The Vine: November 17, 2010
Dear Sars,
My husband and I got married about a year ago, after almost five years together. While not always the happiest guy, his funks usually only lasted a day or two. I thought they were mostly situational and would improve as we became more settled and stable.
A month after the wedding, my husband was laid off from a job he hated, due to cutbacks. His resulting depression and refusal to get help has turned what should have been a happy year into a fairly miserable one, with many lows and few highs.
In the past year he has not sent out any resumes or applied for any jobs. He landed a temp job through a friend that pays poorly and he considers mind-numbing, but it does get him out of the house. I’ve been in and out of therapy since he refused to go himself and have recently convinced him to go to marriage counseling, which was the only way to get him into some form of treatment. When meeting with the therapist individually, she has said to me, “You have some severe problems on your hands.”
During this year, we decided to continue with our plan to leave the city we’ve lived in for five years and relocate. The destination was my husband’s decision, but one I was very supportive of. The current city hasn’t been the best fit for us, and the future city would bring us closer to family. In the last three months, I have been actively pursuing new jobs, networking and interviewing pretty aggressively, per our agreed-upon timetable. I have let my bosses know that I plan to leave.
During this time, my husband hasn’t budged. He hasn’t reached out to his network, he hasn’t looked for jobs, and I’m at my wit’s end. Due to cheap rent in our current city, he’s been able to pay his bills, even if he isn’t saving; however, it’s very unlikely that this would be possible in the new city, and I don’t even want to entertain the idea. I’ve let him know that if I get a job and he hasn’t begun to look that I’m leaving, but I don’t think he believes I will.
I have been extremely supportive and patient this last year. I have reviewed his resume, assisted with search letters and generally tried to boost his spirits while giving him the time he needed to figure things out. I have given him space and let him spend weekend upon weekend “working on stuff.”
Sars, I’m heartbroken. I truly thought that this person was “the one” and that I was prepared for the “for better or worse” but I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I find myself, a generally happy person, unhappy most of the time. I’ve become depressed and am resentful and angry of my husband, but worst of all, I don’t trust him anymore. I don’t trust that he’s going to do anything he says he will (because of a year of broken promises) and I don’t know that it’s reparable. We are in our mid-late thirties and I had really hoped we’d be planning for children now, but it’s not even an option. I feel like this is a one-sided relationship and I can’t give much more. I think about life without him on a daily basis. I feel like I’ve failed.
I have received much support from my girlfriends but would love outsider perspectives/advice.
Can I Slip Him Antidepressants?
Dear Slip,
I hope that you’ve expressed, in so many words, everything in your penultimate paragraph to your husband. If you haven’t, you need to. Print it out, bring it to your next marital-counseling session, and read it — without qualifying it or apologizing for how you feel, because it might hurt him, but he has to hear the truth of the situation, and more importantly, you need to say it out loud so that it’s out there.
Your therapist needs to hear it, too, so that she can help you take a healthier role in the relationship. When you say you feel like you’ve failed, that’s a common and normal response to relationship issues, but in your case, I think it stems from the parental role you’ve taken on with your husband. He’s not doing what you want him to do or what you think he should do, and it’s got you in this nag/disapproval cycle; even the counseling, you had to take a “trick him into eating his vegetables” approach. I agree that he’s in denial, I agree that it’s maddening, but he’s not your child.
It’s a strange thing to say about a husband, but you can’t take his behavior quite so personally, and you should work with your counselor on finding goals and boundaries that aren’t about your husband “behaving” or doing things your way — primarily because he’s made it clear he’s not going to. The “if you get a job but he hasn’t started looking yet, you’re out” thing is a good example, because it’s more about getting him on your timeline than it is having a specific goal, to wit: he finds a job to support himself in New City.
Can you rephrase that ultimatum at all? Maybe something like “New City is more expensive, and you need to pull your weight in this partnership financially”? Yes, the obvious solution is for him to get a job in New City, but you need to tweak the script a little, so that it’s more “I need X, and how that happens is up to you” and less “you need to do XYZ.” His depression, same thing. “I need to feel like I’m not the only one here. You’re going to address that or you’re not, but either way, it isn’t going to continue.”
