Another advice request…how can I support my wife-Tok-Tok and spending

First I have to say, Daddit is fantastic and I appreciate all the comments and advice for the last few posts.

I’ll try and keep it short but looking for some dad/husband advice.

My wife and I are both pretty left leaning, so obviously the election, and what has been going on the last few weeks has been frustrating, scary, anxiety inducing etc. I’m of the mindset that we need to be building relationships within our community, protesting, and trying to actively be involved. My wife, just doom scrolls tik tok, so it’s an echo chamber of rage (justifiable but regardless), and basically it’s all she does. She’s a ft nursing student and works a few days a week and we’ve got three kids so she absolutely deserves to unplug and not think about anything after her days, and we’ve always done a good job of keeping the “if your 80%, I’ll pick the slack because it’s a partnership. The doom scrolling is starting to really affect her MH (she’s been diagnosed bipolar 3, and is on meds for that), but, everything is negative. I get we should be concerned and I very much am but at the same time we have to live to help our kids. She has wanted to move to Europe since the election and I don’t think she understands how impossibly difficult it would be, someone on her tik tok influencers or whatever said you can just “walk into Canada and stay for 6 months”. When I try and bring logic into it…what will we do for jobs, housing, money, school for our kids”, she writes it off and gets pissed at me and says I don’t take it seriously.

On top of that, and I’d imagine it’s got a lot to do with her MH right now, but she’s spending money like it’s nothing. I made decent money but have a ton of student loans and we recently had to get new vehicle as our van was totaled by a tree…the cost of a van has increased so much that our payment went up significantly. She has a tendency to go crazy on my payday, her current job has daily pay, and that almost always goes to clothes for her or the kids (to the point where I’ve found entire bins full of unworn kids clothes). My breaking point was yesterday. My car had an unexpected repair that cost $400, and while it was a hit we still had enough to cover everything. I checked my account balance last night and there was a charge for $200 that I didn’t make. I genuinely thought that it may have been unauthorized so I called and asked if she knew anything about it. She initially said no I need to look into it and then later said she bought new boots. Mind you, she’s spent probably close to $1000 on boots in the last few years, of which she doesn’t wear, they sit in the closet and then rinse and repeat.

I’ve brought this up to her in the past and she gets defensive and doesn’t seem to realize the impact this is having on our finances. She’s gone to therapy a handful of times but never sticks with it. I’m starting to get to my wits end. Has anyone ever dealt with things like this? I want to support her without seeming controlling and be sensitive to her realistic fear and anxiety about the US and how upcoming policies may hurt us, but I also can’t continue to live like that.