Our Stressed-Out, High-Anxiety Wives

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person, real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. We have a lot of guys, um, with wives who have basically generalized anxiety disorder. I am not a psychologist. I am not a medical mental health practitioner of any way, shape, or form. I am a loudmouth, know-it-all bald man with a microphone, apparently one of many on the internet. And, uh, but I've talked to a lot of guys over the years. I've done this for well over a decade now. And I say this, I mean putting out content under the Dad Starting Over name in addition to now the Help for Men name. Talking to a lot of men, I get a lot of emails on a daily basis, messages on Facebook and everywhere, YouTube, everywhere else. And, uh, you start to see patterns in people for sure. And a big pattern that I see amongst a lot of men that I talk to is number one, that they are usually pretty anxious dudes. That's a term I throw out a lot. Anxious in terms of the way they attach to partners. They're always pursuing and going after, they're always worried about the relationship. What does this mean? What does that mean? Is she gonna— is she going to leave me? Is she going to abandon me? That's, that's a common sentiment amongst a lot of guys that I attract to my material. And also, a lot of men are married to very anxious women, and it's not just in terms of their attachment style that these women are needy in that way. Often, no, they have a lot of, like I say, generalized anxiety around everything in life, and that really doesn't come to a head until they have kids, unfortunately. Usually it's, "Yeah, she's a little anxious, a little worried about things." And then they have a kid and the guy's like, "Oh, wow." Or multiple kids. And he may notice that she's self-medicating. You know, we have this stereotype of women, you know, chugging bottles of wine every night just because, to calm their nerves, as they say. Women taking little happy pills, what's some happy pills, like Xanax and Valium and all these other things just to cope with life. And these stereotypes didn't just fall from the sky. It's a thing. Women tend to— oh, women tend to be more anxious than men. Or more specifically, the most anxious people out there, when you, you know, try to measure anxiety in people and diagnose anxiety in people, the most anxious tend to be women. Again, that's not taking anything away from or insulting men who have issues with anxiety. I tend to be kind of an anxious guy myself in a lot of ways. But the most anxious tend to be women. And, uh, there is a lot of things in life can happen that will stress you. And if you're a person with a lot of anxiety, you don't take those things too well. And as far as, you know, if we could rank things in life that really stress you the hell out, make you anxious, kids are right up there, aren't they? And, um, it would seem that the ladies thank you Mother Nature, uh, tend to have an innate sense of, uh, nurturer and protector to the child, much more so than the man. Not for every case, there are a lot of shithead mothers out there who abandon their children and so forth. We're talking about the average gal, average couple, and she's the one that's worried about, well, really everything to do with the kid's life. She stays up at night worrying about something that the man sees as no biggie. She doesn't have the, eh, no biggie mechanism within her head, the average gal out there. She really worries about a lot, to the point of, for some, it's very unhealthy, and it intrudes on all aspects of their life. And we have some ladies that their anxiety and stress manifests itself physically in some very unhealthy ways. It's very common for me to hear things such as, my wife suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, my wife suffers from fibromyalgia, my wife suffers from fill in the blank, with a lot of autoimmune issues. All of these things are exacerbated by a lot of anxiety and stress that the woman feels, and she just gets worse and worse and worse. And sometimes, again, like I say, they self-medicate with wine and, uh, non-pharmaceutical type drugs, or even pharmaceutical drugs, which causes a whole host of issues. One of which, from an admittedly very selfish male point of view, we watch these women and their libido goes way down to nothing. Sometimes it's induced by the anxiety alone, sometimes that's induced by the pharmaceuticals that they take to battle the anxiety. And then we in turn feel a real separation from her, uh, emotional, physical distance, and we're sitting back and watching this person spiral out of control, so to speak. And it's not good. Um, what often happens is when we're anxiety-prone wife going off the rails. Husband's worried. He sees her just— this isn't good. And, uh, what can I do to help you, wife? I see you're spiraling out of control. And often what happens in these situations is the anxiety— high anxiety wife says, I'm just way overwhelmed by everything in my life, please take things off my plate. And the husband, since he's Mr. Anxious, does. Well, Oh, things I can fix. I will do anything and everything to remedy this situation. You just sit. Sometimes it gets this serious, guys. A lot of women hearing this will say, yeah, right. No, no, this happens. You wife just sit on that couch and do nothing. I will prepare every meal. I will put the kids to bed. I will do every chore there is imaginable. Even if sometimes the wife is like a stay-at-home mother, that's how her anxiety, sitting back and watching her fall apart, fills the man with anxiety. But he's, like typical man mode, goes into fix-it mode, and he goes too far, and he does anything and everything to alleviate her stress. And he's like, now can we come closer together as a couple? Because he's anxious again, he's always pursuing and trying to fix the relationship. And she's like, it's still not doing it for me. I still have no connection to you, mister. I'm still at baseline, the foundationally