Advice on dealing with depressive wife who seems to want me to manage her emotions

ur_fault · 2023-12-12T07:16:41+00:00

Why are you doing this to yourself?

redwall92 · 2023-12-12T13:00:38+00:00

Don't have kids with this woman.

My wife credibly threatened suicide; I called the cops; she spent a week in a mental institution. We've got four kids. Unless your wife is a unicorn and finds some internal fount of therapeutic knowledge, you're wasting your time. Hint, hint .. your wife's not a unicorn.

If you see children as part of your plan for your life, then find a different woman.

BiltongMuncher · 2023-12-12T09:04:25+00:00

I went through the exact same thing myself. Was with a girl for 8 years, and in the last 2 years she started showing almost the same symptoms you have described. Abusive, depressive, and not willing to get help. The relationship suffered. I suffered trying to help her.

I had to lay an ultimatum to her, that she either starts getting help and doing the work required to be better or the relationship is over. She put in a pretty weak attempt at getting help. I ended the relationship.

Don't repeat my mistake. I won't. There is no use in trying to help someone who refuses to help themself.

Edit: I just saw your comment about you wanting to try and salvage it. The exact same mistake I made. I wasted so much time and energy on her.

Feel free to DM if you want to chat through it a bit more.

DanubianDelusion · 2023-12-12T08:05:11+00:00

Man, you have been working on becoming a better man here for months now. Some problems you have solved as a man and you have evolved into something better/new.

And as always (as it is nature’s law) a new problem pops up in your life. And as always you seem to lose balance. And you come here for a nudge. A rubbing. An enema. An ego reinforcement. Whatever you need. And that’s fine.

See man, you don’t have to do this. It is not a job. But slowly and ultimately you HAVE to find your inner core, your values, your new moral code. It is fine to have men as mentors, it fine to have friends giving you feedback. But it’s not okay to always seek reinforcement and validation.

As for this particular problem. Either you try with an open, masculine heart to be there for her every time her inner hurricane erupts and continue to work on yourself (and indirectly on your relationship) with the innate danger of never seeing sunlight again as you descend into the rabbit hole. This would also mean to passively allow her to decide what she wants, which could be fine, I guess.

Or just simply establish your boundary, communicate your will/vision overtly and be ready to nuke EVERYTHING.

I’m sure you are not ready for the second path. Few are.

Edit: I forgot to tell you the obvious: her emotions are her responsibility.

Aubrey_D_Graham · 2023-12-12T15:57:39+00:00

Women with Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD are extreme women. Make sure you understand the difference b/w Borderline and Bipolar. A pwBPD will depend on you to regulate her if you become her favorite person. Initially she will idealize you, but she will get disappointed eventually when you fail to meet that mythical standard. Disappointing her means she devalues you: Talks shit to you, to her friends, to her family, to your fiends, to your family etc. Her ultimate goal is to alienate you, consume you, and discard you if you're weak (frame check). This kind of relationship is a roller coaster of emotions, breaking up getting back together.

A pwBPD can be extremely beautiful, but they require 24/7 attention from their favorite person. Sex releases benificial hormones such as oxytocin and endorphins that help regulate emotions. You will fuck her to better health, often more than 5+ a day, but therein lies the problem. Women wBPD often develop BPD as a result of sexual trauma as a child: In someways she will relive her trauma w/ you which is why she can cycle though idealization and devaluation.

TLDR/Redpill: If you can, casually date a BPD woman. Date for 4 months at most: She will teach you the raw nature of women, and you will get the ultimate frame check. Don't commit to such a women b/c your life will be reduced to fucking her in order to regulate her emotions while she shit talks you behind your back. Don't become a loser whose life is reduced to fucking.

RedRum-My-Ego · 2023-12-12T09:16:56+00:00

Set a boundary. You either take her threats seriously or not. You keeping her threats secret(I imagine you haven’t told anyone) is enabling her to use those threats to manipulate you. Tell her straight up that you will not take those comments lightly moving forward and that if you receive them from her in the future that you will act. Whether it’s calling through police, family or so on. You have to stop pretending you can handle this situation alone. You are not Superman no matter how much you improve. My wife is also too proud to seek help. If you keep pretending you can handle it alone then she will keep piling it on because you have given her no reason to do otherwise.

