Anxiety, Depression and RelationshipsMarriage and relationships are difficult by themselves, but coping with anxiety and depression can make them even more challenging.
You know, I am absolutely sure 100% my wife has her moms anxiety issues.
She get into HUGE fits if some one comes over unannounced! She gets pissed if the house is not spotless before some one comes over. Right now, at 12:30 am she is cleaning the down stairs before the Sheetrock repair guy can rip down the ceiling in the kitchen and make a mess??
She has lots of anxiety issues and this is one of them that drive me crazy. She has two major weaknesses. 1 is she absurdly HATES embarrassment. Once we arived at church a little late and I said you made us a little late. She pulled off her wedding ring and gave it to me. That was two years ago.
We arrived at church and I said, grab a pen and fill out this class assignment. She said "I dont want to be put on the spot or I will walk right out the door" as she was struggling to find a pen in her purse.
She had a 20k credit card debt before we met and never told me. She still has a huge debt and with me not working, its getting worse.
But its her general anxiety issues that is driving me up the wall. Her dad deals with her moms anxiety issues and in the past because of them, thay would get in alot of verbal fights. Her mom and my wife would assume something we did wrong, then blame us and yell at us.
Her mom is worse!! mom would refuse to allow the kids to use the washer or dryer because she thought they may brake them.
Anyway, what kind of anxiety is this? im fed up and just want to live on my own once I get a good job.
She treats everything in the house as hers. She said, I did not buy anything yet, 95% of everything was purchased in the marriage. I contributed mostly to the rent. To many things she calls hers in the house.
wow she really has some severe anxiety. have you ever talked to your father-in-law and asked him how he handles it?
i dont know what her problem is but i do know it'll be a long road before she fixes it, if she even admits she has a problem. which by the sound of her issue, i doubt she could do.
__________________
"I'm a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality."
- Bryon Katie
Is she on birth control pills or any meds that may make her crazy? I ask because I just realized my birth control pills are driving me insane and I have very high anxiety issues.
i am a person who has dealt with anxiety and almost all my family have anxiety but we go through different stuff i don't get like that i start to panic and i get really scared and i get nervous but i know that it's not easy for u but i think that u have to ask god to help u deal with it because she need's u even though it hurts u the way she treats u and i think that it will get easier for the both of u i can tell u that when i go through it it's not easy it's the worst feeling only people like us that go through that understand how it feels but i hope that GOD can help u deal with it and u will be able to help her too
Anxiety is very manageable with cognitive behavioral therapy and lifestyle changes like sleeping enough and exercising, for most people. But your wife needs to be willing to get help and that can be the hard part, for both of you.
Personally, I have generalized and social anxiety, but I am adamant that my partner should not have to suffer because of it. He dealt with a few months of me having panic attacks a lot a few years ago, and that was enough to get me in therapy. Now I manage with therapy, exercise, and an herbal relaxation tea called kava for "emergencies."
Untreated, anxiety generally just gets worse as the patterns get more and more ingrained. This can lead to rigid and even paranoid thinking, obsessions (i.e. with cleanliness, routine, and order - this is related to OCD), being short tempered, and health problems related to stress.
I highly recommend that you approach this as an issue that affects both of you, rather than it being your wife's problem solely. My partner needed to learn how to respond to me when I am anxious - listening carefully, being patient and reassuring, and knowing what to expect with panic attacks. Now he is my best defense against an attack because he works with me.
All that said...a lot of times fear of change is part of the anxiety so your wife may resist treatment. Hopefully if it is affecting her quality of life she will be willing to get help. However if she refuses to acknowledge the problem, it is like any other mental illness, it can really degrade relationships over time. Again, as someone who has anxiety, if I had refused treatment I think my partner would have been totally justified to tell me to get treatment or he'd leave. That's because it is such a manageable condition once you have help, there is no reason to suffer and make others suffer as well.
