Hello there. I hope you find yourself well these days.

After reading the thread, I wanted to share two things with you, as everything you wrote sounds so familiar to me.

Regarding your wife. I was married for 13 years, and I can say that the first half was exactly what you described. Accusations of cheating, most of those girls I didn't even know they existed. No possibility to explain, to find a frequency where anything I had to say could be understood anyhow but me lying. Constant black & white, name calling, yelling, leaving & returning. Even physical violence.

Then, suddenly, things changed. The reason was, she experienced a short psychotic episode and started with antipsychotics (risperidone). Today, I know that smaller doses, like she used for the last 5 years of our marriage, regulate impulses, and suddenly those accusations and I-don't-hear-your-arguments - completely vanished. Besides that, she started with therapies, we had couples counciling, and our communication improved drastically. At the time, a year or two of her pharmacotherapy, she was tested on clinic and got really close to BPD diagnose, but, as I said, at that point, the most of her visible symptoms already melted down.

Sadly, last year we still decided to divorce. There were many scars from the past, that made us distant, that could not be fixed. Today, we are great friends, she is still on therapy, having new relationship. But, she would not come to this point if she didn't spend 6 years on therapies and self improvement, and she still does that.

Second thing, regarding yourself. The reason I wasn't able to leave in the first part of the marriage was a huge fear of abandonment, ending up alone. Her being so jealous, paranoid, rude, gaslighting, was in a way a proof of her feelings, due to the broken attachment system cause by my childhood with non-diagnosed, but definitely close-to-BPD mother. It is strange, but as much as it hurt and you know it's not good, somehow it is a proof of love to you, but also you are willing to leave it back, because of your fear of being abandoned. In the second half of our marriage, I could also add a feeling of guilt to the list, as I blamed myself for her psychotic episode (and she blamed me as well, before medics started to work).

Fast forward, today I am in a relationship where my partner practices the same rages, accusations, gaslighting, impulsive behaviours. The topic is different, although there are some subtle levels of jealousy and possessiveness, but the whole process in me is the same. Fear of abandonment, feeling guilty to leave her, as she is a single mother, not be able to set borders and seeing how she takes more and more of me and my space.

This is a clear alarm for me. Luckily, I have my therapist for 5 years, so I have tools. Unfortunately, I didn't touch those points, as it was a blind spot the whole this time, except guilt, which was a dominant problem in the second half of my marriage. But having fear of abandonment, of being alone, it is a clear problem that I (and you) should address and work on this. Not being able to handle it properly, is the main issue to setup proper borders. Of course, setting borders with BPD or close-to-BPD doesn't work so easily, but the process builds up your self-esteem, and in the process helps you leave abusive persons and the ones that do not respect your borders. (I talk this in theory, as my therapist tried to explain me - I have a long process of working on my own to get to this)

I hope this will give you some value. And I hope that we both will find some peace, inside - outside it's easy, it just requires antipsychotics :D

Thanks for the response SendingKindness
It's interesting that our dd's are so different in many ways, but similar in BPD symptoms: impulsive spending; high expectation that her needs will be met; anger and abuse when we draw a line.

The daughter of a friend of mine went through more than $160 000 in less than a year! She received an insurance payment and spent it travelling etc. She paid for friends to accompany her - and in this sense it's similar to my dd ie using money to hold friendships etc.

I agree with Kells76 especially re boundaries that you create being necessary for your personal wellbeing - because we can't be sure that a boundary will have the effect of making the BPD person turn around and make the necessary changes. In fact I came across this notion of a 'boundary' on this site and it made huge sense to me.
opo
It certainly sounds as though your dd has resources that she could reorganise to help her financial situation - the house is certainly an example. The problem is that BPD folk are often unable to  work through things rationally - they operate through emotion and impulse. I am sure if my dd were to sell a house she would spend all the proceeds before purchasing another home - which is the reason I am leaving her a life interest in an apartment (she can live in it, rent it but not sell it)

Your dd is high functioning and you have set out a pathway forward. Keep in touch to let us know how the way forward goes. In the meantime my dd is holed up in her room, not talking to me and I am just hoping we can get to her scheduled appointments!

Ah the stress of it all!

[Part 3 of 3]

11. My wife still has a need to know my whereabouts every single minute of every day along with the same information of our children, and her parents too.  However, her response to this need has gotten better, so she no longer freaks out - she is able to stay emotionally regulated, and is able to articulate her needs of communication with our daughter and son on their whereabouts. 

I have also been working with my wife to reassure her that our D17 is in good hands with her boyfriend (an Eagle Scout) and our D17 wants her freedom and will be 18 later on this year.  I  am also encouraging her to give our D17 more age-appropriate liberties as she transitions to a young adult, and I have reminded her that she has called us when an 18-wheeler rear ended her and nearly ran her off the road, and she is doing all of the ‘right things’.

This is still a ‘work in progress’; however, it is no longer at disordered levels, and our daughter no longer threatens to go ‘no contact’ once she turns 18 which used to upset my wife to no end and me too even though I understood her reasoning.


12. I am very happy to report my wife is now ‘self-aware’ of her splitting episodes as of two weeks ago when she apologized for behavior very similar to splitting in a couple’s session.  I saw the first evidence of her exploring to differentiate reality from false feelings back in January when she split severely on our daughter with a full borderline episode where I observed she was actively using the ‘fact checking tool’ for the first time in a very extreme example.

