Not understanding depression in my relationship, help!

Depression/anxiety may have touched your family, your friends, yourself; what helps you to deal with it? Sharing is caring!

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PartnerinNeed
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 11:32 am

Not understanding depression in my relationship, help!

Postby PartnerinNeed » Fri Jun 19, 2020 12:04 pm

Hi all!

This is the first time ever I have reached out and asked complete strangers for help so here we go! :)

My common-law wife and I have been together for almost 14 years now and we have been pretty good for 11 years of it and the last 3 years have been rocky for both of us.

During the last three years, I hit a funk, dealing with past issues with my previous wife and not understanding that my current partner was depressed through me into a spiral of being a complete ahole to my partner where she was hurt so bad she cheated on me. We worked through it and we still are, things come up from time to time and we are actually talking, took therapy and all was working.

During the time of her cheating, I got better with myself and started to show more compassion to her and apologized and genuinely thought we were on the road to recovering and spending the rest of our lives together. Unbeknownst to me, she was still cheating on me and was planning to leave. But again, we went to counseling and we have been working on things and I believe this has flared up her depression. She has been speaking to a therapist but with the Covid issues, she has not been able to go for months.

So she and I have been talking and discussing items and we had a pretty big fight, we called it quits. Or so we thought, she wanted to still work on things. We talked about sleeping in separate rooms to give her space to think as she has a tendency to use intimacy to circumvent her feelings and feels that is a fix to cover up how she really feels.

After 4 months of this where intimate contact is zero and I get a kiss when one of us goes to bed, which feels forced sometimes. Hugs are very rare and she used to reach out and hold my hand and she is not doing it anymore.

I sat her down and asked how are things going? How are you feeling about us and our relationship?
Her response was she had not really been thinking about us or our relationship that she is still reliving the cheating and how she beats herself up and that she has a hard time looking in the mirror sometimes. I left it alone for a week but something was not sitting right with me and I went to the well again.

I asked her if she had not been thinking about us while we are giving space and we have had no intimate interactions and not being physical at all am I doing something wrong? Was the idea of us sleeping in separate bedrooms a bad idea? I mentioned to her that I still love her and I want to be with her if she felt that was not viable then to please let me know.
When she responded to me I was even more confused. Maybe I am not understanding her response. She told me she is depressed and not happy inside. Sometimes she cheers up and sometimes she just crashes and burns inside like a dumpster fire. She says she is very stuck in her emotions and mood swings.

I asked her if she wanted me to move back into the bedroom, cause I know she likes to cuddle and I wanted to ensure her I was still here, thinking of her and wanting to support her. Her response was no and in fact sometimes when I try to help her it sets her off.

I did not get a sense of her answering me on the intimacy level, I feel like she is avoiding the question and hiding behind depression. So I started to do some research and found that the level of intimacy and libido can alter sex drive. I also found out that wanting to go out and do things is a sign and even being withdrawn and sleeping is another sign.

But it is weird my partner goes on her computer all day laughing and interacting with online friends. She wants to go out from time to time to do errands and to just get out of the house. Then, on multiple occasions, I have found her masturbating and now I am confused.

I am lost, I have no idea how to do. I am not trying to come across as some sex-crazed lunatic, I enjoy being intimate with my partner but I feel like she is using depression to remove herself from the relationship. Or am I being paranoid about the past and putting too much weight on it.

Can someone help me understand what I am dealing with?

PartnerinNeed
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 11:32 am

Re: Not understanding depression in my relationship, help!

Postby PartnerinNeed » Fri Jun 19, 2020 12:41 pm

Also, I would like to add she has not worked in 5 years. Her father lives with us but he is not disabled. She says she needs to stay at home with him and be a stay at home mom. Her daughter is now 17.

PartnerinNeed
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 11:32 am

Re: Not understanding depression in my relationship, help!

Postby PartnerinNeed » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:16 am

Well I guess I got my answer on Father's Day. She asked for a divorce in the heat of a discussion.


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