Cobra, Man your thread drives me crazy at times. Here are my unadulterated thoughts, as abrasive as they no doubt are: Who gives a rip if her issues are FOO related, ADD related, OCD related or--my personal opinion--B*TCH related, there is no reason why your whole family should have to tolerate it.
If I were you, I would immediately stop delving into the realm of her gray matter and instead focus on what boundaries you will enforce and how you will go about it. What you will say, how you will react, how you will handle it with your children, etc.
WHO CARES why she acts the way she does. It's mildly interesting to delve into that realm of thinking but at some point, don'tcha have to figure out what you are going to do about it?
You cannot will your wife to face her issues. This is a dead end road.
Knowing this, it seems like a much more productive route to focus on how YOU will act when faced with her copious problemos.
Ironically enough, given what I just said above, I was thinking about you and your upbringing yesterday. You wrote something about the Japanese influence creating in you a person who chronically puts others' feelings above your own. I got to thinking about this approach and wondered what a Japanese alpha male would look like? How do Japanese men lead their families while at the same time always putting other people ahead of themselves?
Anyway, the reason I am writing this is because I think that your hyperfocus on her disorders is a sort of mental crutch--you don't have to do what is naturally hard for you (deal with your aversion to confrontation) while you are dealing with her issues.
As I read this I'm sure it will come out far harsher than what I intend. Sorry in advance for that. If we were having lunch instead of communicating thru typed words, I can assure you that you would know that I am not attacking, simply trying to redirect a friend towards a direction in which he has some potential for great impact and away from a dead end street.
