Hello,

Before I say anything else, let me say that I love my wife very much, and the things I say about her in this post represent behavior that is VERY out of character for her, and what I am writing is part of a plea for advice or help. No part of this is an attempt to disparage or discredit her. I fully understand that there are multiple viewpoints to every issue, and in this post you're only hearing mine.

After nearly 16 happy years of marriage, my wife and I are on the brink of divorce. During the first couple of years of our relationship, our unstable living environment coupled with her smoking habit led to some fairly sizable doozies of arguments. But, I know all couples have those, and for at least the past 12+ years, we've continuously grown in our relationship and our love for one another.

We have two sons. Our elder son is from my wife's previous marriage, and I adopted him when he was in his teens. He's currently serving overseas in the Navy, and we couldn't be prouder of him. Our younger son is just about to hit 16. He, like his brother, is home schooled and expected to graduate a year early. He is sweet, loving, and innocent. We raised the best two boys in the world. We literally built a home together where we have lived since 2001, and have always talked about retiring to the European countryside together. As a family we've been active in church, have created countless wonderful memories together, and for almost 16 years have been the center of each others' worlds.

Near this past Christmas, my wife's attitude & personality began to change. She became very quick to anger, disinterested in spending time with me, changed the way she dressed, spoke, and acted, began spending indiscriminately... basically she's like a completely different person.

In January, just before our 16th wedding anniversary, she completely exploded at me over the tiniest of issues (literally... I cooked some bacon and offered her a piece, and she didn't want any. By the reaction, it was more like I asked her to twist her own arm off and beat herself to death with it). For days afterwards she barely spoke to me. The following Sunday evening after church, she told me that she had discussed all of our "marriage issues" (?) with one of the pastor's wives, and wanted us to enter marital counseling together.

I was shocked and confused. I was completely broadsided by this turn of events. After taking just a few moments to gather my wits, I told her yes... I didn't understand, but for her, I would do it.

A little background leading up to the counseling... I have health & spine issues. For roughly the past 2 years, it has affected my "performance" in the bedroom. After multiple encounters that left me feeling very embarrassed and inadequate, I backed off and stopped trying. My wife never said anything, and never made any attempts to initiate romance or to seduce me in bed, so I just took it as part of growing older and left it at that. So, at the point of entering counseling, we hadn't had marital relations in almost 2 years.

The lack of intimacy was the main focus of those first counseling sessions. Sort of. In front of our counselors (who are also our friends), my wife accused me of intentionally neglecting her for the purpose of making her feel unattractive and insufficient. From there, a flood of accusations started coming out... everything I'd ever done wrong for the past 16 years, but exaggerated 1000-fold. She completely demonized me. She said she's barely been able to tolerate my existence for the past 2 years, and has wanted to leave me during that time. Within the first few minutes, the counseling turned to focus on her obviously irrational anger, and after the second session she wanted to quit going because she felt ganged up on.

A couple of days later, my wife approached me, said she was sorry, thanked me for sticking by her "during my crazy," and things went back to normal for several months... with the addition that we were making vigorous attempts to restore our intimate relationship.

One month ago, in the car on the way to work, there was another explosive blowout based on nothing. We had a company picnic that Saturday, and she became enraged that I said she didn't have to go if she didn't want to. Within a minute and a half, that discussion led to an angry demand for a divorce. Again, I was absolutely floored. I told her I wouldn't even consider talking about a divorce, and tried to turn the conversation towards us raising our son together. She wanted none of it, and none of me.

With MUCH agonizing persuasion, I convinced her to re-enter counseling together. We've been to 3 sessions over the past 3 weeks, and they've been brutal. Recall, in January she said that her feelings about me have tended towards divorce for the past 2 years. In the first session on our return to counseling, it suddenly became 10 years. By the third session, all 16 years of our marriage have been a horror to her, I've been a horrible, negligent, abusive husband, and she's only "endured" and "survived" me for the sake of her children. By her account, there has never been any good part of our marriage at all.

Some of her allegations against me have small foundations in truth, but have been blown up to unbelievable proportions. For example, when she was sick a few months ago and wanted to be taken to the urgent care clinic, I made the comment that our health savings account only had about $50, and we'd have to figure out where to pull the money from in the budget to cover the visit. In counseling, that one event was communicated as part of a lifelong pattern me systematically and habitually refusing to allow her to receive medical care, forcing her to go to work when she's been sick or hurting, and she even said I made her go to work during a full-blown hurricane in 2004 because I wouldn't allow her to miss the paid hours (both of my sons will tell you that we were all huddled in the hallway under blankets as a family when the first hurricane passed over in 2004, and we evacuated town for the second). She used that as a launching point for saying she didn't feel safe with me, as I'm all too willing to put her in harm's way for my own gain.

Google chat & e-mail archives everything, and a search through our communication history revealed at least 7 conversations in the past 4 years alone where she's been sick, and I told her to stay home & rest, offered to take her to the doctor, took care of appointments & pre-registration for her, left my work to get her there, and even one time that I went to work for her (she was a cleaning contractor at the time.) Most of her accusations, however, simply have no foundation in reality. It's all just cruel, hateful slander.

Similar to the situation above, the vast majority of her claims against me can be easily be disproven--either documented in her own words in e-mail or chat, eyewitness accounts of family & friends, or the fact that her stories change repeatedly and are often so riddled with self-contradictions, they're simply unbelievable. In fact, I've shed many tears when reading through that written communication archive from the past several years, because it clearly depicts a couple very much in love with each other.

I have been building two fears in my mind. (Three, if you include me wondering if I am truly the horrible monster she claims me to be. But friends, family... most notably our sons, and the e-mail and chat logs have reassured me against that notion. Not that I'm without fault, but I am confident that I've always been a loving, attentive, care-giving husband.) The first is that my wife is being unfaithful to me, and she's demonizing me to assuage her own guilt. The second is that she's had some kind of complete mental or emotional breakdown. Which leads to the purpose of this post...

I'm starting to learn much about peri-menopausal rage. Over the past few days, I've read hundreds of personal accounts that are near mirror images of what I am experiencing. The sudden, irrational anger and hatred. The desperate, false suspicions & accusations. The personality reversal. The denial. I've even read my own wife's hate-fueled words repeated by numerous women who have experienced this, and got through it with medical attention and hormone replacement. Sadly, for many of them, it came too late... after their families fell apart because too much damage has been done.

I don't want that to happen! I want my wife back. I want my family back. She has put me through weeks of cruelty and anguish, but I don't believe that it's really coming from her, and I don't want to give up on her.

Is this menopause rage thing real? If through some kind of intervention, she can be convinced to seek help, is there anyone out there that has experienced this and has seen it turn around? I'm heartbroken and desperate.

~Tertius