Reply to At my wit's end--what the heck do I do?

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[quote=Anonymous]2019 has been.....challenging, relationship wise. DH and I are struggling, no doubt. Our son will be 3 next month. This year, I went back to work, on top of going through 7 months of non-surgical treatment to finally address significant childbirth injuries. DH underwent major surgery that will require a year of regular follow up appointments. A lot of upheaval and change.

Throw in we both pretty clearly cycle through bouts of depression, and have for the 20 years we've known each other. I've been working with a therapist since before DS was born, including multiple rounds of using medication to address it. DH refuses to do so. He also refuses couples therapy.

We have talked time and time again about how he needs professional help. We've talked about how I am maxed out, that I simply have no capacity to act as therapist and do the song and dance required to help improve his moods. He'll sometimes make an effort of a week or two, but then back to where we were.

Lately, everything sets him off. DS saying "no, I want mommy!" send's DH not just crying, but practically a tantrum, and then is prickly jerk for the rest of the day. Random, unexplained bouts of what seems to amount to the silent treatment (although there's a lot of sighing and stomping around that come with it) have become the norm. Anything going other than 100% smoothly and as DH expected will result in pouting at a minimum. I'm basically having to manage two toddlers, only one of them never seems to get over whatever prompted the outburst and, oh yeah, he's a friggin' adult.

I took to ignoring it, because I can't figure out how else to deal--which, as you may imagine, doesn't fix the problem and ended up only making things worse. This morning, DH is having another one of his fits (why? Who knows. He woke up in a bad mood, then decided to get into a power struggle with DS over which flavor oatmeal to make) and stormed into the bedroom, leaving me to wrangle the kid and handle all the morning stuff alone.

Cue me saying something I [i]probably[/i] shouldn't have said but my frustration boiled over: "I don't know what the hell is going on, but pull yourself together and get over it." (Yeah, really shouldn't have said it)

Tears, histrionics, accusations that me and DS don't love him, devolved into a nice litany of every wrong I've ever committed against him, real and imagined......I left to take DS to daycare and go to work without even saying goodbye.

So.

I don't want a divorce (I don't think, at least). but I don't know what to do. I've begged DH to see a professional. I've made appointments only to have him cancel or flake. I've tried to be supportive and make things as easy as possible for him. But this living situation is damn near intolerable. I feel my own (very hard-fought) mental health is teetering on the edge of "pretty good" and headed straight for "complete $hit" because of this.

You know what, I typed all this out, read it again, and thought "Jesus, this is abusive." If my friend said this stuff, I'd say "this is not a healthy relationship, get out." Am I reading my relationship correctly? Have things become so warped that I didn't notice? Am I completely off the charts here and this is just a bump in the long relationship road and I'm overreacting?[/quote]

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