Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
My therapist suggested I need to be more independent and go out. After a normal, 30 years of marriage, my wife developed severe anxiety and a seeming form of agarophobia where she wants to stay home.
Today her good friend and a group I know had a charity walk and I said we'd try to go. I got up a litttle before 10 and suggested we try to go before by 11. She indicated okay but was not getting ready. I did get her to a wedding by saying I'd go alone, and today at 11:30 said fine I am going alone. She said no, no please come back, please come back, I'll get ready, I said I'd wait 5 minutes, she says she ready now and I come home. We get in the car and she says I can't go like this, and I do notice she doesn't have makeup and other women do notice (and have commented to me). She says she needs to go home but does nothing and I'm exhausted.
She called one son 20 times yesterday during working hours, today again, and has little concern over anyone else. I feel like I have to yell because nothing gets through. I don't work on Saturday and told her, you happy, I work 55-60 hours a week, spend 20 hours on cooking and cleaning, another 20 on your therapy, and I want one F-ing day to relax and I can't do that, you make sure to aggravate and create a problem on a nice day, instead of going out, talking to people, enjoying a nice lunch seeing the beach, you chose depression and problems for yourself and aggravation for me, you couldn't even give me one F-ing day to relax, I'm stressed, I told you I'm stressed, but as usual, you cater to that F-ing anxiety, it's ruining you, it's ruining me, but you give it high priority and I mean little or nothing, hope you're happy stressing me out ruining my weekend, taking away one decent day we could have enjoyed ourselves because you have to cater to that F-ing anxiety and do whatever it wants. I later said, do you want to go out tonight to a nice restaurant, the weather's beautiful and basically her anxiety says, no let's stay home and be miserable, there's nothing better than a miserable night following a miserable day if I keep her depressed and you stressed and unhappy I've done my job.
Sorry to let some steam, I'm just frustrated today.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
I will acknowledge being a fairly easy boss, everyone works when they want and that has worked out well. And I was on the easy side as a parent. A story.
So my oldest (step) is 16 and asked to go what seems like a party. I say no, you can't go, I don't know the people and we don't think its safe. Wait how come I can't go when everyone of my friends can, I work hard in school, get an honor, why is it that my friend's parents trust their children but you can't trust me. Reluctantly my wife and I say okay.
Fast forward almost 15 years later and we're sharing a vacation on a beach and he has kids there. Well you and mom were good parents but you didn't always show the best judgment, how could you let me go to that party when I was 16, did you know there were college kids doing coke and none of the other parents would let their kids go. Wait I thought you say they had permission, dad you gotta smarten up a little, kids will tell you anything.
As to my youngest we had a strange relationship. He became a sports captain I was nowhere that popular and I realized that somehow he knew a lot more about life than me and I spent most of the time trying to learn from him. He has 3 houses, professional success, had girls constantly chasing him and I've had at least 10 people say I'd like to live his life.
Appreciate the advice, and it does feel like being a parent with a misbehaving 4 year old. I'll try to toughen up or enforce better rules, I just have never been a rules type of person so its a role I'm not used to particularly with my wife.
of any age, adults are not above manipulating tactics when there is something to gain. In this instance, your wife knows your weaknesses and will play on them. The thing is, are you willing to be strong enough to stand your ground? Or will you allow yourself to capitulate to episodes of nightgowns outside or bare faces in public? To truly live someone means to do whatever is necessary no matter what. To make threats of leaving at one o’clock and then being distracted with details that are of no consequence and leaving at one thirty is not standing firm. Your wife knows she can coax you, that your threats are empty. So you are enabling her behavior for not standing firm and capitulating to her and other details that aren’t important. She doesn’t take you seriously because of these empty threats and your own behavior. I can’t put it any clearer than that. So part of the problem is you. No insult intended, just stating facts. Human nature. But we have to learn from our mistakes and do better, else the goal is not reached. A person who is firm and decisive garners more trust than someone who wavers, gives in, doesn’t follow thru.
First, you wrote this out, and as a person who suffers from acute anxiety with social phobia, I understood what you said, how you said, and the end result was confused chaos. You're left with knowing the attention provided by your care giving didn't work the expected way. You are now aware of the 'enabling' factor that bumps real life challenge of putting your well-being first each and every time this behavior happens.
Second, remove anxiety from the plan of action. By doing this, you stop the manipulation of the 'back and forth' of home and social event. She doesn't want to go, fine. Leave, and most importantly, turn off the phone connection. This important change will prove to be a game changer in that amount of calls she's making to other people with not so pleasant results will force some significant information to surface.
As long as your wife obtains 'attention', she doesn't care that it's not doing anything other than providing in the moment attention. The long term effect of crying 'wolf' will result in people ignoring or responding in generic and distant ways.