This was the most difficult behavior for her to become self-aware of, as it involves disassociation where she cannot genuinely remember what she did while she is stressed out.  In our couple’s session, two weeks ago, she apologized for “when I get mad at you, I think you are doing some really bad stuff that I now know is an exaggeration of what is really going on” - this showed me that she understood she was doing this to me - in essence her emotions were painting me black.  She agreed to communicate with me, and to ask me if I am really feeling that way she thinks I am feeling, and if it is my intention to deliberately piss her off or something else.


13. I previously indicated that “She also has told me that she cannot love me as she doesn't love herself, and I asked if she feels empty inside, and has indicated that it is a ‘persistent feeling of emptiness’.”

I feel that this may still be true; however, I am unsure.  That said, the circumstantial evidence would point to this naturally moderating as she now has more smiles on her face, and seems to be enjoying life a lot more as her relationship with me and our children have all become exponentially better with her better behaviors - a very good cycle of reinforcement of positive outcomes with positive behaviors to be in.


14. Her mood swings are still there, and the feelings are still exaggerated; however, their arguments and the articulation of her feelings are no longer irrational and escape any logic.  There is now logic, and there is also rational thought processes when she is heated, even though they are at an elevated temperature in comparison to a neurotypical person - I can work with this and accept this level of conflict as I suspect this too will naturally moderate to more civilized levels as other aspects of our relationship continues to improve.


15. Myself, and both of our children, ‘still’ get out of her way when she even remotely indicated she is shifting into a negative mood - everyone still is walking on fewer eggshells; however, we no longer fear she will explode like nitroglycerin with one wrong move.  However, we are no longer cowering at the first sign of danger.  She has still had several minor episodes since the major one in January.  I feel with time these too will continue to moderate to a more ‘normal’ level of conflict for a family with teenagers, and when comparing it to some of the other more volatile families we know it is currently at a similar level to those.  We are currently in a gray area between disordered and ordered on this.




Of course I have only touched upon the major issues as there are thousands of minor ones too that have improved.  My wife has reconnected to me on many levels of emotional as well as physical intimacy which has been disconnected for so long.  From what I have recently experienced in the past few months - this is nothing short of a miracle in what has happened with my wife and children - my family is no longer completely dysfunctional anymore.

I cannot attribute the change to any one thing; however, my wife has done the most amount of change that took only a fraction of the time I have expended which is over 4000 hours of reading, hanging out on forums like this one, therapy, CoDA meetings, NAMI meetings, praying, meditating on trying and experimenting with strategies ‘outside of the box’ which involved trial and error, etc. in order to devise and perfect strategies to nudge my wife into becoming self-aware enough to enact meaningful change for the betterment of herself and in turn for our children and me to.  I cannot fix her, only she can do that; however, I can lovingly ‘nudge’ her in a direction so she could do this through my enacting meaningful, but fair and firm boundaries combined with a significant change in the way I communicated with her, and used active listening with her and have interacted with other borderlines to understand their needs better so I can navigate through the rough seas of volatile emotions, and learn methods on calming these seas to enact meaningful change.

It is not all roses.  There are still some serious issues remaining that need to be addressed.  I cannot change the emotional damage done to our children; however, I am maximizing the chances no more damage is done, and what damage that has been done can be reversed as much as practical/possible. 

Our daughter’s boyfriend’s mother has similar behavior issues my wife had two years ago - both my D17 and her boyfriend are likely codependent people-pleasing caregivers in a mostly healthy kind of way and my D17 is giving him many emotional tools on how to handle his mother as both of them can understand fully what the other has gone through - in this respect I envy my D17 and her boyfriend’s relationship as she has someone who knows what she has gone through.  It could be much worse, she could have a Cluster-B boyfriend, or be a cluster B herself - fortunately she is not.  She has the tools from her own mental illness journey when she was a full blown AN, and the tools she learned back then is being put to good use now.

Our S12, for a while, was ODD, until therapy reversed most of this and as of a year ago had 6 of the symptoms of BPD himself.  He still has abandonment issues that have been moderating as we are in the process of weaning him off certain behaviors like sleeping with mom, and encouraging sleepovers at playdates homes.  He still has an explosive anger like his mom had but not the disassociation that my wife had, that too has been moderating.  He still has mood swings that can be exacerbated with hunger, anger, and tiredness.  For the positives, he is also extremely empathetic, kind, and a caregiver and much more understanding of adversity than most children in his peer group. 

My relationship with my wife has taken off in the past two months.  We are actually finally at the ‘starting line’ to start meaningful couple’s therapy with each other.  It’s rough, it is going to be challenging, and considering what both of us have gone through I believe the relationship will continue to transform for the better moving forward into the future and eventually flourish.  …and for those wondering about physical intimacy, yes, that is back too in addition to the emotional intimacy.

