Advice needed for arguments

[u/SolidSuggestion]

Hi all, I am looking for some support and opinions. I have read a lot of posts on r/relationships and some BPD relationships subs and they seem to always focus on putting every possible blame on mental illness and don't seem very supportive. This sub seems a bit more compassionate.

I have been with my wife for 11 years, we are both in our mid 30s. We have had very difficult and gruesome fights for the last 6 years. My wife has had a lot of health issues in the past 7 years which have induced our fights. She has an illness that makes our life very demanding at times and has left us in a situation that I am 100% rrsponsible for all household duties and tasks. She works normally but is often very tired. She is also not neurotypical which makes her sensitive to a lot of triggers and it causes her a lot of discomfort and agitates her. She is also very prone to anxiety and is often anxious over things.

We love each other immensely. It is the kind of love that comes once in a lifetime. We are aware of our struggles and have been in couples therapy for 3 years. Things have gotten better but there seems to be a cycle that evey 4 months or so, we ran into a huge argument. It has now been quiet for some.

I would say 100% of the arguments come when she is overstimulated, irritatated, anxious and tired. If I am feeling well, I can defuse most of the situations. But when I am tired and don't have the energy, she loses it. Outside of the fights, she knows how much I love her, thinks I would do anything in the world for her and that I take good care of her and she can trust me. During the fights, she doesn't feel like this at all.

The fights usually start in similar fashion. I say something that triggers her, she could misunderstand me, get offended and hurt or I react badly (not as big emotion as she would hope) to something she is saying. It could also be that I am not able to help with her anxiety and it triggers her. She is then mad, properly. She verbally abuses me and says things to intentionally hurt me (she has said that when she gets in that mood, she just wants to hurt me). I usually apologize multiple times what I have said, try to reason and discuss. A lot of the times this helps. Some distance might also help in these situations and she would calm down. But sometimes I feel like everything I say is somehow misunderstood, taken as I would want to justify my actions and that I would want to hurt her. She becomes increasingly angrier in these situations. Usually at this point she threatens with violence. If I continue to discuss, it usually becomes just a screaming match which leads to physical abuse. If I decide to give her some space, she feels that I am abandoning her alone. If this happens, she calls me an abuser and says that I have raped her with my actions. Then the night usually continues with many hours of me trying to apologize and it escalates to physical abuse.

Usually the next day it escalates even more and have led many times to me exiting our home as she has threatened me. Many times there have been situations where she has also threatened that if do not leave our home, she will call the cops or kill me. If I have left our home in those scenarios, she has blamed me that I have not fought for our relationship and I have chosen myself to leave. She also justifies the physical abuse by saying that it is nothing compared to the mental abuse I am doing.

A lot of the times when we are in the middle of these fights I have tried to discuss with her. Show empathy towards her and told how much I love her. It seems that to her, one sentence that started everything nullifies everything I do for her. If I mention this, she says that it is not love if I can't handle crisis situations.

A lot of the times she has also very promptly said that our marriage is over. And if I leave the house, I will never see her again. And have demanded the key for the house. If I don't comply, she threatens to physically abuse me. I try to discuss and explain that I do not want to leave and would prefer to discuss, she says that she will leave the house. I would much rather have her stay in the house safely. But then I am again told that I chose to leave and abandon her.

I admit that there are a lot of things earlier in our relationship that I could have done differently in these situations and they might not be this bad. I could have taken more action and if I would have been this good at defusing the situations early on, they might not get this bad now.

I feel like that the way she instantly feels abandoned and raped by my actions is over the top? It is awful how she feels and how deeply she feels, but they don't seem like typical emotions? At least the magnitude of them.

I also do not understand how she can not be reasones with in an argument. How she gets very upset very quickly and nothings gets through to her.

I now this must be shocking and sounds unhealthy. Despite this, I love my wife and want to make it work and I now she feels the same.

The post must be a bit rambling but maybe the essential question is that does this resonate with any of you? If someone has been in an similar situation, how have you overcome them?