# Advice from stay at home dads



## Sorrowsx (Apr 2, 2012)

Hello,

I am a wife and I am very worried for my husband. I need advice from stay-at-home dads. 

Me and my husband have been together for eight years. We have two sons, a five year old and a three month old. I work and my husband stays home. 

It was not planned that he would be an at home dad. When I was pregnant with our first son he was the worker and I was at home. The problem was he wouldn't go to work regularly. He would call in sick day after day. He was fired over his inability to go to work. When asked, "why did you not go to work?" His response was "I didn't feel like it." It got to the point where so many relatives had helped us with our bills that everyone was angry at us. We got evicted from our appartment, we had no food to eat, we couldn't even buy gas to get him to work when he wanted to go.

So, I couldn't let my family live like that. I went to vocational school and got a job as a secretary and he stayed home with our son. He was always a really good dad. He was very close to our son. 

So now it has been almost five years that he's been at home. But, starting last August something happened to my husband and he changed. He started streaming live video on the internet in an attempt to work at home. He plays Call of Duty and similar games. He was always a gamer, he used to play Halo and we even went to MLG event. I always supported his gaming (I like games too.) But this changed him. He locked himself in his office, he became very mean and distant, and he made a friend who is very angry and hateful to women due to having been badly hurt. Well, this friend is very lecherous and my husband started acting like him, which is a shock to me because my husband always had a strong character and didn't condone that behavior. He started saying things like being married to me was a prison and that I didn't know the "real" him, because I've only known him as an at home dad.

Anyway, right before the baby was born he started to come back to his old self. He's mostly normal now, except when he streams that "other person" comes out, especially when he hangs around his friend (who he only knows through online gaming, he lives very far away.) 

Anyway, I know my husband is unhappy being an at home dad. I would be thrilled if he would be the worker, because I have a disability and it is getting worse. I have bipolar disorder with psychotic features (mainly paranoid delusions and delusions of grandure.) I do well at home with the kids but work is too stressful and my job is in jepordy because my mental wellness, and this angers my boss. I've been told if it happens again, I'm fired. Sadly, that's like telling a blind person to start seeing or they will be fired. 

But, the only job my husband will consider is to be a video game tester. And those jobs don't exist in our state. We are low income because I am just a secretary. We don't have the money to move. We make it paycheck to paycheck but that's all I can do. If I even bring up that a company is hiring he gets angry and says I don't love or support him, which is not true.

Also, he no longer spends time with me. He is not mean anymore but he stays locked in his office. Even our five year odl asked him point blank why he never leaves his office any more, and my husband answered, "Because I love this room so much." He doesn't take care of the baby because he had his mom move in with us. He walks our son to school and then walks him home. Otherwise he sits in his office 24/7 with the doors closed. He says he hates his mother and doesn't want anything to do with her. He doesn't help clean the house, which is a mess because I can't keep up. My mother-in-law tries but she has sever chorinic degenerative bone disease so just helping with our baby is a lot for her. 

I know he is probably depressed or something. I don't know what to do. I feel like I have to be perfect to get even an ounce of affection from him. If I don't keep the house perfect, keep my job perfect, pay all the bills, do all the errands, take care of the kids, and the yard, etc... I just can't do it all. I have started having sever chest pains and can't breathe. 

We were always very affectionate and loving. I always supported him in what he was doing because I want him to be happy. I've always been supportive of all goals, hobbies, dreams and everything. I never said 'you can't do this or that.' The only thing he can't do is have an affair (which goes both ways, obviously.) I love him and always believed he was my soul mate. But I feel like nothing but a huge burden on him the way he acts and says I'm a prison. I know it is hard for men to stay home, so i wanted to see if any other dads had advice. I would be overjoyed if he had friends to go out with to a ball game or gaming convention or whatever, but he doesn't ever leave the house, and his only good friend is that guy who openly says "You should cheat on your wife/girlfriend because women are trash and will do it to you." And he let that friend make sexual jokes about me, as well, which were hurtful. So that would be the only person I don't trust him going with if he ever did.... 

Sorry, I am rambling. Please I don't want to hear that he is a bad person, because he's not. I want to hear how to help him or what could be wrong so I can make it better.


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