How do you have faith in your marriage when your partner has depression?

[Zozza]

My husband has been recently diagnosed with major depressive disorder. The depression started about mid year, during the second lockdown (we live in Melbourne and are both teachers).

We have been together for nearly 22 years and married for 12. We have two beautiful boys. We bought a house 18 months ago and we were very happy. I was very happy. Then 2020 came long...and everything changed.

Our relationship with each other has really suffered. We argue now more than we ever have. He has become distant and unreachable. He does not seem to have any love for me right now. I think our issues are heightened by being in lockdown and both working from home. We had no escape from each other and our working and personal lives became blurred.

I know he is questioning the relationship. I want to believe that our marriage is not the cause of his depression, but it's really hard for me not to worry that I am the problem. Or that our relationship is the problem. I know that it is much more complex than that and that his depression isn't necessarily rooted in any one thing in particular. I want to believe that his depression is actually probably the main cause of our current marital problems, but it is so hard to have faith when he can't give me any reassurance that he will ever feel for me what he used to feel.

I need to know how you can stand by your partner through all of this and still believe that deep down inside of them they still love and want you. Loving someone who is depressed is the hardest thing I have ever done but I would be prepared to go to hell and back with him if I knew that at the end of all of this he will love me and want me and be by my side. The fear of losing him is making it so much harder for me to be the person he needs right now. How do I believe that we are still true soul mates if he can't?

It is the hardest thing for me because I love him so much. He is everything to me. I love him even at his worst and on his darkest days and when he can't love me back. But I need hope that he will one day love me back.

[Zozza]

He’s sleeping with someone else. He’s admitted it to me.
I can’t believe it. After everything I’ve done.
Help me.

[815]

Hi Zozza,

My heart breaks for you...
I wish I had words to help you.
I'm thinking of you xo

[quirkywords]

Zozza

i have read your post and am sorry your husband has been infsitbful.

Depression can trick our minds that we think the people who love us don’t understand us so people seek understanding elsewhere, I am not saying depression is an excuse as the person has still made that decision

I am glad that you and 815 have been supporting each other .

have you thought about contacting corona virus support line.
please look after yourself.

[Zozza]

Thank you. I am in a lot of pain.

We are talking, I am trying to work through it all but it's overwhelming.

I still love him. I want to move beyond this but I don't know if he can. I don't really know if I can either but I know that our relationship is worth fighting for. He does not seem to have any fight left in him and is doubting his love for me. He doesn't know what he wants. It is hurting a lot.

I am losing hope. I don't have much left in me to give. I don't feel like he's going to be able to help me heal and I don't think I can do it on my own.

[815]

Hi Zozza,

I was just thinking about you this morning and hoping you'd check in.

I can't even imagine what you are going through right. I feel totally heart broken for you. It is good to hear that you are talking. But I can only imagine that it will take time to work through everything - your feelings, his feelings, what you want, what he wants.

I don't know if it's too early or too soon, but have you thought about relationship counselling to talk through both of your feelings?

I wish I could offer some words of hope or some advice. But please know that I am thinking about you. Please take care and write if it helps.

[Zozza]

Yes we've talked about relationship counselling, but that assumes he thinks that there is a relationship to save, which he doesn't seem to at the moment. I thought it might be best for us to keep having counselling separately before we have counselling together but I then it might also be good for us to talk to a counsellor sooner rather than later where we have the benefit of an impartial listener. At the moment I am worried that all this talking is only going to hurt things more.

I keep encouraging him to get more help and perhaps try medication for the depression but he just gets so angry when I try to help him. He seems dubious about drugs helping. It's like he thinks the problems are outside of him and not inside - although he denies that.

The only thing he seems to want at the moment is to get away from me. He is going to his dad's house this weekend. I am glad that he will have someone else to talk to but I am just so afraid that the more time he spends away from me the harder it will be for him to come back to me.

Thanks for listening. I am really struggling today. I know it's early days and have to hope that it will get better. It has to get better surely.

[815]

Hi Zozza,

I definitely think it's a good idea for you to continue seeking counselling individually, for your own mental health. What does your husband think about relationship counselling? Regardless of whether you think he wants to save the relationship, if he's open to it then it might be the way to go.

I understand how hard it is when you try to encourage your loved one to get help, and they just get angry. All you can do is keep trying. Unfortunately, from my own experience, I've realised it will never be enough for us to want them to get help. They themselves have to want the help.

Maybe time spent apart, will be good for both of you. However I definitely understand your worry. I always feel that the more time that passes, and the more time we don't spend together, makes it harder for us to find each other again. But I also think that this is the time where we have to trust that time and space will heal.

