Walking with a spouse who is struggling with or living with depression can be taxing on your marriage. We share our personal experiences and offer you a toolbox on how you can continue to grow in a healthy marriage through depression.
Walking with a spouse who is struggling with or living with depression can be taxing on your marriage. We share our personal experiences and offer you a toolbox on how you can continue to grow in a healthy marriage through depression.
Welcome to the Still Becoming One podcast.
Speaker 2:We are Brad and Kate and our more than 20 years of marriage. We've survived both dark times and experienced restoration.
Speaker 1:Now as a licensed marriage counselor and relationship coaches. We help couples to regain hope and joy.
Speaker 2:We invite you to journey with us, as we are still becoming one.
Speaker 1:Let's start the conversation. Hello everyone, welcome to Still Becoming One. Yes. We are excited to be back today. We're going to be continuing our series on mental health and marriage and talking about some of those things. It's been, man. It's been another busy week, I think.
Speaker 2:Yes, so busy that I would say time busy and emotionally it's just been taxing that we went on our date night last night while we stayed home, because sometimes we choose to do that because it's just nice, and we were both asleep by 9.30.
Speaker 1:You're not supposed to tell people that our date night ended up in us asleep by?
Speaker 2:9.30. We were both like and Brad was. He was like he does this thing to. What is that thing called that you do to suck out your brain so that you can sleep at night. That's what I call it. I call it a brain sucker. Yeah, I don't know that that's podcast ready yet.
Speaker 1:No, it is an electrical stimulation of parts of your brain that help you to fall asleep, to turn off all the stuff going on.
Speaker 2:You might get a lot of people wanting to get one of those, but it's been really helpful for Brad. So he puts it on like 20 minutes before we go to sleep and he was putting it on last night at like 9.10 andI said, are you really going to go to sleep right now? And he was like I'm just so tired and so he puts it on and then, like I ended up going to sleep before I was going to say yeah, who made it further?
Speaker 2:Well, I was reading my book and I was like oh my word, I just can't even get past like a paragraph. So I ended up going to sleep before he did. Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we were just tired. You know what?
Speaker 2:That's the week Sometimes that happens, but we were doing stuff before that we started our date night at like five, so it wasn't like we didn't spend time together, but anyways, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we've had a long week and and it's going to be an interesting week coming up. Kate is unfortunately staying home.
Speaker 2:And that sounds so bizarre.
Speaker 1:Well, it makes sense in the next part where I am actually going to the American Association of Christian Counselors by annual conference.
Speaker 2:Oh, by annual. It is every two years. It is every two years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually this is, I think, their first one in four, because the one two years ago got canceled.
Speaker 2:So thanks to COVID Yep.
Speaker 1:So I am going to that Nashville. It will be there the end of this week. If, hey, if any of you listeners out there are attending the conference, by any chance you know, send us a, send us an email that help. It still be coming one. Maybe we can meet up in the convention center and and would love to love to meet some listeners there.
Speaker 2:So if anybody's in Lancaster and is like I, should probably meet up with Kate, because she's all by herself.
Speaker 3:Well, that's three. To send me a no, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:I will have two teenagers that I am staying here with to make sure their week goes as best as possible. We like to travel together, but sometimes it doesn't end up working out that way. We've done too much traveling lately, so don't want to tax all of our helpers that stay with our kids when we're gone too much, especially since we're gone in the cruise in October.
Speaker 2:Yep, we have a marriage cruise that we're a part of in October and we're really looking forward to that in another month, that's going to be a fun escape with hot, holy humerus. But yeah, we're looking forward to that. It's going to be lots of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we really are. So, yeah, a lot going on for us and we hope that you all are doing well and continuing on your journey of still becoming one in your marriage. We thought this topic, man, it's so hard and you know, we've been really talking about how mental health impacts marriages, not just individuals and how you can continue to work on becoming one even when that happens, even when one or both may be dealing with things like anxiety, and today we're going to talk about depression.
