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BeyondBlue Hey there - read this to see what this section is all about
  • replies: 0

Hello and welcome This is the Relationships and Family section where members can talk about what is happening in their lives and the people they live with. We know that who we live with can make a big impact on our wellbeing, both in a good way or a ... View more

Hello and welcome This is the Relationships and Family section where members can talk about what is happening in their lives and the people they live with. We know that who we live with can make a big impact on our wellbeing, both in a good way or a negative way. As always, we want to hear your story and how it impacts you and encourage everyone to support each other with kindness. There are a few things to consider when posting in this section so we can all get the most out of it: Everyone’s situation is unique. We all do our best to share what is important in our story but we can never share it all. Let’s be mindful we can’t know all of everyone’s story. Anonymous but public. These posts are available to everyone and while the moderation team will keep it anonymous, its still up for everyone to read. Have a think about what you want to share to get the best support for you. Please stay safe. This space is an amazing way to seek support from others who might understand what you are going through. We want to hear how you are going and what is happening for you. Please also consider 1800RESPECT if you don’t feel safe or 000 if you are in danger right now. You deserve to be safe. Thank you again for joining this conversation, your contributions are worthy and important to us here. Beyond Blue

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Athenry Little childcare illnesses
  • replies: 7

I just need to vent… I love being a parent and love being married… but. I don’t feel like I get to enjoy time with my family… someone’s always puking or coughing! I have chronic illness so sometimes that’s me. It feels like whenever I notice we’re al... View more

I just need to vent… I love being a parent and love being married… but. I don’t feel like I get to enjoy time with my family… someone’s always puking or coughing! I have chronic illness so sometimes that’s me. It feels like whenever I notice we’re all well, within a few hours someone’s sick. My eldest is coming down with something now, looks like our third bout of gastro since December, which means we’ll probably all get it. My youngest has been coughing for a few days, and for the last two weeks I’ve had a sinus infection. I hope it gets better I just want to feel healthy enough to enjoy life rather than spend every day on tenterhooks not knowing if I’ll get a phone call while at work or be woken by a screaming child just as I fall asleep. I’m not sure of the point of this thread… maybe just looking for solidarity. Now hubs and I have to play the game of who’s-job-is-most-important again.

Tim83 Helpless.
  • replies: 13

Hi all, It's been quite a week on a number of fronts...but the one creating that enormous chasm in my stomach is the fact my wife is requesting we separate after discovering I've been messaging another woman on Linkedin for the past 4 years - with th... View more

Hi all, It's been quite a week on a number of fronts...but the one creating that enormous chasm in my stomach is the fact my wife is requesting we separate after discovering I've been messaging another woman on Linkedin for the past 4 years - with the messages becoming increasingly inappropriate. We've been together over 12 years and married about 10.5. We have 2 beautiful girls, 5 and 4 years old. The messaging commenced on a professional basis, I was providing advice on how she may find work opportunities in our shared field. After a couple of years we continued in contact and I started sending messages suggesting we meet, and saying a few other inappropriate things. I don't really know what I wanted to get out of that. It's true I was interested to meet her. This was in a professional capacity, but at some point the lines became blurred. We never did meet personally, but the damage was done by the messaging which suggested I was very much interested in meeting her - and for the wrong reasons. My wife is a very strong person with very clear moral guidelines around infidelity, cheating etc. Although I didn't meet her, to her it appears I was very much intent on meeting her. In the past week she has said she wishes to separate and has made some initial enquiries with our mortgage broker about how she can look at keeping the house. She has not yet brought it up with family or friends, to my knowledge. I've made an enormous mistake. What I considered to be 'innocent' of 'friendly' chat was anything but. I failed to see at the time the potential for the hurt I could cause. I'm filled with fear and regret right now. Fear that my actions will cause me to lose the most wonderful parts of my life. I'm fearful of only seeing my daughters 50% of the time (this kills me) and fearful of losing my best friend and biggest supporter - my wife. She feels abused that she has spent all this time caring for me and my children, whilst in her eyes I've been playing this cheeky game behind her back. I know she is hurting a lot right now. She is an incredibly stubborn (for lack of a better word) woman and my fear is that her pride would never allow her to reconcile. My pleas are falling on deaf ears. I know at this point it is probably unreasonable for her to be feeling any other way. I thought the past couple of days we were making minor progress, but this morning she confirmed she still intends to separate. I'm feeling incredibly low right now and would like any thoughts..

