Hello
My spouse, Person A, is a beautiful, highly functioning, professional. Her parents divorced when she was about 3 years old and she has been in full custody with her biological father and has had a very estranged relationship or even lack thereof, with her biological mother. She was raised entirely by her father who did not remarry. I have been raised by two wonderful parents and grew up in a relatively tight knit community. The problems really started after my spouse met my family. I think my spouse has been actively looking for flaws and behaviors that would fit her self-fulfilling prophecy of my family rejecting her – even after our engagement and wedding. She has constantly found small and trivial things to get upset about and really paint my family as the worst people on the planet. My family has always welcomed her with open arms, and been extremely well-intentioned with no sideways comments, snarky attitudes, or anything whatsoever. I know it is an age-old tale that mothers sometimes get into disagreements with their daughter-in-laws but this was not even the case as my parents completely take a back seat in now, our adult life. Their entire philosophy is ‘if you are happy, then we are happy’. Aside from extravagant gifts, thoughtful gestures, and even welcoming messages coming from my family, my wife neglects all those things and tends to focus on maybe a couple items she misinterprets in conversion and turns one small issue into what seems like a Category 5 hurricane. My family is obviously dumbfounded by her overreactions as they can’t make sense of why she is behaving this way, and what they could have been doing wrong. Even with my family apologizing for the mere purpose to settle any differences/misunderstandings, my spouse has increasingly had such venomous and dark rage/anger towards my family that I cannot seem to understand.
Any time that I even want to begin a conversation about my family or even hesitate to bring up my sister’s name, my wife just goes on this enraged fury screaming insults and expletives. She has even gone as far as to text her obscenities without any trigger. It’s this rumination of some past trauma that she believes has been inflicted on her by my family/sister/mother. I can’t believe it. Here my family is trying to do whatever they can to embrace their daughter in law and show her the love she deserves, but all my wife does is ask for love in the MOST UNLOVING way. It is self-sabotage at its finest. I have never seen such a grown woman be so out of tune and emotionally regulated and go ahead and say such nasty things to my siblings as if it is going to solve anything or make her feel more loved by my family, or even me! My sister is almost a whole 10 years younger, and she can’t even fathom what is going on. Because I have had to walk on such eggshells, I feel as if I have been manipulated/scared to see my family and haven’t seen them in months, in hopes that she can become calmer and emotionally settled. I keep telling my wife to worry about us, and what’s in this present moment and OUR future. Yet she wants to ruminate on what she believes are my family’s flaws and mistakes and there is a never-ending urge to seek revenge. She complains that I don’t love her enough and here I am trying to love her in the best way possible without losing myself to manipulation and controlling behavior, but I am running out of patience.
My wife has indeed physically had very little interactions with my family as we are already living 1200 miles apart, but that does not stop her from trying to put up irrational ‘boundaries and ultimatums to almost test my love and devotion for her. I feel as though I am being manipulated or controlled in way to cut off my family? I agree, if my family was continuously behaving bad and instigating things in my marriage, I think anyone would want to distance themselves. However, that is not the case. My family not only is so far away, but they are also not meddling in our business. They do not demand anything from her. On the contrary, they would have had liked to have a pleasant and meaningful relationship with their new daughter-in-law. I talk to them maybe once or twice a week and even that is a hair trigger for her to be fueled with rage and animosity like a dark spirit has overtaken her. At times, just to de-escalate things or save myself from this outburst and emotional abuse, I have found myself deleting call logs and text messages from my parents/family members even if those conversations were about completely random subjects. I probably shouldn’t be hiding as that is also distrustful behavior, but when trying to process and keep the peace – I end up choosing lesser of the two evils. It doesn’t make it right, I know. I feel awful. I feel terrible not only being stuck in the middle, but trying to find patience, compassion, and empathy for my spouse.
I have done extensive research on BPD to educate myself and even read Shari Manning ‘Loving Someone with BPD’ as recommended by my therapist. I have been trying to implement those strategies of validation, active listening, genuineness, and patience and empathy – however it has been exceedingly difficult to manage. I do believe that this chaos has been caused by some of the childhood trauma she received (motherly neglect) and is now projecting those very paranoid feelings of rejection/abandonment in a very harmful and destructive way against me and my family. I have suggested to my spouse that we try some sort of CBT, DBT, or another psychotherapy as I have heard that DBT can help a BPD person improve. I haven’t necessarily called my spouse out on her disorder as that might be combatted with another escalated emotional response, but I need her to realize that what she is doing is extremely unhealthy. I try my best to see the emotions beyond the words spoken, but at this point I feel so lost and confused. My family is trying their best to understand from afar what exactly is going on with her, are also running out of patience and are almost putting an expectation on me to separate as this is not my problem to solve and deal with. After she had indeed said such nasty and foul things to my parents with such anger, obviously my parents would feel some type of way – regardless of if they understand BPD or not. My spouse has not understood the magnitude or repercussions of her behavior. The failure to see things from another perspective has been so troubling.
I do love my wife with such sincerity that it has been taking every ounce of effort to find some sort of solution or alternative. I can do what I need to do for my safety and well-being, but it takes two to tango, one should want to realize and heal from their disorder otherwise improvement may never happen. I have faith that things could possibly improve but we are approaching a very dire need of solutions. I know we would both be devastated if we were to separate, and quite frankly, that is not where we want to head. But this idealization followed by devaluing and paranoia from her is becoming so difficult to manage, I just do not know what to do. She was not always like this. When we were dating, without our families involved, it seemed that everything was so at bliss. Ever since my family was involved when marriage talks came about, the more she found ways to highlight them as enemies.
I am looking for suggestions and support as to how we can overcome this. I am interested in the different forms of therapies that you may think is best to help get results for her, and our marriage. Please let me know if you have expertise in similar subject matters or would know how to tackle this problem.