I am also under no illusion that my wife is currently in ‘remission’ and the outward symptoms can return full strength at a moment’s like they did in January only to bounce back even to higher levels of self-awareness.  I have learned that progress is not linear, there may still be setbacks, as there have been many in the past two years.  I continue to have hope, and the will to make this work.  My wife also has gotten the will for herself, to make this work out too.  Our children have had to adapt to a most toxic and dysfunctional family dynamic and are learning to adapt to a healthier family dynamic similar, yet unique, to the family dynamics that they also have observed with their friends.

In light of recent positive development, I will not lift my foot from the accelerator, as we are no longer spinning our wheels in place, but are moving forward gaining momentum.

As I have not read any similar stories here.  My story for the BPD aware portion has not used DBT therapy (ironically we had eclectic therapy which had heavy influence of DBT therapy prior to her most recent suicide attempt/gesture by our first couple’s therapist), nor has there been a formal diagnosis, even though I have requested a formal evaluation.

However, my wife has now openly admitted to having all 9 symptoms at one point or another in front of our couple’s therapist - in effect she has self-diagnosed, yet she refuses to connect the dots of each symptom.  Also my individual therapist, who trains other therapists, agrees with my assessment.    I am not questioning the lack of labeling or my wife’s refusal to connect the dots, as the end result is what counts, and that is what's happening.

To summarize all visible symptoms of BPD, except binge eating is currently in remission at disordered levels.  The mood swings are still there, but not at disordered levels.  Previously, two years ago, all symptoms were present at disordered levels except ‘self mutilation’; however, suicidal gestures were part of that symptom group.  My wife has come a long way.  Concurrently her symptoms of comorbid OCPD also have moderated for the most part to being in remission as well with the most damaging ones being addressed (subject for a different post).  Depending on which NIH.gov study is referenced the comorbidity rate of OCPD and BPD range from 5% to 50% depending on the study reviewed.  When brainstorming ideas on how to nudge my wife into becoming self-aware, I did take advantage of her OCPD symptoms to help her realize her more damaging BPD symptoms.  I can manage and accept her with the remaining symptoms and traits of OCPD.  I do look forward to possible additional improvement, and I will be one happy camper if there is no regression at this point in time.

If anyone has any additional suggestions for me to continue to help the remission stay in remission - I am here to learn from what you have learned, just as I am sharing my experience with you so you can learn what I have done right, and I am also willing to share what I have done wrong as well.

I feel it was a combination of things, me changing the way I communicate with excessive validation and empathy and focusing on the positive and setting firm fair boundaries was part of the solution.  Another part was that she was read the RIOT act by a friend’s spouse who is also a family court judge about losing her children - this is probably my wife’s low point in her recovery journey where she started to make a conscious effort to make things better.  Another part was looping in all of the the therapists, both the good ones and not-so-good ones into my suspicions of BPD, and not giving up by introducing my wife’s symptoms in session after session after session mostly by having her talk about them with steering questions towards my wife repeatedly reflect the negative behaviors until they were adequately addressed by her inside of therapy.  I also learned how to ‘influence’ my wife in nudging her to do the right thing for her through a multitude of ways that exceeded the ones by an order of magnitude as described in the “Stop Caretaking” book by M Fjelsted, and allowed her to come up with the solution to her own issues by allowing her to see her reflection as I wanted her to see them through the lens of her personality that enabled her to get the motivation to correct what she saw in herself from my perspective.  As much as I don’t want to admit my faults, my wife also did this where she could back to me, and I too changed my ways for the better, even though it was at a very unfair 90/10 split where she did 90% of the changing.

One last thing, I want to give credit to my higher power, as I have also grown spiritually as well, as there were inexplicable coincidences more often than not immediately after I prayed about it.  People from all walks of life have influenced this journey in major ways, a Jewish therapist, a Shia Muslim psychologist, a counselor who was also an ordained minister and spiritual coach, a catholic therapist, agnostics, atheists, Mormon, Cult, etc. in addition to those I have interacted here -  most everyone has had major and minor contributions that I have learned from.  Thank You each and everyone for listening and sharing and the higher power allowing me to see the invaluable resource each and everyone has contributed to my wife's seemingly miraculous healing.

Take care with self care.

SaltyDawg

[Post 2 of 3]

The couple’s therapist was certain my wife was genuine in her intent to ‘Discard’ me as she had apparently colluded with her individual therapist from the same practice, complete with a ‘safety plan’ my wife had expressed in the previous session.  This signaled to me she was planning on leaving, and when she did this in front of our couple’s therapist, I called my wife’s bluff.  My wife wanted me to leave the home and the children with her.  I pushed back, and said something along the lines of “you are free to go; however, I will not leave the children, nor will I allow you to take the children as I am concerned for their safety”.  The therapy session ended shortly after the therapist asked my wife “How do you feel about that?”.  The therapist was certain it was over for the relationship; however, I suspected it wouldn’t be…

…The next session was a few days later, and the therapist was exceptionally surprised to the point of being gobsmacked by seeing both of us in the following session where my wife was smiling and singing my praises on how good I was to her when I did next to nothing after the discard and she was begging to come back yet once again - my wife’s behaviors were a ‘textbook’ fit for symptom 2.  The look on the couple’s therapist’s face was absolutely priceless, and she had to validate her perception by asking me if my wife was accurately communicating her feelings of the situation as the therapist couldn’t believe what she was witnessing.  This was the turning point in the couple’s therapist's perception, as each new symptom that was revealed or reviewed, she took copious notes, and there was substantial and continuous but non-linear improvement (depending on my wife’s mood swing at the moment) from that moment forward.

