Depression And Marriage: Tips For Understanding And Living With Someone With Depression

by BLAKE

Depression in marriage is a serious problem. The basis of a health marriage is intimacy, communication and sharing time together.

We want our partners to be there for us to and to lift our spirits. We want to share things and enjoy each other’s company.

If you have a spouse with depression, you may find yourself struggling with the relationship in more ways than one.

Depression in marriage usually means that the depressed partner is not able to be present in the relationship.

He or she may behave in ways that threaten the marriage relationship, such as:

• Withdrawing from engaging with you and your family

• Becoming irritable or angry when you try to approach him or her

• Being defensive when you try to help with his or her symptoms of depression

• Overburdening you with ruminating thoughts and other problems

• Focusing on negative aspects of your relationship or life in general and failing to see anything positive

• Failing to carry through with responsibilities, losing his/her job or being unable or unwilling to complete household chores

• Holding you responsible for his or her misery

How Depression Undermines Marriage

If you are a man with a depressed wife or a woman whose husband is depressed, you may have become so frustrated with the situation that you are less willing than before to make an effort to improve it.

If you are constantly dealing with the rejection and negativity of a depressed husband or wife, it’s only natural to reach a point where you want to distance yourself from the relationship.

This is the unfortunate downward spiral that can occur when one spouse is depressed, and it can ultimately lead to depression in both partners.

The challenge is to recognize depression for what it is so that it does not completely destroy your relationship. The good news is that depression is a treatable condition.

If you are willing to allow the process of healing to occur, you do not have to give up on the relationship.

Dealing With Depression In Marriage: Know Your Limitations

When you love someone who is suffering, you want that person to feel better.

You want this not only so that you can enjoy the person’s companionship and benefit from his or her presence in your life, but also because you want the best for the other person.

Depression is a tricky illness. It convinces it’s victims that life is hopeless, joyless and not worth living.

Unfortunately, there is little you can do to change a depressed person’s mind if he or she is firmly in depression’s grip.

We often try to talk a loved one out of being depressed, sometimes going so far as to tell him or her to “snap out of it.”

This rarely works, and we can become so frustrated that we lose patience and believe that our depressed wife or husband wants to be depressed.

Another Way To Look At Depression In Marriage

Like any depressed person, a spouse with depression did not choose to feel this way.

While it can easily seem like your depressed partner is not trying to do anything about his or her illness, the more likely truth is that he or she does not know what to do or that your loved one is so used to the negative feelings associated with depression that feeling good, even for a short time, is actually threatening to his or her sense of self.

This probably sounds counterintuitive or downright ridiculous, but the truth is that we all get used to certain beliefs about ourselves.

If a person is depressed long enough, depression becomes his or her way of being in the world.

But this can be changed. The thing to realize is that it is your spouse with depression, not you, who is ultimately in charge of taking the steps to change things.

While it is important, and even an advantage, for a depressed person to have the support of a spouse or loved one, that support will not cure depression.

How To Overcome Depression In Marriage

There are many ways that you can help a spouse with depression. In fact, you can even strengthen your marriage by joining with your husband or wife in the battle against depression.

The following guidelines are good ways to start. Just remember that you cannot help a person who is not ready live a depression-free life.

1. Learn As Much As You Can About Depression

If you don’t understand depression as an illness, you’re bound to misinterpret your depressed spouse’s behavior, and you will probably also have unrealistic expectations about how he or she should handle depression.

2. Eat A Healthy Diet Together

A balanced diet is one key to keeping brain chemistry balanced.

3. Exercise Together

Exercise increasing endorphins, which lift depression and boost mood and energy levels.

Try to get your depressed husband or wife to take walks with you or perhaps you can attend a yoga class together.

If he or she has enjoyed a particular sport, like tennis or basketball, you can try to encourage participation in that activity as well.

4. Allow Your Spouse To Say No When He Or She Feels Overwhelmed

It’s important to take small steps toward increasing activity and time spent with others, but too much at once can be overwhelming and is likely to cause a depressed person to retreat entirely.

