PROBLEM SHARED with Professor Tanya Byron
This Summer is my silver wedding anniversary, but I’m in no mood to celebrate, as my marriage seems so empty. My husband is not happy in himself – he doesn’t enjoy his job but does nothing to find anything better. He is also drinking far too much. I suspe
TANYA SAYS
I want to begin by congratulating you on 25 years of marriage – that in itself is an achievement. But significant anniversaries can be a time when we do a stocktake on our life and sharpen our focus on the aspects that cause us to feel unhappy or discontented.
As with many couples, you find that you’ve become stuck in a rut, where your relationship is more functional than exciting. Unhealthy habits and behaviours can become entrenched. You say your husband’s not happy with his job and you’re concerned about his drinking; however, he refuses to talk to you, despite the fact that he may be depressed.
Alcohol is often used as a coping mechanism to self-medicate due to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. However, given that alcohol acts as a depressant, lowering levels of serotonin in the brain, it also perpetuates depression. So if your husband is drinking for this reason, it is likely to be making him feel worse.
Ask yourself: do you coexist rather than connect?
Given the marital dissatisfaction, plus your husband’s unhappiness with his job, it is likely that he has lost pleasure and purpose in his life. Depression leads to anhedonia (a lack of finding pleasure in anything) and a lack of motivation, focus and drive. It can suck us into a vortex of inertia and as it skews perception, we lose self-belief.
To manage depression, we need to challenge the patterns we find ourselves in. For your husband to address his drinking, he needs support to accept that it is problematic. Having a health check with his GP would flag up this issue and enable a conversation to begin. Partners of heavy drinkers can seek advice on al-anonuk.org.uk and adfam.org.uk. The Campaign Against Living Miserably, or CALM (thecalmzone.net), supports men who struggle with depression.
However, the ‘depression’ in your marriage also needs to be addressed. After 25 years, what do you feel you’ve lost? Do you share activities? Has your intimate relationship become predictable or non-existent? Do you chat with each other or is time dominated by the TV? Do you coexist rather than live and connect together?
When you raise the issue with your husband, he may feel judged and criticised. Given your despair at the state of your marriage, you too may have disengaged and joined him in feeling hopeless and helpless. Finding a way out of this is difficult, as depression perpetuates itself via negative rumination, low self-esteem and lack of motivation.
To support your husband’s mental health and also reinvigorate your marriage, I advise that you have a non-judgemental chat about your concerns. Try to broaden the perspective to some shared responsibility for neglecting your marriage – maybe turn to Relate for support (relate.org.uk). Look at ways in which you can see this anniversary as a time for fun and reflection – perhaps a trip away together – and the chance to start afresh, with greater care for and connection to each other.