Electronic device to mute my wife !

[SuperDaddy]

After reviewing the footage of my wife lashing out, the court judge has ordered the installation of a muting device in her throat to protect our family. It is activated from a remote control, which always remains in my pocket. Every time she starts screaming, I press the button, and she gets instantly muted. It's amazing. I use it intermittently, just enough for her to give up the attitude. The device has allowed things to go peacefully here. Now she only talks when trying to be effective in her communication.

Ok, this is a joke (for those who aren't sure yet). But it brings us to the question: How do you get rid of the long-lasting screams of name-calling, putdowns, and provocations when you can't just leave home because of kids and working from home?

I have been dealing with it by locking myself in the office while playing music in my huge headphones (related post). But this isn't effective because I need to get to the other places of the house (such as the kitchen, bathroom, and sleeping room), and then she just keeps doing it. So I thought about two possible home-wide solutions:

A) Echoing device: With simple electronics, a loud echoing device can be built. It would then only get activated when ambient loud sounds above a certain threshold were detected. Then it repeats the loud parts of the sound even louder, but does it with a short lag/delay. So anything that is shouted will be echoed even louder, and that will be disturbing enough for them to get confused and lose their train of thought. It could be a mobile device inside a heavy stealth box that resists being kicked and thrown around. If you add some sound distortion, then it should work well as an entertaining device for the kids.

B) House-wide music: Imagine the same music being played in the entire house at once at a high volume, as if it were a huge party. Relaxing music could be tried but is unlikely to work, so intense music could at least make her voice inaudible. It should be loud enough so that she has trouble listening to herself. Perhaps a music style that she dislikes could help in discouraging her behavior. I'm thinking that hardcore music like Sepultura could make her feel bad about her rampage.

Please be honest. Does that sound realistic or not?

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Under The Bridge]

The 'throat muting' device would be marvellous in a cinema to stop people talking through the movie.. especially those who've seen it before and keep spoiling it for those who haven't.

The problem with your ideas A and B is that they could be seen as abusive behaviour by your wife and possibly by any authority she complained to about it.  Remember BPD's excel at turning things round so that they're always the victim. If nobody knows about her shouting and she tells them you've done this to 'hurt' her then it could get difficult to explain.

I do understand your frustration though; sometimes we just want a bit of peace and quiet in our lives and we're entitled to that.

Would it not be better to record her every time she has an outburst? Then you'll have clear evidence that it isn't you who has a problem and the threat of having recordings of herself which could be used in future court proceedings might be enough to get her at least to tone it down.

[SuperDaddy]

Hi @Under The Bridge ,

I don't think that a sound device can be interpreted as damaging. At least not in the sense of domestic violence. It's safe to hear music at 90 dB for 8 hours or 100 dB for 2 hours, and human screams usually stay in this range.

Also, it's easy for me to get her agreement on stuff that's intended to help. For instance, in this other post, I say she authorized me to add security cameras.

Would it not be better to record her every time she has an outburst? Then you'll have clear evidence that it isn't you who has a problem and the threat of having recordings of herself which could be used in future court proceedings might be enough to get her at least to tone it down.

When she goes too far, I always record some of it. Frequently, the neighbors get frightened by her screams and then call the police on us. At our door, I have shown the recordings of that day to different police officers. They quickly understand it. But I don't think we'll ever have a dispute in court. I think it's not her style. I think that divorce would be friendly, in case it happens.

I have a loud Bluetooth boombox, which I have used a couple of times during her rants. I placed it towards her very loudly (around 100 dB perhaps), but I did not use music. I used short clips from interviews/podcasts in which they talked about female abuse, sometimes involving BPD or NPD. The goal was to cause self-reflection, to break her train of thought, and also to counter the screams. Luckily, she didn't break the box yet. I think it didn't help as much as I wished because a podcast is not a high-energy sound, so it is not suppressing her rants; in a few minutes it becomes too repetitive for everyone.

[kells76]

Does your W work from home, or is she a stay at home mom, or is there another reason she is frequently home?

The "Bettering" board focused on practical, realistic  paths forward to, if not improve the relationship, at least make it "less bad" and more livable. The echoing device and increasing homewide music volume likely will not make things less bad in the home. Perhaps we can all brainstorm some more ideas.

All your older kids will be back in school soon, correct? Am I tracking with you that you and your W also have an infant and a two year old? Is that why your W is home?

Who else besides you and your W care for the children -- family, friends, neighbors, babysitter, daycare ...?

[Horselover]

I once told my husband with BPD that I am going to buy him a muzzle from Amazon!!! Great minds think alike

[SuperDaddy]

Hi @kells76 ,

When I met her, 3 years ago, she was already staying home too much due to anxiety problems and the trauma-induced specific phobia that she had developed. And she was gradually stopping the only money-earning activity she had, as a private tutor for kids. She also had panic syndrome. She is better now but still needs some preparation and a calming strategy to get out of home. The place we live is like a club/ranch. It's really beautiful, and she could use it more to cool herself, but it's hard.

