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Posts: 1062
Feb 10 13 2:20 PM
I definitely want children. I know I am not ready, but I have time. Clock is ringing in her case. Yes I will consider separation first.
Posts: 2252
Feb 10 13 3:25 PM
Posts: 394
Feb 10 13 4:30 PM
Feb 11 13 6:31 AM
Vel: She refuses marriage counseling because nothing is wrong and she doesn’t believe in counseling. (Next line with sarcasm)
This is real fun….
Feb 13 13 4:55 AM
I had therapy yesterday. We spoke about different types of mental clarity. I was really scared that my decisions are clouded by either manic or depressive states. My therapist gave me some clues and insights.
Depressive clarity:
· Pessamistic.
· Doom & gloom spin on everything
· Sluggishness
· Excessive sleepiness (may nap)
· Struggling work performance
· Withdrawn
Manic clarity:
· Overly optimistic
· Grandiose ideas ( I want to start 5 businesses this week)
· Super talkative
· Impulsive
· Uncharacteristic risky behaviors
o Overspending
o Gambling
o Unprotected sex
o Etc
She also gave me some “homework”to do. Make a list of why I got married to my wife.
What would it look like if we separated?
Why am I still married to her?
What do I want to do moving forward and what does that look like?
I still have a lot of things to think about. It seems almost every 1 question answered, 2 3 more pops up.
Posts: 1516
Feb 13 13 6:46 AM
Feb 13 13 8:27 PM
Thank you for your insight. I am looking forward to your husband answering the questions I had asked.
Posts: 654
Feb 14 13 12:47 AM
Feb 14 13 5:27 AM
P:
*ding* hit the nail on the head as usual. I guess I have to revise my aswer from another post. For every answer to 1 question, 3 more pops up. Ugh…my head hurts. Someone said before :
Fantasies are easy. Relationships are hard.
Feb 15 13 2:44 PM
Sad day..
After completing my ‘homework’ for 8 hours …it looks like I settled for someone different than who I married.
We have grown apart.
Much of how we grow in life is determined by our environment and circumstances.
Cleary I have changed.
My wife has changed.
Our needs have changed.
but we have not grown together.
It’s not a depression of manic thing. Although depression has forced the barrier between us, depression alone is not the sole cause. My wife is someone I can no longer be with as lovers. I wish I could change this. I wish I could change the way I feel. I wish I wasn’t another %$!% story on this forum with the same usual ending.
Someone said its about how we grow as human beings.
Its not a couple’s counseling forum.
It’s a depression fallout forum.
I just happen to be on the other side of the tracks. Just because of my illness does not mean I don’t hurt either by this decision.
Now I can’t stop crying….this is now situational depression….
(sarcasm) great…..
Feb 15 13 2:55 PM
Feb 15 13 4:44 PM
Feb 15 13 4:50 PM
Feb 15 13 6:22 PM
Feb 15 13 8:20 PM
Feb 15 13 8:53 PM
This actually has nothing to do with my depression. It has everything to do with 2 adults who have grown basically apart as lovers. I love my wife. She is kind and caring. The reality o f this is that kindness and caring does not support a marriage alone. I do not blame her for anything. She has been the most caring person I know. Once again caring is not the only qualification for a successful marriage.
Two people must have the chemistry and unrequited love that only a husband and wife know.
It is a 2 way street.
My mental clarity began last September, and that’s when I realized my love for my wife had evolved into something different. Call it what you want. Each of you may have your own ideas.
I was hoping I was wrong about my changes. There is nothing my wife could have done differently. In helping me she has changed as well. It has nothing to do with depression other than she thought I would be the exact same person she married.
I am different.
She is different.
No one could have anticipated this.
I spent the last 8 months sorting out my feelings.
I have battled depression for almost 20 years.
I have battled mania and have found my middle.
I have done some horrible things.
It was no one’s fault but my own.
