I did expect my family to support me in my illness. Unfortunately my wife has suffered from depression since she was in her teens. She has been on maximum dose of antidepressants with little to no supervision by the medical profession. I do worry that with her depression that DB'ing will not work.
A/D's are a big question mark to be sure. I've read many articles that long term A/D use can cause people to lose their love feelings towards their spouse and even their children. Google it and you'll see what I mean. I looked into it because my W has been on A/D's for over 10 years and it may be a contributing factor. Your W is the same age as mine, is she in menopause or perimenopause? Mine is and that too may be a contributing factor.
That said, all you can do is work on you. Make yourself into the spouse only a fool would leave. Give your W time and space and let her work through her issues. BD is always because the WAS is unhappy and they want to lay all the blame for their unhappiness on their spouse. When you give them time and space then sometimes they discover that the LBS isn't why they were unhappy after all.
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I believe my wife had been working on my daughters all the time we were in MC. I also think my wife had enlisted the help of her sister to also work on the girls for quite a while and this period of my illness was just the opening that was needed.
We call that "mind-reading" and it's really unhealthy. Don't assume anything or try to "fill in the blanks".
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Does anyone have suggestions on how to handle detachment when there are kids involved?
Well you definitely want to maintain contact with the kids, and it's important to show your W and your D's what a great dad you are. What is the visitation situation? Do you ever have the D's to yourself? Or is your W requiring that you only see them when she's present? Anyway, at your kids' ages I'm sure they have phones and probably tablets, so if your visitations are limited I would at least try to Skype them with some regularity. You can do that without worrying about how to interact with your W.
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How should i interact with my wife during these visits and still be detached?
Take the "friendly neighbor" approach with your W, interact with her like you would a friendly neighbor. Keep all talk light and fluffy. How's work? Man, can you believe this crazy weather? Did you see D17's science project, it's really cool! That kind of stuff.
Originally Posted By: Lifes Twists
I answer her question but don't go into anything else or ask any questions of her in regards to herself or our R. Should I read anything into this or not?
No, it's too soon for you to get any positive movement from your W. It takes months, and often a year or more before a WAS starts to turn around. MWD says to allow a month for each year of marriage, that's not scientific but the main idea she's trying to get across is the longer you've been married, the more time it's going to take to resolve the sitch. You and I are about the same age and were married about the same length of time, read my sig to see how long I've been at this DB'ing!
