Wife thinks were wrong for each other (again)

LegacyUser

Ok here goes...this is a relationship issue but with a bit of background first.
Your thoughts would be really appreciated so bear with me.

Firstly know this, I am very dispassionate in the way I deal with things, logical and calculated. I don't do emotional outburst, screaming etc.
My wife is the chalk to my cheese, shout and get angry first, think later.
that's just our personalities I'm fine with it: she's fiery, I'm cold, it bothers her as she doesn't understand my (lack) of reactions,and I don't understand her (irrationsl) reactions. but read on...

my wife and I are together 16 years. when we were just together 3 months when she got pregnant with our first child, we were only 22 at the time had little money but managed to get a house in country and I commuted to Dublin. It didn't work out (horrible commute for me, she was desparately lonely) and we returned to Dublin. things got more stable for us, managed to get a rented house and better job etc. then in 2006 bought a house in Dublin. It's at this point that it started to go wrong for us i.e. the crash. I worked at a senior level in a small company, but the owner was a bit of a d**k and wages were never paid on time, which caused problems with mortgage, so I opted to go out on my own at start of 2008. Come september and the crash things became very difficult. We struggled on for 4 very hard years during which I made some terrible decisions financially on my business without consulting her.

I should also say that she pressured me over money for a long time prior to the crash. I would have had a very good income 4-5K after tax per month. but it was never enough she was always at me for more. One of the things she would say (shout) was 'I want xyz and I don't care where you get the money, just get it' Of course she denies ever saying it, or she now say's 'I was only joking'.
anyway, bad decision: I borrowed from bank for xyz, car, home improvements when we bought the house etc. (all before crash) and it was all in my name.
She also badgered me for a credit card (she coudln't get one) so I got one, again in my name.

when the bust came everything was in my name.and the finger was pointed at me in arguments, you borrowed this, that etc.

IN 2010, just after I had managed to get back into work after being unemployed following my own company going bust, she said she thought we should separate. After getting through the really hard time of no job I felt this was like kicking us down just as we had started to get back on our feet.
anyway, we separated for 3-4 months before getting back together. that time wasn't easy. She got back in touch with an old teenage ex BF (talking, not physical, bar one meeting where they kissed), who is everything I am not, i.e. irrational emotional outbursts etc.
E.G. when she told him we were getting back together he texted he for about two weeks calling her a whore etc. she would wistfully call it 'passionate', I would consider it childish, the type of stuff you'd expect from a teenager.

I wasn't an angel either, I talked with an old female friend who had gone through something similar for support, but it wasn't attraction and never got physical.Of course she thought there was more, but i put that down to her relationship with her ex in that time.

anyway we got back together, and cleared the air to make a fresh start.It was rocky at first but we worked at it. She was given anti depressants by her doctor to help her moods, she was overly irritable and lacked energy. She could flip at the smallest thing and go to bed for 2 days. that sort of thing; depression.

Anyway the medication worked wonders, she was full of energy, rational and reasonable etc. even though things were still tough. The company I worked for went under and we are going through the insolvency process to resolve our debt issues. but we were pulling in the same direction.

I went back to college and retrained, as a consequence I got job in a new industry with good prospects. she went back to college to upskill to get a better job and is in final year now. we have a 5 year plan to get everything back on track. It's tough on one wage but it will pay in the long run.

However...about 3 months ago she decided that she was going to wean off the anti depressants because she 'felt fine now' and wasn't keen to be on medication long term. I did say to her that maybe this year ahead, which will probably be the toughest, her in college full time, insolvency process and daughter in an exam year, may be a stressful one to come off them, but she was determined.

She is now off them approximately 4/5 weeks and she initially said it felt like she was waking up. In that time she has become slightly down, demotivated and irritable. it has been financially VERY tough with back to school and insolvency fees all coming at the same time. it would be enough to get anyone down. but last weekend, out of the blue, she said that she didn't think we were good for each other. That if we hadn't had our first kid (we have 2 now), she didn't think we would have stayed together through our stressful move to the country, so therefore we shouldn't be together now.

Now, I'm not one for 'What if all those years ago you did this or I did that...' I don't think it serves any purpose whatsoever. besides the fact that we wouldn't have moved to the country if we hadn't had a kid, as we moved to get a house for ourselves. that's why I don't do the 'what if's' they make no sense to decision making.

