My wife is only thirty-three years old, and she’s already giving the vibe of a woman going through menopause. I know a woman going through menopause because I experienced my mom. It was terrible.

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We got married five years ago, and we have two children. The last one is almost two years old. My wife talks non-stop. As I write this, she’s walking around insulting the cat because it didn’t eat its food last night. She talks about everything, and she does it angrily.

She wasn’t like that when we started. She wasn’t a calm person, but this new level of talking is beyond what we bargained for. If I signal her to tone it down, it gets worse. “What do you mean I should tone it down? I have to leave this house before you all turn me into a mad person.”

She forgets easily. Sometimes I think she forgets her own name because you would call her a thousand times before she realizes she’s the one you’re calling. We fought three days ago because she said I didn’t leave housekeeping money before I left for work. I did. She went to the market with it and came back with foodstuffs. She said she didn’t go to the market. Even when I was showing her what she bought, she said calmly, “James, are you telling me I’m losing my mind? How can I go to the market and not know it?”

She started talking, and she did until we went to bed. The only time she doesn’t talk is when she’s sleeping. She wakes up, and the whole world would know.

She also has anger issues. Terrible ones. I would breathe, and she would get angry that I’m breathing too much. “Can’t you hold your breath for even a minute?”

She cooked rice when I wanted something else. She complained I don’t eat her food because I might be having a girlfriend outside the house. I forced myself to eat the rice and left a little in the bowl. “Who should eat what you’ve left in the bowl?”

She came to the hall with the bowl, opened my mouth, and pushed the food into it. She said, “A glutton like you, but you want to behave like you don’t like food.”

I laughed so hard the food spilled out. Another anger episode that lasted all night. I did the cleaning, but she came back to do it again because, according to her, I hadn’t done anything right in my life.

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She’s only thirty-three, and she’s getting me scared. She didn’t use to be like this. She screams at the kids, and they shiver. She would later calm them and say, “Mom is sorry.” There’s a lot going on in this house that didn’t happen a few months ago. What can I do to help her, because this is clearly beyond me.

—Eric

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