My husband of 15 years seems to have lost interest in our marriage, and I suspect he is having an affair. My mother thinks I might be depressed and that I pushed him away by being emotionally and physically unavailable.
The simple answer is that you should listen to your mother before you take any further steps. That, however, is not the same thing as telling you to stay on or leave the marriage, it is simply that in many (not all) instances, mothers offer their advice to their children from a position of both wisdom and love.
That said, what might your mother have noticed in you that has led her to conclude that you might be depressed and that your current marital predicament might be premised on a medical condition she now calls depression? A story will explain this question.
Some years ago, a woman in her early 60s brought her 35-year-old daughter to our attention and asked us to give the daughter “the same treatment” we had given her in her 30s when she had gone through a difficult patch in her marriage.
She reminded us that she had left her husband for several weeks because, like you, she had suspected that he was no longer interested in marriage and was having an affair.
She had been sent to us by her pastor who thought that she might benefit from a consultation with a psychiatrist.
This was a rather exceptional clergyman in that he had noted several changes in this member of his flock.
Firstly, she dropped out of her Master’s programme, claiming that the lecturers were treating her unfairly and were failing her.
She was also complaining a great deal about other ladies in the church, claiming that they gossip about her and the family.
She threatened that if the pastor did not intervene, she would not attend church anymore. Her complaints were endless and in time roped in the employer, the neighbours and alarmingly the pastor.
These were strange allegations coming from one of the pillars of his church and after continuous prayers with her, he was able to bring her to us.
The history was typical of a paranoid illness. It had started slowly without any apparent cause and had steadily changed her from a most loved leader of the women’s pillar in the church to the most feared and disliked.
She did not get on with anybody in church or at home or at work. She seemed suspicious of everything and everybody.
Relatives including her husband, her sisters, and crucially her mother all confirmed that she had changed over several months, perhaps longer, and the doctors were confident in making a diagnosis of adult-onset paranoid schizophrenia.
Her recovery had been uneventful, and over the years she had remained in contact with the medical team and had enjoyed good health, requiring only brief periods of medication over the years.
Additionally, she had been a mental health champion at her place of work and within the church community.
When her daughter threatened to leave her family, she was able to identify the symptoms she had seen in herself.
In a sense, her family life had been saved by her observant mother who knew that sometimes marital problems are the consequence of illness.
Sometimes, however, bad marriages can and do lead to some types of mental ill health.
It would therefore be sensible to accept your mother’s opinion and seek the help of a mental health expert. In other words, keep all options on the table.