Concurrently at the same time I have primarily been focused on my wife’s issues, and have learned human behavior by studying it, and then also going out in the ‘wild’ so to speak to various facebook groups and other areas too, when the textbooks and articles did not have the answers I was looking for and have passively observed and directly interacted with several hundred who have indicated that they have BPD and/or I suspected they had BPD.  The number of episodes declined rapidly for the next few months, where there was approximately one major episode a month (with several minor ones) and even a few months without any major episodes in August, October-December of 2023, and again February to the present of this year = one major episode since September 2023.

This major episodic lapse occurred in January of this year, and it was directed against our daughter, not me, as I had established firm boundaries with consequences starting in October/November of 2022.  If the boundaries were violated I would follow through on natural consequences to her actions instead of previously enabling these kinds of behaviors.  I also changed my communication styles to ones that have a lot of empathy and validation.  As I was being seen in a better light (primarily due to my shift in communication styles) - my wife’s target of blame shifted temporarily from me to our daughter when she mis-perceived our daughter’s actions which triggered her. 

While I was very disappointed in the (re)lapse - there was a net positive outcome in which there was a ‘learning moment’ which allowed my wife to start learning of the last and most difficult symptom to become self-aware on - commonly called ‘splitting,’ in my particular situation is the combination of the following symptoms of BPD - “Temporary paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms triggered by stress” combined with the “Rapid changes in mood, lasting usually only a few hours and rarely more than a few days” symptom.  This was the first time I saw her using the ‘fact checking’ tool to discern what is real and was not based on her false narrative generated in her head by her real feelings.  It was amazing to watch the start of this process where my wife could actually process in real time when she was having an episode.

While there have been some minor episodes since then; however, these too, as a natural consequence are becoming less and less frequent as well.  I did not want to jump the gun and ask if this was a success at that time, as I know the definition of success needs verifiable results of being symptom free over a period of at least two consecutive months to a couple of years according to articles on the NIH.gov website.

Now I am going to fast forward to today, and will revisit each of the points I previously made, and how they have changed in the past two years…

1. No new suicide attempts since May 2022, this symptom is now in full remission. Our therapist set a boundary for us, I am to call 911 the next time if and when this happens.  The ‘nuclear option’ will be implemented if this were to ever happen again.  I strongly suspect this will not happen, as all of her suicide attempts/gestures were manipulative in nature when she more often than not exclaimed “you are not supposed to behave this way”.  However, it is not my job to determine if it is manipulation or if it is a genuine attempt - 911 is the only logical response to this behavior.


2. The most recent divorce threat / separation occurred March 16/17, 2023 as witnessed by our couples’ therapist in session.  As previously stated, I believe that this is the one event that convinced our couple’s therapist she indeed has EUPD/BPD as our therapist started to take copious amounts of notes whenever my wife displayed and/or accurately described a symptom of BPD/EUPD while in a therapy session.  While there was no verbal communication, there were an abundance of non-verbals that indicated this was indeed the case from our couple’s therapist.


3. The ‘Irrational rages sparked by the slightest misperception going from 0 to 100% rage in under a second that would last hours on end up to a few times per day in which she was literally yelling only inches away from my face’ stopped abruptly in November 2022.  My wife also profusely apologized for the first time ever for doing this to me. 

She also asked me if I had recorded any of her episodes, and I indicated that I did.  She also freaked out when she learned about this and made me promise not to ‘take away the children’ from her and she was very fixated on this, and I had never mentioned taking away the children.  I reassured her that my intentions and goal was for her to become self-aware of her behaviors so she can address them, nothing more, nothing less.  At the time I thought it was an odd question; however, I surmised she had received information from somewhere else that this could happen if any recordings of this nature would surface.  After things settled down, I did check our phone records (the account is in my name) and saw that she had a lengthy phone call with the aforementioned family court judge only 2 days prior to her first apology.  Circumstantial evidence would seem to suggest she was read the RIOT act by the judge where she was told she might lose the children.  This is the point that I sensed where my wife aggressively changed her outlook, and started to take her behavioral issues seriously for the first time in our relationship.


4. In 2022 my wife enacted several episodes of domestic violence or projection of violence directed against me, ending in December 2022 with one (re)lapse against our daughter this past January 2024.  The one in December 2022 was done impulsively by her, and she immediately recognized it and apologized for it.  In response to the most recent incident earlier this year, I expanded the boundary of ‘no violence’ to include family members, and anything on the property including pets, this kind of behavior is not to be tolerated.

 
5.  With respect to where my wife has accused me of having multiple affairs with our children’s playdate mothers, and a licensed counselor.  My wife has apologized for making these baseless accusations and explained in her very dysregulated reasoning on how she came to these conclusions - I shared them with my own therapist (I had my wife's written copy) and my therapist further validated the likelihood of BPD and kept me focused on addressing her issues while things were initially improving.

 
6. My wife on several occasions has accused me of abusing our children.  This is yet another example where my wife has let her exaggerated feelings define false facts.  Around June of 2023, I asked my wife to repeat a threat she had made to me earlier in the week in front of our therapist, who is a former CPS LCSW as I no longer wanted her to use this as a coercive manipulation tactic of blackmail. 

