You might be wondering how to help your spouse with depression. The answer is
simple. Simple and easy aren't the same thing. But I'll give you 4 specific
things you can do right now. Let's start with the simple part. Your job is to love
them no matter what and even if. I've talked about this in our parenting
videos quite a bit that that's our job. It's not to make sure that they anything.
And with your spouse, this is extremely powerful especially if we define what
that means. So, let's take the word love and break it down into 4 steps for
each of the letters in the word love, should we do that? L stands for listen.
Now, you've got two ears in one mouth. Let's use them in that particular ratio.
This is so powerful. Just yesterday, I was meeting with a couple where they both
had some things they needed to share. She started to share what was on her mind
and he immediately started to speak over her and interrupt her and interject his
own thinking and agendas. And she just closed right down. Can you picture this?
She just shut right down. And then after he wound up a little bit, I asked her
again. "Now, tell me again what you were saying?" She started to say... And he again
jumped in and started talking right over her. This is a pretty common thing that I
see with couples and it's something that makes the depression worse not better.
I think he was honestly trying to help her. I think he was coming from a
position of, "Hey, I really want you to do better
with your depression." But it felt to her like criticism. It felt like she wasn't
even important. Now, let's shift that up. If he were to simply listen and zip it
for a minute, just listen, that's going to put him in a position to do much more to
benefit her. And it's going to help her a lot with how she feels in the
relationship. As you are listening, here's something that will really help with the
listening: Drop your agenda even the fact that you want to help your spouse with
depression means that you've got an agenda. And it's typically not that
helpful to have someone trying to help me. Do you see how it creates a power
differential? It's like I'm here, you're here. You've got problems, I can help you.
Even if that's true, it's not helpful. Because people feel criticized or they
feel demeaned or they feel talked down to. So, if you can drop the agenda and
just realize, 'Oh, okay. It's not my job to make sure that she is
not depressed. To make sure that he feels good about himself."
Drop the agendas come at it with an authentic desire to simply listen. And
you don't have to fix everything. Sometimes when you're listening, you stop
listening and start scheming about the solutions. Put those agendas aside and do
everything that you can to simply be there for that person. You listen to them
and acknowledge where they're coming from. One of the most powerful things
about a relationship is having someone in your life to (O)
observe your life. Now, think about what this word might mean. In the context of
love. L is listen. O is observe their life. Be there for them. You're not there
to intervene or to fix or correct anything. And this sounds almost
paradoxical because if you want to help your spouse with depression,
that's your agenda and you're coming at it trying to fix them. If you're simply
there to observe and acknowledge their life, that tends to be very powerful and
affirming to have someone in your life who's actually witnessing it. This is the
stuff of poetry. You've probably heard before in poetry or country music. Let's
make this a reality where as your agenda has been set aside, you're really trying
to listen to that person and you show up to observe and witness their life. That
changes your role and makes you a much more loving spouse. This is one of the
things that can really help with depression. You can tell what the theme
is so far as we talked about listening and observing. That leads us right into V,
validate. The validation is going to happen pretty naturally as you connect
an empathy and love. It's so affirming to have someone validate your life, your
experience without trying to fix it. Don't tell your spouse how to feel.
They're never wrong about how they feel. Can I say that again?
You're never wrong about how you feel. And neither is your spouse. You're not
trying to fix them. Validate their experience. All human beings experience
times of sadness or depression or discouragement. To know that or to hear
that from your spouse from the person that you love and and chose to spend
your life with is so validating and affirming. V, Validate. E is to empower.
Now, this sounds a little counterintuitive to some people because
it feels like a depressed spouse is not very empowered. They might even present
as helpless or hopeless from your position as a loving spouse. Empower them
to find and see and enact their own solutions. This is so much better than
imposing something from outside. Usually when we're depressed, we don't have the
energy or the gumption or the wherewithal to implement the good ideas
that we already have. So, when I say empower for the E
love, part of what we want to do is take down the barriers to their success. Make
it most likely that they can do the thing that will help them out. Here's an
example: A young mom who is so consumed with taking care of the children on a
daily basis... And young children need a lot of care. She doesn't get out of the
house much. She doesn't even talk to her interact with adults very much. You're
the husband, you come home and see everything that
she's dealing with and she's feeling exhausted, right? She already knows that
exercise is something that would help her. But she doesn't feel like doing it
right now. What kind of barriers can you take down that would help her to
actually accomplish what she has already told herself that she wants to do? You
could step up and take care of the kids for an hour or 2. Encouraging her to
actually go to the gym if that's what she's wanting to do. Now, she might not
feel like she has the energy to do it. So, you're going to make it as easy as possible
for her to do that. "Hey, honey. I'm going to take care of the dinner and watch the
kids for a couple hours. You go get your workout and let's see how you're feeling
after that." That's just an example but if you can take down the barriers and
empower them, the other thing about empowering is withholding our advice.
Because typically they don't want it. You give advice to someone that's
unsolicited especially. It sounds like criticism. Well, you don't want to be in
that position. So, instead if you can draw from them and trust them, okay? Trust them
to find their answers. I remember a time early in our marriage when Vicki was
going through some depression. She has shared this on some of the videos that
we've done. And I, you know, the hero psychologist, I can solve everything,
right? Well, that was irritating and annoying her to no end. She is brilliant
and she knew what she could do to improve her situation. She just needed to
be in powered to do that. And one of the ways
that I can do that as a husband is to get out of her way and trust her to find
her own answers. This trust tends to be very affirming as well. Hopefully, you're
seeing a little bit of a theme here. With listen, observe, validate and empower. Find
ways to do those 4 things and you will be a factor for positive change in
the life of your spouse or any other loved one who might be struggling with
depression. I am so grateful that you are here on this channel. Thank you for who
you are for being so conscious and aware and for spreading this message of
positivity. Would you please share these videos with people that you think would
really benefit? And if you'd like a little more support yourself, jump on a
call with one of our coaches. We've got some programs available that are
absolutely powerful. DrPaulJenkins.com/breakthroughcall.
Jump on a call today.