Dear Miss SmartyPants,

I have a close male friend who has a very jealous, very mentally unstable wife. He can't even see a female doctor without her flipping out. He realizes there is more to life than this, and he's trying to get her and them into therapy. In the meantime, I believe he is being abused by her jealous and controlling behavior, and he is afraid to leave for fear she will hurt herself. I'm trying to help him weigh his options: leave and she'll hurt herself; stay and hope things get better; have her committed for being suicidal; or, he gets out of the relationship and she doesn't hurt or kill herself. Isn't it typical of controllers to use threats like this, but then completely fail to follow up on them when the threats don't work? 

Are there other options? What do you think?

Concerned Friend

Dear Concerned,

Yes, suicide threats are a highly manipulative tactic for keeping a person in a relationship and are often empty. But I'm not going to be the one to declare that's true in this case without knowing how unstable the woman is. When in doubt, get backup from a professional. Out of compassion for his wife, I think he should continue to encourage her to get help.  

But I also think he should get himself to a psychiatrist immediately to get personal, professional guidance on extracting himself from this relationship. I actually think this is a widely underused option - we tend to think of doctors only for the unstable party, but given the doctors' experience in handling instability, they're a great resource for people like your friend. Who, by the way, badly needs to hear from a trained, objective source that he's being played like a fish on a hook. 

Bottom line: it's not your friend’s problem that his wife is emotionally a mess, or manipulative, or both. That's not insensitive thinking when you get down to it.  It kind of ties into the abusive relationship issues we’ve been discussing in this column. But he also needs to inoculate himself against any possible future guilt. I don’t think that he should stay with his wife because she's threatening suicide if he leaves, and I do think that his wife's emotional problems ultimately aren't his - but I think the way he handles his exit has to pass his own guilt test. 

On the jealous female partner stuff, it might be worthwhile pointing out that some men elicit this crazy behavior by not maintaining appropriate boundaries. If her husband's a big flirt or allows women to flirt with him or is in the habit of discussing his marital problems with a female coworker, a woman might think that she has a right to act possessive and defensive. 

But I disagree. If a woman marries a big flirt knowing he's a big flirt, then she shuts up and deals. She knew what she was getting, and she surely didn’t think he would change because he was so grateful that he got her, right? If a non-flirting husband starts up a flirtation with someone, the woman points it out and asks him to cut the crap and show a little more respect for her - and if he doesn't, then she decides what the next set of consequences must be. She doesn't become jealous and possessive. It's an undignified, miserable way to be, for both the husband and the wife.