is this part of it all?

[Think About It...]

when my uBPDw and i get caught in an argument it seems she gains strength while i grow weaker. is this part of it all?

it seems on different days things that trigger her changes can one day be very deep while other days she can shrug it of. is this part of it all?

it seems that when she's telling me where i'm going wrong or how "bad" i am that she's talking more about herself than me. is this part of it all?

how can i show my uBPDw that i do love her when she ways i'm just taking my love away to punish her? nothing can convince her other wise. is this part of it all?

i try to do things for myself but it seems she wants even more. i feel as if i'm disappearing and that my feelings don't count or amount to much. is this part of it all?

my wife screams "divorce" more and more often. i want to stay. it's getting hard. we've been married for 22 years. either i love her too much or am scared of leaving or both. i am constantly in a flux. is this part of it all?

as i read on other posts i'm not sure if i can go the long run or if i really want to. after all i am a person, i have feelings. now all it seems i have left is her constant care. is this part of it all?

[mike sergent]

when my uBPDw and i get caught in an argument it seems she gains strength while i grow weaker. is this part of it all?

it seems on different days things that trigger her changes can one day be very deep while other days she can shrug it of. is this part of it all?

it seems that when she's telling me where i'm going wrong or how "bad" i am that she's talking more about herself than me. is this part of it all?

how can i show my uBPDw that i do love her when she ways i'm just taking my love away to punish her? nothing can convince her other wise. is this part of it all?

i try to do things for myself but it seems she wants even more. i feel as if i'm disappearing and that my feelings don't count or amount to much. is this part of it all?

my wife screams "divorce" more and more often. i want to stay. it's getting hard. we've been married for 22 years. either i love her too much or am scared of leaving or both. i am constantly in a flux. is this part of it all?

as i read on other posts i'm not sure if i can go the long run or if i really want to. after all i am a person, i have feelings. now all it seems i have left is her constant care. is this part of it all?

[jessicapuppy]

Hi there Mike 

I'm so sorry you're having such a rough time   

It is very easy to lose ourselves when in a relationship with a SO with BPD.  Everything you talk about are traits of BPD.  I think we have all experienced these things during our relationships.

You are right about thinking that criticisms of you are actually criticisms of herself.  The is a defence mechanism called 'Projection'. 

As people with BPD's moods change rapidly, it is normal that things that trigger them one day, may not affect them another.

My exBPD/NPDbf seemed to thrive on the arguments.  Periods of stability and calm were a threat to him, and became a trigger in themselves.

Have you read the book Stop Walking on Eggshells?  I would recommend it, if not.  I also found the book 'Borderline Personality Disorder for Dummies' very informative.  It gave me a lot of answers.

To the right of this page, there are some tips to follow to help you cope better with things.  Have a read if you haven't already.

Do you have a therapist?  If not, I would strongly recommend one.  I think most of the people on this forum would suggest that.  You need help if you are to retain who you are and be strong to handle this mental illness that your wife is suffering.  As you say, you are a person with feelings, you deserve to be happy and feel good about yourself.

People with BPD can get better, IF (and it's a big if) they commit to long term therapy, because THEY want to be in it and get better.  If they do it for anyone else, it is unlikely to work.

Keep posting here.  You deserve support, and will get a huge amount of it here 

JP
x

[briefcase]

 

Yikes!  I've had that "disappearing" feeling, and its horrible.  In fact, the way you describe your situation reminds me very much of what I was going through when I came here nearly 4 years ago. 

This board is a good resource, but you sound like you're in a really dark place right now.  Please consider finding a professional therapist (not marriage counselling) to help you learn to cope with your situation (regardless of whether your wife has BPD or not).  Right now, after 22 years of this, you are very enmeshed emotionally with your wife and it's destroying you.  I've been there.   

Also, go the local bookstore or library and pick up some books on emotional and verbal abuse--we review some on this site. 

Read the Lessons, which are linked on the right side of this screen. 

In answer to your questions, its all "part of it."  At least it was for me. But, and trust me on this, you can take control over your life again. 

Keep posting and let us know how you are doing.

[mike sergent]

thanks all. thanks for the support which to be seriously lacking these days. yes i am seeing a T for about a year now. i've only recently found out what she has and have started the search which i expect to be a life long one. it's just tuff is all. my T told me the other day that i'm suffering from acute stress disorder. i'm reading up and trying to find a way around this.

[committed]

Yes to all of your questions...at least according to my own experience. It's very easy to lose yourself when living or dealing with a person with BPD. I found myself doing the same in the early part of my relationship.

