uBPD Wife SAHM

[Depression = 72% of members]

All, my wife and I have been married for 20 years.  She already had little kids when we got married and we had another together.  During this time, she has very rarely worked, now being several years since she has worked.  She always explained it as sacrificing having a career to take care of the kids.  However, the girls are grown and our son graduates next year.  I've never had a problem with her not working; although it's been tough carrying a family financially all this time.  Now after 20 years, her previous kids are grown, one is still living with us with a baby and not working.  So I am financially still taking care of her and the baby. The other has a place of her own now but still spends a bit of time with us.  Our child is 17.  Please note, I explained it this way to try to make it more clear.  I consider all of the kids mine.

Although my wife does not work, she also doesn't do any cleaning, cooking, etc.  She cites her bad back and health conditions for the reason she hasn't done any of this for the last 9 years.  However, even before the accident, she rarely cleaned and cooked an average of 3 times a week.  The older kids are expected to do it but it's a constant struggle to get them to stay on top of things.  When they were younger, I used to stay on them daily about school, chores, etc while my wife always let them off the hook and overrode me on everything.  She made me out to be the wicked stepfather.  I pulled away from doing that and left it up to her.  Now fast forward, they are grown and she keeps riding me to put them in check, blaming me for the house being in a mess, the girls not being successful, not "helping her" keep them in check or keeping the house in order.  She says I only care about myself since my career is going well and left her to deal with everything else.  Most of the marriage, I've worked, washed clothes, done the yard, paid the bills, had the cars maintenance, etc.  I also handle everything regarding our son, go to IEP meetings, help him with homework, keep constant contact with his teachers to make sure he's on track.  When he played sports, I was at every practice and game for two sports, even became assistant coach for basketball to be hands on.  However, her memory tells her that the only thing I did prior to the accident was work and take out the trash.  And now according to her, I still don't do much else.  My memory tells me the house has never been clean consistently even before the accident.  I told her early in the marriage that bothered me.  It never changed and eventually I mentally disassociated myself from expecting the house to be clean.  The other day when I got on our daughter about the wash room smelling bad (because she stuffed a really bad smelling towel in the bottom of the laundry basket), she tells me I should help clean as most men work and clean up/do other things around the house.  To keep the peace, I agreed to help clean every day when I get off work.  Now, she claims she is overwhelmed because she has to tell everybody what to do and things are not right.  She keeps hinting about leaving one day soon and not coming back because the marriage and the family as a whole are too much for her due to her health.

I am beyond frustrated.  She seems oblivious to any efforts I make to please her, constantly sensationalizes what she's done to keep the family and house together, while minimizing everyone else's contributions.  I don't believe it's fair for the burden of everything to be on me.  She has back/nerve issues, A fib, high cholesterol, and some stomach issues.  Hell, I have back issues myself and high B/P with abnormal kidney and liver function but I'm not using it to not do anything.  Am I wrong for thinking this way?

[dacoming]

All, my wife and I have been married for 20 years.  She already had little kids when we got married and we had another together.  During this time, she has very rarely worked, now being several years since she has worked.  She always explained it as sacrificing having a career to take care of the kids.  However, the girls are grown and our son graduates next year.  I've never had a problem with her not working; although it's been tough carrying a family financially all this time.  Now after 20 years, her previous kids are grown, one is still living with us with a baby and not working.  So I am financially still taking care of her and the baby. The other has a place of her own now but still spends a bit of time with us.  Our child is 17.  Please note, I explained it this way to try to make it more clear.  I consider all of the kids mine.