Long story short, clinical issues need clinical intervention. Are you a doctor? Is anyone else here? Maybe but lifting and reading the sidebar won’t help with this. If there is a screw loose with your lady it’s not as easy as maintaining frame or being stoic. She needs meds or a doctor, NOTHING ELSE. If she isn’t clinical and is just a drama lama then you are hopelessly in her frame and you need to cut it out. You need to ignore all dramatic behavior and shut it down. That is IF AND ONLY IF this is not a real mental problem.

If you feel it’s a real problem and only you can say that for sure, ou should tell her that you will take her words to heart moving forward and that you will act on her words because doing nothing has changed nothing. Next time she makes those comments bring family in. If it happens again after that, police. You can’t put the burden of someone else’s mental health on yourself if they themselves are not willing to help themselves.

InChargeMan · 2023-12-12T18:07:05+00:00

I have no purpose

Keeping your balls drained is a purpose...

HornsOfApathy · 2023-12-12T15:26:00+00:00

I believe that she probably has clinical depression and anxiety. I have considered BPD as well.

Here we go again with some BPD bullshit.

95% of the time when some retard diagnoses his wife here, the root cause comes down to the fact that he is a weak retard that sucks (and yes I'm looking at all of you commenters here too). Literally, in the 6+ years I've been here with this same question, I can only think of 1 situation where she was indeed fucked in the head. Granted, that dude probably made her that way, looking at you DaddyThunderCock.

But since you asked for readings, Depressive and Anxious Wives: How it's all your fault

My wife is highly emotional (more so than other women)

Sounds pretty awesome to me. There is power there to be harnessed and redirected.

Kevlar__Soul · 2023-12-12T21:47:29+00:00

Short answer is you don’t deal with her problems that her job. She knows this and most women actually get irritated when men try to fix the problem they were venting about for an hour. Save yourself a lot of time by simply listening to her problems.

Unless she actually asks for your advice during my provide any solutions, she doesn’t want them anyway. Then before she get into her brain dump simply tell her she has certain time limit as you need to get xyz done. Yes this will piss her off but that’s her problem.

$1000 says she is doing all this to get attention. I want husband undivided attention so I just manufacture a crisis so I can talk to him for hours with him fully engaged. She is doing this subconsciously just like a child acting out at home so mommy will stop scrolling Twitter and look at her. Sounds like your attempting to take away the reward my pulling your attention as much as possible. But are you rewarding her when she is calm and acting right by giving her your full attention. Most guys forget this important part of the process.

Your focus should be on fixing your shit and the rest will fall into line as you go. Be sure your passing comfort test as failing these can cause this kind of behavior.

grimbasement · 2023-12-12T23:55:21+00:00

Why does anyone give a shit if someone chooses to off themselves? We can be a support and a rock and create a great life to bring others along, but if someone's going to be unstable and require constant maintenance, Jesus, who wants that? But by all means white knight away.

BobbyPeru · 2023-12-13T00:10:34+00:00

So you vetted terribly and she won’t even make any attempts to fix it?

Normally, we advise against ultimatums, but this is an instance where an ultimatum would be appropriate that she get help

Smuggler-Tuek · 2023-12-12T14:08:50+00:00

Boundaries man. This is her problem and you can’t solve it, you can even help it. At some point you need to sit her down and explain that she needs to get this issue resolved or it’s not going to work. Like others have said she sounds BPD. If she is all you can do is leave. It sucks but that really is the only option.

hopeunseen · 2023-12-13T07:48:24+00:00

Dude my story is so similar to yours it’s unbelievable. I too married a depressed wife, BPD etc… Dont want to get into it too deep here but I know how hard and isolating it can be. TON of lessons learned the hard way Id love to share others from going through… lmk if you want to connect. Just send me a PM

Bouldershoulders12 · 2023-12-12T20:14:58+00:00

Her emotions are not your responsibility/problem . You control your happiness.

Stop tolerating this behavior and put your foot down. If she wants to be with you she needs to act right or you will be getting a divorce . And you need to go through with it too. Can’t half ass an ultimatum. Has to be action and intention behind it.

