I fear this is the end. All my married life, about 6 years, has been dealing with degrees of my wife's depression. I always thought it was due to circumstances, and worked my hardest to make things in her life perfect. Helped her get a professional job, a nice house, financial stability, a family.

The biggest cause of her pain was that she needed to give up her daugther from her first marriage before we met. Working with lawyers for two years (and trying keeping my wife on board (she wanted to give up whenever something came up)) she was able to get placement again. Why does it look like someone shot her dog?

I have ignored myself during this, hugs, kisses, sex, intimate conversation are all long gone. I realize that she will never be there for me.

How do you convince someone they are suffering from a serious problem? When I attempt to bring it up, I get yelled at, saying "great, now my husband thinks I'm depressed" and she storming out of the room.

I feel like I'm splitting rent with someone, not in a marriage.

If it wasn't for my 3-year-old, I would leave in a heartbeat. I want the woman I fell in love with to return, but I fear that she will not.

Hey, Jake...

I saw your other two posts over in Emotional Needs forum...which is where I think you have the best placement.

You may not have seen the other posts to your thread back in February...would you mind cutting and pasting this post to that thread? I find it helps with continuity, to see what others have already counseled, and how you are doing today.

I'm glad you're back. I think your situation is important...may help a lot of people who read it. And you and your marriage.

LA

LA,

Sorry to intrude here, I hope you are feeling better! I saw your post where you thought you had pneumonia but turns out you don't! I thought you had a question for me?!!

NOW

I certainly hear your pain--but consider this:

Perhaps your wife is depressed because she is married to a man who is staying with her only because of a child? I certainly would be. Even if you have not said this to her--how can she not feel it?

NOW,

I asked you on the original thread I asked you about asking.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

See how great at communication I am? MM's JJ thread in Other Topics.

Whew.

LA

JakesBlues,

I'd really like to help if I can, I've struggled with depression for many, many years.

If you have other responses to post here, as LA suggested, I'd love to see them.

One thing that caught me right off the bat was her reaction when you tell her she might be depressed...

She is most likely embarassed and ashamed that she is not strong enough to fight off the depression on her own. She may be afraid you and others will think less of her if she admits/accepts this. That she's damaged/defective/weak, etc... That's how I felt.

I know it's not healthy to keep a relationship for the sake of the parent-child relationship, but would you say this to a abused spouse? I feel that is where I am.

I have taken abuse; I feel afraid in my own home, not for my physical safety but for saying or doing something wrong and being berated or shut out.

I have been very good to my wife. I can honestly say I have never engaged in love busters: I have never lost my temper, judged my spouse, made selfish demands, lied, lived independantly, and I don't know of any anoying habits. I am a pretty stable person.

Maybe it is one of those things you cannot understand unless you've been there.

Thank you so much for the email and posts from people who know what this is like. I feel much better knowing I'm not completely off-base.

Thanks MAZ,

If you don't mind me asking, how were you able to get through your depression?

Any thoughts on how I could convince my wife to seek help?

I had a really good talk with her last night, and she realizes that things are eating her up from the inside and that she doesn't know how to deal with it. She says she is unable to talk about them without being the bull in a china shop and hurt everyone in the process (basically, she cannot avoid the first three of Dr. Harley's love busters; anger, judgements, and demands)

She grew up in a house where the parents would scream at each other and the kids for 3 hours a night. Her mom is also on anti-psychotic medication for her paranoia. My wife, her sister and her mom are all very self-centered, probably due to the envrionment the mom created.

I wish I could help her, but the more I try, the more isolated she gets. The more I try to just sit back and listen, the more isolated she gets. Basically, she just doesn't want to talk about it (kinda like you were saying).

JB,

I wish my DH would post...he could share how he dealt with mine, through his own eyes. I was very much like your wife.

I do know that what got through to me was a boundary enforcement...not from my DH...from a relative who came to visit. She turned to my DH and said, "Why don't you divorce her? Isn't she making you absolutely miserable?" Now this was someone I love like a mother, a mentor...and boy, did I get a look from outside my gray blinders with that one!

If what your wife experienced was screaming (which would be defining, berating, discounting, negating) for three hours a night growing up, then she didn't learn about choosing her boundaries or enforcing them.

You can't teach her...you can learn yourself. She wasn't taught that she was autonomous, capable, whole and complete. You treating her in that way, because you choose to live from respect..."I know when you want to share with me, you will." "I know you are capable. I love who you are."

Those statements are like shock therapy...which is what broke through my own decades perspective which depression takes over...along with my perceptions. "I trust you to do the best you know how right now. That's what I'm doing."

Unless you share what you're feeling, then you're making her go first.

Would you consider that you by acting to make her life perfect, the flip side of that message was that she was incapable of doing so? What we do for others can also tell them they are not capable...back sides to messages.

And you know what healthy choices are available to her...IC, medications, communication exercises...actions she can choose to do. Even, as I did for coping, fake it until I make it.

Her choices, not yours. You can't do them for her.

And abandonment, which is what sounds like the underlying issue, is what I experienced with mine...only it was centered on my parents abandonment...so when experts say depression is anger turned inward...I believe them.

