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Depression is kicking my butt. I’m not keeping up with my responsibilities. I have no energy. My BH has noticed me moping around, and though I know I’m probably just experiencing an imbalance in neurochemistry, he’s taking it personally. He said to me that he thinks sharing his feelings with me is making me feel this way, and he wondered if he should stop. I begged him not to— said that it’s just generalized, clinical depression, that we’re both still healing, that his feelings are important to me and I want to hear them.

But I think he has stopped sharing them again anyway… I feel so far away from him. He has been working late most nights, and sometimes even after he gets home, he goes back into his home office to do more work. Then I have to put our daughter to bed by myself, and I drag my feet and it ends up being pretty late before I get into bed myself. I know that isn’t healthy for any of us, and our intimacy is suffering. My BH will be asleep and not responsive when I cuddle up to him, and we’re pretty much only having sex in the middle of the night if he can’t go back to sleep. He did it last night and neither of us even finished. This is causing me a lot of distress and anxiety today, making my mood even worse.

I keep thinking that if I can just get back into an exercise routine, eat well, drink plenty of water, take my meds consistently, and get enough sunlight and sleep, my mental health would improve. It just feels impossible to do all those things with depression and a distinct lack of focus. It’s a terrible cycle and I’m struggling to break it. I spoke to my IC about it, and she said I’m very insightful about myself, and she’s trying to come up with solutions to help, but coming up empty. I said "Me too."

But I have got to figure this out. I have to turn this around and put on a happy face for my BH, or else our relationship is heading down the toilet.

I know when we are in the thick of it, every single move we make or our spouse makes is so scrutinized by both people as signs it’s not going to work out.

I think when we starts making more progress is when we finally saw the need to focus more on ourselves and focus less on the outcome.

But that’s not going to be immediate, it’s a process to get there. In the meantime when you make lists when you are depressed it just adds to the inability to get moving because it’s overwhelming. My advice is to focus first in the things that you need to help your brain get some happy chemicals going. This time of year depending on where you live it’s hard to get vitamin D and that drop affects mood. Get some supplements. Also try to eat pineapple salmon, blueberries and other foods that aid dopamine.

Add a consistent but short bout of physical activity every day. Don’t worry if it’s is a couple of minutes to start. Just focus on being consistent with it. Dance for a song, go for a walk, do some jumping jacks or squats. And be patient about it. When you have two weeks of consistency try to up it to 10 minutes. No one does well to build a habit by trying to start it that habits highest form.

Another thing that helps is try to practice staying in the current moment as much as you can. When you are folding clothes focus on that. Try and be in your body. Motive your breath. Smell the laundry. In the present we can find peace.

And this is going to seem idiotic but gratitude practice has been scientifically noted as something that will help you rewire your brain in as little as 21 days. In the morning before you get out of bed take some deep breaths and then think about one h th ing you are grateful for. Really think about how it makes you feel? How good you are when you experience it.

And when you feel like whipping yourself for not being perfect try and replace that with patience and grace.

A book that helped me get out of the funk is the power of now by Eckhardt Tolle. It isn’t a read end to end in a few sittings. It’s a read a few pages and reflect and practice and read a little more. He totally helped me reengineer my coping strategies.

You can’t control all aspects of when your husband is Joe or not. Sometimes people need time to process. Once you get better at being patient with yourself and giving yourself grace you will be better at holding the space and elasticity when he needs cave time. When he comes out and shares, again practice being in the moment, resist the urge to form responses while he is talking. Just take it in.

This is more of a Slow everything down rather than speed everything up. You don’t see most people training for a marathon starting going as fast as they can on mile 1. The pacing helps not only with endurance but also in learning to be in the process comfortably.

You are both going to reach a lot of different stages. Not all of them do you need to panic. Just sta steady and you will find in time that things that would have tripped you out doesn’t even phase you anymore but you have to patiently grow that skill set.