Hi there, this is my first post, and hope is in the right place. It's about an issue within my family I'm desperate to resolve. How to do so, I've no idea, and it feels like separation/divorce is the most likely option.

And that makes me so desperately unhappy.

I only very recently came across a description of something that might apply to my wife (and to an extent my son), but I think there's other stuff going on. My best guess is largely based on the descriptions I can find of being a Professional Victim and being Bipolar. Any advice or help (after reading this lengthy post) would be so greatly appreciated.

I refer to my wife as J, my daughter N, and my son A. We live in the UK. Thanks in advance for reading:

There is a particular problem that’s been apparent in my marriage since the beginning. My wife often goes into a rage – for reasons probably known only to her – and everyone in the family will suffer the onslaught of verbal, occasionally physical abuse.

The cause? As far as she is concerned it’ll be either me, or one of the kids. There isn’t really one though. Maybe it’ll be because the dishes weren’t done. Maybe N left something on the floor. Maybe something I said. But they aren’t genuine reasons, because all these things may have happened previously, without a psychotic rage ensuing.

There’s no point arguing back, although often it feels impossible not to. To do so results in more rage, more abuse, louder screaming, threats, intimidation, smashing objects, worst case scenario: violence.

There’s no discussing it after things have calmed down. Firstly, there’s never an appropriate time. To go ahead discussing it anyway results in more rage, more abuse, louder screaming, threats, intimidation, smashing objects, worst case scenario: violence.

During these rages, it’s as if she wants you to snap back somehow. The rages might not always involve screaming. Often she will speak with wide psycho eyes in some kind of evil ‘batman’ voice instead. There will always be threats and intimidation. She will always cast up previous actions where she deemed I was in the wrong. She continues this to seek an eventual and inappropriate response from me. Eventually she will resort to name calling, and saying nasty things she know will hurt me, such as saying she hoped my “wh***" of a mother died an agonising death (she did; lung cancer). And this is in front of our children. If I “snap” in defence she achieves her aim.

She is the victim.

Everything was my fault.

In the future, it’ll always be my fault.

She will NEVER, and I mean NEVER, apologise for her inappropriate psychotic behaviour. She’ll never apologise for screaming at her daughter she is a lazy fat c***, for example. She said this recently during a psychotic episode, brought on by god only knows. I’d seen the darkening signs the day before, and did what I could to try and be supportive and cheer her up. The next day? Wham! Often a hangover can bring around the dark moods, and she has many.

It’s as if all she wants to do is party, even – and more often – if it means sat downstairs on her own getting pissed listening to YouTube. She won’t care I’ve got work the next day, or the kids have school. She will justify her reasons. She will explain she deserves it. To try and discourage all this will only bring around a psychotic episode. Sometimes she will creep out in the night with some teenage boys she knew from her previous job. Teenage boys (18+) for heaven sake. She’s 37. There’s other stuff going on there too, but more of that another time.

She isn’t nice to be around when she’s drunk. Eventually she will often become antagonising and abusive. So I’ll go to bed. And she will stay up having a party by herself, or disappear off into the night. Our marriage isn't normal for other reasons too, since her affair back in 2009. We don't sleep together. Not since then.

Money. She has zero ability to budget. Give her money; she will spend it all before the month is out. Since she lost her job (months ago), I’ve had to bolster the normal account with savings every single month. She has complete access to the normal account, and every single month we’ll be massively overdrawn. In total, around 10K at the time of writing has been spent to deal with this. 10K of savings utterly wasted. Years ago she secretly ran up huge credit card debts on my cards. My entire fault apparently; firstly, I wasn’t giving her enough money, and secondly it was all spent on things we need…

And there’s a couple of horrifying things here. For years I would eventually lash out, and say nasty stuff back in reaction to her rages and her abuse. For years I’ve carried this vague guilt it’s all my fault: I’ve never loved her enough; cared for her enough; earned enough money; wanted to get drunk with her enough; done enough housework; went away too much with work. The list is endless.

And this realisation, after 18 years of conflict, only really comes about now. I have known something is wrong. I did feel emotionally she was like a child, and our so-called family wasn’t two adults and two children, but more like me and three kids. And the killer of it all is that I’ve no idea what to do. Maybe four kids, come to think of it.

