ruined Easter by not helping and getting all upset when I asked him to help make dinner despite the fact that I spent my entire 3 day weekend caring for the kids, doing major housework, doing the egg hunt, and had prepared everything myself for the baskets, breakfast, ect. He grumbled and basically threw a fit and ruined dinner. I honestly want him to leave the house for at least 1-2 weeks but he doesn’t have anywhere to go. I’m not sure what I’m asking here but I’m at my wits end. I think if he can get intensive therapy and THEN goes to family counseling then maybe we could try again but this is just not working. I Need to just get through the day but maybe I need to talk to him tomorrow or sunday and ask him to please stay at a hotel for a few weeks, maybe under the pretense of needing to study for his exam so we can have a break. idk ugg. I'm exhausted and burnt out. 
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Anonymous
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Sounds like your husband is your third child.
I’d plan to separate.. then divorce You absolutely cant take this on and probably can do better without him. |
Anonymous
| He can go to Extended Stay America or similar for 1-2 weeks. It will cost you in restaurant bills, though. |
Anonymous
| He is never, ever, ever going to change. Make peace with that. And then decide if you want a divorce or to have a third child. Are you ok being a single mom of three with the benefit of dual incomes for only one household? If yes, I may make sense to stay married. If not, then you should not separate thinking he will fix himself, you should just divorce. |
Anonymous
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OP I can totally relate and write this myself. I'm thinking about ending it but I'm putting lots of though into pulling the pin in the grenade.
And after this should I decide I'm done I can promise the world I will be happy alone the rest of my life. |
Anonymous
| 100% Do the hotel for 14 days ask him to leave nicely that you need space. I promise you you will see how much easier it all is without him. It will be freeing to you. Do not worry about the money. Trust me here. |
Anonymous
| Someone that writes such a long post is not ok. If you have help from parents divorce. Also try new rules in the house. |
Anonymous
I agree with this. Personally I'd divorce, but I have high standards. Actually I wouldn't have married him or procreated with him at all. |
Anonymous
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Another option is to do way less extra stuff. Some people can’t handle all that. I was exhausted reading your post. My husband and I don’t do most of that list. And our marriage is in solid shape and our kids have a 2 parent home.
The must do tasks are another issue and I can see why you’re frustrated. I would hire help if you can. |
Anonymous
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You want him to make more money (you brought up the suggestion that he get an extra p/t job to pay for cleaners), but you are upset he's taking this licensing exam when you would rather be "on another special trip."
He takes your son to cub scouts and karate, but "doesn't stay connected with special activities" so you think your son is missing out on whatever activities those are. He has gotten a psychiatrist and a therapist and treatment for sleep apnea, but you (who are not, I assume anyway, a doctor? and definitely not his doctor) told him "his meds are not correct"? You send him a to-do list while he's busy at work and then get high and mighty when he didn't have time to look at it? He put together the goody bags you asked him to put together, but it took him too long? He "ruined Easter"? Really? Did he? I get that you are exhausted and burned out. I really do. We can all see that and sympathize. But I have no doubt he is as well. Offer up the hotel-to-study-for-the-exam thing; I have no doubt he wants to get away from you as well. You think his |
Anonymous
+1 There is undoubtedly a 2-way street of disfunction in OP's house. |
Anonymous
| How old are your kids? I left my ex with mental health and extreme executive functioning issues. Coparenting with him was a nightmare for over a decade, but he eventually met another woman and moved away. It got to the point for me where I would rather having the coparenting nightmare than have to live under the same roof as him, BUT it was tough on our only child - he'd drop them off at school super late, never do their laundry, forget about pickups leaving our child stranded at school or activities, fail to supervise basic hygiene during his time and showers and teeth brushing. There are soooo many things that went wrong during his parenting time. Our child has the same limitations, but at least when they are with me, I can help them through their limitations and teach them processes so they can make it on their own in the future. |
Anonymous
