Reply to Wife chronically depressed, blames everyone everything for her unhapiness&unfullfillment, I want out

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Reply to "Wife chronically depressed, blames everyone everything for her unhapiness&unfullfillment, I want out"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]PP , nowhere in your long, long post is any acknowledgment or appreciation of what your husband and kids are going through.  They are just there to suck it up and make things better for you.  Who is making things better for them?  Your husband has to carry the financial burden 100% himself PLUS pay for the housekeeper but all you talk about is how it helps you, not what it does to him and to the long-term financial health of the family.   You are talking to your husband about how you're feeling today, but have you shamed him into not ever talking about how HE is? Is the vibe in your home such that he is only allowed to talk about how to help you, not what this does to him? That's what you're doing. You're shaming OP into shutting up, as if he's not the real person, only his wife is.[/quote]

Amen!  I've been the functioning spouse in this kind of relationship and developed depression as a result.  DH and I are still married but, like the PP, he doesn't know/ignores the price it exacted from me.  People with mental illness aren't the only sufferers.[/quote]

Why do you assume that I don’t feel awful about how things are? I expressed the shame and embarrassment for being the reason things are this way. If OP’s wife had cancer would you say she should do what you are asking op’s wife and I to do? I worked for 25 years and outearned my husband, I receive a hefty monthly long term disability based on my leaving salary from my employers who also pay the whole family’s health insurance and still contribute to my pension both what I contributed and what whey contributed when I worked so he is absolutely not bearing the financial burden alone. I am also retraining so that I can start to contribute more to the family. 
Because we have this help, towards with I absolutely do contribute, I can now be more present and happier with the kids and my husband, I can go out sometimes because I can prepare myself mentally,  because I’m am not a crumbling heap of anxiety on the floor of my bedroom panicking about how I’ll get through the rest of the day. Thankfully, though reluctantly, by husband sees this as the way forward that will keep the family unit as a whole and our 4 kids happier and on more of an even keel. 
I was giving the perspective of the other side. OP has to decide if it’s worth it for him to keep the family together. I went through hell with public shaming from my husband. With him telling friends about how awful I’d become. I paid a very high price in my dignity for having an illness I can not control. 
OP can shout from the rooftops for all I care but what would that achieve? He could be bitter and angry, just like my husband was and make the whole family miserable or he could acknowledge that what his wife is going through is out of her control and they could seek the help she needs together. 
Of course OP could also walk away and pretend that he did all he could. It is his choice. [/quote]

DP. There is a difference between you "feeling awful" and having true empathy. You don't seem to have any, in a way that is striking. Maybe it is your illness, I don't know. Narcissism does come with mental illness sometimes, but I obviously don't know your situation. However, just as a reader, I have been struck in both of your posts about how little empathy you seem to have for your spouse or children. That other PP wasn't the only one who noticed.

The cancer analogy is not the right analogy for mental illness, because in cancer, the supporting spouse isn't at risk of catching the disease himself. Severe mental illness is more like ebola, avian flu, or something serious and contagious. It's not the fault of the person who got it, but it's also high-risk to the people around the sufferer.  If you had a spouse with ebola, you would do what you could to support that spouse,  but you would also protect yourself and your kids. This is what you don't seem to understand or have empathy for. You don't seem to empathize with your spouse's suffering. You are angry that he talked with people about your behavior to him that harmed him, trying to to shut it down as "shaming." Why should he be cut off from a support network because you don't like the fact that people learn about harm your illness caused him? That's a remarkably, shockingly narcissistic point of view. [/quote]

What in your eyes constitutes empathy? 
I have to say how I know how bad my spouse must feel?  Well I do. The shame and embarrassment come from that. That I cannot be the wife and mother my family deserves. I think your desire to be given a pass to see things as you want to and not the other side is what is driving this. Where is your empathy? How do you show you understand how yours and the OP’s spouse are feeling and what are you doing about it?  
My husband had a five year affair that he slipped into before we were married while he worked away and I held him as he cried when he cut things off with her. As he screamed and hollered at me, pushed me away in his pain I told him he could leave if he felt he would be happier with her. He did and then came back after 3 weeks. I never berated him, yelled at him or tried to heap blame on him. As he sank into depression I read up on how he must be feeling and directed him to the help he needed. He opened up to me about how he felt. We went to individual and couples counseling to help him work through his feelings for her.  I sat through him talking about his grief. I encouraged him and never ever acted the injured wife. It took a year of leaving my feelings aside  and helping him through his for him to come through on the other side. And he thanked me for it and still thanks me to this day. 
There are many facets to a relationship that one cannot always put down on these posts. 
Yes I understand his anger and initial confusion that his once vibrant social wife is now a a very different person. But he is also an adult who can pick up a book or visit a dr with his wife to understand how she is feeling. I am saying that sometimes we have to put our own feelings and pain and frustration to one side as we really take on what our spouse if feeling. If my husband had not done that we would not be in the path to healing that we are on today. But you are free to take a different path.  But that takes time, commitment to a marriage and family unit, maturity and a selflessness that many do not feel they should sacrifice anymore. Everyone wants to look after number one . 
You and OP want a free pass. Take it. You have free will. 
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