New- Husband undiagnosed... and his career seems to complicate things

[Graceinaction]

I knew my husband had problems. I thought it was PTSD from the military.

My counselor finally spelled it out for me. While yes, it is not customary for a counselor to unofficially diagnose a spouse they've never treated, I think she was tired of me trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. Within the same week one of my close friends who is a PsyD, told me the same thing. It's been a shock, a relief, and overwhelming all at the same time.

I've been reading on this site, I've been reading some books, and it's helped tremendously. However, I struggle with wanting to tell him what I think he has, and how to get help. But he won't even go to counseling so I know it would be pointless.

My husband is a cop. It seems to feed the sickness. He's absolutely terrified someone at work will figure out that he doesn't "have it all together." Anytime he gets reprimanded for anything, he blames me. He says I want to destroy his career. He's convinced that I want to get him fired.

We have 3 children together and I have 2 from a previous marriage. I homeschool and stay at home. Getting him fired is the last thing I want to do. I do worry that he's going to do something crazy and risk his job.

This morning he had an "episode." I told him that I was tired of him rubbing my back and acting like he was in the mood, and then nothing. He said he would never initiate sex again and that I should just look elsewhere if I want sex. He hasn't initiated it in a couple of years.

I'm tired of hurting. I'm working on getting my life back, but it's really hard. It seems like it takes everything I have to protect the kids from his instability and take care of them. I've thought a lot about going back to school, but that feels selfish right now. My kids have been through so much. He moves out over and over, and when he's really worked up, he'll rage in front of them. I do everything in my power to protect them from seeing him like that, or knowing how bad off he really is.

I struggle with validating. I understand the premise, but in the heat of the moment when I'm being accused of awful things, it's so hard to validate the feeling.

I have many questions, but the biggest is: How aware are they of the manipulation? Is it completely unconscious? Does it come naturally? He's just so good at it, and I'm not good at handling it. I'm a very straightforward person. I cannot comprehend someone purposely manipulating to the extent he does.

I'm going to stop here, I have to tend to my kiddos. Any insight would be great, as I'm feeling very raw today.

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[Graceinaction]

I have more questions!

Is it typical for people with BPD to not be able to work together on projects? Something as simple as painting a room together sends him over the edge.

Pregnancy was awful. He absolutely could not handle me being pregnant, yet he begged me to get pregnant each time. Then as soon as I would get pregnant he would go off the rails until the end of my pregnancy. Is this typical?

Presents/ shopping- He hates birthdays, holidays... .He hates getting presents, and for years refused to buy me presents. He finally seems to understand that just because he doesn't like getting presents doesn't mean I feel the same way. Holidays and vacations often turn into major drama. One time he got a taxi to the airport, rented a rental car and drove 7 hours home, only to turn around and drive 7 hours back again.

[EaglesJuju]

Hi Graceinaction,  

Welcome aboard.

I am sorry that you are hurting. I understand how painful it is coping with erratic and confusing behavior. It must be incredibly frustrating and difficult coping with the behavior in front of your children.  

It is great that you have been doing some reading and gaining knowledge about BPD. You are absolutely right, learning about the disorder does help tremendously. Learning about the behavior of your person with BPD (pwBPD) helps with understanding that your pwBPD's behavior truly has nothing to do with you.

The core of BPD is a lack of emotional regulation. PwBPD are very sensitive to emotions and have a very hard time controlling them. Emotions/feelings can be extremely painful for a pwBPD to cope with, therefore they engage in maladaptive coping strategies, such as projection, avoidance, etc. The instability of your husbands behavior is mainly due to a lack of emotional regulation, high emotional sensitivity, negative affectivity, and impulsivity.

There are ways that we can learn how to improve our relationship. Validation is an important communication technique that we can use. I understand that it can be hard to practice validation when you are being accused of something awful. You do not have to validate something that is untrue or hurtful. As a rule of thumb, do not validate the invalid. Learning to be effective at validating does take practice and can be tricky at first. Once you add it to your arsenal of communication tools, it becomes second nature. Validation helps me when my bf is in a depressive state and when he self-loathing and having low self-worth. I have extended my knowledge of validation and use it on other people in my life. Here is an article that has helped me understand validation.


Validation and BPD

Manipulation can be a tactic that a pwBPD uses. Many times what is considered manipulation is a coping mechanism for a pwBPD. I think it is subconscious. What types of things does your husband manipulate you with?

To answer your other questions, stress typically affects a pwBPD greatly. When facing stress or stressful environments, a pwBPD can become triggered to the emotional stimuli and become dysregulated. Holidays, vacations, and birthdays seem highly stressful for pwBPD.  

Validation and BPD

Looking forward to reading your response.

[vortex of confusion]

 

 

Wanted to join EaglesJuju in welcoming you to the forums. Your story is very similar to a lot of the ones that you read on the forums.

How old are your 5 kids? Did I do the math right on that? Homeschooling and trying to deal with all of this stuff can be very difficult. I home school as well.

Last year, I got a job working at night and that has helped me tremendously.

[Graceinaction]

First, he manipulates by completely changing the subject. That's his most common tactic. For instance, if I approach him and say something like, "When you did [insert random thing] it made me feel hurt." and somehow he'll turn it around to "Yeah, but you're trying to destroy my career." How he gets from point A to point B amazes me, and usually leaves me very confused.

If that tactic doesn't work, he'll yell, stonewall, leave.

