Advice NEEDED

[KindaConfused20]

Hello everyone, thankyou for taking the time to read my post.

I would like to share my experience as a partner living with someone who has agoraphobia and hope that you can offer me some advice / understanding.

I am 25 years old, been with my partner 3 years this month and married since July last year.

Anyways here's the story leading up to now

Me and my wife met 3 years ago, I noticed that she had a fear of the smell of cannabis. She would run away in public if someone was using it, I thought this unusual but did not judge.

After 6 months we moved in together, I began to notice she was awake throughout the night extremely often and she would tell me the next morning it was anxiety keeping her awake.

Eventually I recommend she got some therapy as she was hardly sleeping, slacking at work, her mothers terminally ill in a care home and her father is not handling that well so we "parent" him so to speak also she had been physically abused in a past relationship.

She had several sessions with a hyponotherpaist who made alot of progress with her, her sleeping habits return back to normal and she was back to her old self.

We moved into a bigger house, both got better jobs and got engaged, lived a normal life (minus her fear of cannabis, our neighbour smoked it so this became an issue to the point she began to tape the letter box up at night incase the neighbour "blew smoke through the letterbox".) I thought this was odd but everyone has there quirks right?

Then began the agoraphobia.

She began panicking anytime we were not at home and I had to take her straight home, it started with long distance and got smaller and smaller to the point she couldnt leave town. She became terrified of traffic. Each time she got stuck in traffic in a part of town she stopped going there until there was next to nowhere she would go.

This carried on for months which was manageable l, I made all important journeys by myself, we got her working from home, we got married near to home etc.

Then she began to call me back from work ( an hour and a half drive ) saying she was panicking, this became so regular that I lost my work, she began threatening that I could not come home if I left for work and that I wouldn't do it if I loved her.

Since then I have got work close to home but she now restricts my whole life.

I can not leave the house for more than 1 hour at a time if I am close by ( 1 mile ) she has to know where i am exactly and I can expect to recieve several phone calls during that time to check on me and my location is checked by snapchat. Often when I try to leave I will drive down the road and get called home.

If she has to go into her work office near our house then I have to sit in the car and wait for her with the same threats. I can be there for up to 6 hours.

Whenever I try talk to her about it she tells me she will try to let me go more but she doesn't, she just says it to get through another day.

The worst part is I have to hide it from everyone, no body knows. She forces me to lie and I am constantly making excuses and looking unreliable to everybody I know and any work opportunity that comes my way I am prevented from taking.

Over time this has been effecting me mentally and has put a strain on our relationship to breaking point.

I have no freedom, I have to ask to go for a walk and even then I am rarely allowed to go.

I am beginning to feel trapped but I love my wife and we have so much together.

I spent hours a day thinking I want to leave and it makes me feel sick because I love her but I hate being trapped.

How can I help her?

Will she ever recover?

What do I do when she won't even tell the truth to a therapist ?

Am I wrong for wanting to leave the marriage ?

Anything you can offer me as advice would be greatly appreciated.

Op you are being abused. There is a thread pinned to the top of this board called "the abuser profiles" - Read the one entitled "victim".

She is manipulating the shit out of you. If she was truly terrified of being left alone, the LAST thing she would do is then lock you out of your house.

You need legal advice, and soon. See if you can get a free initial consult with a solicitor via phone. Ask them what you can do if she does refuse you entry to your property (probably call the police since she has no legal right to do so, but check it out anyway.)

I seriously don't know how you've put up with her shit for this long without cracking.

when we are at home relaxing she is the woman I fell in love with.

So long as you're not doing anything she doesn't like, such as going to work, leaving the house...

It's the classic nice/nasty cycle of abuse. In a hopefully short time you'll look back and realise how she's ramped up the abuse bit by bit, achieving total control over you by way of her "illness" which BTW she has a vested interest in never recovering from... What would she use to control you if she let go of what is both her weapon and her excuse for using it?

She’s also mentioned that she would consider taking her own life if I leave. She may also attempt to sabotage me work wise.

You are in an abusive relationship OP.. She is manipulating you and controlling you.. you cannot give your life over to someone else to make them happy... your life is not your own anymore...

