Need help with wife's temper

Sounds like she needs an antidepressant that she would take daily. Talk to her doc about it. If you can... I have a bad temper and my antidepressants help keep it in check. I wish you the best. A lot can happen in a split second of a temper tantrum.

Hugs, Karen...

Did she have any trauma as a child?

Did she have any signs of problems when you first met her?

Tim Tam said...
Did she have any trauma as a child?

Did she have any signs of problems when you first met her?

Yes, SHE actually warned me REPEATEDLY that I should not get involved with her because of her terrible temper and that she would bring me nothing but misery. I didn't listen. I was crazy in love. Looking back, there were numerous red flags that I ignored. I recall numerous parties where we had to leave early because of some minor irritation. She would pull me aside and whisper to me through clenched teeth : "I'm getting heated! You have to get me out of here NOW before I lose my temper!!" ... she was smiling on the outside but fuming on the inside.

At the time, I thought that these things happened just once in a while because I was in love and put her on a pedestal and minimized her faults. Looking back, these things did not happen just once in a while but pretty regularly. Looking back, she cancelled more than half our dates at the last minute, even when we were already engaged, telling me that she was "so irritable that she could not stand herself" and that it was "not safe" for me to be anywhere near her.

I ignored the warning signs and I ignored her warnings and now I'm walking on eggshells terrified of her temper and the violent rages she flies into at the drop of a hat.

I think at some point you are going to have to come to your senses.

Even though you are now married, all is not lost, it could be worse. You could have a child. And, you could be married to her not a year or two, but 10 years, then 20. That would be worse. It hangs in the balance.

All the talk to now has been about her, how many chairs she’s thrown at you, how many parties you two left because of her temper.

But what about you? Who’s the guy in all of this? Why? As I say, it can get worse, like, you don’t leave and she “forgets” to take her birth control pills. You’ll look back to these days as the “happy years.” Leave her and you leave your kid, take your choice. Plus the kid grows up in that environment.

I know about this because I married a person just like her. While we were dating, I had clues, also, like she told me of sex she was having with other guys, but I reasoned, well, we’re not married. Also, I didn’t have the strength to leave, and I didn’t want to be by myself.

If you have the strength, that would be my suggestion. She’s going to be hard to live with for the next 10 years, but the question is, are you going to be living with her? If you are, you’ll see it close-up and come back here complaining about it. If you’re not, you won’t see it and it won’t matter.

There are some situations that can’t be helped. But what you can do is leave the situation.

I think she is borderline personality syndrome. It stems from abuse in childhood, mostly sexual. You need to look that up. Again, I know about this because that’s what my wife was.

They’re cure rate is not real high. Medicine does not help. The question is, can you help yourself by leaving? Have you ever heard her say she was sexually abused? Has she every hinted at such?

I once tried to help a person who was on drugs by asking them to go to a counselor/psychiatrist but she always had excuses for not going. I finally realized, I have to get away from that. I cannot help her. The only person who can help is a counselor who sees them in an office for 30 minutes and then says, “I’ll see you next month.” If they get well, fine, but if they don’t, at least the counselor didn’t waste his time.

You don't have an office. You can't tell them, "Your 30 minutes is up. I'll see you next month." You could waste 10 or 20 years, not 30 minutes.

So, the question is not only her behavior, but yours, as in, why are you staying? Do you have the confidence to leave, if you decide that? Do you have things you can go to?

I think you have to be positive about this. The resources on this forum, at the top of the list of people who have posted problems, stresses the importance of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT.

In that, you need a positive attitude for this and any other problem. Along this line, I've read that, if going into a problem, you believe you can solve it, you greatly increase your chances that you can. That's impossible. I've learned that no it's not.

Going into a problem, I now tell myself, over and over, "Think positive, think positive, think positive" before I even think about the problem. This drives out any unconscious negative, which I can't see, because it's in my unconscious.

It also opens up my mind, conscious and unconscious, to look for solutions, not to look for defeat, if I have a negative attitude. Your conscious gives the command, your unconscious follows. Only then do you think of the problem: How can I get out of this?