Agree on a manageable amount of social interaction and time spent together, but also allow your spouse the down time needed to cope with the depression symptoms that he or she is experiencing.

5. Don’t Enable Depressed Behavior

If your depressed husband or wife is behaving in a way that brings you down or hurts you emotionally, you don’t have to stay in the crossfire.

Instead, distance yourself temporarily. Spend time with friends or family members that lift your spirits or do something that makes you feel good, even if you have to do it alone.

Over time, if your relationship is strong enough, your spouse will miss being with you and will begin to recognize the negative behaviors that are driving you away.

6. Go To Counseling Together

Even if you are not depressed yourself, if your spouse is depressed, your marriage is depressed.

Going to counseling together can help you cope with the challenges of living with a depressed person, and it can also help you understand the issues that are causing your husband or wife to be depressed so that you can both develop strategies to overcome them.

If you need more help with understand or managing depression, the “End Your Depression” ebook can help.

The book provides detailed information on the causes and symptoms of depression as well as treatment strategies that you can tailor to your individual experience.

Detachment and the Two Monks (A Story)

What do you do, when you go through an unpleasant experience or when someone tells you something you don’t like? Do you keep thinking about the event or the words said? Do you go on playing the same videocassette or audiocassette in your mind?

This reminds me of a story I have read in the book “101 Zen stories”, about two monks who were walking from one village to another. On the way they came to a large puddle full of mud, which they had to cross. At the brink of the puddle they saw a young woman standing, afraid to cross it.

“Come”, said one of the monks, “I will carry you to the other side”. He took her on his back, and carried her to the other side of the puddle.

After crossing the road, the two monks continued walking silently for hours, until they reached their destination

The other monk could not keep silent any longer and exclaimed:” How could you carry that girl on your back? We are monks and are not allowed to touch women.”

The monk who carried the women over the puddle smiled and said: “I have left the girl at the other side of the puddle, but it seems you are still carrying her with you!”

This story shows the importance of detachment. Thinking over and over about the past, or repeating futile, unnecessary and negative thoughts, is like carrying a heavy load on your back. It is important to let go and learn to display detachment toward such thoughts. This will develop the ability to clear the mind of unnecessary and disturbing thoughts, and bring a sense of freedom and happiness.
Pay attention to your inner conversations and to the thoughts you keep repeating in your mind, and you will see how much time and energy you waste by thinking over and over about past actions and events, or on what people have said.

It is much better and more profitable to forget the past and concentrate on the present moment. You cannot change the past, but you can make the present moment happier and more enjoyable. Improving your present moment improves your future too. The ability to do so depends on your ability to free your mind from the past and from unnecessary and negative thoughts. Doing so, will bring more happiness, joy and real freedom into your life.

Inner detachment and freedom from thoughts requires some training and inner work. You can find clear and step-by-step instructions and guidance for developing them, in the book Peace of Mind in Daily Life.

Emotional Detachment Can Improve Your Life

(Part of the article is excerpted from my ebook, Emotional Detachment for Better Life.)

Are you quick to get angry?
Do your moods go up and down often?
Are you easily affected by what people say or think about you?
Can an insignificant incident destroy your whole day?
Do you allow situations and people to affect your moods and behavior?
Do you lack inner peace?

Imagine how free, relieved and happy you would be, if you could stay calm and poised in the midst of whatever is happening in your life. Think how much physical, emotional and mental energy you could spare, if you were able to avoid becoming upset, angry or moody.

Emotional agitation, anger, and hurt feelings, cause stress and unhappiness, and lead nowhere, except to more pain, suffering and broken relationships. They disturb your mind, disrupt your concentration, and prevent you from focusing on the matters at hand. If you wish to enjoy inner peace, it is imperative that you try to gain at least some degree of detachment.

Too much emotional involvement with matters that do not concern you, or are not important, take too much of your time, energy and health. Excessive emotional involvement agitates your mind and feelings, and prevents you from experiencing inner peace.

