I think my wife has PPD.

Hi everyone.

This is my first post but I was watching the conversations some months back when I first suspected my wife has PPD. I confronted her with this suspicion after a fair bit of reading about it, including on this forum. But it didn't go well; we've since moved on and had a pretty happy life but her symptoms have continued with varying degrees of impact.

She is constantly fighting with people but blames them. She thinks people are being racist towards her (she is a foreigner here). She clashes with people in every sphere of life. She sees little things that I don't see. And because I don't see them, I am emotionally immature and so my opinions can't be trusted. The most significant sign of the PPD has been with my family (her in-laws). She has felt under attack from them since the day before we were married nearly eight years ago. Things snowballed to the extent that an intervention order was sought from the courts against my brother, and though I disagreed with it wholeheartedly I did it out of my love for her and the desire to protect her.

And since then, any attempt to restore a relationship with my family (including professional mediation some months back) is sabotaged by her because nothing they do is good enough for her. She sees nothing but danger. Any warm feelings I have for them are rejected and framed as disloyalty. I think she is very insecure.

She has recently been fighting with her brother, whom she believed had mistreated her verbally. He has since told me that to apologise would only feed her delusion. I mostly agree with this, since what he said (that upset her) didn't seem like much to me. Which pretty much describes the difference between us. She sees threat everywhere, I see the best in people. She was an abused child so this is very understandable, but it makes for an angry life for her and a "walking on egg shells" existence for everyone else. I do not like living this way but I have not been able to express any other opinion, so I go along with it.

I know that this sounds weak; it is weak. I'm not sure how to proceed but I feel that this latest episode (I told her that I had called my mother without her knowledge - my mother had recently had significant surgery) will finally push me to do something about it.

This is a good thing. Can be if I follow through. Another thing is that while I have often found myself thinking that I would be better off without her and all the drama that comes with it, I truly love her and care for her deeply and want her to be well and life to be peaceful. She is a truly wonderful person. As well, we are preparing to be parents and I don't want that to introduce a whole lot of other issues. More people for her to fight with!

I just wanted to share this story. It's nice to know there are other people out there dealing with the consequences of PPD. Any encouragement or advice please feel free to respond.

Thanks for reading.

And if anyone has any advice about how to encourage treatment, that could help a lot. I am leaning towards our GP, whom she trusts greatly, to help us with this, but anything else... I'm all ears. I know that PPDs don't think they need treatment, and that treatment is difficult. But I'm hopeful. After all this I am still an optimistic person. I don't want to lose that about myself.

Just an update on this.

Things have calmed down in the last day, after our most recent blowup. What normally happens during these occasions is that we talk about what's wrong with me and why I keep hurting her. There are always these deep explanations, most of which come back to my family (see feels most of our problems stem from my family).

Despite this, the resumption of peace is valuable to me and I'm afraid that I will settle for this new peace and not pursue an answer to the PPD question. I will just let it continue like I did back in May. I feel more resolve this time, but it is a question of timing also. I feel that she will need to see that I have improved and that she can trust me again before I suggest to her (again) that she might have something to do with all this as well. I am not confident in making a good choice, however, because I always tend to do the wrong thing. But then I guess that's usually true for relatives of people with PPD.

It is a shame nobody is active here.
While I don't I can give advice to someone about this issue, I'd say rather than ignoring it, you can tell her some of her problems without mentioning the possibility of a personality disorder . If she is not delusional, you may see some things improve.
But, it could be very hard for her to get out of her negativistic view of the world .
Hope you can work things out !

Thanks u23. I think you're right about not specifically naming my suspicion. Yes, it is a negitavistic view of the world - thinking needs changing. Thanks for your input and good wishes.

as mentioned before you generally need to nudge therapy for something other than PPD. As far as everything else goes, you need to listen and not judge. The second you try to defend or contradict her suspicions you also get put in the bad people group. This doesn't mean you need to agree with her ideas about what is happening but you ABSOLUTELY need to agree with the fact that her ideas are making her feel bad. One of the trickiest things with communication is to filter out their explanations and ideas about external events. Those ideas are delusional and "normal" people will focus on those and then the problems start. It doesn't matter that your mom, or your family, or whoever is not actually doing the things your wife is thinking they're doing. What matters is that your wife FEELS bad about these things. You can not alter these feelings through logic.. at least not at first. First your wife needs to feel safe, understood, and supported emotionally. This is going to be tough because it requires you to ignore your rationalization about events. Ignoring logic, and evidence, will leave you better able to focus on how she actually feels. Be a good listener, sympathize with her feelings, sympathize with her hurt, and her exhaustion. At some point agree that her feelings are tough to deal with. Maybe she should see a therapist to help with the stress of all these things that are going on. Not because she has PPD!! but because stress on its own is tough on people.

Not sure if this is the venue to speak about this. I have been married for almost 20 years. She a social worker specializing in the mental health area. I have moved up within the 23 year period awaiting hopefully my next promotion hopefully to Deputy Chief of Police.

