To give my wife an ultimatum?

[Palakmint]

I can no longer deal with my wife's over sensitivilty, screaming, shouting, meltdowns and general paranoia.

She is very, very sensitive and if she is triggered she will start ranting and shouting, or crying, depending on the situation.

I can only describe her meltdowns akin to a toddler losing their cool - the shouting, the pacing around, the clenched teeth. We have a children and it's getting more and more difficult protect them from seeing this.

The problem is that she refuses to view herself as another other than the victim, for example, years ago she criticised a relative's party to a mural friend, "the food was rubbish, decorative style was outdated etc," the friend as since told our relative and she even asked my wife etc. It's obviously strained the relationship. Recently, she complained that said relative gave her a dirty look and she couldn't understand why. I wanted to say something but decided not to.

Most of the time she is brilliant and the kids adore her but it's difficult to be around her when she gets into one of these moods, and atmosphere in our house is incredibly tense for days.

I want to tell her I'll leave if she has another meltdown. I don't know how realistic it is asking her to control her emotions and i done know if I have the guys to actually follow through but I need to do something.

She sounds exhausting. Do you want to leave? Are the dc OK?
I would definitely deliver her an ultimatum., give her a set amount of time to help herself. If she refuses you have to leave to protect your dc from this childish and toxic behaviour.

What you're describing does sound consistent with ND particularly if your wife is 40 plus and may be perimenopausal. Pregnancy hormones can also take a toll. Either way she needs to see a medical professional.

I would also encourage you to see if there are specific times she becomes overwhelmed and look at the run up to it. A therapist might be able to help you both identify triggers.

I had a mentally ill mother who was like this. It was a nightmare and my dad failed to protect me from her. I was her scapegoat. He's still with her now they are elderly and she bullies him. I have limited sympathy as he could have got away. I couldn't as I was a kid.

You're assuming the OP is a man? Has that been confirmed and I've missed it?

My response applies to whichever sex the OP is, but I'm a lesbian and my gut instinct from the way the OP has framed the issue is that OP is male. 40 years of relationships with women and I've never yet met one who hasn't shown any insight into her partner's behaviour, no matter how much she disliked that behaviour.

Every abusive spouse in the world tells friends that the wife's a nag/ impossibly sensitive/ blows up over nothing. The wife's story would be very different.

Who in their right minds would think an ultimatum would work with what sounds like serious ongoing issues in the marriage? No one ever changed because their partner threatened to leave. And what kind of relationship is it when one person controls the other by threat of abandonment?

You and her ideally need to sit down with a professional completely outside the situation, such as a trained mediator or a couples therapist. You have given your version of the situation here. If she gave hers it would undoubtedly be different. No-one on an internet forum can really advise you without having the full picture. What you describe as her unacceptable behaviour might, for all we know, be a reaction to something we have not been told about. From some kind of medical problem, as suggested already, to something you are or someone else is doing (or not doing), to some other issue like finances, family problems, there are many other possibilities. We have no idea about the causes so it is impossible to judge whether any of the behaviour or the causes of the behaviour are in any way under her control.

Having said that, if the children are at risk of emotional harm that needs to be uppermost in decisions. How old are they? Can they express a view?

She obviously has a problem with emotion regulation. It would be good for her to have therapy to get some awareness around this and process whatever is causing her to behave that way and find some useful strategies to regulate her feelings when she is being triggered.

I'm pretty fucking disgusted that a large number of posters are on here, advising a man to attempt to seize full custody of his children, solely on the strength of the fact said men sometimes finds his wife's responses to difficult situations excessive?

Sorry, have we slipped back to the Victorian era and nobody let me know? Perhaps he could book the "hysterical" woman in for a full frontal lobe lobotomy while he is on it?

The fact is, from the minimal description OP has posted, none of us can tell whether this woman's responses are excessive. We don't know what she is responding to! There is certainly some extreme provocation that has caused me to shout, cry, pace etc previously, in either grief or anger. I don't consider myself unwell or abusive because of this.

If she does it because one of the kids drops a cup - yeah, she needs help. If she does it because her husband has just gambled away her entire life savings - proportionate response, if not too mild......

Please can people stop advising this man to desestate his wife and children's lives, on the strength of a post on Mumsnet. Let's fucking hope he doesn't act on it.....

As a society, we have a problem with women expressing negative emotions. Long long history of it, in fact.....

Exactly what we are seeing played out here on this thread. It's chilling.

This.

It gets worse when you hit perimenopause too. It's also associated with neurodiversity.

The best treatment may well be hormones not anger management or other medications.

She doesn't "obviously" have a problem with anything. All we have is the partner's description of her behaviour, which may or may not be entirely truthful, may leave out important details, and is certainly going to be selective and skewed because everyone sees situations from their own perspective.

Before anyone else starts diagnosing personalty disorders or MH issues, would you just read again the examples of appalling behaviour the wife has exhibited. I quote:

for example, years ago she criticised a relative's party to a mural friend, "the food was rubbish, decorative style was outdated etc," the friend as since told our relative and she even asked my wife etc. It's obviously strained the relationship. Recently, she complained that said relative gave her a dirty look and she couldn't understand why. I wanted to say something but decided not to.

Note that the wife didn't diss the relative for her party. She expressed her opinion to someone she mistook for a friend, who later told the relative. And all this was years ago — so why is this the example the OP offers? The wife is apparently not allowed to have opinions or voice them.

