Dearest,

Well here we are again. Things have been much, much better - the spells of calm and peace have grown so long that I often find myself thinking that it will be this way forever, that things couldn't possibly have been that bad.

Except every now and then the dark clouds gather, without warning (or at least without my picking up on the signs). I can see the darkness descend and you begin to go through the familiar cycle, and I feel my old reactions of astonishment, hurt, anger and, now, realization at what is behind it all.

I've noticed, though, that you are far more prone to fall into this darkness straight after a particularly joyous time. If we have sex, for example, the next day I am almost guaranteed storm clouds. It may be just as well that we hardly ever do.

This weekend was particularly joyous, I saw it as the culmination of a long, hard road that was finally getting easier. One and Two have discovered how to play together, they are no longer utterly dependent on us 24 hours a day, we were able to talk, walk, relax.

What a shock it was to come home to your darkness today.

Dearest,

Knowing what's wrong doesn't make it any easier to live with you sometimes. Because sometimes I forget. Things have been better, but sometimes I forget that "better" is not the same thing as "well." And when I forget, I am blindsided by your anger, which seems to come from nowhere, by your aggression, which seems disproportionate, by your distance, which seems sudden and inexplicable.

We had a very good week last week. Very good. So good, in fact, that I deluded myself into thinking that all was well, forever. On Friday a friend came to visit. You made us sandwiches. My friend was amazed. I was amazed. And proud. And deliriously happy. Then, suddenly, on Sunday morning, your mood changed completely. You were short-tempered, difficult, angry. Nothing I did was right. Nothing I said went uncommented. But by evening you had mellowed, and I thought " whew, what a relief, it was just a flash in the pan."

But no. I should know better. It was merely a flash of things to come. Today you finally made me cry again. Correction: today I finally let you make me cry again. I didn't let you see it. I know that much now - I would not have gotten the response I wanted and, in your current dark state, would have made your own anger escalate. So I left, and went to our room, and gave myself exactly three minutes to let it out, and then carried on. I avoided you until I had to leave, and then I kissed you goodbye. Because I love you. Because I am beginning to learn how to manage this.

The trick is to not respond logically to your illogic. And, love, today you were so illogical that I'm surprised I let myself be hurt. At least I had the sense to leave before you saw me crying.

One thing about depression (and I know this happened to me too when I was in its throes) is how it distorts nut just current perception but memory. In what you said to me you had no memory of the blissful week we had together. And you had erased enormous swathes of time to bring up an argument we had well over a month ago, which was since resolved, with much water under the bridge after. It was bizarre. I looked at you, and listened to you, and felt very Twilight-zonish. You were speaking but the way you were saying things and drawing conclusions made absolutely no sense. That's when I realized that your dark clouds were back, and that you are not cured. That this is not over, not by a long chalk. That my best hope is to get you to a doctor, but that I have to work on getting you to that receptive state again. Or waiting until you get there.

This is hard. I am so lonely. I need a husband. The problem is, love, I don't want anybody else but you. But man am I lonely.

Dearest,

I got home from class, late at night. It was cold, the first snowfall of the year.

I opened the door - all was quiet - you had put the babies to bed. There was only one light on, the soft kitchen light, and the door half open. And on the table, in front of my chair, a steaming cup of hot chocolate and a waffle with honey (my favorite), still warm.

"How did you know I'd be arriving just now?" I asked, as you emerged grinning from our room. "I timed it, " you said. "I figured you'd be freezing. I thought about heating you some soup but this was cozier."

I love you.

Dearest,

We’ve had a good few days, haven’t we? You do things, love, that melt my bones. Every night I leave out a pink hanger and a blue hanger, with the kid’s clothes to wear the next day. I find that it saves time for the next morning, and when you are the one that has to start them out it makes things easier for you.

Last night I took One in their room to get him ready for bed, and saw that you had hung their PJ’s on their hangers after undressing them that morning. That you, who piled his clothes in teetering towers in our room, would do that…and they were perfectly hung, all the zips and buttons done. It is small things like that, where you show your care and attention, that make me adore you.

I love the way you love your children. You talk to both of them as if they were your peers, but with infinite patience and sweetness. You smile at them and they smile back at you, delighted.


