I'm not sure WTF to do about the situation in my house.

DH and I spent the last half of last year seeing a marriage counselor, because it seemed very likely that I would have to leave him for my own sanity if a lot of things didn’t change. It was clearer and clearer, as time and therapy went on, that DH was seriously depressed, largely because of his heart surgery and the fact that afterward he couldn’t go back to the job he liked (and which paid a lot better than his current job). The counselor finally told him that there was little reason for us to keep coming until he saw a shrink on his own. He didn’t listen until I gave him an ultimatum, basically; the week of Christmas I decided to divorce him, and he finally found a counselor for himself, and a shrink to get him medicated for his depression. I had one more one-on-one session with the marriage counselor, which helped me, too.

He’s doing well with all of his own issues, and the relationship issues (communication, connectedness/friendship, sex ) are VASTLY improved, yayyyyy. Like, HUGELY improved. It’s a giant relief to really feel in love with each other again.

But now he’s decided that he will continue to take meds but not see his therapist anymore. Maybe that’s fine. He tells me his therapist supports that decision. I take meds and don’ t regularly see a therapist, myself.

HOWEVER… he also doesn’t think we need to see the marriage counselor again, because he seems to have forgotten that we had typical marriage/roommate/co-parent conflict things to work on, as well, which are not resolved AT ALL.

And I don’t know if it’s crazy for me to push it, and tell him I still want to go, because I worry he will feel like I’m asking too much after he’s made a big effort already.

I can post a giant whiny novel about the roommate/co-parent issues to clarify, if anyone is curious, but the tl/dr version is: I do everything and I am sick of it.

Personally, I don't think asking him to carve out an hour a week to sit down and talk to a therapist with you is too much to ask. But maybe it is? . I don't know him (obviously) and it could be excruciating for him to sit there, what with the talking and the sharing and the listening and the feeling...most men, I think, want to solve the problem and check it off the list. But you've got the right to point out that just because one layer of the issue is solved doesn't mean there aren't others to work on.

Can you work out a deal where you go for say, 6 weeks and then reasses? If it's the practical day to day of working together in a marriage then getting him to hear you via the therapist mediating, ironing out a plan and getting it implemented in your house may not take much longer than that. Not to generalize about the male species again but some (most) men seem to just not *see* the practical stuff that needs to be done. When we point it out to them, especially if there's other tension already in place, they hear "wah wah wah waaaah!" Like Charlie Brown's teacher only in bitch voice. . Having a third party reword the problem can engage you both in solving it with concrete steps pretty quickly.

This is what I was originally going to post—the epic novel of complaint.
I know this isn’t necessary for the purpose of the thread, but I really do need to get this bitching off my chest.

DH and I have full time jobs. I also do freelance work. We make about the same amount of money, if that matters.

Yesterday, he was working a rare night shift, so he was on kid duty in the morning.
We both got up about 7AM.


I got Linus up, got his clothes ready, and left for work at 8AM.
DH made Linus’ lunch, gave Linus breakfast, and took Linus to school.


Then DH came home, got Deirdre up, dressed, fed and ready, and took her to preschool at 12:30.
Then he went to work, starting his shift at 1PM.


I got home at 6PM.
I fed the kids dinner, hung out with them for a while, and told them I needed to get some work done on a freelance project.
I worked on the dining room table; Deirdre watched some TV in the connected living room, and Linus played on his computer at the table with me.


DH got home at 9PM.
I asked him to get the kids ready for bed so I could keep working.
He took them upstairs, told them to put on their pajamas, and then announced he was going to bed himself, but that “Mum will be up soon.”
I yelled up the stairs, “They have to brush their teeth!” and I heard him say, “Okay, go brush your teeth.”


Five minutes later I went upstairs and they hadn’t brushed their teeth. DH said, “Oh, I couldn’t find their toothbrushes.”
The toothbrushes were not where they belonged, but they were in the cabinet under the sink (in an organizer box with the extra soap & extra toothpaste).
I gave DH the side-eye, gave the kids their toothbrushes, and realized they had grubby faces.
I said, “Did you wash your hands and faces yet?” and gave DH another side-eye.
DH said, “You didn’t tell me to do that.”
No more side-eye, I gave him a ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??? face, and he actually did the huffy middle school noise at me, like I am so unreasonable to expect him to read minds.


