Women Who Wish Their Spouses Would Die

"I feel terrible saying it," Mary told me during one of our telephone counseling sessions, "but I often wish my husband would die. I feel like a horrible person who says this, but I think about it a lot .

"I hear it quite often," I replied. "You think about it, not because you're a terrible person, but because you feel trapped, and you do not know how to get out of the trap."

"But my husband is a really nice person and he loves me. Yet I want to do is get away."

Mary consulted with me because she was deeply depressed. Through our work together, it appeared that Mary had completely lost herself in her marriage. While her husband was a "nice" person, he was also a very needy person who took no responsibility for their own feelings and needs. Mary felt constantly drawn upon to fill him up and make him feel okay about themselves. She was exhausted and drained.

"Angie, another of my clients also fantasized about her husband dies. Angie's husband was not nice as Mary's husband. Instead, he was an angry, blaming the man, who often attacked Angie for not doing what he wanted her to do. Angie was emotionally struck and injured by the constant verbal abuse, and not just fantasized about her husband dies, but often had suicidal thoughts.

Why do not these women leave wish their husbands would die or think about killing themselves?

Sometimes women do not leave because of money, and sometimes because of the children, but this was not the case with either of Mary or Angie. Mary and Angie would not leave because they felt completely responsible for their husband's feelings. They knew that even if they did, they would still feel responsible. In their minds the only way out for them was for them to kill themselves or for their men to die.

Fortunately, there is a second way out of feeling so trapped. Way out is to let go of responsibility for others' feelings and begin to take responsibility for their own feelings. But for many people, this is a great challenge.

Both Mary and Angie had been deeply programmed by children caretakers. Their sense of value was completely bound to be "selfless", which they equated with being loving. In their minds, was to take care of themselves instead of guarding other people's selfish - and therefore wrong. Idea of taking care of themselves instead of guarding their husbands left them feeling unbearably guilty. This is what makes them feel so trapped.

Through their Inner Bonding work with me, Mary and Angie discovered that caretaking is a form of control - that instead of loving their husbands, they were giving themselves up to get approval or avoid disapproval. They were shocked to realize they were that their husbands are also doing their men are responsible for their feelings.

Through practice, as they learned to take responsibility for their own feelings and let go of responsibility for their husband's feelings. They learned to take time for themselves, speak up themselves, and tend to trust their own feelings. In learning to love themselves, they found that they could express love for their husbands, without taking responsibility for their husband's feelings. The more they let go of responsibility for their husband's feelings, they felt freer to love themselves and love their husbands.

Without their wives constantly taking responsibility for them, both their husbands eventually learned to take more responsibility for themselves.

Both Mary and Angie are still married to the same men, and they no longer feel trapped, drained, or depressed - and they no longer want their husbands to die!