Husbands anxiety is ruining our marriage (how to, women, love, therapy)
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Some background: my husband has always been sort of a negative, introverted person- but he could turn it on and off. I chalked it up to him growing up with a family that is very negative and always complaining about something. He has some OCD tendencies and is also super critical of himself. He never thinks he's good enough, not smart enough, his (custom) clothes don't fit right, he doesn't make enough money. He also can't stand to be uncomfortable and has a tendency to run or quit anything that's out of his comfort zone. He said he hated his job, he hated the state we lived in, and swore everything would be better if he could just get a transfer.
Fast forward, he gets the temporary 18 month out of state transfer he so desperately wanted. I was on maternity leave with our infant, so I let my job know I wasn't coming back and we moved. This new position pays for our housing costs while we're here so it was great timing and a great opportunity for me to be able to stay home with our baby.
His old position didn't demand much of him but this new one has him drowning. It doesn't seem like much to me but he's overwhelmed by multiple projects and deadlines and public speaking. He says he's in over his head and not smart enough for the position- that he doesn't know what he's doing and this was all a big mistake. He comes home, sighs, says he has a headache or stomach ache, lays on the couch, talks about how he's failing me and our baby. When we argue, he's reduced to tears at how miserable he is right now. He doesn't take any suggestion I give him and doesn't actively try to think of ways to fix the problem. For a small example, when he complains of daily headaches I offer to get him Advil and he says no. It's like he'd rather have the headache just to whine about it. I try to make his favorite dinners or plan fun weekend family outings, but the depression always comes back. He's stopped going to the gym and lost 20 pounds in the last two months. I know he loves our baby but he doesn't participate much and doesn't seem as enamored by the milestones as I am.
I've finally woken up to realize he has severe anxiety and/or depression. He can't get on medication because of the nature of his job. He vents that he's stuck and needs to quit and get a meaningless job "digging ditches" but I don't know if quitting the job would even solve his problems at this point. We spend nights watching tv in silence on our phones, we don't kiss, we haven't had sex since I was pregnant.. and our baby is 8 months.
I've gone cold and emotionless. I feel nothing when he cries. I can't help thinking of him as pathetic, and I feel terrible for that. I don't even know what advice I'm looking for. Maybe I'm just needing to vent.
he's lucky to have found any woman.. typically introvert men who are humorless and/or negative and worse have anxiety issues are a female repellent. If he's willing to help himself you should try to help him, if he's not you should move on. I wish more women would "help" these type of men or at least give them more of a chance, but they have to want to help themselves. Most men who act introverted and negative do so because of lack of female attention that goes back to not many friends in childhood, never really being "playful" as a child will lead one to be less playful as an adult and playful men are what turn women on more than anything. It's a skill that must be learned if one doesn't have it, and it can be hard as an adult to learn if one is not around playful people.... it's not really anyone's fault for acting the way they do... we are slaves to our programming and it will fight back when we try to change it. Slow process. Requires discipline.
TLDR: He's not likely to change much unless he's into personal development work. Confront him on his behavior and tell him how you feel honestly... no sugarcoating..
This is more of a recent problem. Also, a private problem. My friends, family, even his own coworkers all like him. Like I said, he used to be able to turn it on and off. He's handsome and he can be happy and charming and funny but it seems like it's exhausting to him. He's fine in social situations once I coax him to go. Recently it's just been our home life that's deteriorating. I feel like the world gets his smiling side and I bear the brunt of the anxious side.
It sounds like he's depressed and could have a depressive or anxiety disorder. He needs a full physical examination and professional evaluation to determine any medical, psychological and/or psychiatric needs. At the very least he likely needs therapy for his poor self-image.
Last edited by Curmudgeon; 03-21-2017 at 10:00 AM..
he's lucky to have found any woman.. typically introvert men who are humorless and/or negative and worse have anxiety issues are a female repellent. If he's willing to help himself you should try to help him, if he's not you should move on. I wish more women would "help" these type of men or at least give them more of a chance, but they have to want to help themselves. Most men who act introverted and negative do so because of lack of female attention that goes back to not many friends in childhood, never really being "playful" as a child will lead one to be less playful as an adult and playful men are what turn women on more than anything. It's a skill that must be learned if one doesn't have it, and it can be hard as an adult to learn if one is not around playful people.... it's not really anyone's fault for acting the way they do... we are slaves to our programming and it will fight back when we try to change it. Slow process. Requires discipline.
TLDR: He's not likely to change much unless he's into personal development work. Confront him on his behavior and tell him how you feel honestly... no sugarcoating..
