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?

  • quarantine_man [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    any ideas on how hard it is to get on disability for mental health reasons? I'll probably try anyway, but hoping to hear that someone has been successful that way

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I'm not totally sure. I know one person who got on it for BPD but I hate guts and from what I've heard she basically used the testimony of all of her co-workers hating her to the point she felt like she couldn't work. Frankly that's just doing the rest of the workforce a favor. She brought clinically psychopath crackhead to our house when she knew his ex was visiting which led to him stalking me and my roommate and bricking our windows, she then got our landlord's number and tried to get us evicted by pretending to be a neighbor and finally called the SPCA in some attempt to get our animals taken, so my only experience is with a very solid case for someone who can't society.

          • Mardoniush [she/her]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Even if she does improve, you dont have to re-engage with her or care about her (beyond basic abstract humanity).

            She made her choices, and no doubt should have gotten proper treatment earlier. She fucked around, she found out, she has to live with who she is/was.