Speaker 2:Like, like. First of all, I think it makes sense anything that impacts your spouse impacts you, and the likelihood of you getting through years and years of marriage which hopefully you're blessed with without both of you dealing with some of this at some point is just it's high, the chances are high, right, because Right.
Speaker 1:Well, especially as we go on, some of our topics, and for the continuing of this series, are dealing with stress dealing with grief you know, things that every one of us do experience. So we, you know you are correct that we all come into these places of some heaviness and knowing how to walk together in that versus a journey alone. It's really our goal.
Speaker 2:Well, but I think even I like, I like to normalize stuff and I think that even with depression and anxiety, perhaps you have never and will never have it at a clinical level. That's great, but every single one of us has had a situation where we're overly anxious and can't seem to calm down or a situation or life.
Speaker 2:Things are hard and we feel that pull of like I don't know what people will call me being melancholy or just like. You have a week where things just feel down. So it may not continue to the point where you need resources and extra help, but I think every single one of us can relate to some extent. Now that isn't a license for someone who struggled with depression and with like a major amount for someone to say, oh yeah, I've like been down for a week. That's not right. We don't want to minimize someone who struggled in a way that we haven't, but we also can sit with them and think, gosh, it was hard for a week.
Speaker 2:I can't even imagine what it's like that you've been doing this for years.
Speaker 1:That's really good and in fact I this is a question I get asked a lot is I just don't really understand what they're going through.
Speaker 1:I don't get why my husband or why my wife can't just change, can't just do more, fix it right, kind of thing. Yeah, and one of the things that I've tried to use as an example for somebody who has never experienced depression is think about when you had the flu or maybe COVID, and think about that day where you were like I'm starting to feel back to normal, but I am just totally depleted of energy, and that is actually a pretty decent kind of bodily feeling of what depression often is. I just have a total lack of energy. My body is still aching, like there is actual body pain from depression. Okay.
Speaker 1:You know, it just feels like doing too much, doing much of anything, is just absolutely exhausting. And what you know, if you had COVID, you would say well, just spend another day in bed, you'll be okay. Right, that feels like the right thing to do of just I just need to lay around because I don't have any energy whatsoever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good descriptor. I've never heard you say that before. I love how you save all this for on the podcast right here for the first time. Well, sometimes clients get these things All of your wisdom.
Speaker 1:So, but I think that it's important for us to try to generate a little empathy, because Absolutely from the outside. Mm-hmm. It is really easy to feel like your spouse is lazy versus depressed.
Speaker 2:Well, and I would think too, with my own tendency, my own story and how I've learned to sort of save myself, I would have a tendency to be like, okay, but can't you just do something? Not the expectation of can't you fix it all, can't you be back to normal, but can't you just get up and do something. Yeah, I think that would be my tendency to where I could be exacerbated with that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it. Let's just be honest. It can be irritating as the spouse to go. You're laying around and doing nothing like you know, which is often what it looks like from the outside. Sure, well, and probably, or you're sleeping a lot, or you're you know you're not sleeping a normal schedule. And why not? If you just slept more, you would be fine, or you know any of those kind of things. It can, just from the outside feel very manipulative.
Speaker 2:Well, and I'm sure more responsibility is falling on the person who's not struggling with depression at the moment, so like that can also add a layer of stress and who knows, if you have kids, like all of that is going to just add more to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and that's part of why one of the things that you see often in couples where somebody is dealing with depression isn't actually the depression. You see the arguments Because it's come out in. Somebody gets scared for the other person, somebody gets angry that they aren't doing a lot, that somebody just is pushing to try and get some change to happen and the other person is saying they can't. And they don't really understand that.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think you hit on a real important part there. It's really important, I would think, for the spouse that is coming alongside of their spouse who's struggling with depression to be able to identify what is under the anger or the frustration, because, as we talk about all the time, those are very surface level emotions that usually are covering up a more vulnerable emotion fear or thoughts, and I think a lot of times, fear is exactly what that person feels like. This isn't going to change. This is the way it's going to be forever. What do I do? I don't know how to help. I feel helpless, I feel frustrated. All of those are valid emotions and I think you being validated, and that's hard.
