Hello,

Forgive me this long post but I would like your advice about my wife as I really don’t know anymore how to handle this. Until an year ago I knew nothing about mental disorders, but I couldn’t cope with my wife increasingly extreme behavior and she refused to go to see a doctor. She says that there was nothing wrong with her, that I was the one who was “mad” so for me to go and see a doctor for myself. So I went to her GP (that knows her for 15 years or more) and told him what was going on. I thought that it might be something related to her thyroiditis, or an hormonal imbalance, but whatever it was it was clear for me that she was not well.

He called her, convinced her to come and see him and upon speaking with her thought that she was well and all was only “relationship problems”.

I did not gave up and went to see a psychiatrist who told me that for what I was telling him it was possible that my wife was bipolar, something she refused.

An year passed and this only got worse, we are now near a breaking point and so once again went to see a GP who told me that for what I telling him it seemed OK, just “relationship problems”.

So I really don’t know anymore, is my wife bi-polar, or has she any other problem? Am I the one with a problem? This is all so surreal, it is wearing me down so much, that I already don’t know..

About my wife: we met at the university and are together for 16 years now. She was always very demanding and very controlling, for example I had to study when she did, go to sleep, go to school when she did or else she would make huge rows that could last weeks long. She also had extreme moods, like being very agitated but specially depressive ones but these were only now and then and I thought it was just the way she was and from the pressure of the University. When she was in one of her moods she used to blame me indirectly for any problem, any failure she had, like if I was the root of all evils, although I always did my best to help her, like, although we were in different courses I would even study her disciplines so that I could help her.

This got to a point where we actually split, she went to see a psychiatrist, and three months later she asked to return, that she had not been well but she had seen a doctor and was better now. So we got on together again and indeed for a time she was well and we decided to marry.

But then her extreme behavior returned, for example just before our marriage there was a row between our families, it was something ridiculous but she totally lost it and went out to the street with a knife on her hand shouting she was going to slit her throat, I had to rush back home to calm her.

After marrying we moved to England for me to do a PhD while she was trying to finish her degree but these behaviors persisted, for example she got in a row with a residence manager, but something really insignificant and for about several weeks it totally obsessed her she would pick on me and whoever was around being really aggressive, until one weekend her mood suddenly changed and I had to sit on top of her for almost an hour because she wanted to jump out of a window. Then 10 days later suddenly it was all ok, the problem didn’t matter any long, it was like nothing had happened.

This repeated several times over other small things, but really small that most people wouldn’t even think about it, while she also had depressive episodes where she would complain that her life was miserable, maybe she should kill herself and end it all.

But these episodes were quite spaced between them and I never thought there was any problem even because in the meantime we had 3 children and every time I complained about it people would say that it was either because she was pregnant or because she had the baby.

Anyway these episodes weren’t what worried most but her obsessive behavior: now and then she would fix her attention on something and until she realized her wish it was like nothing else existed in the world for her. For example she decided to buy a car and then she dragged me everyday to see cars, none was good enough for her until after a few weeks I told her that I could no longer go with her has I had work to do only to be accused of conspiring against her having a car. The same happened over buying a house, home improvements, our garden, having a baby, etc, the list up to today is long.

At the same time it was like she resented that I was doing a PhD. She had always dreamed of being a famous researcher and for some reason she blamed me for not being but I had nothing to do with it, I did everything I could to help her, she just didn’t have the grades required, she took 10 years to finish her degree and never even did any extracurricular activity to improve her curriculum. So, specially when I had an important paper, or a progress report to deliver she would make my life absolutely miserable to a point where I once begged her on my knees to please stop or I would not be able to write the report and loose then the sponsorship only to have her saying that it was all excuses and I should quit the PhD and get a proper job.

Eventually she got her way and life went on like this, we had good times, we had bad ones where she would either be depressed or very angry and aggressive, but I never suspected anything was wrong, even because in the meantime like I said above we had three children and every time I complained that something was wrong people would tell that it was because of the pregnancies.

Then two years ago, after she had our daughter all became much more extreme while at the same time a clear pattern emerged which made me think that something was clearly not right. This coincided with me getting a job as researcher which she truly hated as she used to repeat that it was not a “proper job”.

So for about three months her mood progressively built up becoming more and more aggressive, to a point where she would practically not sleep, she would get up at 4 or 5 AM to read my emails, conversation logs, she would check my work, count how many lines I had written on the day before for then on the next day to pick on me for things I didn’t understand what she was talking about as I had no idea about what she was doing. I tried to talk with her but that was impossible she would jump from topic to topic, for then to loose herself in small details that really did not matter and most of the time she simply didn’t make sense. But more importantly I had a progress report to delivery without which I would loose the job and I begged her to just give me a few days of peace or I would loose the position as researcher only for her to tell me that it was all my invention she was not doing anything and it was better anyway if I just quit and found a “proper” job.

Then one night she totally lost it she beat up quite hard our eldest son who was 4 at the time before I could intervene and then later when I tried to talk with her she refused to talk and shut a door so violently on my face that the door handle made a cut in my harm. She turned back to check if I was well and then suddenly without a warning, without a word she jumped on me throwing me down. She started punching while shouting that “I wanted to drive her mad but she would kill me first”. She then got up and started kicking until she stopped to take a breath which allowed me to get up only for her to come again at me trying to strangle me. After a while she finally let me go and I went to the office obviously pretty shaken. About half an hour later she came to the office to apologize but then suddenly she changed her mood again and shouted that she had come to apologize but now she saw that I was no man just a useless wimp, that I disgusted her, and so on.

On the following day I spoke with a common friend about this and she helped me in tricking her to see a doctor. My wife went to see the doctor but was furious when she found out what it was about and never returned. At least about 10-15 days later her mood started to improve and I thought the worse had passed.

But about two months later she started entering in a depressive state complaining about her “miserable life” saying that she “probably should kill herself”. This lasted about a month after which her mood started again to build up until on Summer last year when we went on holidays it all happened again: she was for two week increasingly agitated and aggressive until one day she lost it, she jumped on me and beat me again, then when my grandmother who is 83 years old tried to calm her because the kids where watching and most scared she tried to beat her too, I had to put myself in the between to prevent it. Then when I told her that if she didn’t calm down I would call the police she started screaming that she was going to call them to take me away. She took the phone and was for twenty minutes she tried to dial the number to have me arrested without succeeding because she was too distressed, she hit the phone keys so hard that she even managed to pop the back of the phone.

After this she picked the kids and drove off to her family’s house saying that if I went there she would take her father’s shotgun and shoot me.

Since then two other episodes like these happened, with the depression times in the between, one was reasonably mild, but the other one last week was as intense as the ones above.

She takes about two month to build up of increasingly aggressive and irritated mood until for about one or two weeks she is restless and finally blows up. Then it takes about two weeks until she starts to cool down again, followed for about two months where her mood progressively goes down until she gets depressive which lasts for about two weeks to a month. Then her mood starts to build up again and it all starts over one more time.

One thing that impresses me and I don’t understand whenever she is in a high or low mood she is always angry. It really confuses me how someone can be angry all the time, I even try to joke with her about it to cheers her up but without success.

So this is very much it. Obviously there is a lot more but it is already a long post and I don’t think it is necessary to enter in even more detail.

So I would like to know what you think, the two GPs (one talked with her, the other one didn’t) thought it was fine, just relationship problems. The psychiatrist told me that it was possible she had the bipolar disease but without talking with her he could not say much more and she refuses to see him. So I really don’t know, if it is like the GPs say then something must be wrong with me because it takes two to spoil a relationship and I don’t know how to deal or find any of this acceptable.