A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:I am a full time worker and also a house wife of a man that is on disability due to mental state he can still do things but chooses not to do anything but sit on the computer all day consuming negative news . I work for Hospice and work long days to come home and have to do all the housework and cooking etc..... The only break I get is when i make reservations to get away from the house so I wont feel well I am off Might as well get this house work done before i go back to Work tomorrow . We are not sexually active because i am not into it anymore because he does nothing to help me and all he does in consume consume consume and take take take and I am always the one giving .He Might go out 1 time a week and mow with a riding mower but i have to also do all the weeding and pick up tree limbs that have fallen I feel as I am the only one giving in my relationship and all he does is take . I do Love this man and have stressed so many times how i feel and he makes no changes . I sit and cry because i am at my wits end and want things to be different please any advice on what i can do or say ? Am I Bad for feeling this way? Reply to this Question
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female
reader, Youcannotbeserious  + ♥, writes (24 September 2018):
 Well, it sounds like you have tried everything that anyone can suggest and still not got the results you want/need.
I get that you and your kids love him but do you think he is a good role model for them? Perhaps for THEIR good, as WELL as your own, you need to leave. After all, it sounds like you will actually be better off without him.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (24 September 2018): If there is 'HELL to pay' if he has to do some work, and he 'gets ugly' with you, then you are dealing with abuse. Plain and simple. Mental illness or no mental illness. I was with an abusive man who had six children and was married three times. He didn't speak to any of his children and one lived just around the corner and he wanted attention and time from his Dad so much. Abusive partners do not want their present and past lives to merge in any way, so that no-one can compare notes! So that you can be the one at fault. If he was to talk to his children, you would probably meet them and then find out that yes, he behaved like this in his previous marriage.For your own mental health, realise that he is NEVER going to change, no matter what you threaten or do or cajole. He doesn't want to change. If you want to change and find happiness again, get out of there. Be single and breathe again. Smile again. Cos you're never going to find happiness where you are. Sorry.
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reader, anonymous, writes (24 September 2018): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionSchizophrenia and psychotic disorders
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reader, anonymous, writes (24 September 2018): The additional information you provided is somewhat helpful. Smoking pot might partially explains his laziness. I think you simply married yourself a guy who has decided he wants to be a "kept-man;" and he's milking his disability for all it's worth.
You have tried all you can to get the man to be a partner within the marriage; but he doesn't seem to care that you're desperate and quite fed-up. The frustration is pushing you towards considering a divorce. It seems you have no other choice. You already have kids, and don't need a 56 year-old adolescent goofing-off, smoking weed; while you work yourself to death.
Now that I see the bigger picture; I think you should put your own health and mental-health first. It's time to lay-down the ultimatum. You can't take it anymore; and everyone reaches that point when enough is enough.
I'm not quite sure what advice you were expecting. You say you've done everything you can; but he doesn't change. He's too old and you can't tell him what to do. You'll have to love him or leave him.
You still haven't explained what the nature of the mental-health issue is; so it's difficult to rule-out mental-illness as the root of the problem. Every clinical-diagnosis has a name; but you don't mention what the mental problem is. Only that he's physically able to help you. Not if he doesn't have the mental-capacity to be organized, responsible, and fully-functional! He's acting more like a teenager than a grown-man. His doctor seems equally as useless. His advice doesn't seem very professional. All he can suggest is he needs to getaway from the computer? What a quack!
I can only speculate that he is so far-gone that he's in his own world; and you're dealing with a lazy pothead with an unidentified mental-health issue, and a lousy doctor.
Guess you need to contact a good attorney. You'll need legal advice to determine whether you'll end-up paying this guy spousal-support. You earn more than he does, and he's disabled.
Mixing pot and prescribed medication could be scrambling his brain.
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reader, anonymous, writes (24 September 2018): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionYes Ma'am I have told him the kids are all grown and gone they are from my first marriage . Thats why i dont get him not helping me out . He has been told that if things dont change he we will have to do something different . As for me leaving this is a home I had when we started dating 12 yrs ago so I dont see me leaving my home . He knows I want this to work but puts no effort into it .