Then he went to bed, while I took over all the bedtime hygiene, the bedtime stories, the tucking in, and the various stalling shenanigans.
Then I went downstairs to work some more.

I went to bed three hours after he did.
I got up to deal with Deirdre in the middle of the night, as I always do. I slept in her bed with her, partly because that settles her faster, and partly because DH is a lighter sleeper and hates when she is in our bed.

I got up an hour after he did, got Linus up, got his breakfast and lunch and school stuff ready, and left for work as the babysitter was arriving.

This weekend, the little kids will be within arms’ reach of me almost continually as I will:

• do the grocery shopping (which I’ve already organized into lists for different stores, but which lists will be revised when I look at the sale flyers & my coupons)
• Do all the laundry. Including putting away the baskets of clean folded laundry in our room that DH has been walking past since I put them there last weekend, after I put away all the rest of last week’s laundry.
• Scrub the bathroom. I clean up the bathroom every day, but only give it a good scrub on the weekends---when I “have time” LOLOLOLOLOL
  Last weekend I didn’t have time and I let the big scrubbing go. I have told DH, my 21 year old son, and my 18 year old son, “This needs to be done every weekend. I shouldn’t have to do it every weekend. Do not wait for me to ask you to do this.”
  …So right now it’s unbearably gross because of course no one did it.
• Vacuum properly, as in move the furniture & get the crevice tool out for the couch & chair cushions, which only I do. Maybe once a week, DH will vacuum around things, and at least a couple of times a week—I aim for every day, but sometimes I just can’t-- I do too. But it’s half-assed and only just barely “good enough.” I will also empty the vacuum canister, since that will not have been done since I did it last. And wash the vacuum filters.
• Do whatever other big cleaning projects I can’t stand to let slide. The bedroom doors & hallway walls really need to be washed down & magic-earasered for fingerprints & sneaky preschool “art.” I will try to sort, organize, and deal with the piles of mail & household paperwork all over the dining room table. That rarely actually gets finished. Sometimes it gets moved to a file box to be dealt with elsewhere, so at least the table is clear. But eventually I have to put some of it back on the table, to sort it—I keep paperwork in sideboard drawers in the dining room.
• That reminds me: I have to do the taxes, because when I finally told DH to quit asking me when I was going to do them, and he did them, we both feel it’s likely that he did something wrong. He has never done our taxes.
• Bake and cook a bunch of things for lunches & snacks for everyone for the coming week.
• Get the kids up and dressed each morning, get the kids dressed, washed, and read to each night. Give them their baths.
• Go through their school stuff: homework, parent paperwork, library books, etc.
• Help the big kids with whatever. Spencer is going to a friend’s for the weekend, so he won’t be here, but James will. So I will be talking James through job applications and his English assignments.
• Finish, finally (O GOD PLEASE) one freelance project so I can then finish the other freelance project on time (O GOD PLEASE).
  

DH will probably cook dinner Friday Saturday and Sunday. (I will do the dishes and clean the kitchen, or else ask/tell one of the big kids to do those jobs (which they will do poorly, with ill grace, or not at all) at least two of those nights, if not all of them.)
DH will also take at least one nap, sleep at least a few hours more than I do (probably at least 2 hours more each night, if not longer than that), and watch a lot of TV. He might, or might not, take the kids to the park across the street for an hour. Like, one hour out of the weekend.

He will ask me what resumes I’ve sent out today/recently, since I want to leave my job. I will remind him that I haven’t had a lot of time for job hunting, resume tweaking, and cover letter writing lately. If I am on FB while I eat lunch or something, he will ask me if I’m job hunting then, and I will not be sure if he is being passive aggressive about me wasting my time or not.

He will absolutely “ask me if I mind” if he goes to a cigar bar to have a cigar and a beer. He will probably go for this cigar while I am grocery shopping at a store he doesn’t like—he will come with me to the store he does like, but he won’t go to the other stores—but he might also “think I might go while we’re home not doing anything.” As in, when he has helped put the groceries away and I am multi-tasking on three floors of the house. He will promise he’ll only be gone two hours (he will keep this promise).

If I say No, please don’t go out, he won’t, and he won’t pout. If I say, please do these things, he will, and he won’t pout.

