Moved Back from Overseas to Figure This Out...

[S4tk]

I wanted to believe that depression had some causal role in this from the time of the birth of our son up until a few months ago (and I know she has her issues as well as I do) but at this point she is acting less depressed and more... I'm not sure how to describe it.

Do you mean you wanted to believe it was depression as opposed to something else?

If all of this was caused from depression, would it help you cope better?

I think that back in July, I really did believe that it had to be depression. Looking back five months later, I don't know if I was "believing" that as some kind of coping mechanism as you suggest. It is possible. I think I was trying to fix the problem so life could get back to normal.

I just finished my 14th or 15th session with my IC, and the last several sessions he and I have talked about the idea of W and I playing into each other's unhealthy patterns. Our R started 13 years ago when W and I worked together. She was having problems with her parents' approval, and was also struggling with certain aspects of her job. I swooped in and listened, encouraged her, and "saved her" from those situations by making her happy. Those patterns have been fed over 13 years, so that over time she came to link her happiness to me. If she was happy, it was because I'm so great. If she wasn't happy, she would blame herself (this goes way back in her life). But I think something snapped and now she sees her unhappiness as all due to me. Both of those extremes are black and white and unbalanced.

So I was her white knight. And I learned to relish that role. Unfortunately, it is a codependent kind of life. Bound to come crashing down.

Now, 6 months after BD, I am seeing things more clearly. I am seeing that, when I was moody, or ignored her at times because of my own selfishness, or when we would have disagreements and I would want to analyze everything - somehow this fed into her own issues of depression and other things.

I know what I have just written is pretty psychoanalytical - which MWD doesn't feel is necessary in order to DB - but it has been helping me make sense of my part in all of this. I am currently reading the N.U.T.s book which talks a lot about learning to silence the little boy and live as a man.

That's a big part of my DB process, and my 180 process.

I no longer believe blindly that her depression came out of nowhere and sabotaged our M.

I think the question I am currently processing is why I feel such a pull toward wanting to move forward, either into a new, more healthy M with W, or into a situation where we are moving on separately.

I think that the question, "What do I want," along with the question, "What am I feeling?"... these two questions are ones which my therapist and people here have been encouraging me to ask myself. And they are ones which I have not thought about in a long time. So as I process them, part of me wants to move along more quickly than an effective DB process would suggest.