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A
female
reader, Honeypie  + ♥, writes (24 September 2018):
 Have you told him, if nothing changes you and the kids are leaving?
I get that you love him, the kids care about him, but HE isn't ADDING to your lives in a positive way - so staying out of "love" seems misguided to me, because you CAN NOT fix this with loving him.
HE is making choices (maybe because of his mental issues) and those choices shows that he isn't INTERESTED in being part of the family. He just want YOU to take care of him.
You can LOVE someone, and just not be able to make it work.
In time that love will turn to hate and resent. You already resent him so... how long until the love evaporates?
If he KNOWS that you might leave if he doesn't start to pick up the slack and HELP you, that you could leave... Maybe part of his behavior is passive-aggressively trying to get you to just leave. that way it's NOT his fault that his 3rd marriage didn't work either....
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reader, anonymous, writes (24 September 2018): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionNo we havent been Married long .Yes he see's a Mental health Dr who has also told him he should back away from computer and spend time with me . He sits in a drafters chair at the kitchen counter on computer from 5 when we get up in the am and stays there until he has to go to bathroom or get something to drink or smoke his weed and then he is back until I get home and cook dinner . Then its up from table and right back at it . I do encourage him to do different things and I even ask him to do things for me specific things and I will come home to guess what ? Nothing being done and him still on the computer .
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reader, anonymous, writes (24 September 2018): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionWell some of the answers have been helpful and yes i do ask him to do things like i picked up all the tree limbs from the yard as he wont and put them in the back of the truck and ask him to take to burn pile it took him 1 month to do so . I ask him to do things all the time and he sits on his computer all day from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to bed when i come from work i cook dinner etc.No we havent been married many yrs it is going to be 4 yrs in Feb 2019 . My kids love him even though he is their step father they tell me mom why doesnt he help you ? He thinks nothing exist outside of the computer . I dont need Negative towards me I do go over and beyond to get him help and I do explain myself to him and how i feel and Yes he goes to Mental health dr all the time he is 56 and in very good shape ! I ask ask ask him to do things nothing big or nothing that I wouldnt or dont do myself . I know alot about health I work in the health field Hospice to be exact . I Really am to the point that i want to walk away but due to the fact that i do love him I stay . im not putting this here for a pitty party its that i have tried everything and even his dr has said he needs to back away from all the negativeness he reads on the computer and get a hobby or something . He still makes no changes he sits with his headset on listening to loud music and its like I dont even exist to him . ... All I want is for us to be equals and for both of us to pull our weight is that really to much to ask??? He has all the SUPPORT ONE CAN HAVE ! He takes his meds and sees DR and ill be up cleaning or ask him to lets get in pool or anything and there he sits in front of the computer reading all the negative . I read as well but I choose not to let the computer own me or run my life as to where he has a drafters chair and sits as a perm. Fixter at the end of my bar in the dinning area .If he does do anything like pick up his dirty close or mow or anything then there is HELL to Pay because he is going to be ugly with me ... SO Please Know I Am Doing All I Can To Encourage Him In Everything He says He Loves Me This Is His 3rd Marriage he has 5 Kids and None of Which he sees or talks to Before we met he was a single man living alone for 13 yrs . He cleaned his house and mowed his yard etc.... Im starting to wonder if it wouldnt be best for him and me if we went our sep ways ..
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female
reader, Youcannotbeserious + ♥, writes (24 September 2018):
Oh sweetheart, you sound worn out. Sending hugs.
Has he always been lazy around the house, or has this started, or got worse, with the onset of his mental illness? I ask because, as you do not specify, I assume he may have depression or something of that kind. As you are doubtless aware, that can put sufferers in a very bad place and make them incapable of carrying out day to day tasks.
As I read your post, it appears you are BOTH feeling unloved at the moment. Women tend to need to feel loved to want sex (i.e. by their partner's actions) whereas men tend to need sex to feel loved. You are both locked in a cycle which prevents either of you feeling loved.
