[Sine Language]

Hello all, first off I apologize in advance. Whenever I post I tend to type a lot, and I know this thread post is going to be huge. I'll try to remember to put a TL;DR at the end.

I will start with some information about myself. I was born and have lived in California my whole life. Have been married to my wife for over 5 years and we have a four year old child. I finished getting my bachelor's degree about.. 4 months ago.. yea it's been four months haha, and was able to secure a job two months after graduating, which was such a huge accomplishment given the current job market and the field I entered.

So what brings me here? Well, for a long time I have had many occurrences of depression. These have actually occurred even before I was with my wife, more so feeling of loneliness back than of not having anyone to be with. Now, and for many years though, I feel that my depression stems from the marriage and the relationship in itself.

My wife and I have never had a smooth relationship, to understate it. Even when just dating, we went through many break ups, where things would just end, and than a month later we would be back together. My wife.... well she can be very caring and kind, when things are going well. But if things are not going well, if her mood isn't right, it becomes all about her and her mood. It's hard to explain but will try my best.

The earliest example I can think of is back in one Valentine when we were dating. We had plans to be eating sushi that night and just spending time together. Well unfortunately for me, I picked up a stomach virus and was stuck in the bathroom the entire night, with horrendous diarrhea. The night was just so painful I just kept wishing it would end.

Well during and following the whole incident, my wife (than girlfriend) only expressed her disappointment on how the whole night was ruined and didn't go as planned . I just didn't know what to say or how to respond to that, like it didn't matter I was so ill, what mattered to her was how she felt, basically Valentine's was ruined.

This happens quite a lot, as I said when things are not going well, she just doesn't care about anything but herself. Even just yesterday, where was a gift she had gotten me that was on the couch. I had forgotten to take it to work, as I recently had money stolen from my bank account (someone got a hold of my card info and pin through a card scanner and withdrew $2,000 in two days from there) so my mind was all wrapped up on that. Well our son was jumping around near it and she asked if the gift was still in the box. I told her yes, that I had forgotten about it due to the whole banking incident.

Her response, "I don't care why it was forgotten, I don't want it here where it can be broken"...

But I think I am getting a bit ahead of myself. My parents and her never have fully gotten along and I have not gotten fully along with her parents. Both kind of disapproved a bit of the marriage due to how many times we had broken up. I will start with my family side.

My wife would always be very suspicious and sensitive to anything that was said to her or about her. When we were going to have our child, my parents expressed concern to me, that they felt my wife didn't like them and wanted to know if they had done something. I told them that wasn't the case and things were good. When I expressed this to my wife, she was furious that they would think that of her. I was so puzzled, as I was just telling her what they felt and they wanted things to be good between everyone.

Well this resulted in a lot of back of forth, with me being in the middle trying to act as the mediator. The end result was a full blown argument between everyone. In the mist of everything, I sided with my wife, as she was the person I was married too, even though inside of me I knew and felt she made things a lot worst than they should have been. This resulted in me not seeing or being in direct contact with my parents for almost 2 years. Just recently I decided to start back in contact with them (I went over their house on Christmas) and things between my parents and me are good, water under the bridge. My wife has no contact with them, and my parents have not seen our son (their grandchild) for over two years.

I have told both sides I will not be mediating between them like before, as the end result was just everything blowing up on my face, I was not going to have it again. My wife just said "Ok", but I know she has no plans of making amends, and does not want our son over with them. My parents I know they want to see their grandchild, but they are not going to apologize for what happened, as they had apologized before to try to make peace but it didn't last. So that's where my parent side stands.

Now for my wife's side. My wife and her mother are very attached to one another. It comes more so from the mother. Back when we had plans to move about 25 miles away, the mother was already telling her husband to look for homes in the same city, the thought of her and her daughter not being close to one another is just unbearable. And in the same sense, my wife has the same view. She doesn't want to be too far from her mom either.

