Is it time to move on from marriage?

naraicjul

Looking for advice please....

I was meant to go on holidays next weekend with the family. I had another bad argument with my wife at the weekend and have no enthusiasm now for the trip. I realise that I'd be happier to stay at home (much less stressful) than going on holidays with her. Of course, it's a pain all round but maybe the end always looks ugly?

Any thoughts?

LegacyUser

You had a fight. Stop sulking and look for a solution instead of looking for the door. You're married; that means you stick it out through the rough and smooth, good and bad, richer or poorer, sickness and health, you know the score. It really gets me thinking today that marriage has to be easy like everything else or else it's disposed of. Unless there are extremely abusive situations, there is always a way to fix things and make it better, as long as both make the effort. And that's what it takes, effort.
Put the past, pride and the stubbornness aside and get to work on fixing things. Start with talking to her that you are feeling hurt and fed up. You want to be excited about the holiday but you're not, and how can both of you make it better. I bet you she will appreciate this and agree to help improve things. Once you get the ball rolling , the positivity gains momentum and the feelings that you *want* to make it work will return.

ahnow

It's a very big question to ask if you should end your marriage with such little details. Can you say what the argument was about and what's been going on? It's still a few days away until the weekend, you have time to possibly reconcile before the weekend hits if you both spoke to each other?
It's very difficult to give advice on this without any information.

triona1

Young kids involved in this?

GingerLily

It sounds like your throwing a strop without any context.

Are there children involved? If so you've a responsibility to them to go on the holiday. If not then it's up to you want you decide on the holiday, but your next step is couples councilling IMO not just throwing in the towel on your marraige.

naraicjul

Thanks Ahnow and Triona1 for replying.

Of course, Ahnow is right in pointing out the lack of detail and Triona1's question is equally valid.

I'm so beat up that last night's post, admittedly insufficient, was all I could muster.

Easy question first, we have beautiful teenage children whom I adore and I hate with all my heart the idea of doing something that will damage them.

My wife is not a bad woman. The problem is that she suffers from depression and anxiety. We have been together for c.20 years and my feeling is that my personal sense of well-being has been damaged hugely during this time. I think that I have tried my best to support her all these years but am just exhausted from the struggle. The depression takes the form of "blue periods" that lasts for c. 2 months at a time.

The weird thing is that when she is in a blue period, she is, in a strange way, easier to live with. When she comes out of the depression, she is very critical and gets overly excited (in a negative sense) about the little everyday things. The arguments are invariably silly - it's the frequency of them that is killing me and that they are really unnecessary. My belief is when she is not depressed, she is anxious and she unintentionally transfers this anxiety to me. She has genuinely tried all types of medication and talk therapies - and we have taken counselling together which has been of some benefit.

The bottom line is that I feel often feel a tension when she is around. We have lost the ability to laugh off the silly stuff. She is a good person, just exhausting to live with. And I'm really tired. In the beginning, I fell in love with her and thought I could help her - I don't think I can anymore and am drowning myself in the process.

naraicjul

Sorry GingerLily,

I hadn't seen your post when I was replying.

I understand what you are saying. Maybe my reply, just now, gives some more context.

Big Bag of Chips

Is your wife being treated for her depression and anxiety? My husband suffers too, and I know how difficult it can be to live with. For years I felt myself change as a person to acconodate him and his illness, often with little effort from him to try to improve himself.

Recently he has turned around and is doing everything he can to beat it. For years his doctors had been advising him of the proper things to do, and he'd just do his own thing because "he knew best". The doctors didn't suffer like he did, so they couldn't possibly understand and advise. Now though he has changed and is taking ALL advice and ALL steps to improve his mental health (even down to changing tea bags!).

Because he is genuinely, for the first time ever, taking steps to making life better and easier for himself, and in turn all of us, I can see a better future. A much better future for him, for me and for our children. I think you need to try communicate with your wife just how much of an impact her mental health is having on everyone. I know whenever I used to try point this out to my husband he used to get very defensive and say was I telling him that it was worse for me than him! Which of course wasn't what I was saying, because the two aren't comparable, but it didn't mean my argument wasn't valid.