I have found from experience that many men usually need SPECIFICS if they are to do anything. For example, you could say to him, on leaving for work, "Would you mind cutting back the two big trees today?" or "Could you wash the dishes and put them away?" That way he has specific tasks to do. Asking him to help around the house or garden in general will just overwhelm him (especially if he has mental health issues) and result in nothing - as you have found.
I assume he is receiving professional help for his health issues? If he is spending all day, viewing negative news, this will not help him in any way.
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reader, anonymous, writes (24 September 2018): There isn't much you can do but make a "honey-do list;" and ask him very nicely to do a few things around the house. If you can lay it all out in detail for us; how it makes you feel, and how hard it is on you. Why won't you do the same with your husband?
If you ask me, I think he's old-school and thinks housework is woman's work. I'm assuming you've been married for many years. Has he always been this way; or only since he was been declared totally-disabled by his doctor?
Mental-health disorders immobilize people in many different ways; even if they are physically-fit. You didn't explain the nature of his mental or physical disorder; and you could be dead-wrong about how he could be of more use around the house.
If you can't reason with the man, there you have it. He's mentally-incapacitated in a number of ways. Fixated on his computer; and non-functioning in every other area. That could be symptomatic of a variety of mental-health issues. Like depression, or adult ADD.
Based on your post, I can only gather that you can't deal with your husband's disability; and don't seem to have a complete understanding of what it is, or the extent of it.
If you do, you should provide some details that would explain and justify your frustration. If you're not sexually-active, because you're not into it; I guess not being into doing chores and housework is his equivalent.
If you are a utilitarian-wife; he will be your eternal house-guest. Utilitarian in the sense that you simply run the household; but offer nothing emotionally or physically to your husband. You live together.
The lack of any effort from either of you will turn your marriage into nothing much more than domestic-complacency and a mundane-coexistence. Codependency based on time, but no life in it. Routine and predictable. You're a bread-winner and take care of your home; but you do little else for your husband. He has acclimated to his environment.
You say you love him. Why? All he does is take take take! All you do is give! You need to provide some backstory about what kind of a man he was before the disability struck, and maybe shed some light on the nature of the disability. Some guys are pretty retaliatory about being denied sex in a marriage. They get nothing, and they'll give nothing in return.
Side-effects of some medications kills motivation, render impotence, and zaps the energy. Some cause the inability to focus or concentrate; unless that is also a symptom of his disability.
If he is a combat veteran, his mind may be caught in another time and place. I think you should have a sit-down with him and his doctor, and find-out what's going on. The doctor might clear-up a few things; and you might decide whether you still have a salvageable marriage.
If he's cognizant and full-functioning apart from whatever mental or physical disability he has. Maybe he has totally given-in to his disability. Just moping through life, and emotionally-available. He's not who he used to be. He could be deteriorating mentally. Maybe he needs to seek another healthcare or mental-health professional for re-evaluation.
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female
reader, Honeypie + ♥, writes (24 September 2018):
I think you need to have a serious talk. While I DO believe that part of a marriage is:
"to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part."
I strongly believe that if if both parties believe in these vows and meant them when they said them, they are there to be kept. Now if violence, abuse, cheating or neglect comes into the picture those vows are null and void.
In your case, he might feel so SHITTY about himself that he has no energy and nothing to give. Many men will suffer in silence. If he is suffering from depression, isolating himself in not uncommon. That means he might even isolate himself from YOU.
Is he getting HELP with the mental issues?
If not, then why?
Like I have said before IF nothing is done, NOTHING will change.
So, first step, him seeking and getting help. A person who is WORKING on him/herself sees that there is a future. Someone who doesn't, might not.
Second step should be that you STOP catering to him. Give him EACH day a small list of things that you KNOW he is physically able to do. TELL him that you CAN NOT do it all by yourself.
If he starts to pitch in, good. Add more chores.
If he doesn't then you might have to consider if THIS is a person you want to be bound to for the rest of YOUR life. If you want this miserable life of... if you rather do it on your own.
I would NOT open a conversation with an ultimatum. That you will leave if he doesn't get help/help out.
But you also need to make sure that things change. While you CAN NOT change him, you can SUPPORT him in making changes. Such as, getting get. Being someone you can depend on.
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