Your son is 14, plenty old enough to help out around the house. I started unloading the dishwasher/dish drainer when I was 10 and by the time I was in high school, I did all the dishes every night and tidied the kitchen (wiped the counters, stove, swept the floor.) I also helped dust, vacuum, fold laundry/put away, take out trash, clean the kitty box, clean bathrooms once a week and yardwork. My mom did the cooking and the laundry. Chores weren’t my favorite thing, but it was non negotiable with my folks! And, I grew up to really appreciate a tidy kitchen 
The son is old enough to clean, sure, but for most of his life he’s seen his dad get out of doing much cleaning.
Also, if the husband really is a hoarder or developing into one, throwing out anything he sees as “important” (which may vary dramatically from what the average person thinks is important) is bound to lead to Very Bad Things.
I also fear that if she moves out or divorces him now, a judge may well blame her primarily/jointly for any squalor in the house.
She needs to proceed carefully, and quietly contacting a lawyer now at least for long-term planning will probably be very useful and important.
This gets into lawyer territory, and I am not a lawyer, but spousal support (not child support) in many states is a pretty rare thing now. Adults, ‘even’ adult women, are supposed to be able to support themselves.
Its often given in negotiations (I got it twenty years ago, I made more and could support myself, but I got a lot of the debt we mutually entered into, so I asked for support for the term of the car loan we’d taken out less than two months before he left. And he gave it to me, although if he’d have fought it I would have been SOL.)
Freckafree, as soon as I read your OP I remembered that other thread you linked too. Now listen closely: you are NOT unreasonable. On the contrary, you are trapped in a situation that is NOT normal. You are not in a marriage, you are the unpaid, overburdened caregiver of a psychiatric patient. And the only thing that patient is good at is making you and your son feel he is helpless without you.
Now, what to do. First of all, talk to one or several lawyers to make sure what you fear about support is correct. Information may either take your fears away or give you a full understanding of what you are facing, so you can find a solution.
Don’t divorce your husband just yet. Move out. Rent an apartment for yourself and your son. Make sure it is too small for three people. Better still, move in with somebody as a roommate. That way, you don’t need to buy extra furniture. And you can point to the roommate as a reason your husband can’t move in with you. Also, the (female) roommate is bound to do more household chores then your husband does, so you have less stress.
Rent another cheap, small apartment or room for your husband, somewhere nearby enough so your son can go and visit his dad as often as he wants too. Pay the first month of rent for your husband. After that, he’s either on his own or he needs to get himself diagnosed as to mentally ill to work, and in that case getting treatment will have become his resonsibility.
As your son lives with you under the new conditions, if anyone can claim child support, it is you, not your husband.
Meanwhile, put the house you live in on the market. Make selling it the realtors problem, so your husband has to deal with her, not with you. Tell her to change the locks and have your husband removed to his apartment.
If all that is in place, divorce your husband properly. Then enroll in a dating site and start looking for a new and better relationship. Move in together and share household chores and expenses. Loan money if you have to. Once you get together with a new man who doesl pull his weight, you will be able to pay it back no problem.
A woman friend of mine in her late fifties was in the same positions as you. She didwhat I outlined above. Her husband, who was as paralysed to move out his stuff as he had been about everything else in their marriage, responded by procrastinating moving out for weeks on end, untill the day when the movers of the new homeowners were scheduled to arrive. The night before that date, he got drunk, called his wife, slit his wrist (the wrong way), and when she came to the house in a panic, he lay drunk face down in the garden with a tiny pool of blood near his wrist. After that clear declaration of incompetence on his part, his wife called some friends , who got the husbands things in an U haul and dumped them in a hired storage facility. All the stuff of the husband that the friends considered crap was hauled out to the city dump. The husband himself was unceremoneously taken away by an ambulance and the hospital was told to put a band aid over his wrists and then deliver him to the doorstep of the detox clinic. The clinic was told he had no home and could they call Social services to help him arrange one?
That was five years ago. Everybody was immediately relieved by this solution, even the husband. Nowadays, everybody does much, much better. The husband has a small appartment of his own and is happy there. The husband and wife have even become friendly again.
It might be a harsh statement, but he sure doesn’t seem to have much respect for you. 
I think you may be misjudging the perception of kids. Your son’s probably wondering why the hell you have stayed so long.
On the other hand, your lawyer is quite correct, so be honest with yourself, in that the reason you haven’t left is for financial reasons. But remember it would only be temporary. You would only have 4 years of child support and spousal support would be limited in time and amount.
You owe it to yourself, and I’m sure your son would see it that way as well.
I keep wanting to have the other candidates over for dinner, but we can’t. 
Hospitality is very important to my family (he didn’t grow up in the same sort of family and doesn’t feel the same way) and it really bothers me. Even though it’s just as much my fault as his, and the really smelly parts (cat-related) are totally my fault.
Seriously, if we could keep my boyfriend around as a mayoral housepet I would totally be on board with this deal. I would CHEERFULLY bring home the bacon so you can clean up my shit. As long as I get to cook the bacon because I like cooking, but then you clean up the mess I make cooking. And then find where the cat peed.
I wish I had suggestions for you. My stay-at-home, now-ex wife left everything to fester and, literally, grow mold. Laundry, trash & miscellaneous crap drifted were through the house. The landlord had to rent a dumpster to clean out the mess left behind after the separation.
I could never find the right motivation for her. It was always “do it myself or it won’t get done”.
Good luck with it, you have sympathies but, sorrowfully, no advice from me.
Living in a house with this man is more damaging to your 14-year-old son than a divorce would ever be.
Exactly. I would last no more than a month living with someone like this. It’s complete disrespect and shows no consideration for you at all.
