Married 3 years, Wife has PMDD, seeking advice
New to this group - new to reddit in general just trying to find some people that understand. I feel pretty alone in this because I don't want to bad talk my wife to any of my friends or family because I don't want them to judge her or build a narrative. So I've basically been stuffing a lot of these episodes outside of talking to my counselor and my wife.
My wife and I have been together for 5 years, married 3 years. We have no kids. I'm struggling with how to be supportive but also holding boundaries and not "taking the bate" during her luteal phase. Our first couple of years being married was really rough in that we would have these explosive fights that I didn't know how to self manage. I had never been someone that would lose my temper or get angry easily. I started to realize she would have these explosive episodes where I was the target. I would often engage and end up saying things I regret and escalate. We have both been to therapy for a long while, both couples and personal - we found that just doing our own personal therapy was more beneficial.
My wife goes straight for the jugular, she had asked me to buy some whole milk for her last night and it was a certain organic local brand she wanted, I bought it and it was the only one they had. It was skim milk which was obviously a stupid mistake, I also bought her flowers. I thought it was fine and she was bummed out and fine until I said, I know tomorrow is going to be a hard day for you so maybe we can try to have a little space. Which I get maybe wasn't the best thing to say, but she immediately blew up, we went to bed and I left for the gym, she blows up my phone with 20+ texts about how much of a piece of shit I am, how stupid I am for getting the wrong milk, and I respond "I'm not going to be around you while you talk to me like that or attack my character, please stop" so she keeps going and accelerates it to "I hate you, I don't want to be with you, you're horrible". Now obviously this is a hard line but this has happened before several times and I try to say, "hey babe, I know you're feeling a lot right now but you can't try to to burn it all down in these tough days". She ends up always calming down and apologizes and says that's horrible how I treated you, you don't deserve that.
I love my wife and I know she's not a mean person at her heart, but these days get really awful and I find myself just feeling trapped and my back is up against the wall. She is currently working on her management of these tough days, self soothing, and regulating. She sees a counselor, sees a nutritionist, eats healthy and often times says how much she hates how she feels and it feels like she just gets an overload and hijacked emotionally.
I guess I'm just looking for advice on how to be helpful but also hold boundaries, how to not make ultimatums but also help her realize how serious the way she talks to me affects me. I can usually stay present enough to not take the bate but its still really hard and I do slip and it turns into a yelling match, which I get is my own stuff that I have to work through.
The other problem is we are both getting to the point where we are planning to start having kids and I'm just concerned that this is going to be a thing after we have a kid and not knowing how to help her regulate while we have a baby added into the mix. I just feel pretty helpless. I would say 80%+ of the time we are good and loving. But it has also affected our intimate part of our relationship too, because I feel like their is a lag of repairing damage and then feeling good again and then not too long later she's back in her luteal phase. It's just exhausting, and I know she is going through the brunt of it, but it's a lot.
I was thinking about writing her a letter but just trying to figure out what to say that I haven't already said. I just don't know what to do.