Reading the comments that appeared at Beyond Blue about The Longing to Leave-2 has been a continuing inspiration. I realize how different everyone’s experience is about the impact of depression on marriage, and how desperately hard everyone works to reach what is for them the right answer about staying married or not. For some, the “longing to leave” is a justified move to safety from a destructive relationship. For me, though, it was a fantasy borne of depression. I often wonder how it is, given where I began in my struggle to build a loving relationship with another human being, that my wife and I have stayed married for so long. “Marriage is survival,” I once heard a pastor say at a wedding, and the uncomfortable laughter in his large audience confirmed the truth of it. Despite all our struggles, we’ve managed to survive the worst of times.
For so many years, though, and long beyond adolescent dreams, I was searching obsessively not for the real work of two people always learning about each other but for a drug-like love that would give me a shortcut to salvation.
Depressed and full of shame at who I was, I searched desperately for someone who would make up what was missing, gifting me the worth I felt I lacked, so that I could feel like a whole person at last. Of course, I didn’t think of it that way. I simply imagined I was falling in love. It would start with an attraction that soon became obsessive for a woman whose spirit and warmth I reached for instinctively – almost like a predator – to take in as my own. This was falling in love in a strangely one-sided way. I needed the responsiveness of the other person, to be sure, but only to a certain point. I can try to explain with a story, really a moment when something began to get through to my isolated mind.
……..
I had, or imagined I had, an intense bond with R for two years in my early twenties. Her loving me meant everything. She was beautiful, talented and lively, and deep down I felt not just proud that she was part of my life, I felt alive and justified because of her presence. More than that, I projected into the minds of everyone I met a judgment that I had value because such a woman loved me. That was the reality of what I needed from her – the sense of self-worth that I lacked on my own. Then I had to take a one-year job in another city, and after some months, the strain was evident. I ignored what was clearly happening – so desperate was I to believe that we would be together forever. After all, I was nothing without her.
I was visiting, and we were up early, getting dressed and ready to go out for breakfast – avoiding deep talk though clearly ill at ease with each other. The windows were open to a fine New England spring morning. I was dousing my face with cold water in the bathroom when suddenly I was startled by a beautiful singing voice floating in through the window. It was a woman’s voice pouring a haunting melody into the air. It seemed to surround me, and the feeling and the sheer beauty of the tone put everything else out of my mind. I relaxed into its flow for a few still moments, and then I started to move – I had to find out where that was coming from. It seemed part of the air I was breathing for that short time, but all of a sudden it was gone! Don’t stop, I thought – where could that singer be? I leaned out the window but could only glimpse shut blinds and blank walls through the low-hanging sycamore branches. I walked back to the bedroom and found R quietly sweeping a brush through her long dark hair.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
“That incredible singing – it was the most beautiful thing. Where could it have come from?”
“Oh,” she laughed, “that was just me.”
“Just now? Just right now? I mean, it stopped a few seconds ago.”
She nodded slowly, still brushing.
How could that be? She had a wispy speaking voice that didn’t carry well across a room. I didn’t know what to say.
”… I … I never knew you could sing.”
“Oh, I sing all the time.”
“I mean … I never heard you sing.”
She smiled into the mirror. “Well… you have.”
She finished brushing her hair. We got our coats and left. And she was gone for good._
…….
To say I crashed when she left is putting it mildly. What could happen when my sense of who I was and what I was worth in the world walked away? Gone! There was nothing left! I drank heavily, fell into complete depression, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work, cried a lot, burned with the obsession of having to get her back. For the second time in my life, I went to a psychiatrist. He treated the immediate breakdown of functioning and tried to assure me it was a natural grieving over an event that had the emotional impact of divorce. I suppose that was all I wanted at the time – to heal enough so that I could function. Then I’d be able to resume my obsessive quest for a woman to make me feel whole again!
And so the pattern continued for years. When I met L and we married, things seemed so different. But as soon as we got past the intense early years into the time when the relationship gets real or gets broken, I picked up again the habit of obsessing over that shortcut to fulfillment. I could dream of other women, other places, other careers that would end the inner fear, emptiness and pain. It was the sort of dreaming that would always keep me from hearing the song close by. The dreams gave me a way out instead of opening up and talking to the woman who loved me about the real crisis I was in. There was always a fantasy person elsewhere who wouldn’t need all that talking and honesty!
