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When you feel you are in an impossible situation where hope and having faith that the best outcome will happen seems to feed more into your anxiety, do you think it's better/healthier to just accept you're going to fail and prepare your mind to handle that failure? I feel like I'm at that point right now. I feel guilty for not having the faith I should have, but honestly, right now, I really don't.
My anxiety is firmly entrenched in financial woes. My family is buried in debt. My wife wants private school for my son. I have surgery I need to have, but my insurance won't pay for it. We will never be able to save up enough out of pocket for this surgery. So, I've pretty much given up on my own health. I don't feel like having sex with my wife. Our son can't sleep all night in his own room.
I'm at the point where I'm about ready to tell my wife to find someone who can better support her and my son. I can't seem to get my head above water enough to realize the dreams she wants for my family. I've pretty much given up on my dreams.
When you feel you are in an impossible situation where hope and having faith that the best outcome will happen seems to feed more into your anxiety, do you think it's better/healthier to just accept you're going to fail and prepare your mind to handle that failure? I feel like I'm at that point right now. I feel guilty for not having the faith I should have, but honestly, right now, I really don't.
My anxiety is firmly entrenched in financial woes. My family is buried in debt. My wife wants private school for my son. I have surgery I need to have, but my insurance won't pay for it. We will never be able to save up enough out of pocket for this surgery. So, I've pretty much given up on my own health. I don't feel like having sex with my wife. Our son can't sleep all night in his own room.
I'm at the point where I'm about ready to tell my wife to find someone who can better support her and my son. I can't seem to get my head above water enough to realize the dreams she wants for my family. I've pretty much given up on my dreams.
It seems like your health should take priority over private school for your son.
Are you able to honestly discuss the situation with your wife and work together on solutions? There are ways to work towards getting out of debt (seek financial counseling?). I don't think you should think of your situation as a failure. Many people have financial problems/debt along with unrealistic expectations of what's important in life.
I hope your wife loves you enough to help you and share in the burdens you have. I don't think she can expect you to fulfill everyone's dreams. It should be a partnership. Please don't neglect your health. I think you need help sorting through options and ways to move forward more positively.
It seems like your health should take priority over private school for your son.
Are you able to honestly discuss the situation with your wife and work together on solutions? There are ways to work towards getting out of debt (seek financial counseling?). I don't think you should think of your situation as a failure. Many people have financial problems/debt along with unrealistic expectations of what's important in life.
I hope your wife loves you enough to help you and share in the burdens you have. I don't think she can expect you to fulfill everyone's dreams. It should be a partnership. Please don't neglect your health. I think you need help sorting through options and ways to move forward more positively.
Thank you! I had a very bad, off, day yesterday. So, some of that could've been said out of depression. My wife doesn't like to budge when it comes to private school. The issue is, she thinks with her heart and not mind. She assumes that once she returns to work full time, we will have all of this extra money for everything we want and need. In her mind, our wants and desires as adults and parents should take a backseat to the child. In another words, our health and well being doesn't matter. What matters the most is that we're making ultimate sacrifices to make sure our son has the best of everything. I want the best for our son as well. I love him. He was born premature with a heart defect. But, with all the marriage counseling that we've been through, it's always been stated that the marriage comes first, the child's luxuries come second. She looks at private school as a must have, need. I look at it as a luxury. He can get a good education in public school and there are charter schools - basically like private schools - that he could qualify for that are free. But, she doesn't want to hear any of that. She has her heart set, and I see our lives for the next 14 - 18 years living on nothing, having health taking a backseat, and quality of life going down hill. I need to be happy, and I need my family to be happy. Who's to say my child would be happy in private school? I have a nephew who resented going to private school. he said it was the worst experience he's ever dealt with.
What is best for your son is having healthy parents. This comes before private school. With all due respect to your wife, she needs to understand your health is priority now.
What is best for your son is having healthy parents. This comes before private school. With all due respect to your wife, she needs to understand your health is priority now.
I have to agree with Eeko156. Please take care of yourself. Private school is no real guarantee of happiness or future success. A strong family and loving parents (not necessarily TOTALLY self-sacrificing) IMO is more beneficial.
