I feel like I should go into a little back story since I removed my posts from here a little while ago. I have been married for about 3 1/2 years in an international relationship. We met in college dated for 7 years (2 of them apart) and after all the visa paperwork and process we got married. We are generally happy and love each other, but we have had major issues in the relationship. Most of it, I think, is centered around her depression. I think the bulk of her depression comes from living away from her culture and family. It also comes from other issues such as financial, personal interests, lack of mutual friends, and a lack of communication. I try to be supportive, and not engage in petty arguments when she tends to get worked up over little things. Over time the little put downs and the constant depression took its toll, and I also began to get depressed. I have a bad way of dealing with it which is I don't deal with it. I just push it down, and ch alk it up to her being depressed. I wont lie I feel a ton of guilt since she is sacrificing to be here for me. She comes from a much better off family and was accustomed to a style of living I sadly can't afford to give her. This built to the point where I had a minor melt down and got really depressed. My weight fluctuated like crazy. I would spiral and eat pie(s) everyday for weeks. Then hate my fat self and starve myself under the guise of saving money. It kept getting worse. I was overly emotional for months and months and would cry at random times. I am not an emotional person and that in itself was really hard for me to deal with. I finally got to the point I could not take it and began browsing marriage help forums. This is when I found TAM. On a really bad night I finally made an account and posted.
I put most everything out there. Some things were too embarrassing and some things I could not find a way to word with out making my wife out to be a bad person, which she is not. The members of the community diagnosed me as being a "Nice Guy". I read up on it and did not completely disagree with their assertion. They encouraged me to bring it up to my wife. Some more forcefully then others. I did not want a divorce I just wanted to make her happy. It was excruciating to talk about with her, and I could tell it hurt her to know how much she hurt me. But nothing changed at first. I regained my courage and did it again, and it was more painful then the first time. We did make progress. She started IC, and she has been trying to be more intimate with me. So why don't I feel better?
The small gains I made were nothing compared to the unexpected damage it did. My sex life went from nothing to roughly once a week. However I feel so guilty every time, because I know deep down she is not doing it for her. She is doing it to save the marriage. The real reason it stopped in the first place is because she always made it seem like a chore, and noticeably showed discomfort and dislike for anything sexual. So now in the moment all I can think about is finishing quickly or faking it so I don't have to put her through it. I can't turn it down because then she would feel bad. So I finally get a sex life and I don't want it, and I feel guilty for that also. I feel like now its my hang up and I should fix it, but I don't know how.
Anytime any problem comes up I feel like if I don't capitulate fast enough then a small disagreement becomes a major marriage problem. It always reverts to the "problems in our relationship". I feel like I am right back at square one. This is essentially what I was doing before I brought up my problems in the marriage. Now I just do it faster. I can't mentally handle rehashing every issue every night because something unrelated and minor gets brought up(what we are doing that night, what we should make for dinner, projects around house, etc.) I try to stand my ground sometimes but it never seems like it is worth the outcome. I am really bad about making excuses to myself about why its ok. There is always a reason why I should not push it.
The hardest change has been that now that she knows how I feel she is constantly suspicious of me. I had told her what a great help TAM was for me. Early on I had told her that if she was not ready for IC than she should browse the posts on TAM just to get an idea of what other people are dealing with it and how. She came back way more depressed and realized what she was putting me through. She saw that our problems, which at the time she did not think were a big deal, were way worse than most of the people complaining on TAM. I was happy to hear her taking it seriously, but there was a downside. The folks on here also told her that I am almost positively going to cheat on her, that is if I had not done it already. So she does not trust me having any female friends. Old ones, new ones, old, young, and/or lesbian it became an immediate issue. First with girls I am good friends with, and even later with more acquaintance level. She was also upset at the realization that I had a t least a few close friends that I was talking about my problems with. She was hurt by that, and maybe rightfully so that I did not have the courage to come to her before asking my best friend for advice. I think more so was the fact that they knew we had problems now, and that embarrassed her. So now I have no one to talk to, and I am not looking for anyone because it would do more bad than good in my relationship.
I feel the depression building in me. I am not motivated. I am eating way too much and feel myself getting fat. I hate my weight and body image. I am lighter than I was in elementary school but I am not who I want to be. I am not at a good place in my life to deal with this. I realized now that the reason why I have no time is because I made a point to keep busy so I would not pay attention to life and not be depressed by it. I work full time, go to school full time(only 2 terms left), I bought a fixer upper duplex a little over a year ago (and am still fixing things, but rental has been done and rented for awhile), and I source parts for my father in-laws company a few times a month. I don't have time to mope around or get distracted.
Ever since I came back from a stressful vacation trip I have been out of it. All I want to do is hide away so I can drink coffee, smoke, and day dream. I catch myself just starring off into space for hours thinking about everything but my life. There are so many things that I worry about and go over constantly in my head. It bothers me that I have completely shelved dealing with my relationship. Even in my own head I hide from it. I don't bring it up with myself. How could I ever bring it back up with her? I don't think I want to. It almost ended the marriage and I am not ready for that. I don't know if I ever will be.