But several times this weekend, he will remind me in some detail what time he got up every morning for work (most days he is up & out the door by 6AM, home at 3:30 PM). That’s why he is tired, he says. He DOES work really hard, at a draining job (he’s a store manager, and he often works well over 40 hours).

He sometimes alludes to his ill health, but that’s crap—his heart surgery last year corrected an acute condition, and although he had nerve damage to one hand, he is totally healthy heart/lungs/bloodwork-wise. He recovered from surgery much faster than his doctors expected him to, because he was in otherwise EXCELLENT health and physical condition. I am, let us say, not in excellent health. I have been hospitalized in 2014 already.

He’s old, he says. And he is 11 years older than I am—I’m 44 and he will be 55 next month.

But STILL, OMG. This is SUCH bullshit.

I think some of that stuff you have to let go of needing to be done so often. I also think your two grown children should help or move out.

I don't think it's too much to ask him to try counseling for a few more weeks.

The big kids do need to do more. They are both on the spectrum and high-maintenance, but they are also both totally capable of doing WAY MORE than they do.

You've got what I like to call "logistical handholding" going on. Everyone knows what tasks need to be completed regularly but unless mom/wife is enumerating (sp?) the steps they don't get completed and the person responsible feigns ignorance. Fine with an elementary school-aged kid, not so much with a grown kid or husband. That coupled with the protracted mansick? Unacceptable. He needs to agree to counseling. Part of the solution may be letting some things go and let him muddle through (like the kids go to bed with messy faces and harass him to demand tucking in). But part needs to be him ( and your grown kids) stepping up to the plate more.

I don't really know how much I can let go of, honestly. I mean, I actually let go of SO MUCH already. I am not demanding a spotless house--OMFG, so so not spotless is all I'm asking for. Put food back in the fridge after you make something to eat. The dishes should get done every day. Wipe off the bathroom sink when you shave or you get toothpaste blobs in it. Look at the garbage can in the kitchen. Is it full? Empty it. Speaking of garbage and dishes, put your fucking dishes in the kitchen and your fucking garbage in the can. I bought extra cans--there is literally a trash can in every bedroom, in both bathrooms* as well as the kitchen and the laundry. Doesn't matter, they all leave a trail of cans, wrappers, opened envelopes, whatever, all over the house. Also trails of laundry. I keep the coat closet stocked with hangers; everyone throws their coats on the chair NEXT TO THE CLOSET--which closet is RIGHT NEXT TO THE FRONT DOOR.

I let some/most of that go EVERY DAY.

Dude...what the fuck?

Sorry. That wasn't very helpful


That's just crazy. Even if you were in perfect health and a SAHM and had hired help and a live in nanny, NONE of that is acceptable.

RIGHT?!?!

I am not cool and nice and doormatty about any of this, either. I just live with a houseful of Bartlebys.
Not even Bartlebys, though, really, as they'll mostly do most of what I tell them most of the time--they just have to be told, always, and there is SO MUCH to tell them to do and undo EVERY DAY, and they never ever follow through with all of it.

You are not asking too much to expect him to go to the marriage counselor.

Can you do chore lists?

I only have the two girls, 13 and 15, but they have a list that needs completed every week. Dh I can leave alone pretty much since I lost my job in July so I do everything except the yard work and car stuff. When I was working though, OMG I wanted to KILL him. I still do when he hounds me about the job hunt, as if I haven't TRIED everything I can.

Chore lists get ignored. I have no currency to enforce them with. Internet access is the only privilege I provide--Spencer is looking for a job, and can’t move out til he gets one, so he needs internet access to send resumes. James is dual enrolled in high school and college—he’s getting his last HS credits in community college because he has exhausted the academic options in his high school. So he needs internet access to do his school work.

I do not do their laundry, I don’t give them money. They don’t watch TV, except online. The downstairs bathroom is in James’ room, and I shut off the water to it because he wouldn’t keep it clean.
I can’t throw either of them out. Spencer is emotionally/mentally fragile and has recently, finally after YEARS of me trying to get him to, started back on meds (and is another one who won’t see a therapist); James has to finish high school; they’re both currently unemployed (though Spencer starts a new PT job next week and is still interviewing). I have invested so much energy into getting them both through diagnoses and therapy and IEPs and all the rest of ASD/MH parenting, and there is no way I’m going to jeopardize their transition to moving out on their own by making it a GTFO tough love kind of thing.

