Listener Q&A: My Husband Hid The Fact He's On Antidepressants. Why Do I Feel So Upset?

Dr. Andrea Bonior: How much are you entitled to know about your partner's mental health? If you found out they were seeking psychiatric treatment but had chosen to keep it from you, how might you react? Today, we're answering a listener question that involves the surprise discovery of medication for depression. The listener feels upset that their partner kept a secret and can't help but shake the feeling that it was a betrayal. When is it your business what a partner is dealing with? What is the right reaction? And why might someone want to keep their depressive symptoms secret, even from those they love most? If you've ever struggled with how much you're supposed to know about a partner's innermost emotions, you want to listen to today's Baggage Check. Welcome. I'm Dr. Andrea Bonior, and this is Baggage Check: Mental Health Talk and Advice, with new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Baggage Check is not a show about luggage or travel. Incidentally, it is also not a show about the accumulation of gunk under the spacebar of your laptop. So let's get to today's show. We've got a listener question, read by a different listener. As always, if you want to send either a question or lend your voice to reading a listener email, please reach out to Baggage Check on Instagram @baggagecheckpodcast. There you will also get sneak peeks when you can give advice as well. In the meantime, let's take a listen.

Listener: I recently found out that my husband has been on antidepressants for a while. I can't exactly explain why, but I feel really upset by this. And I found out in sort of a strange way. I'm not sure he would have ever told me, but we were traveling in our bathroom stuff and toiletries were more on top of each other than they usually are, and I noticed he was really nonchalant about it and about the fact that he's never told me, which baffled me. I had all kinds of questions. I wouldn't have thought that he was depressed. We've gone through some rough stuff over the past few years caring for his father through dementia, struggling with infertility before we had our son, so it's not out of the question that he would go through depression at some point, but I guess I feel pretty devastated that he never wanted to talk to me about it. I'm not against medication, although admittedly, I would have suggested he see a therapist first. But I just don't get how someone could go so far as to be depressed enough to talk to a doctor about getting on an antidepressant and still not letting their spouse know what they were going through. Is this a sign of cracks in our marriage? I've always sort of felt like he doesn't share his feelings enough, and this just makes it so much worse. I feel so disconnected from him. Like, if he were really having struggles, I would have no clue. And then I worry that maybe it's because he thinks I take up too much emotional space in the relationship. I talk about my feelings a lot more than he does, and I'm much more open about my struggles, including a traumatic reaction I had years ago after I got robbed, which he was receptive to helping me through, and I even went to therapy for a bit. Now he's upset that I'm upset, saying I'm, um, making it a much bigger deal than he is, and he's sort of pulling the whole: “This is why I didn't tell you in the first place.” Am I being unreasonable here? How do I shake the feeling like I know him less than I should? I'm not proud of this reaction. I know it doesn't feel helpful, but I also feel like I deserve to know more about what my spouse is going through. And that somehow feels like, dare I say it a betrayal.

Dr. Andrea Bonior: I get it. Any time you learn something of significance about a spouse's emotional state, that comes as a surprise. It can shake you. And if you find out not because they chose to share it with you, but because you “caught” them like they were keeping it a secret, that for sure can feel like a betrayal. And I know there are those that would argue that the word betrayal is inappropriate in this sense. I know it's not like you gambled away your life savings or was sleeping with someone else. But it's really true that when you're going about your life, assuming that things are a certain way with your partner's emotional wellbeing and functioning, and it turns out that they're going through significant difficulties to an extent that you didn't realize, it stings, no doubt about it. And you might wonder, why was it that I wasn't let in on this? Does that mean that something's wrong with our relationship? But let's back up a little bit.

You said you asked him a million questions, and I kind of wish you would have given me some of those answers if he answered them for you! Did he describe what his symptoms were like? How long have they been going on? Did he talk about what he tried or didn't try before getting to the point of going on meds? Does he feel like the antidepressant is helping? Did he talk about what kept him from revealing this situation to you besides the sort of retroactive “Well, because you would have reacted negatively?” That gets pretty circular. And let's just say I know this because I've raised children. Does he understand why it feels like it represents a disconnect in your relationship? Can he empathize with the general vibe of how you're feeling, even if he thinks you're overreacting a little bit? Are there other people he told? Would he want to know if you went on antidepressants? So there is a lot that can possibly fuel further conversation, which we'll get to.

But to start, if I'm understanding your feelings correctly, it's not so much a revelation that he's on a certain medication [laugh] ooh—poetry! Or it's really not about what amount of serotonin is hanging out in his synaptic clefts, but it's the fact that he could get to a certain level of suffering and not let you know. Or also and might this be maybe a little bit even more threatening to you and to your perception of your marriage-- the fact that you might not have noticed on your own? I think for most people, this scenario would really get under their skin, but we could also challenge those notions a little bit, that he was suffering so much and that you had no clue, without knowing what exact level of pain made him go on the antidepressants in the first place. It does seem a possibility that he just didn't see it as much of a big deal as it might be to you or to me. Perhaps in the depths of some of the struggles he was going through-- significant things from the sound of what you described—he had an overzealous doctor who simply stuck the prescription in his hand, or he watched one too many commercials that said, “Ask your doctor about MYJOYA!” or “BLUFURTHA!” Okay, nobody's hiring me to consult on pharmaceutical names anytime soon. My point is that we can automatically assume that he was at some rock bottom level of suffering, completely alone and distressed beyond compare in order for him to have gone on meds. For a lot of people, it's a more simple, casual thing that happens in an annual checkup with a physician. Now, I don't typically love that, to be honest, because, especially with general practitioners and not psychiatrists, I think there needs to be a more detailed psychological assessment done than they usually can provide. Not to mention the possibility that really, therapy should be broached as well, because a lot of the outcome research really indicates that therapy is important with or without medication. But my point is just that he may not have thought of it as a big deal, and it truly may not be and need not be. Now, I am not treating him as a therapist. That would be really weird if I were. So I can't know whether he truly needs medication or not, or how thought out that decision was. I'm just saying that we can't assume that he was secretly wringing his hands in agony in order for him to go on antidepressants.

