Living with a spouse who is depressed
© 2015 Phoebe Hutchison Qualified Counsellor and Author of Honeymooners Forever, Twelve Step Marriage Survival Guide, and Are You Listening? Life is Talking to You (Written by Phoebe Hutchison, for Complete Well Being Magazine, India, April, 2015).
Living with a depressed spouse is full of challenges; some people feel cheated by the changes in their spouse’s actions and attitudes, others feel heartbroken and many become emotionally disconnected, eventually ending the relationship. As a relationship and crisis counsellor, I’ve helped many couples whose lives were impacted by depression with great results. Allow me to shed light on the signs of a depressed partner, give you a glimpse inside their world and outline contributing factors for depression which will equip you both with the strategies to improve your relationship, and lives, despite depression.
What are the signs of a depressed spouse?
Has your partner changed and become negative, often pessimistic, about almost everything? Has he or she become quieter, emotionally withdrawn, simultaneously making themselves unavailable for many family activities? Have they cut down on socializing and seem disinterested in work, family, and life? Have they increased emotional eating, drinking of alcohol or drug taking? Has your partner become moody and is easily angered? One client said, ‘My husband seems to be a shell – as if he has no soul,’ and another said, ‘He’s no fun anymore; he’s just not the same person he was five years ago, before the depression.’ One woman said, ‘He’s always angry.’ One man said, ‘My wife is constantly sad, and hardly talks, yet she has so many great things in her life.’ These sentiments are common. While the contributing factors in depression vary from person to person, the way depression appears ‘from the outside’ is strikingly similar.
How does it feel to be the depressed spouse?
The daily walk with depression is a crippling one; relationships with themselves, family members, friends, colleagues, and life in general, all become more difficult and painful. The depressed spouse usually feels oppressed, and caged in, either by self-imposed restrictions or perceived or real external limitations placed on them. In most cases, unresolved grief and loss is at the core of depression. For men, it is often a loss of a relative, job loss, or loss of emotional/physical intimacy in the primary relationship. For women it is often a loss of a child, or feeling trapped in the primary relationship. He or she lives in the shadows of self-condemnation, anger and frustration. As they over-focus on their defeats and weaknesses, causing their self-esteem to plummet, they compare themselves with others unfavorably - adding more bricks to the wall of isolation around them. This anger at life, eventually points inwards, as prior goals seem unattainable. They feel pressured by most obligations, leaving them feeling ‘stuck’, struggling to make decisions, and fearful of the future. This lack of fulfillment, and a feeling that life is ‘bland’, sometimes becomes the catalyst for a ‘mid-life crisis’ or an affair; creating a change, then a temporary spark. However, a devastating backlash of increased alienation from their spouse, self-disgust and confusion make matters worse. All these negative, repetitive thoughts create an avalanche of sad emotions, impacting the body. As depression sets in, restless sleep, reduced sex drive, impaired sexual function, appetite changes, aches and pains and fatigue are common place. Feeling numb and disassociated from life, it is common to hear a depressed person say, ‘I don’t know who I am anymore’ and ‘I don’t know what I want.’
How can you help your depressed spouse?
Some partners tell their spouse to ‘harden up’ or ‘get over it’, which only exasperates the situation. Ideally, if your partner has depression, you can assist them by encouraging them to see a doctor for medication and a psychologist or counsellor for therapy. Keep talking to your spouse, keep listening, avoid nasty ‘put down’ comments, and as depression is not just ‘in the mind’, but it is physical as well, be gentle and assist where you can in practical ways around the household. Being empathetic is important, but knowing strategies is essential. I have a tool in my 2nd book, Are You Listening? Life is Talking to You, that I encourage you to use, called The Crisis Wheel. Ask your spouse how they are going in the following areas: Thought Patterns (Are they predominantly positive or negative?), Self Esteem (Do they have strong self-esteem?), Past Grief and Loss (Are they frequently emotional over a past loss?), Emotions (Are they mostly experiencing positive emotions?), Brain Chemistry (Are they eating well and exercising at least three times weekly to improve brain neurotransmitters?), Support Networks (Do they have friends they regularly socialize with?), Passions (Are they enjoying passions/hobbies?) and Lifestyle/Career (Do they enjoy their day job and are they suffering any financial stress?). When using this Crisis Wheel for assessment, I ask the client to give me a Coping/Not Coping, response, which I translate to tick or a cross. In my book I offer strategies for these eight vital areas. Ask your spouse how they are coping in these areas. Tragically, a person who is not coping in five or more of these areas is likely to be experiencing suicidal thinking, so be brave and ask them if they have had any suicidal thoughts. Other signs that your spouse may be suicidal to watch for, are: Do they feel hopeless, are they saying goodbyes, giving away possessions, putting legal affairs in order, or do they talk about dying frequently?
How medicine and therapy can help
What causes depression? Science suggests that depression is related to an imbalance in the levels of the following neurotransmitters in the brain: serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, and that depression can be hereditary. So, does depression cause the reduction in these neurotransmitters or does the reduction in the neurotransmitters cause depression? It is very much like the chicken and the egg - which came first? Regardless, it is crucial that a person with depression has improved power over thoughts, emotions, and relationships, and to do this, therapy and strategies are required. When a person is coping well in most areas in their life, depression symptoms usually subside. Your doctor can assist with antidepressant medication, which often works well in improving the balance of neurotransmitters. Overall, we need to work on two levels: A. Keep these brain chemistry levels correct and B. Equip the depressed spouse with strategies for coping with their relationship and life.
Many of my hundreds of counselling sessions have involved a client with depression. When you know what to look for, what you can do to help, what to avoid doing and the psychological strategies for improvement, you can make a huge change in your partner’s life, the relationship and your life. In many of my cases, my clients are no longer suffering from depression. Seek medical and professional help and believe in positive change. Keep talking, keep listening and keep connected to each other. Now that you know more about what your partner is going through, and that depression is an illness, not a choice, this should help you stay empathetic. Use therapeutic strategies, have hope, and support each other, through sickness and in health. May your love for each other deepen more daily.
BIO
Phoebe Hutchison, is the author of Are You Listening? Life Is Talking to You and Honeymooners Forever: Twelve Step Marriage Survival Guide. She has worked extensively as a qualified counsellor with couples and clients in crisis in Victoria, Australia, and is excited to share her strategies with a wider audience.