How to encourage spouse to get help? It's ruining my life

Hi everyone,

First of all, thank you for your time and for the existence of this forum. One of the wonderful phone support staff made me aware of it and I hope one or more of you might be able to help me.

In brief, I have been trying (and failing) for a couple of years to encourage my wife to seek help. The trouble is that she doesn't believe that she has any issues, and thinks that I am blaming her for all of our troubles if I try to talk about them. This is the case even when I speak solely in terms of 'us' and 'our relationship', and I am more than willing to admit that I am not even close to perfect (I'm not the most outgoing person - though I'm working on it). I'm not great at emotional issues or conflict; I'm a logical person without much of a temper, and have a hard time listening to someone who is shouting at me.

Herein lies the issue. Anger is her go-to emotion when things don't go the way she planned. Further, she tends to set extremely high expectations in most situations, which means she is often disappointed. Anytime I don't agree with her about something, she tends to get angry, and if I still don't agree, or if I try to calm things down, she just escalates until I cave or leave. Escalation can include her punching, kicking, or throwing things at me. This has resulted in damage to our furniture and home at times, but luckily not to me (she's a lot smaller than me). She has also thrown me out of the car in the middle of the highway before.

As a result of this, I am constantly walking on eggshells and have to carefully consider nearly every word I say. It's exhausting and has impacted very negatively on my life. I am trying to finish a PhD for example, but can't concentrate on work because I will receive messages on my phone every hour or so with some new crisis or another (and the extra stress of what will happen if I am in a meeting and can't look at the phone right away). My wife constantly thinks up rules that I have to follow, but won't follow them herself. If I ask about it, she says I just have to accept that 'she's the boss'.

I don't feel like I'm me anymore. I'm always in damage control mode. It's like I have to live in a tiny box inside of myself.

Anyhow, I was lucky enough to have a job a couple of years ago that has an EAP program, and went to see a psychologist because I had a huge anxiety attack at work because of worries about things at home. The psychologist was wonderful, and shone some light on things. She thought I was dealing with depression and anxiety with some derealisation symptoms, and based on what I had explained thought my wife might be a candidate for a Borderline Personality diagnosis (she did so with extreme caution of course as she was talking to me and not my wife; likewise I don't attempt to diagnose and have never used the BPD term with her). She encouraged me to seek help together with my wife.

When I have tried to raise us going to see someone together, she just thinks that I'm crazy and gets angry that I'm not how she'd like me to be. I've been told not to try to talk about things when she's angry, and I understand why, but if I try to talk when she's calm she just gets angry and blows up and blames me for upsetting her.

I'm exhausted. My PhD is behind and running out of time. I can't have friendships because she gets suspicious and won't stop messaging me and accuses me of neglecting her. Likewise, I can't bring her when I see my friends because something that is said will always be interpreted as a cloaked insult, or she'll feel that I didn't stand up for her, or some other thing.

I'm starting to feel that my life isn't worth living. I'm drowning. At times I feel like a bad person because I can't help someone who I have committed myself to caring for, and at others I just want to leave. At the same time, anytime I consider leaving the thought is withdrawn out of fear of what she might do if I did.

I don't know how things got so bad. I'm open to any advice that anyone might be able to offer.

Thank you for listening.