kp1903 Feeling Lost
  • replies: 5

Hi there, Please no judgment! I have been seeing my partner for approx 1 year. However due to covid and long distance, we have probably only seen each other approx ten times. when state borders locked down I didn’t see him from July until Christmas a... View more

Hi there, Please no judgment! I have been seeing my partner for approx 1 year. However due to covid and long distance, we have probably only seen each other approx ten times. when state borders locked down I didn’t see him from July until Christmas and from then I felt like my feelings have changed and that the distance had made up grow apart. from the start I have felt very pushed into this relationship, from others telling me how great he is. A close friend set us up so I’ve felt obliged to stick around but the last two times I saw him things just have changed and I just don’t have the same feelings. I know I have been acting rude and hurtful to him as well as my family. I just feel like everyone is pushing me to make this work when I’m not sure if I want to. I feel angry all the time and snap at my friends and family. I feel sad and cry myself to sleep most nights because I don’t want to hurt anyways as I have been very hurt in the past before. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I’m just so lost and scared of hurting everyone around me.

Hun My partner wont divorce his ex
  • replies: 15

I have been with my partner for a year and 6 months, he have been separated from his ex nearly 2 years, every time I ask when you will get divorce he said when he is ready, and that's make me anxious is he still have feelings to her or he just don't ... View more

I have been with my partner for a year and 6 months, he have been separated from his ex nearly 2 years, every time I ask when you will get divorce he said when he is ready, and that's make me anxious is he still have feelings to her or he just don't like to be divorced. On the other matter, when his ex left nearly 2 years ago her kids stopped talking to her after they knew she cheated, now one of his daughter who she live with us starts talking to her mum, I am worried that his ex going to start coming to our house. I don't know what to do.

Tata.M Is this abuse
  • replies: 5

Hi all, I thought I should ask as am not so sure what to call what am going through. Is there something like invasion of privacy in a marriage? The reason am asking is because my husband has a habit of snatching my phone and leaving the house or lock... View more

Hi all, I thought I should ask as am not so sure what to call what am going through. Is there something like invasion of privacy in a marriage? The reason am asking is because my husband has a habit of snatching my phone and leaving the house or locking himself in a room so that he can go through it. I never care to run after him because I know I have nothing to hide and an a loyal person. I found out that he goes through my search history. I never delete anything because there is nothing to hide but it bothers me and when I tell him he says it's transparency however everything about him is private. Once I pick up a call he wants to listen in. I was on the phone with my mum only to find out he was listening. I felt so violated because I was going through some challenges and thought I would have a private conversation with my mum as she is level headed and very compassionate. The next day he called my mum to tell her that my challenges had no basis and that she should not tell me I called. This was shocking to my family as we are tight and always talk about everything. I was hoping I could get some clarity. I feel violated though.

Mitchel_C Feeling defeated months after my breakup
  • replies: 3

Its been 4 months since me and my girlfriend of 2 years have broken up. I am 22 and she was 20. I ran into a lot of mental health problems involving depression and anxiety throughout our relationship due to unrelated factors, which subsequently cause... View more