It took many years, but finally the escape artist in me called it quits. Those fantasies came in such abundance that I just couldn’t take them seriously anymore. Only then could I get on with the work of recovery and the work of marriage.
What has your experience been like? What have you tried in order to get past the voice of depression and reach out to another person?
Thank you for your articles. Would you say it’s worth waiting for the man who left or would you say it’s not?
My husband of 6 years left out of the blue. I looked through the texts and photos, events we have been together recently. All seemed happy. One month ago he wanted a third child together. One month ago he wanted to move back to the state we are from; he was willing to quit his job he hates anyway and buy a house there. One month ago he told me I am part of him, the love of his life, and he will never desert me. Then his mom who has never liked me visited and then he all of a sudden withdrew from me, lashed out, then withdrew again for a week and said that the week of withdrawal was the best week of his 6 years with me. I was struck. How about all our happy memories, your commitments, your words, dates, 2 preschool boys, mortgage, savings, and projects we share? He said he was “just making the best out of it”. He did not offer more explanations. I asked to not file for divorce and offered for him to live alone for a while so he could see that the fantasized world isn’t that great. I encouraged him to see other women and live independently, while I’d go on with my life with the boys until he comes back. He said it’s not what he wants. He said he wants out – for good. He moved out next day and said he is still considering separation, while he had already filed for divorce, about which I learned only a few days later when I was served. When I asked him why he lied to me about separation, he apologized for not giving me heads up.
He cut off all contact with me and did not answer any questions, nor was willing to cooperate with co-parenting. Everything had to be done through our attorneys. I was devastated and I am still healing, since only one month passed since he made his decision.
Our relationship had a lot of events: 2 kids, 2 cities, 2 condos and 2 houses, trips abroad and to visit family locally, new jobs. He quit one day before I had to start a new job. In court he claimed that I am emotionally unstable because I took a new job, though we both agreed it was a good idea to start this new job since it was paying much more and it was 40 miles closer to our home! It’s right off the hwy from our house. When I got the job offer he did tell me he was jealous and seemed to get down a bit because he was struggling with finding a better job. He hates his job, boss, and colleagues.
He also accused me of being crazy. It turns out he gave his attorney recordings of me yelling when we had a fight and was trying to prove I am crazy to take away full custody. Really? I have always been the primary caretaker. The recordings were back from 2016, too. Needless to say, I doubt his attorney encouraged him to pull the “crazy” thing in court, but I was devastated that he even considered trying to prove that. He entirely shifted the entire blame on me. Then I saw a post from 2016 where he was claiming what a great family man he is (even though he never wanted to spend time with kids and me, especially if no booze was involved), and how I am nagging him non-stop. The commenters suggested I had BPD. Then it rang a bell for me why he kept sending me to therapists and suggesting I needed help. Hell. I went to therapists, asked them for meds like my husband suggested, but for the therapists to tell me — you do not need any and we are not going to prescribe you any because you are healthy. This is serious, they’d say, and you don’t just get to start meds. You do not have the symptoms. So, I only saw a therapist when we had a fight to cope with his stone walling and anger. I saw one once in a few months and it helped.
Having read your articles, it seems like what my husband had and what the therapist also told me about him – depression. He has history on his mom’s side. His mom’s mom and her entire family suffer from depression. His own mom and him suffer from depression and alcohol addiction. Husband used to do drugs, including cocaine, pot, and prescription drugs before marriage, and he’d often ask me to do them with him but I never wanted to. Once I found a bottle of my prescription drugs against pre-term contractions in his underwear drawer. He promised to me he threw them out. He asked to have sex on drugs but I do not like even the idea drugs, let alone trying them. He kept reassuring me he had the best sex in his life while on drugs. My therapist also told me that my husband was fantasizing about pixie girls. He blocked my access to his phone and pc. If I asked if I could see who he is texting, he’d yell and curse that I am “accusing him of cheating”. At the same time, we had lots of happy memories, but he would most of the time be withdrawn and down, hating the world. He’d often come home and say: “The end of the world is in 2060. We might still be alive and we might never have grandkids. We need to move to Canada where climate change won’t affect us” or “Let’s just sell everything and buy a land lot in the forest in Michigan so we can be away from the civilization”. He’d also always need a drink (or five). He is a functional professional at the same time, though he does have issues with time management.
