Seeking some help for my best friend... I've known her for about 20 years.
Some background: She just turned 40 last year. She was married in 1998 and got divorced in 2008. She has not been married since but she and her ex husband have remained in contact and have still tried to work things out. About 2 or so years ago she finally broke it off. She did not date anyone in the meantime but had some strange ideas that dreams she was having were from God about a guy she knew that she thought was going to be her husband in the future (as she interpreted the dreams). That's a long story I won't really get into here now.
Fast forward to this past January. The thing with the "dream" guy tanked eventually for a variety of reasons and she is feeling despondant about this. Then she is impressed to contact her ex and re-establish communication. He is very happy to hear from her and they both think this is providence. She feels this is an opportunity to try and get complete on things that were wrong in their marriage and were the cause of her leaving and divorcing him. She tells me that he is the only man she has ever been in love with. I've lived through long discussions with her about what led to the divorce, etc. So I know a lot about her history. They go through several weekends of stressful reliving of past sins that she brings up and needs to get him to understand about the pain he caused her and make things right with her. I found out about this maybe 3 months after it all started.
One of the reasons she left originally and eventually divorced him is that she felt abandoned. Like he didn't care or it wasn't important that he be available. One example was that sometimes he would work out of town and she'd never hear from him for days. She'd leave voice mail messages and he'd not reply. Another area that caused major problems was gambling. He'd gamble away money from his business hoping to parlay it into greater gain. But he wasn't as good as he thought he was and lost money. This bothered her greatly over the years and he'd make promises to stop but didn't. Even after they were divorced she'd loan him money for his business and then he'd end up gambling some of that away too.
So over the past few months she's started to share a bit about her dilema. They are "dating" sort of. I'm pretty sure they are sleeping together (she as much as admitted it without really saying it). The situation can be summed up as follows:
He is self employed and his income is VERY sporadic. He has never had a real job (working for an employer). He and his brothers have been involved in a family business (individually) that is outdoors and labor intensive. Even though he worked occasionally for one of his brothers, he had his own interest in another trade that he learned from his dad. But he's never been able to take it past the tinkering or hobby stage. He doesn't make enough money from it to raise a family or even support a wife. They previously had money troubles that were compounded by his gambling. The only good report to come out of the years of separation it seems, is he has stopped gambling. But regardless, he is not making enough money to even take care of himself. He rents a warehouse type place for his "business" and lives there as well. But he has been unable to pay rent consistently and I hear he's 6 months behind. The landlord has given eviction notice.
They live in two different cities about 3 hours apart. On the weekends they try to see each other. Yesterday my friend drove to the city her ex lives to spend some time with him. We texted this morning while he was doing a quick job he had lined up for today. And she shared with me the following. This is the part I'm interested in getting feedback on.
She starts by saying she is her own worst enemy, she keeps getting triggered by something and it ruins everything when they get together. When she tries to reach him by text or phone call and he is not there to answer immediately she panics. Last night after she arrived where he lives, he wasn't there. So she decided to text him and he didn't reply for 9 minutes, before he replied to the text, she called him and he didn't answer, but then he called her back 2 minutes after. She tells me that by then she had already went into a delirium mentally. So that by time he called her back (after less than 10 minutes apparently) the damage had been done.
I remind her the waiting is only a few minutes and she understands that. But then she says that she has no control. Within what seems like seconds she gets buried under an avalanche of painful emotions. The fear that he has abandoned her and she won't be able to find him overwhelms her. Or another anxious thought is that he's neglecting her and she fights feelings that he doesn't care. One thing compounds with another and she can't control it. She goes straight into panic and delirium.
She says she has never felt this with anyone else and she qualifies this by saying she has also never been in love with anyone else. Once she's gotten into this feeling of panic she says it's hard to recover from. It can take days.
Because of all this it's damaging his affections for her. It's like he is on pins and needles waiting for the next bomb to drop. Or another way to describe it is that he retreats into a shell.
I'm starting to do some reading and trying to help her, but not sure I can really do anything. Once she gets into this downward spiral in her mind, even her ex's attempts to calm her and reassure her do not help. He tells her that they will work on it and he doesn't want her to leave. She is ready to call it quits (even though he's the only guy she's ever loved). Of course there is so much more history of how they got to this point. The marriage had trouble from the very beginning. It's like every circumstance they face causes them to bring out the worst in each other.
My question... is there some psychological term for what she's going through? I have come up with "adult seperation anxiety". But not sure if that is the correct term or not. Looking forward to what comments/advice will show up here.