This relationship has been a major strain on our marriage. For many years at first, my wife would tell her mom everything about the marriage. She would tell her about all the problems we were having, fights that would occur, if I said anything negative about her, everything! There was an incident, where we had just gotten married, and I was going over to my in-law's house to help do some work for them. Well the MIL had this need to always constantly talk, and it was very distracting. When my wife came by and we were driving off, she asked why I was in a bad mood. I told her that honestly, her mom comes off annoying sometimes and it was very hard to be in the house with her for long periods of times.

She became mad about the whole incident and demanded she be taken back to her mom's house and dropped off. Well she told her mom what I had said, and this in turn made the mom furious. She was telling her (my wife) she needs to end the marriage now, to get an annulment, otherwise she will be in misery the entire time. Eventually my wife's grandmother spoke with her, and told her she doesn't have to tell her mom everything, that it isn't good for the marriage, and she kind of took the hint.

Fast forward a bit and my wife wants to have a child. I had told her, back when we were dating, that I wanted to wait until I was done getting my degree before having a child. She kept insisting, bringing up the longer you wait the more medical problems you can have, and so forth. Eventually I gave him, with her assuring me that my study's wouldn't be affected. Well that was so not the case at all. She originally thought her mom would be watching our child a lot, but that wasn't the case. The amount of time she would watch him was very little. On top of that, she didn't want my parents watching him (arguments happening between them) so I was stuck having to go to school, just taking one or two classes each semester.

Around this time, to try to save money, we discussed and decided to move in with my wife's parents, as they have a 6 bedroom home and there was three bedrooms not being used. Probably the dumbest move ever, but at the time it sounds good. I decided to take a gamble and start working as a tutor on my own, getting my own clients and such. This made my hours more flexible and it was going good for a while. I landed a second tutoring job and that would have really made income come in well, well MIL said she wasn't going to watch our child that much anymore, so I became stuck. Because now I had to watch our child full time, and my wife still refused to let my parents watch him.

The arguing got worse, we would argue in front of her parents, and when she would mock me by imitating my voice in front of them, the MIL and sister (they have a much younger daughter, she was 14 at the time) would just burst out laughing, making me feel even worst. I was so hurt and angry, because I now felt stuck, having gotten the raw end of the deal. My wife got to do what she was doing, her job schedule didn't change, but everything about my schedule had to accommodate our child. My schooling, my work, everything. And her MIL would only watch our child when it was to the benefit of our daughter, not when it was needed for myself.

Well the arguing got worse and the last straw happened. I had arranged to have some tutoring sessions over the xmas break, with one being in the eve of xmas for two hours. My wife was upset that I would rather work than be there for xmas eve, yet here I was broke because I could barely work and it was going to be for just two hours. Well argued back and forth and eventually she threw a bowl of food in my face. I just stood there for a moment, and than just walked away to clean myself up. I had enough. It was not the first time she had thrown things at me, but it was the last straw for me.

I cleaned myself up, apologized to her and pretended everything was all and well. She left for work that night, and while everyone else was sleeping, I packed up all my things and just left. I didn't know where I was going, I just had to leave and wanted no part of that hell hole. In the process I left a very angry letter to my wife, which the MIL opened and read herself when she realized I wasn't there anymore.

I think I should add, during the time we was living there, I was also seeing a therapist at my university. It helped a bit to talk about it, but my wife would make it worse by asking what I was saying, and accusing me at times of not being truthful to the therapist, or fully disclosing everything. That the issues we were having were my problem and I had to fix them.

Back to the point, after two weeks we got in contact and decided to go through marriage counseling. We expressed our concerns and found a place of our own with our child. The MIL was furious beyond believe that she went back to me, demanding that my wife call me and let her curse me out to get her anger out, and so forth. I wanted no part of her. My wife expressed she wanted things amended between her mother and me, and with help with the marriage counselor to let out what I felt, I apologized for the whole incident, but was of course lying about it, for my wife's sake. On the same token, my wife eventually made amends with my parents.

Life went on, and over time, the issues we were having started to come back again. She started telling her mother things again, snide remarks being made, and the same self-centerness as before when she wasn't in a good mood. Three things happened that made me really start considering divorce.

The first was in a an argument over how stressed I was. The cause of my stress was from the behavior of our son. For most of his life I had to be the primary caretaker of him, while going to school and working part time. It was getting to be too much for me. In the argument she threw in the comment of how I obviously was not ready to have children and that I shouldn't have wanted to have one so soon.

