When Your Spouse Is Depressed

What can you do when you're spouse is depressed? Depression is debilitating for an individual who suffers with it, but it is also debilitating for a marriage. When one partner suffers through their darkness in isolation, too fearful or ashamed to share that pain with the other partner, the result is distance, disconnection, and conflict. Partners can turn against each other because the depressed person feels alone and the partner is frustrated. Depression can look like laziness or indifference. When the depressed partner is told to snap out of it, the response is deeper depression and withdrawal.

Here are some suggestions for working together to battle depression in your marriage:

When Your Spouse Is Depressed, You Can Educate Yourselves About Depression

Your partner is not just being difficult. He or she is not “weak.” Depression is real and it is common. It’s estimated that fifteen percent of adults in America will experience depression at some point in their life. In an average year, 16.2 million adults in the US, nearly seven percent of the population, will experience depression. Women have twice as much probability of experiencing depression than men. There are many causes of depression: genetics, stress, grief, hormones, thyroid problems, even various medications.

Avoid Blaming And Shaming

There is no “bad guy” here. Your partner does not want to be depressed, however because he or she is depressed, there is a lot of shame over it. In depression, a person turns inward and their hurt and anger is turned toward themselves. Blaming or shaming them for being depressed only reinforces those dark feelings they already feel.

Do Couples Therapy

Emotionally Focused Therapy, the type of therapy we do at SoulCare Counseling, is proven to be effective in treating disorders like anxiety and depression. Ninety percent of those who complete EFT experience significant change. Your EFT therapist will help you see your negative interactional patterns that deepen the depression and drive you further apart. You will learn to share your needs and emotions in a way that your partner will receive, and as you do a new relational bond will form that will alleviate the depression.

Find Non-Judgmental Ways To Support Yourself And Your Partner

Your depressed partner needs your support, not your judgment. When he or she risks sharing with you, hearing criticism or blame is like gasoline on a fire. It makes the depression worse. He or she needs you to be a safe person who will give support and help find a way out of the darkness. Understanding that it is the depression, and not partner, that is the problem, it becomes easier to be patient, supportive, and non-judgmental.

Pray

Philippians 4:6-7 in the New Living Translation says, “Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything.” Not just the really big things, but everything. If it matters to you, it matters to God. Pray about your partner’s depression and your feelings about it. Ask God to help you to see your partner as God sees him or her. Pray for patience. Pray for grace to show love and kindness no matter what.

If you are the depressed partner, pray for God to give your doctor and counselor wisdom to help you discover the roots of your depression and the best way to treat it. Pray for your partner, thanking God, for him or her. Practice the presence of God by reading passages like Psalm 23, 34, 40, 143 and pray them back to God.

Take Medication When Indicated

The gold standard of treatment for depression is medication and talk therapy. At SoulCare, we do talk therapy, but first we always recommend that clients struggling with anxiety and depression see a physician or psychiatrist and have a checkup. If your depression is caused by a chemical imbalance or hormones, you need antidepressant medication. Antidepressants boost your serotonin and norepinephrine levels, which get depleted during depression.

Work Toward Mutual Understanding

Try to understand what your partner is feeling. Seek to connect on an emotional level, especially on those dark days when depression is present. Stay tuned in to what’s going on with one another. If you will, that cocoon of understanding and support will become armor that enables you to walk through the minefield of depression together.

When You Don’t Understand, Validate

“Validate” means “give value to.” Even when you don’t completely understand your partner’s feelings, you can still give value to them. His or her sadness, heaviness, or fear may make you feel angry because you haven’t done anything to cause those feelings. However, your anger and his or her sadness can exist in the same room as long as you value one another’s feelings and don’t try to reason the other out of them.

Treasure The Good Times

No couple lives happily ever after. There are good days and bad days. But the good days make you more resilient in the bad days. Or to say it in counselor-speak, positive experiences create resilience for negative experiences. Try to do something every day that gives you joy.

Let Us Help You

Dealing with depression as a couple isn’t easy, but you can do it. And I and our counselors at SoulCare are here to give you the help and support you need. I urge you to read about depression therapy, and then contact us to schedule a free thirty-minute consultation.