I'm in a bind with my wife right now.

[Lisonbee333]

Sorry guys this is a long story, but I really need some help trying to see what I should do right now. I am not sure if I am in the right with this, hence why I thought speaking with other people would help give me some clarity. As of late there has been walls and barriers between me and my wife due to some circumstances that have recently changed our life.

 

To start from the beginning, I have some severe mental disabilities due to domestic abuse as a child. I have been going to therapy for two years now and was doing really well. There was even a point where I had a good paying job, my wife and I got along well, and we have a beautiful baby boy. Then I had a serious relapse with my disabilities where I was having very severe panic attacks at work. They started coming up since the company had started to make very drastic changes to how the employees were treated. I worked at a call center as well so it wasn't pretty.

 

It all started with a severe panic attack when I was about to go into work, that things went wrong. My wife started to give me tough s*** talk, basically almost like they would give to a soldier about rubbing dirt in it, and I couldn't handle it. I nearly ended up in the hospital or dead, cause I was so suicidal I was moments from grabbing the keys and never coming back. Fortunately that morning I had a therapy session scheduled with my counselor, we talked with him and he managed to calm me down. It was agreed upon (at least between me and him) that maybe it would be best if I take some time off of work to try to get myself back up again. The entire time however my wife moaned and bellowed how she wasn't being listened to, and how she thought that was a terrible idea. She even started to scream at my therapist when he just told her to not talk about work for a few days since I was in such a bad spot, saying well she has to worry about other things to. Yeah it was a rough day.

 

I took some time off but every time we tried to get me back to work I couldn't take it anymore. This was made worse by my wife's "rip it off like a bandaid" attitude and that she got into constant arguments with my therapist, and constantly coming up to me and saying he was a bad influence on me and I needed to dump him. It seemed like all that she wanted was me to go back to work so I could bring home a paycheck, and when I told her this she would get all offended and wonder how I could possibly think she cared more about money than my own wellbeing.

 

Well right now I am not working for the call center anymore, I am actually working at a training facility that is planning on helping me get certified as an MA so that I can get my career started in obtaining my masters as a PMHNP. Me and my wife have been talking about what has happened, and I have admitted that her behavior during this experience has hurt me tremendously. She has apologized, although weakly, but she has also told me she believes she has done nothing wrong and she has nothing to apologize about to my therapist, despite yelling at him for trying his best to help me in a terrible time.

 

I really don't know what to do, and maybe she does have a point. I feel like this entire thing is putting a giant wall between us, and I can't trust her to be a support for me during my bad moments. Maybe I am asking too much of her, since dealing with a spouse with mental illness can be incredibly difficult, but I don't know. Maybe I should stop asking so much and let her live her life without me, but we have a baby boy that I have to consider and I am just really stuck between a wall and a hard place. I have even told her that what she did was wrong but she refuses to see that.

 

I don't know, what do you guys think, and do you have any advice for me?

[BaileyB]

I'm so sorry, it would seem that you have had a difficult life and I have much respect for the work you have done to recover.

 

I don't have any advice except to say, your wife's behavior during your recent difficulty does not sound like the actions of a loving and supportive wife. It doesn't even sound like the actions of a particularly rational woman. I would be very unhappy too.

 

Best wishes.

[GunslingerRoland]

A lot of people who've never been through mental illness have no concept of it. They literally can't understand it. Everyone has bad days and they work through them, so why can't you?

 

Everyone has experienced physical pain to some degree, and so trying to understand why someone can't just brush off a broken leg and walk on it, is usually reasonable even with someone who has never broken their own leg.

 

But explaining a panic attack to someone who has never dealt with anything similar can be a lot more complicated.

 

I'm not saying the way she treated you was right, but a lack of understanding/compassion of mental illness is pretty common.