If you have a mentally ill spouse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:39. The world does not work that way. We all do things that affect others. Our job is not to keep affirming you every time you make a mistake or are mean because you can’t handle your emotions. People aren’t here just to help you through all your messes. They have their own lives and expectations. You need to simplify your life and take responsibility and pump yourself up. If you do that you will have less problems and better interactions with yourself and others.

That’s what I am saying. I don’t expect you or anyone to do anything. It’s on me. Accepting that, though, is painful. Deeply, intensely painful.

Most people trying to help just aren’t because you aren’t seeing or listening to the efforts that are being made. And you’re reinforcing a message that the person struggling isn’t good enough and that no matter what it won’t be enough.

It’s OK to walk away. Sometimes it’s the most compassionate way to help.

People who have expectations you aren’t meeting are simply stating them and helping you understand the expectations of the world. It is not less kind than walking away. It’s so you don’t keep butting up against them. It’s on you to take agency to understand them and avoid problems. It’s a morally wrong path to keep justifying bad behavior because you feel bad about yourself. It’s ok to be ok with your mistakes but in a way that you minimize that mistake in the future. Many people end up in jail from these justifications. Acceptance and growth. You need to accept your limitations and work towards them growing where you can but also minimizing problems. Stop worrying about whether other people are helping or hurting. Stop judging them. Take what they give you and use it to the best of your ability. You can’t control how others help you or talk to you. You can only control what you do.

If they end up in jail, maybe that’s on them.

At some point, you are not helping you are trying to control another person with your expectations. Or you are enabling that person to expect support when they need to experience the consequences and pain in order to actually learn for themselves.

Im not sure what situations are in your life that are motivating you to respond to me. We ultimately agree, but I’m coming from someone who lives with this pain every day and has engaged in bad behavior, who is working every day to take responsibility.

I am saying that it wasn’t until people actually stopped trying to help so much that I actually could actually start taking responsibility to help myself.

If you are still blaming people for pointing you in a better direction or assisting you, than this should be your next recovery step to get over why you blame them for simply helping you.

NP. PP, I’m not sure why you are on the ADHD poster’s a$$ but you are like a dog with a bone, your suggestions offer ZERO concrete or helpful advice (just “stop doing this”, and “stop being that” vagueness) and it seems you haven’t picked up on the fact that OP was not even disagreeing with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:39. The world does not work that way. We all do things that affect others. Our job is not to keep affirming you every time you make a mistake or are mean because you can’t handle your emotions. People aren’t here just to help you through all your messes. They have their own lives and expectations. You need to simplify your life and take responsibility and pump yourself up. If you do that you will have less problems and better interactions with yourself and others.

That’s what I am saying. I don’t expect you or anyone to do anything. It’s on me. Accepting that, though, is painful. Deeply, intensely painful.

Most people trying to help just aren’t because you aren’t seeing or listening to the efforts that are being made. And you’re reinforcing a message that the person struggling isn’t good enough and that no matter what it won’t be enough.

It’s OK to walk away. Sometimes it’s the most compassionate way to help.

People who have expectations you aren’t meeting are simply stating them and helping you understand the expectations of the world. It is not less kind than walking away. It’s so you don’t keep butting up against them. It’s on you to take agency to understand them and avoid problems. It’s a morally wrong path to keep justifying bad behavior because you feel bad about yourself. It’s ok to be ok with your mistakes but in a way that you minimize that mistake in the future. Many people end up in jail from these justifications. Acceptance and growth. You need to accept your limitations and work towards them growing where you can but also minimizing problems. Stop worrying about whether other people are helping or hurting. Stop judging them. Take what they give you and use it to the best of your ability. You can’t control how others help you or talk to you. You can only control what you do.

If they end up in jail, maybe that’s on them.

At some point, you are not helping you are trying to control another person with your expectations. Or you are enabling that person to expect support when they need to experience the consequences and pain in order to actually learn for themselves.

Im not sure what situations are in your life that are motivating you to respond to me. We ultimately agree, but I’m coming from someone who lives with this pain every day and has engaged in bad behavior, who is working every day to take responsibility.

