We have a frequent visitor in our home: depression. He has come in and out for decades now, and likes to pay Courtney visits. For our first 15 years of marriage, I had a singular strategy for how to deal with her bouts: “Hey, why don’t you get better and stop feeling weird about stuff?” In fact, I didn’t even have a way to talk about it other than “maybe stop being weird.” If anything, I found her exhaustion exhausting.
We have never experienced the knock-down-drag-out depression of the incapacitating variety. The kind we’ve endured is just enough to let you know it’s still around—sort of like that nagging cough. You’re never fully incapacitated; you’re just unable to function like you’d prefer. Instead, when you do things like teach (which Courtney spent two years early in marriage “doing”), you just get up right before you have to go to work, cry a lot, and try to sleep under your desk during your conference period.
I have likened Courtney’s high-functioning depression to walking a slow pace on a treadmill that has its incline set on a seven out of ten. You can do the work set before you and get through the day—you may not even realize the incline—but you always end a little more tired and sore in places you were not expecting. “Why am I so tired?!”
I wish I were kidding that 15 years of marriage passed before we had words for what she experienced. We aren’t doctor-averse or counselor-averse or anything of the sort (we’ve gone to numerous of both); we just erroneously assumed that 98% of the issue she experienced was circumstantial.
While circumstances played a role, they weren’t everything.
You’re Still Not Okay
By about the Fall of 2020, we had tweaked every dial we knew of in order to move the needle to whatever “better” was for her (and, thus, for us).
Time: Courtney got a job in 2019 at the boys’ school by our house. This time it was 20 hours a week and only administrative work, but it was miserable. She would end her days at home crying; I would feel bad and ask her how come she couldn’t snap out of it. COVID hit and she at least didn’t have to go to the office, but that didn’t stop her from feeling miserable. God provided an opportunity for the boys to change their schooling situation and for Courtney to get out of that job. She now had more time, which we knew she needed.
Exercise: With an hour of that time, we went to the gym together each morning. This was a trip. Courtney and I rarely go to the gym together. She hates gyms and is very bad at following trainer instructions. I get embarrassed and act like she’s the person I picked up on the way to class because I felt bad for her. We joined a class-based strength training gym together—but often on opposite sides of the room. Still, the routine became an early morning wake-up: get the family out of the door (tired), drop them off at school together, and stop off at the gym on the way home. We’d do a one-hour class and laugh our way through it as Courtney tried to figure out the mechanics of a dead lift.
Counseling: You know something is awry when you start paying strangers to help you. Those evening calls with someone whose name we can’t remember rarely seemed to produce some type of enduring fruit. We have spent plenty on counseling over the years—every place we’ve lived, Courtney has had one and sometimes we have gone together. Still, no “aha” unlocked. Courtney would also have calls with Bettejean. If you don’t know her, I’m sorry. She’s a wonderful woman who has known her for probably close to 30 years. Firm and gracious, Bettejean would try and help Courtney walk more joyfully. We love her.
Faith and Service: Courtney continued to invest her life in others. She’d meet with people to talk about life, engage Scripture, and pray for them. She loved being a library volunteer at the school and to read to the kids. She was glad to bake a batch of cookies for any occasion. She showed up, week after week, to hear my meager sermons and be near her church family.
All the dials moved into every position and it still seemed like nothing worked.
As if a new dawning altogether hit us, I looked at Courtney one day and said,
“You’re still not okay.”
“I know.”
That was a watershed moment for us. We were never concerned about putting on a performance—we aren’t good performers. Our marriage is not something we think others should aspire to (it is often the opposite). We simply came to the end of ourselves and didn’t know what was next.
We added another dial to the dashboard: meds.
I know that many people are medication-averse, and I can understand that. In the realm of mental health, I never tell someone what they must do. All I can say is that small dose dropped the treadmill incline from a seven to about a three or four. When you live your life on a seven, a 50% drop in incline feels like you were given a whole new capacity. You can do anything.
And, man, did Courtney adjust.
New energy, new engagement, more cookies, more talking, more time with friends, more everything.
And I found myself bugged.
“You’re Sick, Too”
Why would I be bugged by Courtney’s new capacity to talk, feel, cook, and engage with her friends? “Sounds like an answer to prayer" is what any marriage counselor we have invested money in would tell us.
Simple. Her improving health required me to change, too, and I like living my life. Her health required me to consider my own.
We don’t think about all of the ways we have learned to accommodate, or even take advantage of, other people’s issues. When Courtney’s depressed, her default mode is “whatever you need.”
I need to stay out late for work? Sure thing. I want to stay home this weekend and not visit anyone? No problem. “Hey, can you handle that stuff with the kids so I don’t have to?” Sure. If I don’t want to talk about something, we don’t talk about it.
All of a sudden, Courtney started telling me what she wanted. She told me how she wanted to spend time, where she wanted to go with the kids, what she thought was important. I’d be on my computer doing the Lord’s work and she’d want to tell me a story about a co-worker.
“Umm. Excuse me? You can’t spend 15 years letting me do what I want and then, all of a sudden, flip on and start making me adjust while I’m on my computer.”
Of course she could, and of course she should.
I had discussed these marriage issues with many. One of my favorite comments came from my uncle, who has smiling eyes and a handlebar mustache. Having lived his life in and around people with addictions, he knows just how unhealthy everyone becomes. Telling him some story (be it about depression, or diabetes, or anything else), he looked at me with his smiling eyes and said, “Yep, Hans. You’re sick, too.”
He was right. Courtney and I were one, and it was naive to presume her issues wouldn’t impact me and how we operated together. I can’t fix her issues, and she can’t fix mine, but they are still our issues.
Health Forces Health
I bet everyone reading this exists in some relational system (marriage, family, workplace) where the people involved have learned to walk with various limps. We always do—part of a fallen world demands it.
But they don’t have to make us balk.
At our house, I close my computer a little more when Courtney comes into the room to tell me a story. I say yes to more of her plans and recognize that my own are not always as important. She plays more pickleball these days and spends more of the budget visiting friends for lunch or coffee. I’m glad.
Every time I am reminded that as other people get healthier, I, too, have to die to self and learn to serve in a new way. Each moment is an invitation to a better relationship. Her health forces my own health, and we are both better for it.
Sorry, fam. I got a little wordier on this one than usual. I hope you were able to hang.
Love this one! And “smiling eyes!”