I think you should at least try talk to her. I'd understand if you feel you don't have the will or the energy anymore, but there must have been good times. It is possible to get back to it.. but only if your wife is genuinely looking for and accepting help. If she's not, and doesn't intend to, I sympathise with you and would not judge you for having enough.

GingerLily

naraicjul wrote: »

Sorry GingerLily,

I hadn't seen your post when I was replying.

I understand what you are saying. Maybe my reply, just now, gives some more context.

It paints a very different picture.

Given there's children in the mix could you try going on the holiday and agree to split it between alone time and time with kids? It sounds like your burnt out and you need a break.

Good luck

naraicjul

Thanks to all for your replies

Big bag of Chips - My wife has is being treated and has been receiving treatment for over 20 years and in fairness to her has tried to follow, as best she possibly can, all appropriate medical advice. I think the difference between our respective positions is that you are now in a hopeful place and my sense of hope for the future is all but gone. We have tried everything - as in multiple psychiatrists, psychologists, psych-therapists, counsellors, coaches, alternative practitioners, etc., etc. With the accumulated help of all these people, her depression is, to use that horrible phrase, "being managed".

In terms of me talking to her, we are each others confidant. So the reason I am pretty much without hope is that I have tried countless times to explain how her behaviour hurts me - which she accepts up to a point - however, the behaviour never changes as she thinks "it's just her way" and that I'm just being overly sensitive. For the avoidance of doubt, it's not the depression that is killing me - it's the "mood" created when she lets her anxiety get the better of her - what I see as an unintentional transfer of anxiety from her to me.

GingerLily - I get what you are saying. All our married life, I think I have tried to find the appropriate compromise to balance the needs of my wife, our kids and myself. Even now, in the midst of my current gloom, I would hope that will be the guiding light. It's just that it's gone on now for so long that it just feels like kicking the can down the road a little....

Big Bag of Chips

Obviously I don't know about your wife, but with my husband I could tell the difference between him suffering from his mood disorder, and him just being moody! With him it was all blamed on his depression but to be honest sometimes he was just being an arsehole!!

We all have bad days, we all have moody days, but again I can only speak from my own experience my husband was allowed be moody and generally unpleasant, because of his depression. But I was never allowed have an off day because I don't have depression!!

It's not easy. It's really really not. And of course you will have the corner of people who will say it's an illness and she can't help it and if she had cancer would you leave her etc etc... But, nobody else is living your life. People, unfortunately, fall out of love for many reasons. If you've tried it all, counselling, talking etc and nothing helps then you need to decide what's best for you.

Lisha

Op, it sounds to me like you feel you have totally lost your sense of self.
You have very selflessly put your wife's needs ahead of your own. You have become her rock, her foundation, and now you realise that you, yourself are floundering. In her defence you both fell into the pattern of her moods being the most important.
So now you must figure yourself out. Then realise what that means for your marriage.
(In my own PoV I think that if she could hear this, and if ye could begin to function as s team then ye could be OK)
It won't be easy and would require major work from both of you.
Best of luck op

naraicjul

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

Obviously I don't know about your wife, but with my husband I could tell the difference between him suffering from his mood disorder, and him just being moody! With him it was all blamed on his depression but to be honest sometimes he was just being an arsehole!!

There's a bit of that!

December2012

Have you any support? What about you going to chat with a counsellor yourself? You say that she is your confidante so you probably wouldn't be comfortable to have a blow off steam rant with a buddy.

naraicjul

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

It's not easy. It's really really not. And of course you will have the corner of people who will say it's an illness and she can't help it and if she had cancer would you leave her etc etc...

