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Chris_B PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING: 3 important tips to get the most out of this section
  • replies: 0

Hi everyone, The Relationships & Family Issues section is one of the busiest here on our forums. It's also one of the areas where we find members can get themselves into trouble! Before posting here, take a deep breath and be mindful of the following... View more

Hi everyone, The Relationships & Family Issues section is one of the busiest here on our forums. It's also one of the areas where we find members can get themselves into trouble! Before posting here, take a deep breath and be mindful of the following 3 tips: 1. Do you really want to share this with the world? This is a public forum. Are you thinking of posting something that could identify you to a friend or family member? Once you've posted, you can't delete what you've written and we don't take posts down from here unless they've broken one of our community rules. This is because our members spend a lot of time composing replies, and there is a much wider audience that gets a lot out of reading what has been written. It's not fair to ask the community for support, then ask to have it removed once you've read it so others can't also benefit. Use discretion when posting here - think about the level of detail you are sharing, and think also about who might know you are posting here. Also, please keep it clean: this is an all ages forum and explicit discussions about sexual problems are not permitted. Threads and posts of this nature will be removed and your account placed on a moderation hold. 2. What do you want to get out of posting here? Relationship and family issues are stressful. Members sometimes post here seeking advice about a relationship that has broken down, but find themselves getting upset when they don't agree with the response they get. This is a peer support forum, meaning we are not mental health professionals. We are people of all ages and backgrounds, with a wide range of life experiences. While we aim for our discussions to be conducted respectfully, people here will respond with the truth as they see it, from their own experiences and perspectives. We are not here to take sides. Offence is almost never intentional, but it can be sometimes taken. The advice you will see here is not intended to be a substitute for professional counselling. 3. What other support do you have? Most people posting on our forums (about any issue) use this space as a supplement to other supports. This forum is not and cannot be a substitute for offline supports, but it is often a good place to start the ball rolling and find the courage for seeking help. If you are relying solely on an internet forum to resolve your relationship or family issues, you are likely to be disappointed. Check out the Healthy Homes section of our Healthy Families website for further information and resources.

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Mick Kicked in the guts
  • replies: 5

After supporting my wife through attempting suicide twice,taking nearly 3 months off work cashing in my long service so she can take the time needed for her to get back and when I'm back at work on the second day she rings and says we need to separat... View more

After supporting my wife through attempting suicide twice,taking nearly 3 months off work cashing in my long service so she can take the time needed for her to get back and when I'm back at work on the second day she rings and says we need to separate.25 years of marriage 3 great kids and she isn't in love with me any more ! How is a bloke supposed to feel.i wish I knew because that is the hardest part I don't know how i feel.everyone says are you ok but I don't know how I feel.we went to a relationship councillor only to find she wants emotional space..I don't even know what this is.she wants to live in the same house but not have a relationship with me.financially and for the kids I can understand this but I don't know what I do or where I go from here.i just hope it gets clearer but I just don't know.

Toots87 Can't seem to find my happy self again
  • replies: 5

Hello, just wanted to share my story and seek some advice. I'm 26. A mother and usually a very positive and happy person. I guess the reason for this post is, recently I haven't been able to find my happy self. I've just been through a break up with ... View more

Hello, just wanted to share my story and seek some advice. I'm 26. A mother and usually a very positive and happy person. I guess the reason for this post is, recently I haven't been able to find my happy self. I've just been through a break up with the father of my daughter. We were together 3 and a half years. We had trouble throughout our relationship. We'd fight, due to disagreements mainly caused by his temper and negativity. We've been through a whirlwind, of breaking up and getting back together. He's cheated in the past. Basically I ended the relationship after a regular argument. I'd had enough of the way he spoke to me. It was very disrespectful. Even more recently, my family has gone through something where a lot of childhood secrets have now come about. I've learned and remembered some things I wish I never knew from when I was a child. Now going through this as well as the breakup has really taken it's toll on me. I'm finding it hard to motivate at work. I don't wake up happy anymore. I'm always upset. I don't know what else to do.

