How can I help my depressed DH?

[lulupop]

Sorry posted before without a title!

Last night DH totally shocked me. After being absolutely miserable working at a company where he hated the people and felt he'd never get on, he finally got a new job a few weeks ago. This new job is in a place he likes, with one of his friends as his new boss, and the whole set-up seems much better for him. He seemed so happy to have got this new job. Since he started it, his attitude to lots of things has changed and he's seemed back to his old self, which is a relief after over a year of a difficult time, with him seeming very low a lot of the time.

However, I know he worries a lot about money. So do I. He earns a high salary but we have a big mortgage having been caught out of the housing market during the boom years, and now he wants DS and DD to go to prep school So do I, TBH, but at the same time I think it's more important to have a happy family life first, and we can't do that if we're forever worrying about finding the fees. I am SAHM, and even if I did get a job, there is no job I cld get locally that wld pay me enough to even cover childcare, never mind school fees.

Yesterday he rang me and asked me to pick up a prescription for him from the doctor. I got it and it's for Prozac. He has taken this before but never sticks to it for more than a month, after whihc he "feels better" and stops taking it. And surprise surprise, then he gets depressed again. I was really shocked that he had arranged to get these pills without even talking to me about how he was feeling. I don't mind him taking them at all, but I'd thought things were really looking up, when all the time he's been feeling worse and worse. I think the last straw was going to view a prep school last week (at his request). It was fantastic but the fees are astronomical. I think he feels he'd always expected to give his children the best and now realises maybe he can't afford it.

Sorry am going on a bit but last night in bed he told me he feels he has no enjoyment in his life - that he loves me, loves the children, but he comes home and looks at us and all he can think of is what a failure he is. If he lost his job the house wld be repossessed, he might not have many more years in his job and then what will he do... he'd always thought he cld give his family everything and now realises it might be out of his reach forever...

He works in a highly specialised job in which no one seems to work beyond 50 and it is true that it's very hard to imagine what he'll do if he loses his job. He was out of work once before for a year and it was horrendous - he was on the point of taking a job in HMV to cover the bills just when he was offered something else at last.

I think he is having some kind of midlife crisis. I totally understand the huge pressure men must feel to provide for their families, but I was gobsmacked last night. I told him if the worst came to the worse, we cld sell the house, downsize, etc etc, but he just said he knows that but it doesn't change how he feels.

What can I do? I feel like nothing I do or say can help to lift him out of this gloom. Even though he knows he has so much to be happy about - nice house, 2 lovely kids, happy family - it's as if he sees it as all incredibly unstabe and dependent on his paying for it. I just want to help him, as it's starting to affect his work as well, but I can't even think of where to start. Any advice (if you're still with me!)

Lulupop,

Honey we went thru this about 3 years ago, it co-incided with dh finding a full-time job (he'd been contracting, but the market was getting more unreliable), and losing his mother. We had a few months of him telling me he'd failed, being bitterly disappointed with his life etc. He came home from work one day that november, he'd nearly decked his manager cos of something that had caused a crisis at work. He took a week off, calmed down, went back.
Between that Christmas and New Year he had to go into hospital with debilitating headaches, they found super-high blood pressure, but no real cause for it.

By march he had to go to the dr. who put him on Prozac, and signed him off for 3 weeks. This made dh feel even more of a failure at first, but I spent time with him, and gave him time to himself. He rested, and eventually the Prozac started to work. He stayed on it for 9 months. That gave him time to stabilise. It really won't do any good at all if he stops after 1 month.

I understand what pressures he feels (and you my love). He probably has things out of proportion right now, which is why the prep. school issue has come to the fore. All I can say is you need to support and encourage him all you can, including his decision to get medication. Oh as dh was on his way downhill, I went to see his dr. The Dr can't tell you anything about dh, but he can listen to your concerns. The tack I took was "how can I cope with how dh feels (it's my dr. as well)". I believe it helped with how the dr treated dh (they are hearing both sides, not just what dh tells them).

