{"id":7176,"date":"2015-09-24T04:00:12","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T11:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lauradoyle1.wpengine.com\/?p=7176"},"modified":"2023-12-20T22:35:20","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T06:35:20","slug":"husband-with-a-mental-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lauradoyle.org\/blog\/husband-with-a-mental-illness\/","title":{"rendered":"Living with a Mentally Ill Husband: How to Help Him Cope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even though we just met, I\u2019m gonna ask you to do something kinda weird.<\/p>\n

Ready?<\/p>\n

Pretend for a minute that the problems in your marriage are not because of your husband being neurodiverse or having a mental illness.<\/p>\n

Imagine that the source of your unhappiness is definitely not that your husband has ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), or narcissism.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say him being passive aggressive, bipolar, or exhibiting adolescent syndrome is not what keeps you sleeping in separate rooms, or has every conversation turn into an argument.<\/p>\n

Suppose we could rule out that treating such a disorder would get you closer to feeling connected and cherished.<\/p>\n

Imagine that it\u2019s all just a big distraction from the real issue, which just might be something completely unexpected, like it was in my hurting, lonely marriage.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s suppose those diagnoses are a gigantic temptation to focus on your husband\u2019s faults instead of the things that you could change\u2013the things that would really lead to having his face light up when you come home and him chasing you into the bedroom.<\/p>\n

Now you\u2019re looking at things through the lens of my experience, and the experience of thousands of clients who say it was theirs too. But we could only see it in retrospect\u2013after we practiced The Six Intimacy Skills\u2122 and started respecting our husbands and replenishing ourselves.<\/p>\n

From this vantage point, it seems obvious that focusing on mental diagnoses was no help at all.<\/p>\n

You may be reading this blog so you can be supportive and know how you can best help him with his disorder or deficit.<\/p>\n

For me, the answer was to pretend it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

Really.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Today it\u2019s as if my husband never had a deficit disorder, even though he was diagnosed and medicated for an incurable one years ago.<\/p>\n

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Contents<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n