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UPDATE How do I [29F] work on feeling empathy for my husband [31M] again? Together 4 years. (by Sparky)

 Sparky (0)  (29 / M-F / Massachusetts)
6-Oct-18 12:51 am
UPDATE How do I [29F] work on feeling empathy for my husband [31M] again? Together 4 years.

Previous post here. TL;DR is husband was in therapy for his issues and making progress but I was having a hard time having patience and being supportive.
It has been a few months since my post and I wanted to update, mostly because there were several people who related and I thought an update might be helpful.
Things are better now, but they definitely got even harder before they got better. My husband ended up having to do an intensive outpatient program for suicidal ideation. However since then he's continually improved.
I have worked hard on distancing myself from his issues and remembering that I cannot change, control, or fix his emotions or mood. However, this whole period of time was even harder on me than I realized. I dealt with a fair amount of neglect as a child, and I did not even cognitively realize it but all of this (plus family and work/life balance issues happening concurrently) made me feel like I was all alone again and put me in a very bad place. I got very depressed and nearly killed myself. Fortunately, my therapist and psychiatrist are both amazing and we got my meds right and I am feeling much better.
Currently, my husband is managing his remaining anxiety issues well. I am maintaining a healthy boundary about how much I can help him, working on accepting my family situation, and learning how to have a healthy work-life balance (I own my own business - it's hard). Most importantly, as one commenter said would happen, my trust is slowly building back up. It feels like we are "us" again and it's so nice. We have always had so much fun together and I really missed that. Last night we were making up songs and dancing like idiots in our kitchen and I felt so grateful in that moment that we made it out of the other side of this.
They say the first year of marriage is the hardest (whoever the **** "they" are), and I am going to cross my fingers that they are right.
TL;DR Things got better. It took a while, but we made it.


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