very, very anxious, and doesn't go well. So a lot of you guys listening to this saying, yes, yes, that's me, that's my situation. She needs professional help. And often what precedes her getting real legitimate help is the big come-to-Jesus moment, so to speak, where you sit her down and say, "Wifey, this is not sustainable. What you are doing is very not healthy, and there is nothing I as your spouse can do to fix this, nor should there be. I'm not your therapist. I'm not your parent. I am your spouse. I'm your partner to go through life with, but to put all this on my shoulders is not fair." So we need to figure out ways to get you better. And I'm here to be by your side through the whole thing, but I can't do this alone. And I can see you have no interest in fixing this situation. And I'm worried about you. I'm worried about us. Because again, this can't continue. Not sustainable. Which usually results in, what are you saying? You're going to leave me? You're going to divorce me? The husband says, if that's what it comes to, that's what it comes to. Yes. It's an ultimatum. But guys, ultimatums work. There's an extreme example of this is your partner's an addict. If you don't stop drinking alcohol, drugs, whatever it is, I'm going to leave you. A lot of addicts will say, that was the moment where I turned things around. I'm about to lose my life and my family over this shit. I better stop. Same kind of thing. So in the comments, anybody wanna share? We're kind of quiet today. Can any man relate to this? Very, very high anxiety partner. And you see it's breaking your marriage and your life down. And what are you doing about it? What can you do about it? Are you doing anything about it? Would love to hear from you in the comments. And then I put a tweet that says, no amount of chores or other methods of fixing your wife will overcome her anxiety disorder. She needs professional help. And I say, no, this doesn't apply to all of you, but it does apply to a lot of you out there. Um, a lot of people like to say that, uh, It's our society today, the societal expectations on women, which exacerbates this anxiety and makes it worse and worse than it's ever been before. Such as, women, you should have a career. If you don't, you're a loser. Woman, you should be a great mother. If not, you're a horrible person. Um, you should be able to care for your home. You should be able to be a great wife. You need to be all these things and perfect at all of them. That's what women, uh, ironically, that's what they're very anxious. Taking all of this is Well, us men sit back and go— us not as anxious men, I should say— we just sit back and say, why would you interpret all of this stimuli around you as that? I just look at that and go, eh, silly. They don't say it, eh, silly. They just, again, they take it all in. It's a plate. I've said this before in other videos, um, for men— let's stick with men right now— think of our plate, our mental plate, as being like the plate you get at the picnic— pardon me— the plate you get at the picnic, or the cafeteria-style tray, whatever it is, you know, where they have the little the raised sections to keep each little food in its own compartment. So the main entrée goes here in the middle, off to the side is the salad and the fruit and the little dessert, and they don't touch each other. That's very descriptive of the, uh, male mind. Like, this is our work, this is fun, this is wife, this is kids, and they don't really touch each other necessarily. But we're able to very much compartmentalize— is the word I'm looking for. Um, but it would seem that for women, take that same tray of food and just pile shit all on top of each other until eventually it gets so high that it all falls apart and it's a big giant mess. That's what we see with a lot of women in our lives. They just keep bringing it on and keep bringing it on. We recognize that, we keep trying to take stuff off and keep trying to take stuff off, and it doesn't work because more and more stuff keeps piling on top of it. And, um, it seems that the solution sticking with the tray of food, is just to not bring it on to begin with, and that's what they need help with. Another thing that we have noticed is a lot of men that I talk to are very, almost engineers. So we have these men that are very anxious that are trying to figure out how to fix a relationship, and they kind of have a very engineering mind. Some of these men are in fact on the autism spectrum or neurodivergent in different ways, and they think very analytically. And the phrase often used is they look at their fellow human beings as kind of like lab rats. They sit back and watch how they react to certain things and do certain things, and they change their, they take notes, and they change their behavior accordingly. This is why things such as, oh, pickup artistry and that red pill world and so forth are very attractive to a lot of those guys, 'cause that's kind of how it looks at their fellow humans, the women. It's kind of like lab rats to manipulate. And so they sit back and watch their wife. They're trying to figure things out and they say, you know what, the only time I get a glimpse of the old her, the wife I fell in love with, let's be honest, in other words, some semblance of the honeymoon stage, the only time I see that is if I get her out of the house, away from the kids, as some kind of overnight thing, which for a lot of people these days, Thank you helicopter parenting. Thank you all the anxiety that women feel to be the best spouse, or pardon me, Freudian slip there, the best parent ever, not best spouse, best parent ever. So they have all this pressure, which means they want to hang around their kids like 24/7 if possible. They would go to school with them if they could. So to pull that woman out of the house and the environment and say, you and I are going to go spend a weekend away together as a couple, or whatever it is, that's good freaking luck with a lot of women. But for those that accomplish that anniversary