DH and I are getting divorced. Many of you know that already.
I've been saying for a while that we aren't good for each other. The logical part of me knows that he is immature and selfish and unable to handle family life. Because of this he has been depressed. His depression is so bad he has threatened suicide three times and has been hospitalized twice. He went through shock treatment which was unsuccessful. In deciding to divorce him, I have said it is because we're not good for him.
He told me today his depression has lifted. I'm not sure which smilie to pick. He basically told me that yes, he's been that severely depressed all these years because he was married to me. *sigh*
Again, logical me understands that it's bigger than that. But the "me" that wants to wallow in this for just a day sees that I am the cause of a man's severe depression.
Why is it that I can say that, but it offends me when he does?
This all actually came about because he stupidly thinks he can handle the children 50% of the time. He hit me with this at his lawyers office and I am actually quite livid about it because if he gets them 50% of the time then *I* must pay him child support. I couldn't believe he'd put a price tag on their little heads like that. He can't handle them 50% of the time! His depression has lifted because he has no responsibilities right now!! He gets to PLAY with the children on weekends (or sleep which is what they say he actually does) and he gets to play with them when he comes over to the house and *I* cook his dinner!! But that's a whole different gripe.
I haven't followed all of your posts too closely but, if I recall, at least one your you kids is older?
When my parents got a divorce, my father tried to make me see him every other weekend and my mother didn't make me because I didn't flippin' want to! He's emotionally abusive and a manipulator. He took it to the court and I, at 12 years old, told the judge I don't WANT to go, so they didn't make me.
So, if your kids are old enough, try talking to them first about whether they really want to or not. I'd suspect they don't if all your soon-to-be ex does it sleep. What kid finds that fun? Then ask the lawyer if this would play into the judge's decision.
Good luck. Even "quick and clean" divorces are messy and painful.
You are NOT the cause for his depression, you are simply his convenient scapegoat! Some people (men and women) do not want to believe that something is "wrong" with them and so it must be caused by someone else. Because that would mean to them it is a weakness. The only weakness your soon-to-be-ex husband has is not recognizing the fact that his depression is not anyone's fault. If he is clinically depressed then it is a chemical issue. You might be a source of his irritability (just like he may be of yours sometimes)..... but depression? No. You don't own that!
But now that his depression has supposedly lifted, tell him to make his own freakin' dinner.
You are not responsible for his happiness OR his unhappiness.
From what I heard divorces can be very messy and depending on who asked for it the other party usually will do ANYTHING to jab them with some sort of revenge to to get back at the other person. I'm going to say fight back hard and strong and get a really good lawyer to take him down. As for him saying something you already knew....it doesn't matter if you think it, but him confirming it is the reason why it hurts. We think negative about ourselves all the time or at least in certain situation and it doesn't hurt as much but the fact that someone else confirms it it's like geez it wasn't just one of the negative self talk preps I had this was real. But as the poster above me said you had nothing to do with his depression, it's a chemical imbalance in his brain, he isn't really happy at all because he's making you feel like garbage about it so he's trying to cover it up so YOU feel bad.
Don't let him play you. The blame game, from a grown man who should know better? Pshht! You are in NO WAY responsible for his depression, and you did everything under the sun to help him with it, financed his treatments, made it so that he could stay home and heal. And, like you said, since he has gone to living alone, sleeping whenever he wants to, with no responsibility whatsoever, and no stress to speak of, NO WONDER his depression has lifted.
And, hopefully, a judge will take into account his unstable mental condition (even if he's "well" now) when it comes time to decide custody. I really really hope you don't end up having to pay him child support. Is he paying you any right now? Half the housing cost for both kids, half their utilities, half their clothing, medical insurance, after-school activities, etc. etc. I really hope your lawyer rips him a new one.
Sorry, the lion is coming out in me. Sometimes you just need a hug!
Be careful, too, in what you DO deal with at the lawyers - quite often it gets volleyed back and forth and all you get in the end are two astronomical legal bills - and nothing much different than what you started with. If it's not aggressive/hostile, maybe try talking some of the things out without pointing fingers, etc. Ideal? nope. But ... an ideal solution will never emerge from that lawyer's office - imho.
I've been saying for a while that we aren't good for each other. The logical part of me knows that he is immature and selfish and unable to handle family life. Because of this he has been depressed. His depression is so bad he has threatened suicide three times and has been hospitalized twice. He went through shock treatment which was unsuccessful. In deciding to divorce him, I have said it is because we're not good for him.
