I wanted to expand a bit on something I spoke about in my last post. Mainly that depression does not solely affect the person experiencing it. It can have some seriously detrimental effects on a relationship, no matter how strong it may have been initially. The worst part of the whole thing is that much of the problem stems from the fact that the person who is depressed is having a negative effect on the people around him, and if you are any sort of introspective and perceptive at all, you will notice these things which will only make you feel worse about yourself. And the odd thing is, the more the other person loves you, the worse it will likely be.
Recently, I’ve been going through these difficulties myself. My relationship with my wife has been rough lately, to put it kindly. We’re frequently sniping at each other, biting each other’s head off, and all for inconsequential things. Much of the problem stems from me, and I know this, which makes it suck that much worse. Because of how I’ve been feeling, I tend to be a bit more aggressive and snippy about things. Due to my general feelings of worthlessness, everything becomes incredibly important, even when it’s really not, and it leads to a fight. Unfortunately, after a while, only so much of this can be taken by my wife, and after some time, she hit her breaking point. Well, maybe not breaking, but she’s definitely fed up, and now she also has a much shorter fuse than she did.
It’s a ridiculous situation to be in. On one hand, you need this other person to be supportive, because you love them, and you would hope that they could understand what a difficult place you’re in. On the other, because they are the person you interact with the most, they are the ones who have to endure your constant mood swings, and that can wear anyone’s patience thin. This in turn causes the other person to start exhibiting similar symptoms to you because they’ve been pushed to that point, and you end up not wanting to be around each other. Every comment is taken the wrong way, every action is analyzed to death, and they all have negative outcomes. To pile on to that, whereas I used to have friends I could blow off steam with, there really isn’t much opportunity for that here. It’s only been making me feel worse about myself, because I know I’m the catalyst for all of this, and I can’t figure out how to break the cycle.
Anyone who knows my wife and I know that we love each other deeply. Despite all of the anger, hurtful words, and careless actions we have put towards each other in recent months, we do still really love each other. The only problem is I can’t bring myself to try to talk these things through with her because it just ends up in a fight. Either I get too touchy or she does, and there never seems to be a moment where we are capable of just stepping back and resetting ourselves so that we can talk like people who actually love each other, instead of what we are now. There are moments where we can, but they always seem to be sad moments, where it just feels like we’re both tired, and don’t really want to keep going.
For the most part, I know we’re just going through a rough patch now, and I know much of the blame can be put on me. I’ve been resistant to any sort of real outside help because I have a very specific way of dealing with things, and right now, I don’t have access to any of those ways. I have been slowly trying to make adjustments, but it’s a long process, and because of that, I’m afraid things may happen that may cause irreparable damage. The stupid thing is that while I can calmly make these observations now, in the heat of the moment, and in my day to day dealings, it just doesn’t seem to be so clear. I just hope that the changes that I need to make can happen at a pace that will give me time to fix some of the damage that has already been wrought, but I honestly don’t know.
There is also the case that I may be seeing things as being much more bleak than they really are, but I would rather err on the side of caution. Changes do have to be made, and they have to start with me. I’ve always said that you can’t properly love someone else unless you love yourself, and unfortunately, I am far from loving myself right now.
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