He says he’ll do these things to get Mommy off his back and then nothing changes. Time to rewrite the roles here so that he’s a grown-up who is expected to deal with his shit — and this may empower him, somehow, finally, for you to be like, “Work it out, bro.” It may paralyze him further, too, but you can’t take responsibility for everything in his life; he has to do that. You can hope he does it, but you can’t make him. Work on that in therapy, both expressing that distinction to your husband and on enforcing it for yourself. And good luck in New City.
Dear Sars,
I have a funeral etiquette question. My mom (and best friend) passed away two weeks ago, and her service was last Saturday.I’m not sure who all should be getting thank-you notes.
I know I need to send one to each person that sent flowers, or a donation to a local animal shelter (Mom’s request instead of flowers). Do I also need to send a “thank you for coming to the service” card to everyone who was at the funeral?
This is all so different to me, and I’m in a bit of a fog, but I also don’t want to slight people who came out to support my husband and me.Help!
It still doesn’t feel real
Dear Real,
I’m so sorry for your loss.
I don’t think it’s required to send a thank-you-for-coming card to everyone who attended the service (or signed the book, or however you’ve tracked attendance); I don’t think I’ve received such a card. If you’re concerned about it and you’d like to do it, I think it’s a nice idea. It might make a nice ritual for you, and it would only take two minutes per card, really. “Thank you so much for coming to Mom’s memorial. Husband and I appreciated your support a great deal.” Sign it, stamp it, done, and you don’t have to think too much.
But it might make for a painful afternoon, too, and again, I don’t think it’s compulsory by any means; certainly it’s not something you’d have to do this week. You can put it at the tail end of the to-do list and revisit the idea later if you’d like, once the fog has lifted.
Bottom line: nobody will think less of you for not doing it. Go with your gut.
Tags: boys (and girls) etiquette the fam
To Antidepressants: I think Sars’ analogy about tricking a kid into eating vegetables is dead on – look at your signature. Even more, though, I’d encourage you to rethink the wording of your ultimatum – not just along the lines that Sars mentioned, but because you’ve hinged your ultimatum on an external uncontrollable factor: “If I get a job and he hasn’t started to look, it’s over.” You’re handing over responsibility to a) whomever offers you a job (what if that doesn’t happen for a year?) and b) him for “starting” (and what does that mean – if he sends one resume out does that take him off the hook?)
You’re giving a legitimate ultimatum, but not taking responsibility for it. Think about what you want and by when, and phrase it in clear terms. Right now your ultimatum is out of your hands and not clear, and therefore he has no reason to take it seriously. If you really want to force his hand, make your plan and act on it, but take responsibility for it.
Your advice to Slip is spot-on, Sars. Ten years ago I could have written Slip’s email. I stuck with it, had a baby, and guess what? Now we’re divorced. It took me parenting a child to realize I didn’t want my marriage to be about parenting an adult. Yeah, he was a loser — but the only person doing anything about that was ME, and whining, crying, nagging, threatening, doing all the chores, and paying all the bills didn’t do anything but stress me out. Slip, you deserve a partner who is present and working with you toward common goals for your family. Offer up your ultimatums, and stick to them.
I’ve only ever gotten a thank-you card once after attending a funeral, and I was pleasantly surprised to get it. At my great-aunt’s service, the floor was opened for people to offer memories, anecdotes, etc. and I spoke, and the family sent me a card afterward. I thought that was lovely, but I certainly didn’t expect it. So I agree that no one will think less of you for not sending cards. If you want to, feel free, but I don’t think etiquette dictates that you must. And I’m very sorry about your mother.
Slip,
I could have written a lot of your letter last year. One year into marriage to a guy I’d been with for 6 years, and he was battling severe depression that was partially due to lack of career opportunities. 2009 featured calls to suicide hotlines and me panicking if he didn’t answer the phone. I knew he was depressed but he hid just how bad it was until it was a crisis.
What helped was finding the right psychiatrist and cognitive therapist. The psychiatrist got him on the right medication (it took several tries to find the right doctor and the right meds). The cognitive therapist has been invaluable in helping him recognize and break the negative mindset that depression causes, and working with him on breaking down his goals into smaller tasks and moving forward with them. Even though he is no longer severely depressed, he still sees the cognitive therapist regularly to maintain the healthier, productive mindset he has worked for. Medication alone probably isn’t enough and getting better is going to be a long hard struggle that he is going to have to do for himself.
