u/throwmeawaychachacha

Yesterday, my wife picked another fight with me out of the blue.

I have a crisis going on with my kid from my first marriage. Think legal trouble that involves real bad behavior and real serious consequences. I broke down crying the other day. Morally, he needs to face the music. But he’s my kid and I love him. It’s a very tough time for me.

My wife came home from work yesterday in a foul mood; one of those PMDD moods that I recognize now where she’ll pop off about literally anything.

She tried asking me about my son’s case, but then said she didn’t want to know and then said something about how she didn’t even know if she was allowed to ask me about it. I tried to tell her that she was being confusing and I was afraid of answering her, because I thought no matter what I said, she’d get mad at me.

Sure enough, that led to her popping off on me.

So instead of being supportive in a moment of crisis for me, she chose that exact moment to do the complete opposite and rage against me out of nowhere for no reason. I’m fucking broken. I don’t know if I can take her shit, anymore. Everyone has their breaking point, and I might have reached mine.

My wife found my posts here the other day. She wasn’t outraged (her reaction was more “I didn’t know you really felt that way”), but I was.

I have no one I feel like I can talk to about any of this. I don’t feel like friends or family will really understand. And my first post here was about how I’m not even believed by professionals.

I felt like this sub was the ONLY place I could turn to and get a little bit of empathy and understanding. Now I feel like that’s been taken away from me.

But that’s not really the entire picture, I guess.

I recently talked to an old friend who — at one point years ago — had an episode with his wife where she was raging at him in public. It was bad enough that a cop nearby noticed and pulled him aside to ask him if he needed a safe place to go for the night.

I mentioned to him what I had been going through and how alone and abused I felt. He offered to always be available for me to talk to and that I never needed to be alone. I really appreciated that. He’s a good friend. (His wife hasn’t raged at him like that since she entered menopause.)

And my wife is hinky enough about privacy that I believe she’ll stay out of this sub. I think she was reading my last post and noticed some details were familiar. I don’t think she did anything like read my older posts (EDIT: I guess my title on this post should have been “She found my LAST post here”; EDIT2: I have now discovered that she actually did go through and read my old posts), nor do I think she’ll come back. Like I said, she’s really sensitive about preserving her own privacy and likely feels really guilty about having invaded mine.

I have no reason to think she’ll come back here again.

Still, I have been reluctant to post here for a couple of days.

For whatever reason, my wife has had fluctuating periods. They have been increasing in heaviness lately, and the cycle between her periods has been shortening in recent months. It makes it hard to track.

On top of that, she raged last month not just during her Luteal phase, but also well into her period. She only let up when her period was trickling to a close. We had a peaceful 5 days after that.

She went out of town last week to visit her family for 6 days. Throughout her trip, she texted me sweet nothings, told me how much she missed me, etc. An hour before she landed, she texted me to ask if we could get in our jammies, drink Scotch and snuggle. She said she was excited to see me.

After she landed, her plane sat on the tarmac a bit before she was allowed off. We were texting during that time. I made a joke about JetBlue getting to brag its flights were early even if they don’t let their passengers off, and she responded “Do you think anyone cares? Doubt it.” It was in that moment that I knew the dark side of my wife had returned again.

I did everything I could to keep her calm. I reminded her that I didn’t do anything to piss her off. I said it was cool if we don’t talk in the car and she just decompressed.

It didn’t matter. She just kept on finding things to rage at me about. She had never asked me to pick her up from the airport. I should have walked the dogs before I came to the airport. I wasn’t clear about where I was waiting for her and she went to the curb (I had been waiting at that point for over an hour; there was no reason to believe I would be waiting curbside at a major metropolitan area’s airport for an hour, leave alone that I had texted her an hour earlier saying I was standing in front of the baggage claim).

I must have told her expressly to stop talking, she was only making things worse by talking, at least 6 times last night. She even gave me crap when I tried to get away from her.

Last night before bed, I updated a log I started keeping of the irrational fights she has picked with me. It only dates back to late June — I should have started years ago — but it’s already over 26 pages, single spaced. (There are also screenshots of our text fights.)

Today, I thought to check my log for mentions of her period. Her period was trickling to a close on 7/24, and not so coincidentally, our raging fights had been occurring every day for a week to that point, but suddenly stopped on the 24th. We had a blissfully peaceful 5 days. On the 6th day, she left to go to her family’s place. She was there for another 6 days.

