Reply to Help for DW who was abused/neglected as a child and who is struggling parenting?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, as you are trying to motivate your wife to see that there is a serious problem and that she (and all of you) should seek help for it, you might try reframing the problem and showing your vulnerability.  From reading this thread, it seems like you currently see the problem as: your wife is emotionally damaged and falling apart, while you are super functional and trying to hold the family together.  This may be true, but it likely also plays on all her fears as someone who is desperately trying to keep it together.  Instead, you might try telling her how much you love her and NEED her, how different she seems from the person you first met, and lonely and frightened  you feel because she is not emotionally available.  Helping herself in order to help you may let her take action without feeling attacked.

If you really feel that your children are wary or fearful around her, I would take this as huge danger sign.  I was a child who was afraid of my mother while she was suffering from a major episode of mental illness.  Because that kind of mental illness is so unacceptable in our society, we don't really have a language for recognizing or talking about such things until it's too late.  I knew that something was terribly wrong and I knew that I was in danger, but I had no way to express what I was experiencing.  In retrospect, I think the adults around me must have just been ignoring what they couldn't bear to see.  [/quote]

This, this, and this.[/quote]

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