I can't live with DH's anxiety anymore

[Trappedinthemurk]

DH and I been married for 13 years, and have a two year old. I'm in my early 40s. And I've just had enough of my DH's anxiety problems. Yet again, last night, we picked over the bones of an event that occurred thirty years ago, which DH is convinced is the root cause of his anxiety ... and I have nothing left to say.

His anxiety manifests most acutely as a catastrophic fear of danger and ill-harm if I leave the house on my own, particular when it's dark. But really, it's always there. As a result, DH doesn't hear what I say most of the time, can't think things through properly, can't figure out solutions to problems ... because the anxiety takes up so much of his mental capacity.

In reality, this means I end up carrying almost all the burden of running a household and our lives. Living with him is a bit like living with an angst ridden teenager, albeit one that earns a salary; he is so preoccupied with his own psyche that he ignores the material world around him. And his anxiety over me leaving the house means I either have to become an authoritarian laying down the law if I just want to go to a fucking pilates class, or I have to "negotiate" a compromise that won't send him into anxiety hell: a compromise that usually ends up making me feel like I have to have a chaperone everywhere I go.

I've just had enough of it. I feel smothered and suffocated; any natural movement, progress or change in our lives has to come from me otherwise, we end up stuck in a hideous rut that can last for years but the weight of it all feels like a millstone round my neck. I've suggested everything I can think of to help him: self-help, CBT, counselling, diet change, exercise, teatotalling, no caffeine, group therapy ... he does it for a bit, then it fades away. I don't think he's committed enough to getting well. And he won't take medication.

The thing is ... what options do I have here? We could divorce, I suppose, but I know what would happen. He's not abusive; he's generous and kind, and a lot of fun outside the anxiety. He'd still be my closest friend, he'd end up staying overnight because of DD etc, and before we knew it, we'd be pretty much living together, only we'd have had to sell our house to afford two much smaller properties and one of them would hardly be lived in.

But the thought that I am doomed to the next thirty years of living with his anxiety fills me with dread. The constrains it places on my life are suffocating.

Does anyone have any advice, ideas, thoughts?

He absolutely needs to go on medication. That is a must. Citalopram, Sertraline, something.

Has he actually been diagnosed with anxiety by a psychriatrist? Because one of the things the psychologist I saw last wanted me to discuss with my psychriatrist was attachment issues from my own decidedly "interesting" childhood. Have a look at "anxious ambivalent insecure attachment" in adults and see if it rings any bells.

that it has got to this point where I have to give him an ultimatum.

I wouldn't do it as an "ultimatum". I have pstd and gad and if my dh ever told me I needed to do x, y or z about my mental health our relationship would be over. Treatment/medication seems to be seen as an easy fix in this thread but it's not. I've recently finished 18 months of pyschotherapy which did exactly zero to help me. I hated every single second of it and it was me that pushed for it because I felt desperate. That's ignoring the length of time I had to wait to see a psychologist in the first place but honestly I finished each session wanting to kill myself.

I actually think that you need counselling OP. You’re in the midst of a very abusive relationship that you’re allowing to happen because of his anxiety issues. You’re enabling this just as much as he is controlling you. His anxiety is so very ingrained into your life, and I think you need professional help to untangle it and be free.

Maybe none of his therapy works because they know its bullshit.

He’s being a controlling arse and blaming anxiety. That’s how they do it.

OP that time you went out and left a note, what did he do with the note? I assume as your parents were there when you got back that the note was, somehow, not somewhere they'd have seen it. Which suggests he deliberately hid or destroyed it. I'm guessing you didn't leave it in some obscure place only he'd be able to see it?

We could divorce, I suppose, but I know what would happen...he'd end up staying overnight because of DD

Why would that even happen.

Are you saying he is controlling you and even if you divorced you wouldn’t be able to break free.

Why would he even be in your house over night because of your Dd.

You can hand her over for a few hours on a Saturday and he can look after her and return her later.
There is no reason for you to be letting him into your home to see his child

Unless you are worried he might do something to her in which case a visitors centre would be your best option.

