Desperately need DH to step up and it isn’t happening

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So your DH actually does have a FT job and makes decent money. I guess he isn’t the total fail you portrayed him as.

You can’t just stop working and then reduce expenses, you have to reduce expenses first. And since you made so much money, why don’t you have a nest egg/emergency fund? You should not be racking up debt. You sound like you just decided to stop adulting too. WTF is wrong with both of you?!

What part of their kid has been in and out of the hospital for years is hard to understand? That’s wtf is wrong. Why would you berate a person for this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your DH actually does have a FT job and makes decent money. I guess he isn’t the total fail you portrayed him as.

You can’t just stop working and then reduce expenses, you have to reduce expenses first. And since you made so much money, why don’t you have a nest egg/emergency fund? You should not be racking up debt. You sound like you just decided to stop adulting too. WTF is wrong with both of you?!

What part of their kid has been in and out of the hospital for years is hard to understand? That’s wtf is wrong. Why would you berate a person for this?

Because someone has to be an adult in this family for the child’s sake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Part time work that pays $150/hour? Are you a doctor?

Do you think that's a lot? I'm a lawyer and I bill 10 times that. If you have knowledge in a specialty area it's easy enough to be in high demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait, if you have a full-time nanny already, it shouldn't be as stressful. I think you need to upgrade your nanny to someone who can manage the process as well.

OP- if you let go some, others will step up- maybe not to your liking, but enough.
(I feel for you, I struggle with this as well)

OP, I think you should have this discussion moved to the special needs board. Otherwise you will continue to get comments like this: people thinking the problem is you having "high expectations" for things like life and death medical procedures and appointments.

source: am a psychologist who left my career because I was unable to adequately outsource my SN child's therapies/education and my DH was also emotionally unable to step up. Fortunately, he is a good financial provider.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am so very sorry to hear about your situation.

This is truly sad to see. 😢
Your husband is a complete dud…
For him to behave in such a manner & leave his family like this is outrageous imo.

My best advice is to divorce this rat.
Hopefully you can get at the very least child support from him but if he isn’t working full-time it likely will be minimal.

Do you have enough equity in your house where it might make more sense to sell it?
Reason being is that if you become a landlord - this may add add’l stress to an already stressful situation.

But yes, I suggest you rent an apartment + proceed w/divorce for sure.
It would also be a great benefit if you had supportive family who could assist you and your children during this most difficult period.

I wouldn’t try working on the marriage at this stage > it is clear to me your husband has completely checked out at this point.
Trying to salvage your union would just be setting you back 1000 steps.

Look ahead and forge a plan for you and your kids.
It may take time for it to all come to fruition but keep your eye on the prize!

I wish you all the best in your future endeavors!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I don’t see divorce as an option because then my kids would be with him unsupervised half the time. He lives in filth and is not capable of maintaining a household. His office and the garage are areas he has control over and it is not possible to walk through them or even see the floor. They are overflowing with trash, papers, computers, junk, etc.

I can’t let my kids grow up in an environment like that. I’m staying married to avoid that scenario and so I can ensure that their needs are met.

If he's that bad, maybe he wouldn't get 50/50.

Op here. My divorce attorney said that barring a documented history of violence or substance abuse, DH will unquestionably be entitled to 50/50 and I should plan accordingly. DH doesn’t use drugs and isn’t violent.

Well, yeah. But is your husband really going to step up and do 50/50 or let you continue to do everything? My bet is on the latter. And/or once you've got a record of kids missing school or doctor appointments and pictures of kids living in filth the adjustment to less than 50/50 won't be hard to get. Or find a new attorney that's willing to fight.

Look, you are working yourself into bankruptcy with your deadbeat dud of a husband and that's only going to make everything harder. I realize that as a mother you want to do what's best for your kids, but it's put on your own oxygen mask first time. You do realize that your husband is not going to move and allow renters in?

Reach out, get help from family, friends, etc., and get out of this disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is it going to work if you sell or rent your house and your mom lives on the property in an ADU?

DP - mom needs to move into the house and OP needs to rent the ADU out.

[Anonymous]

NP. Have you crunched the numbers correctly on the planned rental? It may not be worth it. If you rent an apartment for $4k, for example, then you still need to earn 8k gross to have 4k left over after taxes. If you rent out your home for 8k, you will have 4k left over from that rental income. So in my example renting our your house would not be worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I don’t see divorce as an option because then my kids would be with him unsupervised half the time. He lives in filth and is not capable of maintaining a household. His office and the garage are areas he has control over and it is not possible to walk through them or even see the floor. They are overflowing with trash, papers, computers, junk, etc.

I can’t let my kids grow up in an environment like that. I’m staying married to avoid that scenario and so I can ensure that their needs are met.

If he's that bad, maybe he wouldn't get 50/50.

