Jump to content

Hitting My Wall


Recommended Posts

Hello everyone I'm not the type to do this type of thing but I just don't know what else to do anymore. My wife and I have been together for over 4 years and married about a year now. We seem to get along well but there is always a catch.

My wife has severe social anxiety which I've been trying to live with since the beginning of our relationship. I've tried my best to hold it together and tell myself to give her more time, but its just not going anywhere. She's been on and off jobs for the entire time we've been together and we're both going back to school.

We met in college and have been together ever since. More than anything she wants to be a mother ,but I don't know if I want to be a dad anymore. She wants to live at home an raise a kid when we don't have enough with both of us working. She can't keep a job and all the financial burden is put on me. We've gone thru hell and back after loosing two pregnancies.

I'm just worried about how we can care for a kid when she can't take care of herself. She has severe depression and suicidal tendencies that I have to watch her after we get in any fights. Any fight we have ends with her locked in the bathroom with a knife cutting herself. I've tried getting her to go to therapy, I've tried supporting her. There is only so much I can do, and I'm done. Let me know if I'm crazy for wanting to take a break or not.

Link to post
Share on other sites

You need to talk to her about your fears & you need to make a budget to plan for a child. Can you get a better paying job? Can she get a work from home position?

 

Bringing a child into this tenuous situation sounds like a bad plan.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
Trail Blazer

Your wife needs some serious help before she's even fit to be a mother. If she's not already seeing a therapist, she must see one immediately. If she is, she probably needs to talk to her therapist about per plan to have children so at the very least her therapist can help better prepare her. It is not the therapist's position to tell your wife that she shouldn't be thinking of kids until she's in a better place mentally, but I don't think it's hard to figure out what they would think. Common sense says she's not fit as she has a mental illess.

 

As for you, woah man that's some heavy sh*t you've got to deal with. But think, if it's this hard now, imagine adding the complications of children? That's obviously your dilemma, so my advice is to tread very carefully from here. The fate of the rest of your life rests in your hands. Don't get sucked into emotional blackmailing. If you make a rational decision and your wife starts pulling knives to her wrists because she doesn't like what she's hearing then it only confirms the decision to stall being parents is the right one.

 

Even if your wife gets help and is in a better state of mind to have a kid, adding financial struggles is a reason alone to wait until you're in a better financial situation. But if you add that stress to a person who has form when it comes to crashing and burning under pressure, she will almost certainly regress back to her old ways. By that point it will be too late. From one dude to another, I implore you to choose wisely. I think deep down you really know what you want to do. Be brave and make the best choice you can make, even if it's not the easiest choice.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

You aren't crazy at all. You're thinking logically. She isn't fit to be a mother and getting help may never make things better. Even if you want children, you should do what's best for a future child and that would be finding someone who is mentally healthy.

 

And if you're taking out student loans for school, now that you're married, guess who will get to pay back those loans when she can't hold down a job or she gets pregnant and decides to stay home?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Don't bring a child into this relationship.

 

My boyfriends ex-wife has serious mental health issues. This is ultimately, what brought their marriage to an end - she got pregnant, her mental health got worse, and she has not been able to work or maintain healthy relationships with anyone. The stress that it places in their child is difficult to watch. It's a role reversal - the child is responsible for assisting the mother to manage her anxiety and her mental health. She leans on him and he feels responsible and very protective for his mother. It's not right to do this to a child.

 

I'm sorry, I do hope that your wife gets some help.

Edited by BaileyB
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
HarmonyDriven

....how we can care for a kid when she can't take care of herself? She has severe depression and suicidal tendencies that I have to watch her after we get in any fights. Any fight we have ends with her locked in the bathroom with a knife cutting herself. I've tried getting her to go to therapy, I've tried supporting her. There is only so much I can do,

 

and I'm done. Let me know if I'm crazy for wanting to take a break or not.

 

You have your head on straight, she doesn't and needs help. You are absolutely correct, how can you care for a kid when she cannot care for herself? She can't.

