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Reply: living with a depressed husband

Hi boston123. You sound tired, just like many of us here. It's a long hard road to...

Posted by itsfornina

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband Hi boston123. You sound tired, just like many of us here. It's a long hard road to...

Reply: living with a depressed husband

Hi jschoe I guess the first thing I would say to you is that if your husband is...

Posted by itsfornina

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband Hi jschoe I guess the first thing I would say to you is that if your husband is...

Reply: living with a depressed husband

Hi itmatsb. Thank you. I can tell you it is not an easy journey and sometimes this...

Posted by itsfornina

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband Hi itmatsb. Thank you. I can tell you it is not an easy journey and sometimes this...

Reply: living with a depressed husband

Hi itmatsb No I have not left my partner. We have both worked very hard to address the...

Posted by itsfornina

Hi itmatsb

No I have not left my partner. We have both worked very hard to address the issues and each day things get a little bit better. Now, compared to 12 months ago we are both able to recognise the signs and talk about it openly and therefore address issues before they take over the entire family. I began this journey about 18 months ago. I sought counselling first as I could see our family life and our marriage were very quickly disintegrating. My husband at first refused to acknowledge that my concerns were real. He felt I was just trying to make him feel worse about his depression by making him feel like he was weak because he suffered from depression. In fact, this was completely the opposite. I wanted him to acknowledge that his depression was affecting us all and by not addressing the issues he would soon find himself alone because I was about at my wits end. I love him and wanted nothing more than for our marriage and family to work. I asked him to seek counselling. He did - two or three sessions - we then tried couples counselling and each time he just got angry and wanted to attack me and felt he was justified in doing so because there was someone there to listen to him. 12 months ago he decided and informed me, in front of the counsellor, that our marriage was never going to work. That night I asked him to leave the house and not to make contact with me for several days. I was so angry. I had been trying to get him to either commit or walk for some time. I was hurt because he couldn't talk to me about how he felt and would rarely even open up in front of the counsellor. During this time, my counsellor was pretty much encouraging me to walk away from the marriage. She felt I had done everything that could be reasonably asked of someone and it wasn't working. My husband stayed away but soon realised he had probably make a big mistake and asked for forgiveness. I told him that I never wanted our marriage to break down so would give him a chance but I would not let him return to the family home until he had addressed some of his issues and was willing to work on being a husband and a father and to prove this before he returned home. He moved back in I believe a little too soon as things were great for a while but he had not addressed the issues that were holding him back from engaging with us.

Little by little though I managed to help him see things in a different light. It was very, very hard work but I stuck with it. We had a few nasty issues arise during that time (no violence) but those things have strengthened our marriage as we were able to work through together the details of the dramas and how they affected all of us, including him. For the first time in years he's been engaging with me and able to communicate how he feels which helps me no end to understand him and for us to come up with some strategies for him to recognise when he's feeling like that and to be strong enough to ask for some space or to to explain why he's like that rather than just getting angry and sulking and blaming us all for the reasons he is feeling the way he is. It's not been an easy road but life has become so much fuller and our family is much tighter as a result.View Thread

Posted byitsfornina

(FromDepression Support Group)

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband Hi itmatsb No I have not left my partner. We have both worked very hard to address the...

Reply: living with a depressed husband

This is absolutely how it is. It consumes your entire life and that of your children. If...

Posted by itsfornina

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband This is absolutely how it is. It consumes your entire life and that of your children. If...

Reply: living with a depressed husband

Hi Apevisions The challenges you outline in trying to explain to your wife how you feel...