We had spent the better part of 10 years of our marriage trying to have children. Artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, multiple surgeries dealing with endometriosis, you name I felt like I went thru it. In 2004 we decided to go thru adoption. Checkout what appeared to be a reputable adoption agency. Met the birth mother of my daughter Seasia. Later during the adoption process after we were completely hooked we learn of a possible birth father. Needless to say we were mildly entertained by the Court System for 6 years (Family Court, Appellate Division, Court of Appeals, and a short stop at the United States Supreme Court). Everything from conflict of interest, one of the top 10 most reversed judges in Family Court, court order visitations with a bad visitation proctor, an attorney thrown off the case, reinstated by the appellate division, and a trail of bad decisions before NYS Court of Appeals stepped in. My wife most of the time could not stomach the court order visitation. Often times I found myself dealing with the court order visitation and anything to do with the court.

During our daughters first years in school we were happy with the school and staff until my daughter reached 2nd grade. My wife did not like the second grade teacher and thought she was actively working against our daughter. In the 3rd grade the teacher did not pay attention to our daughter. During both these years I noticed that my wife was having difficulties with the 2nd and 3rd grade math. I became the sole source of homework problem solving for math.

Other parents and Co-workers at her more recent job have paid her compliments initially about her job performance and how our daughter was being raised. My wife has misinterpret ed the compliments as hidden criticisms or attempts to get her to give up her work secrets and parenting skills.

My wife believes that my daughter's best friend mother has spread gossip to the PTA and has not spoke to her since and not to forgive real or imagined slights

Twice during the last 7 years she has accused me of having an affair. The reasoning for the accusation is so bizarre and makes no sense. At no time did I ever do that.

My wife suspect strangers, and even people she knows, of planning to harm her when there is no good evidence to support this belief. She is constantly concern about her safety and lack of trustworthiness of others. The number of close friends has diminished for her. She believes every time she sees a police car going by that they are there to protect her from some unknowing plot. She has asked me if there is a plot out to get her. Everything from the police, School Safety, Public Safety have followed her around their respective locations all in the interest of protecting her.

During the Newtown School shooting, my wife did not want to discuss the incident with our daughter. She did not want me to tell our daughter why I was home one day from work. When I told her I was going to the range my wife began to sshh me saying what if she goes to school and tells someone what I am doing. She knows that I am and the school safety committee and the Principal and Assistant Principal know I am a law enforcement officer.

Later on my wife would tell me that she was involved in conversation with the PTA president of the school and she had to get something out of her pocketbook and said that people were jumping back from her because they thought she was going to pull out a gun. I asked her why would they think that? My wife replied it is because what I do for a living.

Most of the time, she is in touch with reality, except for their misinterpretation of others' motives and intentions.

When she is experiencing these issues I inform her of what is really happening. Somehow she wants me to believe something I know is not happening.

I have asked her to go to a counselor twice. The first time she went, she accused the counselor of being inexperienced and crazy. The second time she went to a counselor the person happened to be out of her mind. Both times she picked the therapist and both times same results she does not trust them. Every time I said look at a psychiatrist she would aim below this. Now she has no desire to see a counselor. I have again solicited the help of her mother in trying to get her help but the only response I got is that perhaps she needs to speak to the church minister. This disappoints me to see that her mother has abandoned ship.

Unfortunately, all of these episodes and pending interview for promotion at my job has left me with plenty of stress and no sanctuary of peace. I was recently in the hospital for chest pains that later turned out to be stress and High blood pressure. I don't know if I can handle anymore of her telling her problems without any resolutions or psychiatric help.

Question do you stay or go. Even worse with children being favored by the courts to go with the mother. At this time the mother is functional but I don't know for how long. The relationship between mom and daughter is the equivalent to the Cold War. Help!

I can't go any where by myself, she accuses me of every female I come in contact with, constantly texting me and if I don't reply, I am with another woman, accuses me of sleeping with my ex-wife, constantly calls me when I am off work and takes off if I don't answer the phone. I AM MISERABLE! And the lies, oh the lies!!! Filed bankruptcy and never told me anything, got us evicted from 2 apartments....??? I go to work and back and that's it, but in her mind, I am sleeping with everyone in our apartment complex, even old ladies!! I mean wrinkled up old ladies. And lets not forget the handicapped! She accuses me of them too! WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tkramer, stay or go, and madashell,

Welcome to the SOF&F forum! I myself don't have any experience with PPD or paranoid jealousy issues; nevertheless, I'm sorry you are each experiencing some very painful and difficult issues with a loved one. Apparently tkramer's post has triggered others' pain, which shows that none of you are really alone in dealing with problems raised by a person in pain herself.

So often, the other person's issues, whether it's jealousy, mistrust, lack of commitment, family abuse, etc. stem from an early trauma as a child and she stays stuck with the same coping mechanisms from that early childhood. As an adult, she is unable to move past that period of her life when it comes to real love, trust, and commitment to loved ones and to others. This is how mental disorders arise.

I hope some others with experience and hindsight in the problems you each are dealing with will respond shortly. Hang in there.