AITA for telling my wife she's welcome to leave?

This is a really sad situation, and I honestly don't think anyone is the asshole, but I do think your wife is really mentally ill and needs psychiatric help.

A lot of people who are mentally unwell, and have relationships dependent on this mental unwellness, will become really upset when the other member of that relationship--you--begins doing well for themselves and making efforts to better their mental and physical health.

She will drag you down to her level, not because she hates you, but because she hates yourself and--in her mind--suffering together is better than her being alone in her suffering.

The ideal solution is that you sit down and have a talk with her about getting help individually (as in you both go to therapy separately) and also couple's therapy.

I suggest the latter because, for at least a long time, it sounds like you two were pretty co-dependent, and why you have broken away from that, she has not. She's heavily dependent on you and she's dependent on the relationship you share through your ED's.

However, I said this was an ideal solution. In reality, if your wife doesn't want help, and she feels forced into it, she will resent you. She has to want to get help and the only way she'll do this is if/when she sees how destructive she's being towards herself but also towards you. Her mindset and thought-process is dangerous.

/r/AmItheAsshole Thread