Depression Supporters Support Group
This community is dedicated to spouses, children, relatives, co-workers and others who are actively supporting someone suffering from depression or other serious mental illness. Depression can bring about intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive, which can have a grave impact on the ability of others trying to help.
My wife's depression used to me much worse than it is now and as I write that it's scary to think how bad it used to be and that we got through it. I feel like things are "better" because I just agree with everything she says and do whatever she wants.
I'm fine with that to an extent since I'm very easy going, but there are times when I am expected to agree with her right away without a second thought. It happens my wife is very smart and as a result I usually come around to realizing she was right (though not always, despite what she thinks), but I want to be able to talk. It's not enough that I'm her servant, I feel like I'm not even allowed my own thoughts a lot of the time. It isn't a good feeling.
She has been running on no sleep for well over a year now, which makes things impossible. She had a horrible pregnancy and has refused to sleep train our son, so he is almost a year old but acts like a newborn. As a result, she is unable to get almost anything done while I'm at work. That means that after working a full day and spending 3 hours in transit each day, once I get home I have to spend over an hour rocking my son to sleep (doesn't always work, often results in mere 45 minute naps), then cook both our dinners, go on errands, and then clean the apartment.
So yesterday I finally lost it. The night before, our son threw up a lot causing my wife to go into an anxiety attack leaving me to deal with him by myself until he finally fell asleep. I then had to work from home yesterday because she couldn't handle him on her own even though he was already 100% better. We were actually having a really great day together until I made the mistake of telling her my parents said we could stay over since I'm going to be walking their dog for 2 days. It's a completely useless gesture since we live 5 minutes away and it would make no sense to pack us and the baby up just for that, but apparently to her the fact that I didn't recognize this as the stupidest, most socially inept act in the world, was an unforgivable crime.
Since I didn't agree with her right away this turned into a massive fight, during which I told her I stayed home because of her not our son. Everything that I was forced to stay silent on in order to keep her from depression came out. I told her that if she can't take care of him with such a minor/nonexistent problem, then there's no point for her to be a stay-at-home mom and she should get a job. I told her how the current situation where I do all the working, cooking, cleaning, rocking to sleep, is unfair; that she can't even take the 2 seconds out of her day to put her shoes on the side instead of leaving them in the middle of the room or even bringing her dishes to the sink. She complains that the apartment is never clean but refuses to do any cleaning herself. She complains we don't have enough money but spends everything we have on things we don't need. When I finally get her to help me clean up, she insists on first focusing on unimportant things like rearranging the closet instead of making sure our kitchen and living rooms are actually livable. Since she feels she doesn't have time to make the bed perfectly, she just leaves the whole room a mess - why bother making things good, when you can't make them absolutely perfect?
Needless to say, she didn't respond well to any of this (and I personally hate how it made me sound like such a chauvinist even though it was her choice to quit her job and be a stay-at-home mom). The problem is, I don't mind stepping up and doing all these things for a little while, but I can't have it be permanent. I kept my mouth shut to help her, thinking it would all change once we finally sleep trained our son, but that's clearly just never going to happen. She says "well, you're not up with him at night, so what do you care?" It makes me feel like she doesn't appreciate anything I do. Yes, I'm not up with him during the night (which I thank her for constantly) but I am up with him from the minute I get home, until we got to bed around 1 in the morning. I'm made to feel like a selfish jerk if I want a minute to myself to unwind. I'm fine doing half the cooking and cleaning and all the working, but I can't do 99.9% of it all on my own.
I feel like I have two babies to take care of and I have no say over how to raise either of them because one of them is an adult.
I just don't know what to do and really needed to vent.
I'm fine with that to an extent since I'm very easy going, but there are times when I am expected to agree with her right away without a second thought. It happens my wife is very smart and as a result I usually come around to realizing she was right (though not always, despite what she thinks), but I want to be able to talk. It's not enough that I'm her servant, I feel like I'm not even allowed my own thoughts a lot of the time. It isn't a good feeling.
She has been running on no sleep for well over a year now, which makes things impossible. She had a horrible pregnancy and has refused to sleep train our son, so he is almost a year old but acts like a newborn. As a result, she is unable to get almost anything done while I'm at work. That means that after working a full day and spending 3 hours in transit each day, once I get home I have to spend over an hour rocking my son to sleep (doesn't always work, often results in mere 45 minute naps), then cook both our dinners, go on errands, and then clean the apartment.
So yesterday I finally lost it. The night before, our son threw up a lot causing my wife to go into an anxiety attack leaving me to deal with him by myself until he finally fell asleep. I then had to work from home yesterday because she couldn't handle him on her own even though he was already 100% better. We were actually having a really great day together until I made the mistake of telling her my parents said we could stay over since I'm going to be walking their dog for 2 days. It's a completely useless gesture since we live 5 minutes away and it would make no sense to pack us and the baby up just for that, but apparently to her the fact that I didn't recognize this as the stupidest, most socially inept act in the world, was an unforgivable crime.
Since I didn't agree with her right away this turned into a massive fight, during which I told her I stayed home because of her not our son. Everything that I was forced to stay silent on in order to keep her from depression came out. I told her that if she can't take care of him with such a minor/nonexistent problem, then there's no point for her to be a stay-at-home mom and she should get a job. I told her how the current situation where I do all the working, cooking, cleaning, rocking to sleep, is unfair; that she can't even take the 2 seconds out of her day to put her shoes on the side instead of leaving them in the middle of the room or even bringing her dishes to the sink. She complains that the apartment is never clean but refuses to do any cleaning herself. She complains we don't have enough money but spends everything we have on things we don't need. When I finally get her to help me clean up, she insists on first focusing on unimportant things like rearranging the closet instead of making sure our kitchen and living rooms are actually livable. Since she feels she doesn't have time to make the bed perfectly, she just leaves the whole room a mess - why bother making things good, when you can't make them absolutely perfect?
Needless to say, she didn't respond well to any of this (and I personally hate how it made me sound like such a chauvinist even though it was her choice to quit her job and be a stay-at-home mom). The problem is, I don't mind stepping up and doing all these things for a little while, but I can't have it be permanent. I kept my mouth shut to help her, thinking it would all change once we finally sleep trained our son, but that's clearly just never going to happen. She says "well, you're not up with him at night, so what do you care?" It makes me feel like she doesn't appreciate anything I do. Yes, I'm not up with him during the night (which I thank her for constantly) but I am up with him from the minute I get home, until we got to bed around 1 in the morning. I'm made to feel like a selfish jerk if I want a minute to myself to unwind. I'm fine doing half the cooking and cleaning and all the working, but I can't do 99.9% of it all on my own.
I feel like I have two babies to take care of and I have no say over how to raise either of them because one of them is an adult.
I just don't know what to do and really needed to vent.
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