How do I know my marriage is over?

[Luluga]

My husband and I have been together for 10 years and have 2 children. 
Pre-kids, our relationship was great. Rarely ever fought and truly loved each other. The last few years have been filled with sleep deprivation and parenting challenges and we are at a point I’m worried my marriage is over. I was diagnosed with post natal depression and sought help to be back on track with my mental health - though my husband never really understood it and didn’t support me through the process. I am certain he is struggling with mental challenges of his own but he refuses to get help - both on his own and together as a couple. Our fighting now is constant, and I feel it is always me who is the first to let my guard down and move on. He seems to never take accountability and apologise and it’s starting to get to me. It feels like he is always trying to “one up” me in an argument. I am fighting so hard to keep our family together but not sure if I should just let go. If he can get through his own stuffles will it get better? Or are we beyond the point of repair. I feel at a loss. 

[therising]

Hi Luluga

With the marriage vows, they all seem rather do-able at the time of agreeing to them, hey. It's kinda like 'Sure, I can do that'. No one really talks about the 'In sickness and in health' part including mental health and how that can look at its worst. Post natal depression, for example, is an absolute shocker. It's even worse when your partner doesn't even gain a basic understanding of it. I think it's simply a 'Oh, she'll come out of it eventually' thing, for some partners. Although my kids are now 18 and 21, I can still remember how soul destroying it felt. PND is like when all your inner demons come to life at once (including 'the harsh and brutal inner critic') and boy are they brutal. As you'd recall, it really does feel like hell on earth. Long story short, it was within PND group therapy following the birth of my 2nd child that I actually came out of a long term depression of 15 years or so and it was only then, with the obvious difference in my nature, that my husband acknowledged that depression is a legitimate thing. Hmmm🤔. Took a while.

Being someone who you could say has the ability to feel what's depressing, I'd say it can definitely feel more like a curse at times rather than an ability. Whether it be the seriously depressing side effects of sleep deprivation, the depressing nature of a partner who'd rather ignore issues in the marriage than resolve them and grow through them, a depressing B12 deficiency, a depressing lack of adventure, a depressing lack of the kind of self understanding that leads to inspiring revelations and so on, you name it and I can feel it. One of the worst would have to be a depressing lack of energy. I figure if energy is the thing through which we feel life, if the energy's not there...well...yeah.

Might sound strange but how I've come to manage my marriage is through a certain level of emotional detachment. In summary, I'd say it's like 'Feel, detach, analyse, express'. It can definitely be hard to do at times. I'm no master at it, that's for sure. To offer an example, I will feel something my husband says or does (that triggers me). If he says 'I don't want to discuss it' (something that has to be resolved), I will feel his words. Next, I'll detach from the feeling in order to analyse 'What is that feeling I'm sensing within me?'. Answer: I'm feeling his dismissiveness and lack of responsibility or response, his lack of willingness to evolve, his happy ignorance (happily ignoring what's challenging) so as to feel the way he wants to feel and so on. Now that I've analysed what I've felt or sensed, I'll express that to him. 'I get a sense you don't like responding to what's a tough challenge. You prefer not changing rather than facing change because that's easier. You like to ignore challenges based on you wanting to feel more comfortable'. Then I'll tell him the truth, 'I'm not like that, which is why we struggle to get along. Personally I like to evolve through challenges. That's me'. So, it's about affirming what I feel, what I sense he feels and punctuating it with the truth. If he doesn't like to face the truth, that's not my problem. Sounds harsh, hey. To be honest, I just got fed up with being the one in the relationship who does most of the adjusting, suppressing, hard work (in trying to figure out challenges/solutions on my own) while being careful to not rock the boat. It eventually became about being my most authentic self. We actually get along better now because my boundaries have shifted to not tolerating as much as I used to. My language has changed too, such as with 'You need to grow up and face this, whether you like it or not' or 'Facing tough emotions is a part of life. You either face them or you don't. If you don't face them then you face the consequences of that'. Yes, I've become one tough cookie to live with. I think it partly becomes about raising the bar to the only standard we can live with, as opposed to feeling our self slowly dying through a low standard we've come to accept. If our partner can't live with our new standard then this naturally ends what feels like a depressing relationship.

With fighting, I've found the questions become 'Am I fighting for constructive change?' and 'Is he fighting for things to not change?'.