All my attempts to try and help were met with anger and resentment. He said he is perfect and I am the problem. Any time I suggested events he should attend, he’d find an excuse not to. Any time I’d suggested jobs he should apply, he’d find excuses why he wasn’t good for those jobs. Any time I’d offer to meet people, go out with married guys for a beer, have a community, he procrastinated and made excuses. The only times I could help was with massages, dinners, lunches, morning coffee, and taking care of the boys. I was working so hard at myself – to be kinder, better, gentler, softer, smarter but it was never enough. He did admit the last year was good but still said it was because I was working so much that I did not have time to disturb him.
I miss him and love him. I pray for him every day. I hope he is healthy. I regret texting him that I still love him and he is and always be the daddy of my kids, and if there is anything that can be done to rescue the relationship, I am all for it. He responded that he does not want to discuss anything with me because he feels its futile, that someday he might write to me how he felt the entire time in the relationship, that he was not happy since 2014 (before we even conceived our second child), that we married too soon (after 9 months of dating), and that he saw how insecure I was when we were dating and saw the red flags but still married me in hope I’d change but I did not. He also said I need help to deal with my insecurities and he does not trust me to change. I do not know what he is talking about. I have a happy career, friends, community, support network, therapist confirming I am healthy mentally, and I am not the one who left; so how come it’s my fault and he is the one with trust issues? I do think his depression and alcoholism (and possible drug use) have impaired his emotional intelligence. Top that with his extended family issues and the influence his mom has on him, and I feel sorry for him and for us, our family, our boys, and our dreams.
I hope some day he realizes the harm he has done. Right now he is saying he is doing the right thing and “it will be better for everyone”. I hope some day he realized the hurt he caused the kids and me and regrets, and I could be there waiting for him. At the same time, I realize it might take him 5,10 years or even never… And it’s unfair of me to sacrifice my life to his depression.
At this point, I concentrate on the boys and their happiness, my career, and my self worth and self esteem. Church helps me a lot. I am praying for all abandoned women and for the men to accept God into their lives.
What’s with the “R” woman huh.
I’ve always been depressed and suicidal, yet somehow now I’m a married man in his 30s with a daughter.
Of late, I’ve fallen in love with “R”, a woman 8 years younger than me. She’s so lively she makes me feel alive again so we’ve dated and slept with each other.
Should I leave my family to be with her or end it?
My beloved man of a year and half left me suddenly. We were perfect when we were together. But He finally said he didn’t know what he wanted one day, and he was a bit fed up with me. He wants space to figure what he wants and sorts his life out, saying that if we meant to be together we will one day, but not now, in the future. I was heat broken and begged him to stay… without any self esteem. But he was so insisted that he wanted to leave… he sounded no feelings at all, not even pain…. At the same time I found him texting random girls online… I asked him, WHY. He said he didn’t know either… he wanted to flirt with them to feel good… I was totally mad after hearing this… I was not enough for him? Everything was so confusing and so sudden that he was just becoming an another man…
I respexted husband choice and we broke up, still being friends. I started to read blogs a lot and I knew that what happened to us must related to his depression ( he did tell me his was suffering one, but I just didn’t realize its effect that well) Afterwards I still tried to care about him coz I know he was sick a bit…. what I cannot stand that he went to clubs and tried to get a new girl immediately after we broke up… I felt I was like an idiot…I was also the one got hurt no just him
So Recently I decided to heal myself first and tried not to contact him… I couldn’t do much to help him anyway. Not sure where we wound go for the next step. Would he one day realize that I was the one and come back to me? Or we cannot be together again and not even be friends? I am not sure…. I love him … I excape but I pray that my man will get better …
I’m really glad that I found your posts on the Longing to Leave. Thank you.
I seem to be in a very similar situation. I’ve been in a relationship with for 17 years and have been married to her for 9 years. We have two young children.
Our relationship started in a rather damaged way, with me wanting more from what she saw as a friendship than she did, and her feeling that she needed to rescue me. Eventually when she did say that she wanted to be with me, I started to experience a sort of “Buyer’s Remorse” where I really wasn’t sure if I really wanted to be with her, or felt bad that I didn’t love her enough. I tried a couple of times to end the relationship, but always ran back to her and gave a self-centered “I don’t know what’s wrong with me” performance. I often imagined that there was a right person for me somewhere else.
