Stuck

If you want to conceptualize his mental health issues as a disease that he didn't choose, that is perfectly valid, IMO. I agree that the marijuana use is secondary to his psychiatric problems. I think you need to take the analogy further.

End-stage COPD or metastatic cancer are diseases that are progressive and terminal. With excellent care, life expectancy can be prolonged and distress can be modified, but the eventual outcome is fore-ordained by the diagnosis.

Given your husband's failure to ever have achieved any emotional maturity, along with his character deficits, I believe the following: His psychiatric illness is chronic. It is progressive. And it is terminal. The long-term outcome is not in doubt.

Over time, he will continue to deteriorate. The kind of man he is now is the kind of man he will die as. There is nothing within him that recovery can be built upon. It is entirely possible that he is doing the best he is capable of. His capacities are collapsing before your eyes. He is not employable, and he never will be. He is incapable of shouldering responsibility. That is not going to change. There is no medication or therapy that fixes his basic problems.

Outside the shelter of this marriage and this home, he would likely become homeless and disintegrate faster. He very well could become in danger of harming himself. He surely would be a danger to himself, if only through grave self-neglect. If watching that, or knowing that is happening, is something you cannot abide, then you have the option of continuing to provide him with the shelter of marriage and family life. That is a defensible decision for you to make. He is your husband, and you love him. In a very childlike way, he loves you (because you are taking care of him.) I don't see where your children or you are under threat of imminent harm. Living with him is not a happy situation, but it is survivable.

About the only thing that would interrupt the progression of his deterioration is if he were incarcerated for a lengthy span of time. It would interrupt the substance use. It would impose discipline on him that he couldn't evade. I've worked in correctional facilities. Some individuals are safer and healthier locked up. My bother (who has issues with severe immaturity and poor character) was in a federal prison for several months. I wish he could have remained there permanently. He was his most well self, while there. Your husband seems to not have behavioral tendencies that get him in trouble with the law. Plus, he has been sufficiently relatable that he was able to induce a woman to stay married to him for 20 years. So he is at a higher level of integration in society than the poor souls you see sleeping under bridges. He is physically better nourished and healthier than they are. However, his trajectory - were he not sheltered - would be exactly in the same direction.

Whatever bad things happened to him earlier in life have damaged him beyond repair, especially given that he believes those unfair experiences absolve him of any obligation to be a responsible person. He does believe that. He will never relinquish that belief. Any therapy that explores how he was hurt in his early years will simply reinforce his belief that he was wronged and that how he is is all he is capable of.

Your options are to cut him loose, and he will completely fall apart . . . or . . . continue to shelter him, and he will deteriorate much more slowly and not so painfully. Those are your 2 options. Either one is defensible to choose. It is awful to have to make that choice. You want to believe that there is a 3rd option. There is not, except in your fantasies. You may need to cling to that false hope. That is your right also.

Yes I’ve think you’ve summed it up bluntly and well. I hate to be here again; sounds like my dad, how my dad ended. I think long term inpatient could help him instead of prison, but he could get himself out, and would, so I guess that’s why you didn’t include it.

My husband has a love hate towards homeless, a trigger for him. Maybe it’s because he thinks he would end up there. He used to be way worse with money to where I would say, even to others, that if it weren’t for me watching the finances ..under a bridge.

I think it’s right to stand by his side if he treated me differently. But he treats me how he does and only a fool would take it, or someone with no other option.
He does not take any responsibility for how he behaves towards me. Says it’s me.
Says i lie, I’m crazy, I make stuff up. Says I don’t have courage, says I degrade myself, says I get to do what I want. Says im full of myself. Says whatever and doesn’t care how it makes me feel, says he’s not responsible for my feelings.

I do wish he would get his own place. He said he can’t get unemployment because he wasn’t at the job long enough. I don’t know what his plans are. He wasn’t expecting to get fired, he really thought it would go his way. Now he’s just given up on having a job to sell art? You say he’s unemployable and it does appear that way. He even had three friends at this job who I’ve known since grade school and still couldn’t keep it. I know I’ve been talking to him about separating and pushing him to tone down smoking, get more help, and of course he said that is me making things worse for him, kicking him when he’s vulnerable. He expects to have no limits and that I can complain about it but shouldn’t DO anything about it.