I guess I finally got to the point where I recognized I needed to start taking care of my needs. Not to say I don't regress from time to time and start watching what I say or do because I know it will trigger him. But for the most part, I've learned to leave his garbage on his side of the street and let him tend to it. I think I've learned to tell myself that I know I'm right instead of defending myself to him, to agree that I don't have to agree with him, and to do things I want and feel I need to do even if he doesn't want me to.

And you know the really neat thing about taking this approach - I've seen improvement in him as the process continues. I think a lot of it is about them trying to control their environment and control us and it is actually very stressful for them to constantly find ways to exert that control and worry about it. When you take the control away from them and they realize there is nothing they can do about it...they relax and don't try so hard. You'll get push back at first as you assert yourself, but eventually it goes away.

Just focus on taking care of you, Mike!

[briefcase]

I just read your prior posts and was glad to see you are already working with a therapist of your own.  

Here are a few other things I did to help rebuild myself (I had been married 15 years at the time).  First, I tried to take care of myself at a basic, fundamental level.  I consciously ate healthier foods, I took walks and exercised, I made sure I got some sleep.  

Along with these basics, I also reached out to my friends and family.  I found people I could talk to about my situation and it helped a lot.  

This seems strange to say, but I was so lost that I had to actually spend some time thinking about myself.  I had to re-learn things I liked and didn't like.  I had to recall old hobbies and activities that once made me happy.  I had neglected myself so long and had "disappeared" to the point that I actually had to work at recalling some of these things.  While I exercised, I thought about things like my favorite color, favorite foods, that I once liked to read novels, the kind of movies I enjoyed . . . on and on I thought about ME.  

As I recalled the things that made me who I am, I began to do them.  I ate what I wanted, read when I wanted, went to bed when I wanted, rented movies I thought I might enjoy.  

Bit by bit, all of this, together with this forum, therapy, and countless self-help books, brought my identity back into focus.  I will never lose myself like that again.

The truth is you have to rebuild yourself--for yourself and for her.  When you are shattered, you can't much help her.  But, the reality is that my wife really, really resented all of this and things (on her end) got worse for a while.  She still thinks I'm selfish for rebuilding myself.  Do what you have to do, but be forwarded that her behaviors might escalate for a while as you change your behaviors.  That is also part of it.  

Look into the "seperation of stuff" workshop (let me know if you need a link) the information there helped me quite a lot too.  You have to work on realizing that its OK for her to have strong feelings of her own--even if they are negative and even when you don't know where they came from.  She has every right to her feelings--but so do you.  In the end, you are learning the painful lesson that you can't control her feelings.  If you could, wouldn't all of your efforts have done that by now?  

Take a step back, let go of her a bit, and rebuild yourself!

[united for now]

briefcase

your story is always such an inspiration 

[Auspicious]

First, I tried to take care of myself at a basic, fundamental level.  I consciously ate healthier foods, I took walks and exercised, I made sure I got some sleep.  

Along with these basics, I also reached out to my friends and family.  I found people I could talk to about my situation and it helped a lot.  

This seems strange to say, but I was so lost that I had to actually spend some time thinking about myself.  I had to re-learn things I liked and didn't like.  I had to recall old hobbies and activities that once made me happy.  I had neglected myself so long and had "disappeared" to the point that I actually had to work at recalling some of these things.  While I exercised, I thought about things like my favorite color, favorite foods, that I once liked to read novels, the kind of movies I enjoyed . . . on and on I thought about ME.  

As I recalled the things that made me who I am, I began to do them.  I ate what I wanted, read when I wanted, went to bed when I wanted, rented movies I thought I might enjoy.  

          

I finally went back to the dentist ... took up a musical instrument ... made sure I got outside and took walks ...

I know all that sounds stupid (it did to me, anyway) when your emotional house is falling down. Yet it really makes all the difference. Taking care of yourself is actually the foundation of your emotional house.

Building your emotional house on the foundation of someone else's disordered emotions and thinking is basically asking for it to collapse. So shift to a different source of strength and stability

[LoveNotWar]

Mike, just to echo what other folks said...that IS all part of it! By the time I realized what BPD was all about I was circling the drain; I was angry that my marriage was never going to be what I was hoping it would be and emotionally I was drained, depressed and I had no hope.

Then I started worrying less about him and more about me. Sounds selfish but I had to take care of myself to be able to support him. I see a T, read everything I can get my hands on about BPD and used file cards to write the tools on. I studied them daily until I knew them by heart and I use them! It's just been the past week that I've come to realize I've internalized them. I use the tools now without even having to think about them.

Life still isn't perfect but is anyone's life perfect? By taking responsibility for my self I have seen improvements with my BPDh.

