u/Pinkhead90

I’ve been married for a few years and my husband has anxiety and OCD, and he sometimes slips into severe depression.

He has his own consulting business which was thriving a couple of months back but it’s not in the best place now.

I work in corporate and have a stable income. I recently found my passion which requires me to travel a few times a year. This passion is very important to me because I eventually want to quit my corporate job. Now he’s always been encouraging about me pursuing this passion but every single time I come back from these trips, he’s in a dark place. It takes weeks, sometimes months for us to get back to normal. Last time it resolved only when I decided to stop caring about how he was treating me (which was quite bad, he was very distant and aloof and blamed me for many many things that were going wrong in his life) and just focus on myself.

This time he’s much better about it, not really blaming me or getting angry towards me but is still withdrawn, says he’s “not ready for human contact”, told me it’ll take time to get back to the same emotional place we were before I left. He’s also having passive suicidal thoughts. He says he won’t act on them but it’s scared me. It’s like I’m having to a pay price just to pursue my passion when I’ve always been supportive of his business! Even when things were bad I’ve supported us financially and never once have I asked him to go back and find a regular job.

When I go on these trips I make sure that I arrange everything for him back home. His food is taken care of, we have a maid for cleaning and I also hired a walker for our dog. All this just to make sure he’s not burdened in my absence and can continue focusing on his business. But something always goes wrong, somehow it’s never enough.

I feel like this is a very one-sided relationship. He can never understand my emotions. I’m always termed overly dramatic or that I cry a lot. So there’s no value for how I feel but somehow I need to be supportive and understanding of his emotions. I always have to play the “strong” role and I don’t even think he understands the kind of toll this is putting on me. It’s always about him. He’s supportive of my ambitions in words but his actions tell a different story. I’m also dealing with my own emotions around all of this and there’s nobody really taking care of me.
Has anyone been through something similar? How do you cope? How do you get your partner to seek help when they refuse? And honestly, is this just what some marriages are?

He says he can only talk to someone who is going through or has gone through whatever he’s going through. How do I find someone like that?