Me and my wife just had our one-year anniversary in October.

This is where I'd normally say that things are amazing, never better, incredible, married life is the best, forever, awesomesauce and KITTENS. Yeah. Fuck no. Marriage is joylessness, punctuated here and there by stabs of misery.

She has depression. I get that, I do. But depression is co-morbid with a host of other things - anxiety, anger (hooo boy, more anger than I ever thought possible), frustration, inflexibility, inability to look at the long-term, poor motivation, and what looks like extreme laziness. But it's not laziness, ya know? Depression does this, makes it so you can't move, can't get out of bed, constantly sleep, want to stay indoors all the fucking time and only drag yourself to school and back. So I realize on an intellectual level that she's not actually lazy, she's sick, and that's that and whatever. But goddam the next time she hands me her plate from the couch in the middle of me eating my own fucking meal I'm going imagine chucking it across the room. Because maybe I want to sit and enjoy my meal without having to wait on her hand and foot. But I won't, because I love her, and apparently that means that nothing I want matters and I'm just here to be a one-person support system for her.

And you know what? Our biggest argument isn't about the depression directly. I get that the symptoms she has are real, she's not "sad" because she wants to suck all the joy out of my life, she doesn't constantly bitch about every. little. thing. because she hates me, these issues feel insurmountable to her, and there's literally nobody else in her life she can say anything to. Our biggest argument is about her utter and flat refusal to even attempt to treat her depression with something other than a single 10-minute meeting per month with her "psychiatrist" who asks "How are you?" and she says "Fine." and the doc says "Okay, here's another month of Buproprion." THAT IS NOT HELPING. It's a goddam band-aid on the problem, it doesn't fix anything, it simply gives her the ability to be minimally ambulatory and not be suicidal. Maybe, perhaps, instead of thinking that the ability to move is something miraculous and we should just STOP THERE because oh boy I can drag myself to the couch, this is a MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT! we should think about actually treating her depression in a way that might, oh, I don't know...reduce the symptoms to something that resembles a quality of life that might be conducive to living with another human being.

But we can't do that because the excuses, MY GOD the excuses. "I don't like doctors." "It won't work." "I don't have time." "They'll just tell me it's all in my head." No, sweetie, no doctor has ever said that to you, you're just putting what your paranoid mind thinks they were thinking into real words that you think they said. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is, as far as I can tell, not bullshit-based woo crap peddled by Dr. Oz and Oprah, it's actually a modality that Real Doctors use when people come to them with behavioral or cognitive issues. I do not give two shits if you don't like doctors, find one you do like. It will work if you put the effort into making it work instead of just rolling your eyes at me because I "don't get your depression". No, of COURSE I don't "get" it in the way that you experience it, almighty DUH, but I can clearly see the effects and you're not the only person in this relationship that it affects. You DO have time, you're just making bullshit excuses because the real, big reason is that you hate doctors because you think they don't take you seriously, so you don't take them seriously right back. Yes, you're really putting one over on the Psychological Profession there, hun, they're going to be so hurt that you refuse to seek treatment for your debilitating illness. WAY TO GO.

We haven't had sex in weeks. I think the last time was about a week after our anniversary, which was a month ago. Before that was another multi-week period of nothing. I'm tired of trying to initiate and getting turned down. You know what, I don't want to feel rapey, so when she inevitably asks me, weeks from now, why I haven't tried and why don't I love her, I'll tell her the reason and she'll cry and claim that I don't love her and even if she turns me down I should keep asking. Fuck that shit. If she doesn't want to, then we won't. You know what sex isn't? It's not me asking constantly and getting turned down, it's not something I should have to beg her for or something you should have to muster up the desire to do. It's something two people do for fun, an expression of love and affection and I'm tired of feeling like she has to, I don't know, summon the Divine Strength of the Gods to enjoy sex with her husband once a month, if that. When it's such an event that afterward she's like "See, we still have sex." that's worrisome. Really, you have to point out that we just made love, as though I think we don't? Why would I think that? Maybe because WE DON'T? And like...I'm not a jerk in bed. I make an attempt to be an attentive lover who cares about his partner's pleasure. Doesn't matter.

Her excuse is that antidepressants kill desire, but I don't totally buy that because at the beginning of our relationship when she was still on the Buproprion and at a higher dose than now, sex was not an issue. It became an issue when we moved to this new place, and I have no idea why. But I have real trouble believing its the drugs, I think those are a convenient excuse for you because you're smart enough to know that repression of sexual function is a common side-effect of the drugs you're on. Yes, I know that too, but it's odd that the downslide in desire came at a time when your drugs weren't being changed or messed with. Just a thought.

She expects the utmost out of me. I must clean the kitchen, clean the house, dust the house, make the meals, clean up after the meals, walk the dog, mop the floors, fold the laundry and do a hundred other tiny little things for her because she's too tired, too busy with schoolwork. Okay, great, you need some help right now, I get that. I don't resent having to do these things. What I resent is the constant outburts of anger directed at me because I'm not doing enough. Really? Not even a hint of gratitude? No, just the opposite, she has it in her mind that she "does everything" and she's had this trope in her head ever since childhood, her mother actually remembers her yelling "I have to do everything around here!" at her in the kitchen, to which her mother yelled at her to get out. The Martyr Complex is ridiculous and unfounded, I do easily more than half the work around the house, except for paying bills, which she has always done and prefers to do. Maybe I could have a "thanks for making dinner" once in a while, something I tell her every time she makes a meal? Or would that be too much to ask? And the resentment she directs at me because I have free time - seriously? Because I chose a profession where I'm home for days or weeks at a time, I should just fill my time with busywork because SHE has work? She chose to be a PhD, I didn't. Welcome to fucking life, deal with your choices like a Big Girl.

Maybe this is what marriage is, maybe I've just made my (big, empty) bed and now I have to sleep in it, so I should just buck up and stop thinking that it will ever be better. Maybe this is as good as it gets - coming home every day and night to an unamused and uninterested wife who expects me to do My Chores and sit down and shut up while she watches Criminal Minds all night, as long as I take the time to walk the dog whenever she stares at us or wants attention. If that's marriage, I might seriously consider killing myself after a few years.