That's a great point and causes me much angst in thinking the thoughts I have shared here but I think I said earlier that it's actually easier to live with her during her blue periods........when the depression is dormant, she will freak out every now and then over something trivial.

ahnow

Hi Op,

Sorry to hear of your troubles. If the kids are going on the holiday too I would say you should go, try and make the most of it.
Are you in counselling yourself or have you a neutral person you could get some support from? It sounds like you could do with some support at the moment. It also sounds like you do care for your wife, but you feel overburdened with the whole thing.
I know what it's like being with someone that suffers from depression, it's not done on purpose, but there is just no room for you when they're like that. It's exhausting, and pulls out all your energy. You need your own space to get back on track with yourself again. That could still be done without finishing your marriage. I see you said you've both been to counselling before, would you and her consider it again, maybe explain what point it is getting to and something needs to be done, she needs to be made aware of the effect that all of this is having on you, and that you are thinking of finishing it. Maybe then she will take her behaviour more seriously.
For the moment try get some support for yourself, and get out in the evenings to get a bit of time for you and only you.

naraicjul

Lisha wrote: »

In her defence you both fell into the pattern of her moods being the most important.

Thanks Lisha for the insitful comments.

Can you elaborate on what this means please? [I've heard this before just can't, in my haze, remember the substantive point.]

naraicjul

Lisha wrote: »

In her defence you both fell into the pattern of her moods being the most important.

Thanks Lisha for the insightful comments.

Can you elaborate on what this means please? [I've heard this before just can't, in my haze, remember the substantive point.]

naraicjul

Thanks December 2012 and Ahnow......I'll try to reply later!

Lisha

naraicjul wrote: »

Thanks Lisha for the insitful comments.

Can you elaborate on what this means please? [I've heard this before just can't, in my haze, remember the substantive point.]

Effectively you became almost her carer.
You role was to mind and protect her. But the importance of you being minded too became lost. (I could be wrong of course. My husband has issues resulting from his messed up family. I always felt my needs were less important. But we now try and operate more as a team rather than him mindee, me minder)

Big Bag of Chips

I'd agree with Lisha, what has happened is "your wife suffers from depression, has low moods and can't help it". She's accepted that. You've accepted that and you both live around that. And as you've said yourself even when she is not low she is irritable and picky. This is still, in part maybe, being attributed to her depression and anxiety.

Maybe it is causing her to be irritable, or maybe sometimes she's just being overly critical... Because that's the habit she's fallen in to. You've grown to expect/accept it and in turn she continues to behave like that. Your feelings are always put second because she suffers with depression and anxiety.

My husband, for the first time EVER, said to me the other day after I'd asked him how he was, he said "I'm sorting myself out, I'm in a good place, so now it's your turn to be looked after. How are you?". It was so unnerving and so weird to hear it! Because it was something that was never factored in before!! The fact that he lives with his mental health, but I live with him living with it! It took us getting to a very dark place in our relationship to get to where we are today, but my husband's attitude has changed. He will always suffer with his mental health it is, like your wife's, "being managed". But the big change in him is his overall attitude.

And I think, from what you say, that could be where you're stuck with your wife.

Big Bag of Chips

Would you consider contacting Aware? I think they might even have a service for families of sufferers. There might actually be a group near you where you could go to just hear others. And how they are being affected and how they are managing, or not.

You really are not alone in feeling as you do. Your wife can't help, to a great extent, how she feels. But neither can you. I'm so sad reading your posts, because I can just hear the "lack of interest" for want of a better phrase. It's clear that you've burnt yourself out doing all you can, but there's the feeling of hopelessness now realising that you've given everything and it'll never be enough.

naraicjul

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

Would you consider contacting Aware?

I'm so sad reading your posts, because I can just hear the "lack of interest" for want of a better phrase.

Thanks again, BBoC,

Had a look on their site - not sure what in person services they provide but I liked the flavour of the written material that I browsed. I'll check out further but the idea of sharing with others in similar situations is very good.

I find your posts very helpful so would you mind rephrasing the "lack of interest" reference please.....I'm just not catching your point here.

naraicjul

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

Would you consider contacting Aware?

I'm so sad reading your posts, because I can just hear the "lack of interest" for want of a better phrase.

Thanks again, BBoC,

Had a look on their site - not sure what in person services they provide but I liked the flavour of the written material that I browsed. I'll check out further but the idea of sharing with others in similar situations is very good. Undoubtedly, part of my problem is the "isolation" effect.

