As much as we wish having more children could be a positive in a marriage, we also have to be aware that if the marriage does fail then having more children would make the divorce even more complicated and difficult.

For example, right now your youngest will soon start grade school.  If you had more children then there would be more years with babies, toddlers or preschoolers and you'd find it stressful to separate then.  At least now, your kids have school or daycare as a regular part of their lives and they'll not be considered quite so dependent on their mother as would small children.

I wanted to respond that my dad doesn’t use cell phones. He isn’t tech savvy. He can’t see the small numbers on a cellphone.

I set up a phone that looks like an old landline phone from 10+ years ago. It has extra large buttons and a couple of handsets with it.

It’s connected via Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOiP). It’s connected through home WiFi with a VOiP box given by their service provider. There is no cellular service used. The phone is a plug-in and has no battery.

The VOiP box was given by the WiFi provider as a service to seniors. The VOiP box is connected via a cable to the WiFi box. If the VOiP loses connectivity from the WiFi box for over a few minutes it shuts down phone service.

 The phone still looks like it’s on since it’s plugged in. My dad still uses an answering machine from 20 years ago. VM confuses him. That remains plugged in although the phone service is down.

This system can be interfered with by unplugging the WiFi router for a few minutes. The VOiP box needs to be restarted then. My dad forgets how to do it. The phone can be offline for days and he wouldn’t know until he gets no phone calls.

Anyway, I thought I’d explain it since it’s uncommon.

I always knew this would be a hard time and I’ve even spoken of it on here before. I am absolutely disgusted at my bpdw’s behaviour and I wanted to share it here with the hopes I won’t feel the need to tell everyone at work everything as I now have supportive friends at work. I am so ashamed of my wife Abe my feelings are so mixed because her behaviour is disgusting yet always brings me back to the childhood trauma she faced which has made her this way. She does not blame her behaviour on it. But it is the reason she is this way.

My Dad passed a few weeks ago and my wife’s Grandad also passed away a few days ago. My work friends all found out what was going on when bpdw was putting pressure on me to miss my father’s funeral so she could go and see her dying Grandad, even though she bullied me out of seeing my Dad before he died insisting she needed me here with the kids. She says I just take off when I want like I have no obligation to our four little ones. I told her, I am going to Dad’s funeral and will take the kids if I have to. Her Grandad sadly passed before my Dad’s funeral so she didn’t get to see him. One of my friends at work pointed out this seemed fair as she guilted me out of seeing my Dad when he was dying. Dad was totally unconscious for a week so I would feel worse if I’d known he was wanting to see me.

Dad’s funeral was yesterday. Bpdw initially had the time changed, for herself from 12pm to 10am. This was because we live 5-6 hours away, she she wanted us to get up in the middle of the night and drive down, saying she would do the driving. Her mother was going to look after our kids and there were discussions whether she would take our breastfed baby or leave him here. Her mother was not happy to look after the Dogs we had boarding. So bpdw asked my mother if she would donate funds to refund and cancel these bookings as she didn’t have the money. My mum agreed. Bpdw was then stressing about what to where to the funeral and the fact it was too “posh” as she thought there was going to be a singer but actually there wasn’t. She was also stressed about leaving baby with her mother who always overfeeds bottles, and didn’t want to bring him. So she decided she wasn’t going to come.

Due to my wife’s Grandad passing, her mum couldn’t come as it was her dad’s dad, but he wasn’t able to drive her here. So again I stayed here to help with kids bedtime, left around 9pm and arrived at my mothers at 2am.

