Wife has severe PMT / Rages & Moods

[Paul]

Hi all,

Just wanted someones opinion on a situation i have been in for many years now. I have been with my partner now for 7 years and in this time my wife has suffered really badly with PMT. I sympothise with her totally and try and help but i have now just tried to keep my distance and keep my mouth shut as a cannot win either way. She becomes very abusive to me and the children, even to the point of wanting to kick my head in sometimes. I have stood by her as i love her but i don't know who to talk to or go to. I have tried speaking to my wife but we don't get very far and she won't admit she has a problem. I know it can be hard to control as it effects your moods etc, but she has smashed the house up on various occasions and i have had to quit my job also as she has come in work blazing with a bee in her bonnet about something trivial but to her when she has PMT our problems are magnified 10 times.
I am scared of what lies ahead, sometimes she is happy and we all get on great then all of a sudden for no apparent reason she lashes out. My daughter had to call the police last time as she was attacking me and she was scared. She tells me she loves me and i am confused.

I would like any advice from females on this site that could give me any advice. I dont want to sound like a typical bloke blind to the fact that PMT doesn't exist. I know it exists i just need to know how i can calm my wife down and help her.

Thanks

Paul

[Veritee]

Dear Paul

You do not sound like a 'typical bloke' at all.

Not only are you not skeptical about PMS but it seems from what you say that you have suffered abuse from your partner and not retaliated - abuse to the point that your daughter called the police ( how old is your daughter by the way) is a pretty severe thing to to tolerate so well!

This is mostly a forum for women with PNI,

Post Natal Illness - not PMS/PMT but many women who suffer PNI do after recovery suffer increased PMS - and I certainly did experience rages with PMS for a short while - so we might be able to offer you some insight and support

But have you also tried :

The National Association for Premenstrual Syndrome at :
www.pms.org.uk/

This is a really good and supportive organization which might be able to help you more than we can here?
Contact them and see what they say as they are the experts in PMS/PMT

But anyway - yes severe PMS/PMT can be very hard for the woman to control and it is possible to get angry and abusive.

When I was recovering from PNI I did have a few very bad episodes or PNT where I got very angry - felt out of control and broke things and once went for my husband.

And I have heard from women who have suffered bad PNT for years - but while they sometimes did lose it , they all knew tha this was a probem and most of the time controled their behavour to a degree and certianly did nto abuse anyone regulaly.

But two things worry me about what you described about your situation

1/. that she attacks you regularly - not just objects

2/. you say she does not think she has a problem.

Looking at the second one first - despite my rage I found it impossible NOT to realize I had a problem with PMS and I may not be able to admit to it when suffering - but I was certainly very ashamed and desperately seeking help or ways of dealing with it afterwords.

I do not understand why from the behavior you describe her as having - that your partner is not worried about what is happening herself and seeking help?

After all smashing your house, attacking you , lashing out is hardly the way anyone would want to behave if they had any choice so it is usually as distressing to the person doing it as those around them.

It also worries me that she attacks you.

If your gender were reversed ie she were a man and you a woman this would be obviously out of order and called 'domestic violence'

Well I think that is EXACTLY what it sound to me that it is.

It is one thing to be tolerant - but there are limits and from what your describe ( and I can only go by what you say , of course the situation could be very different?) This is domestic abuse you are suffering

This is also is not a good situation for your children to witness so often ( once in a while we all have rages and we all go too far sometimes and shout, rage and certainly I have broken things, and once gone for my husband but you are describing a nightmare that has gone on for years which is very different)

What is happening is over the top and you really can not use PMS as an excuse to be constantly violent or abusive toward someone either physically or verbally and especially if the person doing it does not think there is anything wrong with their behavior.

This does seem to me to be beyond what is tolerable and PMS is a horrible thing - and I have known women who do smash things and maybe the house and are abusive - but not all the time and usually are very frightened by their behavior themselves when it goes this far ( I was very , very frightened by my rages and the shock of them actually made me find ways of controlling them as I did not want to upset or hurt anyone)

but you seem to be describing someone who is not worried by this.

My feeling from what you say is you have tried the tolerant approach - ask yourself is it really acceptable that she treat you like this and if it is not

then you have to make sure she realizes that you are not willing to put up with it. No one should abuse someone else whatever the reasons. Once or twice you can for give or even more if the person knows what they are doing is not acceptable - but how long are you prepared to tolerate this if she shows no sign of knowing it is not OK?

Anyway - did your partner have any thing that triggered this extreme PMS?

Did she suffer PNI or has she suffered abuse or added stress...
as I know PMS is hormonal but channeling how you feel into violence to others is not

This is a choice!!

How long exactly has this been going on? - Has it been the whole 7 years you have been with her

and has she really in all that time not recognized that her behavior is out of order?

