# Don't want to be the enabler anymore...



## alreadyguilty (Jul 4, 2009)

I'm looking for either validation of my thinking, or conversely, some corrections to my thought process.

The basics; I’ll try and keep it brief. I’m 36, my wife is 40. We each have a teenage child from a previous marriage. My parents were, and still are, relatively “normal”, middle class folks; very “white bread”. My wife’s parents were hippies in Berkeley in the 60s. Her dad abandoned the family when she was very young and her mother, a bi-polar schizophrenic, committed suicide about 7 years ago. My wife has been hospitalized for severe depression and anxiety disorders many times (I didn’t really understand what that meant until recently). Her last bout she was in the hospital for almost two months. She has attempted suicide several times. She is also a recovering alcohol and cocaine addict (to her credit she hasn’t touched either since I’ve known her).

My actual problem is that I can’t stand living with her. When I met her, she had a job, an apartment, paid the bills, took care of her son, etc, etc. Shortly after moving in with me, all that stopped and it became obvious that we were going to have problems. I like things clean and organized, she doesn’t. She doesn’t like to plan for the future, I do. The most obvious area of difficulty is finance. When we married, I never had any financial troubles. I always had my bills paid on time and I always had some savings. Now, we’re $60K in debt and in serious risk of losing our home! Her response is “It’ll work itself out.”

We’ve been in couple’s counseling since practically day one. Counseling has helped open my eyes to the necessity of compromise in a marriage, but I’ve gone WAY past my comfort point. I’m also seeing an individual therapist on my own to try and figure out why I let it get so out of hand. But, what I’ve really been struggling with is “the ultimatum”. The reason I was struggling, was that I really didn’t want to give her an ultimatum. I don’t want my wife to be a different person FOR me; I want her to be a different person because SHE wants to be. I’m pretty confident that’s not going to happen. Accepting that is sort of easy; dealing with it is harder. 

Turns out my real issue is that I just really don’t want to be the one PAYING for her to live the way she wants to live when it directly interferes with the way I want to live! That seems reasonable to me. I like being with my wife. I find her sexy and attractive. We laugh together. She’s witty and charming. I just can’t stand paying for everything. Unfortunately, the way she lives is the way I have to live. Or, I’m constantly yelling about this, that, or the other thing. Or, taking care of all the messes she makes literally and figuratively. We’ve already got separate bedrooms because she couldn’t keep the chaos out of our bedroom and I have to share a bathroom with the kids!

So, I’ve been struggling with what exactly that means. It’s not really about her mental illness, but I feel guilty because I know that probably a big part of her personality. She is being treated by a psychiatrist and on a ton of medication, but I don’t really feel like she’s doing much else. She’s not in any groups and she rarely sees a therapist. But, I’m not sure that would matter. Even during her “better” periods, couples counseling has been about how to live with an addict or someone with a mental illness. I’ve come to the conclusion that I simply don’t want to be the enabler anymore. I don’t want to live with the chaos that it brings. I’ve been voicing my concerns to her for over 5 years and nothing has changed. Am I being unreasonable for thinking about leaving?


----------



## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

From what you have written above i dont think you are wrong in wanting to leave. She sounds out of control. I can understand why you would feel a little guilty, but I dont think you should. I think its good that you realize you have been an enabler.


----------



## sisters359 (Apr 9, 2009)

She demonstrated before that she can be much more responsible--so why did so much change upon marriage? It sounds like she made a choice to "give in" to some of her mental illness--I don't know, but I have a close relative like that and no one can live with her; she takes everything out on/thru that person but is perfectly competent and even fun to be with if you don't live with her. Maybe you could try a legal separation (separate finances, esp, with limits on what you pay her for support) and see if she can get her act together, then attempt reconciling with very strict and explicit expecations about what she must continue to do?


----------



## Sensitive (Mar 29, 2009)

If you can't stand to live with her, then she probably feels the same. Marriages are all about compromise. It sounds to me that you are more uptight, and she is more laid back. There are more important things in life than keeping a clean house and managing a debtfree household. Her issues of depression, former addict, suicide attempts, grieving over her mom are all very serious issues that don't just disppear with time. They are part of her history. If you can't be or don't want to be a supportive spouse, through sickness and health, then the choices are obvious.


----------



## preso (May 1, 2009)

Turns out my real issue is that I just really don’t want to be the one PAYING for her to live the way she wants to live when it directly interferes with the way I want to live! That seems reasonable to me. I like being with my wife. I find her sexy and attractive. We laugh together. She’s witty and charming. I just can’t stand paying for everything
_________________________________________


so don't.
This will be incentive for her to break up and you can find someone more suited to you.
Maybe too, you just need a better job, so these big concerns of yours will not be so much of concerns.


----------



## alreadyguilty (Jul 4, 2009)

Thanks for all the replys. It's always good to hear feedback.

It would be nice if I made more money. But, I already make a 6-figure income that's almost three times the average American salary. How much I make is not the issue. The fact that I have a salary like that and have no savings, is a BIG issue. An issue my wife doesn't care about, and has made it quite clear is no priority of hers.

It sounds like I need to just go ahead and make an appointment with our couple's counselor to discuss where I'm at with her and see what she says.


----------



## preso (May 1, 2009)

Here is the quickest way to learn to stop enabling

learn to say NO
you can say it directly or indirectly, you can add lots of fluffy words around it... The word NO will work wonders.


----------