I agree that counselling for you would be really helpful OP.

It's very hard to recognise what a situation is when you're actually in it. You can know you can't cope or that it's untenable, but it can be hard to understand why that is.

It must be very difficult to hear so many people saying that your DH, who you love and think is lovely other than this (enormous) issue, is controlling and abusive. It can be hard to reconcile the idea of abuse with our own lives, even if from the outside it seems obvious. And some of your examples are shocking.

When I finally left my ex, several friends told me that they suspected something was going on. But people around you often don't say anything for all sorts of reasons. It's only afterwards that they are willing to share their doubts.

He needs to take some responsibility and get some help medicinal and therapy.

You need to stop being his carer and be his wife. It sounds like you've slipped far to the former.

My husband has anxiety and ASD, your relationship sounds like us about 5 years ago. I let myself be dominated by his mental illness whilst he took very little responsibility for it. It was agony and pretty much broke us.

He had a big wake up call that we nearly split and he went and got help and it's changed our life. We are far happier and he is far healthier. It's only now I see how awful it really was.

Good luck but start setting some boundaries- you'll only start to move forwards if you stop letting it run your life.

Remember whilst you love him you're not his nurse, his mother or his carer and he should not be expecting it of you.

This is no way to live OP, but you already know that.

IME (family member) anxiety is a very self fulfilling MH condition.

By which I mean the anxiety fuels behaviours that would be otherwise seen as unacceptable and letting go of the anxiety (through treatment) causes anxiety in itself because that's the crutch validates the perception of control.

What we found was that pandering to the anxiety (usually to everyone else's detriment) was utterly counterproductive.

It gave the person no incentive to get well because their needs were being met and in the grips of their condition the toll it was taking on others was irrelevant.

In the end we realised that in trying to be kind we were doing ourselves and the family member a dis-service.

In order to want to get well the anxiety needed to have a detrimental impact on their life not just ours.

That meant stopping making any accommodation of it whatsoever.

Yes it was hard, but necessary.

In your situation OP I'd look at stepping away.

You've tried repeatedly to get him to seek treatment but he won't sustain it and now he thinks he can get away with these short bursts of progress but then regress back to his comfort zone.

He's controlling your life and that will soon extend to your child. You can allow that to happen.

His behaviour is emotionally abusive.

The fact it's fuelled by a MH condition doesn't make it acceptable.

I'd look to separate from him for 6 months. Tell him you need the space for your MH.

It's then his choice what to do with that time. Seek help and be committed to doing so, at which a reconciliation (that will not involve you pandering to his control) may be possible or do nothing and divorce.

Regarding the planning meeting situation, you need to be very careful as your daughter gets older because he will act like this with her. My dad was overprotective (still is and I'm in my 20s!). If I was 5-10 minutes later home from school than usual, he would start walking the streets to find me. Two summers ago, I accidentally butt-dialed him whilst doing the gardening and because he only heard rustling, he assumed I'd been kidnapped and was trying to call for help

I can mostly deal with the overprotectiveness now - but your DD has all this still to come if her DF doesn't get help. And it's a nightmare.

I've been here OP. My DH has had crippling anxiety on-off as long as I've know him. Bad periods have meant he couldn't: sit at the table with me and the DC, be too hot, drive, sit in a chair and listen to someone speak, stay in the office all day, watch a tv programme, cook, etc etc.
We just moved house and he had a massive panic attack at the new doctors surgery (think 6foot1, 16 stone man tearing at his clothes and screaming "I'm dying it's my heart. Help me help me". He was referred to the mental health crisis team in our new town and is now on newer meds and is receiving proper psychotherapy (the latter privately at my insistence about his narcissistic DM).
Earlier in the week I went to London for Work overnight and he picked up the DC from nursery, sorted out their supper, cleared up cat vomit, ate a meal and did his 2 normal days' work, which is 45 mins commute away.

