As the spouse of someone who I strongly suspect meets the criteria for BPD, I have a few sincere and respectful questions about how to better support my loved one.   Unfortunately, we do not have a positive diagnosis, since my partner refuses to seek any professional help, but I am learning as much as I can after 10 years together and identifying patterns of behavior.

Background:

When my spouse and I disagree (even about small things), she often experiences intense emotions and flies into anger or rage over the disagreement.  The anger is often disproportionate to the event or disagreement that caused it.

When we have a conflict, my natural response is to try and talk it through and come to an understanding or compromise, but she becomes so consumed with the anger that this is not possible, and will often walk away from the discussion or physically withdraw to another room.  This is somewhat of an improvement over her typical responses of screaming/raging, throwing/breaking things, or even resorting to violence.  She accuses me of never "leaving it alone" and tells me she's "not the talking type".

I get the need to walk away, it is perfectly ok to need a bit of time and space to cool off, but the problem is, she refuses to ask for this space respectfully - it is always storming off and slamming doors after horrible remarks, akin to an angsty teenager or petulant child.  Even after she has cooled off by literally ignoring me and the rest of the family (which can take days), she will not come back to the topic to find a resolution.  She refuses to talk about it again, she refuses to acknowledge or apologize if she has been hurtful or unkind,  and if I persist and try to revisit the disagreement, the argument explodes again.  She essentially just waits for the storm to "blow over", and then acts as though nothing has happened.

I am trying hard to be sensitive to her needs and support her - learn as much as I can - but I can't just leave all of our conflicts unresolved, and I also believe that both the rage behavior and withdrawal behavior are not acceptable, especially now that we have a toddler.

How I be more supportive as a spouse, while also ensuring that my own boundaries and those that are healthy for our family are respected?

How can I respect her need for space and time to process her emotions, while also ensuring that our conflicts do eventually get resolved?

Finally, how can I encourage her to seek treatment or professional help?  I have brought it up over and over again but she absolutely refuses to seek help, says that talking to a professional is the "one thing" that she doesn't want to do.  I have made appointments, offered to go together, offered alternative deliveries like online, in-person... all to no avail.