Obviously I don't claim to know her individual circumstances but speaking in more general terms, a seeming excess in free time may sometimes prove fruitful. Could be that a person was stuck in a "local maximum" in their former life, and by being pushed off that low hill they will eventually wander upon a much higher mountain of achievement. In other words, with a new self-directed sense of purpose they may find something much more fulfilling than the standard "eking out a paycheck" that most of us accept as the normal state of affairs. And that may take that a long time to accomplish, longer than they would ever been able to make time for in their old life filled with busywork.
The problem with all that however is that I've been the strongest person of everyone around me for all my life and when I finally broke and needed somebody else to support me for 1-2 years, she wasn't (and still isn't) there to do that for me. So I continue my death march, at a great cost for my physical and mental health. And I keep a routine that helps me stay in shape but I can feel it every day that this is not what the soul wants. But eh, oh well.
She's an amazing woman and she'll crawl out of this eventually but in the meantime my needing help just broke her back and made her more depressed -- because she can't help the man she loves with exactly the thing he needs help with.
One of the things you said is very apt: indeed getting out of the local maximum and realizing the world is yours for the taking and that can you do so much more can be very frightening to a lot of people, her included. She's still struggling a lot with it and sometimes still wants to just get back to do house work and making some money on the side with a part-time job. I mean, eventually she might do just that but at least it will have been an informed choice, which IMO would be fair.
But yes, even arriving at "what do I want now?" in this situation takes a long time indeed. Which can be sad and discouraging when you watch as a side observer.
Obviously I don't claim to know her individual circumstances but speaking in more general terms, a seeming excess in free time may sometimes prove fruitful. Could be that a person was stuck in a "local maximum" in their former life, and by being pushed off that low hill they will eventually wander upon a much higher mountain of achievement. In other words, with a new self-directed sense of purpose they may find something much more fulfilling than the standard "eking out a paycheck" that most of us accept as the normal state of affairs. And that may take that a long time to accomplish, longer than they would ever been able to make time for in their old life filled with busywork.