Leslie Cane Articles

by: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from wives who feel pretty sure that their husbands’ mental health is contributing to their wanting to end the marriage. These women sometimes tell me that their husbands are dealing with depression, anxiety, and/or loss, and they feel very strongly that these things are greatly contributing to their husband’s wanting out. Of course, the husband usually does not agree.

He will sometimes feel that his depression is the direct result of the marital issues. Or sometimes he will take the other side of the coin and tell you that one thing has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. And of course, the wives have a hard time buying this. I often hear things like “he just can not see that his depression and his negative outlook are clouding his perceptions of everything in his life – including our marriage.”

And, the wife is often quite right about this. But the problem is that being right doesn’t matter if your husband is not going to see this. Because if he disagrees and you continue to argue your case, all he’s going to hear is nagging and he’s going to walk away with the perception that you are being critical, do not really understand him, or think that he’s not smart or perceptive enough to evaluate his own feelings (and the cause for them.) This potentially puts you in a no-win situation, especially if you continue to point out his depression. There’s often a better way to address this, which I will discuss in the following article.

Whether The Depression Is Contributing To His Wanting To End The Marriage Or Not, Deal With The Issues As He Sees Them: Many women become fixated on the depression. They will blame it for every problem that is currently happening. And while they may well be absolutely right about this, none of it matters if the husband’s perception is different and he’s determined not to change it.

Many people will proceed on a path where they are thinking “Well, I just have to deal with his mental status and then he will change his mind about the marriage.” Or, “This is all going to die down once he starts to feel better and his sour mood begins to lift.” The thing is, you can not count on this. And, there’s a chance that he won’t immediately get help or treatment for the depression. So, you have to deal with it as if it is reality because it IS HIS reality.

Have Enough Empathy For Two: You have to approach this from a place of caring about your husband’s well-being first (because this in turn will help your bottom line.) Know that addressing your marriage won’t be a waste of time and can help your life in general – even if it turns out that the depression does lift and all of this marriage-ending talk is only hot air.

And, you also have to avoid approaching it like you have to fix his undesirable problem or clean up his mess. You have to make sure that he knows that you love him, want him to be happy, and are hurting when he is hurting. Therefore, you’re going to leave no stone left unturned until you help him.

He’s likely expecting you to argue or try to get him to see that he’s wrong about the reality of your life. When you instead focus on him and what you can do to help him, this will often begin to turn the tide, at least a little. It will often buy you at least a little bit of time. If this doesn’t happen, know that this is the right thing to do anyway, and have faith that as you support him (and begin to work on your marriage on your own in the process) you will begin to get where you want to go.

Can You Or Should You Deal With The Marriage And The Depression At The Same Time?: This is really a question for your counselor or his doctor, but sometimes, trying to do both can compromise the other. And sometimes, your husband will be reluctant to see a professional. There are times when he’s sort of so caught up in what he’s feeling that he can’t concentrate on changing it.

Since your focus is on helping him right now, I’d suggest prioritizing the depression first, with the hopes that an improvement in the depression will mean you have less to tackle with the marriage.

What You Alone Can Do To Improve The Situation: You should most definitely get professional help for mental health issues.  But you do have some control over your behaviors and your efforts to support your husband at home. Your goals might be to communicate to him that you are there for him, want to lighten his load, and want to support him. You should also make sure that he knows that you are working on how you can best do this.  You can’t make him go to counseling or force him to read the books that you are reading. But you can show him these things are helping you to lighten the load and this may make a difference for him.

Who’s to say if educating yourself and making positive changes in the way that you approach him, your attitude, and your home will change the way he sees things? That much is under his control, not yours. But you can control yourself. You can control your reactions. This will return a sense of control and empowerment. It will show him that you are willing to back up your words with actions. And, it will make you feel better as well. Yes, the marriage and the depression are two separate things. But, they obviously affect one another. You may know this, but you have to let him come to this conclusion on his own. And, your support is one step toward this, but make sure that you are supporting yourself and your own well-being as well.

Filed under: Uncategorized by admin