Years ago she had an affair and went off to live with a guy. That failed, she came back, went away again. Came back. I often think she came back because she didn’t like living in the poverty she found herself, and of course the poverty she found her children living in. When she last left, she only took A; N wouldn’t go. I desperately didn’t want her back, but bringing her back brought A, and also brought N happiness, because she missed her mum. And it’s easy to remember the good elements to J, of which there are many.

So what’s the future? N has her GCSE’s this year (important UK school exams), and I’ve a new job requiring moving away in the summer break. So do we all go away to live somewhere else, and continue the suffering? To me, that would now be the crazy option. So do I leave her? Leaving her will no doubt bring around psychotic episodes with her appearing at my work to tell my boss what an evil and disturbed person I am. Apart from the entire humiliation of my wife doing such a thing, I’m not too bothered. I feel it’ll highlight the fact she needs help? That we, as a family in perpetual conflict, need help? So I leave her option. She’ll end up in some **** hole with no money. The kids will not want to go with her. Maybe she’ll go home – as a last resort – to her original European country. Maybe taking A with her.

There’s another issue. He is constantly in trouble at school. Especially so as he’s been hitting puberty. Being disruptive in class; rude; refusing to take or accept responsibility; always laying the blame at anyone but him, usually the “crap” teachers who are “picking” on him, antagonising other kids and teachers. And having been to the school a number of times to discuss this with the head of year (J won’t go – she believes it’s all the teachers fault, and were she to go, she would “snap”), it is apparent that maybe psychologically something isn’t quite right. Neither of us could figure it out, until recently I realised that in many ways his behaviour is just like his mothers.

I put in a Google search stating:

“Never admits fault+Never accepts responsibility+Always escalates arguments until you snap then blames argument on you”

The first hit took me to a site about "Professional Victims" that in many ways described J and her behaviour. In some aspects perfectly, and to an extent A’s too (I can't link as it's my first post).

We’ve had social workers come round. The last time (2013) was through J getting drunk and playing music loud late into the night. I was working early the next day and had to sleep (I'm legally obliged to, otherwise I can't legally work), so eventually, after seeing her dancing hanging off a pole on the patio by herself, pulled the plug of her music. She went mental, and smashed up household items with a hammer. In front of me and the kids. In front of my daughter’s friend, who was round having a sleepover. I called the police.

To the social worker that eventually came round her behaviour probably appeared excellent. J would calmly listen. Never loose her temper. She basically did everything to portray me as the cause and the problem. Having the social worker come round did seem to prevent any further psychotic episodes, but never resolved the issue. J had said it was me who smashed everything with the hammer, despite evidence to the contrary, and of course played the victim to the best of her ability.

So it’s now apparently obvious she’s suffering from this victim mentality. It’s obvious she also suffers these incontrollable rages. I don’t know what comes first. What I do know is that I’m unable to solve this problem. I do know it causes me endless misery where I want to withdraw from the world.

It’s even worse now, seeing my son is largely behaving in a similar manner. I feel I’m no longer able to have a typical father/son relationship with him. Recently I was desperate to take him off mountain biking, something he’s really getting into. I’d made an effort to help him chose and buy the best gear, bought bike roof-racks for the car so we could go places that were the best in the country. And in the end we couldn’t. We’d have petty arguments instead. They’d escalate.

He wanted to do the hardest and most dangerous trails requiring skills neither of us have. And when you don’t know what you’re doing – or have the ability – on these trails people not only get seriously injured, but die. I tried explaining he should do the less demanding stuff first. Have some fun with his Dad; get some experience first. He had zero interest in that. I explained to him I’m 42, and I’ve little interest in taking such pointless risk, but appreciate as a teenager he does. Zero interest. That lack of empathy from A is something I suspect is quite significant. The inability to perceive things from another person’s perspective. He will instead accuse me that I’m making it all about me and about what I want. And I can explain my reasoning to the best of my ability, but I may as well bang my head off a wall.

