Storied Mind

I just want to say thank you. My husband recently was diagnosed with maor depression. And this site is helping a lot with understanding what he is fighting.

I am not the depressed one in our marriage, yet I can relate to your fantasy of escaping and starting a new life possibly with someone else. The ’someone else’ has never materialised – I have never actively looked for one, but it is the fantasy of escape that I dream of. I love my partner, I really do, and I have lived with his depression for five years, although he has all through our marriage displayed many of the symptoms you have spoken about – particularly the anger towards me and our children. There has also been his perceived disinterest towards us along with control. Maybe that has been his way of holding his life together.

My husband has been on various anti-depressants for the last 12 years. A few years prior to that he became sober, and for the last 10 years he has been drug-free except for the anti-depressants. We had 5 yrs of happiness before it all collapsed. We have 2 adult children, both alcoholics and their behaviour has estranged us from them. That was the catalyst that brought back his depression, and particularly his repressed anger towards me. He is either emotionally hot or indifferent towards me, and I became friendly with another man who showed me a spark of interest…sad but true. I have no romatic feelings for this other man but my husband is convinced I will leave him for this guy. I feel sad that I spent time with this guy only to feel noticed by someone. I believe my husband will never forgive me…he holds strong grudges..but we have started couple therapy this week. We have been married 39 yrs this month. I feel too old to start again, either on my own or with another man and he feels the same. Yet we are at this stalemate, both unhappy yet clinging to ‘what might be’. Thank you for this space to write as I have no-one I can share this with who will understand both my and my husband’s reactions to his depression.

Thank you John for your understanding and honesty. It was extremely difficult for me to write my last post and I take your advice on board. We have had 2 sessions of counselling and we are starting to get a glimmer of understanding about where the other is coming from. I am still unsure what the future holds. My husband is having a difficult time with the knowledge I lied to him about my friendship with the other man. I have defended my actions by telling myself my husband was not there for me and this man offered friendship, nothing more – but I’m starting to see how that has been such a betrayal, as I know it could have been the first step to greater intimacy. I feel terribly guilty about this and the irony of it could be that our marriage could end over it. I am trying to remain positive but feel so sad that it has come to this.
Thanks for listening, it does help.

I’d love to hear from your wife. My partner often has flare ups where he tells me I am the one who causes his depression. He will have self destructing behaviour like downloading porn on my computer. He does this thinking I will get angry and leave. If I leave he believes he will have no guilt from suicide. His constant reliving anger from past relationships, even those that have ended 10 years ago, make me think that our relationship must not be fulfilling enough. The pictures of other women, talks of the ex and constant pushing away and blame pulls apart my brain. I don’t know if I’m making the depression bareable or just worse.He gets upset when his behaviour to push me away upsets me. Even though that is its aim. I feel like I’m being tested. Tested to see if I will leave.
Then there is the good days. Where we talk all day, ring or text all day. Watch movies, cuddle, share meals. Those days I see my partner. Who my partner is. I love my partner more than anything. To face being yelled at and pushed away is so saddening. I’m give him anything if I thought it would make him better. If I thought it was me making him depressed I’d leave to make him happy. I’d travel the world to find a cure. But I cannot express how challenging it is having the man you love tell you he is just waiting for you to leave, to find someone else who isn’t (in his words) ‘fuck up’.
Do these partners on the good days hear from their partners, how their partners really feel? Or am I always to know what the depression thinks of me and just presume by his presence that he loves me and likes me around?
I just want to know where the strength comes from to keep marching forward. To become so dependent on the love even when its overcast by the shadow of depression.