Although my wife does not work, she also doesn't do any cleaning, cooking, etc.  She cites her bad back and health conditions for the reason she hasn't done any of this for the last 9 years.  However, even before the accident, she rarely cleaned and cooked an average of 3 times a week.  The older kids are expected to do it but it's a constant struggle to get them to stay on top of things.  When they were younger, I used to stay on them daily about school, chores, etc while my wife always let them off the hook and overrode me on everything.  She made me out to be the wicked stepfather.  I pulled away from doing that and left it up to her.  Now fast forward, they are grown and she keeps riding me to put them in check, blaming me for the house being in a mess, the girls not being successful, not "helping her" keep them in check or keeping the house in order.  She says I only care about myself since my career is going well and left her to deal with everything else.  Most of the marriage, I've worked, washed clothes, done the yard, paid the bills, had the cars maintenance, etc.  I also handle everything regarding our son, go to IEP meetings, help him with homework, keep constant contact with his teachers to make sure he's on track.  When he played sports, I was at every practice and game for two sports, even became assistant coach for basketball to be hands on.  However, her memory tells her that the only thing I did prior to the accident was work and take out the trash.  And now according to her, I still don't do much else.  My memory tells me the house has never been clean consistently even before the accident.  I told her early in the marriage that bothered me.  It never changed and eventually I mentally disassociated myself from expecting the house to be clean.  The other day when I got on our daughter about the wash room smelling bad (because she stuffed a really bad smelling towel in the bottom of the laundry basket), she tells me I should help clean as most men work and clean up/do other things around the house.  To keep the peace, I agreed to help clean every day when I get off work.  Now, she claims she is overwhelmed because she has to tell everybody what to do and things are not right.  She keeps hinting about leaving one day soon and not coming back because the marriage and the family as a whole are too much for her due to her health.

I am beyond frustrated.  She seems oblivious to any efforts I make to please her, constantly sensationalizes what she's done to keep the family and house together, while minimizing everyone else's contributions.  I don't believe it's fair for the burden of everything to be on me.  She has back/nerve issues, A fib, high cholesterol, and some stomach issues.  Hell, I have back issues myself and high B/P with abnormal kidney and liver function but I'm not using it to not do anything.  Am I wrong for thinking this way?

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[waverider]

Totally get this. The core issues here I think is the way the disorder affects her life. It is most like an extension of her ability to regulate. This applies not only to emotions but also to they way someone structures and orders their life. In essence it means they struggle to organize and be proactive, rather they live reactively... Hence they look at something as simple as household chores and they cant sort the tasks into priorities, hence they dont know where to start and it is just overwhelming.

This creates distress, they suffer from distress intolerance. A dysfunctional coping mechanism for this is avoidance. The longer this is allowed, The more entrenched it becomes and the harder it is to overcome. Excuses become more desperate to hang on to this coping mechanism. Pushed too hard and they will go into fight or flight mode. Fear of exposure being the driving force.

Building self esteem and confidence that they can achieve things a little at a time i believe is the only way to turn this from a "cant do' mentality to 'can do'. For some it can be so overwhelming they may never be able to overcome it completely.

Fighting about the unfairness just undermines their self confidence, and makes them feel even more incapable. Of course hiding their incapabilities, usually by blaming, is paramount.

Most likely you will see this trait right across their life.

[Notwendy]

This is the case with my mother with BPD, something that always puzzled us. She was a "housewife" the typical role in her era, where many women didn't work outside the home, yet she didn't work in the home either.

The technical term that seems to fit my mother's difficulty is "executive function" ( a lack of). She may want to do something, but planning the steps from A to B to C... is hard for her. Add to this, decades of shame and trying to hide her lack of competence and it is very hard.

I recall her wanting to make something in my kitchen, and constantly asking questions- what pan, how much, what temperature do I turn the oven on. It seems she asked at every step. Then, when done- did it taste OK? Did I use enough salt? did I use too much salt?

My H is very competent outside the home,  but when it came to anything he considers to be "women's work" there was outright refusal. I have been a SAHM and I did all of it- every diaper, every ride to school. Asking him to wash a dish led to a rage. If I wanted to do something, I would get a babysitter since he often was unavailable. Yet, to this day, my H says he helped. At the time, I thought he was being a jerk, but lately, as the kids have grown, I wonder if his behavior was to cover up a lack of confidence. I know he can do it, but the fear, I think, is of making a mistake, not doing it perfectly.  My kids can cook a meal, but he will stand in front of the microwave looking lost, asking me what to do to heat up something.

