Needing Help

[mtwyo]

First post here, so a little background.  I meet my wife about 11 years ago, and we remained friends, until about 7.5 years ago when we determined that we were dating and didn't really even know it,  now we have been married 6.5 years, and God has blessed us with two little boys, a good, but very stressful job, and a beautiful home.

My wife as suffered with depression for most of her life, and recently switched medications. The post-pardum depression after the first was born was really though. I have a feeling the doc is not treating the right problem and we may have more of a bi-polar issue rather than just depression. 

With our marriage things started to go bad, she blamed me for not giving her enough attention and having ADHD, I am being treated for adult ADHD, and I have really noticed a huge change, before I was hyper-focused on 1 thing, and know I hyper focused on everything.  We would argue about everything, I would apologize, even if I knew I was right, just to keep the peace.  At times she has gotten violent toward me, and says its because I push her to that point.  During one big argument, I said, "if you don't stop yelling and the neighbors hear this they are going to call it in and we will lose the kids",  ever since I said that she holds it over me and says that I threaten to take her children away.

We decided we needed to seek marriage counseling, she gave me an ultimatum that if we didn't seek counseling she was leaving.  I found a church, we had been un-churched for several years, and we started going with our pastor, who is a wonderful mentor, whom I feel is truly inspired by Gods word.  He has taken me under his wing and gives me direction and guidance.  He told me to give up self, and to change my behavior to serve my wife, and hopefully things will fall in place, but I can only change myself, not her.  I have found a renewed faith in Jesus Christ, and I have made a change to serve my Lord, wife and children in the best way possible.  Things had been going better, I am exhausted, and lucky to get 4-5 hrs of sleep, but my wife and kids don't have to worry about much, I clean, do laundry, fix every thing around the house, etc. Not to say I didn't do these things before but my wife did a lot of it, now she relaxs when I get home from work, and I take over child duty, dishes, laundry etc as well as all of the "man" chores.   I do feel as though she is taking advantage of me, and when she is on a mental high she does feel guilt but doesn't do anything to change it.

With help from our pastor, I had written a paper I will call my call to comment for my wife.  In the paper I apologized for, my past, complacency with household chores, my past sexual sins against her (our premarital relations), and I promised to continue to serve her.  I had also included rule of engagement for when we have a disagreement, such as no yelling, no name calling, no interrupting and I included words that I will not tolerate being used in an argument, like "I hate you", "I should have married someone else" etc. I didn't just list words and phrases she has used but one I use to like "what is wrong with you", "can you here yourself"  I also included a consequence if these rules were broken,  that I will walk away until everyone can calm down and have a rational, adult conversation, that I will not participate in "circular arguments". I also explained that I would not tolerate any favoritism to the children, even when one is being difficult, I had been guilty in saying things like "your the good kid". 

It took me about a month to right this paper, edit it, pray on, and have the pastor give insight. I had already committed my self for this change long before the paper, and had implemented it my "service" to my wife.  Basically I wanted to show her that I was committed to the change and my dedication to her so I wrote it all out.

Last week I gave her the paper in front of the pastor, about half way through reading it to her, she freaked out, ran out of the office, and sat in the lobby. At first I though wow, I really must have touched her, I waited a minute then I went out to find her.  Turns out she was mad that I would embarrass her in front of the pastor.  I got her calmed down, the pastor explained that this was my charge of commitment to her, and nobody was passing any judgement on her for the paper.  She calmed down, but refused to read the rest of the paper.

The next day she calls me at work and is telling me about her schedule for the next week I'm listening, taking notes and talking to her and a customer comes in, I said hun,I have to go, I have a customer, I will call you back in a couple of minutes, she said whatever and hung up.  I called her back 4 minutes later, she answered the phone screamed at me for a solid 3 minutes saying that I won't take time for her and hung up and refused to talk to me anymore. I let her calm down for about 30 minutes then went to the house to apologize that I put a customer before her, and asked her how she would prefer me handle these situations.  She told me to take the kids to work with me(we own a business and I have a play room set up), she needs a break
I said ok, and she said but I don't want to hear you complain that you couldn't get work done with them around, I said I won't complain and if I need to I will go back to work after they are in bed tonight. 

So I start gathering the boys, and she has gone to the bedroom, I'm holding our youngest and I go in to say bye and I will see you later.  She comes at me and slaps me, I turn away and she says "you will never take my children from me". I walk out of the bedroom, with the youngest and she following me screaming she is calling the police because I'm kidnapping her children.  At this point I'm like ok this is not right, she holds the one kid and is all sweet and it was really weird.  She then proceeds in texting me about how horrible I was to embarrass her and told me that she knows I have been secretly recording her when she's mad (I have not done this ever), and she can never forgive me for threatening taking her children away, when all I had done was what she asked, she then tells me I'm dilutional and she has never hit anyone.

I talked to the pastor and he agrees that there is definitely more than just depression going on, and that I have a few choices,
1. Deal with it for the next 30-40 years
2. Leave her/let her leave
3. Or get her help

I am choosing option 3,

I know that a lot of this is both hormonal(PMS) and stress related,  but she has to learn how to control the anger, and we need to seek professional care.  The problem is she either denies these things happen, and says I'm making it up or truly doesn't remember them happening, short of recording her, I don't know how to get her the help she needs.

Sorry to ramble I just wanted to get it all down. 

Does anyone have any advice for me?

[chosenone]

It sounds to me as if she that she is mentally ill. Depression itself doesn't cause that sort of behavior. Her behavior isn't at all normal nor rational. The fact that she is violent towards you is reason enough to separate and take the children with you until she agrees to get help. It will be damaging the children to see their mother being violent towards you as well as her shouting and yelling. Is she violent to them?
Unless she agrees that her behavior isn't acceptable and gets appropriate help, I cant see anything changing. No matter what you do it will make little difference if the cause is a mental illness.

[Charming Anarchist]

Sorry, brother, but you are not going to like what I write.  However, in 10 years from now, you will slap your forehead realizing that you should have had a V-8. 

You need to see a divorce lawyer ASAP before you unjustly lose your children.  Everything is unfairly stacked against men like you. 

Of course she flipped out at your letter!  Your marriage is already dead. 
You need to protect yourself from a violent woman.  I suggest that you stop thinking that your wife has a mental problem.  Sadly, the real problem is much simpler:  She no longer loves you.  Her behavior is typical of women (and men, for that matter) who no longer love their spouses.  She has told you loud and clear.  What more do you expect a violent woman to do? 


I type these words because once long ago, I was you.  An old man told me the cold hard truth because he could see I was in denial.  It took me more than a year after that to admit he was right.  One day, your torturous experience in marriage will give you the strength to counsel other young men and women.