I asked my wife to expand it to all of the details in her memory and she described the incident in detail.  I then briefly countered with something along the lines of “I was disciplining our son by forcefully removing him by the hand, with the minimum force needed of loosely by firmly encircling my index finger and thumb around his wrist from the cafeteria in the 1st grade who was acting up in a school assembly in front of the principal and several teachers, all of whom are mandated reporters.  While the commotion did draw their attention and this was very embarrassing, no report was made, and no comments were given, as I feel that it did not rise to the level of abuse”  The therapist agreed, and explained to my wife that she agreed with my assessment, and since this session there have been no additional threats made towards me by my wife.


7. She has accused me of stealing money from her (this is the only accusation that is partly true, and this was in direct response to her actions where I siphoned $5k off of my own income before she even saw it as a potential retainer fee if she followed through on any one of her multiple divorce threats).

I make no apologies for planning an appropriate response to what I perceived at the time to be a genuine threat of divorce.  While my wife never followed through on it; however, it was real to me nonetheless.  I did explain my reasoning for doing this, apologized for it, and returned that money.  I was then asked if there was any other money, and I indicated in the affirmative as part of a safety plan to leave for several days if she were to get worse where the physical safety of our children and myself would be in danger.  I indicated this money would not be returned until I felt safe for a while.

After my apology, there have been no more accusations of this nature.


8. My wife no longer micromanages me on my spending.  I have always been ‘frugal’ and continue to be.  My wife also has undiagnosed OCPD (most pwBPD have comorbidities), and one of the symptoms is miserly spending which is offset with her impulsive spending for her favorite person at the moment.

While I never mentioned OCPD to her or our therapists [I have to my own individual therapist], I think the T’s recognized it, as I also pointed out symptoms that were manifested or admitted to in sessions.  My wife has shifted from being miserly to frugal as her baseline, with moderate impulsive spending from time to time, and is no longer at a disordered level, and would be comparable with other couples spending patterns.  This is no longer a concern for me when I was able to gently manipulate her favorite person into not accepting additional monies from us by finding a better alternative where she could get a loan and the favorite person felt better about this too.

Her impulsive spending shifting to frugal spending was addressed in couple’s therapy this past September and is no longer an issue in our relationship.


9. She has had other impulsive behaviors such as binge eating (frequent), binge drinking (infrequent), excessive speeding, excessively volunteering without thinking of the time commitment or impact consequences to the family, and so forth. 

Excessive needless workaholism is another severe disordered OCPD symptom which can also be impulsive in nature.  This too has been addressed in therapy, took several months, actually the better part of a year; however, this too is no longer at disordered levels.  She has been able to throttle back to more reasonable levels of volunteerism within the past three months that does not adversely affect family life and/or friendships.

Excessive speeding (reckless driving) is no longer an issue even though I did see a little bit of it this past weekend - it is no where like it was before where she justified this in order to get more done.

Binge drinking is not an issue.

Binge eating is still present - I also have binge eating - so I really cannot enact a boundary on this, and I can ‘accept’ this symptom as I too have it and this would be hypocrisy on my part.  This is one of the few issues that have not seen our full attention inside or outside of therapy.  This is the only impulsive behavior that remains, and the symptoms require 2 or more impulsive behaviors - so this symptom also is in remission in spite of this portion still being present.


10. She claimed to me and others that I did nothing in support of the marriage; however, I was actually doing more, at the time, than any other person that I knew of.  All 168 hours of the week were micromanaged by my wife, and I still supposedly did nothing, when every waking hour and minute was dedicated to serving her except for sleeping, eating, and personal hygiene, and even this was micromanaged too.  I am now retired, and this also included work when I was working as well.

In order to get my life back from being overly micromanaged, I had to set firm boundaries on what I was and wasn’t willing to do for the relationship and I learned how to use the word “NO” when interacting with my wife.  My therapist did not suggest for me to do this; however, she understood my reasoning behind it, and my T described it as ‘push-pull’ dynamic albeit in a different positive manner than how a borderline uses the ‘push-pull’ in a relationship.

I complained bitterly to the couple’s therapist about the lack of reciprocity, and against the couple’s therapists advise I indicated I would be going to a ‘transactional’ model for the time being that would be based on units of time until some reasonable amount of parity is reached as I would no longer tolerate a 99:1 to 135:1 (measured on two different weeks about a year apart a year ago).  In response to such a lopsided reciprocity arrangement which ideally should be close to 1:1 and at most a 60:40 ratio - in order to encourage reciprocity I deliberately withheld giving my wife additional attention when she did not give me any attention.  If my wife gave me 2 hours of my love languages / emotional needs, I would give her no less than 2 back, it was no longer unconditional and unlimited attempting to meet my wife’s demands on entitlement.

What I have done sounds very counterintuitive; however, it is exceptionally effective as I knew my wife wanted to keep the relationship alive as she knows she has a good thing with me especially when I pulled back my seemingly endless acts of service for her.  For the past few months, my wife has dramatically increased her level of meeting my emotional needs and speaking my love languages, and I in turn have also naturally and dramatically increased mine towards her as well.  While the forced transactional model was needed to correct the disparity in our respective efforts initially - I am in the process of shifting back to a more emotionally healthy reciprocity model that comes naturally with a healthy relationship and I feel that my wife is ‘learning’ to do this as well.