My main issue is this, after all the sh*t we've been through it feels like she's is pressing the self destruct button again, like she did in 2010 when I just got back into employment and wanted to separate.
We are so close to getting control of our lives again and now that she is off the anti depressants this comes out of nowhere. Small things are starting to annoy her, e.g. if I go for a run, eye's roll to the heavens etc. she has given up going to the gym, constantly now complains that she feels fat (she's not) etc. I can see things going rapidly back to the bad old days and am very worried about it. I know that she will not entertain going back on the Anti-D's and if i raise that I will be accused of using it as an excuse to hide our unsuitability.

P.s. mental health issues run in her family, her mother has suffered from depression for 30 years and made her and her sisters lives miserable as kids and adults.

Needless to say there are lots of details that are not included in the above; the small nuances that make up a relationship, but the guts of the scenario are there.

Am very unsure of how to react to this with her, I thought we had put this all behind us and were moving on together, it seems to have come out of the blue.

DukeOfTheSharp

I'm sorry that I have to say this, but it's the curse of an individual with depression and I've dealt with more than a few people who've acted like your wife. The irrationality and the mood swings come from the lack of medication, and stopping outright - which a lot of people do - plays with your body which has become dependent on it. All I can say is that your wife needs lifelong medication, she's clearly got a serious form of depression and her kicking of the medication has caused her to regress into the state she was in initially. My advice would be to sit her down and explain to her that she may not like the medication, but it made her life better. Point to the examples of things she did on her own and how far she came. But most of all, listen to her and let her talk and then, let her talk some more. Depression can't work with cold calculation, you've got to let her talk and then let her keep talking. Keep the spotlight on her and hopefully, maybe, over time, she'll see that she was better off on the medication and she'll go back on it on her own. It's a rough haul, I'm not going to lie, depression comes in many forms but if you can stick with it, she may come around. I've seen some terrible cases come back from the brink, so there's always hope.

Penny Tration

I don't agree at all with the poster above saying she needs lifelong medication. Nobody but a doctor can say that. I was told I'd need lifelong medication, and I haven't. I just need periods of medication and therapy occasionally.

OP, nothing will be resolved unless you talk to your wife. Do you love her? I know you say you're dispassionate, but you haven't mentioned loving her even once.

If you do, then talk to her. As the poster above said, point out all of the great strides she made while on medication. Ask her to consider therapy if she's unwilling to take her medication, or even speak to her GP.

You've both gone through an extremely hard time. Is it possible that she's fallen out of love with you? Medication certainly helps people who are depressed to be more rational in their thought processes, but is it possible she felt like this before coming off the meds?

December2012

Go talk to a marriage counsellor.

You have a lot of issues there to go through and you don't know how to handle each other.

FactCheck

I read the first half of your post and I was just thinking "Wife thinks were wrong for each other"? Yeah, she's probably not wrong - the first half of the post is just a long description of a very unhappy situation.

I was all set to advise you to go to mediation and not be afraid of separating - you have, I presume, two teenagers now and the most important thing you can do for them is to model a healthy relationship. You'd be doing them no favours staying in a deeply unhappy marriage. Let them see two happy parents (even if they're less well off). As teenagers you wouldn't have to worry about not seeing them either - they have phones, whats app, and there'd be no contact and access arrangements to stress over, teenagers go where they like.

But like I said, then I read the second half of the post and it gave me pause. As an aside, it's a useful reminder that we only see a sliver of the story on RI, and a lot of the "advice" doled out might be wildly off-balance. But anyway. It's clear your wife is not well at all. Separation may still be the best way forward for you, but there are definitely other things you can try first.

Contact her GP. Do everything you can to get her to counselling, and if she won't go, still go yourself. Are there any close friends, or her sister perhaps, who you could confide in about your worries over her depression? She may be more ready to listen if more than one person is telling her they are worried about her off the medication.

LegacyUser

OP Here,

She doesn't need lifelong meds. I agree with her in coming off the meds, just that I don't think this is the right time for her as there is too much going on, her final college year, daughters Jnr Cert. Insolvency process etc.IT will be a stressful year regardless and trying to do that and come off meds is , I think, too much.

yes, i love her and we don't have a bad environment at home. That's why this came so much out of leftfield. Yes she has been slightly irritable lately but nothing terrible. Since we got over the separation 4 years ago we have not had a nasty fight. Yes we've had arguments, but they have been over issues and we've resolved the issue like adults and moved on with a hug and 'I love you' after. Both of us happy that we have changed the way we handle each other, i.e. shouting and silence.

