I (27m) and my wife (27f) have been together for 10 years, married for 8. She has struggled with BPD most of her life and a lot of trauma from emotionally and physically abusive parents. Even a romantic partner that what physically abusive. She had been to therapy previously but has stopped due to us not having health insurance until recently.

On to the issue. The other night she went out with a few of her friends, which I fully support. My issue is she thought I was mad about it and did not ask if everything was okay, letting that assumption that I was mad start a downward spiral where she herself was mad. So, the night continued with us both being somewhat passive aggressive (not my proudest moment). At one point, she came by the house to drop something off before leaving without even talking to me. I didn't even know she was there until someone in the house had mentioned it. After that, things kind of seemed off, and I was having my own anxiety struggle. Eventually I stated I was upset and told her why. But, as happens over text, things were not taken the way they were intended. On top of that, she was a little tipsy, so I think that just fueled her anger and assumption of why I was mad.

So, I went to pick her up like she asked and she got into the car. When we started trying to talk about what happened, I'll fully admit I got mad amd angry and started yelling at her. She responded by hitting me amd trying to jump out of the car with it moving. I grabbed her to keep her from getting hurt, which led to her scratching me.

We both calmed down and talked things through, she knew it wasn't okay to hit me (I didn't threaten her or anything like that, just yelled at her that she wasn't letting me talk and basically told her to shut up. Not my finest moment, but still nothing to indicate hitting her. I stayed on my side of the car, never went towards her or anything until I thought she was going to jump out of the car).

She explained that growing up, screaming always came before hitting. So, she basically went into fight or flight, choosing fight. We talked about some other things, and I can honestly say I see from her side why it happened.

Here's my problem. I don't know where to go from here. She's never done anything like this before. We've hardly ever even yelled at each other. We've always worked on our communication, and she says she's doing the best she can, but she seems like she's regressing, and this was sort of the breaking point. Ive told her i dont blame her, but its honestly playing on repeat in my head. Like I said, I need advice on what to do. I'm not leaving her, at least not initially. I just want to know what I can do to try and repair this because it's honestly eating at me, and I don't know what is needed. While hitting isn't okay, I also truly believe that one, it was a mistake, and they do happen, and two, it was a trauma response because it's like she became another person. Please let me know your thoughts and how her and I can work on this together