I am proud to say that I didn’t give my wife much attention on the day of my Dad’s funeral. Well… not until I was driving home and unfortunately that took over six hours. I did ring her in the morning to practise reading my poem. Even though she has sneered at me for getting choked up over it. I said not stay on the phone afterwards. There were other family members staying who I wanted to see and catch up with. My wife watched the funeral service on video cam. She was very jealous to see my sister in law and my aunt comforting me at the end of the service. It was around 3 hours from the start of the service until when I left the wake to start driving home for it kids bedtime. It was wonderful to see all of my Dads family and catch up with my brother and my cousins and everyone. I did text wife a couple of times with pictures. Texts weren’t getting through very well but I seriously didn’t care. I was already getting these messages:
“Why haven’t you called me just to speak to me? To get my support.
It’s like I don’t exist, nor do you care that I’m here? I’m not here. You don’t need me..
I’m just saying, I thought you would’ve involved me a bit more. I shouldn’t have had to say anything that is the hurtful point.
Maybe you would’ve rung me and I could’ve spoken to some people, I could’ve spoken to Mum and C and E. Just involving Me a bit more because you know that I can’t be there because I have commitments where none of you do.”

For some reason I wasn’t prepared for her to scream at me all the way home about how selfish I am, how I make everything about me, how our marriage is a shambles, where is the support, how I would take her support when I get home and give nothing back… well that part is laughable as she’s barely even given me a hug since my Dad died. For context, she admits she wasn’t close to her Grandad. Her Dad was unable to drive her because he keeps bursting into tears over his Dad dying, he didn’t want to visit him when he was sick and he won’t go to the funeral and when he stayed here recently after my Dad died I was told I could not speak about my Dad or get upset in front of him as he couldn’t handle it.

I have continued to have a few breakdown moments at work, usually after speaking to my wife on my break. Everyone I work with now knows what my wife is like but I’m so ashamed of her I don’t want to tell them of all the accusations and screaming following my Dad’s funeral. But I might because I am no longer lying to cover up her disgusting behaviour. I shall continue to grieve on my own, tears coming briefly and quietly and when I’m at work and people hold me to comfort me. Shall try and get things back to being more stable here at home where I will have more strength to validate and try to fix some of this damage. It was truly wonderful to see my family and I’m glad my wife did not destroy my Dad’s funeral.

Today my T suggested my W may also have Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.  This based upon my revelation that W is insistent our kids have autism and anger towards anyone that does not bend over backwards to provide services to our kids.  She had them tested twice.  Once when they were 2-3, and again when they were 5.  The test at 2-3 did not find any indication of autism.  The test at 5 did - but this diagnosis was almost entirely based upon my W's questionnaire and only a short visit with each of the kids.  They didn't ask me - only W about the kids' behaviors.  When I looked over the questions, it was pretty clear W was either seeing something I wasn't or seeing problems much more severe than I did. 

Later, the school district found no indication that autism was affecting the kids' schooling.  To that, W was furious.

That's not to say they don't have some autism traits such as sensitivity to loud sounds.  There could be other explanations for that.  But they don't show any problems with classic autism issues such as socialization. 

W also claims I have autism - to which my last 3 Ts pretty much laughed at and said I was welcome to get tested but felt I would be wasting my money.  Nobody else in my life has ever even suggested this. 

Today T suggested W may have Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and wants others in her life to have illnesses in order to validate her mental disorder as truly a problem with others.  Is this common with pwBPD?  Given pwBPD's tendency to blame others, I feel it would be common. 

How do I deal with this?  I'm okay with the kids having that diagnosis (for now) because they aren't being treated any differently, and if they do have issues we may get services for cheap or free.  As for me, I was tempted to go pay for an evaluation in order to prove W wrong, but what would that do?  That would likely make the issue worse as she would claim I faked the test or the doctor was incompetent.  Should I use my agreement for an evaluation as a bargaining chip?  "Ok, I will go get a test and find out if I have something that may cause relationship challenges if you will agree to intensive DBT therapy for a diagnosis that you already have that definitely causes relationship challenges."  My guess is that would backfire, too, but it may get her to drop the subject. 

Hey,

Wow, there's a lot here and a lot to unpack. First, I can tell you are torn, and I want you to know I've been there too. My wife with BPD had an amazing talent for making me feel responsible for all her ills and hurts. I realize that now, but back then I felt so guilty and obligated. Please know that you are not responsible for another person's actions.

