Hi, Penny.  I've been on both sides of this story and yes, it can get better if you work at it.  Your husband might need a stronger dose or something else added to his Wellbutrin - that happens.  Does he at least tell his doctor that it isn't working?  If he doesn't, perhaps you should tell the doctor yourself.

The other thing I would suggest is that you either get him to go with you to a couples therapist or you go to one yourself - that is how you will be able to withstand what's going on.  Yes, it's work to find a good one, but well worth it.  Maybe your insurance company would have some suggestions for you, or someone you know who has been through it.  He can't see things rationally right now.  He should probably be in therapy himself, as well.  Things don't just magically get better all by themselves.  My husband and I have gone through all of this and we're still married after almost 38 years.  In fact, I think we understand each other better than we ever did before we got help.

Please feel free to write here any time, or if you need help finding resources, let us know.  If you're committed to the relationship, and if he wants it to work, as well, then there definitely is hope.  Take care.

Penny630

6/26/10 3:16pm

Thanks for your kind words Judy. He is talking to his doctor this week and starting with a therapist. We've discussed couples therapy but right now there are more individual things than couple things that need to be figured out.

 

I can't wait until we can say we've been together for 38 years and hopefully give encouraging words to someone else.

 

Thanks so much.

I have an odd sort of comment, I guess.  I was the depressed person in my marriage, as well as having schizophrenia.  Both were diagnosed at the same time (when I was 37) and I was in and out of hospitals for about 5 years thereafter.  Just a couple of months post-diagnosis, my husband said, "I don't want to be married to a 'mental case.'"  I don't know how long he had been harboring these feelings, because I only learned some of what he thought 10 yrs after our divorce.  He admitted he thought I "acted weird" most of the 13 years we were married, and he sited examples that really stunned me but in retrospect, they were true. 

I still love him today and wish we could get back together, but I feel he is still "stuck" back then, and I have moved on and have almost fully recovered with medication and therapy.  He would only try one session of couples' therapy with me.  I wanted help but was so depressed I was unable to voice my needs adequately.

What would have helped?  If he had calmly and logically discussed his observations and his concerns about our future togther w/o branding me with hurtful words.  If he had expressed love and acceptance and asked how he could help, that would have meant a lot.  I think there has to be honest conversation between two partners and neither of us were doing that.  When he moved out, I was in the hospital, and he took with him all my diaries from years past.  He read all of them, so he learned how he had been unhelpful.  He wrote me a long letter asking forgiveness (after 10 yrs) for each thing he knew he was responsible for, and how he could have done better.

Of course, we BOTH could have done better to communicate, but we had never really communicated during our life together.  There were many unhealed wounds on both sides.  But still, I know we could have worked it out given enough time and forgiveness and hard work.  I felt too bad, though, to be able to really work at it at the time.  If he had given me some time and support I know we could have stayed together and made it work. 

I needed to talk openly.  Maybe men don't like to do that, I don't know.  But your husband is at least pursuing treatment with medication.  And it usually doesn't get better all at once.  You saw a glimpse, those 4 weeks when he was happier and more normal, of what can be.  I have had to add Trazodone and Zoloft to my Wellbutrin in order to recover.  And sometimes these have sexual side effects, so be patient with that, too.  Don't let him quit the meds because of side effects that affect his libido or performance.

I know this is all too long and jumbled, but I am trying to say that it is worth sticking with him through a (perhaps long) period of recovery.  I believe that, all told, it will make your marriage stronger if you do.

Donna

Penny630

6/26/10 3:20pm

I really appreciate your words Donna, my husband mentioned recently that I wasn't understanding enough and that really hurt my feelings.

 

He's so caught up in the diagnosis and still feeling depressed that he doesn''t see how he is hurting me and it's just hard to put my feeling on hold for him.

 

I try to come at everything with a calm, cool and collected head but I'm only human and I willingly admit to reacting poorly as well.

 

Thank you.

Donna-1

6/26/10 3:56pm

There may come a time (or now, even) when you realize that things have come apart and cannot be put back together again.  Your understandable inabilities to know what the other is going through may create too great a rift.  You may not be able to bridge that rift anymore.  His depression is not your fault, and likely not his fault either.  "Agree to disagree" is not as simple as it sounds, nor would it mean you could survive the trauma while disagreeing.  I don't want to be around someone with whom I disagree about basic life issues, like "what consistutes a good marriage?"

 

Depression often means feeling hopeless, worthless, useless.  And you become so trapped in your own inner abyss that you can't see a way out.  I used to feel that way.  I am the one who filed for divorce, for many reasons.  Now, I am much happier making my own decisions and I love the peace and quiet.  But my husband was abusive and that was what I really wanted to get away from.  So, there were many twisted wires between us, and there was never any real communication about anything.  Depression may have even partially been because of unhappiness in marriage, despite the fact I think we still loved each other.

 

Think about it a long time.  Maybe get him and his doctor to try a change of medication or an additional medication (polypharmacy.)  That may bring him out of it enough to see things in retrospect that he can't see now.

 

Donna