Ask Amy: Four-year obsession with politics gives wife negative outlook

[ambyr]

Dear Amy: My wife and I have been together for 44 years.

My wonderful wife used to be generally happy and positive.

Then came four years of politics, which seems to have scarred her permanently; she now worries about everything, is (at times) hypercritical and has a decidedly pessimistic outlook. Negativity abounds.

During the Trump administration she would obsess daily about the latest outrage/headline/scandal to the point where I suggested, and she accepted, trying therapy. She "didn't like it." (She has done therapy before, and we both had counseling together years ago. Both experiences were positive.)

In suggesting therapy recently, I contrasted how each of us is likely to live out our "golden years."

My high school yearbook described me as "happy go lucky," a pretty accurate assessment; my father kept a smile on his face to the end, a trait she admired. Her father, by contrast, was Archie Bunker: railing at demons, scowling, always critical, forever unhappy. She doesn't want to be like that, but even she admits that's the path she's on.

Is there a remedy other than "therapy" that I might suggest, or a more convincing way to position it to get her (or us) to try it again?

Neither of us is religious, we are financially secure and we are very much in love. I'd like to course-correct to the way she used to be, and she agrees!

What to do?

(We read your column every day in The Washington Post.)

— Concerned in D.C.

Concerned in D.C.: I appreciate the fact that you read The Washington Post; I believe that this may actually provide a clue about your wife’s state of mind.

Events during the previous administration may have triggered her anxiety and negativity, but living in or near Washington, surrounded by politically engaged and concerned fellow citizens, as well as being in physical proximity to protests and the insurrection following the election, could be keeping her in place.

Negative thoughts tend to be “sticky,” leading to rumination.

Your wife might have inherited her father’s basic temperament, but the fact that she wants to change her perspective means that she can.

My suggestions for her are: Disengage completely from social media. Within the first 24 hours, she should notice a change in her basic outlook.

Turn off the TV, and spend some time each day reading a novel and/or poetry.

Read up on mindfulness and meditation, and start and end each day with a deliberate choice to list three things she is grateful for and spend time quietly thinking about each one.

Spend as much time as possible outdoors, preferably in nature.

Volunteer! The Smithsonian has a cool project where any citizen can help to transcribe documents from their huge historical collection. Check transcription.si.edu for information on how to get started.

See her physician. Her stress could cause health problems, but an undiagnosed medical issue might also contribute to her stress.

And yes — therapy! Good therapy, like a good marriage, is all about the right fit. Keep trying.

Comments

[kindkit]

There's a big piece of missing information here, which is: is she politically active? If not, maybe she should be. Doing something about the things that worry her might help her feel less frustrated and powerless.

I mean, maybe she would benefit from therapy anyway, if the stress is ruining her life. But I find it weird that the letter and response don't mention activism at all.

[kiezh]

Yeah, that's a really good point. That's such a huge omission. Nothing here at all, in letter OR response, about balancing repairing the world with self-care and burnout prevention, which is the discussion I'm used to seeing! But LW doesn't seem to think the problems their wife is upset about are actually real problems that need fixing. The only thing the letter presents as a problem to be fixed is "my wife is depressed and it's getting me down, tell her she needs to smile more" and the response doesn't challenge that framing at all.

[melannen]

I've seen discussion around therapy lately that sometimes what you need a therapist for is someone to help you work through your irrational or exaggerated anxiety and anger, and sometimes what you need a therapist for is someone to validate that your feelings are justifiable and reasonable, and help you figure out what to do about that.

If your wife ended up with the first kind of therapy, you should maybe shop around for someone offering the second?

[minoanmiss]

Doomscrolling strikes again!

I have the perfect book of poetry to send them. Alas.

ETA I realized I sounded flip and dismissive. I'm actually really sympathetic. The last 12 years did a lot of damage to my optimism (I watched my country spend 8 years complaining about having a Black president and/or announcing that racism is over, and then spend four years backlashing against a Black president under the leadership of the most venal White asshole it could find). I haven't followed politics this year as much as I would like to because I'm trying to recover.

[ambyr]

I am taking LW writer at their word that Wife "agrees" with the desire to "course correct." Unmanaged anxiety isn't fun for anyone. But I am flailing my hands at the fact that neither LW nor Amy suggests that taking action to make the world better is one way (in addition to therapy and mindfulness and etc.) to address anxiety with the state of the world. Okay, yeah, Amy suggests volunteering, but--transcribing historical documents? I've spent my life working in libraries and archives, I love historical documents as much as anything, but that would not be my go-to suggestion for someone looking for the rush of making a difference. There are so many other options out there, from something actively political like phone-banking to something that still allows one to take a step back from news and politics, like doing food pantry deliveries for people with disabilities or Zoom-based reading tutoring for at-risk youth.

This letter sets up two poles in opposition to each other: drowning in pessimism, or being "happy go lucky." Those aren't the only options for life.