Our fault, I think, is over compensating by doing for them. In my case, I did it do keep the peace. I thought it was better at the time to serve dinner, get a babysitter, than deal with the anger. However, this was very co-dependent and it kept him from gaining competence at tasks. I didn't expect him to do much, I knew I was the SAHM, but it would have been nice to have a hand once in a while. This was another fear, I think, that if he did the dishes he would be expected to do them all the time and he didn't think that was fair. I didn't expect that, but he assumed it.

With my mother, we all learned to do for her. We kids were able to cook, clean, take ourselves to school, and we also had household help. She would do things like sign up to bake cookies for a school function, then come home and scream at me to do them. Of course, I would, as my father would get angry if we didn't do what she asked.This kept her from gaining competence. She can do a lot of things,  but as soon as I walk in the door, she becomes helpless, and coerces me to do things for her. I think it is that she doesn't want to appear incompetent, so she gets bossy and mean instead.

Ironically it is now that I can see how doing too much for others, in order to keep the peace can keep pwBPD from gaining skills and competence. Of course, if kids are involved, their needs come first, but perhaps it is better to hold the line to tasks being done even if it is uncomfortable in the short run for the larger goal of their competence and self esteem. I realize that we thought we were helping Mom ( and had no choice if Dad got angry) as kids,  but we kept her helpless.

[dacoming]

This is the case with my mother with BPD, something that always puzzled us. She was a "housewife" the typical role in her era, where many women didn't work outside the home, yet she didn't work in the home either.

The technical term that seems to fit my mother's difficulty is "executive function" ( a lack of). She may want to do something, but planning the steps from A to B to C... is hard for her. Add to this, decades of shame and trying to hide her lack of competence and it is very hard.

I recall her wanting to make something in my kitchen, and constantly asking questions- what pan, how much, what temperature do I turn the oven on. It seems she asked at every step. Then, when done- did it taste OK? Did I use enough salt? did I use too much salt?

My H is very competent outside the home,  but when it came to anything he considers to be "women's work" there was outright refusal. I have been a SAHM and I did all of it- every diaper, every ride to school. Asking him to wash a dish led to a rage. If I wanted to do something, I would get a babysitter since he often was unavailable. Yet, to this day, my H says he helped. At the time, I thought he was being a jerk, but lately, as the kids have grown, I wonder if his behavior was to cover up a lack of confidence. I know he can do it, but the fear, I think, is of making a mistake, not doing it perfectly.  My kids can cook a meal, but he will stand in front of the microwave looking lost, asking me what to do to heat up something.

Our fault, I think, is over compensating by doing for them. In my case, I did it do keep the peace. I thought it was better at the time to serve dinner, get a babysitter, than deal with the anger. However, this was very co-dependent and it kept him from gaining competence at tasks. I didn't expect him to do much, I knew I was the SAHM, but it would have been nice to have a hand once in a while. This was another fear, I think, that if he did the dishes he would be expected to do them all the time and he didn't think that was fair. I didn't expect that, but he assumed it.

With my mother, we all learned to do for her. We kids were able to cook, clean, take ourselves to school, and we also had household help. She would do things like sign up to bake cookies for a school function, then come home and scream at me to do them. Of course, I would, as my father would get angry if we didn't do what she asked.This kept her from gaining competence. She can do a lot of things,  but as soon as I walk in the door, she becomes helpless, and coerces me to do things for her. I think it is that she doesn't want to appear incompetent, so she gets bossy and mean instead.

Ironically it is now that I can see how doing too much for others, in order to keep the peace can keep pwBPD from gaining skills and competence. Of course, if kids are involved, their needs come first, but perhaps it is better to hold the line to tasks being done even if it is uncomfortable in the short run for the larger goal of their competence and self esteem. I realize that we thought we were helping Mom ( and had no choice if Dad got angry) as kids,  but we kept her helpless.