 

And no, you are not crazy for wanting to take a break. Hope she gets the professional help she so desperately needs.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Hello everyone I'm not the type to do this type of thing but I just don't know what else to do anymore. My wife and I have been together for over 4 years and married about a year now. We seem to get along well but there is always a catch.

My wife has severe social anxiety which I've been trying to live with since the beginning of our relationship. I've tried my best to hold it together and tell myself to give her more time, but its just not going anywhere. She's been on and off jobs for the entire time we've been together and we're both going back to school.

We met in college and have been together ever since. More than anything she wants to be a mother ,but I don't know if I want to be a dad anymore. She wants to live at home an raise a kid when we don't have enough with both of us working. She can't keep a job and all the financial burden is put on me. We've gone thru hell and back after loosing two pregnancies.

I'm just worried about how we can care for a kid when she can't take care of herself. She has severe depression and suicidal tendencies that I have to watch her after we get in any fights. Any fight we have ends with her locked in the bathroom with a knife cutting herself. I've tried getting her to go to therapy, I've tried supporting her. There is only so much I can do, and I'm done. Let me know if I'm crazy for wanting to take a break or not.

 

Absolutely no child under the circumstances!

 

Your wife has very serious currently untreated psychiatric conditions. If you have trouble leaving your wife alone after a fight because you have reason to fear she might hurt herself, imagine how much worse it would be to leave her alone with a small child! Because she has proven to be unable to work, it means that you'd be the sole breadwinner and forced to leave your child in your wife's custody for the day. Your wife is completely unfit for motherhood at present. She sounds hardly fit for marriage to me, to be honest. Her having a child would put that child's mental health at considerable risk. It would take years successful treatment for her to become a fit parent. Also, mental illnesses often have a hereditary component. Are you really sure you want your child to risk socially and genetically inheriting her issues?

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
pheonixrisen
Hello everyone I'm not the type to do this type of thing but I just don't know what else to do anymore. My wife and I have been together for over 4 years and married about a year now. We seem to get along well but there is always a catch.

My wife has severe social anxiety which I've been trying to live with since the beginning of our relationship. I've tried my best to hold it together and tell myself to give her more time, but its just not going anywhere. She's been on and off jobs for the entire time we've been together and we're both going back to school.

We met in college and have been together ever since. More than anything she wants to be a mother ,but I don't know if I want to be a dad anymore. She wants to live at home an raise a kid when we don't have enough with both of us working. She can't keep a job and all the financial burden is put on me. We've gone thru hell and back after loosing two pregnancies.

I'm just worried about how we can care for a kid when she can't take care of herself. She has severe depression and suicidal tendencies that I have to watch her after we get in any fights. Any fight we have ends with her locked in the bathroom with a knife cutting herself. I've tried getting her to go to therapy, I've tried supporting her. There is only so much I can do, and I'm done. Let me know if I'm crazy for wanting to take a break or not.

 

She needs help .professional help.not the kind you are providing .

 

You need to step back Unless you are trained and have extensive knowledge of mental health issue/depression/suicidal tendencies you are of no help in this situation .

 

Please do not plan A child .She needs to take care of her self first in order to be fit enough to take care of a child.you are right to not want a child in this situation.

 

You should not have to take care of an adult women in this manner .She needs professional help .

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Wow that is tough. I have a son who suffers from an adjustment disorder which has lead to a lot of anxiety and job loss. Not as severe as what you describe and dealing with his issues has been tough enough.

 

I'd guess the first thing you need to decide is whether it's worth a shot to try and get to a better place with her? Obviously your wife needs professional help and needs it immediately. I wouldn't even consider a kid at this point.

 

It sounds as though she is resisting therapy?

 

If you think it's worth a shot to save your marriage, I'd come right out and say we need to get you help and you need to commit to therapy until you are healthy and stable or a child is just not possible.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Don't do it! My brother just had a child with a girl we've known since childhood...it started off great & now her mental illness has taken front stage to my nephew...& this girl appeared to have it together!

