Reply to Do you think antidepressants would help with this pattern of fighting with DH?

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[quote=Anonymous]Background -- DH and I are in our 40s.  This is a second marriage for both of us.  He has two teens who live mostly with their mom, I have no kids.  We've been together 9 years, and this problem has been going on for about 2 years.

We have a recurring pattern with our fights.  He has never given an apology voluntarily, so I pick my battles carefully here, but there are times when I feel so disrespected by his actions that I NEED an apology from him in order to move on.  The point of it, in my mind, is so he understands not to do X again, and he can't do that if he doesn't take accountability for it.  Like I said, I pick my battles.  These are Big Deal things involving lying/trust, not "I need an apology for the way you loaded the dishwasher."

Every. single. time I ask him for an apology, he interprets it as an attack, and it starts a terrible downward spiral.  He refuses to apologize, he gets defensive, he deflects, he gaslights, he stonewalls, he throws out red herrings, he rewrites history, he storms out, etc.  For my part, I end up yelling, which is also counterproductive, and then the fight becomes about my yelling.  But I always get control of myself, apologize for my yelling, and try to engage him in a calm conversation, but he just ignores/stonewalls me at that point.  And sometimes I haven't yelled at all, but it doesn't change anything; he still reacts the same way.

But the worst part is that it doesn't just blow over.  It takes him 1 to 2 weeks to calm down (which he spends at another property we own).  But in those 2 weeks, it's like he becomes logic-blind.  He latches on to his interpretation of our fight, which is always just factually wrong -- as in, he doesn't even understand what I'm mad about; he'll keep defending himself against attacks I never raised -- and NOTHING I say gets through.  It's literally like we are not speaking the same language.

And then eventually, after a couple weeks of me repeating my point ad nauseum, he'll say I'm right, and he'll apologize, and he'll thank me for being patient with him, and we'll talk about ways to not get to that point next time...and then it happens all over again a few weeks later.  (I have also tried just not speaking for those 2 weeks, thinking he needed a certain amount of time to cool off, but that didn't work.  He interpreted by disengagement as disrespectful, and also it's like he needs to hear the same point 37 times before it breaks through.)

It's extraordinarily unhealthy.  He resists the idea of counseling or medications.  And I know it's very easy for third parties to say we should just divorce, but I still love him so very much.  When things are good, they're SO good.  I do not want to give up on him, so advice to that effect will fall on deaf ears for now (my own this time, ha).

So here is my question.  Is this depression?  He's mid-40s.  He has what I see as an anger problem.  Anger in middle-aged men is often the result of depression.  I'm clinging to this hope that if I could get him on an antidepressant and possibly into counseling, maybe he would stay calm enough for us to talk rationally.  He is vehemently anti-medication, even like tylenol, so this would be an uphill battle.  But it would give me so much motivation and hope if anyone else has seen depression treatment change their spouse's temperament in this way.

Thanks for reading.[/quote]

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