Could my husband have delusional disorder?

Not looking for a diagnosis, just where to turn if this seems like a possibility.

He is very intelligent (holds a doctorate), but there have always been problematic aspects to his behavior. About eight years ago he lost his job at a large institution, and he blames it on me. He also claims that at that time I had an affair. Both are based on very flimsy evidence, but of course both are possible. The job issue is too complicated to go into, and as for the affair, he found flirtatious emails that suggested I might be willing. I’m not proud of it, but do remember at the time I was working full time and had four children still at home, so wasn’t really a very likely scenario.

The point is that in a normal relationship, people move on. Instead, he has built an elaborate structure/story on top of these two things. This story seems to occupy his every waking minute, and leads to almost-daily rants against me, as well as some abusive behavior.

In this story, I am solely responsible for his losing his job, and I am responsible for his inability to get a job since (in truth, though, he is in a field that has undergone massive changes, and he’s not that young. I have been his biggest supporter and cheerleader, I think). According to him, I wouldn’t move at the time because of my “boyfriend” (in fact, I dug in my heels about moving because we still had four kids in school and they had suffered a lot from previous moves).

Because of all this, he says I owe him “recompense” and I should be seeking to make amends. I am supposed to come up with damaging information that would allow him to sue the institution, or alternatively to blackmail the right people to get him money. He claims he lost a million dollars in lost salary because of me, and I must find a way for him to get it back (this is based on the salary he thinks he SHOULD have had, rather than his actual salary). We have actually seen numerous attorneys, and there’s just no way. He has to move on.

Things were very bad – he called me ranting at work so much that my boss threatened to fire me. He would take my car keys or disable my car as a way to try to force me to “do as I was told.” I worked for a newspaper, and I was supposed to be writing articles to expose his former bosses and the institution. I didn’t make enough to pay all our bills, but fortunately had had received a large inheritance and was also consulting. Nevertheless, he would hold paying the mortgage over my head as a way to try to coerce me to write these articles or “investigate” or any number of other strange schemes.

In the last three years, things have gotten much worse. I was lucky enough to get a good job with the very same institution for which he had worked (it is a small town and this is really the only well-paying gig in town). Now I am able to pay the bills, but instead of being thankful he has stepped up his demands.

Now, I am not supposed to work at work – I am ONLY supposed to apply for other jobs. Last week he decreed I was supposed to be calling executive recruiters all over the country. He calls me several times a day to check on what I am doing, and flies into a rage if I don’t answer. According to him, the only purpose of this job was to “infiltrate” the institution and get information, and the institution is “evil.”

So, if I don’t “infiltrate” the institution and gain damaging information, I am supposed to quit my job (even though he doesn’t have a job). But this is my fault (pending financial disaster if I follow his dictates), because I am supposed to have been spending all my time looking for a job. He stops at almost nothing to enforce his dictates; he has come to work and disabled my car because I refused to change our website to suit him, and he has been banned from my workplace. He ended up being arrested and I had to bail him out, and he had to pay a $600 fine in municipal court. You might think this would have been a wake-up call for him, but instead he again saw me as the villain!

Recently I was supposed to go out of town for work, and he objected because it would “take time away from looking for another job.” I literally snuck a few pieces of clothing out of the house, because he would have seen a suitcase and taken it. I went to dinner with a friend, and while I was there he came by and got into my car and took the clothes I had managed to sneak out. I went to stay at a hotel, and while I was gone he forged a check and cleaned out my bank account.

There is so much more, but right now I am focusing on what seems to me to be delusions. People who know some of this are quick to label him abusive, and of course he is – but I have long felt there is something else going on, because he can be a good guy, and his “craziness” is completely focused on me – he isn’t really like this around other people. Also, he has zero insight – he is 100% invested that his ideas are correct, and therefore I deserve just about anything he does to me. And he is in the right age range for the onset of delusional disorder.

I think that is what got me finally thinking about delusional disorder. Anybody normal would have some insight and realize that the things he has done are damaging to our marriage – yet he believes he is a wonderful husband and I am responsible for every single problem. He really believes this, and can’t understand why I withdraw from him or get angry.

I went to see a psychologist that I respect and, without any editorial comment, just listed some of the stuff he has done and his belief system. He said my husband is not going to get better and I needed to get out (our priest also said this). He also suggested Aspergers. Although I do see some aspects of Aspergers, he is not classic by any means – but I ran across a paper saying that delusions are common with Aspergers.

Also, his aunt was hospitalized for a year after she had paranoid delusions, thought someone was trying to poison her, etc. She was living with my husband’s grandmother, and his aunt was hospitalized after she attacked her mother. My mother-in-law was also not quite “right,” but I don’t recall anything I would call delusions.

At this point I’m sure anyone would wonder what is wrong with me that I am still with him. Legitimate question. I am finding it very hard to disengage, however, since I am the breadwinner. Even though he got this large inheritance, he claims I will have to pay him alimony, etc. Too complicated to go into.

Plus, part of the time he is not so bad, and I lie to myself that things will change. I know they won’t. Our children think he is crazy – I should probably mention that. He is also likely to be very vindictive if I leave. In fact, he has installed a keylogger on the home computer and got my email password. Before I changed it, he saw an email to a friend asking if I could move in with her for awhile. He went crazy.

This whole thing scares me. I don’t know why I need a label so bad, but in my mind “delusional disorder” seems to fit. What do you think? I don’t go around talking about this, because he is the father of my children, he is really not a bad man, and I don’t want to hold him up to ridicule. Also, I’m hardly perfect!

I’m thinking this message board might be a place where people will get what I’m talking about – I don’t hate him, I don’t believe he is somehow intrinsically evil, but I do believe I’ve got a massive problem that needs to be addressed. Of course there is so much more, but one key thing is he absolutely believes all this, and there is no reasoning with him. Also, his whole life is built around this. He hardly talks or thinks about anything else. Please help.