Has your wife seen her regular doctor? She may need medication to begin
to lift the depression.

She saw her doctor who did recommend an anti-anxiety, anti-depressant drug. She started at small doses but unfortunately all sorts of maladies were attributed by her to the drug, a reverse placebo effect according to one therapist. She would stop or take the drug erratically, and sought to switch. Most of us, husband, children, strongly believe she needs medication and needs to follow physician's advice, but one family member is anti-drug and would add, what's happening with the drug sounds extremely serious, you know these drugs can cause serious problems and they work on the brain.

The doctors would tell us to follow instructions, periodically note the dose was very low, did not see any serious side effects. We had a worse case scenario where taking the drug erratically could cause problems. Wife has now decided that drugs cause her anxiety or imbalances in the brain, which makes therapy less effective, and limits further medication. A mess.

Dunno if this has anything to do with your case, but? ? ?

My hubby's family has allot of "Identified Patient Syndrome" where a single person's illness gets credit for everything which ails the family. When it comes time, hubby's retirement hobby becomes taking care of wifey. With my MIL, her Huntington's Disease became the center of my FIL's world after he retired from his executive career. Executive powered nursing is ? ? ? intense? With my own hubby, it is (was?) my PTSD (an anxiety disorder). My MIL's place in that family tradition looked horrific enough that I ran all the way to Bolivia when my own hubby started looking like he was going to carry on that family tradition. He has since backed off enough and started taking care of bees instead of taking charge of my life, but? ? ? Old habits die hard.

Guess I'm wondering if your wife's problems are hers to sort. I know, for sure, radical acceptance and support from the love of my life helps me far more than his well-intended attempts to play doctor.

See a therapist on your own. To help you cope with the situation. And have a place to safely talk about your self.

Sorry Arfie about your challenges, I do know Huntington's is quite serious as we have a friend with that, PTSD is serious too but while no one can really do anything about Huntington's, you sometimes feel the person with an anxiety disorder can do more. The articles took about empathy, support, care, but doing that 24/7 can be difficult, and you're tempted to say can you take some steps to get over this.

To my senses, neither of those maladies are as cruel as the executive takeover of a recently retired executive spouse, or even one preparing for retirement, as remains the case with my own hubby. His executive takeover of my life started after our youngest went off to college.

My own hubby is on a strict boundary to let me trust the therapy support network I built while he was busy making a name for himself. Find another retirement hobby, babycakes. Wifey's orders.

Nothing escalates my anxiety issues quicker than the love of my life insisting I am so broken and helpless that I need executive intervention. It's enough to get the prettiest of trophy wives into a most unattractive frame of mind.

If people can handle challenges with the aid of professionals, people should let them. The problem comes when they say (at least for me) help me, I'm suffering, and when you provide some sensible advice and they seem uninterested.

My wife says she's stressed, depressed, and angry and continues to go over what went wrong, and I, along with her therapist, says let's go over what we can do now, work on stress reduction techniques like meditation and yoga, and she continues to talk about these past misdeeds.

My husband helps me best **as** a husband. **If** he were a qualified therapist, he would know better than attempt to therapute family members.

When **people** and/or professionals offer me aid, it carries a whole different flavor than if that aid comes from the other side of my bed. I hate being hubby's DIY project. My pro and peer supporters don't get to take the liberty of talking to me in the shower. From outside that shower door, good advice starts sounding like spousely nagging in a hurry.

Even if I decide to divorce him rather than be his pet DIY project, Hubby ain't just another people or even just another professional. He helps me best **as** the love of my life with the trust to let me work through my own issues in my own time and space. His willingness to listen and votes of confidence help me far, far more than all the good advice on the internet and all the pros in my psychiatric alphabet soup. ESPECIALLY when he's right. Righteous nags can be god awful hard to live with and even harder to love.

