hi, i will start with the facts. Been married 19 years and have 3 boys 17, 14 and 11. Hubby left mh 4 months ago after we had had an argument and hadnt spoken much for 2 weeks. He said he wanted space but because i was upset i didnt give him it and after he had been gone a week i threatened suicide. I was visited by the mental health crisis team who talked to me and it was realised i had started with depression again following an operation last year. It was agreed i would see my doctor to go back on ad's as i have suffered depression before but had recovered well and learnt a lot. A week later hubby came back to give our marriage ago. Looking back it wasnt the right thing to do as i hadnt had chance to control my depression but the boys and myself wanted hubby home. The trouble was it was like walking on eggshells all the time and we kept having little arguments and hubby kept saying he had made a mistake coming back. After 4 days he left again and the only reason he can give for wanting to end our marriage is he has had enough of us. Hubby is now living in a flat but is incontact with home everyday, either phoning or picking up or dropping off the boys. I am finding it hard to accept that it is over and have struggled with my depression even though i have been having counseling. I know i have backed hubby into corners with some of the things i have done and said but that has been due to the fact i am hurting. When i mentioned divorce he has said if thats what i want to do it. He knows i love him and want to make a go of our marriage but he just says he isnt coming back. I am now trying to give him space etc but am worried its to late. I know i have to get better for me and am waiting to go for cbt. Will post more details later, need to go to work.
I will add a bit more to my situation and would like to say that i did buy Divorce Remedy as Ashlee has sugested and started to read it and it made a lot of sense. The trouble is that last Thursday my mood took a nosedive and i wanted to end my life so i took off in the car and because i didnt want anyone to know i had been reading books on how to save my marriage, i ended up throwing it away along with Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.
Hubby is not the sort of person to open up and talk about his feelings to anyone so i know it would be no good trying to get him to speak with someone. He is very much a family man and everybody that knows us is shocked that he has walked away. Our marriage was probably not perfect but we hardly ever argued and he is adament that there isnt anyone else involved.Things were a bit stressful for him, with work, noisy neighbours and me been in hospital, before we split and do wonder if this is a factor even though he says it isnt. Has my depression this time pushed him away too far?
As i dont have the book anymore any advice would be welcome or if anybody has been in a similar situation and can relate to it i would be grateful. Even his mum and dad dont want me to give up on him. I do also wonder if he is going through a mid-life crisis, as he has just turned 40, or if he is also mildly depressed.
Jasken - the first time my husband left me, back in 2000, I reacted in a manner similar to yours. I called him constantly, I called his parents asking where he was, I begged him to come back, I caused scenes in front of the neighbors any time he would come over to our apartment. I was furious with him for leaving but at the same time I was desperate to win him back and I did all the wrong things. At the time, I was going through an emotional and physical crisis (my mom was extremely ill and had to have open heart surgery, and I had just had my gall bladder out and had complications from the surgery) so I really needed my H to be there for me. I guess I was too needy for him because one night right after my surgery he told me he couldn't take it anymore and walked out. Didn't come back for 3 months (basically waited until my health crisis and my mom's were both resolved) and even after he came back things were never really the same. He started working insane hours - he had always been a workaholic but it got REALLY bad at that point. And I always felt like I had to keep my emotions under wrap after that time if I wasn't going to drive him away again. And he used it against me, too, b/c he knew I didn't want him to leave again. He would do things like tell me if we didn't have sex as much as HE wanted he would leave again. That was really hard for me as my H is a sex addict so what he wanted was like multiple times every day. And he basically did whatever he wanted after that, b/c I was too afraid to stand up to him about things that upset me, like his constant use of pornography and the fact that our money was disappearing and I didn't know where it was going.
