Dear Dr. Harley and Forum Members -

My particular situation has not been covered by your excellent website or books. I am just completing a divorce from my husband of 15 years. We had most of the typical problems that you cover - living together, me nagging, him retreating, lack of sex and affection, loss of respect, etc. For those areas, your advice makes total sense to me. I do wish I had seen it sometime during our first 20 years together.

We had counselling many times over the years, with many providers. Although it usually made us feel slightly better, and gave some slight improvements, there was no radical shift in our ways of interacting. The problems always came back, usually worse than before, with new ones added to the mix over the years. Our marriage was never terrific, but for years I felt that I could live with a mediocre marriage rather than the uncertainty and pain of divorce.

The unusual twist to our marriage is that both my husband and I have suffered from depression. I believe that it has been nearly lifelong, but my first crisis was right after the birth of our first child. I had an unwanted Cesarean, and felt I had been forced into it, while my husband failed to protect me. I went into severe depression, to the point where I could not even speak to my closest family members on the phone without sobbing. My husband did his best, but I basically had to wait for time to heal me enough to where I could seek out treatment myself. I did, and for about 8 years, my depression has been very well controlled.

My husband entered a severe depression about 3-4 years ago. He would wake up screaming in the middle of the night. After dinner, during which he barely spoke, he would sit at the table with his head bowed, motionless, for up to two hours. His lips would move as if he was muttering angrily. He drove away all of our friends - the friends I have left are my personal connections, whom he hates, irrationally. He stopped smiling, stopped wanting to leave the house, and became very argumentative and unreasonable. I spent years trying to get him to see a doctor and to accept antidpressants. He struggled against me with all his strength. I felt guilty about not loving him as a wife should, and did make efforts to improve our life. Clearly they weren't enough, and he did not participate effectively. He spread a black cloud of despair, and I felt my life with him was unbearable. He too was miserable, but said there was no hope for improvement and that we should live together in misery for the sake of our children. At times, I seriously considered moving to the attic and living there as a crazy person rather than attempting to continue a relationship that was an unending source of pain as it lurch downhill.

To keep myself sane, I developed outside interests, including martial arts, attending plays, and new friendships. I also deliberately sought an affair with a man that I have now been seeing for 10 months. I decided to have this affair to meet my overwhelming need for affection and sex, which had been building for at least 10 years. I also saw it as a way to break the stalemate of a disastrous marriage which neither of us had the courage to end. This new man is by no means Mr. Perfect - he has ADD and has trouble holding down a job - but to date, I have found our time together to be immensely satisfying. He's so reasonable, and doesn't fly into rages at me. He's affectionate and sexual, as well as very considerate, and I soak it all up like a sponge. We have already had some serious potential problems, and we have worked them through well to date. Overall, life with him is the way I think a marriage should be. He would like to marry, and I have been seriously considering the possibility of this, perhaps in a few years' time.

What's bothering me now is my regret over the loss of my marriage (not the loss of my husband), and my fears for the future suffering of my children. I never wanted to divorce like my parents did. My husband and I vowed never to divorce, but I see now that we should have backed that up with strategies and action plans to keep our love alive. I no longer love my husband, and haven't for years. I used to respect him, and now feel only pity and contempt. My burning anger at him evaporated almost immediately since he filed for divorce, at my request. I no longer feel trapped, and in fact, I feel hopeful and happy, more so than in years. Unlike most people undergoing divorce, I am not sad and I do not miss my husband - quite the contrary. Having him out of the house has been a huge relief. BUt I still have regret at the breaking up of our family. I am so clear in my mind - I do NOT want him. Just looking at his face gives me an ill reaction. He was the source of pain that nearly drove me bonkers. He is loading all his pain onto our children now - telling them that Mommy takes all his money and makes him cry, and sending my 12 year old to request money from me so she can have a birthday party while she is at his house. (I gave it cheerfully and helped with planning the party.)

For many people at this stage, I hear the words, "I still love him". I'm very clear in my mind that there is not a shred of my love left. I treat him with courtesy as the father of my children (he responds with pornographic abuse and rage). And I do feel horrible that they are there, with him half time, to epxerience life with a depressed, angry, immature father.

In my mind, his untreated depression was the final straw that broke the back of a mediocre marriage. Could I have done more? Am I wrong? What should I do now?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Tarantula:
Could I have done more? Am I wrong? What should I do now?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Are you wrong? Of course you are. Seeking out a partner to have an adulterous relationship is wrong.

If you truly wanted to end your marriage having the affair was definitely the wrong way of going about it.

How can you expect this new realtionship to survive since its based upon lies and betrayal?

I know I may sound a bit harsh but I do understand what kind of strain depression puts on a relationship. My WW was depressed and it made me miserable as well (which I didn't realize until we were seperated).

Miker

OK, I understand your point about having an affair being wrong. I agree with you! I think the affair is more a symptom of my desperation than anything.

As far as my new relationship surviving, there is a small amount of lying in the foundation, but that has been cleared away. I actually think it has a good chance to survive and thrive, although if it helps you to think of me dumped, alone, miserable, and filled with regret, then please do so.

Does anyone have any helpful input about what to do now?

I think you should get the divorce now. I'm married to a man who has been involved in pornography for the duration of our 16 1/2 year marriage. First, it stole my self esteem. Next it killed my desire for him, because it prevents him from growing up and facing life WITH me, which is what marriage is for in the first place - leaving me to handle the difficult financial matters and be the mature adult in the household for our children. There are so many little ways pornography destroys a person. It's very insidious and destructive, despite the obvious popularity and support of it in our culture.

