the drop landed on her and neither of us saw it coming

Third evening, a fortnight ago. Everything we had prepared for was about me.

We had read everything about the drop. I had a plan for it. She had a plan for me having it. We had agreed that if I went quiet she would not take it personally and that I would say something by day three whether or not I could explain it. Genuinely quite well organised, for us.

I did not get it. I was fine. Slightly tired on the Monday and otherwise completely normal.

She got it, and got it badly, and nothing we had set up was any use because all of it was pointed at me.

It started the day after. Quiet on the Sunday, which we both put down to a late night. By Tuesday she was flat in a way I have only seen from her twice in eleven years. Wednesday she cried in the kitchen and could not say what about. She kept saying it was not him and it was not the evening and she did not regret it, and I believe her, and she still could not stop.

By the weekend she was more or less herself.

The thing that has thrown us both is that we had absolutely no framework for it. Every account we had read, including on here, is a husband describing a low patch afterwards. All the reassurance is written for him. When it was her, neither of us had any language for what was happening and I spent four days asking her a version of the same useless question.

She has said since that part of what made it worse was watching me trying to help with a plan that was obviously designed for somebody else.

So: does anybody know about this from the other side? Does the wife get a version of the drop, is it the same thing or a different one, and what actually helps? I would like to have something better ready than what I had this time.