My sister’s husband has made her ill

Sertraline is good for helping take the edge off in the short/medium term. I'd expect her to need at least 100mg/day. Ignore suggestions to stop it

Sertraline can increase agitation and suicidality. It does not work for everyone. It should absolutely be stopped in some cases.

Gently, your sister is reacting entirely normally to a very abnormal event. Unless this has tipped her into a mental health crisis she doesn't need a psychiatrist, you can't medicate your bway out or profound loss, trauma and grief. I'm slightly dismayed she's been given sertraline tbh. The physical manifestation of trauma and loss are what your seeing. Not sleeping, no appetite, very tearful, struggling to carry out normal daily activities it's all 'normal'. She needs your support and help with daily tasks, she needs you to reassure her that her feelings and actions are understandable and she needs time..... It's brutal. Of course it goes without saying that her ex is a total and utter grade a shit. Marriages end, people have affairs, but to walk out on your wife and kids without any communication or thought is despicable. I hope the lawyer is a grade A bulldog who ensured your diss gets a decent settlement and I hope the ex is dumped by the new squeeze

kkloo
Please don't use this platform to vent the obvious frustration you have with your life, childishly demanding that I 'educate' myself. Your increasingly hysterical posts on this topic & attacks on me reveal a highly unattractive personality.

I'm entitled to give my opinion; I'm very sorry for this poor woman having been abandoned & the trauma she's suffering but the husband was not happy with something at home & I was thinking through why this could be. I totally agree he behaved appallingly.

We've not had one description from the OP of a previously happy family life which is strange. Removing the pets from the family home is strange. The complete lack of resilience is unusual for a mother when maternal instinct usually takes over, there's children to be guided through this awful time & taking away the pets & lying in bed for hours is not helping - it's the children I really feel sorry for here.

The family have all been marvellous with their support but it's too much & the safety net needs to be gentle removed. That's not being harsh it's being realistic, even the sister has questioned if the family are doing too much & yes they are. Treat someone like a victim & they become one. If the wider family had not been around & the woman had reacted like this for six weeks then this would become a safeguarding matter for the children being at risk in that environment.

The multiple thanks I've received for my posts evidence many readers agree with me.

@Carabelliana part of me understands why this post can be frustrating for some. Many people have zero family support or any warm loving family to offer a safety net. It's therefore easy to look at this critically from that position and to feel resentment.

In reality, there will be alot more going on. I recall I absolutely fell apart and could hardly function when I became a single parent. I recall moments where people thought I should just get a grip etc. The reality was that alot was going on that would only be revealed to both me and others with the passing of time. One of those things was the onset of truly hideous, life changing and disabling physical symptoms that looked like mental weakness but soon turned out to be the start of very severe multiple autoimmune conditions. At the time, I knew there was a reason I could not function, eat properly and kept crying beyond the situation. Also, at this time I did not realise I was parenting an ND child and operating daily at a level of stress that most would never understand or experience.

Many underestimate the severity of Antidepressants side effects. Some are emotionally and physically floored by side effects until the meds start working. No one really knows what's happening with this lady underneath all this.

You are right to support your sister. I think people can’t comprehend how shattering this is. Not only has she very suddenly lost her husband, And the kids’ their father, in a traumatic way. But she has lost her ability to support herself and the kids. It sounds like they had a very affluent life and she is now looking at living in poverty. Realistically, she is likely to lose her friendship circle and community too, as well as her home. This is a devastating amount of multiple loss to suddenly face.

You need to make sure she gets the best financial settlement from a divorce possible. Some women when they get depressed don’t fight for themselves and get shafted. He has doubtless already planned how to shaft her financially. She’ll need you to support her in navigating the divorce negotiations.

What a smug, self satisfied, misogynistic and victim blaming little post. Her family are pitching in to help and her sister has posted here because she’s scared for her, and this is the best you can do ? You needn’t have made the effort to type all of this because one sentence sums up your message - ‘pull yourself together’. Which, for anyone suffering a breakdown - which this clearly is - is impossible. And your last paragraph is ridiculous. Because until you experience a life changing event similarly affecting your mental health, you have absolutely no idea how you would handle it.

He had some reasons, maybe he does blame her, behaviours happen for a reason , not that she was aware.
The right thing was to have discussed issues, and tried a resolution, blame is no good here and we all cope differently.
They will all need help, mother and children

I found your most recent post and thought that was bad enough, but this really is a piece of work. Your whole post is devoid of any understanding of the mental health impact on this woman, and once again your attitude is ‘get up and get on with it’. And your pontification regarding the reasons this may have happened are beyond misogyny. Utterly poisonous post.

What is it that you're missing?