Another thought I had reading this was, if you are in a bad place mentally or emotionally, you should first seek out someone trustworthy to stabilize yourself. Therapy can be a great space to sort out your thoughts and feelings. If you find yourself lashing out and apologizing over and over, it probably means you're not ready to re-enter the relationship and need to do some healing first. It's often said on this forum, but I'll say it again: "You don't need to make a choice right now."

We all make mistakes in life; life is a constant, progressing journey of trying to bring our actions in alignment with what we know is true. I believe making mistakes is part of the plan; we just try really hard to avoid making catastrophic mistakes (like marrying a borderline, oops, my bad). But even then, there's a reason people say "The secret to happiness is good health and bad memory." Dwelling on our past mistakes usually does us little good.

A LOT of great thoughts here--I learned a lot just reading through.

A few thoughts I will throw in. Before my wife wBPD was diagnosed, she attended therapy regularly. She had a great relationship with her therapist, and her therapist enjoyed her. The therapist validated everything my wife said. Even though I was going to graduate school full-time, providing all the financial support, and doing 50% of the chores (dishes, laundry, etc) the therapist would tell her all the time about how she must be tired and overwhelmed because of how overworked she is and ask me to take over things so she can have a break. When my wife finally saw a psychiatrist who diagnosed BPD on the second visit, my wife told the therapist who said, "No way!" The therapist promised to learns "some DBT" and teach it to her but that never really happened either.

Therapy isn't like McDonald's--where if I order a Big Mac in Chicago or LA it's basically the same. It varies a lot.

My wife has done two DBT groups (and is signing up for a third), and they've been helpful, especially in the short term.

Your wife will have the relationships (including therapy relationships) of her choosing. And the same goes for you! Don't let therapy be weaponized against you--making it a condition of the relationship. Stay or leave based on what you want and how you are treated.

Sorry to hear about the rampage but also, very proud of you for enforcing a boundary and exiting when she was being unreasonable! You give me courage and inspiration.

Thank you all for your helpful posts. It means a lot to me to be able to come here and drop my thoughts, however ill- or well-formed they may be. You all provide an excellent forum of listening ears and thoughtful replies.

I have seen she gets better if life gets easier, for example, if the children are in school all day and she can just hang out at home by herself--but I agree that's not the same thing as progress. We seem to be, as cliche as it sounds, on eggshells.

Though I would love to have more children than two, I remain committed to not having anymore with her. I completely agree that that could go very, very badly, and I'm certain it would lead to regret on my end (and anger on hers).

Having a close family member with BPD is a life long sorrow. Being a chosen scapegoat is also a life long sorrow. It is normal to want to escape the feelings we have as we walk on eggshells around disordered people who dump how badly they feel inside on others. The getting tired of it factor, can turn into spending less and less time around the disordered person and becoming less a target of the disordered person's feelings as we become more resilient in setting boundaries, especially not taking on feelings that are not our own.

It is a lot. Sometimes we repeat the patterns in our families of origin. You said your father was primary parent. Did you have similar dynamics in your family?

I understand your oldest child feeling uneasy about promises, and becoming aware that something may be going on with his mother. I think a counselor is in the best position to explain the situation to him when he's ready.

I didn't know- we didn't know about BPD and there was denial about my BPD mother's issues- so it was confusing. I saw what I saw and by age 12 - I knew something was different. We don't know the road not taken- but I do wish someone had spoken about her mental illness, because I assumed she was "normal" and treating me the way she did on purpose and that it was my fault (she blamed me). I was old enough to understand mental illness if someone had explained her situation to me.

What happened in my family is that each of us developed different relationships with each parent. It makes sense- BPD affects all relationships. It makes sense- every relationship is between two people. Your children will develop their own relationship with each of you over time.

I don't think anyone does parenting in this situation completely right. I think you are doing the best you can with it. That's about all anyone can do.