Yes, GP is the way to go. I really hope they refer her and you get the support you need. Loving and living with mental illness is an incredible thing to be able to do, you should be proud of yourself and how much you love this woman - getting her professional independent help, that isn’t reliant on your money, is the most loving thing you can do. Even if she can’t see it yet. I can’t tell you how many mothers I have consoled as they listen to their sons tell them they hate them, only to be consoling the son a few months later as he comes to terms with how his illness affected his loved ones. It’s not a perfect system and every situation is different, but you are not alone and should look at getting some support for yourself too. Good luck.

I feel for your wife.
Not telling people is probably through embarrassment.

My partner was agoraphobic for many many years. He was terrified of everything. I was always 'on call'. I was always prepared to get a call to come home even if I had just left for work. His world became so small that he wouldn't even go into the garden. I would try and support him to go out but I could see the terror in his eyes. From what I learnt through 20+ years of loving someone who was that sick is that there's no logic when panic sets in. The logical part of the brain shuts down completely, so if your wife thinks she's dying/having a heart attack/going mad/going to faint, trust me, she believes it 100%. I paid for a therapist to come to our house to help my partner, but the fear was overwhelming. I would try and get him to come out for 2 minute rides in the car and I would pull out of the drive and he would panic. Seeing him so scared really hurt me. He did say things when he was having a bad day like, if you leave me it means you don't love me, but I was aware it was the fear and panic talking, not him. I never felt blackmailed. I never felt anything other that empathy toward a grown man being reduced to a quivering wreck. I adored my partner, but sadly it was too much, he couldn't cope with the guilt of being agoraphobic, the pressure he felt he was putting on me (I never felt that because I loved him and only ever wanted to support him and make him well) - he committed suicide 7 months ago.

If I could do it all over again i would.
I miss him every day.

I’ll probably get slagged for this
As a suffer of chronic anxiety, the reason your wife is being like she is is because she’s
Terrified of the bodily feelings she’s getting during the panic

Anybody who hasn’t had bad anxiety, hasn’t a clue of the sheer terror you feel. You completely feel you’ve lost control, your going mad and you can’t get a grip when your in the mist of one.

Just one question
If you were to tell others ie gp, her parents and sisters/brothers for some outside help
To give you the break you need for your own health. But YOU alone need to get this help for her, you shouldn’t be keeping it a secret
She’s extremely embarrassed about her illness
Do you love her enough to stay? As you don’t fall out of love with a person because they have an illness
What if she had dementia? and was nasty to you, would you leave her then ?
An illness is an illness regardless of its name

But I 109% agree she needs help ASAP
and if she won’t access it herself they you must do it to help her.
Tell her straight(don’t take the treats to heart, she’s terrified) your going to the gp and your being honest your not putting up with this any longer.

Stay strong

OP, you say you love your wife. Well, act like it then.

She is ill. You are enabling her to not get better. She needs medical help. You are not helping her get medical help. You are actually afraid of what she will do and how she will react, so you are creeping around fearfully living your half-a-life and you are telling yourself that you are doing it for love for her because that is the only way the whole mad situation can make any sense to you. This is textbook co-dependency.

First step - start telling people what is going on. Stop lying for her because that reinforces that this is 'just a bit of a strain on our relationship' when in fact it is full-on batshit mental. The half-arsed 'therapy' you arranged for your wife didn't work because no-one told the therapist the truth, did they? But this is in fact a serious medical, psychiatric issue, and needs a proper doctor.

Telephone your GP and tell them the truth. You need to really make this happen - no minimising and no lying. If you love your wife, or even if you simply feel sorry for her, then get her the help she needs.

It will almost certainly be the case that you will need to move out for a period (at the very least) because you will not be able to resist carrying on protecting/enabling her and she NEEDS to actually start to engage with her problems for herself. And make no mistake, she will BEG you and threaten you and guilt-trip you and do everything she can to keep you carrying on enabling her. You have to be strong enough to resist that. The aim is for her to get better, not for you to yet again sort out her difficulties for her.