There's a huge difference between the reality of anxiety and the use of known anxiety 'attention' moments to obtain the desired result. I suspect that your wife will continue this same pattern until you stop, pause, breathe, option, repeat until calm and clear-headed, and continue as needed to break through this situation.
No threats, just a simple direction statement with calm and clear headed tone. Do Follow Through Completely and with Confidence.
Fear that you have belongs to you, and only you can change how you face it for your well-being.
This is from my personal experience to move through a significant daily living activity that kept me from living, rather than existing in the moment.
It's not your problem how your wife handles her anxiety. It's not going to change until you change for your well-being and your living. She is definitely capable of making decision to stay home, to say she'll go, just to make you come home again and be miserable with her. Let the feeling go, and write it out like you have here. Just remember, there's more to her pattern than what you see, hear, feel, and she has to deal with it, not you.
I hope you know we support you, encourage you, and wish you the best as you make your way through this challenge. You are not alone.
It’s okay that you are feeling anger and shame regarding her situation. But it’s not okay for you to allow that anger and shame to create this constant battle with her. It’s verbally abusive to be yelling and demanding she be different. She can’t.
You pour gasoline on her fire. Whatever is wrong with her, you work against truly helping her. I think the biggest issue is you are ashamed of your wife’s problems. And frustrated because your joy is in your work and she disrupts that. The more you blame her, the more unhappy you become.
I personally don’t feel like it’s about enforcing rules. It’s about establishing boundaries and setting reasonable expectations. Using your boss example: I am not a rigid boss; I just set reasonable expectations, coach when necessary, provide feedback, etc. I’m not a laying down the law manager because it just alienates your team members. I mean in reality comparing a partner in a marriage to a manager and employee is not really apples to apples but just trying to use a similar analogy to you saying you are a fairly easy boss. I am too but the work gets done nonetheless. I think it comes down to mutual respect in a lot of ways. In a marriage there shouldn’t be a boss. It’s just two people having to balance of being autonomous but also being in sync. It’s not easy especially when dealing with physical or mental health issues.
Anyhoooo… I think setting expectations and then calmly following through takes practice. It’s so hard especially when you are close to that person. The lines really get blurry.
Keep practicing. Everyone’s kind of a work in progress and life and circumstance are never stagnant. All we can do is accept where we are, and keep adapting and learning as we go.
It would not have bothered me to go as she looked, I just talked about makeup to avoid what actually happened, she became self-conscious in the car and then didn't want to go. Let's get this done before to reduce stress and have a nice day.
Interestingly her mother had agarophobia, her sister sees a narrow group of friends and family, and my wife's good friend, a psychiatrist warned me about agarophobia. Today my wife seems to be in a good mood, but I don't know what to make of it.
Expectations can be confusing. She understands but doesn't seem to try to meet other people's expectations these days, her anxiety wants to be able to call her children during work hours, and to have me around during the day. In business, my pet peeve is when people say they don't understand, when someone says to a seller, I want my money back, I want my money back, the seller understands that, there's just a conflict between what people want to do.
Its NOT a question of communication expectations. My son knows I rarely call during the day except in an urgent situation while my wife will call repeatedly, sometimes 10 times according to him. He has communicated reasonable expectations. ,
Enforcing standards in a marriage is not easy. As in most good marriages, you try to understand, communicate, and compromise, but here the communication means little because under stress, any promises are eliminated and anxiety rules the show enforcing what dictate it has that day.
As to Hasty's comments, fair game, people can express themselves. However if a man was an alcoholic and came home at 2 am and missed work (after being warned about absence) would you make sure to refrain from raising your voice because this is an illness, if a man had a porn addiction and you found out he was calling strange women on some site at $500 per hour, would you not get angry because he can't do better and being rebuked could impact his self-esteem.
Right now, I'm functionally under house arrest though I've committed no crime. My therapist says its stressful, others say its stressful, friends and family get stressed interacting with her for say 1/50 of the time. I'm working on finding ways to change things and it can be hard.
To Hasty, I'm not ashamed and freely talk about things. For example, I had a catheter a few years ago, I told people, once you own whatever issue you have, that's 70% of the battle. I'm not trying to hide any issue with my wife, just address it, and be as productive in what I can. Almost everyone in my family my 3 sons and me close friends, believe her first step is acknowledging severe anxiety and depression and committing herself to addressing it.
Friends and family need to really stop directing THEIR concerns and issues about your wife to you. I say quit indulging it. They need to hear from you that it’s not helpful to you and you would like them to stop (if that’s what you want) and maybe they should discuss it with her directly if they are concerned. If they
were good friends, that’s what good friends do.
Same with your son. Your son can just ignore his mom’s calls. Or he can tell his mom she can only call during certain times or whatever the boundary is. Why is he putting extra burden on you by complaining about it to you.
