Thread: PMDD - Husband Can't Hang On

For 4+ years now I have been with the most amazing woman in the world. She has taught me that I am capable of loving more deeply than I ever imagined. She has taken a man who grew up in a family where love and tenderness were rarely displayed and made me into a man who loves nothing more than a kiss, a caress or just a loving look from her. This time has without a doubt been the best of my life. She has made that possible and I am leaving her.

My wife has PMDD. I’m no doctor and there is no test that can 100% certify that she has PMDD, but she does. Every month for a period of 5-10 days, my wife becomes a woman I don’t know. During these times she hates me with a level of emotion and passion that you could never imagine. She says things that cut me to the bone in so many ways I can’t even believe the words could be formed. She does things that no wife should do in a marriage and then a week later its like it never happened to her.

The words she uses are so impressively hurtful it is as if she can look deep inside me and know at that moment what she can say that will inflict the most pain and then she doesn’t just say it, she architects a weapon of words that is beyond belief.

I hate you
F you
F your kids
I could have so many guys better than you and I will
You violated me
You ruined my life
You are an old, hairy, p%$$y and how would you expect me to ever want you
You are a horrible father
You are worthless

I list those words and it’s almost detrimental to this post. I read them and they don’t sounds that bad. I mean obviously they are not that good but they are not strung together with the clarifying thoughts that she adds and the anger and loathing that she delivers them with. The absolute certainty that I am the one and only thing that she has ever come in contact with that has created all evil and negative in her life.

She has hit me multiple times. She has scared the living out of me more than that.

During these times she is often convinced that not only doesn’t she want to be around me or have anything to do with me she truly wants to live a single lady’s life. She wants no responsibilities, no cares, and she loves to flirt and be flirted with. She has been out to a bar and ended up with two guys at one of their houses with just them and her until 5am. She has gone out of town on a whim to visit friends, met a guy and within an hour on the dance floor she is kissing him and then later telling him how much she wants him and how hot he makes her.

She has lied to me repeatedly to cover for herself. Even when she is caught with blatant proof she still lies, then maybe shares a piece of truth surrounded in other lies, and then a bit more truth and more lies over and over again. She lies effortlessly. Once before our marriage she told me she slept at home all night, when I told her I stopped by at 8am and she wasn’t there she denied it and then finally told a story about a friend letting her sleep at her house and then taking her back for her car. Later I learn she was kissing some guy in the parking lot before this mystery friend took her home. She has tried to hide the phone number of a guy under some girl’s name in her phone to contact him later. But, it’s not the type of lies that hurt as bad as the pattern. When she lies it is like pulling teeth to get the truth. She gives a bit then lies more and that continues sometimes for hours and days until I get what seems close to the truth. She says she doesn’t remember and then she does. Her pattern of lying on top of lies makes it impossible for me to feel like I ever have the truth.

I am abused. Just as I know that my wife has an illness called PMDD I know that I am abused. There is no other way to define it. I have been verbally, physically and emotionally abused for 4+ years. In a way she saw it all along, but without the intensity it deserves. She could so easily forget and ignore what happened. She would often talk with me about getting help. We would go visit doctors together, counselors together and separately, she went to a psychiatrist. Meditation, books, medication it was all tried in one form or another, but a week or two after the incident the priority would fade. Life was good. She loved me deeply and she was happy. Why take medications with all these potential side effects. Why worry. Then it would happen again. Every month.

I love her so much. After each incident I would try to heal. I knew 2.5 years ago that this was tied to her cycle and I read about PMDD and other possibilities. I knew she had an illness. At the time I struggled with the “It’s out of her control” part. I always believed those times of the month opened a door deep inside her and let some really bad things out, but I also believed that if there was nothing behind that door in the first place then there would be nothing to come out. If she didn’t want to be with other guys, if she didn’t think all those things about me, then I didn’t believe that any disease could give her such creative talents.

I became a different person because I lived in fear. I lived in fear constantly, not just during her “times” but constantly. I learned that anything I did that could in any way be misperceived was just fuel for her fire when her “time” came. I sell for a living and I sometimes have to travel. Over the years I have fought to keep my travel down and compared to the average person I don’t travel much at all. I’m maybe gone 3 or 4 days a month, but each of those days is a living for me in terms of fear. I do my role and I get back to my hotel room as soon as I can. Grab a beer after a meeting with my co-workers. Nope. Simply not worth it. I’ve never been that big into the social aspects of work anyway so this isn’t a big deal for me but the reasons why I do it are not right. Heaven forbid there is a woman involved in any meeting I have or on any phone call I need to make. These are simply timebombs. I live as though my wife flat out does not trust me. I am a different person because of the hate she is capable of during her times.

