Tech - I remember your sitch. That's brilliant. What happened after she collapsed?
This behavior isn't intellectual. It's much more 'primal' than that. It takes alot of energy to maintain the level of drama your wife is exhibiting. She's (trying) to have alot of exchanges with you. And for every exchange she makes, you can bet she thinks about stuff dozens or hundreds of times. She's perpetually in an elevated state of emotion. It's literally a chemical thing... she is producing adreniline all the time.
There is a great chart describing his up on Wikipeida. I can't post a jpg, so you'll need to follow this link to view it. The chart shows the cycle. Your wife is in 'resistance' right now, but can't maintain that level forever... sooner or later she will fall into exhaustion.
So at some point she will hit exhaustion. Don't expect some big apology when that happens. That would require a level of intellectual thinking your wife simply doesn't have right now. (I.e. to apologise she would have to be intellectual enough to think through her old behaviors, see her new situation and recognise the error of her ways... too complicated).
When my wife hit exhaustion, she just 'calmed down'. Nothing really more than that. But that calmer state is an <opporitunity> for you to have more civil conversations. And you can 'reward' those civil exchanges, which, over time, will start to show her a new way to behave which is rewarding.
When my wife crashed, she did (begrudgingly) admit that she 'over-reacted'. That was as close as I got to an apology. But end of day, this isn't about apologies for me. I just want to repair the relationship. A new level of more civil behavior is reward in itself, I don't need the apology.
My thread, Carpe Diem #4 Orig Thread: Carpe Diem #1