If you don’t she will ruin your life and happiness . A man’s happiness is #1 in a relationship. Quite frankly I wouldn’t be in a marriage with someone who has all these problems because it only gets worse as the years go by. Her not getting medication and you just sitting there is enabling it.

mrpwtf · 2023-12-12T17:20:16+00:00

You are unable or unwilling to set and enforce boundaries. All this stuff about how she rants for yours, throws things, quits jobs, etc. These are things you choose to allow into your life. You can’t set boundaries because you’re afraid of being alone.

You can take her on as a “project” and try to fix her if that’s what you want. (Key here being that you want to try. You cannot control that outcome, only the effort you put in.) But it’s not your job. You need to decide if she’s worth the investment. There are guys here who’ll say that for a high enough value guy, even the craziest chick will act right. And maybe so, but that doesn’t mean she’s worth the hassle. A high enough value guy would have better options.

But also you’re a guy who probably doesn’t have better options. You seem to lack introspection and a lot of your progress appears to be imaginary. You’ve posted to mrp and askmrp 8 times in 3 months. How many times have you actually posted in OYS? The last I see is from over 2 months ago. Maybe she’s not the main problem.

she says that I “can’t handle her emotions” and recently “I want someone decisive and strong”

Is she wrong? She’s communicating overtly that she wants you to be the man. Based on your previous post about getting mad because she put her tits in your face, and then dwelling on it all day just to “call her out” again later, you sound as incapable of controlling your emotions as she is. You just channel it into butthurt and whining while she channels it into open rage.

Go back to the basics. Practice stoicism. That doesn’t mean be her punching bag. It means control what you can control, including your boundaries. Also shut up more.

MokkaBzzzzzzzzz · 2023-12-12T13:35:51+00:00

BPD or EUPD. I just went thru this too. If she doesn’t get therapy, you need to leave. It’s that simple. You shouldn’t be playing therapist because you’re not one.

One thing about RP that can be seen as a negative is that it makes men who were once pushovers or underachievers or insecure make them believe that they must ALWAYS be improving at something. That goes for things like improving on leadership skills. I’ve fallen in this trap before as well, but you cannot lead people who do not want to follow.

The most important thing about RP I’d argue is about frame and having a code of fundamental boundaries that can never be crossed. To know and believe that you have good intentions for yourself and others, and to also have a code that provides meaning and purpose to your life. I saw one guy on this sub complain about his wife having her cousin and cousins friend stay with them for 2 days and he almost divorced her. No, that is not a fundamental code that has been broken, that is small request from a woman who loves and respects you. Not the same thing. It’s not rocket science to know the difference between that and a fundamental code.

Tell her she needs therapy or you’re leaving the relationship. You should not be hostage to someone’s continually moving of the goal post ( “can’t handle my emotions” “be more decisive” setting boundaries but then being told that it’s not what she needs) so you must align with your fundamental code and take action.

EatGreatEvnLate · 2023-12-13T15:12:36+00:00

I'm in a very similar, but worse situation. On top of your description, my wife has been diagnosed with C-PTSD and can't handle even the slightest bit of disagreement or things not going her way, instead escalating into fits of rage and making vile threats of economic or physical harm to herself or others. She's frequently verbally/emotionally abusive, even in little ways throughout the week. The hardest part of it all is that it's been going on for awhile and has become normalized, so addressing it or separating/leaving her has become even more difficult to do. We made a massive mistake and had a child together, and soon he's going to be seeing and understanding her behaviors, and will likely be heavily manipulated and lied to so she can keep her "reality" going. We're Christian (at least she claims to be, her actions don't reflect it) so much of my support network doesn't really support divorce.

Title	Advice on dealing with depressive wife who seems to want me to manage her emotions
Author	mdjfodiepcklrn2
Upvotes	11
Comments	27
Date	December 12, 2023 7:02 AM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askMRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/askMRP/comments/18gg3x7/advice_on_dealing_with_depressive_wife_who_seems/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askMRP/advice-on-dealing-with-depressive-wife-who-seems.1240556 https://theredarchive.com/post/1240556

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