Trying to make it work

[Think About It...]

My wife and I have not been married long. We found out that we were
having a baby around last April. We talked about marriage, but when we found out about the baby, we decided to move plans up and got married in July of 2011. She always seemed to be a little hot headed when things didn't go her way, but I thought it was mostly just being feisty or trouble dealing with disappointment. She also always seemed to have a bit of low self asteam. She was always hard to talk to about serious issues, and would go really quick from self loathing to blaming me for everything. It seems that the longer we are together the worse she is getting. Like the other day she was stuck in a lot of traffic coming home from work. She comes in the door pissed, and it starts as being upset about traffic to I hate this house and I hate living here and you made me move here. Every little inconvenience seems to blow up and be my fault. She even seems to make really sharp comments purposely to hurt me, and then forget she ever said them or she is never apologetic about them. She will say well you made me mad, or something like that. IT seems like every argument is not just about what she was upset about, but has to include every argument we every had, so each time we fight its worse and worse. I really need help, and don't know what to do. One minute she loves me to death, and the next I'm the scum of the earth. I really don't want to divorcee, and put my baby through that. I want to learn how to work things out. I’m still learning about BPD, but does my wife actually believe the stuff she tells me sometimes? I mean is it a way for manipulation and control or do they actually think in their head that what they are saying it true? When they snap out of it do they remember what really happened, and just too ashamed to admit it? How deep does it go? I do all of the house work, dishes, cloths, cleaning. She will actually get in an argument, and clam that I don’t do anything to help out. I do all of it, but it seems that she really believes that she does the work. Also sometimes see will tell me stuff like you are only cleaning to throw it in my face later. She always seems to think I have an agenda. When we first started dating it wasn’t that bad. Now it seems like I can’t do anything with having a reason behind it, like I want to brag that I cleaned the house. I guess what I’m getting at is there any point to arguing with her nonsense?

[biomedsteel]

My wife and I have not been married long. We found out that we were
having a baby around last April. We talked about marriage, but when we found out about the baby, we decided to move plans up and got married in July of 2011. She always seemed to be a little hot headed when things didn't go her way, but I thought it was mostly just being feisty or trouble dealing with disappointment. She also always seemed to have a bit of low self asteam. She was always hard to talk to about serious issues, and would go really quick from self loathing to blaming me for everything. It seems that the longer we are together the worse she is getting. Like the other day she was stuck in a lot of traffic coming home from work. She comes in the door pissed, and it starts as being upset about traffic to I hate this house and I hate living here and you made me move here. Every little inconvenience seems to blow up and be my fault. She even seems to make really sharp comments purposely to hurt me, and then forget she ever said them or she is never apologetic about them. She will say well you made me mad, or something like that. IT seems like every argument is not just about what she was upset about, but has to include every argument we every had, so each time we fight its worse and worse. I really need help, and don't know what to do. One minute she loves me to death, and the next I'm the scum of the earth. I really don't want to divorcee, and put my baby through that. I want to learn how to work things out. I’m still learning about BPD, but does my wife actually believe the stuff she tells me sometimes? I mean is it a way for manipulation and control or do they actually think in their head that what they are saying it true? When they snap out of it do they remember what really happened, and just too ashamed to admit it? How deep does it go? I do all of the house work, dishes, cloths, cleaning. She will actually get in an argument, and clam that I don’t do anything to help out. I do all of it, but it seems that she really believes that she does the work. Also sometimes see will tell me stuff like you are only cleaning to throw it in my face later. She always seems to think I have an agenda. When we first started dating it wasn’t that bad. Now it seems like I can’t do anything with having a reason behind it, like I want to brag that I cleaned the house. I guess what I’m getting at is there any point to arguing with her nonsense?

[isilme]

Hi biomedsteel, and welcome.

I think pretty much everyone on this board has had these situations crop up in their r/s, and it's very common to feel there's nothing you can do.  Look over the Tools and Lessons on this site, and read as many posts as you can to see ways others have successfully, or are trying to work on improving things with their BPD partner.

Before You Can Make Things Better, You have To Stop Making Things Worse

This is a good place to start.  A lot of the things we try to do when faced with a confrontation are almost the opposite of what works best with dealing with a person with poor emotional control.  We want to use logic to combat their feelings, thinking if we can point out a logical error, they can see there is no reason to be mad after all (Like it wasn't you that left the car unlocked, etc).  But instead, we are really invalidating their feelings, which makes them feel judged and they can't handle that well, and so blow up.

Also, my BF, too, brings up all things past when angry, because to him there is no emotional distance - if I hurt him years back by forgetting something, any other time I forget something, it's like the old hurt and the new just pile on top of each other.  Times does not heal for pwBPD usually.  He can forget events, who said what, and everything I've ever done to help him, care for him and be there for him, but he has perfect emotional recall. 