But when I think/say that…I feel very yeah-butty and can’t figure out how the hell it happens that I feel extremely taken advantage of.

Which is paralleled in the situation in the OP: I love my husband, I want my marriage to work, I’ve tried to keep the perspective of being supportive of him and his needs.
And somehow that translates to I have to do everything or accept living in relative squalor as some deeply disguised positive thing.

All I can say is that the only person you can change is yourself. That always takes a load off my shoulders when I remind myself.

I think you actually need to demand the marital counseling. Yes, he's done his own and done well, but all of that was done so that you both could more successfully do marriage counseling. It isn't discounting the work he's done to ask for that.

I mean this in the most respectful way-first because I am not in your shoes, and second because I think you are an extremely strong, smart, and capable person AND I in know way take lightly the struggles with your older boys and helping them to be able adults-but I feel like you've fallen into a pattern of enabling to a degree. Again, I don't judge that, I see the necessity of it, but I think counseling with them is in order as well. Obviously all of that is much much easier said than done.

If you were to sit them down and say that you are literally being drained by the fact that you are are fielding all of this would it impact them? (if you haven't already)

I almost want to suggest you do a secret video diary-documenting your day and especially your interactions to get them all to do things, but I don't know if it would be effective.

I tell myself that a lot, too, Pseudo. I can’t apply it to this. Unless changing myself means I opt to not let the process of mess turning to squalor bother me. And that’s not an option—because A)I don’t want to live in squalor; B)I have small children who should not be raised in squalor; C)I have small children I’d like to teach not to be squalorous assholes so I am not living this way until THEY move out, too.
I have changed myself to the degree that I have narrowed down what is absolutely completely necessary/unacceptable, and I absolutely make those things happen for me and for my little kids.

I’m not ungrateful for the input, Pseudo And I’m not being snarky or shitty when I say, if you can explain how changing myself is relevant, please do--or if someone else can see a bigger, better, change-myself option that I am psychologically blind to, please point it out.

You all have to start/continue therapy, but if no one will agree you have to go yourself. These relationship didn't just happen, kwim? Changes have to happen.

Relationship dynamics didn't just happen, I mean

With DH I can demand more counseling. And I think maybe he’d grow some new clues and maybe be less likely to be a victim of my homicidal mental break.

Well, yeah, I have. That’s what I’m venting about.


Oh, honey. You don't even know.
We have done SO MUCH THERAPY—they’ve seen shrinks, I’ve seen shrinks with them, I’ve seen their shrinks one on one to discuss them and my relationship with them. We have done all the shrinking. Right now, I cannot force them, as legal adults, to go to counseling. For right now, I have no currency. And if I did, if I could compel them to go…I can’t force them to accept counsel, take me/a therapist seriously, or change their behavior because they finally see the light.

That longass whiny post? Which is like my kajillionth trademark longass post? I talk like that in real life, too. They are O So VERY AWARE of my feelings about all this. Does not translate to action.
I will tell DH I want more counseling, and just continue to ignore the big kids as best I can and hope they both move out really really soon.



Thanks, all.

I'm not sure how you expect anyone to respond, to be honest. If you feel like you've exhausted your options with your older boys than you live with it and continue on, you get some counseling, or you choose not to live with them anymore.

As for your husband, make marital counseling a must or be done. Otherwise things are unlikely to change, on both counts.

Also, I really do like you enormously, but your replies were a tad condescending, or at least they read that way. I tried to be pretty respectful in my post, but really most of these really seem rather yeah butty and if you'd rather just vent then do that and don't ask for input.

I totally did not mean to sound that way, at all. I’m sorry. I was totally sincere and I meant it when I said both “venting” and “thank you.”


I was agreeing with you--and saying kind of exactly what you’re saying here—my question from the OP was answered (not unreasonable to insist on more counseling with DH, so I will insist on it) and waiting it out with Spencer & James, because I don’t really have a choice. The relationship dynamic can’t change without their participation, and I have no way to make them participate in changing it. So I will work on thinking of them as very problematic weather conditions: neutral, intentionless, causes of work and mess.