Emotional involvement leads to attachment, to fear of letting go, and to avoiding changes. If you wish progress in life, you need at least some degree of emotional detachment, otherwise you let people and events, your thoughts and your past, tie you down.

Detachment is important in daily life, in the pursuit of ambitions and on the spiritual path. It is valuable to everyone, whether pursuing spirituality or material success.

Let me give you a few examples of detachment.

What happens, when somebody says to you something that you don’t like? You will probably become angry, unhappy or feel hurt. Why is this so? Because you value other people’s words and opinions more than you value your own thoughts and opinions of yourself. You let other’s people thoughts, words and actions influence your happiness, actions and reactions. On the other hand, when you possess emotional detachment, you enjoy a state of inner peace and equanimity, unaffected by circumstances, or by other people’s moods and states of mind.

Suppose you meditate, but thoughts keep coming into your mind. You get emotionally involved with your thoughts, follow them, and forget about your meditation and concentration. If you could show detachment, it would have been easier to ignore the disturbing thoughts. Detachment would have helped you to stay collected and concentrated.

Emotional detachment would not necessarily make your life problems-free. You will still encounter disturbing circumstances and disturbing people, because this is part of life. However, your attitude toward them, your state of mind, and the way you react, would change.

Emotional detachment is a skill you can learn to master, like any other skill, and is essential for every person who wishes to become free from worries, fears and anxiety. It is most useful in many situations, when dealing with family or friends, or at your job. This skill can help you stay focused, and use common sense in the daily affairs of your life.

I am not talking about physical detachment and avoiding people. Detachment, in the sense referred here, is an inner attitude, which allows you to interact with other people, show warmth, compassion and love, and yet, maintain a state of composure and equanimity.

Are you interested to learn more?
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What Are Affirmations and How to Affirm

Affirmations are sentences aimed to affect the subconscious mind. The words composing the affirmation, automatically and involuntarily bring up related mental images into the mind. Repeating the affirmation, and the resultant mental images, affect the subconscious mind, which then influences the person's behavior, habits, actions and reactions.

What affirmations do?

They motivate.
They keep the mind focused on the goal.
They influence the subconscious mind and activate its powers.
They change the way you think and behave, and this can bring you into contact with new people, who can help you with your goals.
Being positive statements, they make your more positive, energetic and active, and therefore in a better position to transform your inner and outer worlds.
These repeated statements spread like radio waves, calling the Universal Mind to help you achieve your goals.

When and How to Repeat Affirmations:

1) Devote some special times during the day for repeating them.

2) Repeat them wherever you are, and whenever you want and have the time.

Before starting, ask yourself whether you really want to get what you want to affirm for. If you have doubts and are not really sure that you want it, your doubts will stand in your way. This is one of the reasons why people do not get results, and then lose their belief in this power.

Affirm with love, faith, feeling and interest, and feel and believe that your desire has already been fulfilled. This kind of thinking will accelerate its fulfillment.

It is natural for the mind to bring up doubts and negative thoughts, especially if your current environment and situation are very different from what you want to achieve. Persevere, and do not let your negative thoughts and doubts conquer you.

Here are a few examples:

Affirmations for success:
It is easy and simple to achieve success.
Success loves me and always seeks me.
Success is flowing now into my life.
The power of the Universe is helping me to achieve my goals.
Every time I inhale, I fill myself with the energy of prosperity.

Affirmations for happiness:
I am letting happiness manifest in my life.
I deserve to be happy right now.
Happiness always seeks me.
I am developing the happiness habit.
Happiness is welling from inside me day and night.

Affirmations for health:
All the systems of my body are functioning perfectly.
My body is infused with the energy of health.
The healing energies of the Universe are filling my body and mind.
The healing energy of health is filling every cell of my body.
Day by day my health is improving.

Affirmations for money:
Plenty of money is flowing now into my life.
Every day I am getting more and more money.
I am a money magnet.
Many money channels are opening for me.
I am now earning a lot of money.

Affirmations - Words with Power

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How to Be Optimistic

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you expect the best or the worst to happen?

