I am not going to go into too much detail and I am not going to broadcast personal life details in depth as it would be unfair to others.
That said, I need to say that my wife suffers from extreme anxiety, to the point that it sometimes feels like she worries about not worrying.
I want to be the best husband and friend I can be for her and I want to be able to support her as much as I can, this it seems is not without major challenges.
Researching into the disorder is easy enough as there are plenty of Internet sites that discuss this topic, some quite generally and some in great depth. As time goes by, these sources of information are continually updated with new discoveries and greater understanding and become more and more helpful each day - for the person directly suffering with the disorder.
Help, advice and information for those who love, care for and live with someone that suffers deeply with severe anxiety however seems a little thin on the ground.
Of the few websites that do offer information for people living with loved ones who suffer with severe anxiety, the details are mainly geared around what not to do and what not to say to somone suffering with anxiety. I agree that this is useful, but it would be far more useful to provide me with information on what I can say and what I can do to help and not make things worse. I seem to struggle greatly when trying not to make things worse by absolutely making things worse - often without realising.
I am trying to teach myself more about the topic and I'd like to be able to be more supportive but sometimes it's hard to get the correct formula in place. Anxiety it seems is very hypocritical; for example my wife very often angrily chastises us all for doing the very same things she does herself most days. It seems that if she does it, that's fine, but if one of us does it we are an abomination to humankind and should consider ourselves to be the scum of the earth for having the audacity to have even considered doing that thing (it can be as trivial as leaving some rubbish such as an empty chocolate bar wrapper on the coffee table). This seems to be a "do as I say, not as I do" situation and she will have me believe that it is all down to anxiety. I struggle to be convinced by this argument, hence I try to research it and honestly, so far I have yet to find examples on the Internet that cover my wifes sometimes seemingly irrational behaviour.
There are sites that explain what sort of behavious is common for anxiety sufferers and some of the ways they may react in a given circumstance - but most of the time, my wife's behaviour cannot be covered by these examples.
It's quite difficult to reprogram your own brain to try to understand this disorder and to support the one suffering with it because anxiety flips around every logical thing you've learned. Anxiety is without logic, common sense or consideration.
Anxiety has very much become a 3rd person "interfering" in our marriage and our lives and learning to cope with it is by no means easy. Yet cope, we must.