Also, for a pwBPD feelings = facts.  It doesn't matter if he/she is mad about something you find trivial - to him/her it really is the end of the world.  They missed out on the day we learned certain lessons on dealing with emotions and how to control them and our own responsibility for them - so all gets blamed on those closets to them. 

Since you have a child together, this may be a good place for you as well, in addition to the Staying Board you have already found.

Raising a child when one parent has BPD board

Staying is hard, and a lot of things WILL rest on you, a your mentally ill wife will be very challenged in dealing with them well - and having kids is often rough on pwBPD - they can see them as threats for love and attention, and even romantic competition later in life.  The stresses of regular parenthood are multiplied when the kaleidoscope of unstable emotions is added.  But there ARE parents on here who are working at keeping their kids' lives stable and letting them know that if Mom or Dad is kinda sick, they still love them even if they can't always show it - you have to be that baby's rock. 

 

[withBPD]

hi BioMedSteel,

Welcome. I completely understand where you are coming from as my story is very similar to yours. My uBPDw and I got married about a year and a half after we met and had a son shortly after. At first, her behavior wasn't as bad, similar to your description as being hot headed and things did get worst after we got married. It got so intense where the mental abuse became physical. I was sick and tired of leaving when the situation got physical and was going to file for divorce. But a week later, I found out that she was pregnant and decided to stick it out for the baby. Her outburst and dysregulation became less and less during the pregnancy. It was like a miracle...but was short lived. Everything started to go back to the way it was after the birth of our son.

I have learned and used some of the techniques such as validation and setting boundaries on this site which helps me deal with the outbursts and rants from my uBPDw. It's going to be a challenge - don't get wrong but it does help. Good luck.

[CodependentHusband]

Biomedsteel,
    You came to a good site! I've been married about 18 months. My dBPDw and I have kids, but both from previous marriages. The pattern you describe, from honeymoon to clinger, to hater, is a well-documented pattern for BPD. My wife got her dx back in November. It's been rough, but, honestly, it wasn't until the dx that I was able to find any effective way of coping with what I once viewed as losing the love of my life. I don't want to give you the wrong impression by making you think that you have the power to "fix" this; however, YOU do have the ability to make things better. It can be difficult to get to a good place psychologically... For me, I went through all of the stages of grief over realizing that my r/s with my wife would never be what it used to be, or what I imagined it would grow into.

I want to answer a couple of your questions specifically, and do it in a way that is basically as cold and honest as I can express... Reason being, is because realizing this in the way I describe it actually helped me come to acceptance of her BPD. You see, I love my wife very much still, despite her abusive behaviors (now I know how to limit this a great deal, thank goodness). You ask if they really hate you when they are raging at you. Based on my experience and reading, YES. They REALLY do hate you... At that specific point in time. You have got to find a way to internalize this so that you don't forget when she starts to rage. She DOES have intense disgust/anger/hate or whatever you want to call it. Even more, you need to understand in no uncertain terms that this is the BPD's REALITY! Their anger is as real to them as your disbelief is to you! The worst thing you can do is defend yourself, no matter how justified you are. This defies "common sense," but you are dealing with a very real mental illness.

You ask if they remember the manipulative behaviors and if they are doing it all on purpose. I honestly believe that these BPD behaviors are not planned out by the BPD... A few things that they say, I think, are designed to hurt you, but I don't believe that any real planning goes on by the BPD. They simply use what they know about you in order to hurt you... To control you.

You are on the staying board. It may seem that I paint a dismal picture of a BPD/non r/s. Fact is, that the condition is what it is... And the better you understand it, the better your chances of making things work with your wife. Understanding the common thought patterns will allow you to respond in ways that will help make things better... As good as they can be.

My advice to you is, if you love your wife and want to work on the r/s you will want to do the following:

1. Learn how to detach with love
2. Learn how to identify and validate her emotions (only validate what you can with integrity)
3. Study and practice S.E.T. and JADE.
4. Get your own therapist, at least for a while.
5. Radically accept her for who she is, BPD behaviors and all... This will likely be hard, but it is necessary to reduce your self-inflicted wounds.

Keep posting here. You will be amazed at how you are not alone... We help each other a lot here!

[biomedsteel]

Last night I had made a comment that started to set her of, but after her little verbal jab I didn't respond, and she didn't continue. Somebody asked me what if I stopped doing all the work. Well I went about two weeks without doing a large portion of the house work. Not that I didn't nothing. I am adding an addition onto our house. So, I just put all of my time on that instead of doing house and construction. Well it was horrible nothing got done at all. It took me forever to catch up on all the mess. At one point she even got depressed about the condition of the house and told me we are both slobs and need to clean up. On rare occasion she cant pin nothing on me or doesn't even try to. She gets depressed, and tells me your going to divorce me because you do all the work, and I'm a bad wife. Or now that we have a baby you only with me because of her, or you only love her and not me. When she is in these moods its as bad as anger to argue with.
No amount of compliments or I love yous will give her any relief. To be honest I think I would rather deal with the rage. Because anger I can deal with better then being goated into feeling sorry or depressed with her. I don't know what it is that rubs off on me kind of easy cant stand to watch her cry about something. I also know that if she is throwing a temper tantrum and I can make her derail her train of thought for a second its gone. She cant hold onto her anger. If I can make her laugh she comes down in an instant.