Being an optimist does not mean that you are out of touch with reality, ignoring difficulties and obstacles and behaving in a naive way.

Being an optimist means that you hope and expect events and plans to turn out well, and that you look with a smile on the future.

It is important to be a balanced optimist, not pretending that nothing bad can or ever will happen. Doing so can lead to being impractical, making poor decisions and letting people ridicule or take advantage of you. A balanced optimist looks at reality, acknowledge difficulties and obstacles, but is not discouraged by them. A balanced optimist can see the good and the bad, but at the same time expects success and puts forth effort to make things turn out well.

Being optimistic doesn't mean waiting for things to happen by themselves. It means expecting the best, believing that the best will happen, but at the same time making decisions, following them, acting and making things happen.

Why be an optimist? Because optimism keeps you motivated and energetic, pursuing what you want with ambition, confidence and happiness. It helps you focus on your vision, and makes everyday a happy day.

How can you be optimistic and keep holding this attitude?

Don't get angry with yourself if you find yourself feeling pessimistic. Acknowledge that it is only natural to feel pessimistic at times, when life is boring or when you encounter difficulties or hardships.
Acknowledge that changing your mental attitude takes time, so be patient.
Keep a list of motivational and inspiring quotes handy, and read them several times a day.
At least once a day listen to music, your favorite songs or some inspiring or relaxing music.
Exercise your body often and regularly.
At least once a day do something that makes you happy and satisfied. This can be anything, even some minor activity or action like eating something you love, watching a favorite T.V. program, reading or talking to a friend.
Try to smile more often.
Take more care of your appearance and how you dress. When you look good you will feel more confident and positive.
Endeavor to see the good in every situation.
Have enough sleep at night. When don't sleep enough or don't sleep well you can get moody, unhappy and impatient. Good sleep will make you more energetic, alive, optimistic and feeling good.
If you can, avoid the company of negative
Learn to accept the past, leave it behind and continue to better things. Wallowing in the past creates unhappiness and lack of optimism.

Do you take everything too personally?

Do your moods go up and down often?

Can an insignificant incident destroy your whole day?

Are you easily affected by what people say or think about you?

Do you allow situations and people to affect your moods and behavior?

Do you lack inner peace?

The good news is that you can change this situation with emotional detachment!

Imagine how free, relieved and happy you would be, if you could stay calm and poised in the midst of whatever is happening in your life. Think how much physical, emotional, and mental energy you could spare, if you could avoid becoming upset, angry or moody.

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The Power of Repeated Words and Thoughts

Thinking is usually a mixture of words, sentences, mental images and sensations. Thoughts are visitors, who visit the central station of the mind. They come, stay a while, and then disappear, making space for other thoughts. Some of these thoughts stay longer, gain power, and affect the life of the person thinking them.

It seems that most people let thoughts connected with worries, fears, anger or unhappiness occupy their mind most of the time. They keep engaging their mind with inner conversation about negative situations and actions. This inner conversation eventually affects the subconscious mind, making it accept and take seriously the thoughts and ideas expressed in those inner conversations.

It is of vital importance to be careful of what goes into the subconscious mind. Words and thoughts that are repeated often get stronger by the repetitions, sink into the subconscious mind and affect the behavior, actions and reactions of the person involved.

The subconscious mind regards the words and thoughts that get lodged inside it as expressing and describing a real situation, and therefore endeavors to align the words and thoughts with reality. It works diligently to make these words and thoughts a reality in the life of the person saying or thinking them.

This means that if you often tell yourself that it is difficult or impossible to acquire money, the subconscious mind will accept your words and put obstacles in your way. If you keep telling yourself that you are rich, it will find ways to bring you opportunities to get rich, and push you towards taking advantage of these opportunities.

The thoughts that you express through your words shape your life. This is often done unconsciously, as few pay attention to their thoughts and the words they use while thinking, and let outside circumstances and situations determine what they think about. In this case there is no freedom. Here, the outside world affects the inner world.

If you consciously choose the thoughts, phrases and words that you repeat in your mind, your life will start to change. You will begin creating new situations and circumstances. You will be using the power of affirmations.

