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Completely Lost – Help

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  • December 20, 2016 at 10:58 am #123113
    Plastic Orchid
    Participant

    I don’t even know where to begin. My partner and I have been together for nearly 6 years, married for 6 months, and best friends for over 10 years. We are a perfect match. We’ve always been incredibly close and deleriously happy. Up until now.

    My husband is a first responder and therefore deals with a unique amount of traumatic stress. Unbeknowst to me, he has been silently struggling with unhappiness and trauma for nearly a year. He has kept his feelings hidden from me out of the fear that 1) I won’t understand and 2) that he will ‘drag me down’ with him.

    We’ve been struggling to repair our relationship for over a month now and he hasn’t been living at home. After our first couples counseling session last week, things were looking up. We were working together and getting back to normal. Unfortunately, I discovered he was still lying to me and to his friends and living something of a double life, which obviously hurt and upset me.

    It is very clear to me and to our therapist that his depression has returned and that he needs medication or treatment (he refuses to believe this). He talks about how he is pushing me away on purpose because he is just inherently broken, inherently bad, and unfixable. He feels like leaving me is the only thing he can do to protect me. His mental illness is destroying himself and our lives together.

    I’m lost. He is adamant that we must get divorced, that this is unfixable. He is my best friend in the entire world, my soulmate, and it hurts to see him not only refuse to get the help he needs, but also destroy our life together in the process. I can’t control him and I can’t force him to face facts, but if he leaves me, I will be completely devestated. I feel like I’ve been walking through a fog for days. I try to meditate and focus on things like non-attachment and impermenance, but it’s impossible when all I want to do is scream and cry. I know that there is no reasoning with mental illness and there is very little I can do. I feel helpless and sad. The thought of losing my best friend is unfathomable.

    Help?

    December 20, 2016 at 11:26 am #123114
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Plasticorchid:

    You wrote: “I can’t force him to face facts”-

    This is true, but you can lead yourself gently to face facts.

    But the fact may be Not that he has suddenly, beginning with a year ago, become mentally ill and it is that mental illness responsible for his determination that separation needs to be done.

    It is possible that he has been struggling for longer than that, and it is possible his current depression is not about his job.

    If you’d like to explore possibilities, you can answer these questions and we will explore:

    How long has he been first respondent?

    Did you notice distress on his part before a year ago? What was it about?

    Write more about those “deliriously happy” ten years- were there breaks from that happiness that you forgot or didn’t notice?

    anita

    December 20, 2016 at 11:31 am #123115
    Plastic Orchid
    Participant

    We have struggled with his depression before – it’s definitely an ongoing battle. He used to take medication for it, but stopped abruptly a little over a year ago without consulting his doctor. Again, this related to his career. Our therapist suspects he suffers from some PTSD as well.

    He’s been a first responder for about 6 years.

    Edit to add: there have been breaks in the happiness, mostly when we struggled with his depression the first time. Beyond that, we were living our lives as an adventure and have both been very happy. While this seems sudden to me, I know he’s been hiding his issues for a while. But I also feel like we can conquer it together, as a team, just like everything else we do.

    December 20, 2016 at 11:53 am #123118
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear plastcorchid:

    I hope you can conquer this as a team.

    Here is what I think will help. And do run this through your (competent, I hope) therapist during an individual session (or more), just you and the therapist, then examine the following possibility with him in therapy sessions with same therapist:

    He needs to believe that he is not dragging you down, that he is not responsible for your feelings; that he is not responsible to keep you .. deliriously happy.

    He needs to believe that the price for his relationship with you is NOT that he hides his distress from you. He needs to know you need his honesty and visibility more than anything, more than … that delirious happiness.

    He may be too distressed over the heavy false responsibility he has been carrying for too long.

    Post again here, if you’d like and I will respond.

    anita

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