So there is hope. But I put up with 10 years of what was frankly abuse in any other circumstance. Perhaps it was abuse anyway.

He has to seek help and persist endlessly until something actually properly works. Or you will live in this prison for the rest of your life. It was touch and go for us. I couldn't have done another 6 months. I gave away a lot of myself for him. I'm recovering now, as he does, but it was very damaging. We both recognise that. If he won't seek help you will be sacrificing your life for his illness until the day you die.

Sorry to be harsh, there is hope but it's all on him. All of it. You cannot in any way fix him.

Him refusing medication says it all. I speak as someone with complex PTSD and GAD, you will take any medicine suggested to stop the frantic anxiety as it is hell on earth.

OP, it sounds like an awful situation and having two teen DCs with severe anxiety, I understand where you're coming from.

However, I think it's important to consider your DD in all of this. It's very easy when you've been living with someone else's anxiety for so long to minimise the impact it's having and to overlook just how much it impacts the family. I feel that by acknowledging that your DH's anxiety might be problematic for your DD when she's older, you're overlooking all the ways in which it's likely affecting her now. Babies and toddlers pick up on all this stuff too, so it's not just an issue for your DD once it physically affects her - she is being emotionally affected now.

In the same way that I have to think about what's best for the competing needs of my DC in dealing with each of their disabilities and MH issues (including respite, etc), I think that you need to be looking at the bigger picture and considering what your DD needs to protect her from the emotional impact of all of this. Otherwise you could be in a situation where you're caring for two people with severe anxiety for the rest of your life instead of one.

I speak as someone with complex PTSD and GAD, you will take any medicine suggested to stop the frantic anxiety as it is hell on earth

I have those diagnoses too and I didn't want to take any medication because one of my obsessions was that if I stopped being anxious the bad things would happen.

I totally agree that OP's DH needs medical help, and medication is most likely the best option. But I don't think anyone on this thread can say he's being actively abusive/controlling, or that he's deliberately not getting help in order to hurt her.

It absolutely is up to him to sort it and I wouldn't blame OP at all for leaving over it, or making it a dealbreaker. But I think it's unwise to assign motive to his behaviour over the internet.

OP I think the Freedom Programme would be a really good place for you to start unpicking your own side of this. Do the online version, it only costs £12 freedomprogramme.co.uk/online.php

@peachgreen It doesn't matter if he's being deliberately controlling or abusive. The fact is that, whatever his intentions may be, he is being abusive and controlling.

What else could you interpret causing a family panic about the OP being missing when she went to a planning meeting and left a note as? Or making the OP so uncomfortable that she feels she can't leave the house without a chaperone?

He might have MH issues but it is not ok to abuse his partner like this.

And he really isn't trying to get help. The OP has seen the uncompleted workbooks etc.

MH issues are very tough and we all want to be sympathetic to people affected by them. But it cannot be an excuse to control your partner or anyone else. That's just not ok and the OP (or anyone else) should not be expected to put up with it.

Really good question from MurderOfGoths, what did happen to the note OP?

@Trappedinthemurk I'm glad sharing my story was helpful. I wish I knew you in real life and could help you through this - it's such a tough situation and honestly, I don't think anyone who hasn't experienced it can really understand.

A lot of my anxieties stemmed around my DH leaving me suddenly (whether that was through cheating or death or something in between) and were a direct product of a previous trauma in my life. A big part of me was absolutely convinced that the only reason he wasn't leaving me (via whatever method) was because I was so anxious about it I was preventing it from happening. So if I let him go away for the weekend his plane would crash and it would be my fault for letting go of my anxiety. Or the one day that I didn't get him to check in when he arrived at work would be the day he would have an accident and be dying on the side of the road and me not finding out early enough would stop him from being saved. Or the one night out where I didn't text him every 45 minutes would be the night he'd somehow forget about our marriage and cheat on me. Etc etc. Those beliefs, however completely irrational, were very, VERY real to me, and I could not more have "snapped out" of them than I could snap out of a cold. It was circular, obsessional, absolutely hideous - but no matter how awful I felt, in my eyes the alternative (getting help) would have ended up being even worse.

