On anxiety

enfier · 2015-08-26T20:06:43+00:00

Don't underestimate the power of good routines on your wife's mental health. Is she getting enough sleep? Eating nutritious food? Is she filling her mind with junk like TV and the news? Getting exercise? Taking time to have a mental break? You can't make your wife be mentally healthy any more than you can make a plant grow, but you can create conditions that are conducive to it.

I'd suggest Yoga. It's close to meditation and if she starts her day out with it, the rest of the day should be calmer and more controlled.

blarggggggggggg · 2015-08-27T15:35:48+00:00

Here's the thing about comfort tests. Sometimes, my wife will come right out and state she needs more comfort, though she doesn't call it that. She will say she needs more romance, or more affection, or more sweet talk. It's because she's feeling insecure, especially now that I've been working for 2 years on self-improvement and increasing SMV while she is stagnating.

IN THIS MOMENT, she wants the comfort. I will take her in my arms, give her smooches, tell her how great she is, how beautiful, smack her butt gently and playfully and just be generally sweet. Almost like a 'love bomb'. Depending on timing, I may be able to transition this to sex, and go for a more immersive flow than caveman thing.

But the next day, if I try to go over to her and do all the sweet stuff again, she will seem annoyed or turned off. When women say they want something, it's because of what they are feeling IN THE MOMENT. So work it out for that particular time and circumstance, but do not take it 100% to heart.

For me, it's very hard to 'read' my wife and know when she is needing comfort over the outcome independent oak. All I can do is put out some general feelers and adjust quickly. In general, due to years of bad dynamics created by my beta behaviors, I choose a more aloof, stoic temperment as the default and go to the comfort zone as needed.

I don't know if this answers your question directly but hopefully it helps a little.

whinemoreplease · 2015-08-26T22:18:59+00:00

Wife told me today that I am what keeps her grounded. My self assurance, calmness, and ability to handle things make it so that she knows he can depend on me. OP, keep doing what you're doing and keep building the reference experiences and trust. Do not indulge her anxieties, but do listen to them, and help explain why they're ridiculous.

Countpudyoola · 2015-08-26T20:16:14+00:00

IMO women in general will always give lip service to wanting to have a calm ability to control their emotions. They will either admire and wonder at your ability to not react. Or accuse you of being robotic. But they will never grok it.

That's why you're there. To be the rock.

Give it lip service back, but know her chances of attaining it are next to nil. If you except her to be able to control those emotions at a critical time and don't have a contingency plan for when she cracks, you'll be caught off guard.

Wish her the best, suggest she take up meditation and/or yoga but assume it'll always need to be you to be the level head.

PemBayliss · 2015-08-26T20:59:58+00:00

Anxious wives will throw a lot of comfort tests at you. They particularly need reassurances from you about the state of the relationship/marriage.

Read around here more, because there are expert level ninja Jedis at handling comfort tests, much better than I can explain.

itstartstoday123 · 2015-08-26T21:09:42+00:00

I'm sure you have read /u/jacktenofhearts posts before, but he has quite a few posts on Oak vs rock mentality.

I would look through his post history on his musings over that. Oak might be a better thought exersize for you since it seems a more adept frame for deflecting anxiety rather than approaching it as "I'm right so bam!"

Although my frame is something that I am working on and far from perfect, my post match analysis done after an encounter with the lady tells me that Oak works best when dealing with anxiety.

stonepimpletilists · 2015-08-27T16:29:35+00:00

Mine complains about sleep problems, even this morning.

I listen, fog it.. then I ask. Maybe you should see a doctor... She doesn't want to. Then I respond by saying that I guess it's not a big problem then.

Problems happen, problems that she isn't trying to fix are excuses. I'm patient with the one, but could care less about the former.

All you can really do, since shes trying to fix it, is give her the light at the end of the tunnel. Bad news, then a 'this is how its going to resolve' at the end. harder to stress if you know the outcome

ford_contour · 2015-08-29T05:32:59+00:00

In Dale Carnegie's "How to stop worrying and enjoy life", he lays out three steps:

Imagine the worst possible outcome related to the thing you (or she) are anxious about.
Make peace with it, as if it had already happened.
Write down anything you can do to make the worst case better. Imagine the worst has already happened and you're playing catch up. By the time your list is done, you'll be proud to realize you've actually gotten an early start.

My wife tends to worry about things she thinks aren't on my radar, often rightly so. The best thing I can do for her is listen actively and then compete the above steps (sometimes with her, more often in private), then be able to share the game plan with her later.

Griever114 · 2015-08-27T19:44:41+00:00

First mistake, as others have pointed out with even NON-anxious wives: DO NOT SHARE YOUR STRESSES WITH HER You are the rock/oak. Anxious women require Alpha males more than anything. More-so, in the stability department. Especially when shit is bad for both you and her. Her hamster will go from zero to orbiting the earth when she feels that rock showing cracks. It fucking sucks... deal with it. Lift heavy, hang out with your MALE friends and be the oak. Welcome to (as it has been told to me) "shitty comfort tests". This is your life now.

You are the captain, she needs to know that balls to bones.

One thing i have seen is anxious wives NEED TO WORK OUT. They should not be consulting other women b/c that sets the hamster on autopilot. Women together turn into feedback loops of escalating frustration and anger. If she remarks on how you decided to skip out on watching a TV show with her, you are now a cheating/lying POS that is just waiting to fuck another woman. I cannot tell you how much the anxiety drops when they are too tired to hamster.

Set and KEEP the boundaries.

As the guides have pointed out, they will never change. All you can do is guide them to helpful life choices. Remember, guide. You cannot expect ANY MORE than that. If you do, you fall back into the Anger phase believing they can act rational.

The primary things you need to learn to keep YOUR sanity:

LIFT HEAVY (your anger/frustrations with your life and/or wife, are vented here.
Make sure you have male friends to feeling vomit/chat. They can handle it, the wife cant
This is YOUR LIFE. You are alone in this. If you need to vent, see #1/2. Your marriage will fall apart without YOU healthy both mentally and physically. From there, the wife either gets the hints or "NEXT"!

Title	On anxiety
Author	Scurvemuch
Upvotes	4
Comments	13
Date	August 26, 2015 7:30 PM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askMRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/askMRP/comments/3ii5v7/on_anxiety/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askMRP/on-anxiety.208138 https://theredarchive.com/post/208138

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