Oh, To Fill That Monstrous Void!

Vignette: A woman has been married for four and a half decades, since she was seventeen. Coming to her marriage with sharp business acumen and model-like beauty, years of self-erosion by her Crazy-Making Husband has left her barely the skeleton of who she was. Busy in her twenties bearing and raising his four children, as well as working outside the home to supplement his income, she tried her best to ignore his crazing-making, in particular, his constantly undermining her legitimate emotional and financial needs. In her thirties, with his crazy-making leaving her desperately lonely, she turned to food for comfort. It helped. So she turned to food more and more. As she grew heavier, his sexual interest in her dwindled; and for more than a decade they have not been intimate. Now in her early sixties, she is terribly overweight, medically ill, and gravely stricken with depression. What's worse, all she worked for has been gambled and squandered away by her husband. Barely able to function at her profession, she is so financially strapped that once again she will lose the home that she worked hard to buy and maintain. Though she is aware of the seriousness of her situation, she still is locked in the gorilla-wrestle of life with The Crazy-Making Husband. Her friends fear for her health -- and her sanity. She does, too.

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Research in the psychology of women has proven: as women, we are relational beings. From our earliest moments, until we breathe our last, relationships are vital.

That's why for better -- and for worse -- your relationship with your husband powerfully affects you.

Piece this together with the brilliant work of Dr. Jay Greenberg -- who has identified the two core human drives as safety and effectance [1] -- and you've got the schema of how The Crazy-Making Husband erodes your sense of self, and well-being.