Storied Mind

Thanks for saying it out loud. I haven’t dreamed of another partner, so much as I’ve dreamed about having our life back. Or perhaps, of being single.

I’ve been married 25 years to a man who has a family history of severe depression in the men about mid-40s. All of a sudden, I don’t know this man who I’ve been around since I was 13 years old. I know it’s an illness. But, dang it, why won’t he go to a doctor consistently and try to mitigate the serious symtoms?

Do I love my husband? Absolutely. Do I like living with my husband. No.
I miss who he was and I miss our life together.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

Cheryl

Carol – I hope your man can get some recognition of what he’s going through soon, for the sake of you both. I know how many years my wife was battering at that shut door, and all she got from me were angry denials. I think he has to get to a point, as I did, where the external evidence of the impact of depression not just on him but on others is so overwhelming it just can’t be denied. As I said in that post, you need support too. I hope you’re getting it, and that your wait for the light to go on in his awareness won’t be too far off.

JohnD

There is something very close to the power of addiction in the fantasy of escape.

Oh Jesus, you do really know. It’s utterly frightening.

I don’t want another partner but the fantasy of being alone is very addictive and probably self-destructive.

Not quite two years ago we wrote our vows. Most things fell into place quickly except two wrinkles. I was hesitant about “as long as we both shall live” and “in sickness and in health”. If I got conked in the noodle and vegetated persistently, I wanted her to know that she should seek the support and companionship she deserved. She was OK with that. She saw these two phrases as part of a standard way of saying that we would love each other forever. I was OK with that. We left the phrases in.

Fast forward just under one year. We had been married three months and I decided to audition for a play she was heavily involved in. I was lukewarm about it, but community theater was such a huge part of her free time and her social circle that I thought I should give it a try. Rehearsals threw off my sleep schedule and made it impossible to get to the gym. Work and rehearsals was stressful enough for my wife that she really needed to go out with the gang after rehearsal. Alcohol problems run in my family and I have bad hearing, so mingling in loud bars is not my cup of tea.

I really thought she understood what was going on. She was staying out late and I was getting dark circles under my eyes, growing argumentative and withdrawing. She teaches at the same elementary as some of the teachers and counselors who gave me my earliest diagnoses. She knew I had been in and out of treatment for depression for the twenty years since third grade. She still did not comprehend the challenges of living with a depressed partner. Few people can before they do it.

I could not be the happy-go-lucky, easygoing, always-funny conversationalist she needed. She and I met Dennis in that very community theater production and he seemed to fill some of her needs. I was exhausted from trying to be passionate enough, joyous enough, fun enough… I was almost glad to have a breather when she went out with Dennis. He was a close friend of her sister-in-law’s; it never occurred to me that she would leave me for him. Most of the people on her side of our wedding have embraced him and are relieved that she’s done with me. She brought the divorce papers by for signatures on our first anniversary.

I cannot blame myself for everything. She clearly had a role. There was no adultery, but falling in love with another guy and pursuing that certainly constituted infidelity within three months of the wedding. Nonetheless, I have to examine my own role. I decided that I was the realistic person who had to put the damper on many of her wilder dreams and I resisted many attempts to draw me into the world of the living. Despair and isolation were familiar and comfortable. I had long believed that my great contribution to our marriage would be life insurance because I would die of grief. I could not imagine any other way to contribute to the world. I had no energy for life, but I had endless energy for picking fights, nagging and making excuses for antisocial tendencies.

Splitting up forced me to take charge of my life and re-engage. I had been with her so long I was trying to coast to a healthier place or drift out of despair. Trying to keep up with her was exhausting. I was never quite enough for my effervescent, youthful partner of five years. She thought she was trying to be supportive and caring, but her disappointment always leaked through the façade and it made me feel like a total failure. If I added together my job, my hobbies, my friends, all of them together did not mean as much to me as making her happy, and I failed spectacularly. Now it’s time to see if I can make me happy (or at least less unhappy).

Cheryl -

It’s so good to hear that you’re working with Al Anon, taking care of yourself, and that your husband is working on sobriety. It’s great that he’s open to seeking new help for depression too. I’ve had the painful experience of friends with this dual diagnosis, and each condition has its own formidable problems. I’ve been trying to capture in recent posts something about the impact of depression on my wife, and that’s painful to relive. Hopefully, your husband can get a sense of what you have to endure with him in this state – not to beat himself up with that knowledge but just to add to his awareness of what these conditions do.

All best wishes to you,

JohnD

I can definitely agree. Only after getting some professional help i understood how the heavy lifting must be done alone, no one can do the work for me, and i can’t do the work for no one.

Its hard to acknowledge, though, our brain seems to simplify things, and refuses to see how other peoples issues are different than ours, even if the symptoms are similar.

[...] often prompt depressed men to leave their families. You can find the first of those stories here, here and here. Those brief pieces tell only a small part of a long and troubling story. To stay in [...]