You may find it very helpful to ask the GP for a therapy recommendation for yourself because you also need to heal.

Fuck that. If I said my dp was lovely when he was calm and it was only when I didn't do as he said he got violent, and the nice dp and the aggressive dp were two different people, would you think his physical abuse was my problem to solve? No, of course not. Emotional abuse is no different. She will only sort herself out when or if she decides to, and that won't happen when she's got you to manipulate. Run for the hills.

granada and by the same token, if you've never been on the receiving end you have no idea of how destructive it is. If ops wife was physically disabled and insistent he had to carry her everywhere, despite it causing him physical harm because she didn't want to use a wheelchair, then yes, I'd say the same. A mental illness doesn't give the sufferer the right to destroy those around them either. Love has nothing to do with it. It would be just as logical to say she could just stop it if she really loved him, as it is to imply he should support her if he loves her.

You're being abused OP- whatever her issues/reasons- look up cohesive control. Leave. Put an end to this sorry situation.

Hi OP - good luck.
My husband is now in recovery from agoraphobia and severe clinical depression- he barely left the house between December 2017 and February 2020.
But now he is well, and is on his 9th week of living. He smiles, we talk, we cook together, and life is good

But your situation sounds like she is excersise gonna control too, that was never an element here and sounds more live the DV I was in before I met my husband.

Good luck for you. Lots of love and peace

Sorry op but this is abuse. Mental illness is not an excuse for it and you are enabling her behaviour to continue. I bet if you did leave she would suddenly decide to get help.

Tell people. Tell her never to threaten you again and to get help. And leave as soon as you are able.

You obviously love and care for her a great deal , she is very lucky . The question is does she love you back as much .
You dont see it , but she is being extremely abusive . How can you treat someone you love like this . How can you ask them not to tell anyone that it is you who are unwell , and they need to be there to support you .
How can you control someone to the point where they have to leave their job , and can’t even take the dig out for a walk without asking ???????
She very obviously needs help , but she won’t take the meds . So she wants your help but won’t do anything to help herself .
You need to get some support for yourself , this has to be non negotiable. You have the time you need to see a councilor etc , she will have to cope for that couple of hours . Repeat NON NEGOTIABLE. She also needs to be willing to get the help she needs and take the damn medication.
If you were my child I’d be gutted to think you were in such an awful situation .
You sound like a really good person . I really hope you get the support that you need , and your wife starts taking responsibility For herself . Until that happens nothing will change

You’re in an abusive relationship.

Regardless of whether it is mental health related or not, she is an abuser and you are the victim of coercive control.

If you were a woman posting here there wouldn’t be any of this feeling sorry for the bloke, urging him to get help etc, everyone would be telling you to leave and that threats of suicide were purely there to control you and you have to walk away for your own safety.

And if she threatens to lock you out of the house that doesn’t exactly tie in with her saying she’s anxious about being there on her own.

I know that its hard to think of leaving someone you love, especially when there are good times. But this is precisely how abusers get away with it, they balance out the bad times with the good until their victim is totally worn down and then the bad times get progressively worse until there are no longer good times but by then the victim is too broken down to leave.

I would seriously pack up in the middle of the night, leave for work and never go back.

You’re not responsibl e for this woman’s reaction. If she did go through with her threat to end her life (and if she’s threatening it it’s more likely another control tactic rather than a real possibility) then it won’t be your responsibility, it will be her’s.

Oh and, loving someone is not a reason to stay with them if they are abusive either. You are a grown man, you have to know how to love yourself first and foremost. Heck, even like and respect yourself and you wouldn't be hanging around tolerating this shit.

It seems i missed the part where you said she wasnt taking her meds? Yeh, sack that. Get yourself out of there fast. Like husain bolt fast. And never go back.

And if she threatens suicide again (another common abuser tactic) call her an ambulance and have them deal with her.

Shes very unwell and you are enabling her.

She is also emotionally blackmailing you and manipulating you.

I fear you will ignore all the advice on here, but this situationbis only going to get worse.

As long as you do what she wants you to, she will get sicker and sicker and more controlling over time.

Shine a light on it - tell everyone.