I am very worried about here deteriorating more in the next few months in terms of energy, mood and motivation. She has such an important year in relation to her career progression with getting the degree that I am afraid she will just throw the towel in on that if she gets stressed.

I have talked to her this morning about how I feel about what she said, i.e. I think we are moving in the rights direction, that this will be a hard year but I am sure that I want to be with her and that despite bad decision we made years ago, that doesn't mean we can't make the right ones in the years ahead. her reply was just one of uncertainty i.e. it's all a risk.

My POV is that all decisions in life are a risk.

I guess I can understand where she's coming from, we are very much heading into the second half of our life and if she wants something different from life, now is the time to decide that.

Thanks for your replies. I do keep the lines of communication open with her, we have learned that from the bad times and moved on. I think I will broach the subject of the meds this weekend again. Cheers all.

Toots

Did she discuss it with her doctor before coming off the meds or did she just arrive at the decision herself and stop taking them? I was on a massive dose of antidepressants (highest dose you can take of them) and I know when I was discussing coming off them it was a case of a very slow weaning off. If she just decided to gradually decrease the dose herself, she could have done it too quickly. Personally I reckon antidepressants will only do so much, and you need to look for the factors contributing to the depression and address them. In my case I was on meds for over a year and wasn't finding them hugely effective but then I started seeing a counsellor that things started to turn around.

It's completely up to her if she doesn't want to take the tablets anymore, you can't force her one way or the other. However it sounds like you two need to see a marriage counsellor, and it would be no harm for her to see a counsellor on her own, especially if it's a period in your lives where there is so much stress, which is a massive trigger for people who suffer from depression.

LegacyUser

Toots wrote: »

Did she discuss it with her doctor before coming off the meds or did she just arrive at the decision herself and stop taking them? I was on a massive dose of antidepressants (highest dose you can take of them) and I know when I was discussing coming off them it was a case of a very slow weaning off. If she just decided to gradually decrease the dose herself, she could have done it too quickly. Personally I reckon antidepressants will only do so much, and you need to look for the factors contributing to the depression and address them. In my case I was on meds for over a year and wasn't finding them hugely effective but then I started seeing a counsellor that things started to turn around.

It's completely up to her if she doesn't want to take the tablets anymore, you can't force her one way or the other. However it sounds like you two need to see a marriage counsellor, and it would be no harm for her to see a counsellor on her own, especially if it's a period in your lives where there is so much stress, which is a massive trigger for people who suffer from depression.

This is all totally sensible. OP, I took note of where you said your wife felt that she was "waking up", and then shortly afterwards started becoming noticeably more emotional. That's because anti-d's are a bit like a safety net for the emotional turmoil that a person finds too distressing or overwhelming, and those emotions don't just magically go away. They are more muffled with anti-d's but will certainly "wake up" when you come off them.

I agree with taltos - they will only do so much and no more - the rest (how to deal with your emotions adequately when you're off them) is up to how proactive you've been about addressing what brings you down while you're still in a position to be rational. In my experience, that's been through counselling WHILE ON the anti-d's, and a very slow withdrawal off them with constant checking in with myself as to my own emotional state.

I'd suggest saying to your OH that you've noticed she is becoming more down on herself and that you're worried this could become overwhelming for her during such a crucial year. Would she go to marriage counselling with you?

porsche boy

havent read all the responses but if mental health issues run in her family she will need to discuss her feelings and views with a suitablly qualified councillor.

As a comparison, mental health issues have been in my family from both maternal and paternal sides. I was diagnosed with clinical depression over a decade ago when I was in my early 20's and have been on medication ever since. I will take meds for the rest of my life and I know that. I feel fine now, few depressive thoughts, anxiety at bay, good focus on the future and if you met me you'd think I'm I a really good place. I am. Because of meds. You cant stop taking because you feel fine, that just means the meds are working.

For a good future where you both work toward the same goal I really think your wife needs to talk to her GP, get a recommendation to speak to a coincellor and work on getting better.

If your wife had another illness, say diabetes would you be ok with her stopping medication? just because this is a mental illness please dont view it any differently. if like you said she spent two days in bed recently then that really sounds like a depressive episode. Please dont get cought up in stigma of depression and try get her the help she needs. it sounds like the ultimate price might be your marriage.

I wish you the best OP.