Some background: She just turned 40 last year. She was married in 1998 and got divorced in 2008. She has not been married since but she and her ex husband have remained in contact and have still tried to work things out. About 2 or so years ago she finally broke it off. She did not date anyone in the meantime but had some strange ideas that dreams she was having were from God about a guy she knew that she thought was going to be her husband in the future (as she interpreted the dreams). That's a long story I won't really get into here now.
Fast forward to this past January. The thing with the "dream" guy tanked eventually for a variety of reasons and she is feeling despondant about this. Then she is impressed to contact her ex and re-establish communication. He is very happy to hear from her and they both think this is providence. She feels this is an opportunity to try and get complete on things that were wrong in their marriage and were the cause of her leaving and divorcing him. She tells me that he is the only man she has ever been in love with. I've lived through long discussions with her about what led to the divorce, etc. So I know a lot about her history. They go through several weekends of stressful reliving of past sins that she brings up and needs to get him to understand about the pain he caused her and make things right with her. I found out about this maybe 3 months after it all started.
One of the reasons she left originally and eventually divorced him is that she felt abandoned. Like he didn't care or it wasn't important that he be available. One example was that sometimes he would work out of town and she'd never hear from him for days. She'd leave voice mail messages and he'd not reply. Another area that caused major problems was gambling. He'd gamble away money from his business hoping to parlay it into greater gain. But he wasn't as good as he thought he was and lost money. This bothered her greatly over the years and he'd make promises to stop but didn't. Even after they were divorced she'd loan him money for his business and then he'd end up gambling some of that away too.
So over the past few months she's started to share a bit about her dilema. They are "dating" sort of. I'm pretty sure they are sleeping together (she as much as admitted it without really saying it). The situation can be summed up as follows:
He is self employed and his income is VERY sporadic. He has never had a real job (working for an employer). He and his brothers have been involved in a family business (individually) that is outdoors and labor intensive. Even though he worked occasionally for one of his brothers, he had his own interest in another trade that he learned from his dad. But he's never been able to take it past the tinkering or hobby stage. He doesn't make enough money from it to raise a family or even support a wife. They previously had money troubles that were compounded by his gambling. The only good report to come out of the years of separation it seems, is he has stopped gambling. But regardless, he is not making enough money to even take care of himself. He rents a warehouse type place for his "business" and lives there as well. But he has been unable to pay rent consistently and I hear he's 6 months behind. The landlord has given eviction notice.
They live in two different cities about 3 hours apart. On the weekends they try to see each other. Yesterday my friend drove to the city her ex lives to spend some time with him. We texted this morning while he was doing a quick job he had lined up for today. And she shared with me the following. This is the part I'm interested in getting feedback on.
She starts by saying she is her own worst enemy, she keeps getting triggered by something and it ruins everything when they get together. When she tries to reach him by text or phone call and he is not there to answer immediately she panics. Last night after she arrived where he lives, he wasn't there. So she decided to text him and he didn't reply for 9 minutes, before he replied to the text, she called him and he didn't answer, but then he called her back 2 minutes after. She tells me that by then she had already went into a delirium mentally. So that by time he called her back (after less than 10 minutes apparently) the damage had been done.
I remind her the waiting is only a few minutes and she understands that. But then she says that she has no control. Within what seems like seconds she gets buried under an avalanche of painful emotions. The fear that he has abandoned her and she won't be able to find him overwhelms her. Or another anxious thought is that he's neglecting her and she fights feelings that he doesn't care. One thing compounds with another and she can't control it. She goes straight into panic and delirium.
She says she has never felt this with anyone else and she qualifies this by saying she has also never been in love with anyone else. Once she's gotten into this feeling of panic she says it's hard to recover from. It can take days.
Because of all this it's damaging his affections for her. It's like he is on pins and needles waiting for the next bomb to drop. Or another way to describe it is that he retreats into a shell.
I'm starting to do some reading and trying to help her, but not sure I can really do anything. Once she gets into this downward spiral in her mind, even her ex's attempts to calm her and reassure her do not help. He tells her that they will work on it and he doesn't want her to leave. She is ready to call it quits (even though he's the only guy she's ever loved). Of course there is so much more history of how they got to this point. The marriage had trouble from the very beginning. It's like every circumstance they face causes them to bring out the worst in each other.
My question... is there some psychological term for what she's going through? I have come up with "adult seperation anxiety". But not sure if that is the correct term or not. Looking forward to what comments/advice will show up here.
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