We have only two small kids (ages 0 and 2), who aren't in school yet. I have other kids from previous relationships. I bring two of them with me every weekend, but I basically take care of them by myself. She becomes more stressed when all four kids are at home, but things can also go awry when they're not around.

Apart from breastfeeding the newborn, she doesn't actually have any responsibility. She cooks for the family and feeds the 2-year-old when she feels well, but frequently I do that instead.

Over the last months, I have been asking her to choose one of the nearby preschools for our 2-year-old, because I would like her to take responsibility for that, but she never searched for any one at all.

The echoing device and increasing homewide music volume likely will not make things less bad in the home.

Why not? I don't need her to be emotionally available or anything like that. It's ok if she is spending all day in the room as mad as hell, even breaking some stuff, as long as she is not verbally attacking me. I can cook, feed the kids, and bring food to her as well.

I actually would prefer for her to stay quiet in the room the entire day. However, due to her neuroticism, she always says that I'm not feeding and hydrating our 2-year-old boy enough. So she "takes over" the kitchen, and then it becomes impossible for me to use it without getting attacked/devalued.

Another day, I tried scraping a fork on a ceramic plate to see if that would make her stop ranting at me. I had this idea because that noise causes her intense distress. But then, to my surprise, I discovered that when she's upset, her misophonia ceases to exist. I scratched it 10 times, and she didn't even seem to notice the noise. Perhaps that's because she was making a much louder noise with her throat.

[SuperDaddy]

I actually would prefer for her to stay quiet in the room the entire day.

Just a clarification: The above sentence is within the context of a dysregulation moment. When she is not dysregulated, I always encourage her to be active, to go to the pool, visit her parents, take a walk, etc.

When I take kids to hang out, I used to ask many times for her to come with us, but recently I gave up on that because it's too much effort to convince her, and more than often she gets stressed with something and then attacks me in public. So I don't miss her company anymore.

[Pook075]

Just a clarification: The above sentence is within the context of a dysregulation moment. When she is not dysregulated, I always encourage her to be active, to go to the pool, visit her parents, take a walk, etc.

When I take kids to hang out, I used to ask many times for her to come with us, but recently I gave up on that because it's too much effort to convince her, and more than often she gets stressed with something and then attacks me in public. So I don't miss her company anymore.

Hi Super!  I think what Kells was getting at is in this particular part of the forum, the topics are all about bettering relationships, finding ways to work through things together, finding better ways to communicate, etc.

Your spouse is mentally ill and to me, that deserves compassion.  I've had more than my share of dysregulated screaming from my BPD ex wife and BPD daughter, but over time I've also learned that I had a part to play in those events as well.  The way I reacted mattered and it set the tone for what came next.

If you'd like to talk about ways to achieve better communication without the screaming and dysregulation, that's a great topic for this board.  If not though, we should probably move this to a different section of the site so it doesn't set a bad example for others on what working through these relationships should look like.

Again, I GET IT...I've been there and felt the same way.  That's not the only path though.

[SuperDaddy]

Hi @Pook075 ,

Thanks for clarifying. Indeed, I'm on the verge of forcefully ending our living together for good, even though I know she will deteriorate and our relationship could then become inviable. But I haven't taken any steps in that direction yet.

And I do think that the electronic devices, if correctly constructed, would end up bettering the relationship. Women usually use their voice as a weapon, so this is a simple disarmament strategy. And with that weapon off the table, living together would become "survivable" for me, allowing me to live more of a normal life. And more relaxed, I'd be a better provider, father, husband, and caretaker.

Your spouse is mentally ill and to me, that deserves compassion.  I've had more than my share of dysregulated screaming from my BPD ex wife and BPD daughter, but over time I've also learned that I had a part to play in those events as well.  The way I reacted mattered and it set the tone for what came next.

Your experience must be very different than mine because of their and our differences.

She gets compassion from me for everything she faces, except when she is being abusive, and no empathy for her abuse either. And here I'm not misusing the word "abuse." The word "bullying" is even more appropriate, as used in my initial post.

For the first half of our relationship (1.5 years), I never ever reacted badly. Not that I didn't want to, but I had a lot of experience and maturity and have always had extreme self-control capabilities. While BPD has an overactive amygdala, an underactive hippocampus, and little prefrontal cortex activation, I have the very opposite of that. That means an underactive amygdala (no fear, no alarm system, little emotional response), a high capacity to distinguish the current context from previous ones (big overdeveloped hippocampus), and I keep planning my next moves before choosing them, as if I were in a chess game (reliance on prefrontal cortex).

Yet, at a given point, since I had asked her to leave and she refused, I began to counter. But not because I could not hold myself. I just wanted to add a sort of positive punishment, as in operant conditioning.

Did it make things worse? In the long run, I don't think so. It does scale up her anger at the moment, but in the long run it puts a limit on her abuse, and most importantly, it helps me a lot to survive. Thus, for myself, my reactions made things better. For her, my reactions are not helpful at all, but I think they leave no psychological damage.

[SuperDaddy]

By the way, today she has a cold, so her voice became weak. She can't scream. Guess what? She suddenly switched to warmth mode. I'm not sure if the change was just a coincidence. I hope it wasn't, because then that means my original post was on track.