Life - as Ryan sees it

Thu, May 6, 2010 3:12:14 AM
Subject: Life

A little over a year ago I helped a friend out. This friend came to me and confided in me that she was depressed. That her life was not the way she had hoped it would turn out, not even close. She said she was unhappy in every aspect of her life. Her marriage was a source of constant strife and her job had become unbearable. She simply felt alone and terribly unhappy in almost every phase of her life, except her love of her son. She told me that she was so depressed that she had already attempted suicide once a year earlier on her birthday, the only thing that saved her was the thought of not being there for her son. This did not prevent her however from still thinking about suicide often. She said she had tried on several occasions to communicate these problems to her husband for years and still nothing had changed. I understand that couples need to deal with their problems together and in private but what does someone do when they dont feel their partner is listening or changing. Well she reached out to a friend...that friend was me. I dont like to get into other peoples problems too much or tell them how to solve them. So in the beginning I just listened. For months we would just talk and I would just listen, try and keep things light, offer suggestions on how she might fix things, or just plain make her smile or laugh with my terrible sarcasm. I just thought "If I am there to listen and be a good friend then maybe I can keep her thoughts positive and help her grow enough strength to get through this rough period in her life". I would do this for any of my friends. She grew more and more sure that she needed to get out of the situation she was in immediatly or she wouldnt make it. She decided to stay at her parents for a couple months to try and get her head on straight and figure out what she was going to do with her life. I supported her in her decision because I had asked her once how she was doing and she responded by say she didnt think she would last another day in the house she was in. It scared me to think what she might do. She spent three months at her parents, away from her husband. Needless to say she was really happy and you could tell just by talking to her. In the months leading up to this point and from the time she had told me about her unhappiness and attempted suicide her and I grew closer, we talked almost everyday. Our conversations were usually just light hearted and comical, my attempts at making her feel better but we did grow strong feelings for eachother. One day we told eachother about how we felt. We even agreed that it wasnt something that would be helpful to her situation and so we refrained from acting on those feelings any further. I never wanted to interfere with her life in that way or be suggestive of her marriage in a negative way and I made it a point personnaly to never offer advice on what to do with her marriage, I just wanted to help a friend who was in dire straits, a friend who I felt was in serious danger of hurting herself to end the pain she was in. I was even completely honest with the girl I was seeing at the time. I never wanted to hurt anyone, not even my friends husband but I did want to be there for her no matter what. When she came back from her parents, she wanted to move out into her own place. She still needed to find a job at this point, and in the middle of a recession at that. But she felt that if she moved back in with her husband that she might not last very long. You might think "why didnt she just stay at her parents?" Well through all this all she ever thought of first was her young son. And she wanted her son to be close to his father and his family. Well I loaned her some money to rent an apartment and she decided to keep it close to her sons dad. She found a place just 5 minutes down the road from him and close to her sons school. Not only did she want her son to be close to his father but she wanted her husband to be close to their son also, always putting everyone ahead of herself. Of course i explained earlier that she had talked with her husband before about her depression and about changing things and yet nothing ever did, which of course led her to thoughts of suicide. I wont tell you of their marital problems because that isnt anyones business, not even mine. It's not good to be judgemental of other peoples problems. Well she was able to move into her apartment but her husband never left her alone after that. He was constantly calling her or showing up trying to get her back, trying to essentially save their marriage but ultimately smothering her of any free emotional growth. She couldnt gain any strength with the barage of arguments that filled her days and nights. Most of the friends they had or the people they knew as a couple knew that something was wrong with them but actually and saddly were kept in the dark of the details of their marital problems. And of course as people often do when they only get trickles of info or two different sides to a story, people judge, gossip, and spread it all throughout a network of friends which only tends to make a situation worse. I guess that is one of the reasons I am writing about it now. i get so sick of people gossiping about stuff they only guess at or they spread rumors that grow into opinions with others.It begins to effect so many. Any way I had been listening to her problems, first hand, and I had even helped her financially and of course eventually her husband came to know I was helping her. I had even driven up to buy her common household items like a can opener so she could eat soup or garbage bags for christ sake. And of course instead of realizing what the real problems in his marriage were he began to blame me for dividing him and his wife. At this point I felt like I had begun to hurt her situation more than I was helping but ultimately realized I couldnt abandon her...she was still fragile and still talked of her thoughts of suicide and this was over a year after she had attempted to kill herself. I really didnt think she would be ok unless she got away, far away but she only thought of her son and so I supported her, listened and provided the little money that I could for her rent. Other people helped her out as well, providing someone to talk with and even helping to pay her rent. Sadly these people were scared of her husband so much that they didnt want it to get out they were helping her. I guess I was always scared of him as well because he has been known to be volitile at the drop of a hat. But I cared more for my friends life than I did for my own safety. Of course all he did now was blame me for their problems and continue to argue constantly about me. Eventually she couldnt pay her rent, I or anyone else couldnt help her pay it and she didnt want to accept anymore money from friends. She was also tired of being alone in an apartment everday while her son was staying with her husband. She decided to quit running from her marriage, she moved back in with her husband to face her problems head on. She wanted to make her husband realize that she didnt want to be with him anymore and she wanted her husband and her to still be friendly for the sake of their son and ultimately she wanted to grow strong by facing her fears and getting strong enough to move on and make a good life hopefully for her and her son. Of course everyone saw this as her giving up and going back to her husband, an illusion that is happily kept up by him. I in the meantime continued to have strong feelings for her and even though we could do nothing about it we kept up communication. Unfortunately our communication caused her a lot of grief while she was still living there so one day we decided that we shouldnt text echother anymore. She felt his would help her deal with her problems easier and would lead her husband to realize I wasnt the problem. It did make her life easier but didnt help her husband realize any easier that the marriage was over. Even though they were not technically divorced, she made it constantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with him in an intimate or husbandly capacity, he just refused to hear it though. She cant transfer from her job until she has been there 6 months and she doesnt want to yank her son out of school until the school year is over. And still she hopes for a friendly relationship with her husband when she leaves so she continues to be as kind as possible to him without giving him any false hope or wrong signals. All the while of course I have to wonder from afar if she is ok, if she isnt going to try and kill herself, if she is still strong enough to move on in a positive direction. I also screwed up because I hurt someone I never wanted to hurt. I chose to be with a girl I have loved now for over 8 years. I want to try and give us a chance to grow and see where we will end up so I decided to break contact with this other girl who was married. I cared for her but in her current situation I could not be with her and it wouldnt have been healthy to do so. Other people know of this situation but none of them know the whole story, probably not even half the story and some only know it from the husbands eyes which I find is sad because they have never reached out to the wife even though they were her friends too supposedly. I find it even more sad that there are people that will help but wont anymore because they dont want to be inbetween a rock and a hard place like me...ultimately they dont really want to help her and that is very sad indeed.