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Mental health suffering

Missingme's picture

So at what point in time do you hang it up and save yourself?  

JRI's picture

I don't know your situation but when I was in despair, counseling turned my life around.  I was looking at your prior posts and also saw you have 4 adult SKs.  I have adult SKs, too. They can be a pain.  Let me ask a question, have you been screened for depression?  Your prior posts seem so unhappy.  

JRI's picture

Have you ever gone on the Captain Awkward site?  She is an advice columnist who mostly caters to 20ish and 30ish people.  But she writes extensively and very insightfully about depression and specifics about dealing with it.

Rags's picture

The marriage therapist that I found for XW and I was a God send for me.  The guy that walked into her office (with XW) was a completely different person than the guy who walked out of my last session with the Doc 10-ish months later. XW and I worked with the therapist for 7mos before my XW walked out of session when Doc announced that it was time to address the lack of intimacy in our marriage.  I kept going to session 1:1 with the Doc for 3 more months.  During our last session the Doc said to me  "If you would have told me that that sullen, unhappy, man who walked in my office 10 months ago was actually a dynamic, energetic, engaging young man with a child like zest for life I would have told you you were crazy."  She gave me a hug, told me that of course I could keep seeing her but that I needed to go live my life and be happy.  To this day Doc holds a very warm spot in my heart. I email her to check in every couple of years.  She always responds even though she has been retired for about 10 years. I have never and will never go back to being that guy that I did not like being.  I am blessed to have an amazing bride who is my equity life partner and who lets me be her equity life partner. In three weeks we will celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary. I am a blessed man.

Don't wait one second before saving yourself.  If you are not healthy and happy with yourself, the relationship is not healthy or happy for anyone.  

Be good to and take care of you.  If your SO can't handle that, he is not the equity life partner you thought he was.

Thisisnotus's picture

I am getting closer each day and here is how I know...

I feel like I need a therapist and medication.....it's gotten so bad.

I spent 35 years of my life happy and carefree....I recall no stress...hardly a tear...no anxiety no doom...no hurdles to jump through....no drama. I loved my life so much...it was fun and exciting.

For the last 5 ish years I've been with DH...my life is shit...I'm stressed, anxious and miserable.

If I need a therapist and medication to live my current life then I don't want my current life.....it's clearly what is wrong.

i had an eye opening moment this weekend...my DH was happy to spend 3 days doing nothing but lay on the couch....his normal go to....he thought it was great and it was my idea of a true living hell.....it was hell and this has been going on for a while......I know I'm married to the wrong person...even with step kid crap aside.....we have nothing in common and being around him is staring to make me feel physically ill.

Rags's picture

Go live the life you want to live. Be happy.

Life is too short to waste one second more than necessary on a miserable relationship.   Regardless of history, kids, etc...

My first major regret is that I stayed married to my XW after our wedding night.  When we arrived at the bridal suite at our hotel after the reception she went nuckin futz.  She locked herself in the bathroom for several hours and came out in a holey college volleyball T-shit and thread bare granny panties.  I never saw her in the bridal lingerie she wore under the wedding dress. When she joined me in bed she freaked out when I initiated intimacy. Like screaming at the top of her lungs "DON"T TOUCH ME! GET AWAY FROM ME!" banshee shrieking Mimi fit freak out complete with hitting and kicking me.  I had barely touched her..   We had been abstinant for our entire relationship (18mos) at her request.  We had been intimate but not had intercourse during that 18mos.  I never had any indication that she was F-d up in the head crazy.  I met my dad downstairs at about 04:00 for breakfast the next AM. He had an early flight back home overseas and my new bride and I were leaving to start our honeymoon in the late afternoon.  I sat down at the table with my dad and he asked how married life was treating me. I told him "This won't last."   I knew less than 12 hours after the wedding that it would not last.

He gave me a strange look and patted me on the shoulder.  He remembers that moment more than 30 years later.  We went on a 2wk honeymoon that was sexless until the last night before we flew back from PV Mexico.  After we consummated the marriage she relaxed and had what I can only describe as a "thank God that is over" look of relief on her face.  It was 6mos before we had sex again.  In the 27mos from the wedding until she moved out of the home we had purchased three months before she left we had sex (intercourse) 7 times.  That included two 8month periods and one six month period of nothing but the occasional mercy non intercourse session.

I left the wedding reception an excited happy young man and left less than 24 hours later for the honeymoon a sad, hurt and terrified new husband.  My second regret is that I did not end it when we landed back home from the honeymoon.    And I regret ever single day of the next 2.5 years that I did not end it. Fortunately she moved out 4mos before the divorce was final and I avoided polluting my gene pool with her.  She was pregnant when she moved out but thank God it was not mine. We had not been intimate in 8mos.  She had been nearly continuously intimate for the entire marriage. Just not with her husband.

Nothing about that miserable marriage was worth it.

Please consider my first marriage a cautionary tale and don't waste a second of your life on being miserable in a relationship.

Take care of you.