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Old Sep 09, 2018, 04:47 AM
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Rose76 Rose76 is offline
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Member Since: Mar 2011
Location: USA
Posts: 12,862
Does your wife have an income? Are your wife's panic attacks due to financial worries?

Generally, I think it's a bad idea to accept being thrown out of a home you don't wish to leave. That apartment was your home. You had a right to be there. You having left will not create any healing of the marriage problems, I don't believe. Your wife has, basically, terminated the marriage.

You didn't "make" your wife sick. An adult does not become mentally ill because another adult failed to provide their financial support. That's not how mental illness works. Who else is in this "family" besides you and she? It sounds like your wife was looking for a life raft and you turned out to not be a good one.

You are not in this world to be someone else's means of survival. (Unless that someone is your child.) Your wife needs to take more responsibility for her own plight. You need to take any job you can get, regardless of what it pays. (Or get into a program of training.) Only then will your self-esteem start to improve. Resume coaching will not restore your confidence in you. That boost you felt was you putting faith in your coach. By all means, get all the coaching you can. But get up from your laptop and leave the house. Go down to your local state employment office. Register there. Sign up for some of their classes. You need to interact with living persons who get to know you in person, not just online. Go there every morning. Start now before you get into a routine of making yourself indispensable to your mother. If your goal is to get employed back in the town where your wife lives, then maybe you should be doing what I just recommended over there. This is why leaving that apartment might not have been such a good idea. You don't need anymore "reflection." Neither does your wife. The both of you need to get going and do something productive.

If you're mainly staying home pouring over your laptop and waiting for your smartphone to ring, you are spinning your wheels. People lavish years on that kind of thing and get nowhere. Leave the house - daily.

Late 40's is quite young. You are still in your prime, mentally and physically. You are educated and have skills. You have 20 years of earning capacity left. Go to a doctor and get a formal diagnosis of depression. That qualifies you to receive assistance at your state's Department of Vocational Rehab. If you never heard of that, look it up. Your wife could do the same thing.

I don't promise you'll get your marriage back. You can get your life back. Good luck.