Rich like the others here I really hate to read this. I also agree with the others here, it will be okay. It may be different, but it will be okay. Life throws shit our way and I know of ANYONE here, you know that. Walk slowly through this and out the other side, brother. We’re here, we will listen, get someone there apart from your wife who will listen as well. Let me be clear, the bottle will NOT listen to you. I fall of that crutch myself, trust me, it has zero answers. In fact it makes things worse.
If you need to talk, even one on one, let’s do it.
I’m so sorry to hear this, Rich. Hang in there, and follow the excellent advices given by others here. All of us here care about you a lot. Get through the days one by one. We’ve got your back.
Whatever the outcome, I highly recommend this book to you and everyone else who may need it. It is short, surprisingly helpful, and it helped me get through very difficult relationship loss.
We love you Rich, and unfortunately I know that pain all too well. I meant to write some words of wisdom but I don’t have any. Just know we’re here to support you and want you to know you’re not alone.
Goddamn, Rich. That’s a lot to deal with. Sorry you’re going through this shit… I’ve experience some of that myself, although thankfully without the 911 call and all the extras that brought about.
Hang tight and just try to ride out the waves of emotion that are battering you right now. We’re all here when you’re ready to talk.
Sorry to read this. I’ve always found your posts very thoughtful.
My own experience is that in these situations I become prone to ruminating. Reflection is fine in moderation - trying to understand what went wrong. But too much can lead to the magical thinking you wisely referred to - becoming overly analytical about a situation and how to fix it. There are diminishing returns to thinking over every angle of a problem.
Do what seems reasonable to you. But also know everything will be fine, eventually, even if your reasonable efforts aren’t enough to fix everything quickly enough.
I am so sorry to hear you are going through this Rich. I have nothing to offer but my wishes that you get through this the best you can. We are pulling for you.
Rich, my friend, that’s just awful. Awful news. I’m so sorry. I’m glad you made this thread and I’ve got you in my thoughts. Let me know what I can do to help and good luck.
I’m sorry to hear this, too @rhamorim. Thanks for making such a thoughtful and heartfelt post. Good luck.
Sucks so much, hope you can work out things so you both can be happy, whatever that may be.
My first wife asked me to marry her after 4 years of being together and after we married a month later she wanted a divorce. Just out of the blue. It was a bombshell.
A lot of us have gone through these kinds of things and are here to listen.
Welp, hope it all works out for the best. Help yourself to keep sane in whatever way you can. I do like that journal idea, I think that’s what I would try if I was in the same situation.
Uh. So. I don’t want to comment on this too much, because I can’t know everything about this situation. And it’s certainly true that getting mad here will be counterproductive. But I also think that saying “This is 99% on me” isn’t going to do you any favors, especially since your actions suggest you don’t actually believe that.
From where I’m standing, it looks like you and your wife are in a cycle of escalation:
Unless your wife was in an abusive relationship, saying “I want you, my husband of thirty years, to move out of our home” is a severe escalation in an initial discussion of marital unhappiness.
In response to that, you then escalated by making an empty threat of self-harm.
She then escalated by calling the cops on you and getting you institutionalized against your will. (The cops are always the wrong people to call during a non-violent mental health episode. You’re lucky you walked out of this alive)
You then escalated again by calling her and heaping recriminations on her about how she has betrayed you.
She then escalated once again by calling 911 on you. Again, a severe escalation if the conversation was as you have portrayed it.
If you want to salvage your marriage, you need to figure out a way out of this cycle. And taking all the blame on yourself isn’t what you should do, even if you think that’s what she wants to hear. Which is not to say you should blame her either. Again, unless you’re abusive, no one person is at fault in a crumbling relationship, just as no one person is responsible when it’s going well. You have to acknowledge that neither you nor your wife have acted well here, but you have acted like humans in a difficult situation. Forgive both yourself and her for it, and stop taking things up a notch. Give her (and yourself!) an out.
I know it’s not easy. I can’t even imagine how upset I would be in your situation. You should find a therapist and a support group stat. But if you really want to fix things, approaching things as calmly and as compassionately as possible (both to her and yourself) is going to be the way.
American cops are sixteen times more likely to shoot a mentally ill person or person having a mental episode. And those odds stack up, considering that American police are between three and three hundred times more likely to kill you than anywhere else in the world, even if you’re not mentally ill.
If you want to preserve someone’s physical well being during a mental episode, it is dangerous and foolhardy at best to call the cops on them. If someone is threatening suicide, you should call 988, not 911.
Crazy =/= mentally ill or having a mental episode.
Police are not trained to help with mental health issues, they are trained to detain people. People having mental health crises are not going to be able to comply or act rationally. It is dangerous, and we need to better respond to mental health issues.
Cahoots is an example of a municipality using an alternative to police to respond to these crisis situations.