Which leads me to the question of how he views this situation and how he views his experience with depression. Does he even view it as depression? If he does, is there a vulnerability there that makes him feel like experiencing any type of depression is somehow a weakness or something to be ashamed of? What other help might he need? What's his level of functioning right now? And how does it compare to when he started on the meds and when he's been going through the things you mentioned, has he not been able to make room for his feelings, to discuss it with anyone, or even acknowledge those feelings to himself? If he has shame for being on antidepressants, it would definitely be helpful for him to work through that. But if he has shame for having feelings of depression, arguably that's even more problematic because that's what's going to back him into a corner when it comes to actually getting support. Now, in this instance, he was obviously able to talk about what was going on enough to get the medication, and that's great. But if he harbors general feelings that he's not supposed to be vulnerable or that he's supposed to be your rock in the relationship or that men aren't supposed to struggle emotionally, then I see that as a bigger threat to your relationship than just what he is or is not telling you about the contents of his toiletry bag.

So it's time for a truly honest conversation. Be careful not to frame this as an accusation that he did something wrong. Frame it as an opportunity for you to learn more about what he's really feeling inside and how your role can be expanded in supporting him. Explain that what bothered you wasn't just the idea that he did something you considered significant without telling you, but the fact that you didn't get the opportunity to help him in the way that you would have wanted. And that it feels like that reflects a lack of emotional intimacy between the two of you, at least in the direction of what he reveals to you. You can bring up the ways that he has helped you in the past and the idea that that leads to something of an imbalance in your mind for you to not be able to help him too. That that's the part that just doesn't feel right now, this is where you honestly have to brace yourself for the possibility that maybe he's afraid of revealing things to you for reasons that might be uncomfortable for both of you to talk about. Maybe he's tried to reveal things in certain ways. Maybe he put out feelers and maybe he felt like you weren't receptive. Maybe he thinks that you're judgmental against antidepressants or medication in general. Or maybe he feels like you have high expectations of him never wavering in his functioning, or that he would be letting you down if he were to need help. Maybe it's akin to what you hinted at that if he needed support, then that would feel like it took up too much space because you needed it too. I think that particular dynamic can be a very common struggle when partners are really facing hard things together, like infertility, or parenting struggles, or the care of an elderly parent, or dementia in general with a loved one, which can be excruciating. As I know I don't have to tell you-- I'm really sorry to hear that, by the way. But in these cases there's often a sense of it feeling like it's just too much if both partners need help at the same time. Because the idea is that they feel like they don't have enough of themselves to give to the other because they're each so depleted. So often one or even both partners hold back more than they should out of a sense of duty. I'm m not at all saying that you've done anything wrong or fallen short, but there might be subtle dynamics here that made the idea of him talking to you about what he was feeling really feel like too much. He wouldn't be the first partner to decide that he's just got to take care of stuff on his own so that he can help steer the family ship when it's hitting rough waters and keep everyone else safe and dry. Maybe he viewed going on antidepressants as his version of putting the oxygen mask on first before he helps put it on you or your child. I know, I know. I've got ships, I've got airplanes. My metaphors are going a little bit off the rails. They both at least involve transportation, I guess. Anyway.

So this is going to be a conversation that paradoxically, the more useful it is, the more value you're going to get out of it, the more difficult it might be just because it requires some discomfort. And sure, you both can just never talk about this again and go on your merry way. He's obviously functioning enough on the surface that you didn't even really know that he was suffering from depression symptoms. So I can understand the temptation for you both to just feel like, well, this is an impasse, let's just let it go. But it seems like you really want to have the type of marriage where you know that he can lean on you when he needs it, that he doesn't need to go it alone, and that if he needs psychological or psychiatric treatment, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And you can help embrace him during the process. And I think the two of you really can get to that point. I think you just have to let yourself be vulnerable too. And that's going to be needed if this whole thing has something to do with your relationship dynamics. But then again, on the flip side, maybe it doesn't at all. And sometimes it takes vulnerability to realize that not everything our partners experience is directly related to us. So that's a possibility here too. So pick a relaxed and private time, going in with a mindset of wanting to listen and offer support rather than telling him how he's falling short. And I think he will gain some insights about your perspective that can help you feel closer than before. I really do. And you might find out something important too. Feel free to write in some time in the future and let us know how it goes. Thank you for joining me today. Once again, I'm Dr. Andrea Bonior, and this has been Baggage Check. With new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Join us on Instagram at @baggagecheckpodcast to give your take on upcoming topics and guests. And why not tell your chatty coworker where to find us? Our original music is by Jordan Cooper, cover art by Danielle Merity and my studio security is provided by Buster the Dog. Until next time, take good care.