Reply to If you have a mentally ill spouse

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "If you have a mentally ill spouse "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you do not have experience with this, please don’t comment about how you’d never put up with it. I didn’t think I would either until I’m now living it

Dh has severe depression and anxiety. He’s in weekly therapy and on meds.  [b]An intensive DBT has been recommended [/b]but he says he so far won’t do it.  He is very successful professionally.  At least every other month something “bad” happens (such as losing a key client) that spends him spiraling and then laying in misery in bed for a couple days.  He bails on all domestic responsibility, treats me rather rudely if I talk to him (either doesn’t respond at all or short one words). Eventually he snaps out of it and acts like it never happened.

Would you just accept this? Insist on more intensive therapy with threat of divorce? Something else? He won’t do anything different therapy wise unless losing his family is on the line.[/quote]

I'm the mentally ill half of my marriage (bipolar disorder). Here's my take -- severe mental illness is horrible, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But -- it isn't an excuse to behave like a child or bail on responsibilities or treat loved ones poorly. You have to be an adult and manage your illness as best as possible in order to minimize the effects on others, which, if DBT is recommended and he doesn't do it, well -- then he doesn't appear to be doing his best to manage his illness. To me? That's unacceptable. So I do not recommend that you "just accept this." Maybe you need to insist on therapy with a real threat of losing his family on the line. But you need to be able to back that up. You need to not put up with the poor behavior. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics