Depressed DH improves but now expecting too much of me?

[Rocket123]

My husband was severely depressed for at least 2 years and my life with 3 little kids was very hard and isolated especially during lockdowns. He's recently done a lot to improve his situation, working again and sticking to routine etc which is really good, I know that can't have been easy for him so I've told him it's impressive. But he's getting angry every so often that I haven't snapped back into normality now he's 'normal' again. I feel detached because I learnt to detach in order to survive the bad times. I'm struggling to give my all to him. I am not horrible but I'm probably a bit cold... I'll hug him and tell him I'm proud of what he's done so I'm not totally cold. But I am just not feeling the same.

He keeps getting mad at me, saying I'm making the marriage fail. I tried to explain that I detached to survive the bad times but he doesn't seem to understand and I'm not strong enough to split the family when I feel this doubt over whether I should just try harder. Guess I have low self esteem so I easily believe I am to blame.

Anyone ever felt like this? I've gone from surviving him being depressed straight into being told I'm not trying hard enough to keep the relationship. Got 3 kids and I'm so scared about splitting up and how I and he would cope, but I feel tormented by all the things I feel I'm doing wrong given that he had a mental health issue. Have therapy but 1 hour a week just doesn't cut it really, too many things to work on!

Sounds like you've gone off him. Maybe it's just over and you need to process that?

@Colourmeclear yes he wants sex mainly but also wants me to sit with him on the sofa etc too. But you're spot on, I just am not in that head space. He says the sex will improve everything, I say the sex comes when you've consistently treated me with respect and we've genuinely got our connection back. It's an impasse as he just can't seem to get there without the physical stuff but I do not want to do that under pressure from him.

I think you need to tell him your feelings for him have changed, you still care about him but you don't really feel a romantic connection any more and that's not something you can turn on and off. He will need to back off and come to terms with that. Maybe it will come back in time, maybe not that's just how things are but it certainly won't come back by him being angry at you.

@Gerwurtztraminer your whole post resonated. I have therapy just for me but will look for couples, at the very least so I can get my feelings across without him becoming defensive. Even if we end up apart, I want him to understand why and not to just see me as the enemy.

Also, he may feel a lot of shame about his depression and how he behaved during that time and it might now be coming out as denial plus anger, blame and impatience towards you he's mentioned shame and is displaying all 4 of those - he just wants things back to normal to keep him on track with his recovery. I get it, but he's not considering the fact I might also have valid emotions.

Your point about sex is spot on, that's exactly what he thinks and I've tried to explain what you have said here before but he doesn't want to hear it. I need to try and show him how you said it without him seeing a thread all about him :)

What a selfish, self-absorbed little prick you're married to. Do not allow him to treat you this way, op.

I have gone off him and don't feel the emotional connection but I'm confused about whether it's permanent or not. He's ostensibly trying but also getting angry at me for not feeling it so underneath, it feels conditional on me giving him what he wants. It sets me back every time he gets angry at me. Also when someone is just coming out of a dark tunnel it feels wrong to then add something more negative to their life. Especially worried it will make him worse and affect the kids. It could end up in a messy situation and I'm a bit fearful I think.

I wished for years that he'd want a normal family life and work for the future and now he is, and I'm struggling to accept it. He's making it feel like he's offering me the happy family I was desperate for but now I'm rejecting it

I don't have much advice or stuff to say but just that being married to someone with mental health problems while keeping the show on the road for ds was the hardest thing I have ever done, and I did it for 14 years. Tbh surviving his death was MUCH easier.

I never found an answer. Dh wanted to forget he'd ever been ill in the patches when he was better, and I think he found it hard if my reactions reminded him that he had been ill. But humans aren't machines with on/off switches.

I'd check in with your GP in case you're depressed too - it's bloody catching. At the time I got the best support from Sane but I don't know if they exist any more.

I wonder if the situation had been reversed how dedicated and willing he would have been to take on everything for years?

Would you feel differently if he had suffered a back injury rather than mental illness?

All this trying to explain things to him, trying to make him see... He's an adult human, of course he can understand that you would feel differently now, that you wouldn't want to have sex with him, etc. But that doesn't suit him, so he's getting angry. He should be looked after, in his view, and you're there to facilitate that. I would say it's probably not shame he's feeling, more like entitlement.