It just made my blood boil, and I said nothing. How dare she throw that at me, when it was her that wanted to have the kid. When I had expressed that I wanted to wait until I was finished with my schooling, I just couldn't believe it. The sentiment just festered inside of me.

The second was an incident that had involved her sister. We were at a theme park, and while waiting in line, we were all messing around with one another. Well at one point I was bumping her sister in the back with my shoulder, trying to push her towards my wife. The sister had in fact felt uncomfortable about the bumping, and I had no idea of it.

Well the sister told her mom, who in turn told my wife about the whole incident, and she questioned me about it. I was shocked about it, and than she started asking if I had a thing for her sister. I was in disbelieve, my own wife actually thought I was capable of sexual harassment and was questioning if I had a thing for her 15 year old sister. I was so angry and yelled back at how she could even ask something like that. My own wife, thinking I could possibly be a pedophile, oh it just makes me so mad.

The third and final was an argument over how I commented how she always seemed to side with her mother's opinion over my own. We went back and forth on it, and she admitted that she only really trusted her mother. That she did not fully trust me over what had happened when we lived with her parents. After 3 and half years, after I had sided with her over my own parents, she didn't have trust in me. She felt only her mother really has her back. I just didn't know what to think anymore, after all this time, if she didn't have trust in me, would she ever?

So that's marriage life for me thus far When you add on that, our child is very difficult to deal with. We have had to take him for evaluations due to his hyper activity, but the behavior just keeps getting worse. It has gotten to the point that the only way he will listen is when he is yelled it, it is just awful. Every time I feel terrible shortly after, I don't want to have to yell at him, but he does things that are of danger to himself, it just keeps getting worse.

So that's the bulk of things for myself. I have a career in a field I have been working to get into for two years, and the job is great. But life at home isn't, and I don't know if it is really as bad as I make it sounds, or if it is just me, or what. As of late I have just been feeling really depressed, and don't know what to do. There are times I just wish I could be alone, away from everything.

TL;DR: Extremely rocky marriage, depression from wife actions and comments, child behavior, and family/in-law dynamics, not sure how to cope.

[Rohag]

As you have a history of depression that predates your marriage, the current collection of stresses cannot help (understatement). I personally do not believe any amount of counseling or medication can counter the social/emotional environment you describe. For things to get better for you, I suspect some sort of distance is required.

Please gather other opinions.

[Sine Language]

That's how I feel, that given the situation, therapy or medication wouldn't really solve my mood issues, because they stem from the environment I am in. The though of going through a divorce is scary, especially because we have a child. A part of inside feels like it might be a huge mistake to undergo that path, but almost daily I am reminded why I need to separate from the situation.

My mood is a lot better today, I've notice it can swing quite a lot from feeling really down to being okay. I've sometimes wonder if I may be bipolar, or if it is normal to go through mood swings given my situation.

[Fuzzybear]

Originally Posted by Sine Language

That's how I feel, that given the situation, therapy or medication wouldn't really solve my mood issues, because they stem from the environment I am in. The though of going through a divorce is scary, especially because we have a child. A part of inside feels like it might be a huge mistake to undergo that path, but almost daily I am reminded why I need to separate from the situation.

My mood is a lot better today, I've notice it can swing quite a lot from feeling really down to being okay. I've sometimes wonder if I may be bipolar, or if it is normal to go through mood swings given my situation.

I have a history of depression. I'm currently trying to get separated from my common law husband bc exactly as you say, things stemming from your environment. My mental health and general happiness has seriously deteriorated' over the years. I know divorce is scary, but you have to put yourself and your child's well being first. I too have a child, and I don't want him growing up with the misery we are currently living. If parents are separated and living happily, a child is more likely to be happy vs growing up in an unhappy home with parents in a dysfunctional relationship. Whatever you choose, it won't be easy. If you do choose to think about divorce, people I know have said it will be a long road. You might go through hell but once you get to the other side, it's glorious.