Its been 4 months since me and my girlfriend of 2 years have broken up. I am 22 and she was 20. I ran into a lot of mental health problems involving depression and anxiety throughout our relationship due to unrelated factors, which subsequently caused problems in our relationship involving confidence, self-esteem, trust and enthusiasm. I also pretty much stopped taking care of myself, which was completely out of character. I gained a lot of weight, stopped studying, barely worked and overall degraded my own self image which led me to having 0 confidence. Towards the end of our relationship and coming out of the entire Covid situation, I managed to kick my depression and truly started to become myself again. I got in the best shape I had been in for a while, made a solid effort at uni and overall started making positive changes in my life. Unfortunately, the timing of these positively shifting moments in my life were disrupted when my girlfriend decided she was no longer in love with me. To save a very long story, we just had different motivations / personalities and she felt like she wanted new experiences in life that I had been limiting her from. I was very understanding though it was extremely painful for me to accept. We tried being friends for around a month but decided it wasnt going to work after separately accusing each other of trying to move onto other people on various occasions. I was ideally trying to prove that I could truly change to be the man she once fell in love with, but she was set on starting her new career as well as gaining a bunch of new friends. We have pretty much unfriended / blocked each other on all forms of social media and havent talked to one another for over a month. Through mutual friends, I have heard and seen that she is very much 'happy' and enjoying her new lifestyle. Whilst I am happy for her, its also really painful to see every now and again. I have been focusing on myself throughout this time, making sure im surrounded by my close friends/family, exercising a bunch, studying and working. Though I just feel like im not doing enough and im not enough. I have been on a few dates and am somewhat talking to a new girl, though I dont feel like I would want a relationship with this person so im just not motivated outside of wanting sex. Some days I just break down because im not the person I want to be, some days I just dont want to be lonely. I just want to be confident enough to go after the people im interested in.

lonelyglassesgirl Dealing with people who react aggressively to assertiveness
  • replies: 5

Hi everyone, I'm in a bit of a conundrum -- but I also figure that this situation is probably quite common, so I thought I'd put my question into words, and hopefully the responses will help other people too. I've recently realised that I am overly p... View more

Hi everyone, I'm in a bit of a conundrum -- but I also figure that this situation is probably quite common, so I thought I'd put my question into words, and hopefully the responses will help other people too. I've recently realised that I am overly passive in a lot of life contexts (work, relationships, etc) because I am frightened that others will react poorly or even aggressively if I am assertive. That's to say, I often hide any sort of negative feeling, criticism or disagreement, even when it could be useful to a project, or when it clouds communication (e.g. not being able to say "I don't want to keep on dating you"), because I'm frightened that other people will reject or get angry at me. I think that this is because when I was a child and teenager, and in fact even now, my mum reacted very badly if I expressed my feelings or thoughts or even did random actions without her pre-approval. For example, when I was 21, she literally went ballistic and locked herself in the bathroom because I'd gotten a haircut (like mid-back length to long bob, nothing wild) without telling/asking her beforehand. She also gets either openly angry or "huffy" if I plainly express an opinion, disagree with her opinion, or refuse something. Previously, she has also threatened self-harm and suicide, and in rare cases threatened to harm me, in response to any more "intense" conflict. Anyway, my concern is that I've been reading about how it's important to be more assertive and not passive or passive-aggressive, and this has been helping me with contributing more productively at work, managing/ending relationships in a clear yet respectful manner, etc. However, I am wondering what to do about someone who is almost guaranteed to react aggressively to normal assertiveness. For example, if my mum asks me a question about my sex life and I say, "I'd prefer not to discuss my sex life with my mum", I know she will go ballistic. But I would actually prefer not to discuss that (and other matters) with her, as she doesn't approve of homosexuality and I have recently been dating a woman. Similarly, in the past when I have said, "I am not going to discuss religion with you", she has continually talked to me about religion and provoked me by saying I am a bad person, etc, for not being religious. Does anyone know what to do about this kind of situation? It doesn't seem like there is any way I can refuse certain requests without my mum going nuts.

Worriedhusband Trapped
  • replies: 3

Hey guys, Not sure if I’m in the right place but I need some advice. My marriage is in serious trouble and I don’t know what to do. It got to a point where I told my wife that I wanted out and that I wanted to leave and try to move on with my life. I... View more

Hey guys, Not sure if I’m in the right place but I need some advice. My marriage is in serious trouble and I don’t know what to do. It got to a point where I told my wife that I wanted out and that I wanted to leave and try to move on with my life. I told her how I felt and then asked if we could handle things like adults and talk through things in an honest way. Her response was “not right now but maybe we could talk in 2 weeks”. I’m not sure where the 2 weeks came from but that was the time frame given. Now that we have sort of tried a couple of times to talk about things she is not happy with the fact that I am finally speaking up. The reason that I am on this forum is because she is now threatening to harm herself if I decide to leave and she had also tried to use my boys against me by saying that she will tell them that as a result they will never talk to me again. She also threatened to harm herself 2 days ago. She called me when she was on her way over to pick up our son from university. She called me and told me that I wouldn’t hear from her again and that she wanted me to look after our boys and make them happy. I feel that she is only doing this to somehow hold me to ransom so our marriage is not broken. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