You shouldn't worry about how you'd cope on your own, as it sounds like you already have been the past few years. You need to look after yourself, as he seems to have no intention of giving a shit about you.

All I can offer is sympathy. My first serious boyfriend in my twenties suffered from depression and was bipolar. I ended the relationship because of his mental health and I felt so guilty in doing so.

The reality was that depression made him very self centred and selfish. I was always putting his needs first and it felt like he used it as a get out clause for absolutely anything he didn’t want to do. We moved in together and he couldn’t manage the most basic of house tasks, but could often keep on top of things like his hobbies and social life. He spent money meant for bills on expensive things like a new bike and said he needed to do so to make himself feel better. I was always resolving his mistakes and picking up the pieces. I felt like his parent and ultimately, it felt like a very unequal partnership. He would go through periods when he seemed well and expected me to resume as normal after his bout of depression, but I couldn’t. After being his career, I no longer found him attractive and sometimes resented him. Eventually I split with him.

I was made to feel incredibly guilty, and I still feel guilty typing this out 15 years later. I know he couldn’t help his mental illness, but I just saw a life of misery stretching ahead of me.

You have to consider your needs OP and put yourself first, because no one else will.

OP, what a horrible life to lead.

He doesn't give a shit about how he impacted you as a person deep down. If he did he'd be penitent, loving and patient.

No - he got to do whatever he wanted when he was depressed (or "depressed") - and now he wants you to forget the years of abuse (and it was abusive, even if it wasn't done intentionally).

I can't see how you can fix this OP - you deserve a life of not walking on eggshells.

If I were you I'd ask him to move out now that he's "well" again, and say that you need some time to think about the future.

I agree that he needs to move out to give you space and time to think.
I think you’ll find it’s easier without him.
But maybe, after some space, you can ‘date’ again and see how it goes.
Beware of wasting your life while trying to make other people’s lives better.

I think you need to make it clear to him that the way he's treating you now is not ok, even if in a different way than when he was ill, and without any excuse, and that putting pressure on you to be normal without giving you any support to recover from the impact on you is unfair and counterproductive.

Can you reason with him?

If you explained it as when he was very unwell, if you had expected sex, enthusiasm, someone to makes jokes and make you laugh - it wouldn’t have been fair on him as he didn’t have the capacity to provide that.

When he was unwell it didn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s had an impact on the relationship and the way you relate to him.

Time heals. I recognise really well those feelings of anger and resentment. How can you be intimate with someone who broke your trust and hurt you so much?

If he wants to work on the marriage, he will have to be patient (as you were) and give it time to return.

Something that really helped me was spending time looking at each other in the eyes - so sitting opposite each other at dinner etc and talking about stuff not relating to us, but about issues I knew we both cared about and agreed on - we had to find that common ground all over again.

Good luck, and I hope he understands and gives you the space you deserve and are right to ask for.

OP,

He sounds so awful.

He sounds like a self absorbed bully.

I can well imagine him making your skin crawl.

You have had another child to look after for years and now that child wants you to have sex with it and forget the hell you have gone through for years.

He sounds so selfish.

You cannot live your life being controlled by him.

I think you need to tell him to back off, and if he can't do that and accept how hard life has been for you and take responsibility for it, he should move out.

Your children deserve a mother who is not tormented by his selfishness.

It's one thing to support someone through illness, but to then be not allowed express YOUR emotions having carried it all alone, is too much.

He is a selfish, self absorbed, controlling bully.

You need to stand up for yourself and think about getting him out of your home.

I can't imagine how hard the past few years have been.

There are a lot of red flags here. For a long time, you did not have a proper marriage - you were his carer, not his wife/lover/friend. Now he wants you to snap back into being his wife/lover/friend but doesn't seem to realise that doesn't just happen.

He needs to be wooing you. He also needs to be proving that he can be your partner again.

DH and I had a really bad patch during COVID culminating in a really bad argument where he said some things that were really really harsh, completely unfair and completely rocked my entire perception of our relationship. He apologised. We talked it through, had to be incredibly honest and vulnerable with each other etc and really came out in a better place. But he also completely understood that after that I couldn't just snap back. It took a couple of months of him showing me that what he'd said was wrong and proving that he'd worked through it before we got back on track. Years of you looking after him during his depression is this x 1000.....

