My sister’s husband has made her ill

[Setroinh]

My lovely sister has been extremely destroyed by her pathetic husband. He’s completely vanished. Six weeks ago he sent her an email telling her he “couldn’t do it anymore”. BIL was working in Stockholm, we obviously speculate he has met someone. Completely left sister in the lurch - school fees, bills etc. Sister helped with the business admin but BIL did the actual work (she is not trained to do). She has cried, stopped eating, had panics attacks, contemplated suicide. It’s been horrendous.

My immediate family are supportig sister - our non-mum sister moved in to help with the three young kids, my mum’s cooked meals, my dad has done the food shop etc. My brother and SIL have taken the dogs and hamster.

She is on sertraline. She’s still a shell. She can do basically one activity a day ie the school run but then spends hours and hours in bed sleeping. She looks 20 years older.

I’ve suggested the cinema, spa day, dog walks. You name it. I just am at a loss. How can I help her? Brother is helping sister with business side of things. Is it an only time will heal thing? She’s so bad I can’t see her getting over this.

Any advice would be great. I’ve lost weight from seeing her like this. As I type my stomach is in knots. I’m just scared for her (don’t tell her this obviously). As she won’t be able to live off savings forever.

Why are people making this a death v abandonment competition as though ‘not dying’ makes it better? The OP’s sister has experienced a significant trauma. We don’t expect to be abandoned without any warning. It is a massive change and a massive loss over which she has no control and no explanation. The fact her husband is alive doesn’t make it better. It’s a huge betrayal of trust and she may never get an explanation. He is still alive so she does not know if / when he might turn up or make contact / demand to see their children. She only has partial control. She doesn’t know what he might do next.

Getting on with life as she did previously may simply not be possible for a while. Trauma is disabling. The people I have worked with who experienced abandonment have all said that had the person died it would have made more sense.

💐 for everyone who has experienced loss, however it came about. My heart particularly goes out to anyone who has been left or abandoned though because of the associated shame, humiliation and lack of agency that comes with it and the attitude of some that ‘at least he didn’t die’.

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.

Treat someone like a victim & they become one.

I think I agree with KKloo

Try and understand this. Everyone's brain works differently and what shakes me, won't shake you. That's a truth. We will both face the same obstacles and come through it differently, and respond differently. That doesn't entitle you to trivialise the trauma others are experiencing because you believe it wouldn't affect you that way.

Significant life experience means I actually don't believe anyone comes away unscathed out of situations like this. You may gather your strength and carry on but find the event(s) are still influencing your decisions and responses even decades down the road. It's even possible the absent man in this equation is behaving the way he is due to some undisclosed previous history.

That's why it's important to process things as fully as possible at the time. The body isn't separate from the brain. It needs time.

Excellent post @JaneAustensHeroine. You clearly know exactly what you’re talking about, having worked with people in a similar situation.

@Carabelliana
It's nothing to do with my life, I already had empathy for people who have breakdowns before I even realised how little many people care when it's women.

Your comments are the childish ones, telling me to 'calm down' and making out it's just to do with my life because I didn't agree with you and I think you're giving dangerous advice. And I got plenty of thanks for my posts too.

You know nothing at all about this woman apart from what has just happened, you said yourself that there hasn't been one description of a previously happy life, yet you think it's unusual that she has a complete lack of resilience.

For all you know this woman could have been to hell and back previously and had to deal with many traumatic things in her life, or years of suffering in her marriage and always remained resilient and then this happened and she finally cracked.

Yes it may indeed have become a safeguarding issue if her family weren't around if she had a breakdown to the point she couldn't care for her children and had no support. No fucking shit.

And in that case she hopefully would have told her doctor and asked for help and support. Which some women do in fact do when they need it.

Should a woman (or man) feel ashamed if they can't cope looking after their kids but hide it? That would be an even bigger safeguarding risk

Should they keep trying to snap out of it by themselves when they can't? Or should they seek help?

You say you feel sorry for the children, yet your answer is that support needs to be removed and the mother needs to snap out of it basically, which has no guarantee of working, and which could make things worse for the children and lead to a bigger safeguarding risk.

My ex had a breakdown lasting for months after we split up. He didn't want to take the kids, and thank God for that because it wouldn't have been safe and I wouldn't have allowed it anyway.
He saw them during that time very occasionally, at my house and supervised, and only after taking xanax and even with that I'd watch carefully and he'd have to leave when I could see it was wearing off. There's no way he would have been able to snap out of it to look after the kids.

You talk about 'safeguarding' risks yet you think that the one who should be looking after these kids now is the woman who is clearly not coping. You think being forced to cope will make her cope. And then you talk about 'safeguarding'?

Test

It's nothing to do with my life, I already had empathy for people who have breakdowns before I even realised how little many people care when it's women.

Your comments are the childish ones, telling me to 'calm down' and making out it's just to do with my life because I didn't agree with you. And I got plenty of thanks for my posts to you also!!

You know nothing at all about this woman apart from what has just happened, you said yourself that there hasn't been one description of a previously happy life, yet you think it's odd that she has a complete lack of resilience.

For all you know this woman could have been to hell and back previously and had to deal with many traumatic things in her life, or years of suffering in her marriage and always remained resilient and then this happened and she finally cracked.

Yes it may indeed have become a safeguarding issue if her family weren't around, if she had a breakdown to the point she couldn't care for her children and had no support, and in that case she hopefully would have told her doctor and asked for help support. Which some women do in fact do when they need it.

Should a woman (or man) feel ashamed if they can't cope looking after their kids or should they seek help at that time to protect their children?

Should they keep trying to snap out of it by themselves when they can't? Or should they seek help?