Affirmations are sentences that are repeated often during the day, and which sink into the subconscious mind, thereby releasing its enormous power to materialize the intention of the words and phrases in the outside world. This does not mean that every word you utter will bring results. In order to trigger the subconscious mind into action, the words have to be said with attention, intention and with feeling.

In order to obtain positive results, affirmations have to be phrased in positive words. Look at the following two sentences:

1. I am not weak anymore.

2. I am strong and powerful.

Though both sentences seem to express the same idea, but in different words, the first one is a negative sentence. It creates in the mind a mental image of weakness. This is wrong wording. The second sentence awakens in the mind a mental image of strength.

It is not enough to say an affirmation a few times, and then expect your life to change. More than this is necessary. It is important to affirm with attention, as well as with strong desire, faith and persistence. It is also important to choose the right affirmation for any specific situation. You need to feel comfortable with it; otherwise the affirmation may not work or may bring you something that you do not really want.

Affirmations can be used together with creative visualization, to strengthen it, and they can be used separately, on their own. They are of special importance for people who find it difficult to visualize. In this case they serve as a substitution to creative visualization.

Instead of repeating negative and useless words and phrases in the mind, you can choose positive words and phrases to help you build the life you want. By choosing your thoughts and words you exercise control over your life.

Here are a few affirmations:

- Day by day I am becoming happier and more satisfied.

- With every inhalation I am filling myself with happiness.

- Love is filling my life now.

- The power of the Cosmos is filling my life with love.

- A lot of money is flowing now into my life.

- The power of the Universal Mind is now filling my life with wealth.

- The powerful and vital energy of the Cosmos is flowing and filling my body and mind.

- Healing energy is constantly filling every cell of my body.

- I always stay calm and in control of myself, in every situation and in all circumstances.

- I am having a wonderful, happy and fascinating day.

The subconscious mind is like a great and wonderful computer, and affirmations are the commands that program it to act in the way you choose. If you feed it with negative thoughts and words, the mind will produce negative conditions, but if you feed it with positive thoughts and words it will produce positive conditions and circumstances. If you want to learn more about affirmation and how to use it to transform every area of your life, then here is an ebook I have written specifically on affirmation and how to put it to work.

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Stop Lugging The Past Now, Time For A New You!

Of course, we all made some mistakes in our past and if you remember them, it can be painful, regretful or even embarrassing.

Just like your bag, if you keep opening up your past mistakes and carry it with here and there, what will you see? Usually, a barrage of sad or bad memories keep creeping up on you. Instead of hoping for a new you, You can't seem to move on and enjoy the present.
You keep holding on to a bag filled with past errors, you always seem to say, "Oh my, what a mess I've done in my life!" Then, some other days again, you still keep on lugging that bag of pasts with you and repeatedly opening it again and again and you sigh; rehashing the same mistakes again for the nth time.

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And then you wonder why you can't move forward and nothing's happening well in your life!
But why not try to empty that baggage out and went over the heaps? Rather than your usual assumptions and judgments, you may be relieved to discover some solutions, life's lessons, and forgiveness.

You see my friends, cursing yourself for your past transgressions won't do you any good. Be glad that you've come this far and realized that you're way past those episodes in your life. At least you've come to terms with yourself that past is past and now it's time for a new you! The new you have that realization to learn and get over those past hurts and mistakes!
You are now in the present and you still have a future ahead of you.
So instead of lugging that emotional baggage that you have, forgive the past and enjoy the new you!

The author of this article, Amy Twain, is a Self Improvement Coach who has been successfully coaching and guiding clients for many years. Amy recently published a highly successful home study course on how to boost your Self Esteem. Learn more about this Quick-Action Plan and have a Fabulous Self Esteem.

