Letters to the Editor
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woodwose makes some good points
Rent "Angels in America" and see if it strikes any chords...
On the other hand, it is absolutely the case that SSRIs lower libido. It may be a matter of trying a different drug, or combining it with another drug that hits other receptors. It is also possible from the way LW described things that her husband is not getting ENOUGH medication/treatment and that this is still a feature of depression.
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Another possibility
Of course, the meds are the most likely culprit. But I wonder about the effect of psychotherapy on some people. When undergoing it (not very well I am afraid) I actually felt a stronger attachment to my therapist at the time than I did to my husband. First, just the process of undergoing therapy can make a person much more self-involved. Second, my weekly sessions highlighted for me certain real frustrations and deficiencies in the way my husband communicated with me and others. It was something the therapist zeroed in on, because it was pretty obvious. None of it was intentional, but it brought home to me that when people are told to visit a therapist there is often a presumption that getting better means that everyone around them will be happier with who they are during and after therapy, but that's not always the case. My advice: LW needs to be able to communicate with her husband's psychiatrist, with or without husband being present (but obviously with his consent).
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@ NotJohnHannah
Tell us again how it's somehow the fault of her post-partum altered brain chemistry? Oh, that's right - it's not.
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Maybe it isn't you
Forty years ago my husband helped the midwife who delivered our second child. For many years I assumed he stopped wanting sex with me, and risking another pregnancy, because of what he saw then. Since he also stopped talking to me about everything else and became what my children later called their absent father, we never talked about our sad excuse of a marriage. I tried several times to suggest psychotherapy but he wouldn't consider it, until he was faced with losing the very good job that was his whole life.
Group therapy helped his depression and saved his career, but it did nothing for his relationships with his wife and children. And then, years later he told me he had finally accepted his homosexuality, had gone to a sauna/club in Amsterdam and had met a young man. Can you understand how relieved I was, happy for him and even more for myself, because I had for years believed there was something wrong with me?
My dear, your husband, like mine, may have married in order to prove to himself that he is not gay. Even now, with so much apparent acceptance, there are men who cannot face their real desires because they're afraid of what we'll think and say. When they do, and when we are happy for them, they are happy. Our children and I know his partner and think he's wonderful.
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@scavok
just FYI it was Peter Kramer who wrote Listening to Prozac. Peter Breggin wrote Toxic Psychiatry, and he's totally against psychiatric medication.
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Xlp Thlplylp
You're concerned about a mere five years? Try eight. And even after that your friends will tell you to stick it out.
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the peters
Peter Kramer actually wrote "Listening to Prozac." Peter Breggin wrote "Talking Back to Prozac," and would probaby be horrified to be credited with the former.
Also, "Listening to Prozac," was not a wholehearted celebration of the drug. The author was ambivalent about what he termed a "lack of moral seriousness" in the patients taking Prozac. As I remember, he was unsure whether a future society would benefit from such a personality-altering drug.
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The Law is a Jealous Mistress
On top of everything else, the grief over the abortion, the family issues, the new parent exhaustion, the change of scenery, the psychiatric medication-- keep in mind your husband is a now a lawyer.
Whatever kind of job he took (demanding high-paying firm job or otherwise) the first couple of years practicing law can be brutal on one's psyche and that can affect libido certainly.
Give him a break on the sex for awhile, but demand some physical affection. He probably needs it more than you do, but is so depressed he doesn't realize it. Also make sure that you two aren't channelling ALL of your physical affection to your daughter. It's hard not to compartmentalize that when there are so many additional demands on you.
And, while some married couples can brag of great sex all the time, many go through dry patches for a time. Get to the root of things, give it time and if you love each other I would bet intimacy will blossom again.
Good luck.
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MEDS AND AFFECTION
Several people with personal experience have said this already ...but since the other half of Salon posters don't appear to be listening, I'll isolate it:
Depression meds can cause not just loss of libido, but loss of all desire to be physically affectionate.
So far I've read three pages and seen three letters from people claiming it can't be the meds because the meds might screw up his sex life but can't cause him to refuse to hold hands. On the other hand, these letters are littered with people saying that meds CAN cause him to refuse to hold hands. Pay attention! I know it's alarming to contemplate, but you are an animal and much more of your personality is chemically-based than you would like to think.
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Chemical treatment for depression and libido
Several pharmaceutical treatments for depression have, as a side-effect, reduced libido or sexual drive.
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intimacy
LW says,
We've talked about this, repeatedly but superficially.
What? That makes no sense. You want intimacy, but you only talk superficially? LW, your husband is going through hell. He has no local friends, no family, and not even an established place at work. And on top of it you're frustrated with him for not holding your hand?
But it seems the appropriate action of this circumstance is no action. To be patient. He's working on it. I need to understand, and to be kind and to wait.
Stop being a fair-weather wife. Stop being "patient" and "kind". Stop twirling your thumbs while he "works on it". Those are the polite responses of a stranger. Don't outsource your job as a wife to the therapist. Don't gripe to your friends and expect them to fix it. Therapists and friends can help, but you're the only wife he has and will ever have. From the tone of your letter you sound reluctant to really act as if that were true.
If you want your husband to be intimate with you, then you have to be intimate with him. Ask him what he is going through and really listen. I don't mean listen as in hear every word, I mean listen as in make sure he knows you are willing to hear anything he wants to say. Prepare yourself for some dark, dark stuff and remember that you vowed to love and cherish this guy even when life isn't puppies and daisies and kisses in the rain.
If you don't want that kind of intimacy-- the real deal, then stop calling it intimacy. Stop calling him your husband. Call him the friend with benefits you are legally attached to. Framed that way it is perfectly fine to jump ship now that he no longer wants to hold your hand. Framed that way you have no reason not to trade up for a better model. But if you want intimacy, and want a husband in the sacred way you originally agreed, then be a real wife and take on some of his burden.