For what it's worth, I'd like my son to go to the High School, but the fees will probably always be beyond us. BUT if you are there to guide, encourage and help your children in their learning, then they'll get just as good an education, without having to keep up with the other lifestyle demands that private school places on the family IYKWIM.

Hope this helps. CAT me if you would like any more personal support, or to ask anything.

Love to you all, I know what this is like

lulupop, I haven't read all the replies but wanted to offer you hugs first of all as it's not easy living with a DH with depression. My DH has had depression and found Cognitive therapy a bigger help than any medication, he was offered it on the NHS. Has your DH been offered anything like this? or could he ask for it?

Message withdrawn

All your replies are very moving - thanks so much for thinking about me and my family.

Pressure - I completely understand what you're saying. In fact, you could be me! DH and I are totally happy within the bubble of our relationship, but when we see his peers (and some of mine too), it's hard not to wonder where everyone's paths diverged. His friends live in £2million houses, have housekeepers, nannnies, 3 holidays a yr etc. I don't even want that lifestyle, but it's hard to explain to people who are your friends that the reason you're not sending your child to the local prep school is because you just don't have £10,000 p.a. hanging around spare. These friends are not, I have to admit, my closest mates, but they are perfectly nice people who just seem to inhabit another universe to ours. Like you, we don't even have a dining room to put a table in for when we want to entertain - and yet we go to other people's houses and they've got about 7 rooms on every floor.

I don't really find this that hard as I don't compare myself to these people as much as DH does. He is 12 yrs older than me and I dare say once I'm over 40 I'll be looking around wondering what happened to my career as well. Or maybe I'll have figured out a way to make a killing and keep DH and kiddiwinks in the style they'd like to become accustomed to

I really feel for anyone who, like Dinosaur, is the sole breadwinner. It must be so much pressure to feel every day, knowing that other people rely on you. Prob with DH is most of the time he won;t admit to his feelings about this. It's always "Next yr I'm going to do really well and then we can pay off mortgage etc etc ". I just nod and make encouraging noises as I don't want to crush hat;s left of his self-esteem by pointing out that actually, this is no longer that likely.

Easy - thanks for your lovely post. I am going to talk to our GP soon as I need to see him for myself and am hoping to tack on a bit about I'm so worried about DH. We're lucky to have a very sympathetic GP and I'm hoping to bend his ear so he bends DH's about sticking to medication and maybe getting some CBT. As so many here have said, I really think this type of therapy cld help him, and much more effectively than ADs in the long term.

Anyway here;s hoping this might be the start of him confronting his feelings. He knows he has a lot to be thankful for, but at the moment that doesn't seem to be enough for him. I guess that's the nature of depression.

Dear Lulupop
Sorry to hear DH is depressed. I have read your original message and hopefully picked up the thread from the replies. It is hard to live with someone who is depressed- it makes you feel helpless. Don't be surprised, either, at him not telling you about his prescription- my DH was just the same. Five years ago, for different reasons my DH was prescribed a drug like Prozac, which helped him enormously, but only when he had been taking it for a good few months. If your DH is taking his Prozac for a few weeks only, then stopping and starting again, it could add to his symptoms rather than helping. Perhaps he feels ashamed and thinks he should be able to manage without help from the GP. He sounds as if he needs help. Does his work offer counselling on a confidentila basis? If not try to get him to talk to the GP and see what is on offer in terms of counselling. Someone else mentioned cognitive therapy and that is supposed to very good and is available on NHS, although sometimes there's a bit of a wait. I am rambling on a bit, but just want to say try to accept, for yourself, that you cannot fix his state of mind quickly. The things he is saying are indications of depression and there is lots that can be done to help him, but not all of it by you. It sounds as though you are being loving and supportive which is what he needs. Hope this helps

It is amazing how much peer pressure/review affects people. Had you thought of getting DH to look at changing careers? Most people do measure their success against others, whether it's work or a happy home life (you mentioned his colleague's divorce and so on). If his current career path is finite, maybe a positive step would be to "stay ahead of the game" and retrain now for a job he can enjoy for the next 20 odd years - if you presented this a a positive and active step, he might buy it? Also, (in the same vein) if he doesn't like the idea of personal counselling (and lord knows many don't) how about career counseling or financial counselling. This latter worked for my mum when her business went under (we were in danger of losing hearth and home) and she refused to "admit" depression or take pills, the doctor referred her a financial counsellor, who had been through devastating problems and having come out the other side could give financial advice AND slip in some counselling at the same time.
Anyway, I hope you can somehow resolve this, and I know how helpless you can feel (and how like a broken record at times), you have my sympathy!

lulupop, we are indeed quite similar!

