Husband just told me he is moving out.

[Mombear]

No, he refuses treatment for depression. Says he isn't depressed, says that if he were depressed he wouldn't be able to go to work every day, etc. He has been seeing a counselor and did a depression screening form, but he lied on the form. There is a 0% chance he will explore treatment for this depression.

[cat04]

Mombear,

I am sorry that you find yourself here, but this is the best worst place you can be in this situation. You will find lots of support especially if you keep posting regularly.

I am going to ask you to elaborate on your story.

Husband is very depressed... Started last fall when he started telling me he didn't feel connected to me anymore. He couldn't, wouldn't give me any more details than that. We started marriage counseling, but after about 7 visits, ended it... It wasn't going anywhere and he wasn't willing or able to do the work. Said he sees the world in black and white and feels numb.

You wrote this in your first post. Is there anything else you noticed about his behavior changing prior to this or since?

Other than not feeling a connection to you, does he have any complaints about the marriage?

The more information you provide, the better people can support you here.

The best thing to do at this point is to take care of yourself and your boys. You are at the very beginning of what could be a long journey.

Allow yourself time alone to cry and process your feelings, sleep, take baths, anything that will allow you to relax a bit.

Go on the vacation and enjoy it. Enjoy your boys. Just have fun. That is really what vacations are about anyway right? A break from real life?

I don't post often anymore, but I will try to check in on how you are doing.

Cat

[Mombear]

Thanks, cat04.

So we went through a lot last year. We moved to a new house, and of course moving is extremely stressful. It is our "forever house" until we retire and move out of this area. I should note that my husband is very goal-oriented - he always likes to have an objective he's working on or striving towards. Saving up for this house had been a big one.

He also got a promotion at work, and it is the last promotion he'll ever get (works for the government and this is the senior most position he can have). He's only 38. This was exciting for a few months, but as he adjusted to the new workload, he started sleeping less (like maybe 4-5 hours a night at most), doing work more often at home, getting short tempered with the kids.

Around this time, I had some medical issues with my thyroid pop up. This made me very tired, and I tended to take naps on the weekends until my medication got sorted out. At the time, I didn't think too much of this, but in his own words, he said "I thought you were leaving me." He does have abandonment issues that go way back to his childhood.

We started marriage counseling, but the counseling was unproductive. It started out with a focus on one of his coworkers who I thought he was having an EA with. It turns out he wasn't, but he was definitely without a doubt heading in that direction - talking to her about our marriage, etc.

I was devastated and cried my eyes out about the EA, believing there was more to it than what he revealed, but it turns out that there isn't/wasn't. Then he turned very angry and started blaming everything in his life on me - that I don't make him a better person, that I am not competitive enough for him, that I'm not enough of a go-getter, etc. I did not even RECOGNIZE this man . . .we've been married 15 years at that point and he had never insulted me ever in our lives.

The church that we had been attending also cancelled our worship service and most of our social support system scattered to the winds with that. We tried to find another church home, but nothing has really worked since then.

By the time I realized that the abandonment issues from his childhood were such a big piece of the puzzle, he was already out of the bedroom, searching for apartments, setting up bank accounts. We haven't been to counseling together since late June.

He signed a lease and will be leaving sometime in September.

Hope some of these details help!

[doodler]

We started marriage counseling, but the counseling was unproductive. It started out with a focus on one of his coworkers who I thought he was having an EA with. It turns out he wasn't, but he was definitely without a doubt heading in that direction - talking to her about our marriage, etc.

I was devastated and cried my eyes out about the EA, believing there was more to it than what he revealed, but it turns out that there isn't/wasn't. Then he turned very angry and started blaming everything in his life on me - that I don't make him a better person, that I am not competitive enough for him, that I'm not enough of a go-getter, etc. I did not even RECOGNIZE this man . . .we've been married 15 years at that point and he had never insulted me ever in our lives.

Mombear,

How do you know that he wasn't having an EA?

[Mombear]

So there was something going on. He started talking about this particular coworker a lot, which was unusual for him. I asked him several times, and he always just said that they work well together.

After our first marriage counseling session, he had left his e-mail open and I looked through it. I saw some e-mail exchanges between them, and I saw where we had sent her lists of the marriage counselors we were considering. The messages weren't inappropriate (other than that they were talking about our marriage with another married woman!) and said things like "These are the places we are considering, you should check some of them out, too."

None of the messages were flirty or sexual. But still. In my mind, it was a line crossed.

[ForGump]

Any advice for how to get through the work day without bursting in to tears? I also suffer from panic attacks. I do have some meds I can take, but I don't want to be popping pills every single day, I try to hold out for a true emergency.

My advice:

Allow yourself to suffer.
Forgive yourself for suffering.
It's OK to be dysfunctional at work or at home during this time -- it's normal. (Heck, if you weren't torn apart by this, *then* I'd be worried!)
I also chose to tell my supervisor what's going on w/ me, in general terms, so they understood my drop in productivity. They were highly supportive.
It's OK to take meds if properly prescribed and carefully considered.
Cry.
Cry.
Cry.

I spent a lot of time just feeling bad. Still do. I accept that.

[doodler]

None of the messages were flirty or sexual. But still. In my mind, it was a line crossed.

Mombear,

I can understand your feelings of betrayal. He's discussing something private and personal with another woman and, I would assume, you felt like he should be discussing that with you and not sharing with another woman. I think that's a very normal reaction on your part.

Are you the one that decided it was not an EA or did your MC have some input as well?

[Mombear]

It was mostly our MC, and I also came to accept that. She did say it was on that slippery slope, but agreed it hadn't seemed to have progressed that far.

[ForGump]

For his depression symptoms.....

Sleeping less than 3-4 hours per night
Frequent crying
Says he is numb
Says he sees the world in black and white, not color
Uses words like "hopeless" and "despair" to describe his emotions
Very short tempered with the kids ... Lots of yelling.
Erectile dysfunction.

Pretty serious symptoms. Just that first one by itself -- or the last tone -- can really mess up a person.

My recommendation -- worth the electrons it's written on -- is to encourage him to become healthy. He can't see your marriage for what it's worth while he's in this horrible condition.

[Mombear]

It is so insane. I cry all day without him, and when I see him I calm down and we are fine. We smile, joke, laugh, etc. then he wants to talk about custody arrangements.

What do I do??? Am I supposed to just go along with it?