Archive for the ‘Marriage & Divorce’ Category
Engaged and struggling with depression. can’t do anything about it?

So here’s the background -
I was diagnosed with clinical depression several years ago and took medication for it. This seemed to help, but I always felt depent on the meds. I met a wonderful girl who I fell in love with and she fell in love with me despite my shortcomings. At the time I was taking my medication and doing fairly well.
Despite her taking contraceptives she ended up getting pregnant and we now have a beautiful little girl together!
Unfortunately our relationship has gotten worse in the past few months. I know a lot of the causes for this, but I don’t have a lot of solutions. Here’s where I’m stuck and need help -
1. Depression - I told her eventually that I was taking the medication that I was and how I felt dependent on them due to the harsh withdrawl that I would go through if I forgot to take them. She supported me in getting off of them so that I wouldn’t feel like I had this monkey on my back…. problem is now I am feeling depressed again and don’t know how to deal with it. I’ve sought counciling prior to taking the medication, but I can no longer afford it. I don’t want to take more medication because a) I simply don’t want to depend on it and b) my lady feels that this is a sign of weakness… how can I take them when I know she will look down on me for it?
2. I’m engaged… this isn’t so much as the problem itself, but what is a problem is the fact that she feels like I only asked her to marry me because of the baby. While it is true that the baby jump-started my timeline, I would not have asked her if I did not want to be with her for the rest of my life. Unfortunately no amount of telling her this will convince her - she feels like she ruined my life and is feeling guilty about this and resents me for just wanting to get married for the baby and not her… My philosophy is: Life happens the way its going to happen. I don’t regret anything that happened, and I really want to marry her simply because… well… I love her that much.
These two problems have added together to make a powerful problem - I’m depressed and because of this I am pushing her away… not because I don’t want to be with her, but because I feel this way I end up focusing selfishly on myself and I end up treating her in ways that she doesn’t deserve to be treated and she already feels like she is hurting me just by staying with me and so it seems that at times she almost wants me to leave or to leave herself just so that she can spare me that fate.
All I know is that I will do anything, absolutely anything to be with her. We have our wedding set for late june and I know she wants to marry me because she is so excited about planning it.
What can I do to feel better about myself and focus on her more, and how can I make her see that I don’t hold any resentment about my life against her… that in fact I love my life more now that I have her and our baby?