What really struck a bell with me was your comment about the prep school. Like you, I think it would be nice for ours to go to a school with small class sizes etc. but both dh and I loved our local state school when we went round it so have no qualms at all about sending our kids there. However, dh's family are ALWAYS making comments about sending them to private school (as dh was privately educated and they cannot see why anyone would want to go to a state school!) - saying things like, well if your wife would go back to work, then you would have the money to send them to school. I said, no, it's too expensive because if I was back at work, we'd have to have a nanny on top (and they roll their eyes up to the ceiling as if I'm talking rubbish). Eventually, I wrote out the sums for them - £10k per child per year for school + £26k for a live-out nanny means I would have to earn £46k per annum AFTER tax to even break even. I honestly think some parents don't realise how expensive private school has become!

But it's that sort of comment that adds pressure. And like you say, the pressure that your dh feels because he has no choice but to send them to the local school (good or not) - I think in our parent's day, making sacrifices for education was still hard but as a proportion of the average salary, private school fees have risen astronomically leaving it well out of the reach of most families.

Thinking about it last night, the only other thing I can suggest is for you to praise how comfortable you feel with the lifestyle you lead now. From what you've said though, I wonder if he's gone past that point and is convinced that he is a lousy provider. You also said that you went to relate together in the past? Would it be possible for you to drag him to counselling together again but have a quiet word with the counsellor beforehand about his depression?

Wish I could think of more to help.

Hi Lulupop - we have the same private/state school problem, where we live the state schools are generally pretty poor and the private ones are insanely expensive. It's a few years off before we have to send our ds to school, but we have to enroll him in the private ones now if we want to get him in.

My dh is a full time artist/sculptor and I work part time, plus we have mortgage. Like you, we have very rich friends, none of whom send their kids to govt sch. We have come to the conclusion that if/'when he does go to govt sch we will just have to work extra hard as parents to make up for any short falls at sch, keep an eye on his work, stretch his brain where poss, and try to teach him the life skills he may need to survive there. DH and I both went to priv sch so lots of guilt.

Basically, we feel that we will have more time to help him and to be there for him if we are not being driven insane by lack of money. Plus, this way we may be able to afford to take him travelling etc which will do more for him than any school could.

Anyway, sorry I can't offer more help, but wish you and your dh all the best.

Pressure, it's really hard feeling like you have to justify your choices to parentc etc, isn't it? My parents really sacrificed a lot of us to go to private school, and I'm getting a lot of pressure from my mum about sending DS private as well. She feels that they were prepared to make sacrifices and so should we be. And we are - but our circumstances are different. We have no savings at all at the moment and DH works in the City so could lose his job any time if things start going badly. My dad was in the army so not that well paid but equally, he had a secure job.

On the sibject of DH's depression generally, I have to admit i'm finding it hard to support him. If I bring up how he's feeling, he makes light of it and just says Yes I know things are quite good really and I'm not depressed anyway, it's just anxiety. This really pisses me off as i feel we cld deal with anything if he would just say how he really felt.

Saying that, though, I feel slightly impatient with him as well, as he seems so bitter and chippy about everything he doesn;t have. He has this thing that everyone else in the City has made a mint, even though they "haven't worked nearly as hard as me". Well how does HE know that, FFS? It's hard for me to find much sympathy for this sort of thing - I think there's a lot of luck in life, but equallyl once you get to a certain age, you have to accept that where you are in life is probably what you've earned and you should be happy with that and make the most of it, not begrudge other people their success.