Also an excellent point about what this is teaching your son.
Mmmm… bacon…
Porn.
Also, Freckafree, as Sateryn76 and Drain Bead have pointed out, this is not a good situation for your son. He can’t bring friends over and he’s learning that a woman does everything for a man. (And that’s not intended to sound ‘bitter’ - I would have the same problem with a stereotypically princessy wife who sat at home all day and didn’t do any housework while her husband was out working - that too sends a bad message to children about what men and women ‘should’ do in a relationship.)
I really think a divorce or separation would be less harmful to you both than sticking this out for another four years. My parents fought all the time when I was a kid, and the few times they did break up (they’re still together now) I was actually relieved.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Zsofia, if your husband has time to run for mayor, then he has time to change a light bulb. If hes elected, the shirking will only become worse.
For both you & Freckafree
My husband normally works 50+ hours a week, outside - & our summer has been a scorcher!
In our far from immaculate home he;
Does the weekend laundry. (I was working every weekend, now down to every 2nd weekend)
Cooks some of the evening meals (I work 3-5 evenings a week)
Does the main grocery shop
Does some of the dishes.
Changes the light bulbs.
Does minor plumbing work.
Gets the washing off the line if he is the 1st one home
Outside he does some of the lawnmowing
In summer he waters the garden
Shifts his goat. (We had to get a super strong link thing on her chain - I can get it undone but can’t do it up again)
OUr 17 year old
Is meant to load & unload the dishwasher & put away any dishes that have been washed by hand
Bring the washing in if he he is the 1st one home.
Keep his room tidy. :rolleyes:
The last doesn’t happen, the first 2 generally only if I leave a note or nag. He also mows the lawn sometimes, but he is paid for that, so to me that doesn’t count.
Frekafree - best of luck with what you decide. I hope you find the strength & courage to leave your husband, because you deserve so much more!
At least if he gets elected mayor we’ll have 17 grand a year for four years with which I can hire a cleaning lady.
Years ago when I was married my wife and I weren’t getting on well and visited a marriage guidance therapist. After introductions he said, “Can I have a quick guess at what’s wrong in your relationship? You think he doesn’t do enough and isn’t in touch with his emotions. You think she doesn’t appreciate anything you do and is too emotionally volatile.”
We agreed that he was basically pretty close to the mark. “Well you are both right in a way…” So we discussed the reasons for these feelings and came up with strategies to help.
Now, I consider myself pretty lazy. I am from a generation of guys who had stay at home mums who did ALL the housework. When I left home at 19 the only thing I could do was cook - because I like cooking and I used to have to feed myself on weekends because the family were all over the place. I had never made my bed, tidied my own room, mowed the lawn, washed clothes, vacuumed, mopped a floor…anything at all.
The plan was I would agree a list of things that I would do and, once she agreed that it was a fair deal, she would leave them to me, not criticize my efforts and accept with good grace that I was doing my bit.
So despite my natural inclinations I accepted a roster of stuff that I just did. There was no point leaving things undone in the hope that she would do them, they became my job and, like most things, the easy way to handle them was stay on top of them. So, for example, I made sure the washing didn’t build up because doing 6 loads in a row is wearisome.
At one stage I was working part time while my wife worked full time. I did basically everything for that period and, as best I recall, it took me about 2 half days a week to keep the place pretty spotless.
Well that all sounds more self serving than intended, but the point I wanted to make is that once you start doing it and get a routine, even for us lazy bastards it’s not hard.
+99999
Being ‘close’ to a parent doesn’t mean a kid doesn’t know when the parent is a douchebag. At the very least, leave this miserable excuse for a human being.
I posted in your past thread, and now I’m just going to say: DIVORCE. I’ve been with a husband who has obvious mental health issues. He agreed to work on his problems. He did not follow through. After much heartache and pain we are now divorced.
I am paying spousal maintenance because my husband was unable to work (he received SSDI for three years prior to our separation). I am not happy to pay it, per se, but consider $300 per month for 4 years to be a small price to pay to live again.
You can talk to your son about this as well…he may be as ready for a change as you are. Good luck and feel free to email me if you need the shoulder of someone who has been there, done that.
I think people in this situation must recognize, on some level, that they are dancing the Codependent Waltz. And it takes two, truly.
I know someone, who I watched live this life. She kept turning to me for support and counsel. I kept telling her I probably wasn’t the right person to help her. Because I identified with her kids more than with her.
Like a lot of people here, I was initially very encouraging of kicking him to the curb, breaking out. But I came to understand it was really a foolish waste of breath on my part. It is a dance, and it does take two, and it’s been 10+ yrs. If she was capable of growing some ovaries and reshaping this relationship it would have happened by now. It’s hard to see but both of these people are getting something out of the way it is. It’s kind of like an alcoholic who has to admit they have a problem first.
And, as always, in the cases of this I’ve come across, there is always the, ‘waiting till the kids are grown’, excuse offered up, it’s a mainstay, in my opinion. Somehow, some way, they convince themselves that this dysfunctional, chaotic, cluttered world of veiled resentments and unaddressed issues, snark and snipe isn’t far more detrimental to their child than any change in life circumstance could be. In my experience it’s always all about the parents, the children are always just collateral damage.
Once she’d waited till they were mostly grown and broke up her marriage, she was stunned that her children were harshly judgmental, bitter and angry. This chaotic mess of dysfunction that was life at home, was somehow okay to raise tender children in, but now that it’s just the two of them they can’t take it. I think the children are right to be resentful of that. They’d have all had happier lives if they’d split up sooner rather than later. That’s the risk you run if you wait till they are adults who can see for themselves. In my opinion.