Help me help my wife

[hakone]

My wife struggles with anxiety and I have come to this forum looking for advice on how I can help her.

Short version of our background: we moved to a new state a year ago for a new job, far from either of our families. We have a 2 yr old daughter and my wife is pregnant with our second daughter. My wife has anxiety when I leave for work and she is left at home. Usually she will feel an urgency to leave the house while I'm at work in attempts to escape her anxieties. This pattern has happened for several years, with some days/weeks being better than others. She has experienced some bad panic attacks also.

She has only briefly tried medications because she did not see significant effects and she does not like to be on medications. She has been to a few sessions with a therapists, but does not go because she does not see the benefit. The thought of therapy gives her anxiety because she does not want to talk about it. She has difficulty talking to me about it. She does not talk to her family about her anxiety issues, so I am the only one that knows what is going on.

The current situation is that she has had building anxiety and has asked me to stay home with her the the past two days. Today is the 3rd day, and it looks like I'll be missing work again. This similar situation with work has happened several times before. Some days I am more willing to stay home from work to help her but I admit I do fight to get to work because it is my nature to not miss a day; so it is a source of contention (and anxiety for both of us).

I'm not sure how to help her short term and long term. Any suggestions would be helpful.

[TreeStar]

Sounds like you are supporting her a lot, and maybe you might need some support too.
How long have you been living in the new place? Are there groups around she can join?
(She might benefit from talking to other people with anxiety issues to reasure her that she isn't alone in feeling like this.)

Also, do you have anyone to talk to?

[hakone]

I try to be supportive, but I don't know how to be sometimes. And I admit that I can sometimes be rude and grumpy because her anxieties cause me to have stresses due to missing work. I try to help, but I feel like I fail most of the time.

We have lived in this new state for a year. She has quite a few friends here, but no groups for anxiety. I do not think she would open to talking to other people about her anxiety. Maybe she would if it were anonymously on a forum.

[TreeStar]

I can understand you feeling like that, especially when you're trying to help and nothing you do seems to be working. There is a pretty good self book called 'feel the fear and do it anyway'- I have read it myself some years ago and it helped me a lot, and I gave a copy to my dad and it helped him a lot too. It doesn't fix everything, but it really did help us both.

Have you got any support?

[Kirk]

My internal medicine physician told me that one should do whatever is necessary in order to get their life back on track.

[Anne1221]

You ask us to help you help your wife and I am hesitant to get into the middle of a marriage but truthfully, your wife is not helping herself. Asking you to stay home is not the answer. The answer is for her to get better. She can either choose therapy or medication but she needs to set goals for herself such as being able to be okay without asking you to stay home. I don't like taking medication either, in fact I really hate it, but my anxiety takes over if I don't, so I do it anyway. I also don't like seeing a therapist and talking things through but I do it any way. She owes it to herself, your children and you to seek out some professional help to get better. That being said, please don't let this be a source of friction for you both. I'm just giving a suggestion. But she has some real anxiety issues and she needs professional help to get better, or she needs to start working on these issues herself through medication, exercise, etc.

[Zena]

I think it's great you're trying to be supportive but I think she also should seek some professional help for her anxiety, or at least seek support within a community of people who deal with the same issue.

[khodogiadung24hcm]

I think it's great you're trying to be supportive but I think she also should seek some professional help for her anxiety, or at least seek support within a community of people who deal with the same issue. thanks you 4 share ^^ cam on ban da chia se hi ^^