For you, supporting a severely depressed spouse is difficult and draining and you have to remember to take care of yourself too. There are a lot of resources out there for people supporting a severely depressed person, especially about getting a better understanding of what they are going through and why they can’t just snap out of it. Talking with your own therapist is great. It sounds like the first big step will be in getting him to seek help. Best of luck and stay strong.
Real, I am so, so sorry for your loss. FWIW, I think Sars is absolutely right; if you actually want to send cards, then go for it – but you don’t need to at all. Your mom just died. You are absolutely excused from all social obligations/niceties.
This page suggests putting a thank you in a local paper; if most of the people who came were local that might be easier for you?
http://tinyurl.com/36lxv8o
(Apparently you are right; you’re supposed to send thank you notes to those who send flowers. I think that’s one of those times where etiquette needs to change, and fast; bereaved people should not have to send cards when they have lost a loved one.)
Slip, I think the most important part of Sars’ advice is the phrase “You need to say it out loud so that it’s out there.”
I know it feels like it’s Out There already–the suffocating steam bath that is living with depression would certainly make it seem that way–but it’s not, really. Because once your real, true feelings are Out There, it becomes not a nebulous swirl of reactions to a terrible set of circumstances, but a real, tangible thing, a solid thing, that has ownership demands and consequences.
As angry and weary as you are with your husband and the demands of his mental state, it’s not really solid. As long as it’s nebulous with no clear exits, you can hold onto the hope that he’ll suddenly realize what he’s doing to your marriage, snap out of it, be like he used to be, and you won’t have to really face divorce, leaving a person you love, starting over. And in the Either/Or dichotomy that crops up in the relationship dynamics when two people are dealing with this kind of thing, it feels like you Either keep this to yourself Or there’s no hope and you have to leave, nothing in between.
But that’s not true, necessarily. As much as it might hurt him to hear the truth, well, that doesn’t make it not the truth, and a tangible statement is easier to get a handle on then a cloud of resentment and nagging, a cloud he’s just going to react to in a defensive manner. Once your feelings have boundries, edges, a shape, they become something to accept and work with rather than flee from or be smothered by.
Maybe it’s just because I’m from the Deep South, and we do funerals big around here, but I can’t imagine (and have never seen/received/heard of) sending thank-you notes to all funeral/visitation attendees. You’re talking about potentially hundreds of people, many of whom you will not necessarily know at all. Unlike a wedding, you don’t already know people’s addresses from sending invitations, nor do you get to spread out the thank-you notes over the months leading up to the funeral.
Besides, you tell people in person “thank you so much for coming” in the reception line at the funeral home. Remember, the point of thank-you notes isn’t the piece of paper — it’s conveying your gratitude to the recipient. When there aren’t any gifts/flowers/donations/casseroles involved, a verbal acknowledgment of thanks is perfectly sufficient. If you want to do it, that’s lovely, but I certainly don’t think you’re obligated to do so.
What I have seen done is that the family sends simple cards to those who sent condolence cards or notes. These can be handwritten or pre-printed, “the family of X thanks you for your kind expression of sympathy in our time of loss”. I wouldn’t use the pre-printed ones myself, but neither would I judge anyone else for doing so. That’s tacky for a gift, but perfectly acceptable for a grieving family member.
Oh, Slip, I could have written a very similar letter five years ago. Sars’s advice is good, and that kind of re-thinking of roles it might have helped save my marriage back when I was going through the same kind of situation.
But it wasn’t the tack I took — I felt like I had tried letting him figure things out, I had tried helping/supporting him, I had tried letting him do things his own way, I had tried individual and couples’ counselling, I had (when pushed) tried ultimatums and threats, and nothing changed, ever. My trust, respect, and love for my husband was systematically destroyed by years of his lying, his not contributing to an agreed-upon share of our financial burdens, his unrelenting refusal to even talk about how to work things out. And — sorry for the dramatic tone, but this is the truth — I was so distressed I considered committing suicide rather than remain in the marriage.
Don’t let yourself get to that point. If re-thinking your roles helps you move forward in a way you can live with, that might save your relationship. But if you can’t live with the role(s) that your husband is capable of filling, then you’ll have to leave. I did; it was the right decision for me; and I don’t regret it.
@Real: My sympathies for your loss.