OP here - I'm not asking him right now to get a part-time job to pay for the housecleaner/home maintenance, but if he fails his exam again. I have been encouraging him for years to take this exam and he's taken it twice before (not in many years though) and the amount of time, money, and the impact on our family during that time was huge and he failed. I fully support him in studying for his exam and I understand if he is actually committed to studying but has signed up a few other times and then canceled after not studying at all. I have encouraged him to really sit down and make a solid study plan including hiring a tutor and please let me know how I can support him with that because it is important and he won't progress in his career without it. I've asked a few times since then (6 weeks ago) and he is basically not studying and has not followed up at all with tutoring. What I'm saying is that if he fails again or cancels it, then I'd like for him to figure out how to pay for extra support to maintain the house. Karate/scouts: Yes, he takes him to those activities but often skips out because he is too tired and doesn't follow emails or information provided at the events that are shared with parents about the kids needing to complete some paperwork for karate or when there is a special belt promotion or when the scouts are supposed to practice knot-tying or some other thing before the next meeting and he simply doesn't do it and doesn't encourage our son to participate at all. He doesn't note on the calendar scout events or encourage him to prep for those things at all, so he misses most of the fun activities.....he does the bare minimum for our son to participate. With the doctor/therapist/medical stuff - I've told him that it doesn't seem like his medical/psychiatric needs are being met by his current plan because he is physically unhealthy (he's been gaining a ton of weight, has super low energy, falls asleep constantly, seems foggy headed, and seems more depressed). I don't know what the right fit would be but it is something he needs to really bring up and talk with his doctor about. I also encouraged him to meet with a therapist in person because he found a therapist through a random virtual website and from what he's shared, it doesn't sound like he is receiving quality therapy and he is literally going weekly and his ability to function is getting worse, not better. I sent him a list (including a couple of things that were to-do) during work but he also had time to read it AFTER work but chose to not take any time to actually read it at all. He put the goody bags together but he complained about how much work it was and left a huge amount of trash just sitting all over our basement and completely failed to even do the other part of the task (these tasks should have only taken a total of 30 minutes but I was trying get him to do something so I didn't have to do EVERYTHING). Most of the time he actually completes a task, it is because I had to literally write out each individual step and if I don't write out every, single step for him and remind him and put an alarm on to remind me to remind him 2-3 times, he simply won't do it. I simply asked him to please wrap the 4 boxed birthday gifts for our child (that I picked out and purchased, along with the wrapping paper and birthday card) and because I did not specify to please make them look nice with a ribbon or bow on them along with his name and who it is from, he didn't do any of that. Just boxes wrapped, nothing more. That's pretty much how every task is done if he even does it. It's exhausting. I don't expect him to do exactly as I do it but there's some things that are nuanced and are just understood as part of a task and that's not something he understands or does. It's gotten way way worse as our kids have gotten older and schedules more demanding. |
Anonymous
| Also the last part of the comment "he ruined easter- really??" we made the most of it but yeah, it was not an amazing day. I spent a huge amount of time doing a home project that we have needed to do (he chose to not help) and I asked him to please help with cleaning up our patio so we could hang out there on easter and this week and he helped a tiny bit but complained so much and honestly left it looking almost as bad as when he started even after I tried to give him a few tips that I had to literally spend over 1.5 hours on easter cleaning it myself and then cleaning the basement up myself so we could all sit and watch a movie while he sat around and then made a little dinner and threw a huge fit that no one ever helps him make dinner and it was just too much (only task asked of him at all that day) and half threw the food on the table, yelling at the kids, wouldn't come to the table until like 10 minutes after everyone else was seated and pouted so yeah, it really did impact our day. |
Anonymous
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Sounds like you're setting yourself up for disappointment and him up for failure. You know he has poor executive functioning but keep expecting him to just suddenly step up and do tasks like put together favors? You really thought that would lighten your load versus create the trash heap?
You know he has for years avoided solving problems but you expect him to just start doing it now? Does your therapist ever talk to you about setting boundaries and how you can only control yourself? If he's going to be how he's going to be, you have to decide what to do with that. Don't parcel out tasks and expect him to suddenly change out of nowhere this time. Lighten your own load other ways. |