Crazy with fear? Or just crazy?

It's been a long night of typing, and I want to get this finished. But I have a couple of notes that don't fit in either of my other two posts from tonight.

A couple of days ago, Wife and Boyfriend 5 cooked up a scheme that can only be called conspiracy to file a false police report. For days, Boyfriend 5 had been urging the idea that I was some kind of threat to Wife, and Wife kept telling him he was wrong. Well finally she gave in and consented to his suggestion that she send him an e-mail allowing him to intervene "just in case something happened." Specifically, this e-mail reads:

If I were to disappear and fail to communicate with you for any
considerable period, say over 48 hours, ... it would be wise for you to try to
find me and if you couldn't, to contact law enforcement personnel and have them
look very closely at [Hosea], my husband.... I own a Smith and Wesson .38,
which would likely be missing.

This is obviously a lie, and a dangerous lie at that. As noted, Wife had told Boyfriend 5 for days that any such concerns were foolish. That she finally wrote the e-mail anyway can mean only one of two things: either she felt badgered enough that she did it to shut him up, or he succeeded in persuading her -- against her own better judgment! -- that this was a realistic fear.

And Wife wonders why I worry that prolonged communication with that family will warp her mind and poison her against me!

Other fears are maybe more clearly delusional. There is, for example, Wife's fear that my essay about the symmetry of our relationship and the tragedy of its decay was really an ultimatum of some kind.

But the most priceless example happened this evening when I needed to run briefly to the store for one thing. Wife asked me which store I was going to. I asked her (in turn) what she needed me to get. And Wife backed off suddenly saying, "Oh never mind!" It took five minutes of wheedling (on my part) before I could get her to confess that she wanted me to pick up a loaf of bread.

A loaf of bread? Wife is now afraid of a loaf of bread? Did I hear that right?

Well, no, she said. She wasn't afraid of the bread itself. She was just afraid that if she asked me to get a loaf of bread then I would get angry.

Angry. Over a loaf of bread.

Amazing. A true piece of work.

On the other hand, I suppose I should be grateful about one thing. At least this explains why she thought that I was giving her an ultimatum above. If she is capable of believing that I would get mad over her asking me to pick up a loaf of bread, then maybe I shouldn't be so hard on her. After all, at that point she cannot possibly claim to be of sound mind, so maybe the rest of it all isn't really her fault

But I don't know for sure. It is just bizarre.