[isilme]

Somebody asked me what if I stopped doing all the work. Well I went about two weeks without doing a large portion of the house work. Not that I didn't nothing. I am adding an addition onto our house. So, I just put all of my time on that instead of doing house and construction. Well it was horrible nothing got done at all. It took me forever to catch up on all the mess.

You may look for the posts recently put up by Rhymes w/orange.

Basically, I've done this with the same results.  I lived with BF and cleaned up after him, and for a while he even helped.  Then he helped less, then not at all.  Being the good little codependent I am (recovering from being) and a woman, I felt it was all my job anyway, even after I was working full time following college graduation, almost 60 hours a week at times, 14 hour or more days.  THEN, BF's little brother moved in to go to school.  THEN he brought a friend who paid no rent and made plenty of messes.  And I just flat gave up.  I washed what I needed from the sink (had a leak above it, anything I put away got dirty, anyway).  I took care of the cats and the trash and my own laundry - unless BF was complaining a lot about not having any clean and I walked on those eggshells AND the 3 blocks to the laundromat to clean his clothes. 

But at one point I realize that if I lived alone I'd still
Do dishes by hand until I can buy a dishwasher
Take out the trash
Do MY laundry
Clean up after the cats
Sweep/mop/change bed clothes
and any yardwork that needed to be done after moving to a house

So I resolved to do what I needed to keep my own sense of a clean enough space for ME, regardless of what BF does in his own space.  If he creates a fw more dishes, it's really not that much more time for me to clean.  If he can't find the blooming trash can 2 feet from the counter where he piles fast food trash and his dirty dishes (sink is also just two steps away), then it takes me little time to remedy.  But MY feelings of well being are much better when the counter is clear and the house clean-ish.

Yeah, it sucks to have a 'bad roommate' for a partner, but of the battles to fight, this is one I can skip most days. 

As for depression - I struggle with this too - you might look over validation workshops on how to help her see you are empathizing with her even if you don't agree with her.

I'm very much a novice at this, but here's a go at an example:

ANGER:
pwBPD:  I hate you - you left the toothpaste cap off - you are trying to ruin my life by letting me get sick from germs on the toothpaste and wasting money form letting it dry out. 

You:  (invalidating) I didn't leave it off, you used it last.

pwBPD: Look at you trying to make me wrong to hide YOUR guilt - blah blah abuse, rage, anger for hours about anything from the time of the dinosaurs

You: (validating) I can see this worries you.  Wasting money and germs are things I can understand being upset about.  Let's get the kind without a cap next time at the store and this can't happen again.

Lame situation, sorry - coffee not quite kicking in yet.

DEPRESSION:

pwBPD: I suck so much as the worst human being ever to walk the Earth.  You can't possibly love me.  It's only hours until you leave me for a stranger you meet anywhere you go without me.

You: (invalidating) that's ridiculous.  I love you XX much.  You are a good person, (more things counter to what the pwBPD says)

pwBPD: I don't believe you.  I am going to continue in this funk for hours/days, confusing you, making you feel it's up to you to make me feel better and accept your love when only i can do that, and threaten self harm. 

You: (validating) It must be very distressing to feel so bad about yourself.  Do you want to talk more about it?  Can you think of anything you want to do to feel better?

Again, not really strong examples, sorry, but you get the point.

A 'non' says, "I am blue and feeling bad about myself," you want to and CAN tell them, "Hey, you're a great person, I remember when you saved those kittens in that fire - only a great person could do that - let's go do something to cheer you up!"  And it can work.

For a pwBPD, feelings = facts.  So if s/he is feeling like a bad person (likely out of shame over some knowledge that they HAVE acted badly thanks to the BPD and an inability to deal with such feelings) and you try to "buck them up" you re just telling them their feelings/facts are wrong.  In a way, you are telling him/her that s/he is stupid and wrong.  And no one likes that.  So try to validate the feelings even if you don't agree with their cause. 

And anger DOES seem to be easier to deal with somehow - it can trigger our defenses and if you've learned the tools, then they can be brought to bear.  When someone is sad, pity and sadness kick in for you, too, and we want to comfort how WE want to be comforted... but a pwBPD is wired to where that just doesn't seem to help. 