Things have been very good since Monday. The change in our dynamic since I thought about MD has been fundamental. I no longer react to your barbs with pained expressions or anger, and you seem to regret them the moment they come out. You are gentler with me, like you were before. I don’t know how long it’ll last – having dealt with depression much of my adult life I know that it sneaks up on you unawares, that the clouds gather suddenly and completely. But now I think I know how to counter it. For the first time in many, many months – I’d even say years, I feel like I have some power over the situation. Not over you – I don’t even want that – but I have power to do something to help us.

I made you one of your favorite foods last night, without making a big deal about it. You were so happy! I’ve worked out a new work schedule that lets you get more sleep at night and more work done during the day, and you are so much happier. Your triggers are stress about work and your dissertation, and anything I can do to make things easier for you there helps. I’m beginning to realize that you need help in different ways than I do. Where I am ecstatic if I get to take a nap in the afternoon or watch a movie, for you peace of mind equals finishing a paper, running a model. So telling you to take a break and lighten up doesn’t help at all, but only adds to your stress. Making sure you have time, and hot tea to drink, and a snack now and then, and uninterrupted time, even if it’s just an hour – THAT helps.

I feel like a fool that it took me so long to see it. I love you so.

Dearest,

Now that I think I know what you're dealing with it makes dealing with you a little easier, although living with you is just a little harder. Although I understand your aggression, it's still hard to come home, or to wake up to, a non-stop barrage of accusation over all manner of things, great and small. Bedore I thought about male depression (MD) I would immediately snap back, and feel terribly hurt. Now I don't respond, but when occasionally I ask you to please stop it (because it gets tiring, love) you respond that you aren't accusing me of anything. If I were out to attack you rather than help you I might tape what you say, just to show you. But I understand that in your present state that's just not the smartest approach. What is happening in your head is not about reality but as perception, rather, what you perceive as reality. Everything is going to be distorted through the lens of MD, so there's really no point.

What I have thought might help get you to a place where maybe you'll recognize that there's a problem is helping with basic remedies that will make you feel a little better. So I've insisted that you take every opportunity to exercise, even if it costs me hours in productivity. Yesterday you were gone from 10.30 to 3.30, on a biking trip with your buddies, and you came home exhausted and happy. You told me you'd take an hour-long nap and then take over with the kids but I let you sleep for as long as you wanted (you woke up three hours later), because I fugured lack of sleep wasn't helping you any.

And later in the evening I asked you if there were any bike rides you could sign up for today and you said there were but if you went you'd be gone all afternoon and I said that was fine. So today you will be gone from noon to about 4.30. And that's fine. It will do you good.

Yesterday evening you were charming, happy, you couldn't stop talking and telling me about things that you'd been thinking, things you were interested in. Positive things, interesting things. But then you didn't come to bed with me. Once again you told me at 10 pm you'd be "right over" and you hadn't come by the time I fell asleep at 11.30 pm.
And this morning you woke in an awful mood - we hadn't been awake for more than twenty minutes when you'd already berated me over four separate things, from hair gel to the location of the remote (which you put away last night but which apparently I hid from you later!), to the top of one of the babies's dozen or so bottles, etc. I kept quiet but I forgot about MD so I felt very hurt and surprised.

And now I've remembered. So I know why you are being adorable to the babies and testy with me. Frankly, if you are going to be an ogre to some and adorable to others I'm fine with your being an occasional ogre to me as long as you continue to be lovely to them.

Knowing that you are going through this makes it easier...not to tolerate it, because I won't, but to understand it, and to respond (or not respond).
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Oh God. You've just come in - I am at the computer, have an hour to work after I finish this post - and gone at me again. You called me a liar. In angry tones, you showed me a receipt: "You are a liar! Don't lie to me! You told me Maggie (a friend I went to T*arget with last week) bought this sanitizer ($4, dearest) and YOU did! You are a LIAR!)"
"She DID buy it," I replied.
"You did!"
"She gave me the cash so we wouldn't go through the register twice."

