BPD wife escalating, getting physical

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I feel like a line was crossed this weekend. My wife escalated one of her usual spirals in public the other day to the point that she was following me down the street pulling on my clothes and arm, shouting at me in tears, begging me to talk to her. I had been calm and validating, but held the boundary in refusing to get into tense, emotional relationship topics after lunch. We don't communicate effectively when she gets upset. I validated her feelings and gave her the choice to pause, use tools and we could continue our day together, or if she kept persisting in pushing me for communication and reassurance I would have to step away to take some space and keep things stable. She persisted, so I tried to walk away. I told her, "I'm sorry you're feeling upset. I'm going to take a walk to keep things stable on my end. I'll be back in a little while." She followed me, pulling on me. When I went back to the car she wouldn't let me close the door, and she wouldn't get in the car. I called a crisis support line hoping she would talk to them. She refused so I explained the situation to them, that my wife was feeling very dysregulated and that she was physically preventing me from taking space from the situation. She tried to grab my phone from me to hang it up. Eventually I was able to walk away and came back to get my car later

The rest of the weekend was just apology followed by another spiral, around and around. She did the same thing on the street in front her her work as I was dropping her off. I had to walk away and wait for +30min for her to stop calling and texting me and go into work before I could collect my car and move on. She has pulled on my clothes as I tried to leave the apartment before, but not for so long and not out in public. And the way she tried to make me sound like the bad guy as she shouted into the phone while I talked with crisis support really freaked me out. It's one of the few times I've heard her get that angry and really try to twist the narrative to make me the bad guy. I've never feared she might get vindictive, but now I'm genuinely worried about the future. I am scared to be around her because it's hard to accept the consequences of what could happen if she tries to physically stop me again. I don't want to be provoked into doing something in response, and I don't want her to get in any legal trouble, or lie about things and have me get into legal trouble. It just feels like a line has been crossed and the stakes feel too high to keep doing this. Any advice?

[Zosima]

I feel like a line was crossed this weekend. My wife escalated one of her usual spirals in public the other day to the point that she was following me down the street pulling on my clothes and arm, shouting at me in tears, begging me to talk to her. I had been calm and validating, but held the boundary in refusing to get into tense, emotional relationship topics after lunch. We don't communicate effectively when she gets upset. I validated her feelings and gave her the choice to pause, use tools and we could continue our day together, or if she kept persisting in pushing me for communication and reassurance I would have to step away to take some space and keep things stable. She persisted, so I tried to walk away. I told her, "I'm sorry you're feeling upset. I'm going to take a walk to keep things stable on my end. I'll be back in a little while." She followed me, pulling on me. When I went back to the car she wouldn't let me close the door, and she wouldn't get in the car. I called a crisis support line hoping she would talk to them. She refused so I explained the situation to them, that my wife was feeling very dysregulated and that she was physically preventing me from taking space from the situation. She tried to grab my phone from me to hang it up. Eventually I was able to walk away and came back to get my car later

The rest of the weekend was just apology followed by another spiral, around and around. She did the same thing on the street in front her her work as I was dropping her off. I had to walk away and wait for +30min for her to stop calling and texting me and go into work before I could collect my car and move on. She has pulled on my clothes as I tried to leave the apartment before, but not for so long and not out in public. And the way she tried to make me sound like the bad guy as she shouted into the phone while I talked with crisis support really freaked me out. It's one of the few times I've heard her get that angry and really try to twist the narrative to make me the bad guy. I've never feared she might get vindictive, but now I'm genuinely worried about the future. I am scared to be around her because it's hard to accept the consequences of what could happen if she tries to physically stop me again. I don't want to be provoked into doing something in response, and I don't want her to get in any legal trouble, or lie about things and have me get into legal trouble. It just feels like a line has been crossed and the stakes feel too high to keep doing this. Any advice?

[PeteWitsend]

It sounds like "extinction burst" behavior on her part: escalating the emotional level to possibly include violence in order to get you to comply with what she wants. 

You could be at a bit of a fork in the road in your relationship, as in you whether you decide to separate from her (at least until she calms down and agrees to stop this behavior), or you keep riding the emotional roller coaster with her. 

Maybe you can stick it out until the "extinction burst" burns itself out (though it might get intolerably worse before it gets better).  It can get really ugly though, so yeah, take precautions to protect yourself from any violence, or false allegations, or other insanity, if you decide to stay put. 

In my own situation, as I withdrew and refused to engage in the fighting after a certain point, BPDxw started escalating the nastiness, and it was so off-putting to me that it allowed me to just leave & divorce without any second thought. 

[Under The Bridge]

but now I'm genuinely worried about the future. I am scared to be around her because it's hard to accept the consequences of what could happen if she tries to physically stop me again. I don't want to be provoked into doing something in response, and I don't want her to get in any legal trouble, or lie about things and have me get into legal trouble. It just feels like a line has been crossed and the stakes feel too high to keep doing this.

I can empathise totally as it was exactly my situation. After 4 years of her BPD behaviour which consisted mainly of her moods and constantly breaking up  - I suppose we could call this 'standard BPD' and was hard enough to cope with, she suddenly seemed to go up the scale and now seemed on the verge of possible violence. Add to that the jet-black eye pupils of one who is totally removed from reality and it became quite scary.

This made me really re-think the relationship as moods are one thing but violence is a totally different ball game, especially as BPD are so good at playing the victim and it would be so easy for us to end up the villain.

I think then I knew I'd reached the end of the relationship; she wouldn't change nor ever accept professional help and all the signs were of her actually getting worse so I'd have to either endure this or finally end it and I chose the latter, hard though it was.

It all depends on how much you're willing to take and we all have different breaking points.

Best wishes

[Me88]

Add to that the jet-black eye pupils of one who is totally removed from reality and it became quite scary.

This made me really re-think the relationship as moods are one thing but violence is a totally different ball game, especially as BPD are so good at playing the victim and it would be so easy for us to end up the villain.

I think then I knew I'd reached the end of the relationship; she wouldn't change nor ever accept professional help and all the signs were of her actually getting worse so I'd have to either endure this or finally end it and I chose the latter, hard though it was.

It all depends on how much you're willing to take and we all have different breaking points.

Best wishes

ridiculous to me how we all live the same reality. I come here from time to time only to see people post about my last relationship (which is theirs).