Rose made very good insightful observation and she’s likely right about what’s going to happen. There are likely no other options but these two. Just don’t forget that if he makes such degrading comments to you it effects your children (they always know). They likely will perpetuate dysfunction by marrying people like your husband or treating someone like your husband does. Or even worse as they might become addicts themselves. The cycle will continue. And this situation could be look at as a woman doing honorable thing by staying by her husband in the bad situation. But it could also looked at as a woman values having a man above everything else, even her children. I get the marital vows. We don’t do vows when we have kids but we are responsible in providing them with healthy home life and minimal dysfunction. You have some choices to make

As about selling art it’s very doable. Much better than not working. What art is he making?

So you both grew up with some kind of dysfunction and maybe that is how you bonded. You were too young to really understand what your decision really meant when you married your husband. Sounds like he had deep traumas that caused enough damage that he was susceptible of experiencing a break down.

It’s true that he may never learn to manage the ptsd. It’s a lot of work and takes a lot of patience. It’s definitely a cruel mental illness. It can literally hyjack the brain. It’s constantly being studied and a lot of effort is going into trying to find the right medications and therapy to help ptsd sufferers control it better. It’s such an intrusive mental illness. The depression it creates tends to be actual exhaustion.

He is managing it with marijuana and that doesn’t actually help him develop actual skills. His choice to manage it this way is causing hurt to you and his children.

I think you genuinely feel sorry for him and have love for him. Yet, you do not deserve to be the one he takes out his frustrations on. This is something that is upsetting your children.

You are in a very challenging place.

He uses paint. Right now using a template he made and is rolling the image on fabric. He’s been doing it for the last few years. Hasn’t made too too much money at it (making money wasn’t necessarily the goal-his goal was mostly for fame reasons, which he designates as one of his values), but mostly gives everything away. It ends up costing quite a bit and takes up a lot of room, and all his free time, but I had him resituate his production outside under cover to give us the house back. He plans to sell art on the streets again as he was doing before. He would like to have that be his job but realistically it might be a few hundred dollars a month (he spends this income on weed historically and thinks that makes sense). I guess it depends on what he decides to focus on and which clientele, and perhaps it could be more income. I am an artist as well and would love to do art whenever I want and have that be my job, but we have a household to support. I am fine with him doing art, no job, so long as he is responsibly contributing to the household and contributing that money to expenses.

He now says he will get another job. He now says he’ll quit smoking in case he needs to take a test for a job that requires no smoking. I asked why he wouldn’t quit for his mental health, per direction of the doctors, from the concerns of his family. Puzzled look.

He says he’ll give up his bank card now (his idea). I said that’s fine but is like a band aid, and instead I’d like to instate a budget like I’ve been proposing we should do. In the past he would give me his card when he’s out of control, but he can’t bear to look at the details of bills, numbers, etc. But at least he won’t be spending money we can’t afford if he doesn’t have his bank card.

He said he got fired for his mental health, and I asked him why he isn’t following the mental health plan. Told him only he can make the plan work.

I expressed how his degrading comments are a deal breaker and he is used to me tiptoeing around him and accommodating his moods, that there is absolutely no excuse for how he speaks when I try to talk with him about important things. He couldn’t really take any responsibility for that. He did seem to acknowledge that mental illness is not an excuse to talk nasty to your loved ones. He said, “what’s going on with you right now, you’re being weird,” with a smirk face. I said seriously? You’ve heard all this a million times before, and asked if he was gaslighting.

It’s dysfunctional. Me explaining acceptable behavior for our family and him denying absolutely everything. He even said I was taking up his time with my monologue and acting like I should expect him to clap for my speech. I said bottom line I need to be respected and he must take charge of his mental health and sobriety, get on track, or we’ll need to live separately. He said I’m threatening him, I said I’m stating reasonable boundaries and it’s choice whether to observe them or not. No judgment if he can’t or won’t, but I wont support that choice and he couldn’t expect me to.

