In a relationship (is a quite personal)

Well in relationships its really important that both people know what the other wants out of the relationship and that that's compatible. It sounds like what he wants is a bit self contradictory. You work and support him financially? Then shouldn't he be the one doing things around the home and looking after the kids? Of course I freely accept maybe he'd rather it wasn't that way. Maybe he wishes he got a reasonably well paid job tomorrow so you could quit and he could support you? If so you need to ask yourself will that job of his ever come and if it did would you want to be a mostly stay at home wife? (assuming that's what he wants) Could he live with you being the bread winner and that being a semi permanent arrangement? If so maybe that's an option. Maybe he could be the stay at home dad? You need to have a talk about what you both want.

The same with the sex. You know it's very hard to maintain a health romantic relationship if each party has a radically different idea of what they want sexually. Maybe there is a reason your sex drive is so low? Unresolved emotional issues maybe, a medical condition? Maybe his sex drive is so hyperactive it's a clinical issue (very unlikely unless it's negatively effecting his ability to function). This may need to be part of a wider discussion about both of your issues around sex. But if you can't come to an understanding it could sabotage your relationship in the long run.

So in short "communication, communication, communication that's what you need."

We have tried talking. He works I work I have a Monday to Friday job and he has Wednesdays and Sundays off. However I get tired of hearing all I do is sit in an office all day. Yes it’s my job but I do find my own job difficult it’s not my fault he won’t leave retail. He won’t take a leap of faith. I did and found a different job. The kids stay with their mum 7 nights a week. We just have them during the day. We have spoken about it he’s a bigger person so he’s quite heavy and I have back issues witch make different positions uncomfortable for me and it the whole ordeal causes me a lot of pain  but all he says is go and see a dr. I came off the pill for a while and he wouldn’t wrap it but I don’t want to risk pregnancy right now and he said ill Pull out or we can go down that route if it happens but I’m not willing to do that. 

We have tried talking. He works I work I have a Monday to Friday job and he has Wednesdays and Sundays off. However I get tired of hearing all I do is sit in an office all day. Yes it’s my job but I do find my own job difficult it’s not my fault he won’t leave retail. He won’t take a leap of faith. I did and found a different job. The kids stay with their mum 7 nights a week. We just have them during the day. We have spoken about it he’s a bigger person so he’s quite heavy and I have back issues witch make different positions uncomfortable for me and it the whole ordeal causes me a lot of pain  but all he says is go and see a dr. I came off the pill for a while and he wouldn’t wrap it but I don’t want to risk pregnancy right now and he said ill Pull out or we can go down that route if it happens but I’m not willing to do that. 

It sound like he's resigned himself to the expectation that you will leave. suggesting a course of action where you feel you can stick by him might be what he needs to jolt him into action.

I couldn’t leave right now because if he did go through with what he says he’s going to then that would ultimately be my fault. I’ve mentioned him getting help so many times before he’s just not interested he says he doesn’t want to hear it and he doesn’t care. 

i don’t know if it would be for anyone’s benefit would people think I’m being selfish because he needs help and I’m threatening to walk out on him because he doesn’t help with a few silly house chores? 

he’s done it before and he knows there are people around him that love him but he says that no one is interested in him since I’ve come around. He shuts down at that sort of thing he keeps saying you can leave if you can’t put up with it. How can someone leave when someone else says that? 

I don’t think I would though. I’ll sit here and think about it but I don’t think I could do it. 

I don’t expect he’ll be happy about it. I wouldn’t be. but at the same time if it was the only way to save my relationship I would rather have the option than just having someone walk out on me.

you also have to think about it this way is your ultimatum as much for his good as yours? You’re not demanding that he take a particular approach to solving his problems, just what he gets professional help to help him solve his problems.

coping with life without you will probably be a real challenge for him. If he really is as depressed and hopeless as you describe there’s a decent chance that you may be one of the only good things in his life right now. So pushing him to make the necessary changes to improve his life and to keep you in his life is very much in his interest.

it sounds like you’re going to leave him anyway if things don’t change. Think of it less as an ultimatum and more as an opportunity to prevent that outcome.

it can’t and I don’t know know if if can see a future with him the way he’s going…. But if I give him an ultimatum it feels like emotional blackmail and I hate that 

Just leaving is easier emotionally on you probably. But an ultimatum and a confrontation gives the relationship a chance of survival. Assuming you've decided things can't go on as they are.