This time when he decided to go and not come back, I let him go. I try to get him to visit our son as often as possible, but I don't even bring up the topic of our marriage anymore - I learned very quickly that it just made him clam up and walk away and not show up again for another month or more. He's been gone five years now and I have basically let him know if he decides he wants to come back to let me know but not to count on me being here waiting for him forever. He says he doesn't ever plan on living with me again but he hasn't filed for D so who knows? I am used to my life as a single mom and honestly much as I hate to say it I think we've both changed so much in the past 5 years apart that if we did get back together we might very quickly discover we don't have anything left to save.
I think the best thing you can do is try to move on with your life as best you can. Get your meds back to the point where they are controlling your depression, and get out and show your H that you are building a new life without him. If your life starts looking attractive to him, it might be the incentive he needs to come back home and try again.
I went through severe depression too back a few years ago. I've worked hard to get healthy and strong. I started doing it to try to save my M, but eventually at some point just started focusing on me and the kids. I think you need to not even think about your H at this point, but yourself, getting yourself strong and healthy. If you are still depressed after a month or 2 on an AD, I would try to switch to another.
Also, if you don't have your DR anymore, then go to your local library and check it out or any of her other books I would recommend (except for the Sex-Starved one which I haven't read, I think all her books are good). If they don't have it, then you can also Interlibrary Loan request for it, and that might take a week or 2 but well worth it.
Keep posting here. Are you continuing to get IC each week b/c that's important? I still see my C, but not as much anymore, but it was crucial at one point. Do you exercise at all? Anything is good and will help, walking, biking, whatever. Karen
I have suffered from depression badly too. In fact it is something I have to watch all the time. The only thing that gave my H hope was to actually show him that I was changing. I know with depresion that isn't easy and it takes time for the meds etc to kick in. I also was lucky to have private medical care and I have had a lot of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help me combat the depression. However some of it is caused by physical illnesses I suffer from.
Please be careful on the suicide side of things. Threats can cause you to have your children taken away. I had a really good Dr. and psychiatrist and they looked after my interests well after I tried to commit suicide- without them I am sure I would have lost custody of my children. My constant depression drove my H into the arms of another woman. You know what he told me the reason was that he looked at someone else....."She smiled". I had forgotten how to do that.
I know when you are depressed smiling is the last thing you want to do....but sometimes girl you just have to fake it. You need to remind your H of the woman he fell in love with.
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
I was doing really well uptil last week when i had a blip, caused by too many pressures in the home. I was getting myself a life, was going out socially and had even gone back to work, which was a big step for me. I was friendly when hubby called or rang and he was starting to open up just a little bit but then i started to worry was he being like that because he thought i was accepting the situation.
I do feel now that i am going to get the right help i need and do know i have to do it for myself. My bigest problem is that i analise everything all the time. Hubby said a while back " how do i know how i will feel in 3 weeks, 3 months or 6 months time, but as you have told me it will be my loss ", which to me means that he could change his mind and want to come back. What i want to know is can someone say they arent coming back but then change their mind? I wrote hubby a letter when he moved into his flat and told him i didnt want to give up on my marriage and i showed it to my counsellor and she said it was a very good letter and that i hadnt put anything in it that could be taken the wrong way.
I am still seeing my counsellor but that may come to an end when i start cbt.
Tell us more about what your H is like so we can get a feel for him and the way he reacts. What are your son's like about the sitch? Do you think there could be an OW involved?
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
hubby is an intrervert sort of person and finds it hard to show his feelings. He is the sort of person to blame himself if something isnt going right and he finds it difficult to put things right. He is very prone to burying his head in the sand and is stuborn, like me, and is easyly hurt. When we didnt talk for the 2 weeks before we split up he did say he couldnt see where the problem was as he thought everything was ok. When we split he told me he still loved me but as things became worse between us he stopped saying it. One day i pushed him to answer no he didnt love me as i was hurting and felt if he said it i would be able to move on. Perhaps i have done and said too much and his love for me has died. I am sure there is not an o/w. The boys are coping well but they have a lot of contact with their dad. Hubby will be havin lots of different feelings because he has walked away and he may even be thinking he cant put things right so thinks its easier to leave it as it is. Hope this makes sense. I will keep posting.