[Sine Language]

Thank you for the hearts fuzzy bear

Zay, that's exactly what I am thinking also. Separated I feel the environment would be so much better, at least on my side. I have no idea what it would be for my wife to be honest, or how she would even take a divorce, but I know this can't keep going on.

[Sine Language]

Feeling even worse now, son is acting up even more today, and I am the one stuck trying to calm him down. I think after 4 years of having to be the main one to watch and care for him, while juggling school, work and this disaster of a marriage, I am at the point that any little thing sets me off, my tolerance is just so thin. I hate being this way, because my son is on the end of the backlash of this, and I don't want it to be this way :/ it just sucks

[fantasyland]

Originally Posted by Sine Language

Feeling even worse now, son is acting up even more today, and I am the one stuck trying to calm him down. I think after 4 years of having to be the main one to watch and care for him, while juggling school, work and this disaster of a marriage, I am at the point that any little thing sets me off, my tolerance is just so thin. I hate being this way, because my son is on the end of the backlash of this, and I don't want it to be this way :/ it just sucks

Just love and be the best daddy you can be He will appreciate that in the long run

Originally Posted by Sine Language

Feeling even worse now, son is acting up even more today, and I am the one stuck trying to calm him down. I think after 4 years of having to be the main one to watch and care for him, while juggling school, work and this disaster of a marriage, I am at the point that any little thing sets me off, my tolerance is just so thin. I hate being this way, because my son is on the end of the backlash of this, and I don't want it to be this way :/ it just sucks

Do you have any emotional support for yourself right now; whether its in the form of trustworthy coworkers, friends, relatives or even a therapist? You seem to have a lot of weight on your shoulders with the responsibilities you have, being a single dad and being separated from your wife. You need support too. Don't neglect yourself. No shame in seeking help when you both deserve to have it, and need it, so that you can function at your best, esp. during stressful periods of life.

As far as your son's disobedience. Do you think its a side effect of your separation from your wife? Or do you think its just part of his personality? What do you do to help him calm down? What are the doctors' opinions who've evaluated him? Autism? ADHD? An actual health problem? Or just an emotional reaction/response to his parents' being separated?

I read through your threads. It sounds like your wife and her mother have very enmeshed boundaries. So, I can see why it negatively impacted your marriage, if she tells her mother everything about what goes on between you and her (which is none of her mother's business, nor should it be, really). She doesn't seem like she's on your team. I always think of marriage as two people being on the same team; same values, same goals, wanting to support and nurture each other through the good times and bad.

Divorce is scary, but it is better than staying with a person who is toxic to your well being. There are systems and resources in place, that are meant to help parents (not necessarily family court, but moreso nonprofits and support groups is what I'm thinking of) in your situation.

And I agree with your observation that neither medication or therapy can fix your situation, that has more to do with the environment you're in. Medication can't fix a broken relationship (at least that's what I believe, some will disagree with me, and that's o.k.).

Therapy, to a certain extent, can help if it is with a person who you trust. But, if you aren't comfortable going to see a therapist, then maybe try to find a support group for single parents (for dads), in your city, where you can go and vent and seek emotional support from men who are going through your situation too.

What I really think will help you, is to change your environment (live separately from your wife while you think through the possibility of divorce and how to transition from being married to being single again), so that you can see things from a fresher perspective, if that makes any sense?

I think the worst thing married people can do to themselves, their families, and to each other as a partner, is to stay married when they are not good for each other. If marriage counseling isn't an option, or is an option that fails to repair the dissonance between both partner's values, goals, boundaries, and such, then divorce really is the best option (as stressful as it is to go through).

I don't know if anything I wrote was helpful. Just thinking out loud about your situation. Don't lose yourself during this time. Make sure you have solid friends you can get support from when you need it.

[Sunflower123]

Does your son have a diagnosis like autism or ADHD? If not, he may be sensitive to all the animus in your marriage. I totally agree that marital therapy, medication, and talking it out won't work. You need to get out before you lose your mind. Do you have anybody to support you through this? It will be hard but you'll be happier. You still might see your pdoc since you're experiencing depression. This may help you through. If you have a good therapist you might see them too for support. I wish you the best of luck.