If there's anyone here who has never been less than complimentary about an event, please put your hand up. I can't because I recently went to a really rubbish 50th party in February where the food was nothing but cheap sausage rolls and cheese sandwiches and someone had done the absolute minimum of decorations with a few silver balloons and a generic plastic Happy Birthday banner. When asked how it had been I told a couple of people whom I thought I could trust that it wasn't quite the sparkling extravaganza it had been flagged up to be. So far neither of them have used what I said against me — but if they do, will you all diagnose me with a personality disorder and agree with my spouse that I'm impossible? And next time your Auntie Nellie gives you the side-eye for no apparent reason, and you tell your spouse about it, beware that they may leap onto Mumsnet to complain that you are wildly over-sensitive and they may have to threaten to leave you.

It is very disheartening that the first thing that many PP suggest when offered a description of a woman who, on the face of it, is displaying some behavioural disturbance, in response to we know not what, is to think of medical treatment.

Id tell her to seek professional help as this is not normal behaviour and if she has something wrong with her then it needs to at least try to be fixed.

It is very disheartening that the first thing that many PP suggest when offered a description of a woman who, on the face of it, is displaying some behavioural disturbance, in response to we know not what, is to think of medical treatment.

Yes, and if not labelling her with ND, MH or personality disorders, deciding that she must be menopausal. I went through the menopause without HRT and I didn't scream and shout at people.

Go back to the OP, everyone. Read the examples the OP has given. Then engage brains.

Maybe I am....

Well it depends doesn't it.

Does leaving mean taking the children and doing 100% because she can't be trusted with them? She definitely isn't over whelmed because she's doing most of the work and you're happy to do it all?

Or does leaving mean... you get to leave because she's awful with the children... But somehow you still expect her to do all the care and keep the children.

People want to reverse the sexes here but I never see any women who plan On leaving the kids with the abusive parent. But frequently that seems to be what the male parent does which leads me to think she wasn't really the issue.

If it's the first scenario than yanbu. The second yabvu

I voted YABU, because ultimatums just don't work and will create resentment down the road. You wife clearly has some big issues and it's her responsibility to deal with those. Since she isn't, it's your responsibility to decide if this relationship is working or not and whether or not you want to stay in it, regardless of what she does or doesn't do.

Since there are children involved, you both also have a responsibility to provide a stable home. It seems like your wife either can't or won't do that. What she is doing is highly traumatizing for children. I speak from experience. I think the best thing would be to try and get your children out of this environment, but make sure it's legal.

Isn't that exactly what happens on every post about a bad marriage on here?

We usually get the woman's perspective about a bad husband but it's only what they are telling us and only their point of view? No one bats an eyelid that it might not be the actual reality.

If all women can be told to leave their husbands because of bad behaviour then this husband can be told to leave his wife for her bad behaviour 🤷‍♀️ it works both ways.

That also applies when it's a woman talking about a male partner.

Or a MIL/SIL / anyone really

Has she always been like this? Why didn’t you decide you were unsuited earlier? I couldn’t live with a stroppy adult so we would never have had a child together. Has she changed or are you out of love with her so picking up on this stuff? Do you want to share childcare and have the hassle of divorce? She may not change

This is a forum for women about women. PMDD and neurodiversity issues related to menopause are under diagnosised and not well known. They naturally only affect women. On a woman's forum we should be mindful of this.

About 8% of women suffer from it. Most undiagnosed.

The BBC ran an article a couple of days about it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mr8lj3kd7o

My ormer friend is like this and it escalated to her attacking her husband and daughter on a day put. Luckily it happened in public and people called the police. She's very unapologetic and refused to seek help so her marriage broke down. She isn't allowed unsupervised access to her children as her violent tendencies have increased. She has lost a lot of friends including me because she's unhinged but isn't diagnosed with a mh condition.

In that case, if she won't seek professional help, you need to seek legal advice with a view to leaving and taking the children with an armload of evidence under your belt.

Start recording the worst of it and texting her about her rages so you have something down in the first instance. You can't just do nothing if she is going to do nothing. My Mother was raised by an awful screaming, over reacting parent and it wrecked her life.

Did you read the OP?

Most of the time she is brilliant and the kids adore her but it's difficult to be around her when she gets into one of these moods, and atmosphere in our house is incredibly tense for days.

If the kids adore her and most of the time she's brilliant can she really be so bad? But sometimes she mysteriously, for no apparent reason, gets into a mood.

Hmmm. I wonder what might cause that? OP gives the impression that this is nothing he's done. But how many women on MN are driven round the bend, and get supported for it here, by men not doing their fair share of chores or child care, or men who say they'll go to the shop and get something to eat and don't, or men who promise a family day out and then go out cycling for the day, or men who leave used condoms in bed after a wank (recent one, that)?

Think of all the men mentioned by their despairing wives here on MN who might write 'I don't know what gets into my wife, I'm beginning to wonder if she's mentally ill. I was just watching TV/ playing video games/ out at the pub/ playing football this afternoon. All she had to do was look after the kids and make dinner and keep the place tidy and when I got back she's in a mood and and the atmosphere was tense and it turns out she's mad with me for no reason whatsoever...'

I think, unless you want to leave, you both need to work on this: have a conversation about how these episodes feel for her, and what she thinks might help her in that moment. It sounds like dysregulation, and even low-level DBT skills can be helpful for people who become overwhelmed/dysregulated. But for it to work, she would need to accept that these responses/this dysregulation is having a negative impact on everyone: most of all, on her. And you can help with the skills too, which could help bring you closer together.

(Sorry, I meant to reply, not quote, but can't delete this post.)