I guess part of me wants someone to go oh I’ve been in this situation and they change. I have the way he acts harms me and my mental health and that’s already screwed… I’ve never had to give someone an ultimatum before. I’ve said to his dad I don’t know how much more I can put up with because I don’t feel listened to. I said to him I keep hoping he’ll change but he dad said he’s not sure he will because (and as he’s proven but I won’t go into detail on that) he wants people to do things for him. I’ve got to look after a family memebers dog for them so I’ll be staying there for 8 days so maybe the separation time will make him think but I’m not sure if that’s true really

In a relationship it’s very difficult to insist on things. I mean to really insist on things like with an ultimatum like ‘I think if you don’t do this it might be the end of our relationship’ kind of insist on things. The one area where I think it can be acceptable is when it pertains to the other persons physical and mental health.

you are already considering leaving this man. or at least it sounds like you are to me. maybe you should tell him that him getting professional help is what it’s going to take to keep your relationship on track. I’m not suggesting he fork out tons for a professional therapist he can’t afford but  he can at least go to his GP that’s free after all.

andi said:

He went through bas times with his kids mother ages ago and he says I’m the one for him and if it wasn’t for me he would have ……  himself. And he’s been saying it a lot more recently about how he’s been thinking about it.

I guess you have to weight up the cost of being trapped by him (as this clearly is him emotionally blackmailing you) versus your own mental health and wellbeing in the long term.

Think practically - how long can it go on if he keeps on spiralling like this. He clearly needs help and if he is mentioning offing himself more often then you may need to consider what to do if you think he is being serious and not just manipulative

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/helping-someone-else/supporting-someone-who-feels-suicidal/useful-contacts/

andi said:

I’ve never heard of that saying before I can’t lie and I’ve googled it after looking at the link and I’m not entirely sure what it means 

It means an action you have taken becomes a weight around your neck, dragging you down, engulfing you in its stench and constant reminder of what you did.

In this case it was getting into the relationship - it probably seemed the right thing at the time, but your partner has become the metaphorical albatros tied round your neck.

A bit obscure I know, but I have a soft spot for Coleridges poetry.

POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING ️ 

I do love him and just leaving isn’t that easy. I have a lot of my own personal things going on (yes he is aware of them). And some of those make it hard to just go “I can’t put up with this anymore I’m off” if you get what I mean. I sit there day in day out and think  it’ll change he’ll work things out and he’ll finally listen to what I’ve been saying to him what the rest of his family have been saying and I’ve just got to help him through it all. but I’m exhausted all the time and can’t be what he needs and my youth worker says it’s not my job to fix him, but I can’t help but feel like it is. He went through bas times with his kids mother ages ago and he says I’m the one for him and if it wasn’t for me he would have ……  himself. And he’s been saying it a lot more recently about how he’s been thinking about it. So I do believe that he could be depressed I really do but that’s a big emotional thing to tell me and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take information like that. 

I’ve never heard of that saying before I can’t lie and I’ve googled it after looking at the link and I’m not entirely sure what it means 

andi said:

he says no because he’s a man and I’m his therapist

Well that is a mysoginistic trait that you can't blame on autism or depression - it points to ingrained sexism that you are supposed to be everything for him and he doesn't have to be anything for you.

His behaviour does have a lot of depression about it from a range of factors (getting old, being unsuccessful, getting fat, faired relationship, having to move home etc) and if he is not willing to address these with a professional then I only see them getting worse.

The lack of respect if what is the biggest issue in my opion. You can be having a really bad time but if you take others close to you for granted repeatedly without trying to make things better then it reflects badly on your character. He has been doing this to you for far too long and this is in spite of you telling him about it, so he has no excuse of not knowing.

In your shoes I would be already packing my bags as while you love him, he has become an albatros around your neck  ( https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/640279/albatross-around-your-neck-literary-origins ).