You say you feel sorry for the children, yet your answer is that support needs to be removed and the mother needs to snap out of it basically, which has no guarantee of working, and which could make things worse for the children and lead to a bigger safeguarding risk.

My ex had a breakdown lasting around 6 months after we split up. He didn't want to take the kids, and thank God for that because it wouldn't have been safe.
He saw them during that time very occasionally, at my house and supervised, and only after taking xanax and even with that I'd watch carefully and he'd have to leave when I could see it was wearing off.

You talk about 'safeguarding' risks yet you think that the one who should be looking after these kids now is the suicidal woman who is clearly not coping. You think being forced to cope will make her cope.

Sorry if that posts twice.
For some reason it came up as 'hidden while MNHQ takes a look' so someone must have reported me because they don't like what I'm posting 😅

I was just thinking actually that when I had my ‘breakdown’ or whatever you want to call it, I can remember thinking that I would never, ever getting better. I had never imagined that I could ever be so low, it’s very difficult to describe. But anyway, I remember that the MH nurse I spoke to reassured me that I would get better because I had a great support network. I had help/ support from my GP surgery, my work, my parents and my husband. I started to feel much better after 6 weeks or so (I did also have sertraline as I said in previous post). I really have no idea how people who don’t have a good support network get through something like this - I suspect that too often they don’t.

Btw despite being very unwell at the time, I ‘only’ took 3 weeks off work and I put that down to the medical help but also the unwavering support and the unconditional love I was given. This is something I will always be grateful for. I’m not saying the OP’s sister should be better by now, the thing I was upset about wasn’t anything as bad as this.

This.

And no doubt even if someone does seem to find some reserves and energy to 'pick their self up and keep going', because they don't have the luxury to fall apart, it will all catch up with them eventually and they'll crumble or have a mental health crisis, later on. It's better that OP's sister is crumbling now, because this gives her breathing space to heal and keep going further down the line. She'll also be stronger for when he comes back.

We need to have empathy for anyone in a broken shell of their former self, rather than tell them to get up 'because the ironing needs doing'. Ironically, it'll be love, patience, time for that person, and understanding, which helps them to heal the best.

Many of us think she needs to start living more of her normal life because we’ve experienced similar and lived through it. You can’t move forward with your family doing everything.

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.

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.

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.

Excellent post.

Isn’t it really interesting that the 2 reasons this poster suggested for why the husband might have left, both relate to a supposed failure of the wife. No mention of any reason why he might leave that is entirely down to him… racking up huge gambling debts, failing business, meeting someone young and exciting and deciding he wants a bit of that, not the family life he currently has.

No, it must be down to some failure of the woman.

Urgh.

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

When do men stick around to discuss things ? And blame is absolutely good. He fucked off and left her to cope with the shit he left behind, and he’s abandoned his children. Who else do you blame ?

EMDR is extremely effective for PTSD - it's something to consider for the future. Right now it sounds like she is far too much in it to benefit from this kind of treatment. When she can see the wood for the trees and has come out the other side, then it would be a beneficial route to follow.

I would try to get her therapy as soon as you can so she moves from grief to acceptance. Hopefully once she accepts what has happened she will function again.

I have a family member who wasted years grieving over a man who had left her for someone else. It was awful, particularly as the man was having a great life whilst she was a completely broken woman. I wish she had got the right help when she needed it.

This happened to my mum and i wish she'd had family nearby to support more. It was so hard as a child. You are so needed and the kids will be so grateful.

Exactly this, absolutely well.put. I totally agree with your reply to the smug PP. A breakdown is the most absolutely horrific thing to go through, and getting the strength to even do anything to move out of bed sometimes is beyond impossible.

Anyone who has suffered the horrors of a mental health crisis will know and indeed understand this. At my lowest point in my life after a head injury, the breakdown I had was so bad that literally would have given away £10m to be well again. At no point did I ever say to my eldest daughter that i didn't care about her or wasn't trying hard enough. To imply that anyone who goes through these dreadful things doesn't want to try and improve things is absolutely the most ignorant attitude possible. Shame you are so very lacking in empathy that you can't see that.

Absolutely this. What an excellent response.

I can offer my own experience of two 'breakdowns' I experienced, the first in 2007, and the second a couple of years ago. In my first one I was diagnosed with psychotic depression. I developed some irrational beliefs, became obsessed with a 'smell' on my hands and spent a lot the time in complete terror. They put me on Setraline and an antipsychotic, Risperidol I think. I'm sure the Risperidol was making me feel even worse. After a while, they tried another antipsychotic, Olanzapine. This made me sleep like a baby for the first time in weeks. My hair, which had become a limp, greasy mess, miraculously spruced up. I slept for a long time, can't remember now but something silly like 15 hours maybe. The next day I felt calm for the first time since it began. I felt a little shellshocked and it still took a while to get back to normal. Until the Olanzapine, no amount of encouragement or logical thinking could have helped. I understand Olanzapine isn't a drug you want to be on long term if possible.

I was then fine until the more recent episode, brought on by stress, which seemed to be more of a major depressive episode without the psychosis. Because of my previous episode, however, and because I was seemingly blowing something out of proportion, I was prescribed Olanzapine again, along with another anti-depressant. This time ithe Olanzapine didn't seem to have any effect. The episode lasted longer. Again, logical thinking or encouragement didn't help. I just sort of eventually decided I had to go back to my normal life, I don't know really, can't explain it, although I suppose the antidepressant may have eventually helped. If there is anything your sister can face doing, then try to regularly do that with her. With me, it was simply going for walks, and a couple of abstract things - just sudokus and playing chess. But with me anything 'social' was out of the question. Hope this helps.