I agree with you two 100%. I don't know how to change her mind. I just know I've not been myself ever since our son has been born. He's almost 4 years old now. Not blaming a thing on my son, just that we've been through so much since he's been born, that I feel like more and more is expected of me and I don't have as much to give. I've been so down in the dumps for awhile now, and keep hoping things will get better, but they don't.
I agree with you two 100%. I don't know how to change her mind. I just know I've not been myself ever since our son has been born. He's almost 4 years old now. Not blaming a thing on my son, just that we've been through so much since he's been born, that I feel like more and more is expected of me and I don't have as much to give. I've been so down in the dumps for awhile now, and keep hoping things will get better, but they don't.
Do you have any support systems? Family perhaps...I hope you can share your feelings with your wife. Perhaps she doesn't realize the pressure you feel. It's understandable that you want the best for your son but that doesn't mean you have to destroy yourself in the process. I think you mentioned marriage counseling...is that ongoing? Or perhaps you could talk to someone on your own about how to deal with this? I know sometimes things look hopeless but maybe opening up to your wife about how you feel might help change things a bit? Or if she is really set in what she wants and not willing to listen to how it is affecting you then it might be more serious. I don't have good advice but I hope things can improve for you.
FWIW, labeling something as a "failure" may be doing yourself a disservice. Maybe looking at the entire situation differently would help. In the environmental planner world (sorry, the arena in which I've worked my entire career) a goal is something pretty far out, pretty high up, and may never be entirely reached. There are also lots of objectives you work on along the way to reach it. Each one can change the longer course, often because you learn something important along the way there.
Sometimes you learn your original goal wasn't realistic. Time to reassess, re-vision, and re-focus. That's not failure. There are usually multiple ways of accomplishing things in our lives so what you may really be doing is selecting a different route, different technique, an alternative. Personally, failure sort of implies that I've given up, stopped trying, and thus take no action at all. Not what you are doing. You're still out there kicking OP, but taking a different approach. Not a bad thing!
What kind of surgery is not covered by insurance? I don't imagine it could be any sort of necessary surgery. How much does private school cost? Can it cost more than your wife will make when she returns to work? Can't you advance in your profession and make more in the future?
It seems like you are just exaggerating all the possible downsides because you don't want to pay for private school. I went to private school from the 1st through the 9th grade. At that point I wanted to go to public school and got a great education at a free top rated academic public high school, and a great college education at a low cost top rated state university while living at home. I actually worked and got loans to pay for my whole college education and car and gasoline, so college cost my parents nothing.
You are catastrophizing the future with an irrational belief that this one move to private school for one child (if you had three kids I'd be with you) will set the groundwork for your life long poverty and sacrifice. It's only an impossible situation in your imagination. Kids can be taught to sleep in their room with a night light. If you don't feel like having sex with your wife because she wants your son to go to private school, that's on you. What dreams does your wife have for your family that you both can't achieve? Why are you so afraid of the future? What dreams have you given up?
When I had young kids and a wife at home I got into a bad depression. I kept trying to snap out of it but it lasted for about a year. Finally I just accepted it. I said to myself that I owed it to my family to put one foot in front of the other and keep marching, and provide for them as best as I could. If I had to be miserable and depresed my whole life, so be it. Once I stopped thinking about how I felt the depression lifted. Financially I finally got my head above water in my 50's. I'm retired and in my 70's and have had a good life with my wife, kids and grandkids. I learned to be grateful for what I had, not unhappy with what I didn't have.
Quote:
Originally Posted by skinsguy37
When you feel you are in an impossible situation where hope and having faith that the best outcome will happen seems to feed more into your anxiety, do you think it's better/healthier to just accept you're going to fail and prepare your mind to handle that failure? I feel like I'm at that point right now. I feel guilty for not having the faith I should have, but honestly, right now, I really don't.
My anxiety is firmly entrenched in financial woes. My family is buried in debt. My wife wants private school for my son. I have surgery I need to have, but my insurance won't pay for it. We will never be able to save up enough out of pocket for this surgery. So, I've pretty much given up on my own health. I don't feel like having sex with my wife. Our son can't sleep all night in his own room.
I'm at the point where I'm about ready to tell my wife to find someone who can better support her and my son. I can't seem to get my head above water enough to realize the dreams she wants for my family. I've pretty much given up on my dreams.
Last edited by bobspez; 08-28-2018 at 06:33 PM..
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