Posted by itsfornina

Hi Apevisions
The challenges you outline in trying to explain to your wife how you feel are the same challenges my husband described to me. First of all I want to tell you how wonderful it is that want to make a difference and that you have asked for help, not only from a therapist but you have sought some answers on your own from people who have suffered through a similar situation. I find that seeking information from a forum such as this does wonders as it makes you feel much less alone knowing that there are people going through the same thing. Not everyone understands. You are right, your depression, actions and moods will be affecting your wife. I am a wife who suffers living with a husband whose depression can sometimes be so all consuming he stops seeing anything but that. Your moods, feelings, actions will affect her in such a way that she will begin to suffer from depression as well but feel like she's not allowed to because her burdens in dealing with you are so heavy that she can't allow herself to go down too. To you, her chattiness, her expectations etc will be burdensome but she is probably trying desperately to seek some type of normalcy in her life. I can guarantee she feels all alone and her job is to pull you through too and keep up with all the chores and her own feelings. Don't ever dismiss her if she says she understands how you feel because most likely she does more than you will ever know. The partners of those who suffer from depression are most often forgotten. They're seen as the ones who must change their behaviours to accommodate the one suffering from depression. Anything less would label them as unsupportive and not able to understand.

It's great that you're trying to understand what triggers your reactions so that you can have more control over them in the future. Remember, your wife and family are victims of your depression also. It's a hard reality but it's true but they're also their to help you just as you should help them - that's what family is and shutting them out or assuming they don't understand is only insulting their intelligence.

Take care, keep up the great work. Keep us posted on your progress.View Thread

Posted byitsfornina

(FromDepression Support Group)

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband Hi Apevisions The challenges you outline in trying to explain to your wife how you feel...

Reply: living with a depressed husband

hi pratts71. Sticking it out for the kids is tough and I can see how you think that may...

Posted by itsfornina

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband hi pratts71. Sticking it out for the kids is tough and I can see how you think that may...

Reply: living with a depressed husband

Hi niteflier . An appropriate response to your questions requires answers to many other...

Posted by itsfornina

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband Hi niteflier . An appropriate response to your questions requires answers to many other...

Reply: living with a depressed husband

unhappy43. I think you're being masterfully manipulated and that makes me sad. I think...

Posted by itsfornina

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband unhappy43. I think you're being masterfully manipulated and that makes me sad. I think...

Reply: living with a depressed husband

Yes, I did and still do to some extent on occasion but for the most part we've come...

Posted by itsfornina

Yes, I did and still do to some extent on occasion but for the most part we've come through the toughest of it and after some serious work I can talk about most things. My husband used to be just as you described. It was always like "talking" on eggshells. Nothing I said was the right thing to say or the right way to say it.The therapist used to explain to me that he was so severely hurting inside that I had to take that into account when talking to him and be aware that anything I said was another "affront" to him so I had to be gentle. Of course that didn't work either - according to him I was just trying to use "therapy talk". Everything I said came out of my mouth one way and entered his ears in another. I was ALWAYS misheard and misunderstood. I eventually began to take control and make it clear that I won't tolerate it anymore. That when I asked him to do the dishes that is exactly what I meant and he was not to interpret it as "you are useless". I began to just say "stop it right now. You and I both know I did not in any way imply that you are useless or that you are stupid"...or whatever it was he thought I was trying to say. When he got angry I would tell him that I refuse to have any kind of conversation with him when he was like that and I would ask him to remove himself from the house until he calmed down because not only was he upsetting me, he was upsetting the children and himself. It took a while but eventually he began to realise that he was being ridiculous. We still occasionally have moments where he takes what I say completely out of context and I will ask him to think about what he's saying. He usually does and then calms down and apologises. I too have learned to apologise and have asked him to let me know, in a considered manner, when I could have said something differently. Sometimes you just have to stand up tall and remind yourself that you don't need or deserve to tolerate it. It's kind of like training a child. My husband and I can now chat away about all sorts of things that we could never chat about before because either he would shut down or just try to make out that I was deliberately trying to rile him - even when it came to making decisions such as what should we have for dinner, or can you pick up the kids from school etc. Just keep saying firmly but calmly that you are unable to talk to him when he is like that and you would prefer it if you could wait until he had calmed down and was thinking rationally before you can have a conversation.View Thread

Posted byitsfornina

(FromDepression Support Group)

376 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:living with a depressed husband Yes, I did and still do to some extent on occasion but for the most part we've come...

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