Speaker 2:That's a real fear that this could just continue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it certainly is. And look, maybe it's important to even start with how do I know if I am, or my spouse is, depressed versus stuck or versus just something else going on? And there is no like I can't give you a blood test, I can't, you know to go yep, yep, it's depression, right, but there is a group of symptoms together that if you see many of these symptoms in the same two week period for pretty much most of that time, then yes, it's depression. So that goes with pretty much a persistent feeling of sad or empty, feelings of hopelessness, feelings of irritability, frustration, even sometimes restlessness kind of feel, kind of there guilt, worthlessness, just that. That is generally pervasive for those at least two weeks. A loss of interest in things that they used to be interested in, their hobbies, the activities that they enjoyed doing, just kind of losing focus in that they don't engage in them anymore.
Speaker 2:kind of thing, gotcha.
Speaker 1:Significant decrease in energy, just feeling slowed down, trouble concentrating trouble, sleeping, oversleeping, that kind of thing Changes in appetite and that could go either direction. Either I can't eat anything or I'm overeating kind of thing, and then aches and pains, kind of things that my body is aching in, that kind of flu idea again. That absolutely can happen. And then, last but not least, is thoughts of death or suicide that get added in there.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think I've learned so much more about suicidal ideation, which I think is something that is important to mention too thoughts of just not wanting to be here anymore, like your life is not worth living, but you don't have any specific plans, or whatnot. But, I think that's something that's not talked about nearly as much and is worth mentioning, but if that is the general feeling, that is something that needs extra care and attention.
Speaker 1:Really, and it's maybe just a frightening symptom, but it is just another one of those symptoms of this is what normally happens in depression, and so it's not something we need to be scared of. It's something we need to pay attention to.
Speaker 1:Right right and see it for what it is of. Hey, there's something going on that has this person feeling pretty hopeless and we want to help that right and come alongside that. In fact, one of the things people who are depressed kind of talk about is almost a tunnel vision of it feels like there aren't any options, that nothing's gonna change, nothing's gonna get better. It just feels like very much, yeah, stuck, and that's sometimes where some of those suicidal thoughts come from is a sense of hopelessness. Now you can probably hear in that and should hear in that there's actually a lot of space that a spouse can help.
Speaker 1:Now it's scary and that's the biggest thing I see a lot of times is the spouse is actually scared.
Speaker 2:Sure, that's what I was saying earlier. Like there's fear, and your fear needs to be like, you need to be able to express it, and not necessarily to your spouse, although there's a place and a time for that but you need someone to walk along the side of you, because that's a lot to carry.
Speaker 1:It is a lot to carry and, yeah, I would absolutely agree that I don't think any spouse helping their spouse with depression should do it alone. Like it is where you may need to lean on family and friends of like I'm gonna need some help because I'm trying to help my husband or I'm trying to help my wife through some of this.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, for sure, and I know for us personally like, obviously, as a clinician you've dealt with this personally. We've had our own struggles with this and I know for me, when we were first married, you were definitely struggling with depression. I'm not sure how bad you would rate that. I maybe, in my naive young wife state, wasn't too worried about you, but maybe I should have been. It's an interesting conversation to have, but-.
Speaker 1:Over podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, yeah, we do that all the time here. But I do remember feeling like I did not know how to help because I could not relate at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and here's the reality In mine. If I look at those symptoms, yes, I was depressed. I certainly had the depression symptoms. There was some quote unquote reasons for it. There was some sources of it that I needed to address on top of that.
Speaker 2:Sure, which I did not know about either, which you didn't know about, right yeah?
Speaker 1:But yes, there was places where I felt very hopeless and very stuck and I know that kind of came out in me being pessimistic and totally lack of energy. That was a big heavy thing.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1:I remember this is one of those weird stories that sticks in my head. I remember being in that and we had gotten a piece of furniture from like an IKEA or something like that and I remember it sitting there for like a couple of days and I finally got myself off the couch to put the thing together and it took a while and it felt like it took all of my energy but it finally came together and I like sat down and on it and was like, okay, if I can do this, I can do one more thing.
