Stuck

These conversations you are having with your daughter are way inappropriate. You are treating her like a peer confidant. She is "pushing" for you to have your husband leave the home? This is not the kind of thing where you have "family" discussions over what to do. You are lonely and wanting someone to commiserate with you, and your daughter is filling a role that she has no business being in.

Your daughter has a right to express to you her frustrations about *her* relationship with her father - to a point. She finds him "embarrassing" and "annoying.". (Sounds like typical teen talk.) Of course, you listen, and then you move on, and then she moves on to what is her business as a child/teen or whatever. Have your discussions about maintaining/ending the marriage with qualified adults. Listening to your daughter advise you about your personal problems with "self-worth" is inappropriate role-reversal. Those kind of verbal interchanges should be aborted. She must not focus on "Mom's problem." That is adult business, not for her to preoccupy herself with. She has a right to all sorts of opinions about everything going on around her. She needs to learn that some of her opinions are for her to entertain privately. Even between a mother and daughter there is such a thing as appropriate boundaries.

You are hurting your daughter's development by over involving her in what is your business.

Your husband is very likely to become homeless, if you decide to stop living with him. He knows that - deep down. Of course he clings to his family. You are what stands between him and the street. Deep down, you already know this. This is partly why ejecting him from the home seems so awful to you. You are worried what would happen to him. Deep down you know he can't cope with adult responsibilities. The prospect of him completely deteriorating outside the shelter of the marriage is very sad to contemplate. You don't want to be "responsible" for that.

In life, we sometimes face a choice between sacrificing ourself on an altar to "save" someone else and freeing ourself to make a life that is best for oneself. We want a win-win solution - best for me and best for this other person too. It really sucks to face a choice where I either take the best care of me, or I take care of holding him up. I can't do both. It's me or him. You have the option of continuing to take care of him. However, it is not your moral obligation to do so. You need to know you are free to choose. Being his perpetual caregiver is not something you owe him because he was "there for you" at times in the past. He didn't contract Alzheimer's disease, in which case you would have a responsibility for his care. He has adopted a style of living whereby he takes no responsibility for anything. You are not obligated to underwrite that. He is not entitled to be propped up by you. You can choose to do that for him, but you don't have to. There are forms of self-sacrifice that are noble. It is not noble to be someone else's doormat.

If you opt for separation, the only way to do it is through the court. He will not leave because you ask him to. He has nowhere to go.

You don't have to throw him out - of the marriage, or of the home. You have the option of continuing your current arrangement. It's an option, not an obligation.

How old is your husband?

I’m sorry, I think you have tried to hold your family together. It’s good that you are taking the time to think about what is healthy for you. You sound like you have a good heart. That may be taken advantage of though so it’s good that you are taking time to figure that out.

Has he ever had professional help?

The thing about self medicating with drugs or alcohol is that it can contribute to psychotic episodes and delusional thinking.

Of course he has weird thinking. Prolonged continuous drug abuse effects brain functions. It’s inevitable that his thinking is and will continue to be weird

I see you are denying that abuse of marijuana is one of the causes of his bad behaviors. You might need to read about it or talk to addictions counselors. It’s absolutely one of the causes of his behaviors, if not the main cause

Most people need to hit the rock bottom before they decide to seek help. As long as you provide him with home, food, bills paid and money to buy drugs he’ll have to incentive to seek help with his addiction. You make it comfortable for him to continue abusing drugs. Then you think he’d just randomly quit. He won’t

So he goes to work drugged up, acts out and then gets fired. You are still saying drug abuse is not a problem on the job. It’s old wife’s take that pot only mellows people down. It causes psychosis. If someone says they went to work drunk and caused problems and got fired, would you still argue that alcohol isn’t a problem and that’s not why they misbehave on the job and then get fired?.

I understand you don’t want to leave and I get it you want to understand why he does this or that and often times it’s important to know all this. But no amount of rationalizing and finding excuses for him will change the reality of what’s happening

Separating finances is not hard. Just create a bank account deposit work pay check there and only cover urgent bills like buying food and paying things for the house. If he doesn’t work, isn’t stay at home parent and is not on disability if he chooses to act out at work, he shouldn’t have to be able to buy drugs.

Did your husband use marijuana before his break down?

You mentioned you have fear of leaving him because he has triggers. Are you afraid of him and is the true reason is not leaving is fear of him and not other things? Many stay out of fear. It is sadly understandable

What caused this break down he experienced?

I am sorry, from what you share it sounds like his ptsd can get down right crippling for him. Unfortunately, the average person can be very dismissive and can invalidate what is a genuinely horrible and confusing mental health challenge.

It’s bad enough that someone was badly traumatized in their past, but if ptsd is triggered to surface, it’s actually traumatic and confusing to the person suffering. No one chooses to suffer with this form of mental illness. And one person can have it worse than others who develop it. And it’s not just bad memories, instead the entire body carries this challenge throughout the nervous system. A trigger can cause a person to go into hyper vigilance and produce too much cortisol where the person can experience a lot of muscle tension and pain.

Some individuals become addicts as a way to escape symptoms they do not know is trauma related. There are individuals that get sober only to now have to learn that they are struggling with ptsd. This adds more challenge to learning how to live their lives sober.

Yes! Canibus is often used to help with the crippling ptsd symptoms. However, this is something that should be overseen by a professional. The level of THC is controlled and reduced. Buying street marijuana is bad because the weed being sold now can have very high levels of THC and that can end up damaging the brain and contribute to a person experiencing acute psychosis.

I think it’s important the rest of the family gets counseling, it is not easy to live with and it’s important to understand that it’s not the sufferers fault.

The fact that your daughter has come to you with concerns means she should be seeing someone to help her understand what she is witnessing and advise her on how to best protect herself from being traumatized by what she is witnessing and can not control.

It’s only been two years since his break down. And to make matters worse we have all been expected to deal with a pandemic that has significantly changed how we live and interact.

Also, depression can be brutal with acute ptsd as it’s mostly coming from real exhaustion. When it comes to working, it’s important to find work that is not stress producing. Your husbands therapy should be helping him identify key types of triggers so he can learn to avoid these situations moving forward and regaining a sense of being able to be productive.

My guess is that your husband probably doesn’t even know all his triggers. Yes, he may need to go slowly while exploring that in therapy.

I think you are sensitive and caring and you don’t want to add hurt to your husband. However, you do need to learn how to protect your own mental health. It may be helpful if both you and your daughter see a therapist together. Your daughter needs counseling, her approaching you with concerns means she is being affected and is very concerned for you. Teenagers do not have enough life skills to navigate this kind of challenge. Your daughter
Is most likely afraid and confused and deserves to have understanding and help so she doesn’t end up traumatized.

A therapy that may help your husband is called DBT. This can help him slowly identify the emotions that flood him that contribute to him becoming overwhelmed. His being able to slowly identify emotions and verbalizing them can help him articulate his injuries not only to a therapist but to himself. This will help him gain a much needed sense of empowerment.

Yeah PTSD isn’t a joke. My husband has been diagnosed with PTSD as well. He has it under control but it’s not something that would just go away. The thing is that substance abuse makes it worse, not better. Your husband needs to seek proper help. Not drugging.

I’d say if it’s severe enough he might need to go on disability. If he wants to stay employed though, he needs to figure out ways to behave on the job.

Reality is that you can’t make him do any of it. He has to want to make changes. It can’t come from you

And let’s face it as important as he is for you, and as much as you want to help him, emotional and physical health and safety of your minor children should be a priority. What happens now effects them forever. We are responsible for life we create for our children