Hello, I'm new

I am new here, and think this is message board is a great resource. It has helped me a lot to read the experiences and advice available here.

I have been searching the 'net for information about PMS. For over a year I had been tracking my wife's odd behavoir as a function of her monthly cycle. Guess what? The most frequent and severe blowups happened during the time between her ovulation and the start/end of her period. I used a spreadsheet to track this and the trends are pretty conclusive.

So it seems pretty obvious that PMDD is to blame. However, now that I am more aware of the real issues behind her behavior, I can take her attacks less personally (yea right), and not respond to her anger with anger of my own.

Unfortunately, she is in denial about her PMDD. She believes that she is ok and that my behavoir is the cause all the problems and blowups during those periods. She even uses some very odd logic to prove it, but it is best not to dwell on that.

The big issue for me is that we have a 5 year old daughter and a 2 year old son. I know what is really going on with her, but the kids do not. Sometimes after a blowup, my daughter will feel that she did something wrong, so I have to be constantly on the watch for this and do damage control.

For example:

Last Valentines day, I bought my wife some flowers, a valentines card and a fitness club gift certificate for her. I knew she was real interested in trying out this new fitness club. Before my wife came down that morning, my daughter started to get in the spirit of the holiday and wanted to make her own valentine for her mom. So she got out the paper crayons and glue and set to work. Then my wife came down (in one of her moods) and accepted the card and flowers, but wasn't too excited about them. When she saw the gift certificate, she got angry and gave me the 3 degree about how much it cost and how long it was good for. (It was about $100 for 3 months). She somehow misunderstood this and actually threw the card & certificate at me and yelled about how wasteful I was with money and how I always decide only by myself to do things... and on, and on, then she stormed out of the room.

For the next minute sat and felt sorry for myself an thought about what a great holiday this has been so far. Then I heard a strange noise from the dining room. I went to investigate and found my daughter curled up in the corner behind a chair crying and sobbing. When I asked what was wrong, she said "Moma doesn't love me because the card I made for her wasn't any good". I picked her up, held her, and had a long talk. I told her her mother loves her very much, and reasured her that everything was ok. Then we finished the card together and spent the day together doing fun things... playground, games & such.

Sorry to go on so long, but it does help to write. Enough for now, again hello to all...

Freddy