[CodependentHusband]

No amount of compliments or I love yous will give her any relief. To be honest I think I would rather deal with the rage. Because anger I can deal with better then being goated into feeling sorry or depressed with her. I don't know what it is that rubs off on me kind of easy cant stand to watch her cry about something. I also know that if she is throwing a temper tantrum and I can make her derail her train of thought for a second its gone. She cant hold onto her anger. If I can make her laugh she comes down in an instant.

You can't love BPD away... There is not enough love in the world to love it away. I don't believe that you can love your wife more than I love mine, and my love isn't enough to cure, or even help improve my wife's BPD. Love is not the awswer here... Love may bring you here in a search for tools to cope and improve your r/s, but love alone won't do it. In fact, you will destroy yourself if you continue to try.


What it is that is rubbing off on you in enmeshment, caused by your codependence. You have got to detach with love... That phrase, "detach with love" sounds like an oxymoron, but it is possible to do. If you don't learn how to do this, you will build up resentment for your wife. It's probably hard to imagine accepting her bahaviors as they are and not being on the rollercoaster with her, because they affect you so deeply right now. With practice you can get to a better place though. You won't have the marriage you've dreamed of, but I think that you can find one that you are willing to live with if you love your wife the way I do. My only regret is that I didn't know about the BPD sooner, so that I could have started making things better sooner... but, we have to play the cards we are dealt in life. You can only control yourself. Keep us posted, and keep the faith!

[biomedsteel]

Is taking drugs like adipex self-abuse? I see that some BPD people have the urge to hurt themselves. I know my wife doesn’t cut herself, and she has never threatened to or suggested suicide. She takes adipex as a weight loss drug, but she starves herself to try and loose weight. She knows that her eating habits are not healthy. I mean its kind of like bulimia they know they are hurting themselves. So, is starving yourself a form of self-abuse that my wife might be doing? I don’t like her taking diet pills, but when I ask her to stop or try to get her to eat something she gets defensive and says no I need them I’m fat.

[SmileAnyway]

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED! 

But as CodependantHusband put it, your love wont make her better, but here is what it will do:

  Love will make you take care of you, enabling you to help her from a position of strength
  Love will help you to validate her and make the best of the situation at hand
  Love will help you maintain boundaries, otherwise she'll never ever recognize she needs help

Last year, I felt like I was on the verge of a breakdown in response to my u/pwBPD/w rages, insults and long term silent treatment (the latter continues many months later).  I felt so exasperated, belittled, ignored, despised... but reflection and action has helped me...

No the r/s hasn't improved, he still has her heels dug firmly in,

But, I am handling it differently... I have detached with love, whilst remaining in love with her - how?

  Love them, despise the BP condition
  Work on your own emotional health... friends, families, faith, hobbies etc
  Work on your own physical health... fitness, diet, sleep

Still have bad days, but the exasperation has gone!  Bizarrely for someone who shuns me, I still love her dearly... this is only possible because I have learnt through the site, to identify her as separate to the condition.

I would desperately love her to get real help and commit to it.   But that desire must come from her.

In the meantime, if you have decided to stay, its all about protecting yourself and making the best of it.

[CodependentHusband]

Is taking drugs like adipex self-abuse? I see that some BPD people have the urge to hurt themselves. I know my wife doesn’t cut herself, and she has never threatened to or suggested suicide. She takes adipex as a weight loss drug, but she starves herself to try and loose weight. She knows that her eating habits are not healthy. I mean its kind of like bulimia they know they are hurting themselves. So, is starving yourself a form of self-abuse that my wife might be doing? I don’t like her taking diet pills, but when I ask her to stop or try to get her to eat something she gets defensive and says no I need them I’m fat.

My wife is like yours in that she doesn't cut or make suicide threats. Some people call this "high functioning." My wife also seems to have an unhealthy fascination with losing weight and she takes diet pills and starves herself. It's more like anorexia than bulimia. I think this is more of a self-image issue, rather than an attempt to self-harm. In any event, I've found it more helpful to my wife to ignore her issues with weight and food. Trying to convince her that she looks great now only serves to invalidate her and make her feel like I am trying to control her, which, to be honest, I WAS trying to control her. It doesn't matter that I have logic on my side and that I am worried about her health. I recommend that you seriously consider that your actions and words may well be misunderstood by her. Her reality, if she is like my wife, is that she IS overweight. Telling her otherwise will only serve to weaken the relationship. It doesn't make sense to us in conventional thinking, but BPD's typically have serious issues with feeling like they are being controlled. It was like an awakening to me when I realized that I was actually a control freak... My best intentions (and they were pure) were misunderstood by her. You may find that your wife is the sane way. Once you really get there, you will know you have arrived!

[CodependentHusband]

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED! 

SmileAnyway,
    Well-stated. It is interesting... It's like we learn HOW to love our pwBPD. I can relate to what you express about how you feel about your wife... Separating the person from the disorder is a very effective way in thinking about this.