^----My wife and I did that with every marriagebuilders book we own. That created alot of light bulb moments and some great discussions.

edit to add quote

Reading MB books might be a good idea, but I felt like this post was suggesting that my wife and I read HER books together. (the romance novel stuff)

I don't think she will view that as a good recreational activity, because the whole purpose of her book reading is to ESCAPE. She escapes into her addiction. THAT is the lure of book reading. In order for her to get over her book addiction, she will need to give it up entirely. She loves her reading more than anything, and if you are competing with that, you won't be able to stack up. You must first become her favorite leisure activity and THEN add it back later once you have established that.

Now, I do think it is a good idea to read the MB books to each other as part of your UA time. That will be a great exercise, but I assure you it won't replace her escape into bookland. Those books are wrecking her life and wrecking your marriage.

Somehow you have to persuade her to give up the books and to devote 20+ hours to this program. Someone has to paint that picture for her.

I think you can plant the seed, but I would suggest writing to Dr Harley, telling him the situation and asking for his help in persuading her to do these things. He will help you FOR FREE. If you send him your phone #, they will call you and offer to have you and your wife on the radio show. You don't have to go on the radio show to get help, though.

But you need to be SHORT and concise when you write him. The longer posts take a much longer time to get addressed. People have a tendency to overexplain their situations and it only serves to muddy the waters.

As far as her depression, that is one of the easiest things in the world to treat. It doesn't take long to treat at all and certainly shouldn't drag out for months. Dr Harley can help you with ideas on getting this fixed. I have no doubt that a big source of her depression is a) her non-existent marriage, b) her escape into bookland and c) the situation with your DD. She is in a negative feedback loop and needs help getting out of it.

xcuseme, I think you should send an email to the Radio Show as soon as possible. Be sure to include details of your wife's diagnosis of moderate to severe depression, and her medication issues.

Ask Dr. Harley what he recommends.

Did you ever write them?

Just so you know, my wife is a voracious reader and consumer of literature. We started the UA time by sitting on the couch together and I'd read the book Love Busters to her a chapter a night and we'd discuss it after.

I wrote the radio show and talked to Joyce. She felt like we needed to address the anxiety/depression issues before we could get my wife onboard with MarriageBuilders or any effort to spend time together.

She was on the Lithium for 6 weeks. The first 2 weeks there was no change. The second 2 weeks were an improvement overall. My wife was more talkative, went to church, went out a few times, started cooking dinner and the laundry, went shopping a few times, started talking about exercising, camping, etc.
The last 2 weeks were bad however as she said that the anxiety and panic attacks were worse than being on no medicine. She started feeling nauseous, sick to her stomach, tired, not interested in anything.

She says she �doesn�t feel good� Just writing this reminded me of our wedding reception almost 23 years ago where she spent much of it in the ladies room feeling nauseous. She was not being treated back then and I bet it was anxiety related.

When she went back to the psychiatrist, he didn't want to increase the lithium. He instead wanted to add two drugs in addition to it - I think Clonopin and an anti-seizure drug. One of which she had to sign a release for.

Joyce suggested I get the show on the road and discuss with my wife and make a decision. My wife after considering it decided to finally go back on the old medicine clomipramine that she was on and worked for the last 13 years. She said the side effects were not all that bad and she would rather stick with what she knows than a 3 drug "cocktail" that could have 3 sets of side effects for each one.

The startup of the old medicine does however create problems for the first week or more and this past week we have been dealing with that. She has slept a lot and had nausea. Things are getting better. Sat will be 1 week and I think she will increase the dose from there. She wants a new Dr - says this one only spends 15 min a month and spends the first 10 min trying to remember who she is.

We are going camping next weekend and my wife seems interested in the trip.

Here's a good show.
Radio Clip
Segment #2
Segment #3

Just a quick update - Things are much much much better overall. Book reading is more in balance - only a few hours a day and sometimes hardly any at all.

That is serious progress, xcuseme! Could you tell us how you and your wife achieved that?

You must be so much happier. Is she? How are other aspects of her behaviour and mood?