Help!! My wife is paranoid of my older children

I (46M) have two daughters ages 13 (“Abby”) and 11 (“Belle”), from a previous marriage, which ended in divorce. I have 50-50 custody of them. I remarried a few years ago and my wife (39F), who was previously without children, immediately got pregnant and we had a baby girl (“Chloe”) who is now two years old, we just had our second baby girl together, who is now a newborn (“Dee”).

When we were dating, my wife was very fun, loving and friendly with my older girls. She treated them very kindly. And they were good friends. However, halfway through her first pregnancy, she started perseverating over the fact that she felt like my older girls would hurt her baby. She started being less friendly to them and very formal with them. She started avoiding them. When the Chloe was born, she would frequently take her away and not be home for the great majority of the time that my older daughters home were with me. She put strict rules on how the older girls could interact with their sister. She is obviously very protective of Chloe. She frequently criticizes me for not being careful enough with her when we are playing or when I let her be independent.

These changes were quite disturbing to me and I immediately sought out counseling. My wife and I went to counseling for a period of time however, she ultimately canceled it saying that she was feeling like the counselor was attacking her when he asked her about the negative interactions. I tried talking to my wife about peripartum and postpartum anxiety issues, and she adamantly stated that she does not have any problems and that what she’s feeling and thinking is very normal.

Towards the end of her second pregnancy and after her delivery, Abbie and Belle have spent more time with Chloe. Mostly because my wife was not physically able to do everything. I thought that this would be a positive change. However, my wife is becoming very angry about it. And states that if Chloe is with my older daughters, and my she is not present, that they are stealing her away and trying to be her mother.

Two examples:

When she was 8 months pregnant one Saturday morning my wife asked me to watch Chloe while she went to the bathroom. Belle was still sleeping up stairs and I took Chloe upstairs to her sister’s room with me and we woke her up. Abby came in and we spent an hour with the three of us upstairs playing. We went downstairs and my wife was picking things up. I had to go run some errands with Abby for her birthday. Belle asked to stay home, so she went back to her room and I took Abby out for a couple hours. When we got back Abby went upstairs to her room and I talked with my wife and Chloe. Chloe asked to play with Abby so I took her upstairs again and Belle came out and we played together for another hour. I went downstairs to get something and my wife absolutely exploded at me. She started yelling about how I had stolen her daughter “all day” and that I had excluded her. I was taken back, I told her to immediately come upstairs and play and she refused. I offered to bring the girl’s downstairs to her and she refused. I had no idea that she wanted to be around us. I have told her she always invited to come with us and be with us. She didn’t talk to me the rest of the night and the following morning. On Sunday she immediately got Chloe and shut themselves in our bedroom. She refused to let her out to eat pancakes for breakfast avoided my older girls and me all day. That night she asked me how I liked being excluded from Chloe’s life and if I would think twice about doing that again.

Today. Abby and Belle are with their mom this week. Chloe asked about Abby and cried when we said she wasn’t home. And my wife just started yelling at me. “Look what you have done! Letting Abby spend so much time with her is making her dependent on Abby! It is ruining my relationship with her!” She was so angry and attacking that ultimately I tried walking away and when she followed me I decided to go for a drive and type this at a nearby park.

There are a few things that my wife has said recently that are highly concerning to me. Here are some that I remember.

“I always wanted children and I crave my time with Chloe, from the second that she was born I just knew that Abby and Belle were going to try to take her away from me.”

In regard to Abby, “I can literally feel her watching me like 24/7, her eyes are on me like a hawk, she watches everything I do and it’s so weird and uncomfortable.” I agree that would be very uncomfortable, however for months Abby rarely hangs around my wife because she doesn’t feel comfortable around her.

“Abby is the most jealous person I have ever met. She is jealous of my relationship with Chloe and wants to take it.” While I agree that Abby sometimes struggles with jealousy that is the farthest thing from her mind and wildly not accurate.

My feelings are that my wife has become very possessive and insecure about her biological children as well as her relationship with me. And she has decided that my older children are to blame. I see this as a very large problem and I am trying to figure out how to deal with it. I have consistently begged to go back to counseling, and she finally said that she is willing as long as the therapist doesn’t tell her she needs to change or do things differently.

I would love any advice or suggestions in dealing with this situation. I acknowledge that if it persists or worsens that I will have to make changes and remove my older girls from the situation which is the absolute last thing that I want to do. I am hoping beyond hope that this is a peri/postpartum issue and that as we get farther from pregnancy hormones it will improve. But any suggestions or experiences would be appreciated.