[Post 1 of 3]

Two years ago, I was mostly oblivious, more like ‘in denial,’ to the mental health issues within my immediate family, even though the symptoms have been there for over two decades with my wife who is taking medication for an on-label use of MDD (major depressive disorder) and an off label use of GAD (general anxiety disorder) and has told me she has both depression and anxiety.  Today, I am writing about the ‘progress’ since my wife and I have made since my introduction from my individual therapist at the time to BPD.


Two years ago, this May, and throughout the remainder of 2022 my wife exhibited the following major issues, traits, and/or symptoms of BPD that by no means is comprehensive:

1.  Attempted to take her life for the 6th (sixth) time in an attempt to manipulate my behaviors to serve her irrational emotional needs. 

2.  This was on top of at least several dozen threats to divorce me over seemingly simple reasons beyond my comprehension along with…

3. …irrational rages sparked by the slightest misperception of my behavior going from 0 to 100% rage in under a second that would lasting hours on end up to a few times per day in which she was literally yelling only inches away from my face in addition to…

4. …several episodes of domestic violence directed against me, (and one against our daughter too on her most recent (re)lapse this past January). 

5. She has accused me of having multiple affairs with our children’s playdate mothers, and a licensed counselor in good standing. 

6. My wife on several occasions has accused me of abusing our children with no basis (according to a LCSW who was formerly CPS). 

7. She has accused me of stealing money from her - this is the only accusation that is partly true, and this was in direct response to her actions where I siphoned $5k off of my income before she even saw it as a potential retainer fee if she followed through on any one of her multiple divorce threats.

8. Yet, prior to her knowledge of the retainer fee, she was micromanaging my spending to the point where I was scrutinized spending less than $5 for repair parts to fix something that had broken in the home, and I was not allowed to spend money on myself, yet she could impulsively give her girlfriend (favorite person) a $11,000 gift to buy a replacement car as she was going through a divorce of her own and other friends too to a lesser extent spending hundreds at a time, but I couldn’t.

9. Had other impulsive behaviors such as binge eating (frequent), binge drinking (infrequent), excessive speeding, excessively volunteering without thinking of the time commitment or impact to the family, etc.. 

10. She claimed to me and others that I did nothing in support of the marriage and/or our family; however, I was actually doing more, at the time, than any other person that I knew of.  All 168 hours of the week were micromanaged by my wife into acts of service for her, and I still supposedly did nothing, when every waking hour and minute was dedicated to serving her except for sleeping, eating, and personal hygiene - and even that was micromanaged too.  I am now retired, and this also included work when I was working too. 

11. She had a need to know my whereabouts every single minute of every day along with the same information of our children, and her parents too, and would get very upset to the point of ‘losing-it’ if and when anyone missed a ‘check-in’ to the point of ‘losing it’.

12. She had countless number of splitting episodes, and when she returned back to baseline experienced dissociative amnesia where she would not remember treating me that way, thereby making a false narrative that I was continually being subjected to.

13. She also has told me that she cannot love me as she doesn't love herself, and I asked if she feels empty inside, and has indicated that it is a ‘persistent feeling of emptiness’.

14. Has extreme mood swings where one moment she was in a good mood, and the next an extreme rage, nothing in between.

15. Myself, and both of our children, would get out of her way when she even remotely indicated she was in a neutral and/or negative mood - everyone was walking on land-mines and hand-grenades as we did not know the next time my wife, their mother would ‘explode’ with rage.


It is now two years later, and a lot has changed, with the most recent change happening just a few weeks ago that has given me hope that she is now fully SELF-aware of each and every single symptom of BPD.  I too have changed immensely, as once I learned of BPD from my psychologist my heart sank as the chances of her getting to the point that I have seen this year was next to none, including what moderator here told me a couple years ago in a PM most do not see significant improvement in their pwBPD as they are not ‘self-aware’ that they have any issues. 

Once I found out about BPD, I first looked at my own contributions to the dynamic before expanding on how to deal with my wife’s symptoms for the betterment of the family - I took almost 90 days to do this with my psychologist.

As I just lost my ability to make a living wage as I had a career ending injury with my knee, so if my wife were to follow through with a divorce, I would never be able to recover financially - so I had additional motivation to ‘make it work’ as I still loved my wife dearly in spite of the terrible treatment that I allowed myself to subjected to from her.  Additionally, my wife had cultivated the appearance of being the 'perfect church lady,' and I was the 'deadbeat sailor.'  She was a stay-at-home mother, while at the time I was the primary 6-figure wage earner ever since we were married.  Our matchmaker’s (mutual family friend for me, and a former boss for my wife) spouse is a family court judge who gave my wife advice through these hard times based exclusively on my wife’s false narrative which she believed in.  My wife is also a CPA and has handled hundreds of millions for big names in real estate and knows how to manipulate finances quite well. 

