My husband is a NEET and I’m very fortunate that my career pays enough that we don’t need him to contribute financially. He’s tried out a variety of careers and I’ve supported them, but inevitably he runs into some difficulty and quits within a few months.
I really don’t care that he doesn’t work and actually prefer it that way because my anxiety is very bad and I don’t have a lot of capacity for self-care.
Both of our families think it’s a problem that he doesn’t work, and obviously society looks down on it. My husband just told me that he has trouble sleeping because he can’t stop beating himself up when he’s alone with his thoughts.
Our arrangement has been that he cooks 6 meals a week (we eat 1 meal for both lunch and dinner) and we’ve tried implementing a cleaning schedule so it doesn’t get out of control, but he’s been too depressed to do pretty much any cleaning and wants to do delivery at least every other day. I’ll admit that I really don’t pull my weight with household chores, so I really don’t push these issues a lot because I can’t demand he do something that I’m not willing to do.
He spends all day playing video games, which is what I do in the weekends so I don’t think it’s like horrible, but it’s hard to get him to prioritize responsibilities over his game.
I want to be supportive, I don’t expect him to be a servant, I want him to contribute a fair amount to the state of the apartment and meals and I feel like it’s not possible for him right now because his self-esteem is so low. I also just want him to not feel ashamed of our situation even though I know it’s difficult because people are very judgmental about it.
I’ve asked him to talk to a therapist, but outside of that, what do you guys do to feel good about yourselves in a world that makes it so difficult?
staying at home and not doing anything sucks but that doesn't mean your partner should just languish. At a baseline, if you are wage working, then he should be working at home to help lighten your load. This can mean basic chores, and cooking so that you two are not spending un-necessarily on ordering out. There is the deeper issue here that all the shitty things about work outside the home apply to the home as well, and so your partner needs self fulfilling hobbies, and he needs friends that will help him not spend all his day moving from room to room bummed out. Exercise definitely helps. Not because he should look like captain america, but because it literally physiologically helps you feel better and get into a routine.
On your point about "I'll admit that I really don't pull my weight with household chores" -- well here is the thing. If you were both working, and you both were slacking on household chores, then thats understandable. If one of you is doing waged work, and the other is not, then the non waged person should be doing most of the house work otherwise the waged person is doing double duty when they get home and that will exhaust you.