DH (WH) about to be hospitalized for suicide ideation- what do I need to know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here-

I'm also supposed to leave for my first business trip since I got a promotion on Monday. Is this something I can/should be honest with my boss about?

Do I try to reach DHs individual therapist somehow?

My reply is 100% influenced by the affair. Otherwise I would say DH comes first.

If you can get your in-laws or parents to help with the kids, I would 100% go on this business trip

You don't know what the future holds. If your marriage will last. You deserve to put yourself first too (along with kids). He certainly did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BTDT

You call his therapist.

You aren’t responsible, that is hard to hear but he needs to own all.of.his.shit.

If you have guns or opioids remove them from the house.

Step back, he and his therapist need to work this out.

He needs to take sick leave for 1-2 weeks. He does NOT need to tell his boss why. He tells his therapist to work with his primary care to write a letter to work saying he is having a major medical emergency and will be off.

He need individual NOT MARITAL therapy. He needs to go 2x a week for now. If he has trauma in his past he needs to do DBT.

His affair, his suicide ideation HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU.

You continue your life as a strong, intelligent, caring mother and employee. I know you are carrying a huge emotional load.

Ask in laws to come and care for the kids while you are away.

Do not change your plans with his emotionally manipulative actions.

If you aren’t in individual therapy do that, put marital therapy on the back burner.

Get a cleaner, someone to cut your lawn, order in… do whatever you need to do to keep yourself sane. It’s going to be for a short period of time.

Work and kids are your focus.

Read about the 180 in affairs and chump lady.

+1 to all of this. The affair makes this behavior scream emotionally manipulative to me as well. "Everyone is asking too much of me!" type of thing.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think they will hospitalize for ideation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:30 again -

You can tell your boss you have a family medical emergency (true) and can no longer go on the business trip. I wouldn’t go in these circumstances, not with kids in the picture.

Yikes, strongly disagree. As a former wife to a DH with serious mental illness who cheated, I wish I had understood that, even at a time of crisis, the most important thing was for me NOT to sacrifice my own career and earning power. In fact, the best thing for all of us (mentally ill spouse and me and kids) was to maintain, stabilize and increase career and earning power. Everything is tied to that - financial ability to pay for good treatment, access to good quality medical insurance partially paid by employer, Social Security and Medicare credits from working, access to credit/loans, etc.

The way you maintain your career and help DH is by asking for help from reliable family and friends, even if it’s “embarrassing” (although no one should feel embarrassed about mental health care - you’d ask for help if he had a heart attack, right?).

Ask his family to step up and have someone move with him and kids while you are gone. Or ask if he and kids can stay with someone else while you’re gone - either separately or together. He could stay with family and kids could stay with friends - again either together or separately. If your kids have friends - strategize about asking for a “sleepover” just explain that there is a family crisis and DH can’t take care of the kids while you are away on first big business trip in new promotion.

I agree with others that suicidal talk rarely results in hospitalization unless there is a plan to accomplish it.

Is he only doing individual therapy? He needs to see a psychiatrist immediately, get evaluated, and follow any medication recommendations.

In sickness and in health does NOT mean that you sacrifice career and earning power to “fix” him. You are the one keeping the family afloat - I wish I had recognized that much sooner.

As other PPs have said, he merely has to call in and say he’s taking a sick day on Monday. He doesn’t have to disclose condition, until company policy requires him to provide medical documentation for sick or disability leave. He can use neutral phrase like “health emergency”. PPs are also right that he has some protection from disability law. If his or your employer offers an EAP with legal advice you may be able to get some employment law advice.

That said, people do get fired, legally & illegally, so you need to be prepared. If he gets fired, it will be a “special event” that entitles you to get healthcare for you all with your employer or on the ACA marketplace even though it’s not open season.

If continuing to work full-throttle during a family medical emergency would “sacrifice” your career at a given company, I’d argue it’s better to learn that early.

I think you’re putting too much of your own situation onto this one. If the OP’s husband had a stroke, would you still suggest she go on the business trip? This country’s obsession with working long hours is deeply unhealthy. It’s quite possible that the acute stress of the OP’s husband having to work all-hours for two weeks, while he was already in a difficult situation, and the resulting lack of sleep precipitated this suicidal crisis. That’s not okay.

If the OP ends up a single parent, she’ll need to learn to work smarter, not necessarily longer hours. Just because that’s the model for many large companies doesn’t mean it’s the only one. Rely on family and friends, absolutely, AND tend to your own health. What happens if the OP has to work those kinds of bananas hours and has a similar health crisis? Is work going to be there for her?

[Anonymous]

Are you the same OP who had a recent long thread about the DH with an emotional affair?

[Anonymous]

Cancelling or postponing a business trip because your spouse is in the hospital is not sacrificing your career.

[Anonymous]

You're getting a lot of advice here, OP, and most of it seems good, but I want to add one thing: Do not leave him alone with your children after this.

