My Wife's Depression

I’ve had a stressful day at work. I’m mentally exhausted and physically not too sharp either. It’s the end of the day and I should be overjoyed that I’m heading home. If my wife were there, I would be. But she isn’t. Someone else is waiting for me when I get back. She looks a lot like my wife, but her face isn’t as bright. She doesn’t have my wife’s beautiful smile – more of a dead-eyed stare. My wife often greets me with cuddles and kisses – this woman avoids physical contact with me, unless I can persuade her to rest her head on my shoulder as she weeps. My wife is self-sufficient, a bundle of energy; this woman seems helpless in my presence, effectively bed-ridden, unable to complete the most basic of tasks. My wife asks me about my day and tells me what happened during hers; this woman asks me what the point of living is.

“What’s the point of me living?” That’s a tough question to answer at any time, let alone after a full day at work. I offer a response that I hope will encourage her, place her dark feelings and impulses into context, and give her a boost. There are only so many times and ways you can give an answer though, especially when your words seem to have little effect. Sometimes I feel like shrugging and admitting that I don’t know. After all, self-preservation – a yearning for life – is a natural, inexplicable instinct for most of us, isn’t it? How do you rationalise it for someone who currently lacks it?

The only thing that could possibly make her feel worse is the notion that her current state of mind is bringing me down as well, is making my life worse. It is of course; how can you watch the woman you love crying over her existence and feel anything other than desperately, pitifully unhappy? But to expose her to that would be to multiply her hardship – and she’s already suffering enough. So I smile. I reassure. I tell her that this dip in mood is transient, that it will pass. I look her in the eye with all the optimism I can muster and tell...