My therapist had said that if this desire to leave was a manic episode, then I would have left long ago. I would not have had any concerns for my wife. Contrary to that, I was more concerned for my wife’s welfare than my own. I wanted to stay to make sure she was on the correct footing. This and many of my sessions with my therapist were about helping my wife. In order for her and I to live our lives to the fullest, we must separate and move forward. I have no idea what the future may hold.
Remember all of us saying we can only lead our DSO to help, but we can’t make them accept help?
I can only offer marriage counseling to my wife. I cannot make her go.
At this point I am at an impasse.
Feb 15 13 9:59 PM
Posts: 5
Feb 16 13 12:51 PM
Feb 16 13 5:05 PM
Team BB or Madbeggar’s wife,
Good afternoon, and finally nice to write to you. You and your husband were the first story I felt I could relate to. I literally was following in those same footsteps. Like your husband, if my posts stop a future depressed person from following our footsteps, then that would have been okay with me. Something happened while on this forum. It became therapeutic. Never did I realize that sharing my story would have a healing affect.
You are right. It is much easier to be on this forum than it is to speak with my wife. Many times my wife asked me what I was typing. I mentioned the forum, and the terror of her finding my posts became evident. That’s when I erased those posts. I still kept the original copy for myself. I realized that the erasure was pointless. Part of my shame was the act of cheating. Unless I erased 250 posts at that time and leave the forum completely, the post erasures would have meant something.
I didn’t leave.
I needed to communicate my feelings to someone, somehow. Any way I could help someone deal with either their own depression or the dso, then I felt I could somehow redeem myself. At that point it didn’t matter if my wife found these posts. The result would most likely be the same.
You don’t have to worry about sounding harsh or not. I just want a straight shooter who isn’t afraid to tell me the truth of what they see. I take everything with a grain of salt. I think my clarity had changed from‘mania clarity’ to the current middle emotion. In my mania, I felt like I was invincible, and could change the world. I could be married and have the OW. I needed sexual fulfillment. To overcome this , I was always honest with my therapist and psychiatrist. Both of them recognized symptoms of mania. That’s what prompted my doctor to reduce the antidepressant dosage. The dosage reduction just put me back into a depressive state, and we upped it back into the mania clarity state. My current clarity was helped achieved by my psychiatrist and my therapist. Both have been working hard to see what my emotions were indicating. I never realized that my manic state existed until my therapy right before Christmas where my doctor was introducing a mood stabilizer to my regimen.
Also I did not report everything on our forum. My therapy sessions were very helpful in helping me realize where my thoughts were, and why I was thinking certain things. My therapist challenged me on my thinking back in December about the OW. I am glad she did. She asked if this was normal for me. It clearly wasn’t but just like any depressed person, she wanted me to realize on my own what were the consequences of my actions.
So are my actions now not that of a husband? Good question. I’ll be honest my wife and I haven’t been connected as husband and wife for 8+ years. I will try one more time to talk about couple’s therapy and why it is important for us to at least try to make this work. My wife refuses to see anyone even though I think she has situational depression. You are right. I need her to change for me. It’s not about who I was before. My needs have changed as well as hers. I don’t think I am projecting. She clearly is miserable and has anxiety issues. (She knows about her own anxiety) I think the combination of my depression along with her anxiousness has produced an onset of anger and apathy that I have only seen in depression. You take that situation and add in our sexual dysfunction; and her fathers untimely demise on Christmas day 3 years ago, and I think we have all the makings of situational depression. I know it is just conjecture, but I really think I am right in this case, and I am not projecting.
I don’t post everything about my relationship with my wife. Some things I keep to myself and is just shared between my wife and I. So I may sound like I am not doing husband like things. I am very aware of that fact. Thank you for pointing it out, as I wonder if anyone was going to realize I was withholding the intricacies and intimacies of a husband and wife.
I appreciate your candor and opinion. I have been waiting for your response for about as long as I have been o n this forum. Thank you for your time and your honesty.-WW
Feb 16 13 7:28 PM
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