This morning, I suddenly realized that her Luteal phase is likely starting again. I feel cheated of 6 extra days I could have been with the woman I married. I feel defeated just thinking I’m in for another 12-14 days of incessant rage and fighting.

I’m just exhausted, boss.

Last week was bad. My wife found a reason to freak out on me every day. If it wasn’t something new, she brought up longstanding issues she still held a grudge over. On Thursday and Friday, we literally argued ALL. FREAKING. DAY. (Neither of us were working on those days.) We only took breaks when I had therapy or had a prearranged two-hour Zoom.

She wasn’t in her luteal phase. She was actively menstruating. Perhaps significantly, something weird happened with her period last week. By the middle of the week, it seemed to taper off and she thought it was ending, only for the heavy bleeding to start again later that day. Her period has been unpredictable and weird lately.

Then we decided to have a date night on Saturday. We needed to re-connect and stop fighting. She came up with the idea of role-playing that we were on a first date, and that took a lot of pressure off. We suddenly weren’t fighting about all the things we fought about this week and just enjoyed each other’s company.

We ended up coming home and (tmi, sorry) getting freaky. She was a little reluctant to at first, because she was still trickling blood (she usually declines fooling around if she’s menstruating), but she quickly got swept up in the moment and stopped caring. We haven’t had sex in a month or two, so a lot of pent up frustrations led to a hot session and several Os by her.

And ever since — all day yesterday, leading into this morning — it’s like a switch has completely been flipped. It probably had more to do with her period ending than the sex, but she’s night and day compared to how she was last week. She freaked out this morning about our sick dog, but as she was freaking out, she was careful to say her behavior wasn’t about me, and when she calmed down, she quickly apologized; she was just really worried about our dog.

I’m just glad I have my wife back. I don’t want to go through another week like last week.

I don’t think this is strictly PMDD-related. But my wife’s antagonism about the things I’m about to describe are certainly increased during her luteal phase.

I just had a session with my therapist and as I was relating to her the different things my wife and I have fought about over the past year, the common element in (almost) all of them is that my wife doesn’t want me to change, even if it means growing as a person. She wants me doing a 9-to-5 and have no extracurricular responsibilities. My wife has readily admitted to me that she struggles with change.

I tried to start a side hustle business last year. She fought me and resisted every step of the way. She didn’t like my business partner on a personal level. She felt that some of his business practices would lead to us getting into trouble. She felt that I was endangering our joint finances.

Then I tried to run for City Council (a volunteer position that’s performed in your spare time). When I was collecting signatures to enable me to run, I was on my own. I noticed that she never offered to help or even ask me if I needed help, but it wasn’t a big deal. I wanted to open a bank account so I could receive campaign donations. I needed to designate a treasurer who wasn’t me. Most people just designate their spouses. She was freaking out about it: What do I do? Am I going to get in trouble? When we got to the bank to open an account, it was obvious she didn’t want to be there. She wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone and stayed buried in her phone. She looked like a hostage.

I also serve on the HOA. I signed up for the HOA because it was obvious that no one else (very few homeowners, anyway) were going to do it and there were obvious community issues (e.g., trash collection, parking, shrubbery, etc.). She’s demonstrated over time that she doesn’t care for the HOA and will find a way to argue with me when I get all “HOA” with her. E.g., I was complaining one day that one residence always parks in the fire lane like it’s their personal parking spot. She said, “Well, they have kids.” I discovered she has grown to resent the HOA and how much time I put into it.

She uses different reasons to justify her antagonism to all these things: I didn’t consult her before starting the business and disrespected her, our finances were tied together & she didn’t trust my partner (I did not make any investment of capital to this business); being an introvert; and disliking HOAs in general, being told what to do by them, & having to give them money every month. And — on their own — each sounds very reasonable.

But taken in combination, when looking for a pattern, it became apparent to me that my wife does not want me to change or grow as a person. She wants me to remain in the safe role she is comfortable with.

I just tried to explain this to her. I didn’t get through the list or the points I wanted to make. She started frantically screaming at me that I was making her the bad guy. I called for a break so we can cool off. She stormed off while screaming at me, took a 2 minute break, and then screamed some more at me.

She’s actually actively menstruating right now. So she’s not in her luteal phase.