I love my wife. I just want her to be happy. I honestly think if I could just know for sure that she was happy that I would be also. I know the retort to that is that I should not tie my happiness to hers, but I think that is a ridiculous idea. Can any partner really be happy in a marriage if they know the other partner is not? Can you really be happy knowing the person you love is not happy?
I want to ask a stupid question. I wrote this to ask this question, but I think I gave myself an answer in the process. "How do I stop being depressed without upsetting or changing what it is that depresses me?"
I put most everything out there. Some things were too embarrassing and some things I could not find a way to word with out making my wife out to be a bad person, which she is not. The members of the community diagnosed me as being a "Nice Guy". I read up on it and did not completely disagree with their assertion. They encouraged me to bring it up to my wife. Some more forcefully then others. I did not want a divorce I just wanted to make her happy. It was excruciating to talk about with her, and I could tell it hurt her to know how much she hurt me. But nothing changed at first. I regained my courage and did it again, and it was more painful then the first time. We did make progress. She started IC, and she has been trying to be more intimate with me. So why don't I feel better?
The small gains I made were nothing compared to the unexpected damage it did. My sex life went from nothing to roughly once a week. However I feel so guilty every time, because I know deep down she is not doing it for her. She is doing it to save the marriage. The real reason it stopped in the first place is because she always made it seem like a chore, and noticeably showed discomfort and dislike for anything sexual. So now in the moment all I can think about is finishing quickly or faking it so I don't have to put her through it. I can't turn it down because then she would feel bad. So I finally get a sex life and I don't want it, and I feel guilty for that also. I feel like now its my hang up and I should fix it, but I don't know how.
Anytime any problem comes up I feel like if I don't capitulate fast enough then a small disagreement becomes a major marriage problem. It always reverts to the "problems in our relationship". I feel like I am right back at square one. This is essentially what I was doing before I brought up my problems in the marriage. Now I just do it faster. I can't mentally handle rehashing every issue every night because something unrelated and minor gets brought up(what we are doing that night, what we should make for dinner, projects around house, etc.) I try to stand my ground sometimes but it never seems like it is worth the outcome. I am really bad about making excuses to myself about why its ok. There is always a reason why I should not push it.
The hardest change has been that now that she knows how I feel she is constantly suspicious of me. I had told her what a great help TAM was for me. Early on I had told her that if she was not ready for IC than she should browse the posts on TAM just to get an idea of what other people are dealing with it and how. She came back way more depressed and realized what she was putting me through. She saw that our problems, which at the time she did not think were a big deal, were way worse than most of the people complaining on TAM. I was happy to hear her taking it seriously, but there was a downside. The folks on here also told her that I am almost positively going to cheat on her, that is if I had not done it already. So she does not trust me having any female friends. Old ones, new ones, old, young, and/or lesbian it became an immediate issue. First with girls I am good friends with, and even later with more acquaintance level. She was also upset at the realization that I had a t least a few close friends that I was talking about my problems with. She was hurt by that, and maybe rightfully so that I did not have the courage to come to her before asking my best friend for advice. I think more so was the fact that they knew we had problems now, and that embarrassed her. So now I have no one to talk to, and I am not looking for anyone because it would do more bad than good in my relationship.
I feel the depression building in me. I am not motivated. I am eating way too much and feel myself getting fat. I hate my weight and body image. I am lighter than I was in elementary school but I am not who I want to be. I am not at a good place in my life to deal with this. I realized now that the reason why I have no time is because I made a point to keep busy so I would not pay attention to life and not be depressed by it. I work full time, go to school full time(only 2 terms left), I bought a fixer upper duplex a little over a year ago (and am still fixing things, but rental has been done and rented for awhile), and I source parts for my father in-laws company a few times a month. I don't have time to mope around or get distracted.
Ever since I came back from a stressful vacation trip I have been out of it. All I want to do is hide away so I can drink coffee, smoke, and day dream. I catch myself just starring off into space for hours thinking about everything but my life. There are so many things that I worry about and go over constantly in my head. It bothers me that I have completely shelved dealing with my relationship. Even in my own head I hide from it. I don't bring it up with myself. How could I ever bring it back up with her? I don't think I want to. It almost ended the marriage and I am not ready for that. I don't know if I ever will be.
I love my wife. I just want her to be happy. I honestly think if I could just know for sure that she was happy that I would be also. I know the retort to that is that I should not tie my happiness to hers, but I think that is a ridiculous idea. Can any partner really be happy in a marriage if they know the other partner is not? Can you really be happy knowing the person you love is not happy?
I want to ask a stupid question. I wrote this to ask this question, but I think I gave myself an answer in the process. "How do I stop being depressed without upsetting or changing what it is that depresses me?"
Put the internet to work for you.
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