cl-butterfly!

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2004
cl-butterfly!
8
Fri, 04-15-2005 - 1:20pm

i just read your msg to the woman who is so alone in her marriage and you took the time to explain why your marriage failed. well, why do you blame yourself? you were initially depressed because your husband wasn't around -- probably because he wasn't appearing to be interested in you -- why is this your fault. it's a legitimate reason to become depressed.

i take a special interest in your answer because it is in some ways similar to my situation. my husband i'm pretty sure lost interest and then made a life for himself outside the house. he put in a lot of extra hours at work, sometimes went out with his friends. he didn't like the fact that he came second to the kids because i worked to and when i got home i had to take care of the kids. i had no choice. he wanted to be out wining and dining, etc. i was exhausted.

i too became depressed when i realized that he had lost interest. i tried having date nights on a weekly basis and that lasted for a couple of months, but then back to the same old stuff.

i will certainly take some of the blame, but why do you seem to place all of it on yourself? do you really feel that way? or am i reading it wrong.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2004
In reply to: karen2790
Fri, 04-15-2005 - 1:24pm
cl-butterfly. i just saw your post about your mother. i'm so sorry. it's dreadful. good luck and prayers to you and your family. it will be very tough and you will get through it. thank god she had the guts to come see you.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
In reply to: karen2790
Fri, 04-15-2005 - 1:36pm

I am not the CL, but I'd like to answer some of what you are saying. I don't think the CL is taking all the blame, she is just accepting responsibility for her part in the demise of the marriage. In most cases (not all) both people do things that keep the marriage from thriving and pull themselves apart from each other. I don't think there is any 'legitimate' reason for becoming depressed. Depression is either a state of mind that holds you back, or it's a serious illness that requires proper treatment. If you get severly depressed based on what other people do (not just a period of temporary saddness), you are doing yourself a disservice. You should be responsible for your own well being, and that doesn't change when you get married. If you are depressed, you should figure out what you can do within your control to change your situation (be that getting out, getting help, going to therapy or taking medication) so that you can keep living your life in a productive way. If you do get depressed because your husband has lost interest, being depressed is not going to make him regain interest in most cases. Being who you are, focusing on the relationship, going to counseling, having other interests that help you feel like a happy and fulfilled person, those are all things that might help the situation. Staying in a depressed state because someone did something to put you there will not help IMHO.

My bf struggles with depression because his son was moved out of state. He misses him so much, he has had periods where he did nothing but sleep and go to work. He has slept through whole weekends, he's fallen asleep in his car at lunch, sleeping to a point that he was not living his life. But it is temporary, it has to be. He lets himself go into the depression for a while, and then he pulls himself out, forcing himself to eat, exercise and generally be productive. By doing those things, he slowly takes his life back. The cause of his depression is not his fault, he did everything he could to keep the move from happening. But he does take responsibility for his life and his happiness and he does want to keep living despite what has been done to him and his son's relationship. If he didn't have this fight in him to stay in control of his own life and his own happiness no matter what, I don't think I would be in a relationship with him.

Does that make sense?

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2004
In reply to: karen2790
Fri, 04-15-2005 - 2:45pm
i absolutely respect what you say, but i do disagree. depression is not something you can snap yourself out of. i speak from much experience. it runs in my family - my large family. within my immediate family there has been suicide and there have been hospitalizations and so forth. people need psychiatric care and often don't realize that is what is needed. when you're is depressed, you're thinking is totally out of whack -- you sometimes don't even realize what is bothering you. you just feel that there is nothing to look forward to at all. the people around you, the people who care about you and love you are usually the people who help you get the help you need. i've done extensive reading on this. being depressed for a day or two over something is entirely different. being in the midst of real depression colors your world gray. there is no joy.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
In reply to: karen2790
Fri, 04-15-2005 - 2:54pm

I agree with you, I am not sure why you disagree with me. I think the term depression is used for feeling down and in the clinical sense, which is why in my post I said it's either a feeling or a serious illness (I was not sure which way you meant it). I don't believe it's something you snap out of, but I do not think that the person with depression is 'justified' going into depression because of someone else's actions - why would you want to justify an illness? If you have clinical depression, then you have it and there is no need to blame anyone else for it. I guess what I'm trying to say is depression is not something that someone else does *to* you. Either you feel depressed (not the illness) and you have responsibility and control over that, or you are depressed (the illness) which is something that you can't necessarily fix all on your own, and you need treatment (therapy) and possibly medication to get through, but still it's something you have to take responsibility for. I do agree that if you suffer from depression (the illness) you can't snap out of it, you recover and that takes time.