Eventually setting off on a trip (at a place that had some of the more “expert” trails he wanted to do, which he's never done), he ended up demanding I just take him home, after a disagreement. So I said ok, and turned the car around. I wanted there to be consequences for his “actions”, or demand in this case. On the way home the disagreement became an argument that just escalated. Eventually I told him to stop behaving like a little prick. Even called him a little prick, after he’d sat there impersonating my accent. So we get home. “Why are you back?” asks his mum. “Dad called me a prick…” And of course, A, who can seemingly do no wrong in his mother’s eyes, sets off his mother into another psychotic episode. He’s pretty good at doing that. In the past I’m pretty sure he’s done it on purpose. He’s played his mum and me off pretty well, all things considered.

With of course it all being entirely my fault. In many ways I do blame myself too. I think I shouldn’t have been so quick to just go home after he asked to. I could’ve dealt with the disagreement better; I shouldn’t have called him names, or said nasty stuff, and so on.

So now neither J nor A will talk to me, as they both “support” themselves as being the “victim” of my actions. To be honest I’m happy not having to interact with them at the moment, because this avoidance brings a level of peace.

So literally all A’s teachers constantly have issues with him these days. So does his sister. There’s this low-level antagonism continually coming from A. It’s directed at everyone, and almost always causes an adverse reaction, which he’ll then deliberately escalate to somehow bring blame onto the other party, and focus all his attention onto that.

So much like his mother.

I’d threatened him with real consequences if I was called to the school again regarding any of his inappropriate behaviour. And before the holidays, there I am, back at the school. I figured it could all wait until after the holidays; I didn’t want it to spoil our father/son time together. I got the impression his mum couldn’t care less. I’d envisioned us having this great time together, doing stuff we both like, and all that attention somehow bringing around better behaviour at school. And it was his behaviour that day that caused something in me to snap. I felt frustrated and angry and hurt that he couldn’t see that all I was trying to do was for us to both have some fun together. I couldn’t believe when he accused me of just making it all about me, and what I wanted. After I’d spent days explaining why the black “expert” trails could wait.

And it’s horrendous seeing our family this way. It’s horrendous because there doesn’t seem to be any way to solve the problems or get help. Discussing it with J is impossible. As I said earlier, to do so brings around anger and rage. Discussing A’s inappropriate behaviour (at school mostly) see’s him get truly distressed, because he’s unable to understand or comprehend it all. He feels everyone is against him, except of course his mum.

And of course there is many times where my conduct has subsequently allowed them both to portray themselves as the victim, through something I eventually said or did.

And so I don’t know what to do. I feel like I live with a monster that cunningly keeps itself hidden from public view (I’m sure they hear her though). I feel like my son is becoming in many ways like her too. What’s the cause of it? Is something you’re born with? Is it through not receiving enough attention or reassurance, or is the lack of that just a trigger?

So I leave her, and survive the subsequent nuclear war she will no doubt vindictively cause, and has continually threatened to do? N’s most important year in school is then seriously disturbed. So I leave her after N has done her exams around May? I move to my new work location with N. J has then around 3 months to find herself somewhere to live, other than our current rented accommodation. What happens to all our expensive furniture? Sold on like the last time she moved out? All wasted until she moves to her last resort option, home in her original European country? What happens to our dog? More importantly, what happens to A?

I’d rather we all lived together as a family.

I don’t think – truly – we ever have.

And as things stand, I don’t think we ever will. In many ways I feel part of the problem has been me, for not having the moral courage and maturity to deal with it all in a proper fashion.

I feel part of the problem has been me, for not identifying all this sooner, and therefore being better able to conduct myself, and not allow any behaviour from me enable them to portray themselves as the “victim”.

In a sense, through my own actions (or lack of) I feel like I’ve been enabling it all.

And I’m so miserable. I feel like the life has been sucked from me. With all my premature full head of grey hair and wrinkles I look like the life has been sucked from me. And I honestly feel a shiver of horror when I realise how long it’s been going on for. I think of all the times J has mentioned me being depressed and miserable. I think of all the times she’d blame it on my job. That can be stressful enough, but she is the real cause of the misery.

How can I ever be happy or relaxed knowing I can’t ever trust her?

More to the point, how can I be happy or relaxed knowing at any time she might explode into a rage, and somehow twist the cause and fault of it onto me or one of the children?

Thanks for reading/listening.