Fearing the stigma of being labeled as mentally ill, my husband refuses to acknowledge that he suffers from depression. Yet, almost all of the behaviors you write are descriptive of him over the past seven months. Over that time, he has spoken repeatedly about how unhappy he is, he snaps at me for for the smallest of things, he sulks and looks for every opportunity to spend time alone, and he has threatened to leave repeatedly. Last week, he made the break. The reasons he cited were that he is unhappy and that he just doesn’t love me anymore. Ouch! This is not the first time that he has reportedly fallen out of love or left; but it is the first time I have associated his words and behaviors with depression–possibly chronic depression. I am unsure if depression normally leads to the feeling that one has fallen out of love. Given his real lack of any sort of positive emotions over the past few months, I suspect this is not unusual. No matter the genesis of his words, they still hurt to the core.

Hello John,

First of all, thank you for offering such a wonderful resource and safe space for us to learn and share and connect.

A few days ago, my partner of two years, whom I bought a house with only one month ago and planned to have children with next year, broke up with me. Initially he spoke of “not wanting to take me down with him”, and of being incredibly unhappy, and that he didn’t even have the energy to try and make things work. He told me to ‘hate him, like everyone else does’, and that he felt close to having a huge meltdown. I was stunned, shocked, speechless…only two weeks ago he spoke of how he had never been THIS happy for this long in his entire life. He has often had nightmares of me breaking up with him. There have been nights where he has come home, very intoxicated, and talked about how he’s crazy, and that I shouldn’t love him, and that there’s something inside of him that is wrong that he was scared that I would see it. He’s alluded to being close to having a meltdown, but it’s never actually happened. He’s mentioned that in other times of his life, when things are going too well, he will deliberately ‘mess things’ up and he doesn’t know why.
My partner has all of the classic symptoms of an adult child of alcoholics. He also entered into an emotionally abusive marriage at a very young age. During the times when he has come home intoxicated, he’s has spoken of how worthless he feels and that he doesn’t deserve me or to be happy, and that life is pointless. When he got up in the morning, he was back to being the sweet, happy-go-lucky man that I fell in love with.
The day after he broke up with me, he went to his doctor. He has had many physical ailments that I have found are also symptoms of depression (always feelings tired, digestive issues, body aches, low energy and motivation, difficulty concentrating, excessive sweating)…we thought he may have diabetes or was hypoglycemic. His Dr. told him that he ‘looks good and sounds good” and that he simply made himself sick stressing about telling me that its over. I was dumbfounded.
Everyone around us is as shocked as I am, including his close friends. Do you think its possible that my partner is depressed, and this is the cause of of his sudden change of heart?

I’m so suprised how these stories are similar to my own experience. Just like Elizabeth, my ex said he didn’t want to “take me down with him”. This was a year ago and I still struggle with this out of the blue decision. Just recently he has been contacting me a little more but it’s confusing and I don’t know where to set the boundaries. Friends say not to respond to him and cut him off. All I’m doing right now is not initiating contact (because I’m scared and not sure what he wants-of if he even knows what he wants) and trying to take care of myself.

After 5 years of living with a partner who would, each year, around the holidays, tell me he loved me, yet could no longer live with me, I left.
Months before leaving, I discovered, for fact, his involvement with other women, online, and he also disclosed to me how he was becoming more and more de-sensitive to porn.
His moods were increasingly more erratic; from intensely passionate towards myself, to hermitting away in the garage for days.
Then, he physically shoved me to the ground, while working together outdoors in the yard one day.
When I asked why he had physically hurt me, his reply, “you were being mean to me”.
It was in the next few hours following the shove, as I felt the pain in my body, that I knew, I could not help him, he had to help himself, and if he was not able to admit he needed help, I had to leave.
Do I still love him? Yes.
Do I love myself more? Yes.
I find myself still asking the universe if leaving him, the house we bought together, the home we created together, the garden we grew together… was the best choice.
Odd how I still ask that even though I can still feel the physical pain of the shove, and the emotional pain of being shoved away time and time again.
Curious to me the statement that the partners we pick are to point out issues WE own.
Wishing we could have healed our issues together.
Lonesome to heal oneself, by oneself, missing the other self we thought had our back.