Sending thank-you notes for the flowers, etc, would be lovely. But I think it is not a good idea to send thank-you notes to people for just coming to the funeral. It’s certainly not customary. And believe it or not, I can see some people even being offended, as it might be taken to imply that you are the arbiter or who should or should not have been there. That why it’s considered rude to compliment the Queen (I’m a Canadian, we have a Queen) — it implies that you are in a position to pass judgement one way or the other on her appearance. It’s unlikely, of course, but some people can get offended easily in times of grief.
Slip –
Okay so this may sound a bit left-field, but have you discussed the child issue with your husband? Perhaps he is so completely demotivated by his “rejection” from employment, that he would embrace willingly the role of stay-at-home parent?
I realise that is a Polyanna scenario, but this is one thing you can’t put off if you are in your mid-late thirties. Despite the many happy stories out there, not everyone can have babies after 40.
Bear in mind that Sars is right in that you have to let him have the full responsibility of his tasks, including this one.
Real – I too am sorry for your loss. And I agree with Sars. I’ve never received a thank you note for attending a funeral and, while a nice gesture, it doesn’t seem necessary. Presumably you or another family member had a chance to exchange a few words with most of the guests at the service, and I think that’s enough of an acknowledgment. If you noticed someone at the service with whom you didn’t get a chance to speak, it wouldn’t be inappropriate to send them a quick note. But again, it’s not something I would ever expect as a guest at a funeral.
I have never received a thank you note for attending a funeral, or the visitation, or for sending a card, and I wouldn’t expect one. For flowers/donations/dropping off food or otherwise helping out, maybe, but not for simply attending the funeral. Of course if it’s something you *want* to do, or that you think will help with your healing process, a thank you note is never wrong, but in this case I don’t think it’s necessary or expected, either.
My deepest condolences on your loss.
Perhaps he is so completely demotivated by his “rejection” from employment, that he would embrace willingly the role of stay-at-home parent?
Or he would view it as one more thing she wants him to do that he’s bound to fuck up. @clobbered is right that the issue can’t be tabled, exactly, but bringing a child into this scenario has disappearingly long odds of improving matters.
Mentioning it is worthwhile, because he may need to hear something along the lines of “I don’t want to have a kid with you right now because you kind of already are my kid.” If this is the one ball she needs moved, though? She should probably just leave now.
Am I the only one who recognizes that depression is an illness? You wouldn’t freak out on your husband for not being able to walk the dog because both his legs were broken (at least I hope not!). You might be frustrated, you might have to make other choices as a result, but I think most people would be able to understand and feel compassion for the person in that situation.
I’ve been the husband. I’ve been the person who can’t explain why getting out of bed and taking a shower felt like pushing a boulder up a hill. How everything slows down, and I can’t make decisions and my thoughts just veer between numbness and despair. And thus begins the spiral where I get more and more behind on my life, I let people down and then I get more depressed. Yes, drugs help, therapy helps, knowing other people go through this helps. But this is a life-long problem I will never fully be rid of.
You putting pressure on your husband is not helping. Please read more about depression and how it affects individuals and families. You are impacted, and you have to take care of yourself, but please recognize that this is not something he is doing TO you. Compassion from my husband and family went a long way to help me get better at dealing with my own struggles with this illness.
Am I the only one who recognizes that depression is an illness? You wouldn’t freak out on your husband for not being able to walk the dog because both his legs were broken (at least I hope not!).
I’m sure she wouldn’t, but you could hardly blame her for getting fed up with driving him to the store and sponge-bathing him if he’s refused to get casts put on or do his rehab exercises — or even acknowledge that the bone is broken in the first place.
I understand that depression can make people dicks in ways they don’t see and can’t control. I have been that dick myself. But reasons are not excuses; I am compassionate about depression itself, but the refusal to face and treat it, past a certain point, no. I mean, I get how it goes, like I said, but she has tried to get him to deal with this. She has tried to get him into counseling. She has tried to help him help himself. He won’t. Where’s the compassion for her?
You can argue til you’re blue in the face about whether or not depression is an illnesses or disease but that doesn’t negate personal responsibility. I think that if wife had written in that she noticed all this, thinks husbands depressed, but never mentioned it prior to considering leaving a lot of the responses would have been different. But wife in this case seems to have bent over backwards to try and get her husband to acknowledge, or accept, that he’s struggling with depression. Why should she have to work harder than her husband to fix this?
I think it’s a great idea for her to read the letter, to really get the reality out there. All the cards are on the table and if husband chooses not to see this as a serious issue or to realize that he has some part in trying to address this then it really doesn’t give the wife any other choice but to focus on taking care of herself.
