Hope you can help - just at my wit's end.
DH and I are teachers, working long hours in the same school. We have 3 DC. 10 years ago DH had a nervous breakdown, took 6 months sick leave and was on anti-depressants for a while. He had CBT which seemed to help him, but I think there is a family pre-disposition for depression (3 of the 4 siblings have suffered).
He is a perfectionist at work, and also will never leave anything to chance. I think sometimes that he wants to prove that he is indispensable so he takes on things at school that he could leave.
Every term he goes through a phase where he retreats into himself, works non-stop, staying late and going in to school at weekends. This term has been particularly bad and he has had 2 distinct episodes which start with him withdrawing emotionally and physically, and becoming monosyllabic, un-communicative, distant and very irritable.
I don't know what to do any more. It feels as though he hates me / resents me for enjoying my job / doesn't want to spend time with us as a family. I try to keep everything normal for the children, but I'm just miserable, and so TIRED of trying to keep up appearances, at home and at school. It's so draining and exhausting, and I can't keep on trying when it really feels as though he doesn't want to - or can't bring himself to - have any input or emotional investment. It doesn't feel as though he is ever there for me at all - he seems so wrapped up in himself and his own life. I don't want this to be all about me, because I don't think he has it in him to reach out for me or for any other sort of help, but I'd rather be separated than living so much of my life like this.
Do you think he's depressed? I've asked him, or course, but he says that it's just the volume of work.
No idea what to do any more, and at my wit's end.