Speaker 1:Right, and it actually was a start of me trying to change some of that.
Speaker 2:Hmm, I don't remember that. Was that in our apartment or in our?
Speaker 1:No, it was the swing that we got for our front porch in one of our houses, in our second apartment, our second apartment, oh, oh, oh, oh, gotcha, okay, yeah. So I just remember that as like one of those things that started me going okay, you know what, I can do something here yeah.
Speaker 1:So and I say that maybe hesitantly because I wouldn't put together you know putting IKEA furniture as a treatment for depression, but you know there are some places where this gets really hard and coming alongside this with a spouse is very difficult and that's why I wanna have the empathy for both the person going through it but also the spouse.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I know it feels hopeless for both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we weren't. We were not good communicators at that point, and so I think you are not good at communicating what was going on, not at all.
Speaker 2:I was not good at not just ignoring what I did see going on. There were definitely which comes from from our own families and our own stories. So I do remember when we had our first child, which was biological. For us since we have two adopted into biological but our first child came into our family was biological that was my first introduction to depression. Having postpartum depression, I had no idea whether I was going to experience it or not. Some women do, some women don't. Some women experience very mild, some women experience very severe. But it was definitely an eye-opener and I do feel like God used that time for me to be able to understand a little bit better of what you were going through. Yeah, you were in somewhat of a better space then.
Speaker 1:I guess I was. I was in a better space, there was still.
Speaker 2:there was still things I did not know, as you guys have listened to earlier of our podcast. I didn't know about the pornography yet and I didn't know about how, how hard that struggle had been for you. But I did experience it and I would say it was a very short time but it was very like caught me off guard. It doesn't help with postpartum that you're exhausted anyways.
Speaker 1:No, and that's part of it, but. I actually remember you. I think you were kind of getting through some of the postpartum that you felt and you actually came to me and said if this is how you felt before, I can kind of understand it a little bit differently now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember saying that to you. I mean, it didn't help that I had a therapist husband. Probably actually everybody would be excited about this aspect. But I remember crying on the sofa and being like I don't even know what I'm crying and we haven't talked about this much on the podcast. But I'm not a crier. It comes from my story. It's just not an easy expression of emotion for me, which I've done a lot of trying to understand, but anyways, I'm crying my eyes out. So that's already bizarre. I'm just feeling like just all kinds of things inside of me and I'm like this is awful. I have no idea why I'm crying. And my therapist husband looks at me and says it's okay, it's normal. And I looked at him and I said it doesn't feel normal. And I'm sitting there thinking probably every wife wants to hear it's okay, it's normal. And yet I'm sitting there and I'm like nope not what I wanna hear, not at all.
Speaker 2:I still missed it and he were destined to miss it anyways. But probably most spouses would have run for the hills. But we made it through. But it was tough. It was tough and I could see and also be able to sort of empathize with what a young mom must feel like if that goes on for a really long time. That's really scary. You have a little one depending on you needing you for everything.
Speaker 1:It's tough, it's tough it really is and I think through both of some of our experiences of depression, we wanna say has the spouse, the best thing that you can do is really going. How do I come alongside?
Speaker 2:you.
Speaker 1:How do I see this as a legitimate, honest thing that is going on for them and that's hard right, because everything in you this is very internal right.
Speaker 1:So you see somebody, what maybe looks like being lazy, didn't get anything done today just sitting around just staring at their phone and it is very easy to get frustrated and upset and irritated at those behaviors. But if you can shift that, especially if you know that, hey, there's actually a reason for this, that they are experiencing depression, seeing it as real kind of, I think, allows you to shift and go. Okay, how do I help? What do you need? Do you need a shoulder to cry on? Do you need me to encourage you? Do you need to go on a walk together? Do you?
Speaker 1:need me to do some things with you. There's a lot of different things you can do if you want to come alongside somebody. It's just really hard not to take out that I'm frustrated with you, and more even pushing them than encouraging them.