We’ve been here before. I go zero tolerance. It’s exhausting to reinforce boundaries and patch holes in leaking buckets all the time.

He also smokes when he’s happy and not triggered too. He smokes for every reason and no reason. He’s habitual with everything he does. He’s obsessive with everything he does. Very all or nothing and knows it. Yes he causes hurt to his wife and kids, Frequently. In return he demands respect. This is very challenging and sometimes I’ve feared as everyone threatens to crumble around me, that I’ll be the one to crumble. I won’t, and my daughter won’t, because my next move would be to have him leave before that happens.

A lot of companies do drug testing before they hire.

Get a checking account that is in your name only. Have your paychecks go into that. Let him have absolutely no access to that account. If you want to throw him a few bucks pocket money now and then, go ahead. But keep your income where he cannot touch it. Be prepared that he will likely steal from your purse, if he's broke, or write himself a check from your checkbook. Any budget you set up is for you to follow. He will have zero interest in it.

So you are thinking you might decide "to have him leave." You seem to have not thought much about what that will involve. You are in no position to just "have him leave." He lives there and has a legal right to be there. That man is not going anywhere, unless you have him legally removed. Even with a court order enforcing a legal separation, he will cause you a world of trouble. He will be at you door incessantly. He will be in the street waiting to accost you when you are leaving or returning home. He will be outside the kids' school, waiting to intercept them to try an get them to advocate on his behalf. He will loiter outside your job. He will ask for a thousand favors, like something to eat, or to use your washing machine and dryer. He will text and call you at all hours. He is not going to just go "get his own place." Even if you got him a place, he'll lose in within no time.

Outside the shelter of the family home, this man will end up on the street. He will haunt you every way he can. And he will be furious. You will be in no small amount of danger. He will be outside banging on the windows of the house, if you don't let him through the front door. This man is like gum stuck to the bottom of your show. You will need considerable back up from law enforcement to get him away from you.

At some level, I think you know this . . . but you are thought blocking. You are not facing how desperate his plight is.

Your daughter finds him embarrassing now? Wait till he's homeless, waiting outside her school, planning to follow her home. She has no idea how embarrassing he can become.

If I'm blunt, it's because the reality of what you will go through trying to untangle your life from his seems not to have occurred to you. I'm very sorry to say this, but you sound like a nice lady who is living in La-La land. As you said, several posts above, "it will not go well." You don't want to involve the court? Like he is going to pack bags and drive away to a place of his own. With what? The man is flat broke. He is not going anywhere willingly.

You are having talks with him explaining the respect you want to have from him. You try throwing him out, and stuff is going to come out of his mouth beyond anything you've ever heard.

If there is a support group for domestic violence in your community, I recommend you go and introduce yourself. (You have a long history of receiving emotional abuse.) You need to hear what women go thru trying to eject a man who doesn't want to leave. There is a whole side to this man that you have yet to see.

I will set up another account and have my check go there from now on. I had been using the savings account and him the checking, and tried splitting expenses and keeping things separate, but ended up transferring more than my share into the checking to cover automatic bills. I am so accustomed to enabling him.

I was encouraged yesterday seeing that he had searched for a one bedroom apartment recently, so I guess thats why I thought it’d be doable after all.

I probably am thought blocking, but I can’t imagine him hanging around school, work. But I’m sure you’re right about there being a side of him I haven’t even seen. He can be a lot of bark, but he is impulsive too. He does continue contacting people until they respond to him and gets very anxious waiting for it. He will ignore my message though.

He’s been watching videos today about borderline personality. He’s said before he identifies with it. He was watching a video about families of people with it. Sounded just like our experience.

He’s wanted to sell the house so many times. I figure it wouldn’t be hard to convince him we should sell the place and split the proceeds left after paying debts. This place is not in good shape but we still could make enough to split. He probably would change his mind last second now that I think about it. But he’d probably be enticed by the money, so maybe not.

I told him last night that it’s like he hates me the way he can behave toward me. He said “you hate yourself.” So nasty.