There were times in the past where my first instinct was flight. As these days started to happen I would try desperately to get away from her. I figured if she wasn’t around me she couldn’t hurt me, but that wasn’t the case. Either she would find other men to flirt with and be around when I wasn’t there or she would come and find me and the delivery was often worse.

I then tried to just respond as calmly as I could. Just simply take her words and let them come. I’m no good at that. I would end up responding to her wrath defending myself. Arguing with her made-up stories of who I was and what I did. Debating all her false perceptions of my love for her and the kids, but this was more than useless. Then she hated me for always arguing and debating. Telling me I just wanted to be right. During these times she is so 100% committed to her hateful opinions of me that no introduction of logic matters. I am the antichrist and she will not have it described otherwise.

I stayed. I loved her and you have to understand the real woman in this story is truly amazing. Her laugh, her smile are from heaven. Her passion for life and for me are boundless and so beautiful. A simple resting of her head on my shoulder is so unbelievably refreshing, soothing, and loving to me that it must add days to my life every time she does it.

I wanted her to get healthy. I begged her to look into medication. We read a book by Dr. Amen that was really great. So many of the stories in there seemed so consistent. I still see his treatment path as very exciting, but it is also very expense due to all the brain scanning required and we are in no state to be able to take that path. I read up a bit more on PMDD and found that usually birth control seemed to be the best medical option. The fear there as in most cases was side effects. My wife used to have migraines and one incident was at a time when she took birth control. So I get the hesitation, but I am willing to try anything. She has tried Zoloft and WellButrin although neither have really had a long-term chance to work. (she has been on WB for 3 months now).

I look at the side effects issue and I just wonder if they are worse than what is happening. The problem there, again, is she doesn’t see these things as all that bad. On one level she knows she is saying and doing things she shouldn’t but it is as if she puts in on a whole different person. “That person over there says and does things she shouldn’t but I’m ok.” Why should she need to take meds? She just doesn’t recognize the impact.

So in December of last year it was really bad and suddenly my reaction wasn’t about finding a cure it was about finding a way to secretly end my life. I don’t say that lightly on this board. I say it for what it is, the truth. I researched and I had a plan. I wasn’t happy with the plan because it was still going to be too obvious and I didn’t want my kids and family left with that knowledge. I just wanted it to be over and me to be out of the cycle. I didn’t have the guts to go through with it and I still to this day wonder if I could. I really doubt it, but the scary thing is I really wanted to. I hung on through January which was an ok month. She often has a mild month after a real doozy. Then in February the hate was back in her eyes maybe stronger than I have seen it for a long time. She loathed me. She hated me and everything connected to me including my kids and the words she used crossed yet another boundary for her.

The snowball of pain, hurt and anguish that had been building for the last 4+ years just rolled right over the top of me and I told her I wanted out.

I sit here today with plans of separation and divorce. Separation and divorce from the most amazing woman I ever hope to meet. A woman I never deserved and now a woman I can’t find the strength to keep.

I don’t write this for advice. I write this as a warning or a wake-up call to any woman out there that has something that resembles PMDD. I know there are many untreated woman in the world, some with symptoms less intense than my wife and maybe some that are worse. Get Help!

The day after you come out of one of these cycles, start to find help that day and don’t let yourself stop. Right it down that first day and staple it to a spot you will see every day. Put it in big screaming letters that you need to get help and you will not let that knowledge drop in priority. Don’t tell yourself “Oh, I feel better, my life is good, it really wasn’t that bad, I’ll be fine”. Go to a doctor and talk to them. If your doctor doesn’t understand PMDD find another doctor. If you have friends or family, talk to them, tell them you need help getting help and ask one of them to be accountable with you.

PMDD is an illness and in many cases it can be treated, but it is a sneaky, crappy little illness in that it hides. It shrinks completely out of site and makes you think you are safe, but if it has come back 4 times it will come back 5 and 6, etc.

If you are in a relationship, it is doing damage. Talk to your partner. Don’t ignore or deny what they are telling you about what you are like. Ask them to be brutally honest and believe them and know that this is an illness and you can get help.

OK, as I said I’m not a doctor and maybe all of that is horrible advice. There are counselors and psychologists out there screaming obscenities at me right now, but I know the only chance I had to survive this was to get it cured. I’m too weak to hang on and hope.

That’s the horrible thing about this for me. There is a cure. I pray my wife finds it. Unfortunately when she does it may be after I have lost her, lost the most amazing woman, lost the chance at the kind of love people search for. I will lose it because I walked away. If I don’t though, then what? The cuts are so deep and the wounds stay so fresh. I know where I was in December. I owe it to my kids and to my self to not be there again. I pray that everyone with PMDD finds an answer. Whatever I did to be at this cross roads in my life I am sorry.

I love you, Baby!