Speaker 2:Well, I also think, like your question is a great one how can I come alongside of you? But I think the challenge is that question really can only be answered by someone who is aware of their own story. Because I think about me being a young mom and you probably did ask that. But if I know my personality and now I know my story and what's at play for me, I probably said nothing. I probably said there was nothing you could do, because I have kind of adopted through my own story the thought of nope, I gotta do it myself, like I shouldn't lean on anyone else, I shouldn't put this burden on anyone else. I need to prove that I can do it myself. My point in saying that is asking your spouse how you can come alongside them. It's a great question and we should do it. It's gonna take a spouse who's done some work to be able to identify what they actually need and be able to voice it. I probably knew I needed you to help.
Speaker 1:But you couldn't voice it.
Speaker 2:But I couldn't. It's all locked up inside you until you've learned what's at stake and why, right? So I probably thought I just want you to take Kent he would have been our oldest more. Take the baby more, but I never would have said it. Yeah. And so it's just to like encourage you to learn more of your own stuff, cause you can't make your spouse do it.
Speaker 2:But if each of you are able to learn some of that, I will tell you. Now when Brad says what can I do to help you? This is just in general. I still fight that you need to do it yourself, and sometimes, if I'm honest, that side wins. Yep, but more often than not I'm able to at least have a conversation with Brad about what would be helpful if I don't know, or whereas before I would have just pushed it away.
Speaker 1:And I think this leads to a really great thing, cause some people are going. Hey, I've asked how can I help? I've asked that a million times. All they say is nothing, I don't need anything. Now what I think there is a place where, when you feel in that hard spot, you need to push for getting help versus change.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Right and push them to go. Hey, it seems like you might be stuck. I think it might be time that we look at help, that we look at getting you somebody to talk to, that we look at talking to your doctor like trying to get some options to say I don't know what to do either, let's get some help.
Speaker 2:Do you and I'm sure you probably get this question. I think sometimes people are resistant to one or both of those for lots of different reasons to talk to your doctor cause that's the potential of potentially thinking about medications and then talking to a therapist. Someone who is qualified to handle these types of things Like that has its own challenges. Do you encourage people to always do both?
Speaker 1:Oh man, so tough question. I do encourage people to do both often. Here's my default. I think sometimes medication can be helpful and I don't have a problem with anybody going. Hey, I really think I need some medication to help this situation or a long term thing. Fine, I think on top of that, they should be talking to somebody to try to help get some strategies to you know in the present, like what do I do tomorrow? You know very much in the future and present oriented, but also have some strategies to help them understand why they're stuck right now, what's coming up for them that is making them feel like a failure or whatever the thoughts are. Where is that and how do we help unwind some of those negative thinking patterns?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So I think it's a both and some people you know just start with the counseling side and talking to somebody. I think that that can be really helpful. There are doctors out there who will just prescribe you anti-depressants and not encourage you to go talk to anybody. I'm not sure that's going to be nearly as helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like, yeah, if you go that route and you try that, like it's always, it's always good to talk to someone, right? It's like why not? I understand the why nots actually, like I don't want to, there's I don't know that, I want to get into that, but the good thing is you get to help craft what that looks like when you talk to someone right, you get to say, nope, I'm not ready to go there yet if something feels too deep or too whatever.
Speaker 2:But being able to talk about even just what's going on in your life currently, that's not a bad, it's a. It's a good thing. So just trying to sort of frame those differently. But I realize historically both of those things have not been looked at well specifically in the Christian community or and or the church.
Speaker 1:And especially around medication. There's such as bias around things there is.
Speaker 2:But honestly, therapists have only like that has come along faster in the church and in the Christian community. But even that has roots.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, you know it. There's many people say if you are, if you're depressed, you just need to pray harder, which, look, that is not what God's answer is. So we'll get into that in a minute. But here's the problem that I have. You know, if you recognize that you had high blood pressure, your doctor might tell you to go exercise.