Oh, and you have to do nice and thoughtful things for yourself. Sounds corny but it's about caring about YOU. I buy a small bouquet of fresh flowers at he market every week, I run for excersise and mental health, I take my grand kids out for treats, I hike or ski almost every weekend, I have reached out to friends. And I don't talk to my friends much about my h, I enjoy their company and have a respite from all the BPD drama when I'm with them.

And Mike, this is HARD! Only you know if staying is worth it to you. What ever you decide to do you will find support from folks who understand on this site! 

[CodependentHusband]

Mike,
   I'm so glad that you came here and that you are sticking with it. I know that you have hope still, and that on days like today it's harder to see that... and that's okay. Like your wife, my wife was screaming "divorce" every other day for a while last year. I won't lie to you and tell you that I never hear the word come out of her mouth anymore, but I will tell you that it is far less common now! I heard it last weekend for the first time in 2 or 3 months, whereas before it was at least once a week, and was accompanied by some very intense rages towards me.

   You ask, "Is this part of it all?" I'll echo what the others have said by saying "yes," but in time, you list will grow to include more about yourself and your relationship, and will include some positives that don't exist right now, or are so overshadowed that they don't seem to matter much... and the truth is, they don't matter much right now.

   I wonder if you might be going through a grieving process now with the realization that things may never be the way you had envisioned them to be in your marriage. I did it, and I think that it is healthy and normal... The frustrating part is that it takes time. I've observed that us "nons" tend to be a pretty optimistic bunch, and few seem to have more patience than us... unfortunately, "normal" methods of coping wear us down to the point that you are now... or where you were just a few weeks ago when you first joined us.

Mike, I think that you are getting there. Considering how raw this all is, and the short time you have been here, you seem to be in the early stages of accepting this, which is necessary. Don't misundertsand me by thinking that the idea is that your acceptance alone is what we do, and nothing improves... that's not the case, but radical acceptance is so very necessary in order to detach with love (no resentments) that this step is one of the "biggies" (at least it was for me).

Keep up the good fight! There is light around the corner.

[mike sergent]

thanks everybody. i don't think i could do this without you all. i'm trying to come to terms that my marriage will never be what i hoped and dreamed it would be. i tend to hope for the best while expecting the worse. i know my uBPDw will never overcome what has happened to her in the past but i also realize it's not my fault. i do what i can. i wish i could just open up my head and pour all the good things posted here into my brain. there's a lot to know and it seems even more to find and learn. i just want things to get better or more stable for awhile. i've read a lot (not compared to you although) and will forever seek knowledge. by nature i tend to be a bit anxious. also i'm working on myself, i now understand where i start and she stops. i wish i could project myself into the future where in my dreams things are better.

[jessicapuppy]

Although it doesn't feel like it right now, we are all in charge of the potential that our futures have. 

Through learning and talking to others with similar experiences, you will be able to make the decisions that you need to, in order to get where you want to be, whilst taking into consideration the fact that your relationship and partner are not what you first thought. 

You will get happy again 

JP
x

[CodependentHusband]

Mike,
    You're doing it! All of the things you are learning and practicing are putting you closer to the goal of inner peace. I understand the anxious feeling you have right now. You do realize that it is necessary to have that anxious feeling though, right? Turn it into what drives you. Transform that nervous energy into something else... Like doing something you enjoy (and make sure to communicate to your wife in a way that makes it clear you aren't doing it to spite her. That's important). Also, put that energy to use in practicing the tools.

Pay more attention to your own feelings... It's harder than it sounds. If you start feeling uneasy, make yourself busy and remind yourself that she can't help the way she is acting. It will pass if we don't do anything to make it worse.


Hang in there.  Post a lot if you have to. It got me through the stage you are at now, that's for sure!

[mike sergent]

if it weren't for this site or the people here i would be dead, mad, or gone. this site really is a life saver. i have been reading and practicing. it'll take tame for it to become second nature. i have been observing "triggers" and things are improving. one is duly my fault and i shall try my best to suppress. it is when i complain about work. my job has turned into a dead end job with little to no promise. when i complain it threatens her security about money and the lack there of. i stop complaining and there goes a a reason to trigger. i know there will always be something. i know it will never go away. but oh the feeling of the time in-between the rages when i can semi-relax and enjoy the woman i married.


there is hope!

if you read this don' give it up!

hope, faith, love. . . ..

[CodependentHusband]

Yep... you are right. It won't go away without her getting into therapy. Be prepared for triggers to change, and extinction bursts. It's all a normal part of the growth experience and how she will react.

What's been going on lately?