Step one, come up with a plan: What am I going to do? Where am I going to live? Do I have a job so I can afford to get an apartment? Pay for food, etc? Again, do I have a job? Do I have people at work, or outside of work, who could help me if I need some help?

As opposed to, well, she did throw a chair at me last night, but I'm going to take it and doing nothing about it. Know that you have a choice. You can get out of this situation.

If you're 27 and she's 41, you may feel overwhelmed. She may be a mother figure to you, and you can't overcome your mother as a child. But she's not your mother, and you're not her little boy. You're an adult with a job, you can get out of this.

I know about negative attitudes because I had one for about 50 years. I was my biggest enemy. I hurt people and myself because I could not solve a problem in a positive way; I had to solve it half positive for my conscious mind, and half negative for my negative unconscious mind.

I could get out of a gas-filled building, but I had to dive through a window and cut myself, rather than open a door and walking out. Are you generally optimistic?

I was wondering if you were dependent on her for some reason, like finances.

That was pretty much my situation with my wife. As a bipolar, I couldn’t hold a job, so I was going to be low on money on my own, and she had a good job.

Plus I had just had a nervous breakdown and was recovering from that, then was able to get another job and when I got back on my feet, but realized I might need her for any future downfalls. That was the circumstances we got married in.

Then I got talked into having a child with her by a relative and that made the situation worse, especially when I realized she was cheating on me. And I wouldn’t have been able to make it financially without her. Plus, I have a dependent personality. So, I know of which you speak, staying in a horrible marriage.

She died of a long illness 10 years ago, then my grown son started coming after me and took her place of attacking me, and I severed ties with him about 3 years ago.

But I did have a change when I read a column on being positive when going into a problem that you can solve it, and it did really help. That’s why I was trying to pass that along to you.

The positive is what this website advocates, also, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT),as seen in this website’s resources section, located at the top of the list of people who have posted on this bipolar thread.

It’s believing you can overcome an issue. Not just small parts like exercising, but an overall belief from the start, that you can overcome an issue. That is very important when approaching a problem.

I think what’s key is, can you hold a job so that you can pay your rent and food bills?
If you can finance yourself, you stand a better chance to get away. But you’re saying, you can’t really get away to apply for a job, for you have to account for every second as to where you are.

Can you locate a job on the net somehow, get away for an hour or two to apply for it?
If you got the job, would you be able to quit your present job, leave your marriage, and start working the job?

Do you have parents who could support you for a while during that time, to pay for the divorce and first month’s rent and such? Do you have any savings? Can you just leave the house, and for a month have the finances to get an apartment, and start looking for a job? Can you get a lower job until you can find a better one? Can you live with someone for a few weeks, save some money from a lower job, then move into your own place after 2 or 3 weeks?

Can you stockpile information such as, cheap apartments, job openings, etc., so at some point you can just make a phone call based on the data you have?

You did say in your first post: “My wife, by her own admission, has "a temper so violent that she can easily kill someone in her rage."

So your life is actually in danger here. This is not a fanciful situation. A borderline personality syndrome person, which in my amateur opinion I think she may very well be, is capable, as she has said herself, along with her saying she can’t improve.

And the person she attacks when she gets mad enough to kill, will be someone who lives in the apartment because that’s where her anger erupts and because there will be no witnesses.

And the person she kills will be a whimp, unlike the first 3 husbands who manned up and left.

Some of these people you read about and on TV doing serious crimes, are borderlines. Not to mention the psychological damage, and the physical when she throws a chair at you, broken bones, concussions.

I think you really need to get physically away from her. And it’s not just a fanciful situation. You are in serious danger.

Are your capabilities up to what your level of danger is? I’m not suggesting King Kong here. I’m wondering, can you reach down inside and start some of these smaller steps. Can you picture yourself winning this?

Now that you’ve found your staying with her did not improve her, can you leave?

In one of your posts you said, “I'm hoping that someone can help me out.” Do you have a reasonable hope for that, or are you just pleading your case?

I feel like your wife's temper should be her problem and not yours. Does she do anything to try to change these actions? Does she take her medications? As earlier I posted she needs to be on something to take daily, maybe an antidepressant. I feel her temper tantrums are totally selfish and someday something real bad could happen with all that rage inside. Does she go to therapy? What about anger management?