Totally forgot about my post here. I did a look up of wife anxiety and came across this post again.
She is not on birth control pills. Have not has sex in a year. Always afraid of getting pregnant then rips into me why we don't have children.
Wife has had long bouts of anxiety and I think its wired into her brain. she told me as a baby, she saw a fly and started crying and freaking out.
When we were dating, I took her to my father-in laws sisters house for a forth of july in 2000. I lit off a silver salute sparkler thing. She was laughing and talking to my mom when she looked over freaked out jumped up and down several times in a fit of anxiety and ran off to my mom.
-As a teen, she would often hide in the bathroom of a dance hall to avoid dancing with the other male students.
-She absolutely hates getting her picture taken and avoids it.
-Again, she was working to 2 am cleaning up the place for a FUNCTIONAL duplex inspection. I told her to chill out, its a construction interior inspection not house cleaning. She would clean up her side of the master bedroom which generally falls apart and gets VERY messy.
She always finds some excuse to always rip into me when she comes home.
Now, one of her favorite passions is music. She loves music. She can sit at her computer for hours on end and listen to it. She loves gossip tv channels.
I think you fell in love with her and wanted to marry her knowing how she is. She's not going to change if she's been like this her entire life. you'll have to decide if you want to live with it.
__________________
"I'm a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality."
- Bryon Katie
Thanks for posting larky, I identify with your situation as my wife is much the same, although maybe not quite so extreme. I can't handle it very well, but thought that often another's viewpoint is helpful even when it's not fully authorative, so here's my two cents.
One thing that helps me when I can find the clarity and peace to do it, is to spend time when I'm away from her focussing on her good points. I have to be very careful not to do this as a kind of balancing exercise, where any good point is simply a way of trying to convince myself that "she's not that bad after all", but rather actually spend time dwelling on one of her good traits to the exclusion of the frustrating ones. If I focus on the frustrating ones to try to work them out, I very quickly get into a downward spiral of frustration and anger. Letting go of the need to have her worked out is exceedingly difficult but incredibly valuable when the spark of realisation takes place.
That can help me when I'm away from her, but of course as you will know the anxiety will usually make itself known unexpectantly. That's kind of the point - to put you on the spot and make sure she's in control. My wife once expressed herself as "I don't want to be in control, I just don't want to be out of control", which is all very well as an idea. In reality, however, anxiety is a constant perception of being out of control, and therefore a constant need to 'regain' control, even if the truth of the situation is that she's not out of control at all.
I understand completely the asking for a pen scenario - suddenly you have a freaking out woman that is trying to hide (ineffectively so) the fact that she's freaking out, and has to make out that you're being controlling by asking for a pen in order to feel that she's not out of control. I see at the core here a deep-seated insecurity that manifests itself as perfectionism - she freaks out at the thought that someone might think she's less than perfect because they have asked her for a pen and she's not able to satisfy their request instantly.
This all requires a long-term view. One of my foundational life beliefs is that all people are people (sounds obvious, but each of us has to be honest and say that sometimes we forget this), who have their own reality and life perception. I live with the hope that this brings, that the secure committment I offer my wife will graaaaaadddually soften her and allow her the space to be herself, instead of fighting against the world all the time. But it's haaaaard, especially when my attempts to reassure her a misconstrued and used against me, sometimes months or years down the track.
Anyway, I hope some of this has been helpful. I believe unswervingly that sticking by our woman through thick and thin will be (and is already) worth far more than pursuing some sort of misguided individual-enlightenment path by going our own way.
OMG this sounds like my wife! She knows she has anxiety. Her dad has it. But it gets worse and worse. Shes had reactions to medication, cant sleep. She will flip out in a moments notice. The long term laugh is when she pushes the stroller at disneyland. If you step in front of her she will ram you! Wont use their pen at the grocery store, has to put the receit away in her wallet and back in her purse before she leaves the line....
my wife anxiety is driving me crazy! 