Not trying to argue but I guess there are some things that apply in some marriages. You wrote, "His willingness to listen and votes of confidence help me far, far more than all the good advice on the internet." But how do you provide a vote of confidence for things you think are wrong. If for example someone gets angry and anxious, don't you criticize the behavior instead of endorsing it, if a husband goes to a strip club because it reduces stress, does a wife say, I understand and want you to do whatever you feel helps.

In your situation, isn't there some compromise needed on both sides, in some areas he needs to respect your choices but to the extent you ask for help, he may need to provide his views, not to remake you, but as someone who's involved. There are many men who've said I had enough of my job and boss, and a wife who said, take a step back and be patient, instead of saying do whatever fulfills you.

As to professionals, right now, therapists seems to be saying a lot of the same things other people say along with the standard spiel about fight or flight response.

For my senses, it is a question of source and degree. My PTSD is not a **choice** I made to inconvenience my husband. Nor is it as logical as the dollars in a G-string. When I go to a therapy session and receive top-shelf advice from a pro-rated source, my therapist does not follow me home and continue repeating that sage wisdom while I attempt to let that sage wisdom process through the insane, utterly illogical circumstances of my mental illness. He/she offers the wisdom, then gives me a week or so before we have to cover that wisdom again after some practice and processing time.

It's hard to process much of anything while hubby is trying to stick proverbial screwdrivers in my ear at the breakfast table. It starts the day with a mandate to do ^it^ his way and a harsh reminder that I am broken. I knew this before I met you, love. Remember when you used to listen and rock me gently while I cried instead of continually rubbing salt in infected wounds? I married a poet whom I miss dearly. He was more interested in appreciating beauty than being right. This executive dynamo on a mission to *fix* me is no substitusky. My poet used to sing me songs while I settled my ravaged nerves. The **wrong** notes from the guitar he no longer plays were the best part of his songs.

I miss my poet. . . The heart goes where it goes.
What's logic got to do with ^it^?

For what it's worth
I'm an engineer. Quite allot of therapy hours, both before and after the wedding, were invested in getting me to loosen my adoration of logic. Hubby wasn't there for ANY of those sessions. Good luck trying to connect those dots for a busy executive who is busy being right.

Addendum
Thank you for the opportunity to review this portion of my/our healing journey. Hubs and I were still legally married but living in different states in 2018 when a series of cataclysmic life events brought us back together for the sake of 3 young orphans. We just passed the second anniversary of our second parenting career. Methinks it is a good time to review.

When my husband tries to "help," telling me all the things I should and shouldn't be doing, I recoil and dig in harder. It actually pissed me off. It's irrational I know. We've been together for 21 years. I'm 56 year old . I don't really need or want to hear my husband state back to me the solutions to all my problems, like I'm a child, or something for him to fix. While perhaps unintended I perceive it as judgement mixed with arrogance. There's nothing more condescending to me than my husband assuming I'm not aware of what I should be doing, or that I'm ignoring what I should be doing. Of course I'm aware. I remind him that if I could implement all those fixes at this moment, don't you think I would? My anxious brain lies to me and creates chaos, and there lies the problem. That's not an excuse but one possible explanation for why it's hard to just do the right thing and look, problem solved. It's a process. And more importantly, there's a surrender one has to reach to even get the ball rolling, at least for me.

Spouses and family members make lousy therapeutic partners and are not the best source of help. They just aren't. Peer support has always been my go-to, not my husband, Our dynamic and emotional history and closeness just muddies up everything.

My suggestion is when your wife says she needs your help is to ask her what that help is, what that looks like to her. Encourage her to join a support group. Whether she does or doesn't is up to her, but she may find that kind of support to be really powerful. I sure do.

I don't think we need to just take our spouses BS by the way. Like I don't think you need to kiss her butt or tip toe around her. Our spouses issues are hard to ignore or navigate for sure. I think it's ok to express frustration or confusion or disappointment. But doing it with sarcasm (and god knows I love sarcasm), or with annoyance isn't going to get her to see the light. In fact I suspect it will have the opposite effect.