I find your posts very helpful so would you mind rephrasing the "lack of interest" reference please.....I'm just not catching your point here.

Big Bag of Chips

"Hopelessness" might be a better word. You just seem so fed up. It's like you're worn down after it all and just don't have the energy or interest to try to save your marriage anymore.

In fairness, one person can't save a marriage on their own, it takes effort from both people. And if the nit picking at minor things is something that bothers you, then your wife should appreciate that and try not to do it so much. Marriages are all about cooperation and compromise. But it's not fair if one person has to do all the compromising.

I understand what you mean about the "isolation effect". Out of a sense of loyalty to her you don't want to discuss your feelings or problems with family or friends. You don't want them thinking badly of her. For years I kept everything to myself. Never spoke to anyone about what was really happening. My husband is quite a private person and up until very recently even his own family didn't know he was on medication for depression. So I didn't feel it was my place to discuss it with anyone either.

It's tough.

tara73

how is she when she's in the depressive phase? you've only described her behaviour when she's not depressive. I was just wondering if it's really depression or it could be she's 'just' a moody person.

I'm not saying it's the case with your wife, but there are people who use the 'diagnose' depression to their advantage every time they want to and behave like they want and getting nonstop attention/being the center of attention.

You seem like a very nice and caring person, could it be your wife is using her illness to manipulate you and dance to her tune? something how you describe the whole situation tells me there's a good chance she's doing this not so unintentionally like you say.

Esel

The alternating periods of depression and 'anxiety' seem unusual if her diagnosis is depression - to me anyway. Could you expand a bit more on each phase?

naraicjul

Hi Tara73

Thanks for commenting. You'll have worked out from my posts that I'm a complete mess right now (albeit not feeling as bad myself tonight as last night). It is possible that I'm delusional but whatever else I've been feeling these last few days and in the past, I have never ever doubted my wife's honesty in general or the fact that she suffers from severe bouts of depression. In her case, the depression manifests itself as many of the classic symptoms - feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, lack of interest in things, self-esteem issues, problems with sleeping and concentrating, knots in stomach, etc.

naraicjul

Went to see a GP/friend this morning. He figured that I am seriously depressed and prescribed medication to help allay the symptoms. He suggested that I go to Italy and recharge the batteries, take plenty of lots of long walks and fresh air and not to take any big decisions at this point of vulnerability. He suggested that I/we undergo counselling personally and as a couple upon our return. We got into some of the detail of our marriage – which I don’t really have the energy to go into again here. He is far too professional to make premature comments on the longer-term prognosis (and tried his best to focus on the positives) but as far as I am capable, in my current state, of deducting, I left the surgery somewhat happy that I had received sensible guidance but nonetheless with a feeling that it would be a very, very long if not ultimately, futile, struggle.

My overall deep-down sense is that some couples are just not compatible and I wish with all my heart that it was otherwise. Maybe the fortunate ones are those that realise this sooner rather than later. Maybe I’ll feel differently when the SSRIs and vitamin D kick in?!

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to comment.

Esel

Meds can take up to 6 weeks+ to take effect, so be aware of this. Hope you all have a good holiday!

December2012

Well done on going to the dr.

Does your wife know?

naraicjul

Thanks Esel - and apologies for not replying to your earlier question - I just don't have then energy to answer properly/fully.

Thanks December2012 - actually, I went at my wife's prompting. She's a good soul - can't help kick the idea that maybe we're just not good together.

irishguy1983

naraicjul wrote: »

Thanks Esel - and apologies for not replying to your earlier question - I just don't have then energy to answer properly/fully.

Thanks December2012 - actually, I went at my wife's prompting. She's a good soul - can't help kick the idea that maybe we're just not good together.

So it appears you are suffering with depression - sometimes when we have depression we don't see things clearly so might be an idea to hold on making any massive announcements/declaring you don't think your wife and you are good together - it could be true but hold tight for the time being.

Alongside the meds there needs to be a change within also and an effort form yourself - I know that is quite tough as you mentioned your exhausted all the time - again standard enough for depression.

I have worked with AWARE for the past 5 years - any questions let me know.