I am saying that it wasn’t until people actually stopped trying to help so much that I actually could actually start taking responsibility to help myself.

If you are still blaming people for pointing you in a better direction or assisting you, than this should be your next recovery step to get over why you blame them for simply helping you.

You are mad projecting onto me right now. I’m sorry that the person in your life that you are trying to help isn’t responding as you think they should.

I do hope you are able to listen to them and respect where ever they are on their journey. And accept that they not ever meet your expectations.

The help I was most offered was enabling rather than helpful. It was offered in love, and I am grateful for it. But I needed different help and I had to detach from many close relationships in order to finally see and understand that.

The reality is most help offered is more about the person offering it rather than the recipient. I didn’t get that for a long time, but now I do and have adjusted my boundaries and expectations. it’s a painful and lonely process, but it’s mine and I own it.

[Anonymous]

Why don’t you let Adhd person speak for themselves. They are blaming the people in their lives who have helped them and pointed out flaws so they didn’t have to experience hardship. That is a problem in of itself. If you can’t understand it just be glad you haven’t gone through life with a mentally ill spouse. People who try to help their mentally ill spouses are saints to me. I will stick up for them when someone says they were wrong to not just leave.

And I did give advice. I told them to live more simply and manage their own behavior accepting themselves and trying to grow. And to stop judging what others say and just using their words how best helps them. Not scapegoating or expecting everyone to just give you a pep talk when you made a big mistake that affected their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:39. The world does not work that way. We all do things that affect others. Our job is not to keep affirming you every time you make a mistake or are mean because you can’t handle your emotions. People aren’t here just to help you through all your messes. They have their own lives and expectations. You need to simplify your life and take responsibility and pump yourself up. If you do that you will have less problems and better interactions with yourself and others.

That’s what I am saying. I don’t expect you or anyone to do anything. It’s on me. Accepting that, though, is painful. Deeply, intensely painful.

Most people trying to help just aren’t because you aren’t seeing or listening to the efforts that are being made. And you’re reinforcing a message that the person struggling isn’t good enough and that no matter what it won’t be enough.

It’s OK to walk away. Sometimes it’s the most compassionate way to help.

People who have expectations you aren’t meeting are simply stating them and helping you understand the expectations of the world. It is not less kind than walking away. It’s so you don’t keep butting up against them. It’s on you to take agency to understand them and avoid problems. It’s a morally wrong path to keep justifying bad behavior because you feel bad about yourself. It’s ok to be ok with your mistakes but in a way that you minimize that mistake in the future. Many people end up in jail from these justifications. Acceptance and growth. You need to accept your limitations and work towards them growing where you can but also minimizing problems. Stop worrying about whether other people are helping or hurting. Stop judging them. Take what they give you and use it to the best of your ability. You can’t control how others help you or talk to you. You can only control what you do.

If they end up in jail, maybe that’s on them.

At some point, you are not helping you are trying to control another person with your expectations. Or you are enabling that person to expect support when they need to experience the consequences and pain in order to actually learn for themselves.

Im not sure what situations are in your life that are motivating you to respond to me. We ultimately agree, but I’m coming from someone who lives with this pain every day and has engaged in bad behavior, who is working every day to take responsibility.

I am saying that it wasn’t until people actually stopped trying to help so much that I actually could actually start taking responsibility to help myself.

If you are still blaming people for pointing you in a better direction or assisting you, than this should be your next recovery step to get over why you blame them for simply helping you.

You are mad projecting onto me right now. I’m sorry that the person in your life that you are trying to help isn’t responding as you think they should.

I do hope you are able to listen to them and respect where ever they are on their journey. And accept that they not ever meet your expectations.

The help I was most offered was enabling rather than helpful. It was offered in love, and I am grateful for it. But I needed different help and I had to detach from many close relationships in order to finally see and understand that.

The reality is most help offered is more about the person offering it rather than the recipient. I didn’t get that for a long time, but now I do and have adjusted my boundaries and expectations. it’s a painful and lonely process, but it’s mine and I own it.