I don't know what the healing looks like. I don't know what the outcome will be. But yes, things will get better. It may take a lot of time. But you said that you believe it's worth fighting for, and even with what little fight you have left, I think you should give it all you've got, until you truly can't anymore. And I think deep down you'll know if that time comes. But I don't think you're there yet.

I am here, to read your words, to write words in reply, and I am keeping hope for you.

[Bill_-_been_there]

Hi Zozza,
I have just been following your thread and reading the support from all of the other people that are providing good advice.
I am a man - in my senior years - now retired - however I had a breakdown around 25 years ago where I lost everything I had - my job - my money - my wife - my house and my mind.
Back then, when there was not so much support such as Beyond Blue, it took me three years to get better.
Since then, I have been studying what caused my depression and anxiety and I'd like to share some of what I have learned.
In my late 45 to 50 age brackets, I began to feel that I was getting older and the younger men coming up behind me had new and brighter ideas and they had a stronger drive to succeed.
I felt like I was being left behind – and it was quite frightening in some ways.
At around the same time, the economic climate collapsed and I was suddenly out of work, stuck at home, no money and under incredible pressure just like so many men in the lockdown situation nowadays
I became anxious and depressed, and began to have thoughts that I was not worthy of being loved. My sex drive went out the window and even though my wife was understanding and supporting, the chemical imbalances in my brain caused by the depression, made me confused and overwhelmed.
I felt like I was broken and worn down and no use to anyone.
I began pulling away – not because I did not love my wife – it was because of the terrible feeling inside my gut and heart that I did not love myself – and in fact I did not love anything much at all about my life.
I was just sad all of the time and it was out of my control.
Those feelings come from deep inside of a man and I have learnt over the years about some natural products that help me to rebalance my moods and feelings.
I find that when I take these supplements, they help me to balance my moods and stop the negative self-talk that’s so common in a man’s mind when they suffer setbacks like what’s happened during the pandemic.
They have given me more confidence and I feel calmer and more in control, happier, energetic and amorous again.
I am wondering if supplements might be able to help your husband as well. 

[geoff]

Hello Zozza, I wanted to reply last night but it was too late but your circumstances are pretty well identical to my situation as I was married for 25 years.

815, Quirky and Bill have been contributing and can't thank them enough.

Your husband is unable to tell you that he loves you when he's feeling like this because what love means doesn't represent what it once did, not because he doesn't but this illness makes you incapable of feeling emotions of any kind, and even by you telling him such, will not probably register as most things will only bounce off him.

As Bill says 'not because I did not love my wife – it was because of the terrible feeling inside my gut and heart that I did not love myself', how can you love someone if you don't love yourself.

I've been on both sides of the pendulum when my ex-wife had PND and I was trying my hardest to convey my love towards her, unfortunately, it only bounced off her until I started suffering from the same illness, this was many years ago.

18 years later our marriage was the same as what you are trying to cope with, still a long time ago where I self medicated with alcohol and at this stage, it was my salvation and told by many people to stop, now I don't drink but divorced.

My ex and I talk quite often talk as if nothing happened, but couldn't live together again, but still definitely love each other, in a different way, so in my instance, love does return.

Best wishes.

Geoff.

[Zozza]

Thanks Geoff and Bill, it helps to have your insight into what it's like on the other side.

All that you are saying made sense to me before the affair. And I still want to believe that, but it's even more difficult to believe now that he has cheated on me. If he is so incapable of feeling, how is it that he found himself able to have feelings for this other woman, and not the woman who has stood by him and loved him for 22 years?

I feel like I am fighting a losing battle.

He is trying though. I have been sharing podcasts with him and he has been listening to them and doing his own research too. He is willing to do couples counselling. Last night we agreed not to talk about the infidelity and have a break - but we did share how we were feeling. How it's affecting our work, our inability to focus, our appetite. We are feeling a lot of the same feelings but for different reasons. It's nice to share in that together - to remind ourselves that we are both hurting, both going through this together. It's something at least.

I have told him if he really has no hope for us then he can leave. But he doesn't. And that has to mean something. I know he's experiencing a lot of emotions and is expressing that he's still in shock that I haven't thrown him out of the house. That I am even allowing him to still sleep in my bed. It's going to take a long time before he can really come to terms with what he's feeling and what his next steps should be.

He's going to see his dad this Friday night and then his sister on Saturday night. It will be good for him to have some time away from me and also talk to people who can support him and guide him.

Thanks again to everyone offering words of support.