My wife has plenty of confidence that she can do things; she just doesn't do them.  She criticizes the way we all do things and throw in our face how she is better or her way is better; something is wrong with us, we are weird and don't make sense, etc.  She seems to have some kind of complex because nobody insults her ever.  There are a few instances where I snapped back at her with a couple insults because she was going in on me hard and in front of the kids.  But I apologized.  She never does.  She says she is telling the truth and trying to make me a better person.  She knows more than the doctors who try to treat her, the home repair folks, the car repair folks, everybody.  She has a lot of BPD traits, nearly all of them, but also seems to have a few NPD traits as well.  She didn't finish school but she constantly takes shots at me insulting my intelligence, saying I don't have common sense, only smart at what I learned in the books and insults my family the same.  However, I take care of most things outside of cooking and handyman type stuff.  I'm not good at fixing things so I tend to avoid trying sometimes.  I admit that.  But I guarantee you if she wasn't around, I'd function just fine.  I did it before her and can do it after.

[dacoming]

Totally get this. The core issues here I think is the way the disorder affects her life. It is most like an extension of her ability to regulate. This applies not only to emotions but also to they way someone structures and orders their life. In essence it means they struggle to organize and be proactive, rather they live reactively... Hence they look at something as simple as household chores and they cant sort the tasks into priorities, hence they dont know where to start and it is just overwhelming.

This creates distress, they suffer from distress intolerance. A dysfunctional coping mechanism for this is avoidance. The longer this is allowed, The more entrenched it becomes and the harder it is to overcome. Excuses become more desperate to hang on to this coping mechanism. Pushed too hard and they will go into fight or flight mode. Fear of exposure being the driving force.

Building self esteem and confidence that they can achieve things a little at a time i believe is the only way to turn this from a "cant do' mentality to 'can do'. For some it can be so overwhelming they may never be able to overcome it completely.

Fighting about the unfairness just undermines their self confidence, and makes them feel even more incapable. Of course hiding their incapabilities, usually by blaming, is paramount.

Most likely you will see this trait right across their life.

She seems to have plenty of confidence in herself.  Perhaps she's masking it.  Even the girls realize that she really didn't do all of the cleaning, cooking, etc that she claims to have done earlier in the marriage.  She constantly fusses to all of us how we make her feel like Superwoman because she maintained the entire house by herself for years and now us 3 adults can't manage to do it together while she is down (health issues, depression).  I guess we haven't been living in the same house all this time.  At least half of her perceptions and recollections, probably more, are the complete opposite of what it was or at least what I remember.  Sometimes she makes me question myself. 

[Notwendy]

I'd be willing to bet she is masking. My mother doesn't admit to any insecurities, I just deduced this from her behavior. She can present herself as an expert on something and be quite critical. She is interested in her kids in a strange way- it feels as if she wants to take on what we do as her own.

She will call me up and ask my opinion on something I may know something about, then turns around and it becomes her opinion when talking to someone else. For instance she may ask me about my opinion about kids the ages of mine- and then turn around and advise a friend about her grandchild. She had a friend who was dealing with a work situation. Mom asked me what I thought, then advised her friend as if it came from her experience.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I am a mom and I have also had jobs, so I have mothering and work experience. My mother does not, but she then takes my experience and tells her friends about it as if it were hers.

Mom married my dad right out of college and has not worked, the norm in her day. I have a sibling who didn't meet her career expectations- he's happy what he is doing but it isn't a high power job. She calls him up and tells him he is a failure.

It's all smoke and mirrors. Just because someone says something, doesn't mean you need to believe it. This is an important concept. Those of us with BPD parents or partners tend to take what they say to heart. If we are enmeshed we can buy into their reality, but it doesn't have to be ours and we don't have to react to or defend accusations that are not true to us.

If we don't react from a place of hurt in ourselves, we can see that this behavior comes from their own inner shame and poor sense of self. Someone who feels they need to put others down , to make a false front, to not be able to just accept who they are is sad.

[waverider]

I think pwBPD commonly suffer from a form of Kleptomnesia . Particularly in the way they seem to memorize details yet seem to disassociate it from context and attribution. Hence if a recollection sounds better if they did it/happened to them then that is how they will apply it. Reality gets tampered with, even if the details can be spot on.

