Depression in men often shows up at home as a short temper and a mask that keeps saying everything’s fine. In part two of this conversation, Mike Forrester brings his wife Cathy Forrester back to keep telling their story. In Idaho, Mike had finally let other men in. Cathy’s dad gave him a place to talk and be real, something he never had with his own father. Then Mike was laid off along with 750 other people, and the family moved to Kansas. They lost their whole support system at once. Mike expected new friends and a fresh start, and neither came. He sank into the darkest season of his life. Cathy watched the old insecurities come back, and she and the kids walked on eggshells for a long time.

Cathy names what that season cost the family. She calls Mike the thermostat of the home. Whatever mood he carried, the kids picked up and took out on each other. She was homeschooling and became the hub of the wheel, holding everyone together while running on caffeine and very little rest. Gratitude for small moments kept her going, like science at the zoo or math in chalk on the driveway. The turn started when business coaching showed Mike that what festers in one area shows up in all of them. He then did a two-day coaching intensive and asked Cathy to come with him because he was petrified. She helped him see that he’d been reading every disagreement as an attack. Later, he took her away for weekends to ask hard questions about their marriage. Her honest answers first sent him into a five-hour silent drive home. It took about two years before he could hear her without defending himself.

Trust came back through consistency. Cathy watched Mike catch himself when he slipped and keep working to make it right, even when he didn’t get it perfect. The kids tested the waters with small pieces of themselves before they trusted him with bigger things. Mike says he didn’t do it alone, and it took the whole family going through it. That fits what Mike Forrester lives and teaches, which is to quit trying to fix yourself by yourself. Mike admits he used to think he’d love Cathy once she respected him, and that got them nowhere. Today their grown kids catch their own unhealthy patterns because they watched their dad struggle and keep going. Cathy now has room to be herself and to care for her own health. This one is for the married dad with kids still at home who keeps telling his family he’s fine while he’s quietly struggling. He wants his wife and kids to stop walking on eggshells and start trusting him again.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:

• Recognize the signs of depression in men at home, from a short temper to shutting out your family.
• See how losing your job and your community can pull you back into old patterns you thought you’d left behind.
• Understand why your mood sets the temperature for your wife and kids, and how they carry it.
• Learn why your personal struggles show up at work, and how coaching helped Mike see the root.
• Walk through how consistency and owning your slips rebuild trust with your wife and kids over time.
• Spot when you’re defending yourself instead of hearing your wife’s honest answer.

The key moments in this episode are:

00:01:05 - How a strained relationship with your wife’s family can change over time

00:05:39 - Why men need other men to talk to and process life with

00:08:41 - How a layoff and a move can strip away your support system

00:11:17 - How depression in men shows up at home

00:13:08 - Signs your husband is struggling and hiding behind a mask

00:19:16 - Why dad’s mood sets the temperature for the whole family

00:22:15 - How a wife stays afloat when her husband is struggling

00:26:43 - Why your personal struggles show up in your work

00:28:40 - What a two-day coaching intensive did for his healing

00:37:31 - How to rebuild trust with your wife and kids after you change

00:41:43 - What happened when he asked his wife hard questions and got defensive

01:03:19 - Self-care advice for a wife whose husband is struggling

Connect with Cathy Forrester

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/CDForrester

Connect with Mike Forrester

https://linktr.ee/hicoachmike