If I can’t expect things to get better here, can’t expect things to get better if he would go, I guess it’s as hopeless as I really feel. I just keep seeing the disdain he has for me and the anger I have towards him that I don’t let myself feel.

I have a new job and it’s really difficult having this stuff go on, especially him getting fired during my first week. I’ve been acting like nothing’s wrong forever. I only let it out here, the counselor now, and to one friend. I feel strong but of course this affects me and I guess I’m like an egg-very strong under pressure but so easy to break at the same time. I just don’t know how to get away from this mess. Im reliving a terrible traumatic past that I had with my father. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other like but I want to scream!

I can keep living in this arrangement I guess because it is so familiar but I feel like this love is pretend when I think about how things really are.

Why is it that you "can't expect things to get better if he would go?" I hope you don't think you're getting that from me. What I tried to point out is that disentangling yourself from him would be a messy ordeal, where he would make that as hard for you as possible. You would need an attorney, a series of court directives, and, at some point, probably back up from police. You're not going to just "have him leave," as you blithely put it.

Your life can be changed, if you're willing to do the work of changing it. You do not have to accept being dictated to by him. You can change your marital status and your living arrangement. You are not going to change him. You do not have to accept the status quo. You have rights protected by law. You are not going to sit down with him and the two of you come up with a mutually agreed upon plan for "uncoupling." He has zero incentive to cooperate with you on any of that. (Think Ike and Tina Turner.)

If the ordeal you'll have to go through to separate from this man seems like something you don't want to go through, then you have the option of continuing your current arrangement. It sounds like you're sick to death of doing that.

You guess "it's hopeless?" What is hopeless? Him working with you on a plan - yes that's hopeless. He is not going to cooperate with you on anything. Isn't that the very reason you want to separate from him? You will have to make your own plans for yourself and for the children. You don't need his permission for pursuing an end to this marriage.

Like we've discussed, you have two options. You keep casting about for a third because you don't like either of the options you have. Good luck. Maybe you'll come up with something I haven't thought of.

Every day people get out of miserable marriages. It can be done. There is a legal process for doing so. But it doesn't just happen. You don't simply give your spouse a notice of termination, and he exits. There is a process to go through, and it is unpleasant at times. Alternatively, you can carry on with things as they have been for years. I think it is wise to realistically see how each of your two options will play out.

If I were you, I wouldn't waste time thinking about what "we" should do, like maybe "we" should sell the house. There is no "we." You are not in a partnership. He will only think in terms of what keeps this arrangement going whereby he lives off of you. Who cares what videos he's watching? He's not looking for answers to how to be a better man and how to have a viable marriage. He's only looking for excuses. He's only looking to scam you.

I disagree that situation is hopeless or it can’t get better. It certainly could. Not if you stay though. If you stay, it’s likely will be hopeless

You need to see a lawyer and financial advisor. You can’t rely on this man to make any viable decisions re selling or moving. You need to see a professional who can help you to look at options. Why asking your husband who’s not in any kind of shape for that? Those times when women were solely dependent on men for decision making are long gone.

If you continue focusing on what’s best for your husband then yes I agree it’s pretty hopeless. Why not focus on what’s best for your innocent children and you?

First of all you have done some good things for yourself. You took steps to get more education, you have a new job and that is progress.

Your husband is disordered and is displaying some toxic behaviors in an effort to cause you to doubt yourself. When he attacks your ego in an effort to lower your self esteem he gains control over you. There is no “we” and hasn’t been for years except in your imagination of what you want to be instead of the reality of what is. No caring healthy person would say the things he has been saying to you.

I believe you when you share how this brings you back to what you experienced with your father. What has changed is that now you are an adult and can take steps to better protect yourself and your children. That’s what they want to see you do. You are still young enough where you can have your own way of becoming independent.

While you take steps to break free, it will be a threat to your husband as this is how disordered individuals who behave like your husband role. Because there is no “we”, it means that you will need to have your own plan that you do not share with him. It’s a waste of time for you to point out his faults, he has proven that all he does is twist it back on you in hopes to cause you to doubt yourself.

