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Mon 15 Nov, 2004 04:30 pm
Hello everyone, this is my first time using a forum but after reading throug a bunch, I'm hoping that you all can help me. I've been married for 3 years. I'm going to give you the real abreviated version of the past 3 years and then get on with my question. We got married, we had a child. Everything was great. a year and a half ago, we decided to change our surroundings and I transfered half way across the country. She became an "at home mom" with no friends and no family around. She became depressed. I didn't really realize how depressed and our marriage got really "boring" and routine. In February, things got worse. She had an affair and we were fighting all the time. The affair stopped, we started communicating better and decided that she was going to get a job, get on her feet and move out. I didn't like this idea but she seemed pretty adimant that she didn't want to be married. After that, things started going really well. We have fun together, we talk all the time like we used to. 3 months ago, she said that she wasn't going to move out. She thought that it could work out. A week ago, she came to me and said that she wasn't happy. She said that I wasn't doing anything wrong and that I was a great guy and a great friend but she feels like we were meant to be just friends. I disagree. I think that we've been through a lot and that we haven't had time to work on our marriage since she decided it may be possible. I asked if she would go to counseling and she said yes. Since then, she has made comments that she doesn't think there's anything a counselor will say that will change anything. "she just doesn't look at me like that anymore".
Now to my question. Is she right? Can counseling really help? Is it pointless if she has no faith in it to begin with? Has anyone lost the spark like we have and been able to relight it? Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to give you everything.
My first question is why she would agree to counselling and then say it wouldn't help. This could be signs of further depression, which may or may not have anything to do with you. She is second guessing the process before it's even started, not good. She may want to get assessed for clinical depression by her doctor before you start counselling. Depressives generally don't know WHAT they want, and it can change from day to day. Maybe gently suggest this may be part of the problem. Don't ask her to answer, you may need to be the strong one here. Depressives are not good at making the right decisions, and need guidance to get them through.
Thanks. She is being treated for depression with Zoloft. I don't know if that's any different than "clinical depression" but depression is really big in her family. We went to the counselor last night and we both really liked him. He asked if we were both committed to fixing our marriage and she answered yes, so that is a good sign. We also talked last night and it seems like she really is going to give it an honest try. We got homework to write down what we want out of our marriage and what we want out of our individual lives and she seems like she is worried that she won't be able to come up with anything except "I don't know". That kind of makes sense with what you said about depressives. Hopefully she will be able to figure something out or the I don't know answer will trigger the counselor to help her through that. It IS sort of a difficult question but we have two weeks before our next session to think about it.
Keep going to counselling. It's not an overnight 'quick fix', so it will take a while. She may also want to think about whether or not her compliance, i.e. saying "yes" to therapy, and saying "yes" to wanting to work things out is sincere, or just something everyone else around her wants to hear. Just so you know, I'm a depressive as well, not on meds, but therapy helped me a lot. It sounds like you are both on the right track though.
Thanks for the thoughts. Right now, she seems to think that I am "controlling and munipulative" so I fear that questioning her motives instead of just trusting that she's being honest would hurt things. I think she's also struggling with some guilt about the affair that she had so I'm trying to avoid coming across as too non-trusting. Our counselor seems like a very bright man and I'm going to count on him to sense a lack of committment if it's there. I know it's putting a lot of faith in a person that I've only met once but I feel that that's the only way to go with counseling. I think all I can do now is work through the process that we've started. Hopefully that work will pay off with "answers", at the very least, and hopefully a rekindled relationship.
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