Need Advice - Reading,PA

time to cut the umbilical cord! You've created a monster child....when you should have a supportive, helpful husband.

He should be up with you. He should be actively assisting in the morning prep. He should be setting his own alarm clock. He should be responsible for his own pills.

& the list goes on & on. He did not do this on his own. You are part of the problem.

Put his butt down in front of the computer & let him read this forum.. & then call us & we'll come over & kick his .......shame on him for not standing up to the plate!

If he wasn't like this when you married him, then YES you should consult his doctor (or get a 2nd or 3rd opinion from other doctors) about this change in his behavior and the medications he is taking. Sounds like that is the root of it.

I'd wake him once in the morning, give him a warning, say your only waking him once then your leaving. Then when he doesn't get up Leave him!! If your not a single parent you shouldn't have to act like one.

I'd start by talking to his doctor,then I'd start leaving him home! He's an adult, if he's not ready when you need to leave then I would just go and let him figure things out.

Sounds like you've allowed yourself to become his mommy. He knows you will baby him so he does what he pleases, medication or not.

This is how I do things. I give one warning, get up and go or you don't go to work today. He can explain why he's late, not you to your boss. Leave him in bed a couple times and he'll start getting his behind up. Trust me. My husband stays up way too late as well. No excuse for it. He messes around when we're trying to get out the door for a family outing or an appointment too. I've left him at home and drove away without him many times over the years. Tired of the sports that is more important. I get tired of treating him like one of the children, or worse. It's ridiculous. Either he bucks up cuz it is his job that is earning money for the family, or he can figure his own way to work. It's NOT fair that you have to carry the entire load for the family while he messes around, and for his child (your stepson) as well! Parenting is a shared responsibility, period. Either he bucks up or he's on his own. I wonder how fast he'd get to work if he had to pay child support on top of his other bills?

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

Your husband has a problem. It is not his doctors fault. Your husband needs help. You should just leave him so you are not late for work. A couple times of him being a no show may "help" him wake up. He is a grown man and should be capable of functioning without you doing everything. What if you lose your job due to being late everyday? I say tough love and leave him if he is not ready to go. Tell him this is what your doing so he has a heads up though.

Oh man...I can feel my blood boiling just reading your post. I would seriously leave without him if he isn't ready. He is taking advantage of you and I am angry that he would believe he has the right to do this.

I think you are an unwitting enabler. :)
Stop being his mother, stop waking him up, stop screaming at him. This has got to be stressful on him as well as you. Do you two fight a lot?
Here's what I do. I tell my husband we are leaving at 4. If you are not ready to leave at 4 I will leave you here. Then, I get myself and the 3 kids ready and I get in the car and leave. I understand that you think it's the medicine that is doing that to him, but I think it may be a bit of both things. Because if the medicine were "truly" knocking him out he wouldn't FINALLY get up and run around to get out the door. He is letting YOU take care of HIM and the whole house. That's not very fair, is it?!
Now, onto the medication issue. He needs to go back to his doctor and explain that he is addicted to the pain medication. It's not the idiot doctor that got him addicted, it's the pain medicine that did. Your husband will probably have to gradually stop using the medicine. It wont be fun, but he needs to do this.
L.

I am not married, so maybe I've got the wrong idea here, but I would think that, as an ADULT, your husband should be responsible for himself. My ex husband THOUGHT I should be responsible for him for a while, but seriously?!? I have/had more than enough to do with getting myself and the kids places. I say, let him suffer the NATURAL consequences of his irresponsibility...you say he makes you late to work, does that also make HIM late? If his tardiness doesn't affect him, why should he even care? If it does make him late, it's probably not a great idea for both of you to risk your jobs in this economy (plus a history of tardiness could follow you if you wanted to use this job as a reference), let him miss work a few times, or figure out his own way to get there. I would probably sit him down and say "look, this silliness has gone on way too long, you know I get up early to allow enough time to get myself and the kids ready and get the kids to school. I will be leaving the house at this specific time for work in the morning-YOU are an adult and should be responsible for yourself, if you're not ready, you're out of luck"

stop trying to wake him up. He's an adult. Tell him you are leaving at time x. If he isn't ready, leave without him. Do this a few days in a row, and he'll figure out some way to get up. When he calls and asks you to come back for him, tell him to take a bus.
As for the pills, if he is addicted, that's not the drs fault. The dr is not making him take the pills. He is choosing to do so. If you think he is addicted, then he needs help & you should have a conversation with him about that.

First, I think you should talk to him about the pain killers and find out if there is another doctor or pain clinic who will help with managing pain and has same goal, drug free patients. Those things are nasty and from what I've heard MOST people get addicted to the common ones they prescribe now. I know one person who is not the type to take medicine, she had to take anti anxiety pills to get off of them and she was very motivated to get off of them, she HATED being addicted to them so much more than the pain.

From the little I've seen and heard it sounds like Drs prescribe these medications with no real plan of how long they will be used and how to get their patients off of them. You may want to go with him to the doctor and ask that.

I was going to suggest as Amanda did. Leave him once or twice (assuming he won't lose his job over one absence) Maybe if you threaten too? Also, you may want to enlist the help of a Family Therapist for this conversation?