Also, there is a small part of me that thinks, "If you're so damn good at what you do (he's always telling me this), then for God's sake get out there and DO IT!"

Sorry, I'm sounding like a bit of a cow this morning - just feeling very frustrated.

Hi Lulupop - i have suffered with anxiety/depression so have real sympathy for your husband but think there are some real 'alarm bell' things mentioned in your messages.

The stress from being constantly surrounded by people who have lots of money and send their children to private school (including family) is clearly having a negative effect on him - whether he admits it or not.

I live in a very affluent commuter area where a high percentage of the children go to hugely expensive private schools.

However my children go to a good local state primary. There is a wide cross section of families at the school including some very wealthy ones.

One of my friends from there is in exactly the same situation as you and feels under huge pressure to live a 'rich' lifetsyle which she simply cant afford.

What has helped however is making friends at the school because she isnt constantly surrounded by people who feel that you have failed if you done thave the right car/ right house/ right school.

Sending your children to state school might be just what your husband needs because he woudlnt be constantly comparing himself with rich colleagues without putting it into perspective that must families in this country simplay dont live like that.

Sorry for waffling. Hope things get better soon!!
Kizziex

To Lulupop and others on this thread.

There is so much good advice here. We are in a similar situation - husband works in City, I am a SATM and p/t law student. He has a well paid job but we have a big mortgage. We have friends who seem to be insanely well off with apartments in London and houses in the country and sometimes it riles dh that we are in a three bed terrace scrimping for next year's holiday. He has been married before and had to sell up house and split all money with ex and had to start again. Our story is a long one but basically I just wanted to say that you never know how things can change. In 2002 dh lost his sister (his only sibling) and his mother. He lost his dad ten years ago to cancer. At that time he was in a job he violently hated where the people on his desk seemed to thrive on being as nasty to one another as possible - and he is just not like that, thank goodness. His mum left him some money and he decided to leave his job and trade from home. He really could not cope with the City any more. It was a big risk but we discussed it and I could see how terribly unhappy he was. He worked his backside off but we didn't make the money we needed to live and lost all he had inherited. He went back to work, same industry, different company and for the first time ever since we've been together he is happy to go to work. Of course he has bad days but generally he enjoys it. I just wanted to say to you - hold on. You don't know what is around the corner - and it could well be good!!

I have also suffered from depression and have been on Citalopram (anti-depressant) for the past year. With my first episode in late 2002 I was very secretive but I had a breakdown last year and just decided to be open about it. I was just too tired to lie to people about where I had been and why I hadn't been around. The support has overwhelmed me and virtually everyone has a story to tell, whether their own or that of a loved one. I just wanted to add, 1 month is not long enough to be on an anti-depressant. It takes them that long to kick in. Also, I've been seeing a psychotherapist who is FAB. I went private as the NHS had a minimum 14 month wait. Coincidentally this woman does a lot of work in the City, for companies and individuals. Dh saw her to help deal with his bereavements. I can pass on her details to you if you wish, I really can't recommend her highly enough and she really knows what she is talking about when it comes to the pressures of life in the City. She is also the one who encouraged me to go back to studying. Dh also works in an industry where people don't seem to stay beyond their mid 40s (he is 36) so in this way hopefully in a few years I'll have a decent income and we can get out of the South East totally as we won't be reliant on the City. Good luck to you and a big hug.

Wowo, bearess, your life is so similar to mine in so many ways... I'm even considering retraining as a solicitor myself (long term plan as DD still only 6 months). My DH is 41 and intensely aware that he knows no one in his business over 45. All of his friends had made several million by the time they were 40 so stopping work at 45 not a problem for them, but for us it is inconceivable. At the same time, he knows he's unlikely to get any more jobs in the City, and has no immediately transferrable skills for anything else. That's enough to depress anyone.