The one thing I’m wondering is that while the letter mentions moving to a city to be near family has anyone else noticed husbands depression? Has anyone else in the family said, “I love you and I’m worried, what can we do to help?†Maybe hearing it from others could help? If not the husband at least wife would get some additional support for what is a very difficult situation.
@Staci, depression doesn’t give anyone a free pass out of personality responsibility. My family has a long history of mental illness (suicide, severe depression, severe schizophrenia, mania-that-turned-into-psychosis– I think we’re going for the full set), so yes, I do know that it’s an illness. But you know what? She still knew there were things she could and did do to help. And no, she wasn’t always able to do to those things, there were days when she was in bed and groaning with misery, but she still took responsibility for wanting to get better. Didn’t always believe it was possible, but still accepted that she’d have to be part of that herself.
Lying about what you’re going to do doesn’t help– that’s just lying, and depression isn’t responsible for that. Depression might make it hard or even impossible to go out, to get up, but it doesn’t make you tell someone you’ll do something when you know you won’t. Even in the bad days, my mum was still able to say, “I don’t know if I can,” rather than “yes, I will” when she knew she maybe couldn’t.
@Slip, at some point, he has to do something or you do, and one of those things might be leaving. You can’t fix someone else’s illness, but it can drag you down with it, and it sounds like it’s doing that already.
I’ll jump on the bandwagon to say that Slip does want to get rid of the parental role.
I sympathize with the husband being depressed but it is HIS illness to treat. Been there, and no one can make him better.
BTW, at least with my support system, if I say I’ve have a down week or haven’t been taking care of myself but have started, however slowly, to get back on track to leading a healthy life, I don’t piss people off. Trying and failing for a time is human, it’s the not trying, even a little, at all, that wears others out.
@Sars, I’ve started reading about marriage conflicts and the parental role really hit a nerve. It’s an area that I definitely need to work on and explore more in therapy.
@Staci – I fully understand that this is an illness/disease; however, so is addiction. If you were with someone who was an addict and refused treatment, or couldn’t acknowledge that there was a problem, you might not be able to sit by and watch him self destruct. Just sayin.
Update since this was written: Husband made an appt for individual therapy but hasn’t been yet. I presented husband with a letter (full of ultimatums which I’m now realizing wasn’t the best idea). He seemed to hear me. We both realized that the therapist we were seeing together wasn’t very helpful and have an appointment to start seeing someone else. I met with a new therapist this week and hope that she will help me explore some of these issues. Husband got a second job which has improved his outlook but also keeps him too busy to get much else done.
I’ve thought many many times about how leaving would be the easy route. I come from a family where divorce is rare and marriage is sacred. I worry too much what others think of me and don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or let anyone down. I’ve realized that I need to take care of myself while supporting husband and am trying to do that. If that involves hurting feelings or letting someone down then that’s what I need to do. This has been an incredibly hard year, but I need to know that I’ve given this marriage my everything before deciding to move on. I’m hoping the next few months bring some calm and clarity.
Thank you all for your feedback and advice. I really appreciate it. I knew the Nation wouldn’t let me down.
Slip,
I was in your husband’s shoes a few years ago. We had been married for about 4 years at that poin, but after putting him through his final year of college, and then finishing up my own Bachelor’s I found myself with a degree that took me almost a decade to earn and no job prospects. I sunk into a deep depression, I worked part time at the same job I had while I was earning my degree and felt like I had no other prospects. I sunk further and further and basically left my husband in charge of everything while I just drifted. I did not outright lie about looking for a job or networking, but looking back it looks like I could have done more. But given the mental state in I was in, I actually could not. He let me drift for about a year, then he started asking me what I really wanted to do with my life – kids, home of our own, career. And he let me know if I wanted these things I was going to have to take an active role in making it happen. I decided to go back to school to get a master’s in a professional field and our lives have completely turned around.
I am not saying we did everything right, and it all will automatically work out for you. It was hard. I made life really difficult for him because I was paralyzed by depression. But I dug out of it – my husband did not take on the role of “parent” to me, but stayed a partner, trying to keep his other half afloat.