Some times when my days turns around and I sleep too late and can wake up, I just have to take the bull by the horns and push me out of the bed earlier, take a big coffee and go on, sometimes it takes me 2 days to do this to finally fall flat on my bed at 10pm and go back to my ruotine,
As a grown up your husband should do this too, if he keeps sleeping late he is going to have trouble waking up early.
But then again the pills adds a whole new problem and I think is something you should talk to his doctor about, that can end up bad.

I am all about team work in a marriage, but there are some cases that one is drowning both, and if you don't let go of your partner's hand in order to get up and have some air, both of you are going to drown.
If both of you keep getting late to work you both could lose your jobs, then what?

It is not that he has no concept of time that is the problem, it is that he is being irresponsible as well as it sounds as if he has developed an addiction. You have received a lot of good advice already. I agree you need to let him take responsibility for himself. He is not a child and you should not be yelling at him to wake up. He should be setting his alarm and getting himself up and ready in plenty of time to leave. If he doesn't do that, it is not your job to make him do it and he will have to pay the consequences for it. Talk to him, tell him your concerns about this and I would tell him you will no longer be responsible for getting him up and ready for work. Tell him ahead of time so it is no surprise and he will either do it himself or pay the consequences of not getting to work, or having t find his own way there late. Just get ready, get the kids ready and if he is not ready when it is time to leave, just leave without him. He may get angry but he will realize he is going to have to take responsibility for himself. As for the addiction to meds that is his fault. I have a spinal cord injury, i am in intense pain everyday from my neck and down my back from spinal cord compression and swelling of my spinal cord at two levels. I am a single mother with no help or support and I do not take pain meds. I live and suffer with the pain and have for two years now. Anyone can live with pain. Is it easy? No, but in my opinion it is better to be clear headed and in pain than to be drugged up on pain meds. Taking drugs for pain is a choice. He is choosing it and now sounds like he is physically addicted as well as emotionally addicted. Once you start taking pain meds it is so easy to not want to stop and feel the pain again(and that is truly understandable), but as the physical addiction gets worse so does the emotional addiction. It is not something I ever wanted to deal with so I chose not to take them on any kind of regular basis. I have taken maybe 10 pills in the last two years for pain. And only when it completely incapacitated me. Let me tell you spinal cord compression is painful, more painful than giving birth or surgery or any other thing I have experienced. I also chose not to take pain meds after my c-sections or any other surgery. It really is a choice. And that is why I am telling you so much of my situation just to let you see it really is his choice. Some people want to live with addiction and then it becomes the choice of those around them if they want to stay with that person or not. It sounds like you really love your hubby and just want him to take back his responsibility for himself, so i would start there. Just don't treat him like a child anymore, expect him to get himself up adn ready for workl. Good luck and stick with it!

Hi, Mama:
First of all, What makes you think you are suppose to be doing this for youe husband? When you find out, let me know and then I will let you know the next step.
Just a thought.
D.

I am an enabler, and now i have such resentment towards my hubby, i feel like slapping him up side the head and myself. do something now about it, take heed these comments of the posters..

I'm sorry to hear that you are going through this. Does your husband see that there is a problem? Does he realize that by making you late each day you could be jeopardizing your job? I definitely think your husband needs to go back to a doctor (possibly a different one?). It doesn't seem that his current treatment plan is working if it prevents him from doing his daily tasks. And if it isn't the meds, it sounds like maybe he is depressed. I really hope that things improve for you and your family.

Susan B.is right on the money. He is a grown man and needs to be responsible for himself. I hope he's not addicted to those pills but it sounds like he could be. I hope you are able to sit down with him and have a serious heart to heart. Good luck.

Yes, inform his doctor of the problems, or get another opinion/evaluation. This is unacceptable from a medical standpoint. I'd say your family needs some counseling as well.

Yes, let him get his own pills and drink the night before. Tell him you're not waking him up.

Yes, get to work on time even if he misses a whole day. If he's so tired, he can stay home. For every 8 days you are an hour late, he can miss 8 hours in one day.

Pack up the kids and say Daddy's not feeling well and he's sleeping late.

I have a friend who is in this situation - husband on way too much medication, he barely goes to work and then lies around all the time, and she does everything including managing 5 kids and getting to all the family events (including HIS family) which he rarely gets to. She took control a few years ago and stopped yelling at him. He hasn't done anything about it despite going to counseling and now they are headed for divorce. This is no way for any of them to live, and it's no way for you and your kids and your stepchild to live.

You've already gotten all the tough love answers (which I agree with), but I also want to add the supportive side. Congratulations on 11 years together! Make time to celebrate your love for each other. Tell him that you love the person that he is inside but that you're worried about his behaviors. Tell him that you want to be in this together. Tell him that you want to help him but he needs to want himself too. We all believe that marriage is a partnership, but does he? Does he see that he's dropping the ball? Does he want to make sure that it's a short-term situation? Open communication - at a time other than during the heat of morning - is critical. Be tough but fair with him, i.e. don't just wake up tomorrow, make an ultimatum and leave him at home. Work together to lay out some ground rules that don't take advantage of you but also give him the opportunity to break the cycle. Just my two cents... good luck~