My wife of 9 years and I are likely at the tail end of our relationship. I am starting to feel ambivalence after her outbursts and see no evidence that things will improve. I read through the "Surviving a Break-up when Your Partner has Borderline Personality" article and read plenty of things I identify with. Although she hasn't been formally diagnosed with BPD, as far as I know, she exhibits many of the traits: she recently cut herself and attempted suicide; she sometimes seems to love me and sometimes hates me; she bounces between friendly "support" and brutal insults; she struggles with knowing her place and who she is; she has trouble holding a job and finishing projects; she has a trail of broken relationships behind her and around her; etc... She was recently hospitalized after a pretty low series of events and she received some help through that; however, she stopped attending her meetings with a mental health specialist and now blames me for the hospitalization. I admit that I haven't handled some things well and, in hindsight, could have done a lot better; however, her behavior and the subsequent alienation from all of our support networks was an extremely important factor in her breakdown. And it was through all of this that I learned about BPD. Whether or not she is diagnosed, she meets a lot of the criteria, and I sort of wonder if the mental health people she was working with had already suggested it.
In relation to [https://bpdfamily.com/content/surviving-break-when-your-partner-has-borderline-personality]the article[/https://bpdfamily.com/content/surviving-break-when-your-partner-has-borderline-personality], I've experienced all of the following:
- 1 Belief that this person holds the key to your happiness
3 Belief that the relationship problems are caused by you or some circumstance
4 Belief that love can prevail
5 Belief that things will return to "the way they used to be
6 Clinging to the words that were said
7 Belief that if you say it louder you will be heard
8 Belief that absence makes the heart grow fonder
9 Belief that you need to stay to help them
So it's pretty bad. I don't think I can do it anymore. At a recent set of text messages where she called me "evil," "selfish," "manipulative," and an "ass," I called a crisis line and I couldn't think of a good reason to stay with her. I have a feeling that my own psychologist is leaning that way too. Heck, recently even she's suggested that we might not work. So I think we're tailing off, and I don't know if we'll make it through the summer. Whether I leave or stay, I'm sure I'll get some resilience out of it.
I think the hardest thing about all of this is that I've been an open person and given her lots of ammo. I've trusted her judgements of me, even when it's against my better judgement. If she says I'm an ass, I question it, I take it on, and try to see it--but I'm not an ass. And if she says I'm "cockcentric", I check it out and mull it over and realize that I'm not. If she says I'm "selfish," "careless," "narcissistic," "manipulative," "a piece of ___," or any other of a litany of insults, I look them over and realize they were said in a moment of great emotional stress, and I look them over and understand that I'm not that way. But the words still sting and I think she really believes them. I've identified so much with her and her judgements of me that it's hard to think that they might have been wildly inaccurate and that all of the other people around me might have been right instead.
We've had an open relationship for a long time and she's had a boyfriend for almost a year. He was recently kicked out of his house and she invited him into ours. I originally thought this would be OK because he's a friend, but I feel like I've basically been forgotten about since. She treats me with less respect now; she calls me "delusional" and I have no idea how to be intimate with someone who thinks I'm delusional. It's hard to imagine how we can work through all this stuff when she can just go to her boyfriend when the conversation gets awkward, or if she wants a distraction. It's given me too much time to think it over, too much time to reflect on things and realize that the emotional abuse isn't worth it. I'd love to stick through it, but I can't see things getting better. I almost feel I will be a better example for my daughters if I am bold enough to leave instead of sticking around and continuing trying to make things work, which seems more and more remote by the day.
I feel like most of her insults could be applied to her, that she's projecting her own insecurities onto me in various ways: she calls me selfish because she's acting selfishly; she calls me narcissistic because she's seeing things solely from her perspective; she calls me careless because she's smashing her way through different relationships--both hers and our alienated friends and families. But I also can't tell.
My question is:
Is there any way to know if somebody is projecting, particularly if they are intelligent and have BPD? If I'm an ass, I'd really like to know; if I'm careless, I want to know so I can change things.
Any tips out there?