Yes. They are trying to help you because they feel it is their role and they care about you. That’s why. A caring spouse will try to help rather than just ignore and move on from a mentally ill spouse. It is coming from their point of view of their responsibility and their care for you, not what you feel you need because usually a mentally ill spouse will tell them they need something unhealthy whether it is more alcohol or drugs or women or whatever. Glad we agree it is from their perspective.

[Anonymous]

A recent popular example was Ben Affleck and Jenifer Garner. She took him to rehab. She tried to help him. Finally, they divorced. He eventually said that he needed to be rock bottom and alone in order to get better. Both of these things can be true. That Jen did her best to try to help him and that he needed to be on his own to get better. You can't expect spouses and parents and relatives to just sit by when they see a loved one hurt themselves. You also can't blame them for trying to help you. It's their role and what they committed to.

[Anonymous]

Probably the reason a mentally ill spouse does this is that they feel guilty they were such a pain to deal with or something when they finally come out of their irresponsibility. It's another reflection on themselves that they project to their partner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm putting up with it. I've convinced him to quit his job at the end of the year to focus on himself. Between savings and my income, we'll be fine financially. I need him to get better. Fingers crossed it will help and not make things worse.

How did you convince him? Mine claims he would be even worse out without the focus of work which makes me want to scream that that’s all the more reason he needs more help

He's probably right. Making yourself unemployed by quitting is not usually an effective way to cure depression. I mean if he's in his sixties and you guys are loaded that's one thing, but if you need the money, becoming unemployed is not a good idea.

I just wanted to say that, while I think it's fine to leave him, I also think it is ok to stay with him. Marriage vows are "in sickness and in health." There is nothing wrong with not leaving someone who is in the midst of depression - quite the opposite, IMO. At the same time, you gotta look out for yourself. If he is being a jerk to you over and over, you are within your rights to leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many people have mental health problems these days? Was it always this prevalent?

I think it cuts both ways. Some of it was always there and just ignored or swept under the rug by the families. But some of is is a result of the way we live now with information and executive function overload pushing more people to the edge. Imagine someone prone to anxiety before internet. They'd hear a couple of scary local stories related to whatever their trigger is, but that would be it. Now they can easily find every tragic case within 1000 miles radius AND will conveniently be served more stories as they come up due to social media algorithms. Think about all the paperwork that floods your inbox requiring your immediate attention - just deciding whether it's truly important, some sort of a sales pitch or an outright scam is exhausting.

I work in risk management and one of the exercises we do to teach people about phishing is sending official looking emails asking to click on a link. Our most "successful" email was saying that if you don't immediately fill out this form, your paychecks will stop. We caught the CEO!!! It's a sad commentary on the current state of life that people truly believe it is a possibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you let Adhd person speak for themselves. They are blaming the people in their lives who have helped them and pointed out flaws so they didn’t have to experience hardship. That is a problem in of itself. If you can’t understand it just be glad you haven’t gone through life with a mentally ill spouse. People who try to help their mentally ill spouses are saints to me. I will stick up for them when someone says they were wrong to not just leave.

And I did give advice. I told them to live more simply and manage their own behavior accepting themselves and trying to grow. And to stop judging what others say and just using their words how best helps them. Not scapegoating or expecting everyone to just give you a pep talk when you made a big mistake that affected their lives.

I originally responded to a poster who said she wanted to help and I said that the best help is encouragement because people who struggle often ARE working incredibly hard.

You then continued to step on my initial point which is that a lot of help is Presley just overwhelmed. You haven’t listened to anything I’ve said and instead insisted that I’ve not done enough or done things in the right way.

What you are actually doing is trying to claim for yourself, the helper, the work that people who struggle have to put in. We are emotional burn victims and the pain doesn’t got away, it takes time, trial and error to figure what is our unique strategy for managing.

Yes, we can behave badly at times. That’s on us. You communicate that and you choose is to either leave or be patient. Your choice. But you can’t fix us, we fix ourselves. In the way that works for us. Maybe it’s good enough for you, maybe it isn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you all talk about your partners this way if their illness was physical rather than mental? Is having a “bad day” acceptable when dealing with a chronic physical ailment? Or would it still be all about you?

And some of you seem to be under the impression that therapy is some magic cure. It is not.