I agree with what Kizzie said about going to State school and meeting more normal people. Just the other day DH said he thought it was strange that every single one of his friends also works in the City 0 clearly this gives him a very skewed idea of what most people's lives are like. Maybe if DS starts at the local primary, DH would meet some more of the local dads. That said, people find him a bit intimidating when they meet him as he does seem to give off a bit of an aura of "I work in the City". He'd be mortified if i said this to him but I know it's true as I have several local friends whose DHs are photographers, surveyors, etc, and when my DH meets them they all get along perfectly well but don't seem to have anything in common at all. It seems a vicious circle.

So sorry to hear about your DH's bad luck with trading from home. In our case it's a non-starter as we have no savings anyway and no money likely to be inherited either, but even if we had the option, I don't think either of us cld cope with the stress of knowing we might be losing all "our" money in a worst case scenario. However it sounds as though your DH is much happier now he's been to the bottom and back, so to speak. As for the depression, I've also suffered PND is the past so I do recognise the signs in DH, but he is fixated with labelling it "anxiety". I feel I can't discuss it with him at all right now for fear of upsetting him with the "wrong" sort of language about it all, but I think a professional psychotherapist is exactly what he needs. One of his things is that no one outside the City can possibly understand the pressures he's under ( a bit patronising but that's his POV), so the person you mention your DH seeing might be a real start point for him. WOuld you mind if I CAT you about it?

lulupop - of course, look forward to hearing from you.

Lulupop, my husband's mid-life crisis resolved itself by him going back to a hobby he had when he was young and single. It means I don't see much of him every Saturday, and I think it has become a bit of an obsession (!) but it does mean he has one day a week totally enjoying himself and relaxing. Is there anything you could point your DH in the direction of? Just to take his mind a bit off of the finances.

lulupop , hello. My dh also has well paid job and sometimes stuggles to accept that despite having 4 children he doesn't have the car of his choice, can't go out & spend money when he wants etc , etc.
This month he was underpaid by £800 ( works error regarding temp responsibilities) and is too embarsassed to insist we get it and would rather it appear that we don;t need it.( we do )
We are crap situation too regarding houses as we sold in2002 and lost house we were buying and ended up in rented and now are saving to afford a deposit as what we made on other house has dwindled away . Hopefully his bonus will do the job - but that means he has to stay in job he doesn't like for another 6-12 moonths. I worry about him and affect it has on us.
I really hope property does drop by 30% in our case.

Feezy

Your dh needs to insist that he gets his £800. It's irrelevant whether you need it or not. He worked for it, and it's his entitlement.

BTW, I think most people would miss £800, no matter what they earn. The trouble is we all live up to our earnings. Many people above, which is how they come to have two homes, fancy cars, mega holidays etc.

He will get it but didn't kick up a fuss so it will go in Novembers salary (2wks 4 days )

We are in the same stuation as you lulupop, except my husband does not work in the city, and the problem is not if we can afford prep-school or not, but if we can afford my expensive medicines or not (mainly not).

My husband has two good degrees, but he is stuck in a job, which is highly specialized, and is in a very small industry. He has been looking around for another job for two years. I hate seeing him depressed, yet sometimes angry with him, as I cannot believe that there's nothing out there (we would move to a different country too). At the mo. he works for a small company, his bosses are bullies, he is earning half of what he should be on (according to the recruitment agencies). He is depressed, thinks he is not a good provider, and jealous of our high-earner friends. I am his only friend, as I think he is just too embarassed to admit how little he earns and how bad the company is he workes for. Our friends sometimes say "Ah, just get out of that company, get a new job.", but they don't know that DH has been looking for years!
I'm just trying to say that enjoy and use the fact that you can afford to get the self-help book from Amazon, and that you can afford to send your DH to a counsellor ot to take time off work.

Hill, I'm sorry to hear how difficult your domestic situation is. You must read a thread like this and think "What the hell are these people worrying about?" and of course you're right. I KNOW how lucky we are to have 2 happy healthy children, a roof over our heads, and a nice lifestyle. It is my DH who seems to have a weird perspective on life.

What we can/cannot afford is actually a real issue - we certainly can't afford for him to take any time off work, as we rely entirely on his income and have no savings. As for a counsellor, even that would mean clocking up the overdraft the way things are right now, but I think it'd be cheaper that than have this situation develop into a full-on crisis where he loses his job.