Thanks for this response, it's super insightful. You're spot on. He's definitely not playful at all and I feel like he always struggled with friendships as a child. He was a good looking guy and didn't even go to prom or anything. To this day, even though a lot of people like him, he only really has two "friends" and they barely keep in touch. I need to get him into therapy to explore this
This is more of a recent problem. Also, a private problem. My friends, family, even his own coworkers all like him. Like I said, he used to be able to turn it on and off. He's handsome and he can be happy and charming and funny but it seems like it's exhausting to him. He's fine in social situations once I coax him to go. Recently it's just been our home life that's deteriorating. I feel like the world gets his smiling side and I bear the brunt of the anxious side.
Sorry to hear that. I suggest an open, honest, blunt discussion... don't hide or sugarcoat.. let him know how you REALLY feel and that it's turning you off. Maybe you can help him, maybe not. Complete openness and discussion of bottled up feelings is therapeutic at least for me. Clearing the air.. instead of ghosting and leaving things open to guessing and interpretation. A lot of women would just break up, break contact, no explanation.. men can better themselves through active feedback.. if you meet a guy that can take honest feedback and use it to improve themselves consider yourself lucky because not all can handle criticism.
Thanks for this response, it's super insightful. You're spot on. He's definitely not playful at all and I feel like he always struggled with friendships as a child. He was a good looking guy and didn't even go to prom or anything. To this day, even though a lot of people like him, he only really has two "friends" and they barely keep in touch. I need to get him into therapy to explore this
Introverts find maintaining friendships to be a lot of work where people wired to be outgoing take it naturally. He may have simply learned how to be personable and presentable in public and that's the image he can portray when need be, but that old childhood programming is still in there and will manifest unless he makes an effort to confront it, accept that it's there, not resist the behavior, but rather refocus and adopt better behaviors. This somewhat explains "bipolar" behaviors... it's simply 2 opposing sets of behaviors that people have had happen enough in their life for it to become "learned" by the subconscious mind and it can be hard to break these learned behaviors because the associated emotions and neural connections are so powerful... it's like a river running the same route for 100,000 years and trying to reroute it.. it takes major effort.
If I knew the government were conducting classified experiments to rewire one's brain to be a socially confident, PLAYFUL, well adjusted person without effort and could remove some of my wired childhood personality traits that make me feel naturally "irritable" as a base way of feeling I would volunteer as a test subject. Changing oneself is hard.
People who grow up socially well adjusted should consider themselves lucky and/or grateful they turned out that way. Most of us introvert (at least the socially awkward males) secretly want to be you. You could help him out by being playful yourself and encouraging him to be playful.. if you can help him be playful those traits will rub off and you'll be doing him a big favor that will last his entire life even if you don't stay together, assuming he accepts your help and kindness.
Introverts find maintaining friendships to be a lot of work where people wired to be outgoing take it naturally. He may have simply learned how to be personable and presentable in public and that's the image he can portray when need be, but that old childhood programming is still in there and will manifest unless he makes an effort to confront it, accept that it's there, not resist the behavior, but rather refocus and adopt better behaviors. This somewhat explains "bipolar" behaviors... it's simply 2 opposing sets of behaviors that people have had happen enough in their life for it to become "learned" by the subconscious mind and it can be hard to break these learned behaviors because the associated emotions and neural connections are so powerful... it's like a river running the same route for 100,000 years and trying to reroute it.. it takes major effort.
If I knew the government were conducting classified experiments to rewire one's brain to be a socially confident, PLAYFUL, well adjusted person without effort and could remove some of my wired childhood personality traits that make me feel naturally "irritable" as a base way of feeling I would volunteer as a test subject. Changing oneself is hard.
People who grow up socially well adjusted should consider themselves lucky and/or grateful they turned out that way. Most of us introvert (at least the socially awkward males) secretly want to be you. You could help him out by being playful yourself and encouraging him to be playful.. if you can help him be playful those traits will rub off and you'll be doing him a big favor that will last his entire life even if you don't stay together, assuming he accepts your help and kindness.
We've always been like that- me being the more playful, loud, social one. Recently, it's getting exhausting to constantly be the cheerleader. It almost feels like I'm married to an angsty teenager. But everything you're saying is so spot on. His dad is a very bitter man who still harbors resentments from 30 years ago. While his mom is sweet, she so clearly favors his sister... who is also consistently negative with social issues. Neither my husband or his sister seemed to have many childhood friends. They spent a lot of time just with the family, which I always thought was kind of endearing, but now I'm realizing it was more to keep people out. I, on the other hand, have the same large group of girl friends from kindergarten. We were loud, social, popular, and still talk daily. Can I ask- are you in therapy and has it worked for you? I know he doesn't want to lose me and will listen when we talk seriously. Do you think it should be solo therapy for just him or a couples therapy? I'm worried if he goes alone he'll put on an act and sugarcoat everything and just say he's stressed about work.
He likely needs both couples and individual therapy. It's likely couples therapy will expose an issue with the relationship that will help him figure out what to cover in individual therapy.
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