It is your choice whether or not to continue to endure this behavior. Maybe you should move out for awhile. Feel what it is like to live without the chaos and drama for a bit. I think her behavior is going to make you depressed if it hasn't already.. Maybe some tough love would persuade her to get some help.

I wish you the best.

Hugs, Karen...

getting by said...
I feel like your wife's temper should be her problem and not yours.

I agree but when she starts raging out of control and violently taking her anger out on me, then it becomes my problem by default.

getting by said...
Does she do anything to try to change these actions? Does she take her medications?

She takes her medication except for her last "emergency" tranquilizer -- as she calls it. She is suppose to take it when she feels her control slipping away. The problem is that her control slips away so quickly that there isn't time for her to take it. And that is the entire point of this thread.

getting by said...
As earlier I posted she needs to be on something to take daily, maybe an antidepressant.

I don't know too much about what she takes but she does take some sort of sedative to make her less irritable and another mood stabilizer which is also suppose to help and they do. Again, the problem is the third medication. It is something called Xanax and it is suppose to have an almost immediate calming effect and she's only suppose to take it when she feels her control slipping away. That's the one that she doesn't have time to take because she blows up before she has a chance to take it.

getting by said...
I feel her temper tantrums are totally selfish and someday something real bad could happen with all that rage inside.

If you've been following this topic along, you've seen that she has a history of violence. Which is why I've learned the warning signs -- her hands begin to tremble, her pupils dilate to the point where they are almost black and then her entire body starts shaking, the veins in her neck and forehead begin to bulge, her eyes also start bulging like they are about to pop out -- and when I see these warning signs, I try to get as far away from her as possible.

getting by said...
Does she go to therapy? What about anger management?

She goes to a court appointed treatment. He gives her pills and that's pretty much it. He gets paid by the court / insurance and that's all he seems to be interested in and she is doing it because if she doesn't, she'll be put in jail -- her option was to get treatment for her anger or go to prison for her attack on her third husband. She's going through the motions of getting treatment.

getting by said...
It is your choice whether or not to continue to endure this behavior.

I want to make it better but I don't know what to do. I've discovered that being loving and attentive isn't going to fix things because she blows up so quickly and a lot of times it is over things that are not even my fault but I am on the receiving end.

getting by said...
Maybe you should move out for awhile. Feel what it is like to live without the chaos and drama for a bit. I think her behavior is going to make you depressed if it hasn't already.. Maybe some tough love would persuade her to get some help.

I'm afraid to even consider that. Most of her outbursts are over trivial things and the explosions are pretty bad. I hate to even imagine how great her fury would be if she lost her temper over something more serious.

getting by said...
I wish you the best.

Hugs, Karen...

Thank you. I appreciate that. I really do.

Your words haven't meant "nothing". You have been there for her for a long time. You can't fix another person, only they can fix themselves. She needs to try to help herself. Otherwise it means nothing.

I would talk to her calmly about living arrangements. How do you manage to stay in your vehicle over night without her getting upset? It is totally up to you what you do with your life. But you do have choices and options. You can walk away from the situation and never feel guilty because you have done more than try. You've given it your all and then some. Never feel like you failed her.

It's too bad the treatment isn't better. She needs to have some one on one therapy. And I believe an antidepressant. I imagine she probably isn't consistent taking her meds. If she was, she probably wouldn't have the outbursts.

I have had a temper all of my life. And I usually ended up hurting myself more than anything. But it can be controlled, though it is work and practice. There are ways she could be helped. Talk to her about therapy. Think of a way to approach it without her getting angry.

Best wishes...

Hugs, Karen...

It is your choice that you are making to live in these conditions. You both are pushing the problem under the rug. She will never get better if she doesn't confront this. You are choosing to live this way. You are making excuses for her. Since you are choosing this path, there really isn't much in the lines of help.

You made a promise that I don't think you fully took into context what could happen in the future. I just hope she doesn't kill or hurt anybody during one of her rages. I can only look at it as you are enabling her. I am sorry. That is the way I see it from what you have said here.

Again, best wishes...

Hugs, Karen...