Speaker 1:They might tell you to watch your diet probably and they might prescribe you some medication to help, and I don't think anyone is going to go. Oh no, no, no, I don't want to deal with that medication. It's evil. But for some reason, because this deals with our mental health instead of our physical health, we throw in all these spiritual things that say we should just pray harder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that I mean. Prayer is great it's. You're never going to hear us saying you shouldn't.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:But to insinuate that you're somehow not praying hard enough, long enough, correct enough to make the depression go away, that's just not, not biblical, I mean. Yeah, that's just.
Speaker 1:No, it's, it's not, and I can actually show you that because we're. There's actually depression in the Bible. I love this one. There's several different people that you can say are depressed. There's several different passages that point to it. One of my favorites to point out is Psalm 22, the Psalm of David, where he says things like I am a worm, not a man scorned and despised by all. Everyone who sees me mocks me. And he goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2:He says he's a teenager.
Speaker 1:My life is like water poured out. My bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax melting in within me. The sun has dried me up like sun baked clay. You laid me in the dust and left me for dead.
Speaker 2:Doesn't he sound like a teenager?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a depressed teenager, Right Well and that's.
Speaker 2:That's a real thing too. But like teenagers go to like the extreme when they tell you something. It's not like I'm. I'm slightly dry, I'm parched and this is, this is.
Speaker 1:You know, david, crying out of like this is pointless. You know, I am just done. You might as well just kill me. Right Like this is. This is David practically suicidal, talking about death, talking about just feeling like he has no purpose. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And look, I think the most important thing here is to recognize one we're not alone, that that just because we feel like this doesn't mean that we aren't still God's child, that we aren't still special, that we aren't still loved. All of that's really important, sure, but I think the most important thing that we need to remember is actually the answer that David got. We actually know this answer. You probably know it very well. We don't necessarily understand it, because it comes in the form of the very next chapter that David then starts saying the Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows, he leads me beside peaceful streams, he renews my strength.
Speaker 1:And really, the answer to that deep depression is figuring out what holy rest looks like. It's not doing more, it's not kicking your butt so that you have to get, you know, do all the things. It really is trying to figure out. How do I, how do I get some healthy holy rest? And that is not an easy thing to do. But I say that because I think it's so important to remind ourselves that you know, and that our spouse doesn't need to do more. They don't just need to get up off the sofa it may be. What does it look like to rest in green meadows right now? What do we do to bring you some health in this rest?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great perspective. I want to caution that it doesn't necessarily mean it fixes everything. Not at all but understanding that God gets it Right. He got it with David, he gets it with us and I do not think he is surprised nor disappointed when we struggle like this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think that's so important to say, you know, and that doesn't mean that our spouse is a disappointment either, right?
Speaker 2:Either one the one trying to assist and walk alongside of and the one struggling Correct.
Speaker 1:Correct. So I think, coming together and recognizing that and being able to take care of each other. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And continuing to try. Yeah, one of the important things I say is just start to recognize that it is a problem, right? This isn't just them being lazy, this is real Mm-hmm. And walk alongside them to get help when they're like I don't want to get a counselor, I'm just too tired to get a counselor. See if you can sit down with them and help, I don't want to go by myself. Okay, let's try to do that together. You know, there are many things that you can do to to walk alongside them and say I'm here, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:I want to.
Speaker 1:I want to help.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then when the counselor starts giving them strategies and plans, right you may go. How do you want me to help you with those Mm-hmm? Right that you can go alongside and help them towards this path. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That would be the biggest thing I would tell you, as you're working on still becoming one through that heaviness of depression.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So I hope that helps, I hope that's something that is encouraging and positive on your journey, and I hope that you will join us as we continue this series and talking about some other ways that we can help each other through some of the difficult times of life. Yeah. But that's all for this week, on Still Becoming One. Until next time, I'm Brad Aldrich.
Speaker 2:And I'm Kate Aldrich. Be kind and take care of each other.
Speaker 1:Still Becoming One is a production of Aldrich Ministries. For more information about Brad and Kate's coaching ministry courses and speaking opportunities, you can find us at aldrichministriescom For podcast show notes and links to resources in all of our social media. Be sure to visit us at stillbecomingonecom and don't forget to like this episode wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to follow us to continue your journey on Still Becoming One.