Leave her on her own every day. Dont do what she insists you do.

If you can leave, do.

She won't get better as long as you're constantly rescuing her from her symptoms. That is simply how agoraphobia works.

She has to be left to her own devices and you can only hope that eventually in desperation she engages properly in therapy.

Sorry op.

Where is the abuse? I read a post about a poor woman suffering from a debilitating condition that controls every part of her life and YES having such a condition does affect those around you, it's the nature of the intense fear unfortunately. This woman experiences such fear that she feels in danger. Imagine if any of you felt absolute terror every time you were alone or went somewhere, you would do anything to alleviate it, (it's not blackmail and I think describing it as that is really disrespectful to the MH community, it really is as basic as wanting the thoughts/feelings/sensations to stop as quickly as possible). My partner would beg on his hands and knees for me to not go out when he was having a bad day, and knowing that he had tried everything to recover there wasn't a cell in my body that would have turned around and left him in his time of need. Did I see it as enabling, not in the slightest. I was doing my duty as a loving and committed partner. My life drastically changed over the course of our 20+ year relationship, but although at times it was difficult and challenging I never got angry, there was never any resentment (because I knew his condition wasn't a choice) and i didn't once consider ending our relationship.

These comments are really hard to read. Mental illness is real. It's not fake. It's terrifying for those who battle against their own minds 24/7. It's exhausting. They can't switch off. Always waiting for that next panic attack, the one that will ultimately kill them. I saw my partner experience the scariest attacks, i was powerless against them, he was powerless against them. I've only experienced one panic attack (I ended up in A&E) and that was shortly after he passed away, probably due to stress of losing him and I suddenly understood the real and genuine symptoms he would experience up to 5 - 10 times a day. I can't imagine living that way, and that's why he couldn't any more.

Being with him my social life went. Went many years ago. I did shopping, the essentials and then I went home to him. Seeing his face light up each time i walked through the door was worth the 'sacrifice'. There was nothing I wouldn't have done to make his life easier because I knew he had exhausted all avenues of help. I would have stood by his side until I took my last breath. My wonderful partner lost his life to this illness and all these comments are harsh, uncaring, unsympathetic and quite ignorant.

@Ruthless67
sorry for your lose.
Not to minimise your experience but I've seen anxiety and I've seen people vastly improve.
With help there is always hope that ops wife can improve and lead a full and active life.
I say this from a caring and understanding perspective.

Your wife clearly has mental health problems and I think honestly she needs professional help and maybe possibly sectioning.

I don’t mean this to sound condescending but you can’t be living like a prisoner and your wife’s fears and unfortunate severe mental state will slowly but surely start to wear on your own mental health.

She needs professional help and you're not it so you need to get it. If that doesn't work I'd be off. Sorry

I am not sure, she had alot of qualifications egg and she was recommended to me. The therapist seemed brilliant, my wife basically rejected any of her help claiming that CBT therapy isn't going to work.

This is so sad to read and I really appreciate that you were able to share that with me. My thoughts are with you and I hope I can be as strong as you.

Controlling someone else to this point is abusive. Absolutely you can have sympathy/empathy for the mental health problems causing it, if that's what is behind it, but intention is not magic, it doesn't change the impact of it on the op.

@Ruthless67 but I am sorry for your loss.

But controlling a person’s every movement, threatening to lock them out of the house if they don’t do as they’re told immediately, threatening to end their life if that person doesn’t do as they ask or if they ever dare to leave is abuse. Even if there is an underlying reason behind it.

While people with MH conditions should be given support so do the people who have to be subjected to the behaviours which are the result of those MH conditions.

The OP is just as much a victim here. And while he understands why she does these things that doesn’t mean he has to be a victim of them just because they’re a symptom of her MH. Especially as she refuses to get help.

Oh and, if it was a physical disability I would say exactly the same.

The thing is, it’s easy to be fooled into a hero complex where you think she NEEDS you and you are only person who can make it ok. It solicits you’re sense of obligation.
She’d treat any partner this way. It just so happens that it’s you.

You owe to yourself to get out of this prison. You matter just as much.