At the core of this, I could never be sure if I wanted to leave because I didn’t love my partner, or whether I did love her but was depressed and hoping for a way out of feeling hopeless. This has been going on for over a decade. I only feel like I can say I love her in a sort of “Oh, OK, all right, yes I do” way. What holds me back from leaving is the thought that doing so would make reality bite and show me what I had thrown away. Of course, when you have children as well, there’s yet more of a powerful cause for staying. I have been to see many counsellors, I take Anti-depressants and have been in a day clinic this year. Also my wife and I have had marriage counselling twice.
Like I said, this escape desire has been there for a lot of the time. Since last year it has become more acute, because I got back into touch with a woman who I had briefly gone out with 20 years ago ( I was depressed then too). This person, also an “R” is someone whom I find funny and makes me feel at home: I’ve been living in a different country to that of my birth for the last 6 years and miss my home in a lot of ways. R and I have been in contact by pretty much daily texting, and the occasional skype sesh. I realised last winter that I was in the grip of an “Emotional Affair”, but with the added twist of being thousands of miles away from the other person. The realisation unleashed a load of feelings, mostly based on guilt. I told my wife straight away because I wanted to be honest. I also told R and she admitted to having really deep feelings for me too. She was in a marriage with someone whom she no longer had much in common with, and who looked pretty dull in comparison to me. None of the “realisation” did anyone any good: It ruined Christmas and sank me into a tearful, self-hating depression, It meant that I made promises to end contact with R that never stuck, and it put a tonne of stress onto my wife’s shoulders and made her think for the first time that she might have to leave me, because I seemed oblivious to the emotional pain that I was causing her.
Things have kind of settled down now. My wife and I are affectionate but wary. I try to keep my relationship with R at a friendship level, although she’s still in love with me. I know the difference between “In Love” and Love and I know that what R and I had was being “In Love”; in truth, the feeling is still there. I know that what I have with R is a fantasy, and I know that it’s an addictive one: when my wife is away on business R and I have massive intense text conversations about all sorts of silly rubbish, and behind every text I send is the desire to tell her that I love her. I know that I should create a stillness in my mind and think about what I really want from my marriage and from the future, but the idea of any of it involving ending contact with R is unbearable. Immense respect has to go to my wife for tolerating all of my nonsense and for being perceptive enough to see through a lot of it: what she once referred to as me “wanting to have my sweets”.
I have almost given up on the idea of leaving my wife for R, mainly because it would hurt my children, but also because I know that, wherever I go, I will have to bring me with me.
There it is. Your great article has helped me to spell it out. I am sorry if it all sounds whiny and self-centred. All that I am looking for now is to see if R and I can ever be friends, or if not, how this romance will die the death that is laid out for it.
holy smokes. This is exactly my same situation. Thank you for sharing Michael
I went through this exact same scenario with an old friend from highschool. Both married, both feeling “stuck” and on opposite sides of the world from each other. What I realized is that it is purely escapism fantasy, and if you were to leave your respective spouses for each other you’d soon find yourself in the same rut once the daily grind of living together wears thin, and then you’d both be fantasizing about meeting someone fresh/new/exciting/thrilling.
What a wonderful site and blogs have blown me away , I have been with my husband for 27rs we both had been married previously, we dated for 2yrs before even moving in together and our love grew and grew , he became a wonderful husband and father to my two young children who are adults now and have kids of their own , the family love my husband so much as do I . He has recently been diagnosed with depression , he has over numerous years been caught out contacting other woman on the internet but as far as I know he has never cheated on me but I do believe he has fantasies about another life with other woman . Recently he told me he had no feelings for me or anyone else , felt he was trapped in a bubble , he isolates himself from me and family but when he’s around work colleagues he seems normal , he’s talking about leaving and getting a place of his own but this is a man who has no friends , never goes out , but all of s sudden he’s looking for weekends away , now due to the betrayal on the internet I then have no trust and question a lot which doesn’t help , but all I need to know is where he is going and who with , I’m worried sick he has someone behind the scenes or if the depression is so bad I don’t want him to be on his own especially when I don’t know were he is . I’m wanting to be supportive and help get him through this but I’m also walking on broken egg shells . On a good note though I did talk him into seeing the doctor and I’m hoping with medication then counselling it will work things out . I have my own concerns about how I would cope without him if he leaves as I love him so much , he’s been my best friend like forever and at my age I cannot begin to think about dating again but then again I’m too young still to live a life on my own . Any advice would be wonderful .