Whew, I was surprised to come across this topic. Louisy, thinking partially of you as I write this. I am 70 and my husband 78. I had been married 16 years, divorced for 5 before meet ing my husband. I had 2 young daughters. He had never been married nor lived with a woman. We went together 13 years before marrying. We married when he was 65. When he retired a couple years later is when everything changed. he had been a workaholic. Retirement put him in a depression that he still or even moreso suffers from. On top of that, no longer working, PTSD from his Vietnam years arose. A big part of PTSD is detachment. He has totally become detached from just about everything including me. For someone who treated me as an equal and had managed his own life very independent, he now relies on me for so much. You'd think he'd never made a decision or cleaned a house before, picked up after himself. Most of it falls on me. Hard to feel love with all that going on. Not to mention because of the depression, he has had no interest in sex. He only hears the negativity from me. So if I thanked him he would hear it but dwell on negative aspects. He's an introvert so never said a lot but now it's like he's mute. He's so inside his head that I think sometimes he thinks he has had a conversation with me. He refuses to wear his hearing aids. I could go on and on. He used to be so kind and thoughtful . He adored my daughters. One has a 4 year old. This was his chance to be a grandfather and have all those experiences. He was fabulous with my daughters when they were growing up. Now he can't put himself out. I can't let it get me down. I finally retired this year because I was exhausted. I keep myself busy, I have lots of friends I do things with. I go on trips without him. It is so sad our marriage has turned into everything we didn't want. The last therapist we went to finally dismissed us saying until he deals with his depression, nothing more can be done. He has tried different modalities but I feel he just wants it to go away without really putting in the work. I can't let him drag me down so I make my life as full with what I want to do.