He's ostensibly trying but also getting angry at me for not feeling it so underneath, it feels conditional on me giving him what he wants.

This. He's only nice because he wants you to behave in a certain (different) way. Not because he understands that his behaviour was a problem and that HE has to take responsibility for new, better behaviours.

@BlingLoving

There are a lot of red flags here. For a long time, you did not have a proper marriage - you were his carer, not his wife/lover/friend. Now he wants you to snap back into being his wife/lover/friend but doesn't seem to realise that doesn't just happen.

He needs to be wooing you. He also needs to be proving that he can be your partner again.

DH and I had a really bad patch during COVID culminating in a really bad argument where he said some things that were really really harsh, completely unfair and completely rocked my entire perception of our relationship. He apologised. We talked it through, had to be incredibly honest and vulnerable with each other etc and really came out in a better place. But he also completely understood that after that I couldn't just snap back. It took a couple of months of him showing me that what he'd said was wrong and proving that he'd worked through it before we got back on track. Years of you looking after him during his depression is this x 1000.....

I should also say that I also had to do a lot of work during this time and DH appreciated and saw that too. it wasn't a one way street. But the point was that neither of us did it for 5 minutes and then got angry that the other one hadn't moved on.

Thank you for the replies. Reading through them all tonight and feeling so much less alone.

Thanks op. Have been / going through similar and feeling huge pressure, overwhelm and feeling like a failure because I can’t magically feel much affection/ don’t know what I feel.
Doesn’t help you much, sorry, but very useful for me to learn from your posters that others have been through similar, and I’m not wrong in feeling that I need to recover too. The pressure caused by feeling that I was being selfish/ not coping/ doubting myself was immense. Thanks to this thread maybe I can ease up on myself a bit.
Well done you, you’ve got this, you sound so calm and sensible!
Thanks all.

Similar situation myself. DH has had severe bouts of depression over the last 15 years (leaving me essentially to bring up 3 children and be the main bread winner). Really bad in the 2 - 3 years before covid and come to a head in the first year of covid. Told him he needed to get a job and sort his mental health out (previously he has refused medication or counselling). He did get a job that he really enjoys - his MH better than it has been for years. He thinks we are the romantic perfect couple - I am struggling to let go of resentment especially as he claims not to remember the things he said and did when depressed which i think is a cop out - things like obsessing over my weight and telling me I was a turn off (I am a 12 - 14), on one occasion threatening to hit me, calling me a c* on several occasions (he can't remember ), the whole house treading on egg shells around him. He thinks I should just forget it now that he is "better". He's gone the other way now - totally love bombing me to the point I feel suffocated. He had a slight MH drop (not for long) last year and was shocked when I told him I had zero sympathy any more if he refused to get professional help. I won't stay if any of it happens again and I am not sure if we have a long term future. I love him but I am not in love with him, and I am not sure if it can come back - time will tell.

Just reading your updates, I hate him myself.

I wonder if you ever actually ever had a proper relationship with this man, OP? You had the early days/lust phase (I assume you had at least that) and then you became sort of his carer.

I suspect that if he had not been ill, you would have realised that you are completely incompatible, that there was no proper relationship to work on together, and you would have split up earlier. I think you know this.

Just because he is feeling a bit better does not mean that you have a viable relationship. You have obligation and you have guilt and you are a decent person, but you do not love this man and it would be utterly wrong to base your future on obligation and guilt.

My feeling from what you have written is that he is actively pushing those guilt and obligation buttons of yours. This is the most profoundly unsexy thing that he could do, isn't it?

He isn't wooing you at all. He is essentially manipulating you because of his own neediness, and you as a real person do not exist to him. That is why you feel cut off. It isn't a left over reaction from his illness, it is your actual, gut reaction to him now. Listen to it, OP.

I also feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place. His terrible behaviour from his dark days has stopped and he says he wants to work on the relationship. The reality is that he sits alone, eats alone and only seems interested in how much money he has. Barely speaks to me. But says he’s nice to us now and sorry for his past behaviour, what more do we want. At least when he was very ill I had a peg to hang things on. Now he’s “better” it feels ridiculous to leave for his current lack of contact and isolation when he is ostensibly trying and he’s done much worse in the past. Feel like if I end it now I’m the one being unreasonable and pulling the family apart. I’d be the bad guy.