Needless to say, everything was stacked against me if she were to follow through with a divorce.  Worst case scenario I would lose at least 75%-90% of the joint assets and not have custody of our children.  Best case, I would have about ⅓ of the assets, and perhaps weekend visits.  I was and still am primarily motivated for the well being of our children, and to preserve the finances necessary for their well being.  As I had everything to lose, and very little to gain by allowing my wife to follow-through on her threats, which I believed wholeheartedly at the time she was very serious about, I was ALSO thinking that “FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION” for my specific situation, even though the statistics indicated it more than likely would be a failure if and when she decided to file for divorce.  I was in a seemingly impossible situation of being a martyr in the relationship in order to protect our children with a woman who has described herself as a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘monster’ to me and did not love me anymore.

Due  to our children’s ages, and the damage that had already been done, time was of the essence as our son is at the critical age, and our daughter has just passed through the critical age where severe mental health issues could manifest (such as her AN - Anorexia Nervosa), I could not naturally let things progress as it could get worse, so I took it upon myself to first learn what BPD was, the symptoms, the treatments, combined with the tools of my individual therapists, and the couple’s therapist who fired us when she realized I was ‘maybe’ correct and gave me a strategy to move forward after this therapist realized that she was being duped by my wife’s very believable false narrative that my wife firmly believed in over 2-1/2 years in.

Up until a few weeks ago, I was absolutely desperate to make it work and would try just about anything to make it work out for the benefit of our children’s mental health as my primary goal as they had no choice in the matter of being in such a dysfunctional family unit, with a secondary goal of helping my wife in order to be a better parent to our children.


UPDATE ON MY PRIMARY GOAL - Our Children’s Welfare…

Both of our children are doing much, much better, while two years ago our daughter was in remission and was very worried that she would lapse or relapse.  I can now comfortably say I have no worries about her AN, and is excelling at school (top of her class) and has a boyfriend, and has been smiling a lot for the past 9 months, something that was notably absent for many years since she was a toddler under my care.

Our son is doing much better as well.  Once I let my son’s therapist know of her colleague’s (my psychologist who is at the same practice) suspicions of BPD, she was able to accomplish more in two months with him that she had in the previous two years with him, while our son still has some issues, these are becoming less and less and we have a strategy to address them as we are hoping he will ‘outgrow’ them and not become a cluster “B” himself as he already had enough symptoms be a borderline as of a year ago.  My wife attributed his sudden improvement to ‘maturing’ which may have been part of it; however, I suspect knowledge of how homelife really went was really the impetus behind his dramatic improvement with my son’s therapist.

Both of our children are building strong friendships outside of the home.  Both are laughing, and cutting up like children ought to be, and for the most part are no longer living ‘in fear’ day to day.


UPDATE ON THE SECONDARY GOAL - My wife has become mostly self-aware and continues to address her issues….

Based on what I have read and observed, in order for a pwBPD to recover they must first and foremost be self-aware in some meaningful capacity of what is going on.  My pwBPD must be willing to fix and address their issues, and it must be their idea to do so on their terms.  pwBPD must have the discipline to follow through with an excellent moral compass with meaningful therapy.

Once I realized this, I had to figure out a way for my wife to become self-aware as that would be the only way for her to change.  At the time, from her perspective I was the source of all of her issues, and I was to blame for everything bad in her life - so this could not come directly from me.

I racked my brain for weeks on how to get this accomplished…  I eventually settled on an intervention of sorts where someone other than me would tell her of these issues.  Something similar was suggested to me by one of the top leading experts in the field who later deleted their post on facebook who basically said using an analogy back in the 1940’s a terminally ill patient was not told of their diagnosis as they couldn’t [mentally] handle it, and this leading expert went on to tell me it was their opinion that a pwBPD should be told what they have so they can at least try to correct it - as you cannot correct something if you are not familiar with it.  This was very impactful to me, even though the official party line in the book that they wrote with another indicated that the partner should NOT share this information which is why I surmised this post was deleted a few weeks later.

My first attempt at an intervention was by approaching mutual friends/family who have witnessed her severe splitting behavior - this failed, they did not want to participate, even though they agreed on what they had seen (idolize - devalue - threaten to discard), one was a teaching nurse (married to a family court judge), the other my step brother who was ironically involved with a program to help veterans reconnect with their families.  He suggested I approach his friend who runs the program. I did, they did not accept partners who have done domestic violence situations - seemingly a dead end, but I did not give up.

My second attempt was to approach our first long term couple’s therapist since 2019 to August 2022, who indicated my wife was not BPD, in spite of botching the handling of my wife’s suicide attempt earlier that May by not getting her evaluated in a hospital setting.  However, in retrospective analysis, I believe that this therapist thought I was the one with BPD [through my wifes transference and projection where the therapist then did countertransference on me as well - a double mind f*** that really affected me negatively over the course of the 2½ years we were with her] as she was very adamant in getting me to admit to ‘speeding’ - one of the symptoms of BPD - a.k.a. reckless driving.  It wasn’t until my wife exhibited more symptoms ‘in session’ where this therapist ultimately fired us as her clients after my wife openly displayed and admitted to violent tendencies in the therapy sessions to the point of being reported to law enforcement.  When the therapist fired us, she gave me several parting gifts, including on how to move forward, suggested “maybe, just maybe” to my allegation of BPD, showed me my wife’s divorce threats were manipulative ‘bluffs’ by deliberately triggering her and encouraged me to directly voice my suspicions to my wife’s individual therapist, and encouraged my wife to allow this to happen.

