What do we do as a couple when one of us is clinically depressed

In Sickness and in Health : Coping with Your Spouse 's Depression

Fairy tales often end with the two couples in love living blissfully together - regardless of everything the wicked witch had orchestrated to deny them any happiness . But in real life , after a couple 's marriage , is it really happier ever after

Take the case of Jenny (not her real name , a woman who suffered from a dis when in the transition between depression and hypomania made an effort to be warm and friendly , but at best the impression she created was

of mild remoteness . After seven years of marriage to her husband Dan , she suspected that her husband was having an affair with another woman . She did not want to lose her family , so she did not apprehend him . Anyway , Jenny rationalized that Dan is a good father and husband Then unknown to her , changes within her began to set in . She began to speak a bit rapidly , as if she were afraid of not having enough time to get out her thoughts , and exhibited the typical hypomanic tendency (found in many normals as well ) to jump from thought to thought without bothering with all the logical connections and to ignore time frame in narrating events . She is usually tense and irritable . She is unable to enjoy herself , as her peace of mind was continually threatened by an unruly conscience and by obsessive worry , both of which prompted her to annoy her friends by repetitively posing such difficult-to-answer questions as "Will my marriage work out " and her therapist by repetitively asking whether this was or was not the right time to stop treatment . It turned out that all Jenny 's suspicion was not true and Dan was really concerned about her wife 's snowballing depression

Another case of a husband , John (not his real name . He is a therapy patient who vicariously took in the depression of his wife , Cassandra Theirs was a happy marriage , until their only son has been hit by a car and died at the age of eight . Cassandra was blaming herself of the unfortunate accident that their child met . She refused to eat , became irritable and was always caught crying . John has been much concerned about his wife 's condition . He is afraid that he himself is now depressed about losing his wife too

It is fact that in Western culture , marriage seems to provide a protective effect for men but is a stressor for women . Contrary to popular opinion , studies tend to show that married women experience more depression than do single women . The National Mental Health Association reports that depression is more common among women who stay home full-time with their small children than among women in the general population (Ainsworth , 2000 ,

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Depression of a spouse is crucial in the married life of a couple . When the couple approaches raising a child as a joint project in which each parent needs to bond with the child and play a crucial...