thing, birthday thing, whatever it is, we're going to go overnight hotel, go dancing, go to a concert, something out of town, they will say, holy shit, there's my wife, she's back. She was smiling, she was lighter on her feet, she was giggling, she was touchy and flirty and There was the woman I fell in love with. Everything I love about her, it re-energized me and I was so happy to see her. I'm like, yay. And then we return home, these guys will say, and the new her, wife 2.0 is back. And the smile is gone. She puts the, you know, comfortable clothes back on. Let's say she was, you know, dancing, wearing the cocktail dress and looking pretty and everything. And then she comes home and pajamas. And grumpiness and anger and barking orders. And she is just a miserable creature when she is at home with the kiddos. And then he's like, these men will say, let's take this experiment further. Hey, 3 weeks from now, there's this music festival out of town. Let's go. And they go and she's back again. And it would seem that he has to remove her, remove her for an extended period of time. Overnight stay at hotel. That's the only way he sees the old her again. And a lot of these guys go, is there a way I can accomplish this without having to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to take this woman out of town and do the hotel and do everything else? This is getting a little pricey. And frankly, it's not realistic. We won't have another opportunity for that. Let's say like another 4 or 5 months or something like that. In the meantime, are you saying I gotta deal with all this? Um, horrible, grumpy, miserable attitude for the next 4 or 5 months until we get out of town again. This is ridiculous. And guys, some people are just flat out wired that way. Some people are very anxious in that way. Making no assumptions here that there's a root cause, anxiety and so forth, that causes what you're experiencing there with your wife. Some people are just not wired for the parenthood thing in terms of maintaining their— I was gonna say sanity, that's not the right term— maintaining a good positive outlook on life, a low anxiety positive outlook on life is not possible with parenthood for some people. Sounds terrible, but there are a lot of men listening to this right now that can relate to that. Their wife was completely different after having children, and he discovered that her makeup is such that when, when kids come into the picture, everything shuts down, anxiety goes through the roof. The only way to see a good mental— let's be honest— mentally healthy version of her is when I remove her from said situation. So to me, that would represent some not so good coping skills when it comes to the stress of having kids and so forth. I've talked about this before. This really comes to a head And men are really kind of— it puts it right in the man's face when— and this is a relatively rare circumstance, but it happens, especially in today's day and age— that for some reason they flip roles and husband becomes stay-at-home father and wife goes to work. Maybe she got some career opportunity, maybe she was like a part-time and he was full-time, and then she got her big degree or whatever it is, and she got this big career opportunity. They have to move out of state. She's making 5 times more than what he used to, so, and it's difficult for him to find a job, and they do the math and they say, "You know what, why doesn't she work and he stay home and take care of the kiddos? We'll still be out way ahead money-wise compared to what we were before. If he goes to work, we'll just have to end up paying for childcare and everything else, and there goes his paycheck, so just stay home." And makes sense on paper, and then they do. And what some of these men discover is they really flourish on the act of being the stay-at-home caregiver to their children and maintaining the home and so forth. They will treat it almost like they're a drill sergeant, like it's, you know, they're bossing little kids around and everything's regimented. At 7 AM we do this, and 8 AM and 10 AM. And what a lot of these men do is they kind of like to rub it in the face of the wife that I was done with all this work by 11 AM every day. I don't know what the big deal is. I even got to go to the gym. And took the kids with me. It was great. Went to the park. The house is clean from top to bottom. Food is ready. Welcome home, wife. What is the big deal about being a stay-at-home parent? And this isn't necessarily to rub it in the face and say men are better at this. No, there are plenty of men that would not react in that way. There are plenty of men out there, myself included, who would go absolutely nuts being a stay-at-home father. That sounds very nerve-wracking to me, and it is for a lot of women. Their anxiety, their, their mental makeup, whatever, is such that it really drives them nuts to be sitting in a home with 3 screaming kids all day long. Most people can probably relate to that. And some people are wired where it doesn't bother them at all, very low anxiety and so forth. It's not necessarily a gendered thing. It is more of a high, moderate anxiety, low anxiety. You can see the difference there. So some of us are just not wired, and you don't know until you have children just exactly how you're wired when it comes to having kiddos. Some of us, our anxiety goes through the roof and it's no bueno. And so Ralph, what's the remedy to this? Professional help, I would say, if we see that anxiety getting to the point where it interferes with your life, interferes with you two as a couple. Intimacy, not necessarily the old in and out in the bedroom, the all forms of intimacy go bye-bye because children, not good. It's not sustainable, guys. Your marriage will break down. Um, probably if you— again, hindsight 20/20— look back at wife and her family, you probably saw the same with her mom and dad, am I right? And that's where they learn all of this stuff. Um, so this is where the old professional help comes into play here.