I am a: Quirky sysadmin. Geek. Gamer. Comic fangirl. My little space, my home on the interwebs. I blog about personal stuffs, work, various coding projects, and anything else I feel like.

I’ve been putting off posting this for a while in the hopes things would get better … and for the most part they haven’t. I don’t even know where to start explaining. Jim’s still out of work and understandably, he’s having a tough time dealing with the depression that follows a layoff — which is worsened if you’re the head of the household and main provider of your family.

Things between me and Jim haven’t been all that great over the past few months, but up until a month or so ago I thought we were still “ok”. I mean, I know that we’ve had issues over the years and still have a few things that need to be worked out, but I thought we were doing alright. Apparently not. I don’t know what exactly it is that has made him worse, or things between us worse, but instead of making plans for upcoming holidays, he’s instead worrying about us, the house — our marriage pretty much.

At one point, he kept telling me that I’d be better off finding someone to make me happy and to have children with. He told me that I’m a “great friend” and that he loves me, but thinks he’s too damaged to love me the way I need, that he doesn’t think he’s a good husband to me. I told him I wouldn’t have married him if he wasn’t, and that’s the God’s honest truth.

At first he had agreed to go to marriage counseling with me, but then he wanted to wait until after Christmas. Then the next week, he didn’t think it would help at all, and that he thought we were “over.” This has been changing from day to day. As of this weekend, he’s agreed again to go to counseling, but says he’ll go after he gets a job. Of course, in the same conversation, he told me that he thought we should separate …

He has good days and bad days. Friday was a particularly bad day. I think I cried more that night than I have since this whole mess started. We’ve had rough spots before, with his depression, but have always come through them. He’d always say things that were “worst case nightmare scenario”, but later after he was over it, he’d apologize and explain that it WAS how he was feeling at the time, but not what he really meant.

I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me.

Honestly, I had thought we were doing better. I had thought the anxiety medicine he is on was helping, and to an extent it is, but not with his depression. There are many nights that I’ve cried myself to sleep — when I do sleep. There have been some days that I can’t even eat. On those days, I don’t want to go to work, but I can’t stay home with him. He’ll tell me how he feels at that very moment, and it’s usually nothing I want to hear. I don’t think he wants to hurt himself, so I’m not worried about that. But I am worried about him.

He’s now distant, and sometimes downright cold.

It’s killing me. There have been many days where I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest again and again, every day. And what’s worse, some days I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to handle this. There are many days that I fall apart at the drop of a hat, or I’ll pick a fight with him just to force him to deal with me. And I’m afraid most of all that I’m making all this worse by doing that.

Until today I’ve only told a few trusted friends about what’s been going on. I’ve been carrying on as best I can as if everything’s just fine. I guess I was just holding out hope that things would get better. I’m trying to hold myself together for Jessie’s sake when she’s around, but she’s a smart kid, she’s noticed … she knows something is up and has been asking a lot of questions. I’ve done my best to play down everything or skirt the issue altogether, but she’s mad at Jim because he won’t tell her anything and will flat out lie when she asks why I’m upset.

I also think things are worsened now because of the holidays. His family no longer lives near us and he feels alienated by my family. He used to really enjoy the holidays, but I’ve noticed over the years that he’s enjoying them less and less. And the fact that my dad acts the way he does this time of year doesn’t help. We went to see my folks for Thanksgiving and my dad pretty much ignored us the whole time we were there … wouldn’t even speak to me or Jim when we first greeted him.

I can’t blame Jim, and I feel terrible. I don’t know what to do.

I think (and hope like Hell) that once he finds another job, that will help a LOT. The last time he was laid off, we went through this. But I’m so afraid of losing him now. I’ve tried to keep myself busy with various distractions, and Aion has been a great way to escape … but it’s when I’m at work that I find this affecting me most. I can’t concentrate some days, and my headaches are worse when I worry (and when he has ‘bad days’). There have been some days that my headaches were so bad that I had to take the day off to recover.

I feel lost and helpless, and I’m scared. I don’t know what else to do but ask for your prayers.