I wish I had a solution to offer you. DH and I were working on it before my PND treatment, we'd had relationship counselling, I'd had plenty of individual counselling and therapy, we'd developed "halfway house" coping mechanisms which helped me while also allowing him more freedom but honestly, when I look back, nothing was really helping that much. DH said at the time - and still says - that he was prepared to live with it forever, but in all honesty, I don't know if he could have, especially if it had started impacting our daughter. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't developed PND. As it was, I was SO ill that the decision to take medication was really taken out of my hands - and curing the anxiety (and I do call it a cure because it was SO dramatic) was really a side effect of the PND treatment. All I can say is that I'm a different person now, and when I look back I am horrified at what I put DH through. I know it's because I was ill, but I still feel immense remorse and I know I would never, ever let myself get like that again. Because now I've lived it and I know how much better life is this way.

OP, what help have you had in all of this? Have you ever sought or got any counselling for yourself to give you space to work out your feelings about this? It seems like you have spent years supporting him with his counselling, therapy and GP needs, but I haven't seen you say anything about what you've been able to access for yourself?

@WooMaWang I don't disagree with any of your post. All I'm saying is that posters shouldn't assign motive.

I have depression and anxiety with bouts of suicidal ideation. Am on meds which has helped - but not solved - the problem, which has been ongoing for all of my adult life.

However they do allow me to be able to get on with things - including having a demanding job! - without constantly grinding to a halt. I also see a counsellor regularly and have frequent medication and wellness check reviews with my GP.

I don't doubt that your H is suffering. But he's allowing this to dictate everything, which is quite controlling really. He's got you running around essentially obtaining his permission before doing anything, all under the guise of protecting his MH. No wonder he's not in any hurry to see his GP or explore medical options.

He needs to step up and realise that he carries the responsibility for helping himself. Which means taking meds if they help, seeing a counsellor regularly - and if you don't click with one you need to keep looking until you find someone you do. Most of all he needs to accept that you aren't obliged to keep tiptoeing round his MH problems; he needs to learn to manage them effectively so that he can maintain a healthy marriage and family dynamic. That means managing it and being proactive himself rather than passively sitting there waiting for you to do the work for him.

If he refuses - or tails off - then I would file for divorce.

The thing is that avoiding the thing that makes you anxious doesn’t really help in the end. Your world just gets smaller and smaller. And this is worse because it’s your world that’s getting smaller.

He can’t help a tendency to anxiety. But he could be taking action to help himself and he’s not. He’s expecting you to bend your life to reduce his anxiety. In the end you’ll never be able to do enough.

And I speak as someone who has struggled with anxiety. Im my case my main anxiety was that my son was going to die. I believed that totally. (I don’t any more). Took him to the dr a LOT. Nothing convinced me that he wasn’t seriously ill in a way we hadn’t yet discovered. Because the problem wasn’t my som’s health’s in the same way your dh’s problem isn’t you going out.

Good luck.

Telling your parents you were missing even though he knew exactly were you were is fucking scary.
So he can go out to work and be fine but you must be in when he gets home and have no life?

Enough is enough op. For your DD's sake, leave.

He's not anxious. He's a controlling abuser. Telling people you were missing?! He knew you weren't missing. He's set this up so you won't go out.

Not even trying medication just proves how little this has to do with anxiety.

Reading some of these other responses, I do wonder how severe your DH"s anxiety is really. Besides his anxiety around YOUR actions, how does it manifest?

I have a good friend who suffers from anxiety. She works hard to control and manage it. But it permeates her life in a million ways and has effected her decision making on what work to do, what social activities she will attend, how she engages with people etc. She does need her DH to check in whenever he goes anywhere, but a) she doesn't stop him doing things and b) this is just one element of her anxiety. Your DH only seems to be triggered by you leaving him alone for 30 minutes?