Dear Real;
I’m so sorry for your loss. I myself had to write thank-you notes after my son’s funeral and services and found the act rather painful, to the point of tears. My advice is to get the ones out of the way that you know you should write first, the one for flowers or donations. If you still need to write thank you letters for everyone in attendance do it. If it’s too much, then by all means give yourself a break and don’t. If it still seems unfinished 1 month, 3 months down the road, then revisit it.
But by all means do what feels alright to you. When my son passed, I felt not only burdened by guilt and grief and everything else but also by the responsibility of writing the Thank Yous. It took my mom finally saying to me “Do as much as you can, but don’t be hard on yourself. At the end of the day, that thank you card doesn’t matter much.” And it’s the truth. Don’t dwell on this trivial thing too much. Right now its about you and your grieving process, not about a bunch of thank you cards.
I’m with Staci here. I have BEEN that depressed, and may be that bad again. But I did get to the psychiatrist, I take my antidepressants, and I still am not really free from the depression – not free to live the life I once did.
That does not mean that I think ANTI needs to bear everything, all the burdens, no matter what. It does not help her or her husband. I hope she makes an appt, for a psychiatrist for him, drags her husband there, and gets any type of antidepressant for him. And I would make that an ultimatum – “you come with me, we do this, or I leave. Now.”
That is the only think that will help. If she can’t get him to that help, nothing will get better ( for either of them) and she might as well leave him now – painful and heartless as that may sound. He may eventually have to be hospitalized to get the help he needs.
Her husband has so little ability to make a decision right now, that although dragging him to a psychiatrist seems unreasonable and insulting, I think it is the only chance he has of getting better, and their marriage getting better.
Right now, he CAN follow orders, or go with her if she leads, but he can not make an adult decision and carry through. The worst part is he doesn’t know WHY he can’t do things he used to.
@RC–I see where you’re coming from, but “I hope she makes an appt, for a psychiatrist for him, drags her husband there, and gets any type of antidepressant for him.” This, I think, would actually be counter-productive. What is she going to do then–be the person who badgers him into taking his pill each morning? This just perpetuates the Nagging Mommy role that is, according to Slip, killing her marriage.
I get that it’s likely the depression itself that’s keeping the husband from getting help, and that he’s probably not doing this on purpose. But if he won’t–or can’t–buy in enough to make the basic effort to get help, then that sounds like the endgame. Because then, what kind of marriage is she saving?
I do agree that “we go to a psychiatrist and you buy in or I leave” sounds like the best way to go. And it may seem like I’m splitting hairs here, but I do think there’s a significant difference between that and what I described above–in essence, he has to make that adult decision and carry through. If he can’t, then he can’t, but then Slip needs to know what kind of marriage she’s signing on to and decide whether that’s feasible for her.
I’ve been married for 13 years now to a man who suffers from bipolar depression. Right now, we’re going through a bout of really bad badness – his current medication seems to have lost its effectiveness, his symptoms have veered into the new territory of anxiety and panic attacks (At last! My family’s history of panic disorders comes in handy!) and his usually-rocky employment history has turned, in this economic landscape of suckitude, has come down to long-term unemployment with few prospects, making him feel useless and hopeless to the point where suicide seems like an ever-present possibility, at least on the bad days.
The difference is, he’s seeing a meds nurse, seeing a psychologist (although I’m wondering if he needs more of a cognitive behavior person, or a psychiatrist instead, but that’s another issue), taking his meds, and trying his best. For me, that’s the big difference. As much as I love him, I would be hard-pressed to cope with this if he were not doing his best to help himself. Sometimes his best isn’t very much. But it’s there, and I see it, in bigger and smaller ways. If it weren’t, ending the marriage would perhaps be a possibility. Because damn, it sucks, and it’s hard.
Hi Slip –
It sounds like you’re pursuing a few different therapy options, so let me throw another one out there – group therapy. My husband was a version of yours about 10 years ago, and it damn near killed our marriage. Our story was very similar – lost job, no leads, temp positions, depression, lies and a massive downward spiral. I felt as you describe – I was pretty sure I didn’t love him anymore, I sure as hell didn’t trust him at all, I lost all respect for him, and I was 95% ready to walk out the door.
Lucky for us, his personal therapist “strongly encouraged” him to join one of her group therapy sessions. It was INCREDIBLY difficult for him – he slogged through three years of grueling, painful work, hating every second of it. And I don’t want to be pollyanna-ish about it, but he is a completely different person today because of that experience. The changes are so profound, I still marvel at what he accomplished. That’s not to say things are perfect – he still has enormous demons he battles every day. But he keeps fighting, and I’m fighting next to him, and we’re facing the future together.
