larky

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.

Blanca

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.

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psychocandy

Sounds like maybe a touch of OCD here. Has she ever got any professional help?

Millania007

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.

bluenight

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

NightOwl

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.