[kiezh]

Is it just me, or is anyone else really creeped out by LW's attitude?

Like, ok. I am in favor of therapy (if you can find a good therapist and afford it), I am in favor of building coping mechanisms for dealing with an endlessly awful world, I am in favor of setting boundaries around doomscrolling etc. I am not saying it's a good thing to have your life and everything positive in it eaten away by the real horrors of politics.

But. Those horrors are real. LW's wife has legit reason to be freaked out and upset and negative, because those things she's upset about ARE REALLY HAPPENING. Have really been happening. It's bad! LW, it strikes me as way more fucked up that you are still all "happy go lucky" and have no trouble with maintaining your positive attitude, and in fact shows a profound lack of empathy or concern for justice! Like, maybe try *listening* to your wife and *validating* her emotions instead of being so grossly dismissive and telling her she needs to fix herself so she can perform the kind of positivity you expect from her?

I think LW's wife could probably use some help carving out space for joy in a terrible world, and I hope she gets it, but I don't think she's irrational to be worried and depressed. I think LW is a privileged asshole who minimizes and dismisses other people's suffering (your wife being upset about "the latest outrage/headline/scandal" of the Trump administration was such a *trial* to you, omg! such a punchable comment) and is really the one in that marriage who needs to "course-correct".

[feldman]

seconded.

[cereta]

I'm just as creeped out by the answer. There are very real reasons to be angry right now. There have been very real reasons to be angry for the last four years. And essentially telling someone to ignore all the problems in our country and in our world is not the answer.

Also, while LW says she "doesn't like" that she's on the path to becoming her father, there's a big leap from that to ignoring current events altogether.

[cimorene]

There's a big disconnect that I think anyone who isn't a white male straight man has started to experience since 2016 because... depression and anxiety are natural reactions to the legitimately terrifying occurrences in the world. Of course it's possible, and ideal, to be depressed and anxious about the world, but neither clinically depressed nor anxious to the point that it interferes in your day to day functions... but it's very easy for the real world to overwhelm those efforts!

If someone genuinely cares about the world and the future and that is the source of their distress, that's a very different situation from someone who previously had generalized anxiety or depression in spite of a reasonably secure and satisfying set of life circumstances (unthreateaned by fascism or pandemics, for example). What's more, just from following lots of activists since 2016 I've run across plenty of thoughtful discussions about how to manage your mental health while caring about/being involved in politics and activism, and this was not it. Apart from the blindingly obvious 'try to do something constructive' that everyone else has already commented to mention, it's quite common to recommend specifically grassroots engagement and political or social activism on the local level, where it's easier to see and feel the direct results of your actions and also easier to make a difference, and interacting with people who share your goals can help.

[redbird]

There's a big disconnect that I think anyone who isn't a white male straight man has started to experience since 2016 because... depression and anxiety are natural reactions to the legitimately terrifying occurrences in the world.

Yes. It's true that I have depression, and it's true that I'm anxious and unhappy about the news/the state of the world--the doctor who sympathetically said something like "we're all stressed," gesturing generally at Cambridge, was neither diminishing my worries, not claiming that I wasn't "really" depressed. (She did then say that yes, there were some people in the vicinity who were happy with Trump, but that "we all are" was definitely a moment of "we are sympatico enough that I think I can work with her.")

[cereta]

Yeah, I was just talking about this with my shrink yesterday with regard to what DBT calls "radical acceptance." The key to radical acceptance is that you are accepting things that you cannot change. Like, it does me no good to be angry about my health problems. I can still work to improve them, but being angry because I have a constant migraine doesn't help anyone. OTOH, I can be and am very angry at the medical and social institutions that make dealing with that migraine even harder.

It sounds like LW wants wife to radically accept, or worse, to ignore, real problems that can be changed. That way lies my mother, who pretty much just ignores the world even when things affect her.

[shirou]

Agreed. I appreciate that LW wants his wife to be happy, but it must frustrate her that he dismisses her worries over real events as merely politics or headlines. It would probably be easier for her to develop coping mechanisms if LW would validate her concerns instead.

[mommy]

Agreed. LW feels like he's saying "Those things aren't that bad (because they don't impact me)," which doesn't leave him looking pristine to me.

[conuly]

Agreed.

[lemonsharks]

I would like to know what the LW and his wife’s respective politics are, including how dis/engaged LW is with their community.

One option needs support and the other option needs deradicalization and possibly a divorce.

[azurelunatic]

yup.

[mommy]

Yep.

[eva_rosen]

If he was a good husband and human being, he would be worried and miserable too, yes. Anyone who thinks life is to be enjoyed, particularly at this point in history, is an asshat and should die alone. At least LW doesn't mention children, he would probably try to get them to help him gaslight his wife into hiding her depression (because he doesn't seem to want her to actually be happy, which isn't possible; he just wants her to seem happy so he can keep living in LaLaLand and not in the shithole the world really is).