So what can I do? It’s been 18 months he’s been like this and I try and help but he doesn’t seem to want to hear it. I listen and try and offer solutions and I get every reason he can think of as to why it won’t work. So I say why not and he won’t answer with anything than “it won’t trust me.”I say to him to go and try some professional help he says no because he’s a man and I’m his therapist he doesn’t need some stranger judging him. He says he’s got money issues  and I offer to help and he says no until the end of the month when I’m low on funds that I have to take it out of my savings. I don’t have an issue with him being depressed everyone will probably experience it at some point in their lives and it just depends on the serverity I have an issue with him not seeming to want to try. Maybe that’s the wrong outlook but it’s the way it seems after 18 months of this visoius cycle there seems to be no changes or willingness to try. Maybe I’m wrong for thinking this way but it is the way I think and I don’t know what else I can to do to help him. He’s stuck in a rut that I can’t pull him out off.

I personally think him leaving the job he’s at will help at lot but he’ll say I’ve had enough I’m looking for a new job look for 1 months and then say he actually quite likes it. Then the next month I hate my job I’m going somewhere else. Next month no I’m too old to start again I might as well stay. So yeah maybe I’m wrong but some days I get annoyed with the back and forth of he hates his job he likes his job. 

andi said:

As weird as this sounds and his dad has said it too I think he likes being miserable.

Yeah this is a kind of rubbish people with depression have to hear a lot. Because They don’t have the energy or a positive mental attitude or the confidence to do anything about the negative situations they’re seen as enjoying them, as using them as convenient excuses for laziness.

also you have to remember that a lot of depression relates to being affected by a problem you can’t solve. As human beings we are wired to solve problems and when you can’t solve a problem that you can’t let go of it because it’s too emotionally important to you your brain obsesses over it and you repeat the cycle of thinking about trying to fix it over and over again even though you know you can’t.

and people say oh you’re always obsessing over the thing that makes you miserable therefore you must love the misery and it’s total rubbish. it’s like chopping off somebody’s legs and saying oh you’re always obsessing over the times when you used to be able to walk you must love misery. just the difficulty of dealing with every day life reminds them they don’t have legs and sets them back into that cycle of wishing they had legs and is there anything they can do to make their life more like it used to be.

I don’t think he is. As weird as this sounds and his dad has said it too I think he likes being miserable. I’ve told him he needs help and I can’t be what he needs in that department. Ive said I’ll support where I can but I’m also only 22 myself and I’m honestly not that mature when it comes to the things he struggles with. How to raise his kids how to help him lose weight how to help him save. I don’t think he’s Interested in fixing things. I really don’t. All he does is look at football on his phone. Not at ways to help himself I get the need for downtime I do but then why ask me for help if he’s not going to listen to what I say? 

On the one hand doing things like spending time with your friends or playing games is the kind of thing people do in order to try and self medicate depression, to try and recharge my mental energy. so it’s not surprising he would do that even if he isn’t putting his socks in the wash.

it’s also entirely possible that you have highly different views of where you both see your lifes going. which is something you’re probably not able to discuss with him sensibly right now if he’s depressed because trying to pin him down about important and difficult topics will just stress him out and depress him more.

at the end of the day the big question is is he willing to get help. Because if he isn’t that does put dealing with his depression entirely on the shoulders of those closest to him. So you have to ask yourself are you and those around him up to that job and if you answer is no maybe that should be some sort of Boundry or condition, that if he wants the relationship to last he has to get some sort of professional help.

I’ve told him what I want in life but he does t seem to want the same he said he does but doesn’t seem willing to make changes. I get the spoon theory (in a sense) but what winds me up is that he will play with his friends online want to do different things and go on walks but can’t put his dirty socks in the Wash basket he walks past. Maybe I’m being too harsh on him but even before we moved he stopped doing things. It was getting left to me to do. I’ve said to him (multiple times) to try and find help it’s a waiting list but you’ll get help and he doesn’t he’s even said he doesn’t need therapy I’m here. I’ve tried talking to him about getting a car for me (I’d be buying it not him) and he said he’s not interested and went on looking at football on his phone. So part of me feels like he can’t be bothered because he knows I’ll do it eventually. But like you said maybe he does have depression and maybe I am being too hard on him 

