I have been married for 3 years now. My wife did not relate to me that she was being treated for depression until after we were married. Now she has prolonged periods where she is depressed and angry. Nothing is good or right...everything is bad. She has no friends to hang out with so I take the brunt of it. In-between she is a great person but when she is in a depression she is simply impossible to live with. She is not just sad but mean. Everything I do is wrong. Everyone is out to hurt her. I have tried to stop caring and just bear through it - and that is just about the only coping mechanism I have found that helps....but it is not very rewarding. She has been on three different antidepressants with little success. I realize that this is a sickness, but as a basically happy person, and one who has never had to deal with depression personally, I am getting kinda tired of being kicked around and surrounded by anger and negativity so often. In her moments of lucency she ascribes it to "midlife crisis" and begs my forgiveness, but then the cycle seems to start all over again. Anyone here gotten through this?
How do you deal with a relationship with a depressed person?
- Thread starter Pugchucker
- Start date
AreaCode707
Lifer
- Sep 21, 2001
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Go to counseling with her and get some feedback from the counselor on how you can help / not get sucked into it too. That's a tough situation for you. I hope you and she come out of it okay.
I thought this was gonna be YAGT coming in and had some sarcastic ideas brewing.
However, this is not a laughing matter. You need to get in counseling now. Probably both with and without her. You also might want to check into support groups for yourself.
Support Group Directory
Depression Info
Good luck.
However, this is not a laughing matter. You need to get in counseling now. Probably both with and without her. You also might want to check into support groups for yourself.
Support Group Directory
Depression Info
Good luck.
Depends on the seriousness of the depression. My grandmother has really bad depression to the point that without her meds or supervision she doesn't cook and feed herself and gets sick to the point of near-death. When she's on her meds she's at least stable, but it doesn't sound like your wife has a very serious case of depression, so it may not be necessary.
How is her self-esteem? Is she fit and in shape? Does she have a rewarding career?
It's a proven fact that low self-esteem is a major cause of depression, because she does not like herself. Instead of fixing the problem, often depressed people get deeper and deeper in a hole of doom, thus hating themselves even more. If this seems like the case, help her 'fix' whatever seems to be bringing her down and try to give her truthful compliments more often.
Anyways good luck. It sure is a tough position for you to be in.
It's a proven fact that low self-esteem is a major cause of depression, because she does not like herself. Instead of fixing the problem, often depressed people get deeper and deeper in a hole of doom, thus hating themselves even more. If this seems like the case, help her 'fix' whatever seems to be bringing her down and try to give her truthful compliments more often.
Anyways good luck. It sure is a tough position for you to be in.
No kids, thankfully. Self esteem and insecurity are big issues, but nothing I seem to be able to impact. She is actually quite beautiful and in excellent shape. Her job, I am afraid, is not rewarding but she seems unwilling to change it regardless.
It's ok. Wish I had known what things were going to be like before marriage. There was simply no warning, and we dated for a long time.
I was taking more offense at him calling someone with depression 'fvcked up', though calling your wife that isn't very nice either.
I feel for you, I've been in your shoes and I hope to never have to live that kind of hell again. I tried for years to deal with it and ultimately had to bail on the relationship. The ex refused to do anything - other than whine and take the med-of-the moment to improve his situation.
All the best to you!
All the best to you!
I guess it's too late to run away. I recently got out of a 2 year relationship with a girl that treated me almost exactly how you describe. The nice moments were great but when she got depressed there was nothing I could do right and she was impossible to make happy. She's also very good looking and does well at school with a nice family so who knows where it came from. I'd suggest family therapy or something, and if not you need to consider if you want to spend the rest of your life being depressed because of her.
I was in a relationship like that--I think I could go months without ever doing anything that *didn't* piss her off. One of the problems I ran into when trying to work through things is that maintained that none of my feelings needed to be considered because I wasn't depressed, so anything I felt was insignificant next to the sheer awfulness of being depressed.
I started counting the days to times when I thought she might get her life on track, thinking I could break up with her then. Those times didn't end up happening and I eventually decided that if I was counting the days until I felt it would be okay to break up, I really shouldn't be staying in the relationship. So I did break up with her and she never forgave me for that.
I never did figure out anything to do that helped. She would always promise to work on making things better, but she never did, and to her mind it didn't matter because merely breaking promises was insignificant next to the sheer awfulness of being depressed.
I started counting the days to times when I thought she might get her life on track, thinking I could break up with her then. Those times didn't end up happening and I eventually decided that if I was counting the days until I felt it would be okay to break up, I really shouldn't be staying in the relationship. So I did break up with her and she never forgave me for that.
I never did figure out anything to do that helped. She would always promise to work on making things better, but she never did, and to her mind it didn't matter because merely breaking promises was insignificant next to the sheer awfulness of being depressed.
i disagree. in the past, i have been depressed similar to the OP's wife (yet not to the point of near-death) and meds helped me a lot. it has nothing to do with severity of the sickness. it has to do with the fact that the right medication will address the imbalance. sometimes, you need to try a lot of medications before one works for you.
so as hotchic said, go to counseling together. try out new meds. it's a long term project, since meds don't kick in immediately (i can tell you my first attempt at meds made me worse rather than better, but i was put on medication that helped me a great deal afterwards), but it's worth it, especially if you love her.
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