I dread old age with my husband
DEAR BEL,
I THINK I have been depressed for many, many years, but have somehow managed to surmount it and keep going by working hard and being involved with people.
Now, however, I feel broken and defeated. I’m 70 and unhappily married. I have no siblings or family, one daughter and three grandchildren I love dearly. My marriage was a mistake from the start. My husband seems incapable of emotion, so we have never had a connection. I found that even harder than the lack of sex — we haven’t shared a bedroom for 30 years.
He’s not intentionally unkind, but appears to be locked in an emotional desert with no empathy or self-awareness. I have tried so many ways to get through to him, including wondering if he is autistic, but he doesn’t appear to fit the criteria as he is very sociable.
He does nothing at home — I’m a drudge. I can’t contemplate a move, as I need space to escape to. Living in close quarters would be insufferable. I dread growing old with him.
As an only child, my lovely daughter became my world. Two years ago she told me they were going abroad for her husband’s job, but just for two years. Now it seems they intend to stay longer.
I’ve missed so much of my grandchildren’s development and do not want to go on living. I feel abandoned and know solutions can rest only with me, but I’ve run out of them.
CHRISTINA
Your uncut email gave many details I’ve omitted — and left me feeling terribly sad as well as rather helpless. I think there are many marriages like yours, where one person feels intolerably trapped and can see no way out. In such circumstances the advice I might give — going for couple counselling — is pointless. How could you get a man like that to agree when he sees nothing wrong?
All the counselling you have had in the past served only to convince you this marriage is a prison and you are doomed to remain incarcerated.
The first response to your story is that you should put the house on the market and buy something for yourself with your half of the money. But that’s not going to happen, is it? Your husband is older and I suspect you would never leave — no, not even if a billionaire came along and offered you the necessary funds.
At this stage you are locked into your depression. Your suicidal thoughts, triggered by your beloved daughter’s plans, are very worrying. You can call the Samaritans (free of charge) day or night on 116 123. or pour out your feelings in an email to jo@samaritans.org if that feels easier.
It’s clear your daughter’s news has triggered a much worse onset of your
habitual depression. Do you have savings? Can you visit her? It’s a long way but surely you need to talk to her and see those grandchildren? You have been very close; now is the time to use that emotional connection and be honest with her about how you are feeling.
I think you should book a plane ticket and present it to your husband as a fait
accompli . . . telling him you are very down and need the trip. He will fuss (after all, he’ll be losing his domestic slave) but you must stand up for yourself.
Why not go to your GP and ask for treatment for depression?
People can, and do, make new starts in later life. There’s no doubt it would have been better had you walked away from the marriage after your daughter was born (an event to which he was indifferent) but you stayed ‘for her sake’.
I’m sure you’ve regretted it many times, so it’s fruitless to dwell on that mistake. But be sure you don’t make another one. Your daughter would (I’ve no doubt) urge you to go on living ‘for her sake’ — and I ask you to consider that she may return to the uK and you will be able to see how your grandchildren develop.
In other words, there is always hope. Yes, hope may be a sad, bedraggled bird sitting on a bough (as imagined the poets Emily Dickinson and Thomas Hardy), yet it is never too late to raise your head and listen to its song.