Kmac I pushed my husband away
  • replies: 3

My husband and I were together for 8 years and married for 1.5. We have 2 children together (under 6). I'm not really sure when my depression started. I remember after our 2nd child there were some signs. But it was after our wedding I shut down. I h... View more

My husband and I were together for 8 years and married for 1.5. We have 2 children together (under 6). I'm not really sure when my depression started. I remember after our 2nd child there were some signs. But it was after our wedding I shut down. I had nothing to focus all of my energy into. If i was feeling down before the wedding, I just concentrated on planning which helped me focus my feelings on something positive. I felt increasing lonely and distant from my husband. I spent a lot of times online, chatting to friends but not connecting to the person who should have been closest to me. He became busier at work and seemed to spend more time away from home. He asked me often what was wrong but I just fobbed it off, because i couldn't explain why i felt so sad or lonely without a good excuse for feeling this way. I felt as though my issues and feelings weren't important. He had stresses at work and i didn't want to add to that. 4 months ago, my husband told me he wasn't in love with me anymore. I was crushed. My dreams of a happy family were shattered. He moved out and stayed with a friend of ours (who he also worked with). I knew he had left because I shut him out and made him feel unimportant and unloved. It was at this time when i couldn't stop crying and found it hard to get out of bed in the mornings, that i went to my GP and was diagnosed with Depression and placed on medication. I knew if i wanted a chance to get my husband to come home, i had to admit i had an issue and make positive changes. I enrolled to study and read books and online blogs as i tried to understand why i had felt the way i did, why i thought i had to shut out my loving husband. We decided we would try to fix things and i thought things were going well until i received an annonymous phone call to say my husband was having an affair with the 'friend' he had been staying with. I confronted him and he denied it all. Then a few days later he admitted that she had told him that she had feelings for him and they had shared an emotional embrace which led to a kiss. He swore that was all that had happened. Again I was shattered, but after all of the hard work i had done to get better for my family, i wasn't willing to let this destroy us. I asked him to cut all ties with her and work to get our marriage back. He agreed at first and moved back in but after a week away from work, he returned and nothing had really changed. He stayed at home for 2 weeks before he became upset with me again and told me he 'couldn't do this' and moved out (luckily not with her). Now he is angry and can't understand why I was shutting him out and i so feel guilty for destroying our marriage and my family. I feel rejected, exhausted and unloved. I have never before doubted the trust i have in him. I have overwhelming feelings of being 'not good enough' and that he must really hate me to be willing to leave our 2 beautiful children behind. He volunteers within our community and shows so much compassion to others and I feel like he has none for me and my fight with depression. He understands what it means to be depressed but can't seem to see that this was they cause or forgive me for pushing him away. I don't know what to do next.

roddor OH DEAR!!
  • replies: 2

I was in a relationship i am glad that i am no longer in tho i am struggling is prolly an understatement and a half.. i have lost the plot well and truely and have no interest in continuing .. i was too late to leave this person and i am so f*&**ed u... View more

I was in a relationship i am glad that i am no longer in tho i am struggling is prolly an understatement and a half.. i have lost the plot well and truely and have no interest in continuing .. i was too late to leave this person and i am so f*&**ed up its not funny , i tried to forget the horrors and be normal and do normal day things but that lasted till last week and now i have lost the plot... i noted in my diary the day i knew i had totally lost any concepts of being ok.. i have not slept for 3 days... i am rambling .. thats where im at OH DEAR.. where is this going to end!!

Enricopit I found it hard to adjust to my new life after my marriage breakdown
  • replies: 1

My marriage seems that was the cover of deeper problem in myself caused by my parents divorce and disrupting behaviour, I feel I have been living a lie all time and even though they are my parents and I need them I am not able to get over or rebuild ... View more

