Look - don't know the whole sitch, but I CAN offer you a glimpse from my past:
I was suffering from an overactive thyroid. I was on medications for it that on paper seemed to be taking care of the problem, but in reality were not working as well as my lab tests would indicate. Trying to keep up with a busy household of three kids, my very hyper and busy H, work, etc. just seemed overwhelming every day. The thyroid problem also affected my thinking - it was sluggish and I was very forgetful, had a really hard time organizing things, etc.
H was constantly trying to "fix" me - but his approach revealed his exasperation and anger (some of that anger was due to his own untreated clinical depression at the time). When he approached me in that way, it felt very unloving. I felt like here I was, running as fast as I possibly could, and he was criticizing me for not doing things well enough!
It didn't help that H had a history of being slightly ambivalent about having married me (long story, on my thread) so I took every criticism very personally - like he felt I wasn't "good enough" for him.
H couldn't understand why I wouldn't act upon his helpful suggestions, and why I wasn't managing things well. I couldn't understand why he couldn't see and appreciate everything I was doing. Impasse. Eventually I grew to feel that nothing would ever be good enough for him and kind of gave up.
Well, we've gotten past all that now, thank goodness. But I still wonder how much more quickly it might have been resolved if H had been able to approach me in a totally loving, supportive way, instead of an angry, critical way. Might have saved us both a lot of heartache.
So - what can you do to change the sitch around? It's hard for wives and mothers to give themselves permission to take care of themselves when they are so overwhelmed taking care of others. So maybe some first steps would be: - mandatory date night every week - do as much as you can around the house to help her, or hire a cleaning lady (in a nice, gee honey you do so much, let me lighten your load way, not in a gee honey, you're a failure at this kind of way) - make sure she is physically well. Any other ideas? What could you do right now that would make her feel loved and appreciated?
