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Joined: Jan 2000
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I know a few of us here have spouses that are depressed. I have been doing some reading on male depression and found an interesting passes that relates to love addition I thought I would share.<P>Depression can be overt (hard to miss) and covert (held back). Covert depression is very real although difficult to see since the person stirves to hide it and does not own up to it themselves.<P>Here is what the passage says. It is from I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. OVERCOMING THE SECRET LEGACY OF MALE DEPRESSION.<P>"In covert depression, the ordianary limits of the self are transcended through intoxication in one of two ways. In the intoxication experience I call MERGING, the usual boundaries around the self are relaxed or even disolved causing feelings of boundlessness and abundance.<P>In psychoanalyis this experience is called oceanic bliss. The relaxation of boundraries are at the core of intoxication with drugs, alcohol and love addiction...which provides a sense of expansion.<P>In love addiction, the love object is felt to be god-like and thus fusion with that person brings rapture. In such cases one projects divine abundance onto another person and then depends on that person to validate one's own worth."<P>This hit home for me since my H is suffering from many self-estem issues. I hope this helps someone else out there gain some insight to thier spouses behavior too.<P>Love your thoughts on this too.<P>Acacai

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But why would it ever end? What possible hope is there? <P>

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acacia,<P>I have that same book and I read that also and it really does fit my h too. I guess I am wondering just like Nellie how that addiction can be overcome. Although, I just had a visit from my husband today. He came to see the boys but he always ends up talking to me and spending time with me. You can read my threads about that. I know he still loves me. He has said he still loves me. When he said he had to leave, he got tears in his eyes and started rubbing his eyes and had to get up and walk away from me. He didn't want me to see him that way. Then he stayed and ate pizza with us. Told me I look good, and all that. I guess Nellie, in my situation, I am hoping that by my being his friend and not judging him that he will see that I do love him unconditionally and that I will always be here for him. I am hoping that will eventuallly be enough to break his addiction to the ow. I do not approve of what he has done but I do still love him. I have been trying to be so careful not to get my hopes up. I have totally blown that this week. I have had two very good visits from him this week. When he came today, he brought me a cd of songs that he recorded with his cd writer. They are assorted ones. He let me drive his car downtown twice. He baked me a cheesecake here which is incredibly special to me. You don't know how special that is to me. I guess it has meaning for us. I think he feels very confused right now. I feel like he is wanting to come back but doesn't know how to. I don't know how to help him come back. My family is very opposed to him coming back. Not that he has come out and said he wants to. That does have to be his choice. He told me he is taking tomorrow off. I felt like he wanted me to ask him to come over. I didn't. I am thinking about sending him an e-mail and inviting him to come if he wants. I don't know. I don't want to push it. My neighbor even questioned me about his last visit. She noticed he was around for most of the day. He was here even longer today. <P>I do believe the depression really does a number on them. I think my h is starting to see some of the reality. But, not quite fully yet. I don't think he knows how to get back completely to reality. Nellie, you should buy the book. It will at least give you a better understanding of what men go through. You can get it on amazon.com. <P>Hang in there. I know this is awful. It is the worst thing besides my 7 year olds open heart surgery that I have ever experienced. Now, I have to see my kids suffer through this whole thing also. <P>~Woozy

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How to end the addition? According to the book, the person who is depressed needs to learn to build a healty self-esteem. It suggests the only way to do this is to start to face problems head on instead of avoiding them. With healthy esteem, there is no need gain self estteem through any one else. <P>"The covertly depressed person can not simply valut over the avoided pain as hard as he may try. First the covertly depressed man must walk through the fire from which he has run. He must allow the pain to surface. Then he may resolve his hidden depression by learning about self-care and health self esteem" (page 63)<P>OK. So if your like me your thinking, yeah but what can I do. Well we can try to prod our H's into counceling. In the long term it is really the only hope.<P>In the short term this book made me realize that I am part of the boundaries that my H needed to trancend. He needed to escape the reality of himslef and his responsibilites to acheive that feeling of abundance. <P>As his W, I will always be a responsibility to him. But maybe if we free up the boarders a bit we can win them back just long enough to get them into counceling.<P>Thank god my H and I just started counceling. I think my H finally saw the damage his actions caused and while he is not completly comfortable with the idea of therapy, he seems willing to give it a try. <P>He does not want to perpetuate this cycle. I just hope he is strong enough to hang on - and that I am strong enough to try to brush aside the anger and pain I wrestle with every day.<P>Maybe we should ask our H to read this book. It may make them feel less alone. I read my H this passage and one more and he said "thank you". Maybe it helped him make a litte more sense out of his actions. He says he does not know why he did this and I think I finally believe him.<P>Woozy, look at page 229. This is the second page I read to my H. Maybe it will help yours. It is about how depression is carried on in families until one brave soul confronts it and transforms the family legacy forever. <P>Acacai