He has stated by his words and actions that he has no intentions of changing. You have a good heart, but you are wasting it on a person who just uses you and doesn’t respect you. This is also why he is not able to hold down a job. He does not have any real adult skills and tends to prefer living in his illusions and getting high.

So what you focus on now is minimizing confrontations and focusing more on your work and creating your own path. I suggest that you sit and talk to your children and encourage them to do the same. I asked how old they are to get an idea of how you can approach this plan with them. Sadly we often learn how to handle dysfunctional people in our own family.

My hope that he will become consistently reasonable in either scenario. My hope that my daughter will not endure more difficulty. Im having trouble sorting my thoughts and feelings ever since she told me she doesn’t want to live with him, and since she became angry with me that I’m “doing nothing” about him. I can somewhat rationalize, but more so I’m very clouded by my own experiences as a child and it spins me off before I can think anything through. I want to maintain a healthy environment for her, and hadn’t considered him terrorizing or becoming homeless if I ask him to leave. Ive thought about him and self harm.

It’s time for you to see how dysfunctional things really are. What you grew up with was dysfunctional and that became normal to you. Others can relate to that. What your daughter is telling you is right in that you are not doing anything and have been allowing him to continue behaving badly and dysfunctionally.

That being said, he doesn’t respond when you call him out on his bad behavior. He instead turns it all on you. That is actually typical of how addicts behave. And he is not going to change because he would rather make up his own delusions. That’s disordered thinking that often presents with disordered personalities.

As I mentioned, the way to move forward is to continue focusing on yourself and gradually becoming independent and self sustaining. You cannot save someone who doesn’t want to be saved or grow up. Turn your hope to yourself and that also shows your children how to distance from dysfunction and focus on themselves.

I’m focused on improving and stabilizing a difficult situation. My focus has been on my children, and earning more money. My son has been out of the house a couple years. My attention has been focused on my responsibilities, especially my daughter. I’ve been giving my husband space to heal and rebuild. I haven’t put much into the relationship for several months. More like a few years. Before that, I did put a lot of energy into my marriage. Me and my kids went on living, without him joining in, even though he was present. I tried to draw him into some family events when he was willing. I tried doing family counseling with him. He had a major relapse over the new year, which i did not think he would survive. I’ve since urged him to be more honest with his psychiatrist about how he is doing because he acts like and reports he is doing great, but he is in denial. I’ve now told him a handful of times that we will need to live apart because there must be a healthy environment. He’s slow to get the message, but I need to keep on it until he gets more help, or I follow through. Even after he gets more help, I could still follow through. I’ve had so many competing thoughts and feelings about him. I did feel it was wrong to kick someone out after they were inpatient, well he told me it was wrong and I felt bad. My daughter now says she’d be okay living with him if he gets his stuff together. She doubts he will though.

Thank you. I am trying my best to improve and break the cycle etc. My imagination kept me trying with my husband. I gave up on it a few years back and just switched to thinking of him as a family member that I love and care about, who is very sick. I realized a few years ago or so that he is missing something—how it feels to care about someone properly. Since my dad perished at a young age, I think I’ve been focused on prevent the same with husband.
I get such an eerie feeling of history repeating itself. My dad told me his life was in my hands and that was too much for me as a teen, and it scarred me. I’m glad my dad has not been in my life the last 20+ years because it would have been very difficult to keep him at bay if he were here. He wouldn’t at all be a safe person to be around and I could never have him around my kids.

Thank you. This is true. They are 14 and 20.

I think you are expecting your children to put up with the same kind of father you did. Can you see that?

It’s not something you did on purpose. Yet you could not save your father and you can’t save your husband either. And, they both chose to put that burden on your shoulders. That’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to your children either.

You never had an actually healthy adult partner, instead you have basically been the only parent and your husband is just your third child. Your husband still doesn’t want to grow up. Instead your husband wants to smoke pot and get high and live in an illusion.

What is concerning is that whenever you call him out he puts you down instead of taking on some real responsibility.

Has your husband ever been diagnosed as Bipolar? Sometimes very creative people suffer from Bipolar disorder and have these breakdowns. They have to be medicated and learn how to manage it.