Hi Gail,
Thanks for your interest in my story. I do believe my husband has depression but I also believe he has always dealt with it through drinking and thus has made it worse. He started drinking his senior year in high school... right about the time adolescents are dealing with life changes and emotional issues. That was eight years ago, meaning all through his four years at college and the first four years of our marriage he has been drinking. It has essentially stunted his emotional growth as he has just been escaping from all feelings. I convinced him to go on antidepressants a year after we were married but it really only supplemented his drinking so that he could go to school during the day and drink at night. He opted to stop after being on them 2 years and I didn't see a change after he stopped. Anyhow, in the end the question for me was do I want to go through life as his psychiatrist and counselor? For four years I have tried to "fix" him and help him learn to have a happy and fulfilling life. It has taken all the joy out of my life and has not wanted these things for himself so he has not acheived them. I finally got tired of trying so hard to help him with no results other than feeling I was sacrificing my own life. I was really done trying when I told him I want a divorce less than two weeks ago. I was 90 percent sure our marriage was over because I had been doing all the work and I wasn't willing to do anymore. Amazingly, my not willing to work on him anymore seems to have been what he needed. He has grown more in the past week than he has in the 4 years I have been with him. He knows I will not sacrifice another day of my life in a relationship that does not make me happy and so he is trying to make me happy to save our relationship. Meanwhile, he has been thinking about what he wants from his life. Now I am 90 percent sure our marriage will last... just because of his changes this last week. Anyhow, that was a long answer to your question about whether he is depressed. The short answer is yes and that is why I stayed with him for four years, but now I don't see it as an excuse because he needs to try to get help whether its for his drinking, his depression, or both... HE needs to do it.