Help!!! Depressed Spouse

My wife suffers from depression. Lately when she comes home from work, she goes straight to bed and either watches TV or sleeps until time to go to work the next morning. I have to assume responsibility for everything at home except cleaning (she is a neat freak)., and complains incessantly about the house--even though it is usually pretty orderly.

Social obligation are ot of the question. She will invariably back out at the last minute. In fact, it is hard to depend on her for anything that she "promises" to do. The thing that occupies most of her time is caretaking her family of origin, and even with that she has become increasingly less dependable. Her family of origin is very dysfunctional, and she has assumed the role of rescuer. She exerts a tremendous amount of energy trying to make everything "normal."

Anyway, my previous marriage to a seriously depressed spouse ended in divocrce (can you say dejavu), and I would not like the same thing to happen here. I am involved in a ministry at my church called "Celebrate Recovery" for codependency. I am wondering of it is okay to reveal my wife's depression to the group.

My wife is sensitive about her depression. even her own family isn't aware of it. She gets angry if I mention anything about it (she has become a very angry person), and she would just as soon ignore it. She has medication (Wellbutron and Lexipro) which she was taking for a while, but she won't keep taking it. It seemed to help her, but she says she doesn't want to be a slave to medication and doesn't like the way that it makes her feel.

All the advice that I get about the issue seems to be about her and her problem, but I can tell you from experience that this is HELL for the spouse who is married to a person with depression. Please offer some advice.

Cras108er

Hi Cras,

My first suggestion would be to go to my family physician and ask his advice on the situation..If he is a good caring Dr. He should be able to direct you in the right path....I have done that when I have had questions about my wife, without her knowing it, and I came away with good answers. Might be a start for you to try..

Sincerely,

SongBird

Hi!

I see you are going through the same thing as I am with my husband.
He is depressed I think and he won't admit it.
Sleeps a lot, never puts a smile on his face and keeps putting on weight.
How are you doing with your wife.
I know its very hard living with someone like this.
Some days I want to scream and wanna leave!!!

Kath

I think it is a good thing that even though she hides her depression, she at least acknoledges it as evidenced by the fact that she has seen a doctor and has some medications.

Does she have therapy too? I believe that medicines are only a part of the answer, and therapy is just as important, even for learning ways to cope with the illness.

If she doesn't like the way the medicines make her feel she should talk to a doctor about changing prescriptions. It can take a very long time, since each medicine takes several weeks to see if it is working or not, but many people can find the right combination that works for them and doesn't effect the way they feel negatively.

As for the codependency group... I really don't know the proper etiquette and protocol for that, but my guess is that it would be OK to talk about your wife's problem. I would think that the group would be held to strict privacy, just as any support group would be, and that in order to really help you it would be important to be able to speak freely about the problem.

I do think though that it is important that you be comfortable talking about the problem and I am glad that you respect your wife's privacy. I would bring up the question at the group, I'm sure this is an issue for everyone there, see what their policy and advice is about sharing the nature of their spouse's ailments, and then think on that and see if you can become comfortable talking about it.

I'm also the spouse of a person with depression. Luckily, he is very open to therapy and medication, so we have a good handle on it.

If your wife isn't in couseling I would strongly suggest you do everything you can to get that to happen. Feel free to PM me if you need anything. Like I said, I know how you feel.