I realize my story could come across as rather boastful, but that’s not my intention AT ALL. I wanted to share that I’ve been in that place – where you lose all respect for your partner, when you start to despise someone you previously adored, and you believe the situation is completely irreparable and irretrievably broken. I just wanted to add a hopeful voice – if he can do the work, and you do your own work (I’ve had my share of therapists), the rewards really are immeasurable when you come out on the other side.
Good luck.
P.S. I feel I have to add the caveat that everyone is different/problems and potential solutions depend on the individual/your mileage may vary, yadda yadda yadda. But you don’t hear that much about group therapy these days, and there is NO doubt in my mind that it saved my husband and our marriage. Corny, but there it is.
@Slip: Reading everyone’s responses made me feel like maybe my comment sounded more harsh than I intended. I apologize if I came across as an asshole. I’m advocating for a compassionate perspective, but that doesn’t mean I think you have to put aside your own needs, absolve your husband of responsibility or even stay in the relationship. These situations are difficult, and I know there are no easy answers. I really hope you can figure out what is best for you. It sounds like you’re on the right path.
Slip, there is so much I want to say here. I really feel for you. I’ve gone through something similar, though not the same. Helping my loved one get through the worst of his depression (he’ll never be all the way out, but he’s sooo much better now) has been one of the most significant things I’ve done with my life.
The most important thing I’ve learned is that helping someone with depression is all about lowering walls, not increasing pressure. He is not failing to do what he needs to because he doesn’t want to, it’s because he can’t. So if you want to help him, you have to make it easier, sometimes this means doing almost all the work yourself, just so he can take one tiny little step. I know you’ve already done a lot of that, but I also see a lot in your letter about increasing pressure on him when he can’t do enough. I’m not blaming you here. It is so natural to do that. I also don’t think you have to stick this out no matter what. He can’t carry his weight now. If carrying both of your weight is going to harm you, lay that burden down. If you can, though, it’s not a hopeless journey, just a very hard one.
Start by having a new conversation with him. Tell him that you know this is killing him. Tell him that you love him. Tell him you forgive him. Tell him he doesn’t have to lie anymore, but that you understand why he did. Tell him that you are here to help and that it’s ok if he starts small, and if sometimes he backslides. Find levels of patience that you never knew you had. Try to see everything he does as heroic. When you are depressed, just getting out of bed can be heroic. If you can lower all those walls, I bet you will see more progress from him than all your frustrated, entirely justified ultimatums.
I don’t think you’re wrong to say “do this or I’ll leave.” I just think it won’t result in him changing. Lowering the pressure, believing he is worth it, believing he is doing the best he can, and that you wouldn’t be able to do anything more if you had is illness, that might give him enough space to heal. It might not work, but it’s the only thing I know of that has a shot.
to Real-
I’m so sorry about your mom. I lost mine two years ago, my father had passed on 10 years before her. Honestly I don’t remember if we sent out any cards at all for my dad, I was too busy taking care of Mom.
What my sister and I did for our mom, however, was to find a beautiful picture of her & my dad. We put together a card with both their names & the dates, printed it on nice card stock. We signed the card with a handwritten “thank you for thinking of us” and sent one to everyone in my mom’s address book and/or who sent a card or flowers.
Be good to yourself, there is no time limit on grieving or for sending out anything- don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Take care.
@ Real.
I am so sorry for your loss. I lost my dad 3 months ago tomorrow, very suddenly, so this is all fresh.
There is no obligation to send a thank you to those who visited/attended the funeral. Most likely you, or someone on behalf of you, thanked everyone at those events.
For those that sent flowers/gifts/brought food/donations/went out of their way…thank you cards are in order BUT it may take a while to get them out. It took me over a month before I felt strong enough to put my words onto paper. While it wasn’t easy, it was cathartic. I needed to thank my friends who came over, cleaned my house and filled it with food before I came back home. My aunts who took care of all the funeral arrangements. The people that sent me the beautiful flowers in memory of my dad.
It is a hard time, but saying thank you felt good, and acknowledging the folks that thought enough of me to help, well, that was pretty awesome. Grieving doesn’t excuse any of us from being thankful, even through the sadness and anger.