He is a master at projecting. My counselor pointed this out for quite a while. I would go in so confused. For instance, I could tell him I'm frustrated that there's never time for me to do things I'm interested in, and somehow he'll turn it into "You're so selfish, everything revolves around you." Which is ludicrous. I don't have hardly anything left of my former self at this point. Not all of that is his fault (there was a situation with my old job that drastically helped the process along that I won't get into due to pending legal issues) but I'm working on making time and resources available for me to be ME again.

He loves to tell me how I'm really feeling. Just last week I told him he had really hurt my feelings. He kept saying "I'm tired of you coming to me all pissed off." Everything I said, he just kept repeating that in different ways. Finally I said, "You're the only one yelling. You're the only one name calling. I'm not pissed off, I'm hurt, so stop pinning how you feel on to me."

Is that type of statement appropriate? I've started calling him out on his projecting and crazy-making. I don't use those terms with him, but I point it out. It's almost funny to watch his reaction. He just doesn't know what to say when his old plays don't work anymore. But I'm not sure long-term if it will help the situation.

Also, about boundaries: I get really confused, and I plan on addressing this with my counselor this week. But in the meantime, today he told me he never wanted to have sex with me again. He told me to cheat on him. Obviously I'm not going to cheat on him, but how should something like that be handled? He's said it before, and then later he'll say he only said it because he was mad. He seems to think being mad gives you a free pass. Any ideas on boundaries for things like that?

Yes, I have 5 children total. The oldest two are special needs and public schooled. The 3 youngest are all typical, 6, 4 and 2, and homeschooled. I can't work right now, but I'm working on myself. My list so far:

-Massage once a month

-Always be reading a book I enjoy (fiction)

-Start a prayer journal

-Go see a movie once a month

-Always be working on a Bible Study I pick out and like

I used to go to the movies several times a month, so I think that will be a big help to me. And I am a voracious reader, but lately it seems all I read is Psychology/ self help.

Anyway, I know I sound like lots of other people on here. Sometimes I just get so lonely, and I don't have many people I can talk to. Thanks for reading!

[Graceinaction]

Vortex, I just looked at your profile and it says you live in the south, so I know you're not near me. It would be so nice if I could find a homeschooling mama close by that has similar issues. Homeschool moms are so good at portraying the perfect facade. I know it's not reality, but I'm not even good at pretending, so I always look like the loser! 

[hellosun]

I was about to reply to your other thread on this, but I realized this one has more details, so I'll reply here.

First of all, I'm so sorry you had to deal with the stress of the court as well as this hurtful behaviour from your husband. Ugg. How awful. 

From what I read here and in the other thread, it sounds like you possibly have a tendancy to hold hurt in, and then let it out at your husband in an angry and/or accusing way? Or maybe you just bring him your sadness, and he cannot deal, which only increases your feelings of lonliness and hurt?

I think being angry and confronting a partner is a natural and healthy response to this kind of treatment, and probably fine in a normal relationship. But when dealing with a pwBPD, we are faced with the awkward realization that we are the emotional adult in the relationship. Our BPD spouses can simply not deal with confrontation or even percieved accusations the way we can. It's hard to accept that they just can't interact with us the way we would like them to, but we have to do so in order to begin to make improvements in our interactions with them.

I've started calling him out on his projecting and crazy-making. I don't use those terms with him, but I point it out. It's almost funny to watch his reaction. He just doesn't know what to say when his old plays don't work anymore. But I'm not sure long-term if it will help the situation.

I think this is a good first step, because it is helping remind you that his BS is not reality, and stopping some of the cycles. But you're right, there are other strategies you can use to help: those tools under Lesson 3 in the sidebar.

But before using the tools, I think, as you have been pointing out, it's important to not necessarily take the ridiculous things your BPDh says seriously. However, it is important take his feelings seriously. If I can figure out what the heck has upset my uBPDh, I can validate his hurt feelings. (This exercise is akin to comforting an overtired toddler having a meltdown. It doesn't have to make sense.) Later on, I find a calm time to communicate further about the issue, making sure that my needs and feelings are understood, as well.

Why not, instead of going to you husband with your hurt after he has messed up (he is possibly percieving this as an accusation, which is not fair to you I know) try telling him how you'd like to be treated? This will give him the opportunity to be sucessful at helping you, instead of feeling like a failure.

You could try something like, "I am going through a stressful time right now. It would help me so much if you could do _____. Would that be possible?" Chose a time to ask when he is relatively calm.

In the case of him saying hurtful things when mad, if you don't want to hear that, then you can implement a boundary. Say "I see that you are upset, and your feelings matter to me. I want to undrstand how you feel about this issue. However, I need to take a breather, and will return in 1 hour." (Or however long you think it will take him to calm down.) The first part is validation, and the seccond part is removing yourself from the path of his verbalized anger (it also allows you some space to calm down--bonus).

My husband has told me, when angry, that he won't talk to me for a month, that I'm selfish or an idiot, all that nonsense. He doesn't necessarily get a free pass for what he says when angry, but I realise he lashes out because he doesn't know how to properly verbalize his intense emotions, or even how to recognize what he is feeling sometimes. If it helps, remember that it isn't fun for pwBPD to dysregulate either. They don't want to be utterly overwhelmed by all the confusing emotion and pain and shame and anger they experience on a daily basis.

We do need a break from their intensity, though. I love the idea of a list of goals for self-care. That is something I struggle with, so I should copy you! I hope you're able to take some you-time after this difficult week.

Best wishes to you, sorry this post got soo long.