# Your take on my x wife's depression



## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

I've given my story here in the last few months, but would like to detail my x wife's depression and see what people think.

My wife and I were divorced last December after 18 years of marriage basically because she wasn't "happy" anymore. Starting in May of that year, she started talking to friends about how she was unhappy in our marriage.

Sometime in July she started acting strange toward me. She didn't have a smile or anything for me. She would sit out on the porch after work and stare off into space. She stopped watching her favorite tv shows, etc. It didn't get so bad that she quit work, but during off time she would lie in the bed and cry. the weird part to me is that she was so depressed around me but could seem cheerful around others. 

She admitted she was depressed and said it was because she was unhappy in our marriage because she said I had changed over the years and wasn't the person I used to be. To make a long story short, I had become boring. I asked her to pinpoint when i started changing, and it was sometimes 5, 6, or 7 years ago. 

She said she had gotten to the point that being in the same bed with me was difficult. She said she didn't want to go anywhere, do anything with me, or even ride in the same vehicle with me. 

In addition, she had gradually started losing weight about a year before. She would be eating and suddenly say, "I'm full, I can't eat anymore." This would happen even at her favorite restaurant. She got extremely small. I believe she got to a size 1 in jeans. 

HISTORY: This was not her first experience with depression. Her doctor put her on an anti-depressant after the birth of our second child 9 years ago. She was going to be on it a short while, but has major issues with her family around that time that caused her to remain on them for a few years. She would also have periods of feeling down over the years. She called it feeling "dumpy." 

Her mother and two sisters have had this same thing over the years. 

Some of my wife's lady friends told her that her birth control pill could be messing with her emotions and that they wouldn't make any decisions until she got off that; she had been on them for 18 years. She refused and also refused counceling.

Questions: What do you make of this situation? Does it sound like her problems go deeper than just a boring husband? What happens if this goes untreated over time?


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## magnoliagal (Mar 30, 2011)

I've struggled my whole adult life with depression (I'm 45). I used to blame my problems on my husband but now after counseling I know that simply wasn't true. He could have done everything right and I will would have been depressed. I also discovered after 14 years on the pill that it made my moods worse. They actually began to make me feel quite crazy. I got off those about 6 years ago.

I'm no doctor but based on the facts you've given I think your wife does have depression. I have no idea what happens if it goes untreated because I've been working on mine for 12 years now.


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## VLR (May 15, 2011)

Since she is your ex wife are you asking because you want to get back with her? 

You seem to care for her very much either way. You must be a compassionate person. 

People have given her the correct advice and she wouldn't do anything to address the issues, so I don't see how a person can be helped if she wont help herself. Even if you figure out what's happening, what's the point?


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## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

VLR said:


> Since she is your ex wife are you asking because you want to get back with her?
> 
> You seem to care for her very much either way. You must be a compassionate person.
> 
> People have given her the correct advice and she wouldn't do anything to address the issues, so I don't see how a person can be helped if she wont help herself. Even if you figure out what's happening, what's the point?


I just want to understand. I am a very logical person(everything has to make sense). My divorce is one thing that I don't understand and am just looking for an explanation that can bring full understanding to my situation.

I have been on this board for several months and have gained some satisfaction, but still don't feel i have completely solved the puzzle. It's not something that is driving me crazy, but I just want to fully understand.

I just have many questions that remain unanswered to me, and perhaps may never be fully answered. Are the reasons she gave the true, complete reason for our divorce? Was something, such as depression, causing her to react differently than she would have otherwise? I believe she had legitimate complaints, but I don't feel they weren't fixable, and I did say I would do "anything" it took to work things out. Why did she really not want to try? Would my actions have driven any woman crazy? :scratchhead:

I just believe that something was eating at her that messed with her thinking process. What was so bad that she didn't care to turn our kids lives and church lives upside down with divorce? What was so bad that she didn't care to lose a lot of friends in the process? I can't imagine anything that bad.


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## magnoliagal (Mar 30, 2011)

Depression made me wish I had the guts to drive my car off a cliff. So can depression make you do things you wouldn't normally do? Um YES!

My husband still to this day doesn't understand depression. Your thinking is skewed, negative and hopeless. You cling to the hope that moving, divorcing, someone new, some change in circumstance will make make it all better. But it never does. Depression is with you regardless of your circumsances if you truly have it.


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## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

magnoliagal said:


> Depression made me wish I had the guts to drive my car off a cliff. So can depression make you do things you wouldn't normally do? Um YES!
> 
> My husband still to this day doesn't understand depression. Your thinking is skewed, negative and hopeless. You cling to the hope that moving, divorcing, someone new, some change in circumstance will make make it all better. But it never does. Depression is with you regardless of your circumsances if you truly have it.


I realize there is a difference between true depression and just being blue or down in the dumps. My wife was never diagnosed with depression and she was never completely down as far as missing work, etc, but i feel she did have depression.

How did getting off the pill affect your mood? Did you get back to your old self to a point. My wife actually did call her doctor to inquire about the affects of the pill and was told it had nothing to do with her depression if she was depressed. That solidified my wife's belief that the pill had nothing to do with it.

My x acted as though once we were divorced, the happiness would come rolling in. My daughter, however, tells me that she is often in a bad mood and mentioned that she is never happy unless her new boyfriend is around. 

One of the things that my wife tried to use on me was that sometimes I would get too bent out of shape over "spilled milk", so to speak, with the kids. Looking back, I guess i did make a mountain of a mole hill sometimes, but now, my wife yells at the kids all the time over what my daughter calls nothing. She says, "Dad, you were never like that." 

So, even though I don't think she still sits around and cries like she did, I don't think the happiness is rolling in like she expected, and she isn't gaining the weight back. My daughter once told me, "Dad, you're a lot happier now than mom."

What about her appetite and weight loss that i mentioned? Isn't that a sign that something just isn't right with her body?


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## VLR (May 15, 2011)

Are you really trying to figure out what was wrong with her or are you questioning whether something may have been wrong with you?


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## magnoliagal (Mar 30, 2011)

I rarely missed work when I was depressed. I functioned pretty well actually with mild to moderate depression. Graduated college, got a good job, promotions, the works. I wasn't that down.

As a general rule I hate the medical community. I had severe headaches which were related to my depression but not one of the 100's of doctors I saw ever suggested therapy. Once I got into therapy the headaches all but went away. Imagine that. Doctors are not trained to recognize depression (as shown by physical symptoms) nor do they realize the affect that common meds, foods, and chemicals can have on our moods.

On the pill the only way I made the connection was by sheer chance. I had just weaned my middle daughter (I was 38?) and so I started taking the pill again (same one I had taken for 14 years). Within days I began to have crazy thoughts. I knew something was wrong. I was sitting in the bathroom trying to get a grip one afternoon I looked down and saw the pill pack and the lightbulb went on. It was the darn pill. I did some research and found this is very common so I threw the pack out and within 3 days I began to feel human again (I had only taken 2 weeks worth at that point). I haven't taken hormonal birth control since. Since then my sister went through the same thing (she's 40) and I talked her into quitting as well. She was happier when she got off them.

Changes in appetite and weight loss (or gain) is definately a sign that something is wrong mentally or physically.


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## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

VLR said:


> Are you really trying to figure out what was wrong with her or are you questioning whether something may have been wrong with you?


I don't think anything was "wrong" with me as far as depression or any other medical issue. I could have made improvements as a husband, but it's nothing that couldn't have been worked out if she wanted to.


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