Did Abraham Lincoln ever come close to being estranged from his wife Mary Todd after they were married?

Just curious. I see they called off their engagement at least once.Did Abraham Lincoln ever come close to being estranged from his wife Mary Todd after they were married?
I never heard the story of her chasing him with a knife.





He was on the circuit for long periods of time, so he wasn't home every night. If you look at the Lincoln Heritage Trail in Illinois, you can see a large area that he covered. His primary circuit was in Central Illinois, though he did have dealings as far away as northern Illinois when he was Chief Counsel for the Illinois Central, and of course when he ran for the Senate in 1858.








Calling Mary unstable is accurate, but a little unfair. If you look at both parties in the marriage, I suspect a psychiatrist would have diagnosed them both as victims of depression.





They had cause for grief, Eddie died at age 3 or 4. Bob was the only one to survive into the twentieth century. Thomas Lincoln, named for his grandfather, was nicknamed Tad, his father said that his head was so large when he was born it was like a tadpole, died in 1870 while on a trip to Europe with his mother. William Wallace Lincoln (named for a brother in law, not Braveheart) died of typhus in 1862. Mary was so unstrung for so long that Lincoln reportedly took her to a window and showed her the old Washington Asylum and told her that if she didn't pull herself together she must go there. He was broken hearted as well, but he managed by throwing himself into 18 hour days.





After her return from the continent, Mary became fearful that her surviving son, Bob, was in danger. She was living in Chicago, as Bob and his family were, and sending him letters warning of assassination attempts. It was this, and no doubt the effect it was having on his wife and kids, that led Bob to have his mother committed to the Batavia Institute, an asylum in my hometown.





There was bad blood between them for a while, but after Bob (Robert Todd, named for Mary's father) took his son Abraham to visit his mother while she was living in her sister's house in Springfield, she was so pleased with the boy that Bob felt she must have forgiven him.





That family had its troubles. Robert was on leave on April 14, 1865, and had dinner with his parents before they left for the theater, but he was informed of the shooting afterward, and rushed to the Peterson house, where his father was, and stayed through the night.





He was James Garfield's Secretary of War, and was present at the Washington train station when Charles Guiteau shot President Garfield in 1881.Did Abraham Lincoln ever come close to being estranged from his wife Mary Todd after they were married?
I don't think they were ever estranged, despite her seriously unbalanced behaviour. he always seems to have been loyal to her, though she was a severe trial to him. Some accounts of her behaviour towards her husband include the following:





';Once she got mad and threw a cup of scalding coffee in his lap. Another time she was peeling potatoes, got mad...and started throwing potatoes at him. She even smacked him in the face with a piece of firewood.';





When the Licolns were still living in Illinois, a neighbor looked out of his window one morning and saw five-foot-two Mary Lincoln, clutching a kitchen knife over her head, chasing her six-foot-four husband down the road. When they met some of their neighbors on the road, an embarrassed Lincoln stopped and wrestled the knife from his wife.





Such was Mary Lincoln's reputation that many in Washington did not want to be seen socially with her. On the final day of Lincoln's life, no less than fourteen people turned down invitations to accompany thepresident and first lady to the Ford's Theatre that night.
They had a troubled relationship from start to finish. Mrs. Lincoln had an addictive personality and got in financial troubles more than once to the embarrassment of her husband. The couples youngest son died while Lincoln was President which was an event that nearly broke both of their hearts. But through all of the problems that Mrs. Lincoln suffered her husband stayed with her and apparently loved and supported her though out their marriage.


The type of person Mary Lincoln was expressed by her reaction to her husbands murder. She could not accept the reality of his death, and she reacted by shutting herself off from the outside world. Mary Lincoln actually locked herself into her bedroom and almost never came out into public again.


She just had a very hard time adjusting to the realities of the day which were some of the hardest any President's wife ever lived through. She was born into a well to do family of impeccable manners and proper behavior.


Mrs. Lincoln was the ';Bell'; of her class at school and lived all of her life as if she where the most special and delicate flower of the day. The hardships and limitations of the life she found herself in were just to much for her to bare or accept very well, and she never really adjusted to life as a President's Spouse in one of the most difficult, primitive and dynamic, periods of American history.
That's a very interesting question. If memory serves me right....he and his wife stayed together after they married but it seems that he and his son,Todd, became estranged for a time. Does that ring a bell for you ?


Frannie
he always claimed that he never had sexual relations with that women.....
Only when he got shot in the head.
No
Not to my knowledge, but I understand she was always pretty unbalanced. No one would have faulted him if he was.