Without having to recap my whole story my husband suffers depression/anxiety and its been an up and down 15 years. I love my husband however its not been an easy life at times. We did have a six month separation about one year ago and although we are now back together our problems keep arising about lack of intimacy/emotion towards me. Our daughters both suffer with anxiety and all three including my husband see their own psychiatrists. Its evident to bother dr’s treating our daughters that the lack of emotion towards me and the separation have impacted my daughters and may contribute somewhat to their anxiety. I have known this and I also have expressed this to my husband however it did take a professional to make he take finally realise its not me “nagging”. My husband likes to blame me and I understand that could be the depression but much to my surprise he has asked we get marriage counselling? I suspect his psychiatrist may have suggested this and I also add he is in the process of changing meds as the ones he has been on for the last 10 years are not what he should have been on according to this dr.This is a major move forward as over the years its always been me asking for help or to try and fix our problems. The children and life always taking priority over our relationships,so I am more that willing to give this a go and hopefully be able to communicate more effectively with my husband now that a professional is involved. We are looking at Relationships Australia? I do have my psychologist who I have been seeing on and off over the last 4 years to help me with the issues dealing with my husband and the effects its had on me, but also my two daughters and their anxiety. My husband does not want to go to him. Any advice would be greatly appericated.
Thanks for giving feedback about your session together.
am glad but you and your husband were committed 100% to the process and to hear your husband open up.
I am pleased you have hope for the future and you realise it will take time and also there can be a few hiccups but as you are on the a journey I am sure will keep going.
You are so lucky, that is fantastic that your partner opened up. That is the hardest part. As I have said in other posts, I went several times on my own (To relationships Australia), then once with my partner who denied any problems and refused to do anything but blame me for everything. We got no where!
Your story is inspiring, please keep us all posted. I want to know that things sometimes workout for some people.
@Nothappy@uni - Every other time we have been in similar to what has happen to you. Its always been that I am unreasonable or that I was irrational. I know after the years I started to believe it and it was not till I went to a psychologist for myself that I realised I was not irrational but dealing with a husband with a mental health issue. It took a lot of work on my behalf to become confident in myself and understand it was not me. I am still very surprised that we are at this stage where he is taking ownership and trying to rebuild our relationship.
Only thing that I feel has got us here is that he finally agreed to see a psychiatrist and be properly diagnosed. I honestly don’t think we would be at this place if he had not done this. He is also in the process of changing medication too. We have another session this afternoon so I look forward to seeing what work we both need to do.
IMHO ................Counselling was a total waste of time , the counsellers I dealt with (had many over many years) where motivated by Dollars ...think for me ....just has to work it out myself .
i am sorry that you had a bad experience with counselling . Red huts like many had a worthwhile experience with counselling. Sometimes you have to try another counsellor to find the right person.
Sometimes people can work out their own problems but at other times they need help.
I think the key with counselling is you need to have both people totally on the same page and in the past this has never happened. My husband would start and then almost just "check out" so for me this is a totally diffwrent mind set.
I feel you so much! My husband has been a total wreck since we lost our daughter and as much as I mourn every day for it, it's been 10 years now. I just feel that we might need a bit of help to start getting where we left off before the tragedy that came upon us.
Ritsuko said:I feel you so much! My husband has been a total wreck since we lost our daughter and as much as I mourn every day for it, it's been 10 years now. I just feel that we might need a bit of help to start getting where we left off before the tragedy that came upon us.
To add to that we were always loving each other so much and I never felt I could possibly be with another man! Maybe getting some professional advice from https://www.counsellinginmelbourne.com.au/everything-you-need-to-know-about-relationship-counselling would save this marriage and make us intimate again even after all that we have been through as a family!
Hi Ritsuko,
Welcome to the forums and to this wonderful and welcoming community. It sounds like you have been going through some incredibly difficult times - we are so sorry to hear about your daughter.
It might be useful for you to talk to one our team and there are some options for doing that below. In the meantime please feel welcome to look around the forums and share your experiences.
