I’ve been married to my wife for 20 years. She has anxiety, OCD, panic disorder, and probably also depression. I knew going in to the marriage that she had these issues.
For many years she took a high dose SSRI and in later years combined that with a low dose benzo. Together, they mostly kept the anxiety and panic to a minimum.
Fast forward to last spring. She decided her SSRI no longer works and she doesn’t like how it makes her feel. So she tapers off with her psych and starts new meds. She goes through 3 more drugs, never staying on them long due to various side effects.
Now she’s on nothing but the benzo. She has multiple bouts of panic every day to the point that eating, sleeping and driving are difficult for her to do. She’s lost a bunch of weight because she can’t eat due to GI issues, likely caused by stress (we’ve done multiple tests and several imaging studies and there’s no major disease causing the pain).
Now she’s taking a leave of absence from work and is currently in a 5 day PHP program for the last 3 weeks. She says it isn’t helping her at all and by the looks of it, I would agree. Her panic and anxiety haven’t moderated at all.
When I try to tell her she needs to try to go back on meds she says that “I’ve tried them all” and nothing works. She also says that my she doesn’t want side effects. This has led to us going to every specialist doctor under the sun because she wants to “rule out all other things before I start back on meds.”
This has gone on for months. We have zero physical intimacy and the connection is just fading quickly for me. She is constantly talking about her symptoms in a loop and my feelings seem disregarded. I was already responsible for most of the household chores and kids stuff but now I’m doing all of it alone.
At this point I see no hope for the future. I am looking at counseling for me and have reached out to some therapists to get an appointment but I feel like my marriage is ending quickly and just don’t care anymore.
AITA for lacking compassion?