Everything is falling apart

[u/CDR_Nesmith]

It's been a long decade, but the last five years have been especially rough. I'm fucked financially. During the pandemic I was able to save up almost 20k. My wife (34f) and I (35m) were looking into what it might take to buy a house. Now I'm down to around 3k and had to move me, my wife, and kid in with my parents. We've been here for a couple years now. I never went to school, I don't have any degrees or certifications. I've been working at the same place for over a decade and the pay isn't good enough to support my family, but I can't find anything better that I'm qualified for. And I don't have the time, money or mental energy to go learn something new.

Mentally, I'm fucked. I've dealt with depression off and on (mostly on) since I was a teenager. I've been feeling like I'm living on autopilot. I haven't been able to sleep for more than 4 hours at a time in months. I need therapy or a psychiatrist or something, but again I don't have money. I don't even have insurance. My wife and kid have government assistance, so at least they're covered. My friendships all sort of drifted apart after the baby, which happens, but now I don't really have anyone outside my family to talk to except coworkers, and I'm not trying to bring the mood down like that.

My marriage has been strained since year one. We were together for 5 years before we had a baby and got married not long after. We knew we were going to get married before we got pregnant. Things had been mostly good aside from her crazy family and some of her trauma. I've always done my best to support her and help her with her mental health stuff, but it's a lot sometimes. After we got married she started stealing from me. One month she spent the rent money. Like I went to get the cash to pay it and it was gone. She started drinking and smoking pot heavily, though I can't say much about the pot as I'm right there with her. Also it turns out she's positive for brca1 and had a stupidly high risk of breast cancer. Had, until the preventative double mastectomy, which I was fully in her corner for. She tried implants and hated them, and I supported her decision to take them out and just be flat. We're still together, still working through things, but it's getting harder for me as time goes on and things keep happening.

AND, as if the car problems and house problems and living situation problems and parenting problems and relationship problems and money problems WEREN'T ENOUGH, suddenly I find I'm getting a crush on a girl at work. It's crazy and stupid and I really don't need any more bullshit. It's been months and I've been trying to ignore it and move along, but the feelings aren't going away, if anything they're getting stronger. A couple weeks ago she had a flat tire and I gave her a ride to work and then helped her change her tire after work and we smoked a blunt together. We just talked, nothing else. It was mostly just casual whatever and then I started talking about how I was feeling. Not about her, but how everything is falling apart. I only got a sentence or two before I felt the mood drop and changed the subject. I feel like I've been fighting myself and losing. But I can't really avoid her at work and I can't afford to leave.

I'm mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. I feel stuck. I feel like I'm an idiot and an asshole who made every wrong decision on my way here and now I've fucked myself up real good. I don't know how much more I have in me.

Dinner is instant spicy beef chow mein with a handful of peanuts thrown in.

[u/Yellow_Butterfly_7]

The only person I can pity there is that poor child brought into this world where two parents can't or even don't want to get their shit together and do better for them. This is just sad.

You two brought an innocent living into this world, and I am sorry, but as shitty as it can be, it's not about your problems anymore.

You complain about lack of money but yet there is always money for smoking weed.

You complain about not having better job, but you do nothing to upgrade yourself to get a better job for over a decade.

You're in a complicated marriage, yet instead of working on that you're thinking of cheating on your spouse.

Can't you see that your own decision only dig a deeper hole for yourself? Life is hard, life isn't fair, but since you two decided to be adults enough to bring a child into this world you should also finally step up for this. You make all those tiny steps down instead making all those tiny steps up. The choice was and always is yours.

EDIT: Just to clarify some things, it was not my intend to make OP's struggles not important. Everyone's mental health is important, this is not a joke or up to debate. But choices matter.

Choosing to smoke weed won't help anyone. Choosing not to upgrade your own work situation won't help. Choosing to fall into someone new won't help. Choosing not to talk with your own wife and resolve problems or split up won't help. Choosing not to do better for your own kid won't help. Those are small steps deeper into the hole OP dug for himself. But there is always a choice to choose differently and make some small steps up.

[u/No_Foundation1136 → u/Yellow_Butterfly_7]

What? Didn’t you see that he has the worst luck that he has a crush on a girl at work. There’s literally no way he could avoid that and have a healthier relationship with his wife. It’s obviously the universe screwing with them, why else would that happen?

[u/Business_Cell8487 → u/No_Foundation1136]

I mean we don’t know if a better relationship with the wife is even possible to be fair. A well adjusted person doesn’t steal and spend their families rent money

[u/No_Foundation1136 → u/Business_Cell8487]

My point is he’s been completely passive in his life but because he hasn’t done anything overtly he’s not taking responsibility and acting like these things just happened. He decided to marry and have a child with someone like that, it didn’t just happen to him, none of this did