The warmest of welcomes to you at such an intensely tormenting and upsetting time in your life. My heart truly goes out to you.
I'm wondering whether you've sat down with your wife and had a serious conversation with her about your thoughts and how you're feeling life at the moment. Sometimes partners aren't fully conscious of how we're thinking and feeling until we lead them to become more conscious. Their lack of consciousness doesn't always mean they don't care. Sometimes it can be about the amount of things going on in their life (distractions), more focus being on their own challenges or it can appear to them that we're okay based on us continuing on with life in the usual ways. So, with that last one, there's nothing alarming or outstanding when it comes to our usual routine.
With me having had to manage my mental health strategically over the years, one key thing I've found that makes a huge difference involves finding someone who's prepared to wonder with me. Whether this involves friends, family members, professionals or someone else, not being left to wonder alone can be vital. Wondering can get very dark very fast if we don't have someone to lead us to wonder about the right things. The wrong things vs the right things can sound like
- 'Why do I have to suffer for the rest of my life?' vs 'What is this suffering about, that I'm currently experiencing? What's behind it or what's the basis for it?'
- 'What's the point in me even being here?' vs 'What's the purpose or the reason for my existence?'
- 'Why am I so depressed? Why can't I just be happy?' vs 'What is this depression I'm in? Is it a physical/chemical one, a mental/psychological one or is it a bit of a 'dark night of the soul' depression (a time of life that's demanding a deeper sense of questioning) or is it a bit of all 3 combined?'
With this serious sense of wonder I speak of, it is also incredibly important to identify the people who won't wonder with us. The kinds of people who'll brush things off with 'You just need to get on with life' or the kinds of people who'll say 'You're too sensitive, you need to toughen up' are those who 1)never offer a brilliant or strategic plan for 'getting on with life' and 2)don't understand that we're born to sense what's depressing, what's stressful, what's intolerable etc. Non planners or non strategists and insensitive people should not be our 'go to' people.
While you can easily sense or a sensitive to a lack of support, the question becomes 'Who is the best person in my life right now to lead me through a sense of support, a sense of guidance and a constructive sense of wonder?'. Could it be your wife, a friend, a family member, some of the folk on the forums here or someone professional who could help you explore what you're feeling/experiencing at this time in your life? Btw, one of the most helpful revelations that's ever come to mind for me is 'Never appoint a role to someone who's going to dis-appoint themself from that role'. As someone who's deeply feeling or sensitive, the last thing we want to feel or sense is disappointment.