Which would mean why she would fear sharing her anger outwardly...causing pain, LBs, etc. Learning to state, not demonstrate, is a key part of knowing your power and limits. Right now, only way out seems to be more destruction...it isn't. Up to you to know that. State it. And it's tied into abandonment...which is, I can drive you away...I can make you not love me...I am horrible, not worth staying for.

Up to you to not buy into that. Self-fulfilling prophecies...because inside, if I was a zombie, a nobody, and my DH kept staying...he was proving my belief wrong, childish...not real. I had to get down to where I had to choose...to either be right or be married.

Thank God I chose to be married.

And understanding how powerful and trapping the urge to be right...for depression to have been for nothing...harming when striving to do not harm...tons of shame, guilt, fear...a bundle of it...creating a static life.

I think you're experiencing that right now.

"I realize that she will never be there for me."

Where does the never come from?

I'm all for you staying and fighting for your marriage for the sake of your child...absolutely. Worthy and real...together you brought this life into this world...together. Best to work it out together, in my book.

Have you read up on depression in books? Have you read up on long-term effects of child abuse?

You have power...all around you, about you and in you. You are limited, too...as we all are...to what we can control (ourselves) and what we cannot (anyone else). Would you consider Alanon as a resource for great support?

LA

From my own experience, things that would've gotten me to seek help earlier would've been comments (any combination along the following lines) such as "it hurts me to see you so unhappy, you deserve to be happy, I want to do whatever it takes to get you better, you are my priority, tell me what I can do to help you, I see you're hurting...I want to help you, let's see what we can do. It is not weakness to get help."

etc. etc.

In my case a lot of low self esteem played into it, so I needed to feel like I was worthy of being "helped" and also that I wasn't "defective" for being depressed and that I wasn't ALONE. I felt very, very alone.


My personal opinion is that if someone is suffering from depression and also has marital issues, the depression needs to be treated/stabilized before the marriage can be helped. There is just no way a depressed person can manage those concepts...it's hard enough to get out of bed.


So she has possibly a genetic, but obviously a environmental predisposition to depression/mental illness. Self centeredness can be the result of a narcissistic personality disorder but also, conversely, can be related to low self esteem, which sounds contradictory, but is true. It's a coping mechanism. Certainly, she's had to come up with a lot of coping mechanisms because of FOO.


When you're mentally ill, and depression is a mental illness, you are not going to be thinking clearly or rationally. It's a matter of how severe it is. What do you think would happen if you had a talk with her, along the lines of what I said above, and then told her you wanted to take her to a doctor, make the appointment and go with her?

In my case, my DH didn't know what to do. He tried to pretend things were normal and yet sometimes would tell me to get over it. I didn't understand why I *couldn't* get over it, no matter how hard I tried to think myself out of it.

I used to hold resentment over this but I realize now he did the best he could. He just didn't understand how severe/serious it was. Now we both realize how serious depression is.

JakeBlues,

It may help to approach this with her as a health problem - one that she can go to a general physician for rather than a shrink. She may not be ready to talk about her problems, but she may have some physical and cognitive symptoms she'd love to get rid of. Some symptoms to look for:

Forgetfulness or absentmindedness (I always know it's time to increase or change my medication when I lock my keys in the car! I never do that when I'm not depressed.)

inability to concentrate
muscle aches
muscle spasms that may or may not restrict her movement
headaches
daytime sleepiness
fatigue
sleeping too much or not being able to sleep
feeling exhausted after taking a shower

Particularly if she's having cognitive symptoms like inability to concentrate and forgetfulness, counseling won't do her any good until those other symptoms are under control. That foggy-headedness that comes with depression is what always bothers me the most - even more so than the crying jags.

Anyway, approach it as a health issue, remind her that she needs to take care of herself and get her to make an appointment with her regular doctor. They are fully authorized to prescribe anti-depressant medications, so you don't need to worry about that.

Sometimes depression comes with a full "do-nothing" mode where she just doesn't want to get out of bed. If things are that bad, you might want to make the appointment for her and drive her there yourself.

JakeBlues,

Your post was the very first I read when I joined this evening. My husband (of six years) was just admitted for psychiatric care. It has been a horrible week with him threatening divorce, leaving our home without telling anyone where he was going, and so on and so on... So he's finally gotten help and I am a mixture of relief, sadness, and anger. Years of dealing with his physical and mental conditions have left me drained and this past week was just about enough to put me over the edge. Just seeing your post makes me feel better.

Being the well spouse in a depression-affected marriage can be really hard. Perhaps not as hard as the struggle the depressed person goes through, but still a struggle. I feel right now that it's impossible to care about myself because he needs to much care. I kind of feel like I've lost myself in all of it.

I don't know if this means anything or not but, even though you think you might leave if not for your child (which I think is a fair thought) I have found that it really isn't that easy. We don't have children and I haven't left yet. There have been times I have wanted to. As a matter of fact, about a million times in the past four days alone, but it is very hard to leave someone when you know that they are dealing with an illness for which there is hope.

I've read and researched all sorts of depressive disorders. Now I feel like I need to find some information on caregiving issues. I pray my husband will pull through this but, in reality, he has done some seriously hurtful things and I don't know how to get through that and still have a healthy relationship.

Anyway, seeing your post made me glad I signed up tonight.

All the best!