This afternoon one of my dearest and oldest friends is getting married. It's a very important ocassion for our group of friends. Most of us have known each other since we were about 17. We've shared houses, clothes, beds. We've supported each other through break-ups, deaths, illness and recoveries. A few of us have had children but even those who haven't have hung around to help.
So this wedding is important. There aren't that many of them and it's a chance to be together and celebrate something good.
My friends have welcomed J very warmly. They try to include him in things - social events, creative projects and so on. I know they like and respect him.
But it's too hard for him to believe that; and too hard to put any effort into nurturing or maintaining the friendships.
"I don't need that sort of thing, it's all in the past," are the exact words he used this week when he decided at the last minute that he couldn't go to the buck's night. And it was a very sedate night - dinner at a local pub, home well before midnight. (Our friends are a bit past a lot of things these days. It has its advantages!)
I think these events are important to attend. They're an opportunity to converse with people, catch up with the day-to-day, connect as an individual and grow genuine bonds that don't depend on your partner for their existence.
One of the best things that I've collected from past relationships are the friends that I've made. I've always kept them. There's a slight akwardness at times when juggling events and invitations, but on the whole it's been rewarding and has resulted in a beautiful network of friends, people who've known me through various ages and phases of life and still know me. We see each other change and age. It's wonderful.
But J doesn't want to be a part of it. It's not important to him. At least that's what he tells me, and what can I do but take him at his word? Perhaps it's arrogant of me to presume that this should be important, that he should want to have friends.
And am I just being too controlling? Trying to arrange things so they're just right for him? He's let his own friendships slide. (He has one friend left who contacts him sporadically.) Maybe that's just the way it has to be for him. Maybe I can't fix this either.
So today is the wedding. I know this is hard for him. He can't bear to hear me mention it, even to discuss necessary things like transport arrangements. I know he won't have anything organised to wear. The most basic preparations like shaving and washing his hair will be an impost. (Although he could turn up just as he is and no-one but him will care.)
I want him to come because often it's the getting there that's the struggle. He often ends up enjoying himself. And I don't want him to miss out on significant events like this. I think being left out will contribute to his sense of isolation, even if it is temporarily the easier and more comfortable option.
Anyway, just a few rambling thoughts while my tea is brewing and everyone else is still blissfully sleeping. This is the best time of the day.
Flo
This post strikes a chord with me. I too have a strong network of friends who are important to me, and I'm often in the same boat you are, Flo. My friends like and respect by Depressed Partner, and always take the time to make him feel welcome in our social circle, yet I am constantly having to either persuade him to attend events with me - which is exhausting and a bit demeaning and even if he goes I then hold my breath hoping he'll actually have a good time rather than sink deeper into depression - or else I go out alone. But that too is complicated - partly because I often come back to find him in some kind of crisis, as if he can't bear to have my attention somewhere else (and yet, he can't return that attention either, if I stay home he ignores me), and partly because when I go to too many events on my own in a row I start to feel like I'm single again and why the hell am I married anyway?
ReplyDeleteHe used to have friends of his own, in addition to our mutual friends, before the depression. Now he barely keeps up with his own friends, and only at my insistence. But I do insist, because otherwise I become his entire world, the only person he relates to at all, and that is way too much pressure for me to bear.
I don't know the answer to any of this. I, too, recently attended the wedding of a dear old friend. I persuaed my partner to go, and it was the most magical occasional possible, full of joy and laughter and good music and all the things that, before depression, he used to love. I was proud of myself for getting him there, thinking that it was surely lifting my spirits. And as the wedding vows were exchanged and my heart was soaring and I turned to my partner to share the moment with a hug, I found him scowling and all hunched in on himself. "Are you okay?" I asked gently. "No I'm not," he snapped. "These are all YOUR friends, not mine." And he stalked off. And that beautiful wedding and moment turned to ashes in my mouth.
Was I in the wrong to have persuaded him to come? Who knows. It could just have easily have gone the other way - he could have actually enjoyed himself, sometimes he does. I never know what to do because the outcome seems so fickle, so dependant on the tides of his emotions and not anything I do or say.
Sorry, this is a pretty long and pessistic comment. I guess I'm feeling pretty down about this all today.
I hope your wedding works out better. But most of all, I hope you have a good time celebrating with your friends no matter what your partner does.
Hello Anonymous, thank you for your comment. It was just long as it needed to be. I sat here reading it, nodding my head. We're obviously both pretty lucky to have the friends we do and the network to get us through this. I hope today is better for you.
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