The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-01-18
Mary HatUOrth,s Mil
Man Asls What 10 DO About Wife, So Changed For Worse of Late Years That Nelghhors Urge Institutional Care; Doctors See Nothing Wrong

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 DEAR MARY HAwoRTH: I am SC. My wife is be. We have been married g years and have reared four children, all grown and gone from home now, with two daughters doing well in their chosen fields and two sons still in the armed forces. They have never given us any cause for worry or regret.
 The problem is my wife. During the last two years she has lost in- terest in everything end while she is in fairly good health she refuses to do any work about the house or go anywhere unless someone is with her. At times she has tantrums and throws and breaks things.
 Her one and constant complaint is regret that she ever married. Now that our boys are about to come back from the Army, she begs me Co take her back to her home town, where she will have peace of mind, sch says. Nelghbors have ad- wsed me to place her in an institu- ton, but I have had her to four dif- ferent doctors-one o psychiatrist- and each man said there is nothing wrong with her mentally, so I am back just where I started,
 There is no other woman in- volved and my wife is not jealous, She just seems to think of one thing only, and that is herself and how much happier she would be if she had stayed single. We have mod ern home, paid for due to our mu- tual efforts and we had reached @ place in life where would begin, l thought, to ease up and enjoy the time left to us.
 Under present conditions life is almost unbearable and I am asking you what should be done? What can say when my boys return and find such a woman as this, when they left a devoted mother9 am sure one doesn't go along normally for 8 years and then change so ab- ruptly without some cause. Per- haps you will understand her and give me some good advice. c. G.
 DOctors' Vacant Reply Is
 Strange
 DEAR o. O.: odd that four doc tors, one e psychiatrist, would turn this problem back to you without offering any insight or helpful recommendations whatsoever. How ever, since all returned the same verdict, assume they were suffi- ciently competent and conscientious to know what they were talking about in saying there is nothing wrong with her mentally-nieaning, I take 1t, that she is not bothered by Authorizations; and that they found nothing to indicate arterio- sclerosis (hardening of the arteries) or high blood pressure, forms or physical disintegration which give rise to extreme irritability and are often c prelude to senile dementia.
 Assuming their reassuring state nents are correct, so far as they 20, the fact remains that your wife is seriously disturbed; and it occurs to be that she is suffering from what is known in the vernacular as a nervous breakdown-a condition of emotional exhaustion in wSich the patient, though essentially sane and physically sound, is irritable, llstless, reclusive, melancholiac, with a fearful feeling that his mind is slipping, that the routine demands of living have grown too much for him.
 Tn this troubled state of mind, from which she regards his condition as hopeless, the only peace and comfort the patient can visua- lize Is return-f that were possible to the sheltering wing of an all- wise mother, who would smooth away all care and worries. And this no doubt explains your wife's in- tense desire to go back to her home town, to the physical environment of childhood days.
 What brings on this conditionp Usually some last straw to break the carnel's back, something in the way of an emotional blow which leaves the future prospect bleak, after one has burned the candle Of energy at both ends for years.
 Turn to God For Healing
 Since your wife's melancholia colncides more or less with the boys war service, I imagine the final straw in her case was the children's departure from home to adult pur- suits far out of her orbit, just about the time you turned the corner into easy street-a time she had long pressed toward, looking to a harvest of family sociability she'd been too hurried and worried to enjoy before. This would be a terrific blow and letdown, and with fears for the boys safety added to it, and unaccustom- ed leisure in which to brood, the severe emotional depression you describe might readily follow.
 You wonder what to say to your boys when they return to this changed woman? No doubt the same worry haunts her, yet in her de- pressed condition she simply doesn't feel up to playing the role she knows they expect of her. For re- coyery, she needs to establish a new rhythm of living, with enforced physical rest in sympathetic sur roundings the broad foundation of it. Then her emotions need to be re-