Time for the Loop the Loop on this rollercoaster!

[SM34]

Hi everyone.

I wanted to see if anyone can help me make sense of the fact that I think my wife is severely depressed.

Was at Mother in Laws, dropping off D3 and she asked me about W. I told her I had noticed that she is doing the heavy sighing again that she used to do before her Zoloft prescription. MIL said that was a classic sign of depression.

She showed me a depression book that she has, because my MIL has also been treated for depression. We went through the symptoms and my wife had many of the most obvious ones. Insomnia, excess sleep, change in eating habits, sighing, etc..

So, MIL said this is what I have been saying all along. She is depressed, and feels like life is a void. She starts chatting to some guy and all of a sudden she starts feeling alive again. She says having an affair is a common pitfall of depression, because it can feel so good and can temporarily band aid the problem.

MIL thinks that her daughter didnt believe her when she told her that a long time ago. So I asked my MIL since she has been through this before herself, what can I do to help her? Her answer was, you have to let her fall. She will not listen until she falls down and experiences the rock bottom of her depression and realizes this guy is not going to make her any happier.

Anyone have any experience in cases where depression collides with dissatisfaction in life, and cause someone to want to trash their whole existence for an affair partner?

This just gets more complicated. I was doing well with detaching and just letting her have space and clear her mind but now I'm more concerned. What about suicide? I mean I don't think she would go there but I didn't think she would ever find someone else either!