Ask Andrew
Dear Andrew,
I’ve found your book very helpful but am wondering how a partner with clinical depression and anxiety fits in? Can your steps and exercises still work? Is it unfair to ask this of an ill partner? My husband and I have been together 19 years and for most of those years we were very happy - best friends but also very much in love. His depression first appeared around seven years into our relationship but was infrequent and manageable. We dealt with it together and carried on.
Around five years ago it became far worse and was coupled with anxiety and panic attacks, he was hospitalised for a while and has been on medication ever since. When it first became acute I did everything I could to support him, accompanied him to all his appointments, worked on exercises with him and spent hours talking and trying to help him work things through and find light at the end of the tunnel. Although it was tough I still felt like we were ‘us’ and that we’d come out the other side. We both hoped this would be temporary, he would rediscover his old self, his joy, his drive, his work ethic etc and things would get back to normal.
Five years on and it has become ‘normal’ that he stays home most of the time, can’t cope with work and sleeps most of the day, whilst I carry everything (financial and practical) and work 60 hour weeks at work and come home to cook, clean and manage the house. This has definitely been the impetus behind me feeling that I love him but am not in love with him. The old ‘us’ has gone and he definitely feels far more like a dependant than a partner. I absolutely still love him and want to take care of him, but there are days when it kills me that I no longer have a partner and I’ve lost the person I married. I know what I really want is to grow old with him but the old him - not this insecure, unemployed, sleeping 18 hours a day him. I don’t say any of this because I don’t want to make him feel worse.
We are definitely one of those non-arguing couples you mention the majority of the time - when I do try to raise things (sometimes gently sometimes when I’m at the end of my rope in truth) it just seems to make him beat himself up even more and seems cruel and counter-productive so I just try to keep my feelings bottled up, but I’m getting more and more dis-spirited by it. He has given up seeking help from doctors beyond repeat prescriptions and has been told his case is not severe enough to merit a referal for psychiatric help. We live in a rural area so even if we had any excess money to pay for private help it would mean a lot of travelling which makes him anxious. I’ve tried everything else I can think of (hours of talking, buying self-help books, suggesting he engage with hobbies, socialing etc) but nothing makes a difference. We see less and less of friends because he can’t cope with being around people and I increasingly feel like all I do is work.
I’m ashamed to say it but this also causes me to feel resentment and to pull away as a form of self preservation, which I know probably makes things worse. Money is an issue but not the sole one, it’s more that I’d like to see a contribution of some sort - if he helped out at home to lift some of that burden from me it would make an enormous difference, but whilst he promises to, it always ends up that yet again he slept all day and I’m left doing it all. Or if he’d do some voluntary work or take up a hobby to ease him back into life and give him something to talk about at night, I could see that as a great step forward but again nothing ever comes of those discussions and I increasingly feel hopeless and like there’ll never be any change. Can we still hope to achieve the renewal you talk of or is this too much to expect when one partner is ridiculously busy and the other one is unwell?
I’m ready to accept the old us might be gone but I’d love us to find a better us than we are right now. We still say I love you everyday but I think we both know it’s more like love for a family member now. It would be beyond fantastic if we could change that for the better. Any thoughts or suggestions would be enormously helpful.
Many thanks.
Andrew writes:
I have worked with couples were one one partner was severely depressed and the other, like you, overburdened. Not surprisingly, they were also suffering with ILYB. You start by asking if it is fair to ask someone who is unwell to try and improve their relationship, I would turn that round and ask: ‘Is it fair on you, to carry-on in this way?’ It sounds like you are nearing the end of your tether and likely to snap.
So what should you do? Firstly stop the things that don’t work: like bottling up your feelings and then exploding. (This will be putting him on the defensive) Secondly, aim for small steps forward - even making a phone-call or peeling the potatoes that can break-out of the inertia and be a platform for more incremental change. Thirdly, I would start by being honest with him. When something upsets you - tell him. I call it reporting your feelings rather than acting them out. Throughout this process, tell him that you love him - so he feels supported - but for your sake, his sake and the relationships sake, you cannot continue in the same way.
Generally, the more real you are with him, the less tiptoeing round him, the more honest you will be. This will model the sort of behaviour he needs - like being honest with you. When he’s angry with you, he should be angry with you - rather than avoiding the confrontation or punishing you by falling asleep. Think of suppression and depression, going hand-in-hand. It will be painful, but it will be real.
It could be that you’ll need support through this process, so look for your nearest RELATE centre. It should not be very far away and most centres offer a bursary scheme for people who cannot afford the full contribution.