Firstly, you have to understand this kind of depression. Depression so severe that it leads to multiple suicide attempts and doesn't even respond to shock treatment, the treatment of last resort (because the aim is essentially brain damage, "hopefully" destroying the broken parts, and only the broken parts), depression like that isn't caused by being immature and selfish and an inability to handle family life.
He's immature and selfish and has an inability to handle family life, because he's severely mentally ill.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eliana
He told me today his depression has lifted. I'm not sure which smilie to pick. He basically told me that yes, he's been that severely depressed all these years because he was married to me. *sigh*
Again, logical me understands that it's bigger than that. But the "me" that wants to wallow in this for just a day sees that I am the cause of a man's severe depression.
Why is it that I can say that, but it offends me when he does?
He's feeling better, and is thinking that you must have been right about you being the cause of his depression. You both are wrong. You and family life did not cause his depression. Depression this severe is primarily biochemical/ It is not caused by life events or personality traits.
He's temporarily feeling better right now, because a dramatic life change, even a traumatic life change (perhaps especially a traumatic life change) releases all sorts of hormones and brain chemicals such as adrenaline, cortisol, and endorphins (the body's natural stimulants and pain killers).
These are temporarily acting as effective antidepressants - obviously not very effective if he's still sleeping most of the time, but effective enough to make him feel noticeably better. It's temporary, and it has nothing to do with the divorce, except in that the divorce/seperation has triggered it. Being hit by a car or attacked by a pit bull, or other traumatic event, he would likely be feeling the same way. It's a good part of why shock treatment tends to work. The trauma releases natural antidepressants (along with the hopefully-selective brain damage).
If shock treatment worked temporarily (at least a little), the divorce is going to do the same thing. If the shock treatment had no effect at all, I would expect that the divorce isn't going to help his mental state for long either.
I suspect you told your husband and yourself "we're not good for you," as a self-protective measure. If you believed "we're not good for you," then leaving is a good thing for everyone.
I suspect that you don't want to be the person who would leave a mentally ill man who can't help being sick. You know that you and the kids will be better without him, and thinking "He'd be better off without us," allows you to feel better about leaving him - but it isn't true (not that you shouldn't leave, but it's not because you and the kids aren't good for him).
His life is going to be just as screwed up without you and the kids, possibly more so. He won't have you to run the parts of his life that he can't (again not saying you should).
It's likely that playing with the kids is one of the few sources of pleasure in his life, and he can't acknowledge (at least not yet) that he can't take care of them properly. My guess is that he wants the kids half the time more for their medicinal effect (which is just as selfish as wanting money, but he's to sick to see that).
Personally, I would be very concerned about his ability to supervise and care for the children (it's a lot bigger issue in my mind than who is paying child support to whom). His suicide risk alone, and the ineffectiveness of the shock treatment would be very big issues in a judge's mind.
As for feeling bad about anything your husband says to you - remember the source. He's mentally ill, you can't take anything he says as "true" without filtering it through the fact that he is mentally ill - his mind isn't working properly.
Take care, this is going to be rough no matter how it turns out. If you're not seeing a counselor, I'd suggest it. Especially since you're going to possibly need some help in determining whether it's safe for your husband to even have unsupervised visits with the kids, let alone partial custody. I would reccomend talking to your lawyer at least about getting a psychiatric evaluation ordered before any custody arrangements are determined.
Personally, I would be very concerned about his ability to supervise and care for the children (it's a lot bigger issue in my mind than who is paying child support to whom). His suicide risk alone, and the ineffectiveness of the shock treatment would be very big issues in a judge's mind.
Money couldn't be further from my mind. I told the lawyers that I didn't care how much he paid me. Nothing would be fine with me! I just do not want them living part time with both of us. I know lots of people do it, but it isn't for me. That's when the lawyer corrected me and made sure I understood I would owe HIM child support.
Yes, he is mentally ill. No, I wouldn't leave him because of that. I wanted to! Desperately! My smoking gun was when he had an indiscretion on Facebook with an ex-girlfriend. But I have believed for some time that our family is not good for him. You'd have to know his history. His desires in life all center around solitary acts like moving across country to become a (insert career choice of the week). He laments not having the opportunity to make it big on Broadway. When the children were away at camp or at the grandparent's house, his mood always lifted. When he went away on month long business vacations he came back on top of the world and then sank into a huge depressive episode afterwards.