My husband has blamed our entire marriage on everything BUT the pornography, yet his history is steeped with it. He has become narcissistic, now that he's found a lover who tells him everything he wants to hear about himself - provides him with all the excuses for his life, despite the fact that he abandoned his two children (five years AFTER we were married) and is now abandoning us, the slow and most painful way - two years of lying . He went through $110,000 of inheritance and left us in debt, and takes absolutely no responsibility, even though he was in charge of finances at the time (a move based on poor psychologist's advice - he hides his destructive addiction well). He downloads pornography on the computer our children use and they DO find it.

If your husband is into pornography, he has a serious addiction that's eating him alive from the inside out. Sexual addictions exhibit a growing narcissistic personality disorder, which in my husband exhibits itself in his unwillingness to listen to ANYONE about ANYTHING, except his girlfriend. He is the king of his world and she feeds him because she doesn't know any better. To her I'm the 'evil' awful spouse. Truth is not part of his world, which is why I'm not part of his world anymore. He just isn't interested in anything but feeling good 'today'. Your husband may look more depressed and defeated than narcissistic, but chances are it's woven into his personality somehow. The biggest clue is that he's consuming your life and doesn't think much of it. Get it? Get out.

On to a little more of my situation... I've been using the advice here and truly believe it's good. My husband has responded to me in these past two years in a way even he thought wasn't possible. I believe that with two healthy people, even one of them doing the things suggested here can set a marriage up for success, but at some point the other party has to be willing to participate. Unfortunately, my husband is a porn addict with a girlfriend - an addict with a steady supply and no one to hold him accountable. The only solution is to leave him. I've already tried Plan B (as well as I can while living in the same house). It's a sad thing that I haven't been able to afford a separate living condition due to his irresponsibility, and ironically, he REFUSES to leave and live with his girlfriend, because his first wife divorced him when he left for a 'trial' separation and she was able to sue him for abandonment leaving him with a lifetime of child support which he neglected. He believes I'll do the same so he won't leave. Ironically, he won't divorce me either. He wants to somehow wait for his girlfriend's love to die, or my love to die, or whatever enables him to not have to be responsible for anything - his usual modus operandi. (No, I didn't know him until he'd been divorced a while.) So, I've been living in this hellish situation, which is one reason why I sympathize with you, even when I am in the 'betrayed' position. You should not have to starve in marriage for the things it's supposed to give you. My husband went out and found his girlfriend after many years of sexual rejection by me. I rejected him due to my utter frustration at his irresponsibility and constant need for sex. (I tested his sex drive by giving him as much as he wants over this two year period - he needs sex 2 to 3 times per DAY and still uses porn!) He was addicted to porn before I came along (takes too long to explain how I know that and why I married him anyway - let's just say again he hid it well until I was married and with child, then I found out.)

Here's another reason why I sympathize with you... I am now starving very badly for the things I need in marriage and I struggle every day with the desire to go grab the first man who will give me badly needed attention. I feel like I've been a single mom for 15 years. I'm dying inside, which is why I know I need to get out now, damn the consequences. It will kill me.

Dr. Harley doesn't talk much about marriage problems where other psychological problems are involved, because his focus is specific. Yours and my spouses have OTHER things going on that interrupt what otherwise would be a life-saving life-enhancing system of behavior.

I've gone out on a limb here and suggested that your husband is a porn addict. I will tell you also that I've done a lot of research and have found that where pornography use is involved, there are ALWAYS other social ills present. The bottom line for you, though, is that your husband is deeply depressed and part of what keeps him there is his lack of skills and/or his lack of action to get the skills to work his way out of it. He is a vacuum. That is the nature of an addiction.

I'm telling you this because I have searched for so very many years to finally understand the dynamic of my marriage, and I have learned so very many things that experts are only beginning to understand now. There really is not a single source for answers.

Do this for yourself. SAVE YOUR INTEGRITY. It will be what defines the rest of your life. Don't have an affair and stay married. Either have the courage to divorce and be done with it (even God doesn't expect you to live with an immoral person), or resign yourself to stay permanently. You know you can't stay, so set everyone free from the black hole of your husband. You have the key. Your children will grow out of him, but you need to set the example. You have love for him and you sympathize. You can do that without letting him destroy you.

yours with love.

hm, thanks so much for your reply. To clarify, my husband is not a porn addict, but ever since the splitup, he has been hammering all my email addresses with signups for the most disgusting porn emails ever. I have had to abandon several addresses, but fortunately I have very good anti-spam tools on my major accounts.

Thanks for your insight about the different nature of addictions and depression, and how Dr. Harley does not really cover them. Actually, I think he does a fair job on the addictions - at least the addiction to a lover. (BTW, although I am strongly attached to my lover and love him quite deeply, I am NOT addicted to him. If it ever made sense to me that we should part, I could do it, albeit with many, many tears and much pain.)

The more I learn about depression, the more I realize how many marriages it affects (always negatively). I do hope I can get Dr. Harley's attention at some point and get him to address this major, yet still hardly publicized, problem in marriage.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am now starving very badly for the things I need in marriage...I struggle every day with the desire to go grab the first man who will give me badly needed attention...I'm dying inside, which is why I know I need to get out now...It will kill me.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I sympathize utterly. I truly do believe I was going crazy with the frustration of trying to be heard by someone who could only protect his ego by putting his fingers in his ears. Yes, I also felt like parts of me were turning purple and about to fall off. I was very angry and bitter. I was also hopeless. I do not expect marriage to make me happy, but at the same time, it should not be making happiness nearly impossible.

When he filed for divorce, my anger and hopelessness vanished almost overnight. I am no longer bitter. Life tastes sweet again. I hope you too can find peace in your life. Have you tried treating him like an addict according to Dr. Harley's program?

Best wishes, I wish you strength to survive it day by day.