I truly feel so bad for my wife that she will have to go out into the real world, get a full time job and function as a productive member of society. Things she has NEVER had to do or even consider doing.
You've been married for about 7 years. Your perspective is fooling you, she has two grown daughters and a minor son who is shared between parents. So before you met her, she never had any support from anyone? Your logic knows that to be untrue.
She's a grown woman, an adult. Her daughters have left and are living their own lives. Probably soon her son will too. If she were a male I'd quip, "she needs to man up and face life." But she's female and it's tugging at your heart strings. We get it. But you can't save her from herself. Maybe an emotionally detached therapist (no emotional past baggage) could guide her towards a measure of recovery... but that's on her, you can't do it for her.
Have you read the handouts of
Dr Joe Carver, a retired clinical psychologist? His first handout article describes the controllers, manipulators, abusers, users and losers that can attach themselves to us in our lives. "Poor helpless me, I'm a victim, save me from myself."