 

Women with mental illness sometimes think a baby is going to make them happy...all it does it make their situation 10 times worse & usually brings the mental illness out more bc add hormones & postpartum depression. Not only will she suffer more but imagine worrying about a baby on top of her???

 

Watching this happen within my own family, my only advice is...don't do it, your life will be a living hell. Good luck

Link to post
Share on other sites

It would be madness to have a child with her.

 

She has suicidal tenandancies

She can't hold down a job

She could pass her social anxiety on to your child

 

She'd be a financial liability to you and will bring you nothing but stress. You should have not married her without any improvement. Don't make the mistake of bringing a new life into it.

 

She's not fit to be a mother, until her mental health is under control.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Star, the behaviors you describe -- i.e., irrational anger, controlling behavior, easily triggered temper tantrums, lack of impulse control, suicide threats, arm cutting, and always being "The Victim" -- are classic warning signs for BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). Importantly, I'm not suggesting that your W necessarily has full-blown BPD (a determination that only a professional can make). Rather, I'm suggesting that she may be a "BPDer," i.e., may exhibit strong BPD symptoms regardless of whether they are above or below the diagnostic threshold.

 

Any fight we have ends with her locked in the bathroom with a knife cutting herself.
the APA's diagnostic manual (DSM-5) lists "self-harming behavior such as cutting" for only one disorder: BPD. That is, of the 157 disorders listed in DSM-5, only BPD has "cutting" listed as a defining trait. Moreover, many studies have shown that self harm like cutting is strongly associated with BPD. A 2004 hospital study, for example, found that

Self-mutilating behavior is a symptom seen in both men and women with various psychiatric disorders, but
the majority of those who self-mutilate are women with borderline personality disorder
. This complex, maladaptive behavior is used by clients as a means of self-preservation and emotion regulation, and is often associated with childhood trauma.
See
.

She has suicidal tendencies that I have to watch her after we get in any fights.
Suicide threats is another warning sign for BPD. One of the 9 defining symptoms for BPD is "Recurring suicidal behaviors or threats or self-harming behavior, such as cutting." See 9 BPD Traits at NIMH.

 

My wife has severe social anxiety.
If she is a BPDer, there is a 68% chance she has suffered from an anxiety disorder in the past year. See Table 2 at 2008 Study in JCP. Given this strong association between BPD and anxiety disorders, it is not surprising that "A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones" is one of the 9 symptoms for BPD.

 

I've tried my best to hold it together and tell myself to give her more time, but its just not going anywhere.
If your W really is a BPDer, it likely would take her several years of weekly individual therapy to make substantial progress because a BPDer's emotional development is frozen at a young age. Nobody knows for certain what it is that causes a child's development of emotional skills to stop at about age four. The current theory is that -- due to heredity and/or early childhood trauma/abuse -- the child feels so threatened that he keeps a death grip on the primitive ego defenses that young children rely on for survival.

 

These primitive defenses include denial, projection, black-white thinking, magical thinking, and temper tantrums. The child is so fully reliant on those defenses to survive childhood that she is afraid to let go long enough to replace them with the more mature ego defenses that other children acquire.

 

The result is that the child enters adulthood without knowing how to do self soothing; how to regulate her own emotions; how to intellectually challenge intense feelings instead of accepting them as "facts"; how to trust others; how to be "mindful" (i.e., to remain in the room instead of escaping in daydreams to the past or future); how to perceive "object constancy" (i.e., to see that your personality is essentially unchanged day to day, even when you are angry with her); and how to avoid black-white thinking by learning to tolerate strong mixed feelings, uncertainties, ambiguities, and the other gray areas of interpersonal relationships.

 

Another result, if you really are married to a BPDer, is that your W likely has the emotional development of a four year old. This would mean that you essentially are in a parent/child relationship, not a husband/wife relationship.