Op here. My divorce attorney said that barring a documented history of violence or substance abuse, DH will unquestionably be entitled to 50/50 and I should plan accordingly. DH doesn’t use drugs and isn’t violent.

Haven’t read the replies so don’t know if this has been mentioned, but in this case I would call CPS immediately saying he’s a hoarder and the conditions aren’t safe for a child. They will then check out the house for hygiene and also fire safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth was he not doing the medical appts if he only works PT? And you quit your job while he only had a PT job?

All of this is such a mess.

I probably wouldn't stay married to someone like this, but I know it's more difficult with Sn kids in the mix.

op here. We tried having him handle the appointments. It was a disaster. Even with multiple reminders (verbally, text, and email from me and doc office), he would still be super late or not show up at all (or go to the wrong place). Then he’d go into the appointment and provide conflicting information and narratives that were inaccurate and inconsistent with each other. He’d forget or just somehow not convey the information that needed to be conveyed and then the whole appointment would be wasted. When I’d ask him afterwards what happened I couldn’t get the information I needed and DH would again say contradictory things that were inconsistent with each other. I tried doing things like FaceTiming into the appointments but that didn’t work well either.

Regardless, even if DH was more capable, there’s no scenario where I’m not going to be there for things like hospitalizations, treatments, surgery, etc. and there have been multiple things like that.

OP, I’m sorry I laughed when I read this and it’s not at all funny. He provides inaccurate, inconsistent and conflicting information to doctors, as well as misses appointments or shows up late. This is infuriating. Does he have a mental health issue? Being this level of completely incapable doesn’t seem normal.

Very sorry that you’re dealing with this, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should have quit DH , not the job. A judge would make him get a full time job.

Op here. He makes okayish money working part time and on paper it is technically a full time job. But in practice he only actually works about 10-20 hours per week, max. He’s in a super specialized tech job and speaks a couple foreign languages and could easily make much more but refuses to.

I was team OP until this. Just because he's not hunched over his computer typing furiously for 40 hours doesn't mean he's not working.

As a coder, much of my time is not typing, but rather staring off in space trying to solve a logic problem or bug. Sometimes I need to distract myself from this problem with videos games or a movie, but the problem is always there and I'm subconsciously working on it all the time.

OP's DH may have a similar job, and he may not be the parent that OP pines for, but he doesn't sound like a deadbeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I don’t see divorce as an option because then my kids would be with him unsupervised half the time. He lives in filth and is not capable of maintaining a household. His office and the garage are areas he has control over and it is not possible to walk through them or even see the floor. They are overflowing with trash, papers, computers, junk, etc.

I can’t let my kids grow up in an environment like that. I’m staying married to avoid that scenario and so I can ensure that their needs are met.

But that is not what you are doing. File for divorce with primary custody. Do you think he would fight for custody when he cannot even clean his office ? Listen, the emotional toll off being in that kind of environment with your husband now is doing 10 X the psychological damage than if you were divorced. Dude will be couch surfing.

[Anonymous]

What value does he even add to your life? Get a divorce, and at least you will get a bit of rest on the days he has custody. You need to learn how to let go of what you can’t control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I don’t see divorce as an option because then my kids would be with him unsupervised half the time. He lives in filth and is not capable of maintaining a household. His office and the garage are areas he has control over and it is not possible to walk through them or even see the floor. They are overflowing with trash, papers, computers, junk, etc.

I can’t let my kids grow up in an environment like that. I’m staying married to avoid that scenario and so I can ensure that their needs are met.

'

This isn't helping your kids.

Divorce him and do it now when you are making less $ so hopefully your alimony won't be a lot. It probably wont be a 50/50 split anyway. Get divorced, then get your life together get a great job and hire help. Or if he gets 50/50 maybe you ask a lawyer about your being the main parent who deals with all medical decisions/needs/appointments.

You should have stayed at your job and gone on intermittent FMLA. That doesn't kick in for a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would the pay at these new jobs for you make up the salary for a nanny or live-in help? Or are any of the jobs more flexible (since your last one wasnt) to allow for you to take DC to medical appts?

Op here. We have a full time nanny and my mother lives in an ADU on our property. The new jobs are not flexible. My old job is not flexible.

I know the obvious solution is for me to make a boat load of money and outsource our life. But overseeing and coordinating all the outsourcing is also a huge task. I just simply can’t do it anymore. I tried. I have been drugging myself up every morning on adderall, Prozac, and Wellbutrin to drag myself through my day for years now. It got too hard and complex for me too.

Why can't your mom help? Is she paying rent for that ADU? If not, charge her rent or rent it out also. Is there a reason your mom couldn't help with appointments or at least attend with your husband?

Can your mom move into your home and you rent out the ADU for income and your mom pays to rent her room?

And if you aren't working FT get rid of that nanny!