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Hi Acacia,<P>I need to finish reading that book. Since my h moved in with the ow, I sort of gave up on it. I really feel in some ways that my h went to live with the ow because she won't make him get help for his problems. He knew I wanted him to get counseling. In fact, I basically gave him an ultimatum. He has many issues from childhood that he doesn't want to face. He was sexually abused by a 17 year old neighbor boy for one thing. His father is an alcoholic and was very hard on him. He moved in with the ow two days before he was supposed to have a counseling session. As of late, I have been feeling that he is going to have to be the one to decide to get the help. Right now, he seems to be ok. But, I know that he has just buried all the bad stuff again. I do think that he is eventually going to have a hard time with what he has done to us. Everyone keeps telling me that he is going to have to hit rock bottom before he will be willing to get help. Do you agree with that? It doesn't seem to do me any good to talk to him about counseling. The other bad thing is that this woman he is living with says counseling doesn't help matters. Well, that is her way of brainwashing him. She is afraid if he gets counseling that he will come to his senses and leave her. When he did quit seeing her briefly, she sent him an e-mail, which I intercepted. She told him not to let US brainwash him too much. HA! She is the brainwasher! I think she is very manipulative. I hate her! Can't help it! <P>My h and I are getting along very well when he visits. We had a very good day today. I have anger but I think my husband is very messed up right now. I do know that the h I used to know would have never done this to me. I can see the pain in his eyes when he goes to leave. I have decided that for now, all I can do is be a friend to him and love him unconditionally. Maybe help to build up his self-esteem. The thing is, I always told him how handsome he is and how much I love him and how lucky I was to have him. I feel like I have always built him up. When we first started dating, he thought very little of himself. I couldn't believe how worthless he thought he was. I have spent my entire relationship with him building him up. I am just so confused. The book did help me to understand him much better! I even made a statement that the book also made me realize that I could never continue in a relationship with him. Well, we do have children so I am going to have to relate to him. Now, I have thrown most of my statements out the window and I just plain want him back. I feel like this is the only place I get the support I need. Or where at least people don't think I am completely crazy for still loving him. I have mentioned before that I have known him since I was in 7th grade. We became very good friends when I was in 10th grade and started dating when I was a junior. He is two years older than me so he was already out of high school. I have loved him for sooooooo long! We had a good marriage. Now my family is trying to tell he wasn't as good to me as he should have been. They don't know. Yes, we had our problems but every marriage does. I do know that he loved me. He put up with a lot from me. I am not perfect, he is not perfect. No one is. We have a lot of obstacles in our way I guess. I would like to try and find our way back to one another but, that will be tough! So, that is why I will be his friend for now! I just want him to know that I will always be here for him. At the same time though, I will be getting on with my life. I am not in any rush to get into another relationship that is for sure. I just want to focus on my kids and myself right now. I am rambling! YIKES!<P>Woozy

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Our first counselor told him that he should get individual counseling, and he said he didn't feel the need to. He has always placed the blame for most of his problems on someone else - it is just that formerly, it was not always just on me. What could possibly cause him to realize that he is suffering from depression? Planning suicide during the affair didn't - he just blamed that on his unhappiness with me, and used it as a justification to leave. There is no rock bottom for someone who has a lifelong track record of blaming someone else for their unhappiness. If I weren't around, he would just find someone else to blame. <BR>

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Nelli,<BR>Was your councelor a Psychiatrist? Ours is and I think it will help. She meantioned the possibiity of putting my H on medication.<BR>In some ways, I am not sure how he feels about that and in others I think he is relieved. Relieved to know what may be driving his behavior that he does not understand. She also told us that she feels he is cut off from his feelings.<P>She seemed to be very good. I think it will be a bumpy ride but I also think it is the only way back to a good "US" again. and I am so glad that he is willing to go. (more for you at the bottom of this post.<P>Woozy,<P>I hear you. I still love my H too and sometines I think people must think I am nuts. When I try to tell people how wonderful he was to me before this I think they must feel I ahve spent 18 years lying to myslef about the kind of guy he is and alwasy has been. My parrents understand. They were as shocked as I was. They used to tell me all the time how great my H was.<P>At times I think I am nuts. I ask myself how could I still love him. He has been so cold hearted to me. It hurts so much when he is ambivilant towards me.<P>We really had an incredible marriage before this. Still had that crazy in-love feeling after 18 years. We always talked about how special and lucky we were to have such a happy marriage. Then his Dad died and he lost his job and he just came unglued. The one thing I will say is that he has always had self-esteem issues. They seemed to get better over time but never went away all together.<P>Like you, I spent a lot of time building him up. Now he tells me this creates pressure for him. He is affraid he will disapoint me and he finds that pressure of living up to who I think he is to be too much.<P>I want to say here that I have never told my that he does not make enough money or anything like that to make him feel this way. In fact he tells me he feels like a failure and I disagree with him and try to show him all that he has achieved. <P>I simply belieive in him in ways that he does not. I tell him often that he is creative and talented. My sister (an artist) agrees. And yet when I tell him what he has going for him it is pressure for him. Just one more way he can let someone down. <P>His mother never said anything good to him that I can remember. I just remember her telling him that he should be more like his brother. He should have been an electrician blah blah blah.<P>He is an exceptional guitar player. One day he played at this community event in Buffalo. It was a big deal for him. When we went back to his house, his mom asked his where he had been. When he told he all she did was gripe that he was late. And he did everything for her too. Drove her to the store, to bingo.Everything his father should have done, he did because his dad was an alcoholic. I don't think she appreciated that.<P>Unfortunalty, I do think your H has to hit bottom first. I have been following your story and I am hoping that he has already hit and that he is coming to his senses.<P>I also what to say that I think your are doing all the right things in your situation. It is tough but you are handling it very well from my perspective.<P>Nelli, I am hoping that your H tires himself out eventually. And Yes, my H always blames me for his issues. I am not the one who thinks he is a failure. I think he is a success and yet he blames me for creating the pressure in his life that makes him feel this way.<P>I asked him the other day if I had ever told him that he did not make enough money or any thing like that. He said no. Then I asked him who it was that told me he felt he was a failure. And he said, he did. He softened after that. I think for a moment, he could see what he was doing. Putting his feelings in me so that he did not have to take resposibility for them.<P>Nelli, buy your H the book. He will see that this depression is soemthing that he has learned. I wish your councelor had demanded that your H see someone in order for your marriage counceling to work. Suicide is very tough. Let's hope he does not go there again. <P>Acacia<P>


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