If someone was physically disabled and verbally and emotionally abusing their spouse, yes I’d absolutely shine a light in that.
Unacceptable, especially with children around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you let Adhd person speak for themselves. They are blaming the people in their lives who have helped them and pointed out flaws so they didn’t have to experience hardship. That is a problem in of itself. If you can’t understand it just be glad you haven’t gone through life with a mentally ill spouse. People who try to help their mentally ill spouses are saints to me. I will stick up for them when someone says they were wrong to not just leave.

And I did give advice. I told them to live more simply and manage their own behavior accepting themselves and trying to grow. And to stop judging what others say and just using their words how best helps them. Not scapegoating or expecting everyone to just give you a pep talk when you made a big mistake that affected their lives.

#ODDexampleAbove

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you let Adhd person speak for themselves. They are blaming the people in their lives who have helped them and pointed out flaws so they didn’t have to experience hardship. That is a problem in of itself. If you can’t understand it just be glad you haven’t gone through life with a mentally ill spouse. People who try to help their mentally ill spouses are saints to me. I will stick up for them when someone says they were wrong to not just leave.

And I did give advice. I told them to live more simply and manage their own behavior accepting themselves and trying to grow. And to stop judging what others say and just using their words how best helps them. Not scapegoating or expecting everyone to just give you a pep talk when you made a big mistake that affected their lives.

#ODDexampleAbove

If they would have left it about themselves than yes, but they started blaming the people who cared for them and tried to help them so I called them on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you let Adhd person speak for themselves. They are blaming the people in their lives who have helped them and pointed out flaws so they didn’t have to experience hardship. That is a problem in of itself. If you can’t understand it just be glad you haven’t gone through life with a mentally ill spouse. People who try to help their mentally ill spouses are saints to me. I will stick up for them when someone says they were wrong to not just leave.

And I did give advice. I told them to live more simply and manage their own behavior accepting themselves and trying to grow. And to stop judging what others say and just using their words how best helps them. Not scapegoating or expecting everyone to just give you a pep talk when you made a big mistake that affected their lives.

I originally responded to a poster who said she wanted to help and I said that the best help is encouragement because people who struggle often ARE working incredibly hard.

You then continued to step on my initial point which is that a lot of help is Presley just overwhelmed. You haven’t listened to anything I’ve said and instead insisted that I’ve not done enough or done things in the right way.

What you are actually doing is trying to claim for yourself, the helper, the work that people who struggle have to put in. We are emotional burn victims and the pain doesn’t got away, it takes time, trial and error to figure what is our unique strategy for managing.

Yes, we can behave badly at times. That’s on us. You communicate that and you choose is to either leave or be patient. Your choice. But you can’t fix us, we fix ourselves. In the way that works for us. Maybe it’s good enough for you, maybe it isn’t.

That's ridiculous. You are not an island. People have the right to call out bad behavior and have the right to try to help their spouse. No good spouse would not help their spouse if they had cancer waiting until they helped themselves on this. No good spouse would just leave for one offense. Also people don't just get better on their own. They often need help. It doesn't work that way.

You need to forgive those who "overwhelmed" you and tried to help you. They were just caring about you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably the reason a mentally ill spouse does this is that they feel guilty they were such a pain to deal with or something when they finally come out of their irresponsibility. It's another reflection on themselves that they project to their partner.

In my experience and my observation of an extended family with unmanaged mental disorders: they do NOT feel shame or remorse or guilt. At all.

That’s a myth that that’s why they mistreat and abuse others close to them. From shame or guilt or awareness of their issues.

There is little awareness. By the time they are adults they have so many deeply ingrained maladaptive “coping mechanisms,” such as gaslighting, deflecting, making personal attacks, stonewalling, temper tantruming, they have convinced themselves that they are always right and those who inquire are always wrong and the bad guys.

There is no guilt. It’s black and white, you are wrong, they are never wrong. It’s your fault- even their rages, breaking things, tempers, it’s never their fault. You are nuts, so are your parents, they are not.

[Anonymous]

Making yourself unemployed by quitting is not usually an effective way to cure depression.

XW quit her job in mid 2020 and her depression has only gotten worse. She spends all day on the couch, has completely cut off any social contact such as with her former best friends.