And without a word you threw the receipt on my desk and stomped out.
I don't lie to you dearest. And that you think I would, after 15 years together, after everything we've been through, with as united as we have been...And even if I had (I didn't!!!) your anger was way out of proportion with whatever it was.
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Oh God. You just came back in AGAIN.
To tell me, in a sweet and utterly loving tone of voice that you'd found the remote.
And again in the most loving tone of voice that you wanted me to talk to you about my work, about how my dissertation is going.
And funnily enough it was that loving tone that made me lose it. Or, rather, once again, what I can't seem to handle (yet) are the swift changes in mood, from exasperated and angry to adoring.
I said OK, that we'd talk, but that now I just have an hour to work.
"But it's part of your work," you said. "It's me trying to help you!"
I was crying "I know, darling, and I am trying to help YOU, but you don't always make it easy."
And without a word, you left.
I wish I hadn't cried. It took me by surprise too.

Dearest,

There's a blog I read fairly frequently, it has great parenting advice written by a woman called Moxie. Her advice to parents is usually equal measures of common sense and kindness. Recently, however, some of her readers took her to task for not answering one of her questioners kindly enough. I agree with Moxie that a tough-love approach was needed, and that is exactly what she did.
But that's not the point I am trying to make here.

If you read further down on the comments on that controversial post and its responses, there is a comment from a woman called Hedra, who does not have a blog, but should, or should consider co-authoring with Moxie. She wrote, in response to one of Moxie's critics: "I think everyone is entitled to have a bad day. Moxie's human. If it sounds uncharacteristic, trust that."

I've been mulling that over ever since. In my case, I am ready to excuse uncharacteristic behavior in my friends because I know them, and know that something must be going on that makes them act that way. And, sure enough, they all return to their usual behavior, soon enough. But the night before last, as you finally lay sleeping by my side after hours of non-stop anxiety and thinly-veiled aggression, I had (I think) an epiphany. Why haven't I been willing to do the same for you? Why is it that I have taken this behavior, which is very uncharacteristic of the grace and gentleness you have shown fro over a decade, as indicative of your turning into a jerk, or coping badly with what life has thrown at us?

Why didn't I give you the same benefit of the doubt that I would give my friends and, indeed, mere acquaintances? It was at that point that I began to think of your behavior over the past few months, since Two's birth, as highly uncharacteristic. I also reflected that the cyclical nature of your behavior and reactions might have a very different origin. What if it was depression? But you didn't seem sad. But what if male depression manifested itself differently? I googled male depression and, sure enough, the symptoms are different than for women, and they fit you to a T. Agression, need to cotrol everything, lack of interest in sex or usual hobbies, all things that are as far from the real you as can be.

Suddenly I began to think of you without resentment but with compassion and even admiration. If THIS is what has been going on with you, my love, then you have done an incredible job of forging ahead. I have been depressed and gotten treatment for it, while you have been keeping your head above water all by yourself. That is why I made you breakfast again, instead of letting you eat whatever whenever. That is why although you were incredibly rude to me last night (as you are almost every day) I still hugged you once you were asleep. And you seem to respond to that, to love and care. Which is yet another indication of what is going on.

Now if only I could find a way to get you to see a doctor.

Dearest,

I think you may be suffering from depression. You are angrier than usual (you never used to be angry). You also seem constantly anxious. It's not that we don't have things to worry about - we do. But you seem to spin out of control with worry. Last night you kept us both up until 1 am with a catalog of problems, big and small, which just spilled and spilled and spilled out of you. They ranged from money issues to the way I organized my desk to soap to sound.

I wish I could find a way to convince you to see a doctor, to get help. I've tried telling you but you resist the idea absolutely. For you, depression is about being sad. You are not sad. You are worried because of all of these problems. Dearest, the problems exist but they are not insurmountable, and they are not equally huge or pressing. You have stopped enjoying life, have stopped enjoying the daily rituals, have stopped enjoying me, your children and yourself.

I love you. I want to help you. I just can't figure out how. I want to help you for yourself, because I love you, but I also want to help you for our family. I tense up the minute you speak to me because I know you will berate me for something. I hate it that you do it in front of the children. I've asked you to change your tone but you feel whatever it is you need to say justifies the tone, no matter who is watching. You are locked in your own world and we can't reach you like we could. And you can't see it. You feel alone, probably put upon, but you are not my dearest, you are not.

How am I going to help you?