This ability to cut and paste to suit creates a credibility to many of their stories and excuses if you didn't know them better.

When it is blended in with the idealization phase it gets mixed in with the mirroring so that you/I/We become one, and they are adopting and absorbing your actions and achievements.

As far as ability to do a job is concerned, often pwBPD almost have OCD like perfectionism, IF they do something it will be perfect, fear of not doing a perfect job brings with it a fear of failure which is coped with using avoidance. Creating the proverbial armchair expert. In reality no one can consistently do a perfect job of everything and practically dictates an acceptable level instead, otherwise you would never finish anything. This of course sets you up for criticism by the armchair expert who only thinks in absolutes of perfect vs failure.

[Notwendy]

The problem with the chronic refusal is over time, the difference in competence can get wider, after all, part of doing something well is experience and practice. So years later, I am a great cook and he still doesn't know how long to heat something up in the microwave. But he is very intelligent and could look it up. One of the things our MC encouraged me to do is to stop the over caretaking. I have stepped back and watched him make errors and am careful to not say anything. I make errors too and there are things he does much better than I do. Both of us came from FOO where we were likely to be shamed for making a small mistake, so I can see where it is hard.

I could see where my mother would take the course of bullying us kids to do things for her- and as a parent- she had that power. If one has no power in other areas it makes sense to build the sense of power/self esteem available to you. Yet the having people do things for you is temporary- as it doesn't build skills. Over time, I can have empathy for my mother in context of her FOO who seem to one up her in a sense.

I think in the sense of the wife who doesn't do much of anything in the house, it doesn't help to get into the who does what. It may always be uneven. But to have nothing to do and nothing to accomplish won't help self esteem. Part of child raising includes having the kids contribute, for that reason- even if they don't do it well. Most 4 year olds won't do housework perfectly, but we heap praises on them for picking up their toys. Is it possible to build on this with a partner? It could be that their fears and sense of shame come from an earlier time as well, but they can be capable of contributing.

[dacoming]

It's all smoke and mirrors. Just because someone says something, doesn't mean you need to believe it. This is an important concept. Those of us with BPD parents or partners tend to take what they say to heart. If we are enmeshed we can buy into their reality, but it doesn't have to be ours and we don't have to react to or defend accusations that are not true to us.

If we don't react from a place of hurt in ourselves, we can see that this behavior comes from their own inner shame and poor sense of self. Someone who feels they need to put others down , to make a false front, to not be able to just accept who they are is sad.

Thanks for the advice.  I know what she's saying is not true and try not to let things get to me.  Sometimes I do well, others I question myself and my sanity.  I will continue to heed your advice.

[dacoming]

I think pwBPD commonly suffer from a form of Kleptomnesia . Particularly in the way they seem to memorize details yet seem to disassociate it from context and attribution. Hence if a recollection sounds better if they did it/happened to them then that is how they will apply it. Reality gets tampered with, even if the details can be spot on.

This ability to cut and paste to suit creates a credibility to many of their stories and excuses if you didn't know them better.

When it is blended in with the idealization phase it gets mixed in with the mirroring so that you/I/We become one, and they are adopting and absorbing your actions and achievements.

As far as ability to do a job is concerned, often pwBPD almost have OCD like perfectionism, IF they do something it will be perfect, fear of not doing a perfect job brings with it a fear of failure which is coped with using avoidance. Creating the proverbial armchair expert. In reality no one can consistently do a perfect job of everything and practically dictates an acceptable level instead, otherwise you would never finish anything. This of course sets you up for criticism by the armchair expert who only thinks in absolutes of perfect vs failure.

This seems accurate.  There are always pieces of what she say that are true.  The problem is she throws a lot of extra events and thoughts in that make her story false and accuses me of lying/minimizing all the time and not wanting to admit the things I do wrong. There are many old arguments that she continues to bring up out of the blue that she still tries to get me to admit her version and when I don't, it blows up again.