 

Let me know if I'm crazy for wanting to take a break or not.
Star, if you really have been living with a BPDer for four years, a little "crazy" is exactly how you should be feeling. Because BPDers typically are convinced that the absurd allegations coming out of their mouths are absolutely true -- they generally have a greater "crazy-making" effect than can ever be achieved by narcissists or sociopaths.

 

This is why that, of the 157 mental disorders listed in the APA's diagnostic manual, BPD is the one most notorious for making the abused partners feel like they may be losing their minds. And this is largely why therapists typically see far more of those abused partners -- coming in to find out if they are going insane -- than they ever see of the BPDers themselves.

 

Nothing will drive you crazier sooner than being repeatedly abused by a partner whom you know, to a certainty, must really love you. The reason is that you will be mistakenly convinced that, if only you can figure out what YOU are doing wrong, you can restore your partner to that wonderful human being you saw at the very beginning.

 

I've tried getting her to go to therapy, I've tried supporting her.
If she actually does have strong BPD traits, it is very unlikely that she will seek therapy and work at it long enough to make a real difference. Like the other personality disorders, BPD typically is invisible to the person suffering from it.

 

I just don't know what else to do anymore.
I suggest that you consult with your own psychologist -- for a visit or two all by yourself -- to obtain a candid professional opinion on what it is that you will be dealing with if you remain married to this woman. I also suggest that, while you're looking for a good psychologist, you read about BPD warning signs to see if most seem to apply.

 

I caution that BPD is not something -- like chickenpox -- that a person either "has" or "doesn't have." Instead, it is a "spectrum" disorder, which means every adult on the planet occasionally exhibits all BPD traits to some degree (albeit at a low level if the person is healthy). At issue, then, is not whether your W exhibits BPD traits. Of course she does. We all do.

 

Rather, at issue is whether she exhibits those traits at a strong and persistent level (i.e., is on the upper third of the BPD spectrum). Not having met her, I cannot answer that question. I nonetheless believe you can spot any strong BPD warning signs that are present if you take a little time to learn which behaviors are on the list. They are easy to spot because there is nothing subtle about behaviors such as always being "The Victim," cutting, lack of impulse control, and temper tantrums.

 

Of course, learning to spot these warning signs will not enable you to diagnose your W's issues. Although strong BPD symptoms are easy to spot when they occur, only a professional can determine whether they are so severe as to constitute full-blown BPD. Yet, like learning warning signs for a stroke or heart attack, learning those for BPD may help you avoid a very painful situation -- and may help you decide whether the situation is sufficiently serious to warrant your spending money to obtain a candid opinion from your own psychologist, i.e., from one who is ethically bound to protect YOUR best interests, not hers.

 

I therefore suggest you take a quick look at my list of 18 BPD Warning Signs. If most sound very familiar, I would suggest you also read my more detailed description of them at my posts in Rebel's Thread. If that description rings many bells and raises questions, I would be glad to join the other respondents in discussing them with you. Take care, Star.

Edited by Downtown
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Oh Lord.....

 

OP, if your wife has been diagnosed by an actual professional, and her condition is putting such a heavy strain on your marriage, I would encourage her to get more help. And do NOT have children.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'll be blunt. She should not be having kids until and unless she gets and stays in therapy and on meds AND they work to straighten her out and level her out. Otherwise, this is not anyone who needs to be taking care of kids. So you yourself wear birth control and don't let this happen. You do not have to stay with her. If she is diligent about trying to fix herself with the psychiatrist and that psychiatrist thinks she can be fixed, then it's worth waiting around for, but many mentally ill people will refuse to get help of take their meds, and you must not have kids with a person like that. It's cruel.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I have suffered depression since being a teenager but never would I have put my ex husband through what your wife is putting you through. She does need professional help and, like others have said, you should not consider having a child until things are on an even keel. If she cannot be trusted to look after herself if you and she disagree on something, then she should not be trusted with a child. I have every sympathy for someone suffering from an illness but if someone cannot protect themselves from self-harm, they should not be trusted to protect a child. Quite simply she does not have the required self-control and maturity.

Link to post
Share on other sites
×
×
  • Create New...