Yes the kids deserve a functioning parent, but it's not about what they 'deserve' in this case, it's about what they have, and they currently have a mother who is severely ill and cannot see to their welfare. That is not her fault. That is their father's fault.

Again besides misogyny this is about the minimising of Mental Health verses physical illness and injury.

So if this mother had a serious illness which required a lengthy hospital stay or just a complete physical inability to do much, you wouldn't be blaming her. And if she had no support in that situation and the children had to temporarily go into care you wouldn't be blaming her for that either. But a mental breakdown or crisis you believe can just be snapped out of.

Also as someone who was a Single Parent at various points in my life, I am sick of hearing about how 'strong' and 'independent' women who are often abandoned, blamed, and left to fend for themselves are. It's 'toxic independence' on the part of society, that's my name for it. It both expects women to be all and everything, to have no personal limitations, then on the other hand blames her when she can't cope with it all.

When I read those grim stories that occasionally appear of some woman (often a single mum) who leaves her kid(s) neglected alone in a flat, while they go partying or go on holiday abroad or something, I always wonder why??? I think part of the reason in some cases is because they were not coping with motherhood, but they were too ashamed to say it, or too proud to admit it because society is so extra judgemental of women who can't manage with their children or who don't want to be the main carer of their children. And so they put on a pretence and an illusion of coping. Society doesn't care however, when it locks those same mothers away who are obviously mentally ill, but castigates them at the same time for revealing when they aren't coping. Even if the father was nowhere to be seen.

It's a cruel misogynistic society. Women always suffer for the actions of men, leaving the men winning ultimately.

This is very sad and a terrible shock for your poor sister & distressing for the children, but I agree with the comments that she needs to get on with things now. Six weeks is a long time, even longer in the poor children's eyes.

He has behaved awfully, men often do when they have young children, it's unforgivable.

Why have the dogs & hamster been taken from the home? Pets provide normality to a home, it's very difficult to be depressed when you have a demanding animal around. This would surely be upsetting for the children too, losing their pets. You all need to be pragmatic & practical. Tell her she needs to get up & plan for the children's future, assuming now that he's not coming back.

Doesn't she work? Many mothers work & this provides a focus & reason to carry on.
You say she's crying about the house & schools but she should be worrying about the impact this is having on the children & finding some resilience for them.

You say she won't be able to live off savings forever, no, she'll have to get a job & change things to support the children like millions of abandoned mothers do. Downsize, get a lodger, whatever.

The husband will undoubtedly reappear at some point. I would be over there looking for him to find out the truth behind his behaviour & to confront him about the future so she knows where she is & what to do next.

She should be cooking, doing all the normal things etc which will help her. Wallowing in bed for hours every day is ridiculous when you have three young children, normality is essential, she's making it worse for the poor children.
Don't get me wrong, it's a horrible shock, but reading between the lines he may have left her because:

a)She doesn't work & contribute to the household & he's tired of being the main breadwinner
b) she has zero resilience & is too dependent on him & he's met a strong, independent woman (possibly a single mother) & has made unfavourable comparisons, possibly fallen for her

There's no mention in your post about the relationship being good to begin with or any happy family times.

I feel there's more to this story. You say she can do one activity a day. This is because you're letting her do one activity a day. This enormous safety net isn't helping, not are the medications.

So she can access an Apple account, have a consultation with a lawyer, but not cook for her children or walk the dogs? People are surviving wars & atrocities in the world far worse than this right at this moment & surviving. Was she quite a weak person before all this? Did she have a good friendship network, activities/playdates for the kids etc? You don't say how old they are except that they are young, but they need both a semblance of normality & distractions right now.

The human spirit is strong when it needs to be & she needs to toughen up for her children, they are the priority here, seeing their mother completely fall apart is the worst thing she can do.

In 10, 15 years or so the children will sadly be suffering a legacy of issues (including abandonment & trust), from this trauma, likely posting on a site such as MN:

"Our dad cruelly & inexplicably disappeared from our lives overnight when we were young & our poor mum completely fell apart for ages, everything became traumatic at home, relatives were coming & going, they even took our pets away. I felt I couldn't talk or confide in mum, she was in bed most of the time, always upset & vacant, my siblings & I felt doubly abandoned. Everything was so uncertain. The one parent we had left wasn't there for us & mum's inability to cope scared us & made dad's absence worse".

The children should be everyone's main concern here, and if the mother doesn't have the strength & isn't showing any signs of finding some way of dealing with this soon bar worrying about the house, money or schools, they may be better off being cared for properly elsewhere.

I wouldn't care where I was living had the same/similar happened to me when my kids were younger, I'd downgrade/take on extra work, anything to make things as ok as possible for my children who I've always prioritised over my own feelings. That's my duty as a mother.