My third attempt at an intervention was with her individual therapist.  I knew I only had one chance at getting this right.  My wife had left her journal out (and eventually voluntarily gave me permission to read it, but not at that time), and in an act of my desperation, I read through it, discerned all of the relative things to BPD she was already self-aware with, added a few additional painfully obvious behaviors our couple’s therapist who had just fired us had witnessed in session.  In order to accurately convey all of the issues my wife was painfully aware and was brought up as an observation in couple’s therapy I carefully wrote a summary of the ‘known’ issue, rehearsed it several time, as I wanted to make damn sure was communicated to her individual therapist without any error or doubt, and ran with a one page prepared statement summarizing the glaringly obvious issues that I was almost certain that her individual therapist already knew - I was simply connecting the dots to very obvious symptoms.  Initially this apparently failed from what I observed as I was told she did not have BPD [likely a move to protect my wife’s feelings], at least initially; however, I definitely feel it planted the seeds of truth that eventually paid off with significant and meaningful change and allowed the individual therapist to work meaningful change for my wife without calling it BPD or EUPD.

Meanwhile my fourth attempt at an intervention was with the new couple’s therapist who initially told me my wife does not have BPD.  However, I deliberately called attention to each symptom, by having my wife describe her behaviors, with very targeted questions I posed that revealed my wife’s true nature to the therapist.  There was some acknowledgement and validation towards me; however, I feel at the time I was largely being given lip service, even after an act of DV that my wife admitted to only minutes prior to a session in December 2022, until a few months later when there was an allegation of having an affair with a licensed counselor levied against me, followed up in a month’s time with a full cycle of “Devalue ⇒ Discard ⇒ Recycle ⇒ Idealization”.

Dear BPDstinks
You are so entitled to feel very sad - but please don't be irritated that you do so.

This Friday will be a whole year since you have seen a beloved child. It is unimaginable that one could let this day pass without feelings of sorrow and grief. There is enormous loss.

I know from your posts your love for your child is real and deep - so real you are able to look at things in a way that focuses on your child and her best interests without reference to your legitimate needs as a loving parent.

Because of this love, you will grieve the loss and experience the pain. Tell yourself you are entitled to feel this way, this is normal when you are grieving.

I hope that for part of this day you can reflect on all that you have given your child - what you have done for the love of your child. I hope that you can say 'I did all that I possibly could' and 'whatever the situation, my child has been and is loved.

Hi,

I am in a very similar situation, my husband also quit drinking a year back, though he has recently started again. And just like you, I am realising the extent to which the issues were not being caused by the alcohol, but rather being masked by it.

I have a degree of sympathy for my husband in all this, in that he likely also expected that things would feel better and easier once he had quit, and instead his emotions became even harder to manage. So returning to alcohol feels like the answer, even though it will make him sick. In truth he needs to get to a realisation that strategies that will help him manage all the big emotions will also reduce his drive to drink, but he is not there yet.

At least, although I still hate seeing him drunk, I am now less angry about the drinking itself now I understand it is a symptom and a poor coping strategy. I used to get so cross with him when he reeled in, but now at least I know some strategies that I can validate that he is feeling overwhelmed, and maybe even suggest some better alternatives if he is not splitting on me in that moment. I am learning about letting him feel the consequences of his actions, as I also realise I have enabled his drinking somewhat by trying to cover for it. Though that is not always easy, I can't leave a pool of vomit in the sink our daughter uses for example.

So, I don't have great answers for you yet, but just wanted to comment that you are really not alone in this, I am walking the same path as you simultaneously.

All the best.

Forgot to ask -- did you ever have to make a CPS call about your stepkids' situation?

I can relate. I am constantly feeling I am in conflict too. There is the idea of what I am expected to do for her and - I fall short of that expectation constantly. I can not possibly do "enough" for her and also I keep a distance from her which isn't the image of what I wish things were. I can't achieve that ideal. There's the sense of failure.

Being that I can't do enough to gain my parents' approval, maybe I'm afraid to disappoint God.

Our parents influence our concept of God and so our values. We talk about this in 12 steps. If our parents didn't role model grace and forgiveness, we may not be able to perceive that with others or our values or idea of God. When others ask me about my mother, I assume they are blaming me for the issues like she does.

If we can't "get it right" with our parents, maybe we feel we have to somehow get it right with our values?

Hi Capecodling - just wanted to thank you for this beautiful post - it was really great to hear, and I'm so glad that you're looking back a year later and feeling the benefits of all the work you've done on yourself.

Also really enjoyed to hear about how the healing comes from looking within at our own parts in the dynamic. Why we stay and put up with things is a part of it, but there is also things we add with our own anxiety and avoidance that defintiely make things more combustible and unstable. In a past brush with some cluster B personalities, I went deep into that inner healing, and I truly did feel better than ever afterwards. There's a lot of power to be gained in looking at your own stuff and actually learning the lessons from it. I'm stadning at the beginning of that process once again, with lots of hope in my heart that I'll get to the place you're at now.

Interested about your psychadelic therapy... also interested to know if you still have any contact with your ex, and how you managed that once it was time to truly heal.