Like someone above notes, I rather doubt he's going to be admitted to inpatient unless you're very fortunate and get a doctor who believes your DH is an imminent danger to himself, and frankly you may not get that lucky. The "ideation" you mention seems to be your take, not yet a doctor's opinion. It can be harder than people realize to get an inpatient emergency commitment to a hospital. If they admit him-- great, but you still cannot travel unless you have complete coverage for your kids 24/7 if he's in the hospital. And you and he and the kids need someone there to live with him and the kids after he's released, if he's released while you're gone (on this work trip or any other work trip). in fact, consider lining up live-in help, period. I am not saying he's a danger to your kids but he at least should not be trying to cope with parenting if he's dead-eyed, checked out and talking about dying. You need TOTAL help all day and night, not a little babysitting here and there.

Also ask yourself if you will be able to do your work effectively on this trip if you are thinking every second about your DH and kids back home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cancelling or postponing a business trip because your spouse is in the hospital is not sacrificing your career.

+1

I think OP is in understandable fear that canceling her first trip after a promotion looks bad. And frankly it will to some. But if her DH gets hospitalized, she needs to treat it the same as if he'd been in a terrible car crash and was hospitalized -- who would leave in that circumstance? No one. It might be a short-term ding with a few managers at work but not with any decent manager.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you the same OP who had a recent long thread about the DH with an emotional affair?

You mean the OP who was on travel halfway around the world when she uncovered her DH's years-long affair that involved sex only one time but years of sexting etc. with a very needy other woman, iright? Yeah, I'm wondering if it's the same OP as well. It would help to know if only because that OP detailed how very close she and her DH's families are with the couple and with each other. That OP should have some serious, readily available family support and backup with the kids, at least. Unless the family has distanced themselves from the DH after finding out about his affair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cancelling or postponing a business trip because your spouse is in the hospital is not sacrificing your career.

+1

I think OP is in understandable fear that canceling her first trip after a promotion looks bad. And frankly it will to some. But if her DH gets hospitalized, she needs to treat it the same as if he'd been in a terrible car crash and was hospitalized -- who would leave in that circumstance? No one. It might be a short-term ding with a few managers at work but not with any decent manager.

I disagree. I’m the BTDT poster.

She is being manipulated. The more his emotional manipulation causes OP to change your plans the more he learns that his manipulation works to his favor

I don’t think she should go on her trip for career reasons. She needs to go on her trip to show her husband. His mental health issues are his and his only and she will not stop her life for him.

To people who have not dealt with this, this might seem cold, but this is actually a form of treatment. You can’t compare this situation to a stroke. Just like you would not treat a mentally ill person with the same treatment plan as he would somebody with a stroke

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do not cancel your first trip in your new job. Jesus. It could be your only income soon.

Do NOT tell his employer!! If he is able to work he has to, work is essential for self esteem espy for men and getting fired or stigmatized over mental health issues will make him worse.

His therapist needs to step it up. Is he on medication? He should be.

Don't listen to this: tell your employer your dh is having a medical emergency and cancel the trip. Tell your dh's employer he is having a medical emergency.

The only thing I agree with is to not tell them anything about mental health.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cancelling or postponing a business trip because your spouse is in the hospital is not sacrificing your career.

100% this. If you are a high performer who never has to back out of something, you'll be fine saying a family health emergency, DH hospitalized. Ignore the drama about sacrificing your career because you can't take one business trip. BTDT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cancelling or postponing a business trip because your spouse is in the hospital is not sacrificing your career.

+1

I think OP is in understandable fear that canceling her first trip after a promotion looks bad. And frankly it will to some. But if her DH gets hospitalized, she needs to treat it the same as if he'd been in a terrible car crash and was hospitalized -- who would leave in that circumstance? No one. It might be a short-term ding with a few managers at work but not with any decent manager.

where do you people work that it’s expected to go on work travel while spouse is in the hospital, especially with kids? Everywhere I’ve worked it would look bad to carry on as usual under those circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're getting a lot of advice here, OP, and most of it seems good, but I want to add one thing: Do not leave him alone with your children after this.

Like someone above notes, I rather doubt he's going to be admitted to inpatient unless you're very fortunate and get a doctor who believes your DH is an imminent danger to himself, and frankly you may not get that lucky. The "ideation" you mention seems to be your take, not yet a doctor's opinion. It can be harder than people realize to get an inpatient emergency commitment to a hospital. If they admit him-- great, but you still cannot travel unless you have complete coverage for your kids 24/7 if he's in the hospital. And you and he and the kids need someone there to live with him and the kids after he's released, if he's released while you're gone (on this work trip or any other work trip). in fact, consider lining up live-in help, period. I am not saying he's a danger to your kids but he at least should not be trying to cope with parenting if he's dead-eyed, checked out and talking about dying. You need TOTAL help all day and night, not a little babysitting here and there.

Also ask yourself if you will be able to do your work effectively on this trip if you are thinking every second about your DH and kids back home.

Send him to go live with his parents. OP does not need to be his caretaker on top of everything else.

[Anonymous]

Is he religious at all?

Can you organize suicide watch while he travels?

Do you love him? Does he know (either way)?

Sounds like he was unhappy, had an affair to cope, became even more unhappy. He needs very serious therapy.

Can you check him into a fancy rehab/retreat center?