private13
04-04-2014, 12:24 PM
I could use some advice. My wife has been suffering for over a year with muscle tension, always in the pelvic region but often throughout the rest of the body as well. This makes it very difficult to relax enough to urinate which makes her not want to go anywhere. She's seen many kinds of doctors and they either say they don't know what is wrong or they come up with some theory that contradicts a theory a different person comes up with. None of the suggested treatments has had much of an effect. If you google muscle tension, you get anxiety as one of the top causes. She is an anxious person and she will admit that anxiety may be have contributed to the problem but nevertheless she will lash out at any suggestion that she should try to get some help for her anxiety by saying either that her anxiety is warranted, accuse me of thinking she is crazy, or say they'd just try to give her some dangerous drug to treat it. I would guess that the doctors would have mentioned this but she doesn't report that to me.
I tend not to think that highly of myself and probably due to too much thinking about the Münchhausen Trilemma I'm not very confident of much but my wife is so confident in her opinions that it makes me start to doubt my own. The latest issue is a state chess tournament in a couple weeks that my 8-year old son has qualified to go to that is about a 55 mile drive. He started playing tournaments about 7 months ago and this would be his 6th tournament I think. My wife says she'd be fine with this trip if the whole family went even though 90% of the time my son would be a room away from us playing. She can't go though because of her bathroom problems. When you ask why we shouldn't go on the trip if she can't go then she says it makes her anxious and that he's been to enough tournaments and doesn't feel that it is a state tournament that he has qualified for makes any difference. This trip is only a slightly longer drive in terms of distance than other tournament trips and may even be shorter in terms of driving time. For some reason, she has become fearful of this particular driving path. She would prefer a situation where we all go on the trip and get injured or die in a crash than a situation where just two of us go and die. To me, driving this trip is not particularly dangerous and certainly not dangerous enough that the danger of driving would factor into my decision process. She thinks we should do whatever she asks to reduce her anxiety but my opinion is that we cannot live our lives based on fear.
So, if someone has anxiety issues and won't admit it is a problem or get help, how do you balance accommodating their anxiety and trying to live your own life absent fear?
I tend not to think that highly of myself and probably due to too much thinking about the Münchhausen Trilemma I'm not very confident of much but my wife is so confident in her opinions that it makes me start to doubt my own. The latest issue is a state chess tournament in a couple weeks that my 8-year old son has qualified to go to that is about a 55 mile drive. He started playing tournaments about 7 months ago and this would be his 6th tournament I think. My wife says she'd be fine with this trip if the whole family went even though 90% of the time my son would be a room away from us playing. She can't go though because of her bathroom problems. When you ask why we shouldn't go on the trip if she can't go then she says it makes her anxious and that he's been to enough tournaments and doesn't feel that it is a state tournament that he has qualified for makes any difference. This trip is only a slightly longer drive in terms of distance than other tournament trips and may even be shorter in terms of driving time. For some reason, she has become fearful of this particular driving path. She would prefer a situation where we all go on the trip and get injured or die in a crash than a situation where just two of us go and die. To me, driving this trip is not particularly dangerous and certainly not dangerous enough that the danger of driving would factor into my decision process. She thinks we should do whatever she asks to reduce her anxiety but my opinion is that we cannot live our lives based on fear.
So, if someone has anxiety issues and won't admit it is a problem or get help, how do you balance accommodating their anxiety and trying to live your own life absent fear?