Ideas & Opinions Need to trust again

#1
Hi there, so I’m the husband of someone who has attempted suicide on a couple of occasions a few years ago. I’m not going to go into detail as it still hurts me to this day.

My wife had a really abusive childhood and this obviously affected her badly. She was not in a good mental state when we met which led to these attempts. I couldn’t do much to help her and to some degree I enabled it, of which I’ve felt ashamed. She managed to fix that part of herself but I’ve felt hurt by the attempts (yes, I know my logical brain says it was not her fault) and angry that I enabled it. Because of this, I’ve subconsciously not been able to trust her or me to open up my feelings towards her which has caused a rift in the relationship.

I would like to learn to forgive herself and myself and open up again. Any thoughts would be great. Thanks.
 

Walker

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#2
Hi there and welcome to SF.

What I'm hearing here is that you met your wife after she'd had a hard time as a child. You knew she was mentally unhealthy at the time and chose her regardless. You saw through that and knew that she was lovely underneath all these scars.

So then you say you've "enabled" her in some way - do you want to clarify that? I don't know what that means.

I do get what you're saying about how it's difficult to trus tsomeone again after an attempt, much less mutiple of them. If you think she's going to try to kill herself it would be difficult to really feel open and vulnerable to her once more. I imagine she can understand that - and why - if she really gives it some neutral thought. Have you talked about this?
 
#3
Thanks for the reply. Yeah I knew about it but not to the extent that it was and don’t think I was at all prepared. Never had anyone in my life who suffered such deep depression before.

I enabled in the sense that she developed alcoholism and I bought her bottle when I should not have.

We have talked about it and she understands where I’m coming from but I’m still having a hard time dealing with it and opening up. I actually feel selfish feeling like this because she was the one going through the depression, not me.
 

KM76710

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#5
@NeedToOpenUp

Welcome and glad that you have joined the forum. I have no advice, but I hope that you will stay around for others that may be more knowledgeable than myself and to let you know that I and others will be thinking about you.
 

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