The friends commenting on your wife’s appearance to you is really crappy. TELL them to stop, that it’s not helpful. And WHO CARES that she doesn’t always wear make up and stay in top of coloring her hair. Quite honestly it’s liberating to not have keep up an appearance all.the.time.
People lose their cool and yell sometimes. I don’t think that makes you verbally abusive. It makes you human and trying to come to grips with the inanity of it all. I think the best anyone can do is accept her limitations even if it feels like she is capable and focus on clear boundaries and not back tracking on them as hard as it is. Focus on what is within your control which is just you, your words, behavior, choices, etc.
Oh, this is not a good example, Bobby. Al Anon teaches us the the yelling stuff doesn't work. Shaming doesn't work. Enabling sure doesn't work and makes them hate themselves more and feel less in control of the addiction. They already hate themselves for not being able to stop the addiction according to Al Anon, so all this denigrating, yelling, demanding, doesn't encourage or make them stop drinking. The real key is all this yelling doesn't make anyone change. It makes them resentful, feel bad about themselves, and stuck in the trap of their own negatives stuff/addictions.
Sure we get mad and yell at times. We all do but how far do we take it, how cruel are our words, how much do we show disdain and demean our loved one when we are yelling and fussing? We can feel angry without denigrating someone, demeaning someone, making them feel this small and worthless. Especially someone who for whatever reason, her anxiety, her brain dysfunction, whatever it is, someone who simply can't accommodate your needs and desires at this time.
You would not mention the make up in the first place if it didn't actually bother you deep down. This is not your baggage to carry. Don't take on things that are shaming or increase your frustration. Let go, let it be, accept what you can't change which is all of her issues, behaviors, and stuff.
Google the serenity prayer. Go for acceptance instead of pushing back against her issues and difficult behaviors. I do understand that you liked your marriage from years ago better than this current stage (so would I). You no longer really have a life partner due to her brain health disorder, whatever it is. I just feel sorry for her a lot. And I apologize for when I get angry at you when I feel you are demeaning her and trying to force her to change beyond what she is capable of. That is my own personality flaw. I watched my family members do this to two older adults in our family with bad dementia type disorders. I think it is not good for me to respond to you because obviously today I responded too unkindly to you.
1. I'd like to go out, say stop at the library (again I've been functionally under house arrest for over a year). Again she'll say wait 5 or 10 minutes, stonewall call, distract herself and work to keep me home for several hours. If I leave, she'll run out, potentially with a jacket and nothing underneath. Getting away is not easy because she'll run out as soon as she hears the car we have people crossing, and I don't want to hit her and she will jump in the car. Let say I get away I will have a crying, urgent call to come back please come back. Do I just leave her at home.
2. Her counselor recommended some courses at a school. My wife seemed interested and was checking that over the weekend. But there's a huge gap between her realizing something would be good and doing it. She'll tell me let me think about it, hour by hour, day by day and do nothing. How do I get a commitment, and register for the courses.
3. We need furniture. Talking about stress, imagine I spend $12-15,000 and she doesn't like it, constantly complains about it, alternatively blaming me and herself for not picking something. Again I've got family and friends telling me daily when's the house going to get furnished. How do I get a decision, when the response will be wait, I'll think about it.
4. Look back. She is far harder on herself. I've told her let's agree to 1/2 hour daily where you criticize yourself and lament what's been done, and then the remainder on going forward. I try to provide positive feedback. How do we get that done.
No one here is a professional nor knows your wife or what is going on with her mentally. So I’m not sure what advice would really be helpful or correct at this point. But unless she is completely incapable of caring for herself or is in danger of harming herself or has a brain disease or impairment, I’ll throw my hat in the ring based on your questions:
1) what if you tried setting up a schedule with her that on certain days you need some time alone out if the house. I don’t know if that would help but it’s just trying something different since what you are doing doesn’t seems to be working. I think if she calls you a gazzillion times when out, turn your phone off. Tell her if she can’t be alone you will have no choice but to hire a caregiver.
2) I’d move off the courses for now. Stop asking your wife about it. If she wants to do it, she will. If she doesn’t, she won’t. let yourself off the hook for figuring that out for her.
3. It’s none of your family’s or friend’s business about the furniture. If YOU want furniture, go pick it out and buy it. If she doesn’t like it, we’ll honestly let her piss and moan about it. She doesn’t seem able to make a decision or seems that concerned about it, unlike everyone else in your life, so why keep going through it?
4. I think if she chooses to beat herself up, let her work through that on her own. My husband is negative sometimes. Drives me nuts but we are just different that way. I just let him be. It’s honestly part of how he works through stuff. It’s really not something you should try to fix or control in your wife in my opinion.
You know that expression the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result? That goes for her and you.
You can try to “logic” your way to compelling her but the logic is kind moot because her thinking is distorted and disordered.