Hi,
Mountain friend, and welcome!
I am currently going twice a week to a LMFT with my wife
I'm glad you're talking to someone together who can see the dynamics between you and be an impartial observer. Even though I had started seeing my own individual therapist, I still doubted myself and my perceptions so much before my uBPDxw and I went to counseling together. It didn't save our relationship, and I have still struggled with massive self-doubt over my journey of the past year or so, but having a clinical professional there who hears from both of you and sees how you interact can really help save your sanity.
and I called her out asking if she is aware that her behavior is verbally abusive and damaging and destructive to our relationship. She said she has said things that have been mean and harmful and asked me what I meant and to provide an example. I said, "when you tell me 'I hate you and I want to hit you so f$*cking hard in the face right now' I fell threatened, unloved, rejected and not trusting you."
My wife calls the "work" she is doing like going to her individual therapist, psychiatrist, and our couples therapist a checklist that I have pushed on her to control her and I am holding her in emotional blackmail.
What was your marriage counselor's response to this very specific statement? And how did your wife take it?
My uBPDxw demonstrated over an over again that she wouldn't do the actual work that needed to be done--even the little things. She would nod and agree in session that she needed to actually follow through with doing things she said she would, like come home at a certain time. She would indicate her understanding that doing this would help to rebuild and repair some of the trust that I had lost in her. But then at home, the excuses would just keep coming.
And as far as the sessions themselves, my experience was that when each session of counseling focused mostly on my uBPDxw, her behavior towards me or our kids, her family of origin, etc. she started resenting it more and more. She wanted to focus much more on me, the "damage" she had decided my mother did to me in my childhood, and my contributions to our problems. But as my T reassured me, it's rarely an even 50/50 split between the partners when it comes to issues in the marriage.
I am feeling that this relationship seems hopeless to improve without wife in treatment or at the least recognizing she has a mental illness, BPD or at the minimum she is verbally abusive.
What other suggestions can I do to help and assist in her self discovery?I don't know how much longer I can hold on here.
I'm going to ask something that may not seem to help, but it's critical. What are you doing for you? You mentioned multiple professionals... .is one of them your own individual therapist? I was in my relationship for 15 years (married for 11) before I finally realized there was no path forward for us and we needed to separate. I'm still just beginning to discover the damage her emotional abuse has caused me over all that time.
Now is a time to focus on you. Are you getting enough sleep? Exercise? Are you eating well? Us nons tend to sacrifice all of that in order to take care of the demanding pwBPD (and when we're parents, whatever is left is spent also taking on more of the caretaking of our kids). We forget ourselves, leaving us that much less capable of standing up for our own needs.
So my specific suggestion is to start therapy for yourself if you haven't already. And carve out some time to learn more about BPD itself, as well as establishing and enforcing healthy boundaries. From there, you can start to make some of the hard decisions about what to do with your marriage. You aren't going to be able to control her, and it's a waste of energy to try. She is going to have to make her own decisions based on the boundaries you establish, and she is going to have to deal with the consequences of those decisions on her own.
I need to keep my 8 year old daughter safe and also be the best and strongest parent I can be, which I don't feel is in this relationship of 11+ years.
And I am with you on this 100%. My biggest motivator was the detrimental impact I could see my uBPDxw's behavior having on our kids--especially our daughter who was 8 at the time I finally started to realize what a mess I was in. Take care of you, because your daughter is going to need you strong so that you can take care of her, too.
mw