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
In reply to: karen2790
Fri, 04-15-2005 - 3:14pm

Just to add to what I was saying... my bf's depression is very serious and it takes him months to get through it, and even then he's always fighting it. I suspect he has always struggled with it (I don't know for sure) but that it's much worse now do to the situation with his son. After his first visit with his son, he was in the very depressed, sleeping all the time state for a couple months. Eventually though he does pull out of it (slowly and steadily). He forces himself to do that though (pull out of it) because he knows he has to in order to save himself. He can't keep sleeping the rest of his life, and if he did that would be his responsibility and he would face whatever consequences that had (losing me, losing his job, etc.). That is all I'm trying to say, that I think the CL is taking responsibility, not accepting blame.

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-08-2004
In reply to: karen2790
Fri, 04-15-2005 - 11:32pm

"That is all I'm trying to say, that I think the CL is taking responsibility, not accepting blame."

Your post put me in thinking mode! I started to examine many of the things I am responsible for:

1. Not asking for enought help around the house.
2. Taking on too much responsibility for child care and housework.
3. Allowing to H to come and go as he pleases without accountability.
4. Starting counseling well after I should have.
5. Not doing kind/special things for myself (dinners out, haircuts, etc).

Those are just some of the things, but it got me thinking!

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
In reply to: karen2790
Sat, 04-16-2005 - 8:17am

I'm glad I got you thinking and I hope it helps! I have spent so much time 'thinking' since I separated and divorced, and I have experienced so much personal growth as a result (especially due to the 'thinking' I do in therapy, of course).

I think your list of things is sooooo common. From all I see on the relationship and divorce and custody boards, I think many women take on too much of the household work and childcare initially and then end up not being able to change it. At first they want to, they enjoy it and they want to be the one giving baths and rocking baby to sleep. But if dad is left out of these things, he doesn't learn what his children need and how to meet those needs, and most importantly, that they need him at all. Both parents (and the children) end up assuming that the children need mom more than dad, because mom is the one cleaning them up, getting them dressed, helping with homework, tucking them in and cleaning the throw up off the floor at 2am and doing a great job at all of it. Mom assumes if she wants it done right (or at all) she has to do it herself. Dad see's that mom is doing a great job and he has no idea that resentment is starting to build (she may not even realize it at first either). But now they are stuck in their roles as they have defined them and are at a loss how to change things. She doesn't want to give up control (even though she desperately wants help) because she doesn't have any confidence he will do things right. He has no confidence that he could take on all the childcare responsibilities either, because he's never had to.

This is how my world started with dd. For her first year I did most everything for her and when she was alone with her dad it was for short periods of time and he was more watching her than caring for her. Then when she was about 1, things got crazy at work and I had a year where I worked a ton. He had to pick up more of the slack at home, includng for childcare. He hated it at first, and I offered to quit, but he liked the money, so I didn't quit. What happened was that he ended up bonding with dd, and his confidence that he could be her father (and a good one) grew. I do not believe that would have happened if I had kept doing everything all the time. DD learned she could count on her dad as much as her mom, and my confidence in her father's abilities grew too. Then when the marriage fell apart, it seemed natural that we would have joint 50/50 custody. DD has ended up with the best deal going, with two happy, involved parents but it all happened on accident, because I had to let him take over so much.

Of course I am speaking in generalizations above, and this may not apply to your situation specificially, but I have seen this scenario in some form on most every board I visit.

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-06-2005
In reply to: karen2790
Sat, 04-16-2005 - 1:54pm

I am so sorry i didn't see this until now!


First off, thank you for the post :) Let me explain a little bit more......


I don't take ALL the blame for the demise of my marriage, I do blame myself for losing myself in him and for not asking for help and for feeling like I needed to take on everything myself. I guess I really didn't know it happened until after he left. I really took a minute to look at what I did wrong as opposed to concentrating on what he did wrong.. it helped me not be as angry as I should be with the situation, instead I grew from the situation......


I did develop a depression problem, not just because of my husband, but because of a lot of other things going on ( my parents split and my mothers attemtped suicide's ) I really just lost myself in it......


I do feel a lot on my own shoulders. I guess because it's the only aspect I have been thinking about. I have learned from it but I guess the healthy part would be to not blame all me. I do recognize that he should have talked to me about it before going "elsewhere" but that is really the only blame I have for him. He was working a lot, but at first he HATED it... he would stay home with us a day here and a day there, call in sick kind of thing, but I worked at this office and knew they expected A LOT from him. In the end is when it got exaggerated because "she" was involved.


Thanks again for your post and I really appreciate your post on my mom too. I am so sorry I didn't see it until now.


hugs,


Angelena