Does it happen with a monthly pattern and in between she is OK - a happy smiling women- or is it all the time

If it is all the time - or even most of the time - it is not PMS

As PMS has a very definite pattern whereby it only happens once a month , usually the week running up to the period with one or two really bad days a couple of days before you come on.

The rest of the time you are OK , normal person - it just affects you when your period is due.

If is it not like this - then it is not PMS?PMT
Also does your partner drink - as this can make PMT much worse and hard to control?

Who said it was PMS /PNT - was this what you decided it was or did she?

All the best

Veritee

[Veritee]

Having said all I said above - I am wondering if I am being unfair and putting it all on your partner.

I was probably relating what you described too much to my own situation and this could be completely wrong as no two relationships or people are the same.

In my defence this site is a very personal response to PNI ( and related issues such as PMT)

Mostly when I answer on this site I draw both on my own experience and those of all the women I have supported over the years.

However with this issue ( PMT causing you to verbally and physically abuse your male partner) I can only speak from my own experience only as |I have not really spoken to others about this issue.

When I went into PMT rages, I could find no women who understood what I meant - they would get crappy and argumentative - but no woman I spoke to said they felt these uncontrollable rages I was suffering.

So when I answered above I was drawing only on my own experience.

You did ask for our opinion on here and this is what you got - my opinion nothing more.

Perhaps though it will help if I explain what happened to us:

From what you said - the situation did seem really unfair and showed lack of respect toward you- which is why I gave the response above as it was my respect toward my husband Barry that stopped me from behaving regularly like you describe.

As a young woman I suffered PMT, and at that time I would get argumentative, and would occasionally lash out but this settled down until I had PNI.

After I recovered from PNI, PMT, escalated for a while into PMT rages, which I had read about but never experienced.

As I said, in one of my PMT rages I did go for my husband Barry, so I do know how angry and feeling out of control this can make you - but I stopped very quickly and just NEVER did it again out of respect for Barry.

The fact I had gone that far stopped me in my tracks and made me realize that I just would not want to be treated like that whatever I had done or said - and it frightened me - so while I had further PMT rages, where I would bang things around, sometimes break something and rave at Barry - I never did this again ie never got physical toward anyone again and in fact I would also check my verbal raging however bad I was feeling.

However when you are in a relationship it does really take two to cause whatever outcome there is to a situation - even PMT rages.

I am pretty certain that if Barry had reacted differently when I attacked him it is possible I would not of realized how out of order this was and continued to do this. I hope that I would not have - but it is possible.

It was Barry's calm and understanding way of dealing with it that that tipped the balance for me.

He is a small man - he weighs 9 1/2 stone and is 5ft 7 and I am shorter but at the time weighed 10stone and it was before I became disabled so I was very fit.

But despite this while I was a heavy force to deal with for him as he is so light - he is a lot stronger than me.

But when I attacked him he did not retaliate and nor did he cower or run - what he did was calmly hold my hands away from him and at a distance I could not kick him as best her could
But her did this with tears in his eyes - not tears for being hurt but tears for me!

This made me feel just so bad I did not do it again even though the rages continued for some time...

but I wonder what I would have done if Barry had retaliated, or shouted and screamed back?

So I think what I am saying is that while of course someone can be the main instigator and the person who is the one to go over the top - but in a relationship their is always a shared responsibility....

I mean if all else has failed and their is true violence toward you as you describe - you could always just leave?

However if it has not come to this and you still think their is hope of change

Perhaps you have to look at this thing together as a joint problem - ie what do you do when she rages, while her reaction may be over the top perhaps you should look at the issues in your family to see if their is anything that can be altered so it is less of a trigger point for this behavior - what is it that she says is making her so angry when she blows up?

Perhaps their is something you can change between you?

Also I have answered your question as best I can only from my opinion and based on what you said - your version of events..

But could your partner not come on here and talk to us - the way she sees it may be very , very different!

One way forward I have found that can solve conflict between partners is for you both separately write down how you see the situation , the causes and your feelings and then exchange your writing and see how it is for the other.

Well I will leave it up to you to respond now as I have said more than enough

All the best Veritee

[Paul]

Wow thanks for your help, it's really good to talk with someone about this especially a female that can give me advice on how i can understand what is happening.

We had a child not so long ago. My son is now 18 month old and we love him to bits, but it has been really tough. My wife was quite down after the birth as nobody offered to help. I was at work all day and my wife chose to breast feed. My son was very demanding and she would be sat there for ages sometimes. When i got home she would be stressed bored of the same four walls, she would get no visitors and soon began feeling low, to a point where she didn't want to get up in the morning. I began taking days off here and there to see to my son whilst my wife was in bed. I began to worry about my wife and my job and our marriage.