I’m exhausted. It seems like 90% of my waking hours are devoted to fighting with my wife about the same things.

TLDR; I’ve now walked away from two different couples counselors because they didn’t believe what I was telling them and assumed that I was overreacting. Anyone else encounter this?

I need to preface this post by saying I live my wife deeply. This is the best relationship I’ve ever had and she is the kindest, most understanding, and supportive person I know … most of the time. As I write this, though, I’m angry, and I’m going to say something pretty unflattering things about my wife. As you read this, please remember that you’re not getting a full picture of her and that, most of the time, I’m very happily married to her.

My marriage to my wife has been long troubled by her bouts of severe anger and irritability and — when she’s expressing that anger/irritability at me, which is 90% of the time — her disdain and contempt for me.

My wife (of nearly a decade) suffers from ADHD & anxiety, and fairly recently (2-3 years ago), PMDD. I’m uncertain if she was formally diagnosed by her physician/OBGYN/psychiatrist. She’s very guarded about her privacy, so I never asked. She’s only ever told me that she’s suffering from it. I have no idea how she came to that determination.

On top of that, she’s extremely introverted, to the point that she will get annoyed or even angry at the thought of a social obligation. For example, I had a group of friends with whom I got together and did potluck dinners once every few months. When my wife and I first started dating and we went to these dinners, she would become overwhelmed at the thought of meeting my friends and just start being a pill to me to the point that — several times — we were screaming at each other in the car as we would arrive for dinner.

The PMDD certainly explained a lot in our marriage. I never tracked her behavior on a calendar, but she often exhibited some of the classic symptoms and did so regularly: severe anger/irritability, extreme anxiety, and mood swings.

Full disclosure, I’m not innocent in our fights. When my wife rages and yells at me, I get defensive and (as I alluded to earlier) I yell back. I have tried to walk away on occasion, but there have been times that hasn’t gone well. She cusses at me or says something derogatory as I leave the room in an effort to get in the final word. In one instance, when I left the room while her back was turned, she let out a primal scream of anger.

Her mood swings are such that I never know what kind of person I’ll wake up to in the morning, and I’ve learned not to speak unless spoken to. She has screamed at me when her anxiety has been triggered and she’s been unable to control herself from raging or disengage or even let me leave the room. I’ve told her during arguments that her severe mood swings were wild, unpredictable, and taxing on our marriage.

As an example of the kind of thing I have related to therapists that isn’t believed, one of my potluck friends is a woman, K. K — she’s also married, btw, so my friendship with her is completely platonic — wanted to get to know my wife and wanted to make plans for the two of them to do something crafty together. (I told K that my wife was into crafty things.) One morning, K started texting me about my wife’s availability to join her for some kind of pottery class. (K and the rest of my potluck friends have my wife’s number from our group chats, but I’m guessing K didn’t realize that, because my wife never says anything.)

When I asked my wife for her availability, she jumped up, threw her hands up, and said something in anger and exasperation that I don’t remember. When I related this to one couples counselor, she said cheerily, “Well, it sounds like you misunderstood her!”

Just this morning, my wife and I had a session with a new couples counselor. As I said, I’m not an angel in my conflicts with my wife, so my wife starts describing some recent incidents by me that were troubling to her. They involved me driving erratically because I was angry at her (she said something that was insulting to me, and when I asked her for clarification, she doubled down on the insults) and throwing things in two separate incidents (the first likely an adverse reaction to medication I’m on, and the second was admittedly inexcusable).

The counselor starts talking about abuse and looking at me. I feel defensive and targeted, and I respond that those incidents were from a 4-week window in our 9+ year marriage. I say, in actuality, I feel like I’ve endured years of emotional abuse by my wife. The counselor says something like “Abuse is not a proper response to abuse” and starts back in on me without even asking my wife how she felt about my assessment.

I started saying something in response, and the counselor talked over me and kept on talking. I said, “Can you listen to me?” twice, but she kept on going on, and that’s when I chose to disconnect the session.

So twice now, I’ve had couples counselors who didn’t believe me when I described what I was going through and assumed I was the bad actor. I am incredibly frustrated right now. It feels like the world is telling me that my choices are to suck it up and live with it or divorce my wife (which I won’t do).

Has anyone else experienced a counselor (or people in general) not believing you when you describe what you’re going through with your wife and assuming that you’re the problem?