As regards your DH, I think it;s hard for men when friends make well-meaning but throw-away comments like "You should just get a new job" - easy to say but hard to do! My DH had the same thing when he was out of work for a year - none of his friends seemed able to believe he couldn't get a job. They thought he was choosing to take loads of time off to "relax", when in fact he was desperate and couldn't even enjoy the time off as he had no idea when it was going to end. He just worried every day that his career might be over. I think a lot of male pride comes from feeling they are the masters of their own destinies and so they probably don't discuss concerns about jobs etc the way women might.

Feezy, I know just what you mean about your DH and the £800. I think they think it makes them look cheap or something, when it is after all THEIR money! My DH used to refuse to claim his mobile phone bill back from his employer even though he was regularly using it to call NY after work and we were having £200 monthly bills! Fortunately his new job gives him a company phone, but God, that really got to me.

And Easy, unfortunately we know a LOT of people who would not notice £800 disappearing off thier pay cheque at all. Stories like that one about the secretary at Goldman Sachs who embezzled £4m out of her bosses/ private accounts seem amazing to my parents, who simply cannot believe that anyone wouldn't notice it. But a lot of DH's acquaintances are worth tens of millions and that's all part of the problem with his idea of what he "should" have achieved by now.

In fact a while ago some friends were moving and I went round one day to find a load of their kids' (perfectly serviceable but no longer played-with) toys on the skip outside. They had a second hand toy place 3 mins drive away where you can sell your old toys on the spot, but it wouldn't even occur to the wife (my friend) to do this, as they just buy new stuff when the old stuff isn't wanted. I'm not proud, so I clambered on the skip in the lashing rain and scavenged about £100 worth of toys off for DS . My friend clearly thought I was mad but I don't care, DS was thrilled.

This is just getting more difficult. This morning DH went off on one because he said I wasn't being sympathetic enough. What had happened was he'd said he was going to stay at home for the day to look after me (I've had a bad cold but am actually much better now), even though he hadn't arranged a day off from work. This rang alarm bells as it was what he did all the time in his last job when he was depressed and it wasn't going well. But I think if he's worried about his job etc, then the last thing he shld be doing is taking days off willy nilly with no notice, on the pretext of looking after me.

Anyway I had a busy morning & afternoon planned and said so, and asked him to tell me why he was so worried about work. (He won't discuss this with me at all normally and just tells me everything's fine, when I can plainly see that it isn't) He then accused me of saying he wasn't providing for us, and told me I was unsympathetic, insensitive, and he couldn't cope with my constant mood swings.

I don't know how to deal with him as it's not me that has the mood swings, it's him! One day everything's OK, the next he's in this black mood, ans yet I'm expected to trundle along smiling and pretending everything's OK. He cannot seem to accept that his state of mind is extremely volatile and in that state he perhaps shouldn't make such sweeping statements.

How should I behave? When I suggested that since he;s in the early days of taking ADs, perhaps his judgement of things isn't as objective as normal, he accused me of being patronising and ignorant. I just don't know how to act around him and am dreading him coming home tonight.

I am sorry lulupop, you both must feel rather confused. What would you and your husband want in life and how would you want to live if work and money wasn't a problem? I think that if you have a clear aim in live, it is easier to try and achieve this, little by little...says me, who only got to the clear aim stage at at age of over 30....
I actually feel so sorry for men. We women, wanted to be emancipated and equal, but at the end of the day, the vast mayority of us would want to stay off work for a good few years while our babies are stil babies...and the husbands/partners all of a sudden need to be the sole providers and good husbands and fathers at the same time. No wonder why they feel stressed.

Yes, it just feels like things are going round and round in circles at the moment. Everything's fine for a while and then suddenly it's all a disaster (in DH's mind).

If money etc wasn't an issue then I think we'd both like to work locally in jobs that allowed us to leave at a reasonable hour. For the time being I want to stay at home as DD is still only 6 months, but once she is in school I want to retrain and get a proper job.

DH seems in an OK mood today but I have no idea when his next outburst will be.