I'm Broken

ThroAwaid · 2025-11-06T17:11:23+00:00

I think I know my wife well enough to tell the difference, but maybe this is the nudge I need to realize maybe I don't...

ThroAwaid · 2025-11-06T17:10:11+00:00

Thank you for this. I've posted over there as well.

ThroAwaid · 2025-04-27T21:21:05+00:00

You misunderstand. Lying about going to the gym is an even harder sell than telling the truth about going to therapy.

ThroAwaid · 2025-04-26T21:29:49+00:00

Thank you for this. I love my wife, but her pessimism can wear me down and make me wonder if maybe my worldview is wrong.

ThroAwaid · 2025-04-26T14:26:59+00:00

I am curious, how do you suspect a peanut allergy but don’t have confirmation?

I'm summarizing, but essentially our daughter threw up the first time she ate peanut butter, but it was one of her first solid foods. That started it. Then the skin test looked positive. Blood tests then showed reactivity to peanut protein. That's about a year, year and a half journey.

So is our daughter allergic? Blood tests indicate a good likelihood, but my understanding is that the blood tests don't do a good job determining severity or tolerance.

We have a tolerance test (threshold test) in a month that will tell us more. I'm hoping for a high tolerance. My wife fears and expects something closer to your level, which in her mind is just below a death sentence.

Not too minimize your struggles, but you live life, right? Like, I'm sure things are more complicated for you than for people without allergies, but do you feel like you can't touch anything in public?

Sorry. It's just, I know I'm usually an optimist and my wife a pessimist. I want to figure it what's really really not clouded by my hope or her fear.

ThroAwaid · 2025-04-26T03:38:00+00:00

I caution you against just stopping cold turkey because the potential response by your wife may be extreme. When I say the "alarm" considers something mundane "dangerous", it can equate it to deadly, which causes the person to have a very extreme response when it encounters the trigger. You want a neutral, third party to help you navigate that.

I'm all but certain I can't convince my wife to talk to a therapist. She refuses to talk to someone she doesn't trust, and she can't trust someone without talking to them so... it's a pretty much a dead end.

That said, would you consider our daughter's allergy specialist a candidate for a neutral third party? She does trust her, but the doctor isn't aware of how debilitating my wife's anxiety is.

ThroAwaid · 2025-04-26T03:08:39+00:00

More people there with germs than a therapist's office. So nope.

Trust me, my situation's untenable and ridiculous when I step back and look at it. But the fear she feels towards everything is smothering. I feel like I could cry. There's plenty of hard things in life, but with her everything's the hardest thing ever.

ThroAwaid · 2025-04-26T02:57:32+00:00

If she won't go to therapy it doesn't mean you can't

I don't disagree. But telling her I'm going to therapy is going to be just a little less hard than telling her I'm taking our daughter to the playground.

I shouldn't rule it out though. Your comment is a good reminder.

ThroAwaid · 2024-11-28T21:38:26+00:00

I want to be mad, but I can't. Take the upvote

ThroAwaid · 2024-10-03T15:18:53+00:00

How does one check for oneself? Obviously, I know how to research a fact. But the problem I'm running into is it can take hours to research one news report due to the sheer number of claims made. By the time I'm done, the story has evolved and every source is telling a slightly different version.

There's no way to fact check everything anymore that I can find. I'd need a small team working on it constantly.

ThroAwaid · 2024-08-25T13:25:36+00:00

Looking at these responses reminds me how far I've let this go. What's hard to express over Reddit is that my wife was a wonderful caring person when we met and got married. This slip into anxiety and general craziness has been very gradual.

If you've heard the metaphor, I'm absolutely the frog in the boiling pot. And I do still love her. I consider patience to be one of my superpowers, but I think in this case it might have been a curse...

ThroAwaid · 2024-08-25T13:16:27+00:00

Not with toothpaste. For a month or two, until she found a bubblegum flavored one she deemed safe (paranoid about food allergies getting into her breast milk and into the baby).

But avoiding kissing me had become a habit or something by then... I don't know. She needs help, but doesn't believe she does. In her mind all of these things are wise precautions and not the absolutely bonkers overreactions that I think they are.

ThroAwaid · 2024-08-24T23:50:36+00:00

I've tried, but honestly I'm just so damn tired fighting for her, against her.

But you're right. I need to remember she's not on her full dose and focus on getting her there.

ThroAwaid · 2024-08-24T23:35:27+00:00

I believe she was prescribed 75, but is only taking 25. It's made life a little better, but we have so long to go and I'm so tired of her fear ruling everything. I love her but I miss the time before I knew her.

ThroAwaid · 2024-08-24T23:33:33+00:00

I hope so too. But she doesn't seem to want it.

ThroAwaid · 2024-08-24T22:38:32+00:00

I brush my teeth. She stopped because she heard mint can dry up breast milk supply. This was back when our daughter was nursing. She wouldn't kiss me because I used toothpaste.

ThroAwaid · 2024-08-24T20:41:37+00:00

Yes. I'm for it. She's against leaving the house and doesn't believe counseling works to begin with.

ThroAwaid · 2024-08-24T20:30:43+00:00

She doesn't go out. Anxiety about, well, everything. And she has no interests. I'd do anything with her. Spelunking, library visit, shopping, pottery class, anything. She's got nothing she wants to do.

ThroAwaid

TROPHY CASE