We fell out with my family as they just didn't even pick up the phone or offer any support. I have 2 brothers who have never even seen my son. My sister is even a childminder and never calls, so my wife decided she didn't want anything to do with them again. My wife does not speak to her mum as she abused her when she was a child. This is one of my concerns for her behaviour. She has many issues that must still linger in her mind even though she is now 32. My wife's mother tried to drown her in the bath when she was a little girl. Not long after this her mum and dad went to prison for fraud which left my wife in the care of her old grandparents. Whilst staying with them another incident occured with one of her uncle's. He tried to sexually abuse her, to which nobody believed her still to this day. I even see her uncle and want to rip his head off but my wife says this was a long time ago forget it. So this can explain my wifes pent up frustration with people in general and her not being able to trust anyone not even me sometimes.

To add insult to injury i also have a stepdaughter who i care for very much. She is now 13 and going a little out of control. Her father left as soon as she was born and although she still sees him sometimes she has no interest in him as he has never shown interest in her. Again my wife feels betrayed as she stuggled to bring her up on her own. He has never paid a penny in 13 years, too which my wife has been brilliant coping with this.

Now we are in a situation where my mother-in-law is obsessed with my stepdaughter. I think she is trying to make up for being a crap mum to my wife so she is trying to spoil my stepdaugter. My wife told her daughter everything that this woman put her through when she was a child and still my stepdaughter wants to see her gran. We don't want her to see her as she is evil. Last week we let her go round and she gave her 10 cigarettes at 13 years old. Her reaction to this was well if she is going to smoke you cannot stop her. We want her well away from her as she is now interfering with her upbringing. She keeps taking us to court to get more access but we keep fighting it. The situation now is that my stepdaughter keeps running away to her grans whenever me and her mum try and discipline her saying she wants to live with her gran. This is only because her gran fills her head full of rubish like you don't have to go to school and i'll buy you cigarettes.

Our option now is to move to Spain. We have sold our house in the North West with a view to moving to Spain. This is so my mother-in-law can not contaminate our lovely daughters head and my wife can relax that her mother is no longer in the picture telling her how to bring up her child when she did a rubbish job of bringing up her kids.

Sorry to ramble on, but you just would not believe what i have had to put up with. My wife did go to hospital a while back as i thought she had PND. She had many chats with a Psychiatrist who assured her she is not depressed and told her she may benefit from another type of counselling which i have forgotten the name of.

Looking back to what you said, her mood swings do generally just seem to be around her monthly cycle. Other times she is quite happy go lucky. She is coping a lot better now with our son. She has joined 3 play groups which she really enjoys going to. Her reaction to my son laughing and playing increases her well being knowing he is happy, plus she is meeting other mums and going on free trips.

If we could just cut the anger part out of our relationship i would be very happy.

I thank you very much for listening to me and providing me with advice. All the best Paul

[cheshire]

Dear Paul

Glad you've found posting here helpful.

Another site which might also help you is www.napac.org.uk (National Association for People Abused in Childhood). It's linked to the NSPCC. They have a regional database of support groups for adults who have experienced all types of abuse etc.

Hopeful

[Veritee]

Dear Paul

I read your response and there were things I wanted to reply to but today was a very busy day for me as it was the day my daughter got her GCSE results

so I have not really been with it to do much on this forum.

But I will respond tomorrow.

You do sound like you have been through the mill though as a family.

like I said is there any way you can get your wife to come on here to talk with us?


As for your wife being told she was not depressed ie did not have PND

This is why we on here call it PNI as do many of the foremost specialists on PNI these days because it has been realized that often depression is only a very minor part of the illness if at all and for many anxiety , anger, obsessions, bazaar behavior, panics and much more is more what we experience with PNI - and often past abuse can really come to the fore when you have PNI as you now have your own little vulnerable baby to protect and nurture - and as your model of doing this is not great you wonder if you can actually manage this task.....

so really PND is not really what it is and unfortunately not every mainstream psychologist has caught up with this yet.

But it does seem that something was over looked as not wanting to get out of bed, feeling low and irritable with a lack of control on anger are all features of depression and PNI!

Any way I will try to reply more fully tomorrow

All the best

Veritee

[Paul]

Since comming on here i have also been looking at Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PNDD). I am confused as to what she may be suffering from. I printed some info off from the net at work and confronted my wife with some real life stories of other women who loose control of there emotions and anger on a monthly basis, but she just keeps blaming me for her outbursts saying i push her to it. I don't do anything. Her symptoms do look more like PNDD as apposed to PNI. I have since found out off her aunty that when she was a teenager she suffered really badly with her periods and so did her mother, so maybe it's a family thing?

I have been watching my stepdaughter since finding this out and she doesn't seem violent or abusive, just the norm really.

I very much doubt she would come on here as she still will not admit she has a problem. I will just have to ride the wave and hope that things simmer down.

She has told me last night she may be pregnant as she threw up in the night and she thinks she has missed her period. Part of me is over the moon but part of me is thinking can she cope will we cope? I cannot leave her with the kids, i am not that cruel.

Is there any helpline numbers you know of who i can talk to about these things.

Thanks Veritee, and hope your daughters GSCE results were ok.