My marriage seems that was the cover of deeper problem in myself caused by my parents divorce and disrupting behaviour, I feel I have been living a lie all time and even though they are my parents and I need them I am not able to get over or rebuild a relationship with them and It has caused me problems with people around me making it difficult for me to build a relationship with anyone. My marriage sort of was a cover of my problems until my ex wife who suffer of a mayor crisis because of infertility decided to leave me because of her infertility she rather to be single again. I was left in the air completely I could not cope with anything, even after I try to focus because she did not want to get help I was the only person there for her while she needed me and wanted my support. I had to see a psychologist for myself at the same time I was dealing with a workers compensation issue at work until eventually I was left without a job because of my injury. All this started in 2010, now 2013 when I have reach my lowest at my depression and anxiety levels, where I am living at my parents house which I hate because of my childhood memories but I dont have anyother option because the whole situation has cripple me making feel so insecure in myself, I can not get a job, because has affected my mood, my temper is bad, I am impatience... just to name few. I am not sure if I am going to be married again, because I dont want to go through same thing and as I lost trust to people and feel insecure in myself I have started thinking because my parents divorce has done something to me that I am not good to be married to someone. Let me feeling even worst about to bringing up a child. Now my anxiety and depression has gone bad because I have become a night owl, after my separation I could not sleep and I started taking the pills to sleep so start sleeping for 4 hours until that eventually without the pill that I dont like to take i start sleeping something like 6 hours. Now I am sleeping 7 since a couple of months but I always feel sick when I wake up (10am or 11am) I've integrated exercise which help me a lot in everyway and sleeping. But after recognizing the problems that cause my sadness living with my parents not been able to forgive them just make me feel that I wanna run and I want help because I feel this is my breakpoint where I could be better for the rest of my life, I wanna be free and better. Because depression and anxiety is killing me, I have tried to talked with my parents and explaining things to them to get them aware of it but seems that whatever I said of how I feel is wrong and selfish because they repeated to themself "they did the best for us" Now that I dont have money, I hitted bankruptcy, I secluded myself in my room, I have few people to talk i trust and give me some support because I dont want to cling on them all time. I have gone over this website and start thinking about bipolarity which is something that frightens me, I dont want to have but because of none help and my family's denial of my problems. So I feel that I am better off without my family as there is nothing we could share and support eachother with. Even thought they are divorce and lived in different countries they are not happy and settle and that unstability I feel reflect in myself affecting me sometimes when I was married because of the though of having a family. I know I am a complete mess and I hate it. I am 36y/o and stucked and I dont wanna be a looser all my life. Sore of I relate to silver linning playbook Oscar winner 2013 but without the girl founded yet Can someone tell what is going on with me and help me?

Sivet Is waiting and hoping just a waste of energy better spent elsewhere?
  • replies: 8

Hi, I’m new here and hoping you all might be able to give me some direction please, or even just a hint maybe. I’ll try to give you the basic info, without going into all the details. Basically I married my wife about 4 years ago. We both have childr... View more

Hi, I’m new here and hoping you all might be able to give me some direction please, or even just a hint maybe. I’ll try to give you the basic info, without going into all the details. Basically I married my wife about 4 years ago. We both have children living with us from previous relationships and have emotional baggage from that. So we both had our work cut out for us in making our blended family work. Before we were married, I was aware that my future wife suffered depression and was on medication for it, however I was pretty naïve about how much of an impact this has on day to day life. After a comment made by the doctor about my wife’s medication during a visit about an unrelated issue, I started doing a bit of research and because of that and my wife’s family history (her mother is bipolar and her sister is schizophrenic), I came to the conclusion that at the very least the doctor was right about the medication not working or maybe even that my wife herself was bipolar. After about 2 years, I eventually got my wife back to the doctor and after a few questions, he concluded she may have bipolar but wanted her to get some tests done. That was the end of the doctors’ visits for my wife. After that my wife decided she was no longer going to take the medication she was on for her depression and everything went downhill very quickly. My wife’s father was diagnosed with lung cancer; my oldest step daughter left home at 16 and got herself pregnant. All stress that my wife struggled to deal with, which is totally understandable. However me and my kids started to cop a fair bit of abuse over various things, most of which left me scratching my head and wondering why is this a big deal. She said some very vulgar things about my kids and my relationship with them due to me not supporting some things she was making issues off or the punishment she wished them to have. Eventually she left with her kids and blamed me for not coming looking for her and asking her to come home. To be totally honest, as much as I love her, I didn’t want her with us because I was worried the impact of her moods and thinking and abuse had on my kids. We no longer live together. She seems to have created a world were anything me or my kids do is unforgivable, while anything she has said or done is totally justifiable and no amount of talking will make her see reason. I’ve written her a few letters trying to win her over, and apologizing for things I’ve said and done (I have said a few nasty things in defending my kids and myself) with no response. I still love her and feel sorry for everything she has had to go through and want to be there for her, however at the same time I don’t want to sit here hoping things will change and wasting my time and energy hoping when I should be using it to move on. Is the situation hopeless? Should I just move on and leave her to deal with her problem? With her thinking the way it is, could she have possibly moved on herself?