I haven't been to therapy in a long time but there is nothing that occurred during my therapy that I ever shared with my husband... it wasn't for him; it was for me. My stuff is MY stuff to sort through and figure out. His stuff is his. Does our respective "stuff" affect our marriage? Yes, 100%. But we navigate it best we can. I think what helps is complete acceptance of the other, hang ups, issues and all. Doesn't mean it's sunshine and roses all the time (hardly), and acceptance doesn't equate approval. What it does in my marriage is create space to fall down but also get back up, both of us.

I think you trying to help your wife is noble. And I know it cannot be easy for you. I think sometimes though the best thing is to just let people sort it out on their own, taking care of yourself in the process.

Has your wife been tested for Alzheimer’s or dementia? Later onset of the symptoms she is manifesting could be more than anxiety, based on your description of her earlier personality. Don’t mean to rattle you, but, when I was diagnosed in my mid 20’s, I went thru a number of tests to rule out other causes before I was diagnosed with A & D. On another perspective, many people are in denial of their condition, refuse to accept it, become angry, play the victim. My mother is one of these deniers. I saw it up close and personal as she lived with me. I could do no right in her eyes. I took a lot of badgering and accusations when life was not going to her specifications. She refused to see any other perspective but her own, unbending, no forgiveness. She is still the same, no change except that she went to live with my sister. Hopefully your wife will reach a point where she will be more open to help. Perhaps sucking the muck on the bottom of the barrel will get old and she will put forth more of an effort in her own treatment. She really has nowhere to go but up at this point. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for both of you.

Thanks as always mtd for your insightful comments. I had thought about Alzheimer. She has had a brain MRI, and seen a neurologist, and a capable internist never mentioned that. The neurologist called it situational depression. More significantly, there's no sign of loss of memory, just depression, and change in personality. Just the other day, we were talking, I forgot some common name and she promptly recalled it.

I thought about Alz because she periodically gets angry, which does not seem consistent with anxiety and depression. When her friend called recently and I tried to put her on, she threw the phone. Is there any other malady that is possible.

She is resistant to both medicine and therapy. Typically, I have 5-6 issues to discuss with the therapist (therapist allows me near at the end of the session to ask questions). I have seen her understate problems to doctors or therapists and countering the possibility of Alz, she can quickly shift into normal, it was only after I mentioned to a therapist that she refused to see her 8 year old granddaughter that the therapist understood its seriousness.

There is a history of anxiety and both her sister and mother had significant anxiety. There was some findings on the brain MRI, but the neurologist said they were not significant, and an opthomologicial surgeon called it a bunch of nothing.

Stop. Pause. Breathe. Choices. Repeat until clear headed and calm.

In this situation, the balance of your wife being able to deflect the 'hidden' issues in front of professionals is common to many medical issues, and for your sake, I will share this insight.

You are only responsible for what you say, do, act, react, and respond. Your wife is responsible for what she says, does, acts, react, and responds.

She knows you talk to the doctor - that's a huge red flag - it gives her control to be 'mean', to be 'selfish', to be 'a child'. There's nothing wrong with this communication between you and doctor, that's necessary to improve your wife's responsibility for her well-being.

Take a HUGE step back in communication with her. Really focus on the basics. Feelings do not make decisions, so stepping back from her feelings, and choosing to take action for facts in a calm voice will help you make the changes for your well-being.

She's figured out how to 'control' the situation. She doesn't want medicine nor therapy, her choice.

What does make a difference is you choosing to put your well-being first. (This is important for you to find the balance that works for you first).

Once you do that, her usual response and actions will no longer fit, and she will have to make changes. Be aware that it may get worse before it improves, however, the change is needed to get out of this 'stuck' moment.

You can do this!

I have been on anxiety drugs for most of my life. I am now 70 and just beginning to accept change. I think finding the right anxiety drugs are key to recovery. I also live in the moment with little worry. Yes it is difficult because I have chronic neck/knee pain.