Wife Seems to Be Going Over the Edge

[usedtobeapilot]

My wife and I have been together for six years. Lots of this will sound familiar: for a while, all was amazing except that she was constantly worried about me leaving or cheating on her (which I would never have done, and still wouldn't). After a year or two, she started acting out -- saying hateful things, having "anxiety attacks," explosive rages, and the like. Over the years we've come to ride a roller-coaster, except that the drops are never predictable either as to triggering event or level of severity. I've been concerned about this for a long time, and have had my therapist tell me he's convinced she's BPD. (She meets at least 8 of the 9 DSM-V criteria.) She's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and, so far as I'm aware, regularly takes her medication -- which seems to help a good bit but is far from fully effective with her symptoms.

However, recently have my concerns grown more serious. My two sons from a prior marriage (ages 6 and 9) are transitioning to live with us and my wife's three kids (two girls and a boy who are similar in age to my sons). From time to time the kids have conflict that mostly seems to me to be ordinary sibling/stepsibling conflict. However, if the conflict involves my 9-year-old, my wife seems to adopt the position that the conflict is always his fault, that he "is a deeply troubled child. Very deeply. You know it, I know it, [his mom] knows it, every teacher, therapist and friend of ours who has met him knows it ... .and he knows it." (This is a direct quote from a text she sent me -- rage-texting is commonplace, although I'm trying with increasing success at avoiding a response.)

So, accordingly, my stepchildren (really good kids, but definitely not perfect) can do no wrong. I've seen my wife fly into rages about him -- usually directed at me, but twice now I've had to physically step in front of her to stop a charge toward him because she was in a rage. The depth of her rages with me also seems to be growing, and recently she sent her parents an email saying that I intended to seek a divorce. (I hadn't done or said anything of the sort.) Talking later with her dad, he told me that she has long had problems with anger (no sh*t!) and that it had sometimes been so severe that she had once nearly lost her job over it.

I'm trying to learn how to respond to her. I've tried letting her vent; I've tried calling for timeouts; I've tried leaving (always saying I'd be back); and I've tried taking my sons for a weekend outing. None of that seems to work -- nothing helps until, at some point, she magically returns to "normal" and just assumes all is fine. (She rarely apologizes and seems never to acknowledge the seriousness of the behaviors.)

Last night, after what appears to have been a moderate conflict between my son and her daughter, my wife flew into a rage in a restaurant that was filled with people we know, left the table (taking her children with her) and spent the night in a hotel. Her claim is that my son did something "legitimately horrifying." (Again, her words from a psychotext.) Before she left with her kids, I had a chance to ask my son and my stepdaughter separately what had happened. They gave consistent stories, leading me to conclude that both were at fault, my son perhaps slightly more so, but my understanding is that my son grabbed my stepdaughter to restrain her when she started to physically go after her sister for making a mean comment. My wife has substantially similar information, having gotten the story from both of her daughters, but she has completely locked down and is simply enraged with my son. My wife and her kids have been gone overnight last night and all day today, although my wife has sent me a barrage of texts since she left.

My sons, who are very close to their stepsiblings, are distraught and confused because it's a Saturday, we had tons of events planned, and they don't know why the other kids aren't around. I simply don't know what to tell them. Plus, at some point, my wife will return, and one of two things will happen: (a) she will still be in a rage at my son, in which case I'll have to take my boys somewhere; or (b) she will act like all is fine, will murmur something that suggests (but doesn't admit) she overreacted, and will assume all is back to normal. Scarily, that will probably be true.

Need some advice. Please don't suggest leaving her -- I really don't intend to do that, although if she were to harm my children I would have her arrested.

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[waverider]

welcome

This is always a hard one, having tat plan B so that you ave a plan B to take your sons and do something "normal" is good rather tan sitting there and enduring the dysregulation is good.

You can stop your life not try to "negotiate" wit someone in full rage. You have to be consistent is the key and not counter react to all the inevitable accusations.

Her black and with defensive nature wit the kids is most likely she sees them as extension of her self, so a slight on them is the same as a slight on her, so she reacts the same.

The tendency to switch back to normal/nothing happened mode is her "banking" that emotion and not working it through. Hence the next time something similar happens this unresolved emotion comes out of the memory file at the same strength it went in to add weight and validation to the current issue of the day. You get "kitchen sinked".

After these dramas you are still affected by them and take a while to process them and return to normal. She see this mismatch as you holding a grudge and "being childish and spiteful"

As she does not process/resolve them, she learns nothing and so it repeats.

[usedtobeapilot]

Thanks. That's very helpful, especially the part about unresolved but buried conflict simply adding to the explosiveness of the next blowup. That would certainly explain why things seem to be getting significantly worse, and significantly more frequent, over time.

My question is, what can I do? The kids (all five of them) are freaked out, and so am I. I feel like I've tried everything -- I simply don't know what more to do. And I have these discussions in which I feel like I'm the crazy one -- seriously, enough to wonder if it might be. How do I know?

[waverider]

All you can do is not feed into their dramas and make sure your kids have plenty of things to get on with while she has her meltdowns.

Posting here and working things through with others who go through this will prevent you from falling into that self doubting situation we often end up in. This is important as it is crazy making. You can't do it isolation