This is anxiety.
My husband has had anxiety his entire life. It got worse over time. It got worse when he was in grad school writing a dissertation; got worse when we had kids; got worse when he lost a job. He refused to get treatment for it for many years.
Part of our dynamic was that he would get anxious about a Thing. (It doesn’t matter what the Thing was. One critical thing about anxiety is that no one is ever anxious about the Thing. They are anxious because they are anxious. The Thing is just a macguffin that holds all the feelings. And yes – the restaurant concern is just a Thing.) He would tell me about how miserable and stressed out he was about the Thing. I would say, “This doesn’t seem like a big deal.” He would then spend an enormous amount of time spiraling, trying to persuade me that it was a big, huge, catastrophic deal. At some point, I would buy it – and I would start to get anxious about the Thing as well. At that point, he felt relief – because not only was I also focused on the Thing, but I was validating his feelings that the Thing was a huge problem. So he felt better, and I felt awful. To make matters worse, this often happened right as we were going to bed – which meant that he dumped his feelings on me and he could sleep, while I’d lie awake miserable.
At some point, I realized that his anxiety was literally making me sick. I had become his ad hoc therapist and emotional dumpster. And frankly, he was too sick to handle any of this or to go to get medication. For years and years, I begged him to get some help. He refused.
Several years ago, I told him that unless he did something to manage his anxiety, I would leave him. I told him he had three choices: therapy, exercise, or drugs. So he started running. Running is evidence-based treatment for anxiety. It helped enough for him to get a sense for what the world might start to look like without his anxiety. It was like the curtains parted for long enough for him to realize that he had a problem.
But that was not enough. And it was eating me alive; I was being consumed by his need to talk about his anxiety. I remember he’d drop me off at the train in the mornings and we’d end up having a 45 minute panic attack in the car before I got on the train, and then I’d silently weep on the train on my way to work because I was so overwhelmed.
So I started seeing my own therapist, who helped me draw my own boundaries and stop being his unpaid, unlicensed therapist. Part of that process was, for me, no longer engaging in the spirals about the Thing. So for example, if he had done the whole “no restaurant is clean enough” business, I would say “I am ordering a pizza, and that is what I am eating for dinner. I am not discussing this any further, and you can make your own choices.” Another boundary for me was that I did not talk about his anxiety or engage in his anxiety after 10 PM. I just refused. If he tried to talk, I literally would go sleep in the guest room. I explained that I couldn’t do this any more, and that he needed to find a therapist and explore medication for his anxiety. He HATED this. But it was extremely effective. And ultimately, it made him realize that he needed to do something more to manage his anxiety. He eventually got a prescription for an anti-anxiety med and started going to therapy.
I’m not going to tell you that everything is fixed. He still has terrible anxiety/panic attacks. I still have to say “This is not a Big Deal” and enforce some boundaries. But it is SO MUCH BETTER. It is better for me; for our marriage; and maybe most importantly, it is SO MUCH BETTER for my children. He is a happier, healthier person. He is still quirky. But he is emotionally available and consistent in a way that I could not have dreamed of five years ago.
You can’t force anyone to get therapy or go on medication. But you can and must be clear about your own boundaries, and about your own co-dependency. This is really hard work, but it is essential for your own well-being and your child’s.
Sending love.