Well it sounds like maybe he’s suffering with depression and indeed no one will listen to him. A doctor would probably give him pills but that’s not quite the same as listening. Getting one to one mental health therapy in this country can be quite difficult.

depression can create this situation in which you feel powerless to change your own life. What’s your seeing a spoon theory in application. Doing the washing or putting your own clothes away may not seem difficult to you but it’s another spoon that someone has to pull out of their mental energy bucket which has a finite supply. If you get really badly depressed just getting up in the morning and going to work probably uses up all of your spoons, housework, planning for the future, job hunting, that’s mental energy you just don’t have so you’re ration your mental energy and you don’t do it.

because deep down you know if you try to do all the things that everyone tells you you should do and that you tell yourself you should do That one day you won’t get up and go to work, you’ll stay in bed all day, and probably the next day and the next, you’ll burn out.

on top of that it sounds like you just have different expectations and aspirations regarding living your life. For example  there are plenty of people who are happy to live a life where the floor doubles as a clothes basket, where things get washed and cleaned at the last minute when they need to be. in my experience most students live this way.

you've said you don’t like sex but you also said

“My hardest part is that he used to be good and we used to be intermate but I just don’t enjoy at all.”

By which I assume you mean sexually intermate. So you two having a good sex life is possible. It’s just a problem the two of you need to solve if you want a relationship to last of course.

Maybe I am being too harsh. But he always says he hates where he works but yet doesn’t seem to do much about it other than complain. He’s  applied for a few jobs they are all delivering and then he says he doesn’t want them. He got a loan which just threw him into more debt then decided to get a credit card now he’s blown. He has Sundays off witch is when he’s got the kids. He’s a butcher in a supermarket. I’ve been there I’ve done supermarket work I was on my feet all day and I still had to come home and do the housework. I don’t ask him to much especially when he’s been to work but even just putting away his own clothes would be nice or putting his clothes in the wash baskets rather than just on the bedroom floor for me to pick up. 
I have said to him before that I don’t really like sex and he says but it’s an important part of a relationship and I said maybe so but right now I don’t like it and he retaliates. I have said to him he needs help and I can’t provide the answers he’s looking for and all he says is no one will listen to him becuase he’s a man that feels like an excuse to me. Maybe I am being too harsh on him. We had a ‘talk’ last week and all he kept saying was do you think we are better off separated so you not think I’m dragging you down that’s when I said to him you need help. Then 2 hours later he says forget about it. Maybe I am too hard on him

If he won't wear a condom when you want him to, he doesn't deserve sex. End of. 

So the dynamics of your relationship are quite as uneven as your first post suggested. You’re both contributing to the family budget. You may be frustrated that he won’t leave his job too I don’t know go back to education? I can totally understand why he wouldn’t want to. These are turbulent economic times and qualifications are no guarantee of getting a job.

it’s weird that he’s expecting you to take more care of his children than he does, especially given they are his from a previous relationship and he doesn’t get to see them that much. But is it possible with the timing of when they visit he’s very tired because of work?

i’m playing devils advocate here.  As for your sex life it sounds like The issues are a byproduct of the other issues in your relationship. As you say before when you were having a few arguments your sex life was much better. From a purely pragmatic point of view you could just go with Girl on top positions. But I think what’s more important is addressing your different expectations in your relationship.

I reiterate communication is key. You seem to have different expectations of what the next few years are going to bring. Different aspirations perhaps as well.

what you’ve told me has not particularly convinced me that he is manipulating you or wilfully and deliberately trying to take advantage of you. It’s entirely possible that he is just a tired and impulsive and possibly bit depressed man who doesn’t feel up to doing housework, thinks rightly or wrongly that his job is more physically tiring than yours, and maybe feels overwhelmed by the thought of trying to engineer his future. Maybe counselling is an idea.

to me it seems you are as dissatisfied with the state he is in as much as the state the relationship is in. You need to discuss your issues together including the issues you have with each other and probably with some kind of facilitator or neutral party.