After being with him for 23+ years, the last 20.5 married, last Wednesday the severe depression that has hounded my husband made it impossible for him to go on living with us. He told our priest that he still wanted to live with me - that he still loves me, in fact - but that he cannot live with the children. He moved out. It could have been much worse. He could have found that he could not live at all. He has often been suicidal, at least this time he was able to divert that despair into something else.
My first reaction devastated me - I wasn't upset per se, I was relieved... 15 or so years of supporting him through bout after bout of depression, with all of its attendant disordered thoughts, and my own variable coping/lack of coping ... and now that weight is gone. I think I was just numb until Saturday when we actually had an argument about him smashing (literally) the thermostat just before he left (and he switched off the fan, and shut off the pilot light). It is mid-winter here, and so cold. And the drier doesn't work. It was just awful. anyway, we parted on reasonable (but cool) terms Saturday evening, and I fixed the heater first thing Sunday morning.
Church Sunday evening was really difficult. It was part of the Sermon on the Mount - the bit that goes 'if someone slaps your cheek offer the other one, if someone forces you to go one mile, go two' etc. I feel as though that is the story of living with a partner with major depression, and with him there, and being asked to think about what that passage means to me was really painful.
So now here I am, where I never thought I'd be, and where I can't really think at all.
-------- COMMENT-AUTHOR:Kilaxi COMMENT-DATE:2:58 AM COMMENT-BODY:Hi
I'm sorry for what happened. Hope everything works out for you!!!
Kilaxi
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