You do bring up a good point that this better mood of his may stem from this big life change though. That's been his MO all along. He seeks new jobs in order to boost his mood. He thrives on big life changes and this is a pretty big one.
In any case, I have since made my lawyer aware of his mental health because he is not stable and can not care for the kids by himself. He's fine with the arrangement we have been using these past three months. He's just seeing dollar signs now.
He actually called and apologized. He didn't realize what the money meant. Now he sees that he should have written down a MINIMUM plan of child care and we work to make sure he got more time than that and instead he made up a MAXIMUM time plan. I'm all for him spending as much quality time with his children as he can! But not on a "must do" basis and I feel very strongly that my children need to wake up in the same house every day to go to school. Our youngest has ADD and doesn't need any more changes in routine than occur naturally anyway!
I wholeheartedly agree with kaplods-his depression CAN'T just be gone. He is temporarily uplifted because of a drastic life change. Once THAT life becomes the usual, it will be right back full force. True depression is not caused by any person, place, or situation outside ourselves. We all have sources of stress in our lives. Those stressors are not the cause of clinical depression. An inability to deal with them is.
I have been where you are now. My ex-husband is mentally ill. While we were together he blamed me for every negative feeling that ever crossed his mind, to the point of abuse. He fought me every step of the way throughout the divorce and custody just to spite me. I was a fool and gave in to everything he wanted to avoid further entanglement. After living in misery for so long all I wanted was my kids and PEACE. I left with nothing and didn't fight for it, thinking the less trouble I made the easier it would be on the kids.
I was very wrong. The more I rolled over to keep the peace, the more he pushed to use that against me.
It's been about 8 years since my divorce and he would still cause turmoil in my life if given half a chance. When you share children with someone like that, those chances crop up all the time-but you are at your most vulnerable when the legalities of custody and finances are being sorted.
Don't give him an inch and hopefully you can fare better than I did. Every time you cook his dinner, etc while he simultaneously tries to screw you over at the lawyers' you are proving to him that he can still be an a$$ and get away with it.
Best of luck to you Eliana. Nail his butt to the wall
My take: the pressure of having people have expectations of him makes him depressed. I'm sure that, eventually, the realization of being a single father will hit him.
... and then I read your next post. It must have been a hard couple of years.
He hit me with this at his lawyers office and I am actually quite livid about it because if he gets them 50% of the time then *I* must pay him child support.
You aren't using the same lawyer, are you? Not a good idea.
How old are your kids? Like someone said, their input could be very valuable and tip the scales. Why is it YOU would owe child support if shared them 50/50?
Stop making his dinner. If he is going to have the kids 50% of the time then he needs to learn to prepare some meals.
When I read your original post I wanted to say something about the way a big change will frequently lift depression (good, bad, or neutral - change is change), but Kaplods did an excellent job of it, so I will just say that I agree with her. Stay strong, fight for what is best for your kiddos.
I completely second 110% of everything Kaplods said, as well. I'm sure that post will help a lot of people, not just the OP for the intended purpose. Very, very well written, Kaplods.
You aren't using the same lawyer, are you? Not a good idea.
How old are your kids? Like someone said, their input could be very valuable and tip the scales. Why is it YOU would owe child support if shared them 50/50?
Stop making his dinner. If he is going to have the kids 50% of the time then he needs to learn to prepare some meals.
Yes, we have separate lawyers. I would owe him child support because I make twice what he does (and I don't make all that much). That's another source of contention. He's had a problem with that our entire marriage. I have always said I don't care how much money he makes, but he has hated it and made my life miserable because of it. We've always had this male/female reversal in the relationship and he hated that too. He is reaping the benefits of it now! Technically I should pay him alimony. Thank goodness he isn't pushing that one. I have never wanted anything more than to be a traditional housewife, but I made the best of what we had. This is all just a plain slap in the face.
The kids are 9 and 10. I hesitate to put them in the middle at this point. They do not like to go to their dad's, but they won't come out and say that either. I just get groans every time they have to go. But if you asked them, they'd say they want to split it 50/50 because they don't want to hurt either of our feelings.
It's one thing for me to say, another to hear it.
I'm not sure which smilie to pick. He basically told me that yes, he's been that severely depressed all these years because he was married to me. *sigh*
But that's a whole different gripe.