GeorgeAD My wife fell out of love with me without me realising
  • replies: 6

So I am not a huge believer in the stages of grief, but apparently, for the past two years, I have been in denial. It all started when I noticed my wife wasn't saying "I love you" back when I would say it to her. I asked her about it casually and app... View more

So I am not a huge believer in the stages of grief, but apparently, for the past two years, I have been in denial. It all started when I noticed my wife wasn't saying "I love you" back when I would say it to her. I asked her about it casually and apparently she hasn't been happy for some time and she was ready to leave. Obviously this was a shock to me but she had been thinking about it for some time. She had already dealt with it before I had any time to react. I tried to talk it through with her. Offered for us to get some couples counselling but she was already done. Now she has given me an ultimatum to be out of the house by the end of the month. I will respect her wishes and am trying to find a place, I just dont feel like I am mentally in a place where I am ready to move on. I worry about how I am going to cope dealing with the breakdown of our marriage on my own. I have spent many nights in the spare room screaming into a pillow as to not wake our son. Crying in silence because I dont want to be a burden. I was coming to terms with it all until I found out she has started seeing someone else. I dont think she was when this all came to a head, but she was just so far ahead of me in the "moving on" process, she was already at that stage. I asked her (with the caveat that I know its not my place) whether she could hold off seeing anybody else until I have moved out and she responded that she would not discuss dating with me and I should respect her privacy. I feel like I am spiralling and any chance of us reconciling expired before I even knew there were issues. I dont know how to deal with the breakdown of our marriage and I worry about breaking down in front of our son. I just dont know a future without her but she has assured me there is no chance of reconciling as we are. I dont know how do deal with this pain

Cathy_M Was my breakup motivated by mental illness?
  • replies: 3

My boyfriend of several months broke up with me. It was a lovely relationship - we had loads in common and had slowly been coming closer and more comfortable with each other. One day, we were hanging out and I slept over as normal and he seemed to re... View more

My boyfriend of several months broke up with me. It was a lovely relationship - we had loads in common and had slowly been coming closer and more comfortable with each other. One day, we were hanging out and I slept over as normal and he seemed to really love me, then two days later he said he'd completely lost feelings and needed to break up. He insisted that he'd love to be friends with me, just didn't feel romantically anymore. He has a long history of severe depression and insomnia, and his father died suddenly at the end of last year. He'd been starting to talk a little more about how he felt, but had not started to deal with this and shoved it down like a lot of his past traumatic experiences, I think. After he broke up with me I checked in with two of his close friends to ask if he was alright, but they both said that hadn't seen him recently but seemed fine. Since the breakup he's been acting really randomly and I'm not sure what to think. The first two weeks, he acted as if we were still best friends. We were at a mutual event and he came and sat next to me and talked as normal, just didn't touch me at all; he was still texting me pretty much every day. Then, over three days he did a complete 180. He barely texted, and didn't seem to change his clothes or leave his room or sleep. Late one night, I saw him on a walk on his snapmaps and messaged to say goodnight and get home safely - he tends to walk when he's depressed or thinking. He messaged back and said we shouldn't talk anymore, because I'd become boring. He then blanked me for a week, before texting to say that we could still talk, just not as much, so we messaged a couple of times about small things. At another mutual event, he had 5 standard drinks and complimented me using an inside joke that we'd had while dating but didn't really speak to me the rest of the night. Afterwards, he messaged me again to say that he only wanted to be friends in person, not 'online' (i.e. texting etc.). I've seen him a couple of times in group contexts since and its always 50/50 as to whether he'll act strangely or not. Yesterday, he spoke to me normally but went to a huge effort not to stand or sit anywhere near me when our group was walking anywhere. I am so confused, hurt, and lost. Is it reasonable to think there's something mental illness related that caused the breakup and how he's behaving? Does anyone have any insight into what he's thinking? Is there a chance we could date again in future?