Giving up on 20 years..... help please

Hi all,

Have been searching the web for months, everywhere, looking for someone to help me, even went to a support councillor and poured out my heart and sole for 3 hours, and by the end of that I felt there was hope. But each and every day, my soul mate, partner and wife who I have known for 20 years, are coming up on our 17th wedding aniversary and our first child has just turned 1 year, but each and every moment of every day I am with her she treats me as an emotional doormat, tickles my heart strings rarely and in the next moment stomps all over them.

She has had depression for many years, and over those I have tried and tried to get her help, and she just kept retreating, making excuses, and when times were good they were absolutely great, but when they are bad, they are unbearable.

Since the birth of our son, it has gotten worse, she no longer tells me she loves me, I get looks of hatred daily, snappy, unhappy, everything is my fault, I dont spend enough time at home, dont do enough for our son, dont spend enough time with him etc, in her eyes. In reality I work 5 days a week, leave at 8am and get in at 7pm, and from the moment I get in I am straight to her and our son, listen to her moans about her day, how tired she is, how she had no time to do anything around the house, and I play with our son for half hour and take him for a bath, dress him for bed, read a bed time story and put him to bed. But that is not enough. At weekends I take him out to give her a break, but thats not enough, I have taken us out as a family and just get moaned at how tired she is.

Got a babysitter and took us out for regular meals, but she is on edge the entire time, working herself up worrying about him, and the meal is a waste of money and time and achieves nothing.

This now is the 4th time I have walked out in the past 5 months, and this time I feel its over. Christmas was the worst Christmas I have ever had, it was meant to be special, our sons first, and she didnt both getting me a gift from her or him, saying "I never know what to buy you", and then moaned about the gifts I got her from him.

Boxing day she started an arguement and accused me of the worst, saying I pick on her and bully her, and really went to town on me, its the lowest I have felt, to me it has completely shattered any and all trust I had for her, I have always treated her with respect and always put her before me, now I feel guilty if I think of me first.

I went back on New Years eve to start the new year, fresh and we agreed to start again, when I got back all she could talk about was how well she did on her own, and didnt want to discuss what we had talked about, just said "we are fine now".

The past few weeks have been the same. I did late last year convince her to go to a councillor, as I know she has despression, and maybe on top Post Natal as it has escalated since our son was born. After the first appointment she came back smiling saying "I dont have post natal, I am fine". a few more appointments and she stopped going, I dont actually think she really went, or if she did she did not open up.

Right now I am sat at my parents, in pieces and the only solution I can see is for us to split, sell the house that we put so much investment in, split assets and then work out access. I feel my son is living in depression 7 days a week, and if I cannot change it at home, then at least if we do split his time will be with me completely happy and depression free.

Am I being selfish thinking on me? I feel it, I feel terrible just wanting to give up, but I can feel the darkness of her depression surrounding me and trying to pull me in, I love life, live each day as it comes, because you never know when it will stop.

Please help.

Fred

Fred, I agree with Karen.

You need to work on you and know that you are a good person.

Be there for your child anyway you can and don't give up on the relationship yet. Stay strong and realize when she is trying and when she is manipulating you. That way you can see of the relationship will be toxic or not for you.

I wish you strength and Peace
Trina

It is clinical proven that crying is a way to release toxins in the body and to relieve stress. self medicating will only make your situation worse for you.

Please reconsider taking care of yourself first so you can be a wonderful Dad.

No one will help you, if you don't help yourself first!

Peace
Trina

Reading your post is like someone's telling my story, i am in an identical situation except i have 2 children. Even our sleeping ritual is the same. there's no more me in existence just her. But i need to be strong for my 2 kids and they are my only source of strength at this point in time I have other concerns now which is the fear that my younger kid is having a trace of her mother's gene. She's agitated very
easily and has a bad temper. I have consulted a doctor and is closely monitoring her well being. Stay strong dude, it's long battle and will not end anytime soon... i've live with this and will continue till my kids are emotionally independent.

Only she can help herself. The timing might be different than you have hoped. It is now up to her. Make sure you give her options. Try not to be angry or hurt if she doesn't get help when you would hope she would. I hope I make sense. It is just that we all aren't on the same schedule. Sometimes a person needs to bottom out before they get help.

She might have post partum depression. How old is your son? Be there for her when you can. But think of yourself and your life and mental health first.

Keep trying, never give up. Keep posting.

Hugs, Karen

I think she needs to see somebody about post partum depression. I hope you can get her to go. It is mostly hormonal, but can be chemical embalance also.

Best wishes...

Hugs, Karen...

Well where to start.

I came home after spending a few days at my mothers, thinking over everything and what has happened over the past year, the problems issues and were I want to be. My main goal being happy again, and should life be this hard. Each time I thought on the journey I cried, and it was a very long drive(600 miles!)

I played over the journey to my mums in my head, and a flashing thought came across me, I remembered thinking would it be easier if I just crashed the car, wife and son would get the payout from the insurance and they would be happy. Or would they, it was nothing more than a passing thought, I have seen the destruction it does to a family, we had a close family member do the same and it tore my mum apart for years.

When I got back I came home, but parked just down the street, something in me stopped me going in, instead I went to a mates who offered me a spare bed and set of keys and said take as long as you need.

After driving 600 miles including a 3.5 hour ferry, I was shattered, had been awake for more than 24 hours and it was now 6.30am, so I went to the spare room, but simply could not sleep, took me till about 2pm to doze off, but woke a couple of hours later.

I decided I had to go home and work through this, when I did, my wife was feeding our son his supper, we both looked at each other and I suppose silently acknowledged we would speak after he went to bed.

We did normal bedtime for him, but he could tell something was wrong and didnt quite settle as normal, but he was in bed by 8pm.

From there, the wife and I talked for hours, up till about 3am discussing everything, and we aired absoutely everything. Thats when it hit me, and hit me hard, it was not my wife going through a depression, yes she was overwhelmed by the birth of our first child, and yes she was negleting the house and me, but I have been carrying around baggage for years. My father was physically abusive, temper like thunder, if he hit with the cane he didnt stop till you bled, and in my teens I was sexually assaulted by a man who befriended me, my mother and father had a relationship that was always arguements, normally her left in tears and him storming out for days, and you ran and hid.

I left home when I was 17 because I could not take it any more, and my Mum left him shortly after, I went through a period of blaming me for them splitting. Over the years there have been a few incidents, bullying at work and other stuff I am not ready to deal with. But the birth of my son dragged out all my old skeletons, my Father cut me off when I was about 19 and wouldnt speak to me for 15 years, now his attitude is "its in the past, we dont need to talk about it", well I need closure.

Over the past few years my sleeping has been getting worse and worse, nightmare to go sleep, have nightmares when asleep then takes my wife about 1 - 2 hours to get me out of bed.

My wife and I want to work at this and I want to get better, I went and saw my GP who has referred me to a service for depression, waiting for them to contact me, but perscribed sleeping tabs to help me get some sleep, they worked fine the first night, and havent since. Went back and they have put me on anti-depressants, and I have to go back in two weeks to review and see how its going.

Its a long road ahead, I am frightened, and I hope my wife remains supportive, I hope we can get through this.

Thank you all for listening, and if you are going through the same, I really do feel for you.

Fred