How to Think Positively

Here are several tips on how to think positively:

Display a more positive emotional and mental attitude toward yourself, other people and situations.
Refuse to participate in negative inner dialogues. It's just a waste of time and energy.
Don't allow disappointments, difficulties and obstacles affect your moods and state of mind.
Refuse and reject negative thinking. Either replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts, or engage yourself in some activity that will divert your attention from the negative thoughts.
Don't allow what people think and say affect your mind and mood.
Associate with people who bring something of value into your life. Avoid people who sap your energy and enthusiasm. If you can't avoid them, learn how stay detached when your are in their company.
Say positive things about yourself and about other people.
Compliment people when you feel they deserve it.
Have faith in yourself and in your abilities.
Try doing new things or old things in a new way. Doing things differently will help you be more creative and therefore more positive. Go to a different restaurant, eat different food, change the way you dress, start reading a new book or find a new hobby.
Read about people who overcame hardships and succeeded in life. This will help you think more positively.
Set goals no matter how impossible this might seem at the moment and keep yourself busy working on them.
Each goal accomplished, no matter how small it might be, will bring you more confidence, self-esteem and positive thinking.
At least once a day, think and try to come up with more ideas on how to think positively in various situations.
Be careful what mental images you let in into your mind. How you see yourself and your surroundings make a difference to your thinking. It is like watching a video. Eject the old video cassette or CD and insert a new and better one instead.
Analyze your behavior and attitude, and ask yourself why you are repeating the habits or attitudes that you dislike. There is no need to follow old patterns of behavior that you don't like or don't make you any good.

When you learn how to think positively, you gain the key to changing and improving your life.

It is easier to keep a positive frame of mind when things go well. It is tougher to do so when in the midst of problems, difficulties or obstacles. In such times you will need more effort, attention and patience. If you learn how to think positively when not under pressure, stress or strain, it will be easier to do so when things are tough.

Positive thinking will require willpower and lots of self discipline from you. I have a wonderful and easy to read ebook Willpower and Self Discipline. This ebook is a simple yet power guide to developing Willpower and Self Discipline. It's a training program, with powerful techniques and exercises, for developing willpower, self-discipline, assertiveness and inner strength. It will help you develop inner strength, and overcome laziness, procrastination, lack of decisiveness, and other negative habits.

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One Trick To A Happy Marriage

No matter what kind of problems couples face, the most common symptom we’ve noticed is the lack of time they have for each other. This basic but often overlooked aspect is what keeps people from having a happy marriage.

We usually hear from readers that their dates are months (or even years!) apart. Most of the couples in trouble don’t realize it’s been that long until we ask them about it.

The trouble with this mindset is that you’re endangering a perfectly happy marriage by letting all the other stuff (e.g. work, chores, etc.) come between you and your spouse. What about the reason why you got married in the first place?

It’s easy to forget such a fundamental thing when you allow yourselves to take each other for granted. Before you got married, you and your partner probably had lofty ideas of how you’d spend your days together.

Maybe you envisioned having your morning coffee, reading the newspaper and then heading out to the park to walk the dog with your kids. Whatever it is, we’ve all had grandiose visions of a happy marriage.

However, not all of us accounted for the mundane stuff like going to work, doing household chores and managing finances.

But don’t fall into the trap of making the everyday things an excuse to keep you apart as a couple. Marital bliss isn’t as elusive as some might think it is.

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As they say, if there’s a will, there’s a way.

Your parents, the local sitter, and a concerned relative or friend are all part of a network of people you can ask for help. You can leave the kids with them so you can free up your schedule for some badly-needed “we time”.

While a weekend at a luxury cruise or at an out-of-town cabin is great, not all of your precious moments have to be spent this way. Marital bliss is possible even with simple activities like doing a movie marathon at home in your pajamas or reminiscing your earlier days over a bottle of wine by the fireplace.

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The thing about marital bliss is that it isn’t directly proportional to the amount of time or money spent on your activities. You’ve put a lot of energy to make the other aspects of your lives work (e.g. work, parenthood, hobbies), so you can certainly do the same for your marriage.

Remember, these shared moments should be exclusively between you two, and not with other relatives or mutual friends. You need allow yourselves a chance to re-focus on each other – the most important component of your relationship.