BPDFamily.com

Hi everyone,

My wife is a very difficult person and a relative who is a clinical psychologist told me in confidence that she might have BPD. The first time I heard it, a good while ago, I took a quick look at the symptom "checklists" and thought they were way too extreme - there is absolutely no self-harm, inability to keep a job or promiscuity going on, for example. I mentioned the possibility to my mother-in-law, who also has a Psychology degree, and she outright denied it, citing some of these extreme symptoms as the norm for BPD patients.

A few weeks ago, my relative insisted that I consider the possibility - she often sees the effects of my wife's behavior on our family and is worried about us. She explained how this is a spectrum disorder and that some of my wife's symptoms could be very light, but still cause us a lot of stress. She also gave me a copy of Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder: How to Keep Out-of-Control Emotions from Destroying Your Relationship, by Shary Y. Manning, to help me deal with my wife's behavior. I haven't read the entire book yet, but decided to learn more about BPD to try to determine whether my wife has it or not.

After going through a lot of online resources, including bpdfamily, I can now see my wife does show a lot of BPD-like symptoms. Still, nothing on the suicidal level, but I have read articles and posts about rage, disproportional responses, neediness, splitting, feelings of emptiness, lack of self, child-like behaviors, (lack of) intimacy issues, insomnia and so on that seem to have been written about her.  Still, it could just be the result of me searching for her personality traits in the BPD literature and absorbing just what matches.

If she does have BPD, she's definitely of the high functioning type, but I couldn't tell if she is consciously hiding any symptoms. She has been through therapy for most of her teens and early adulthood (she's in the low 30s now), but I don't think she was ever diagnosed with anything in particular. We have briefly tried marriage counseling a few years ago, but it didn't even touch the behaviors I am currently worried about.

I have also learned that there is a good chance that the disorder, if indeed present, was caused or aggravated by my mother-in-law having emotionally abandoned my wife during her childhood (which she surely did), so now I see that (1) it wasn't a good idea to ask for the in-law's opinion to begin with and (2) that she will never agree with the possibility, especially since she might also have BPD herself.

I still feel I need to discuss the possibility with someone close to my wife and who is also affected by her outbreaks (her father or brother, perhaps), but have no idea how to approach anyone. I'm afraid they are going to think I'm complaining she is damaged goods and I will end up as the bad guy even though I'm just trying to help and they surely know something must be wrong with her.

It is important to note that we have two young kids who add a lot of factors to mix: they are a source of incredible joy, particularly to my wife (who has always wanted to have children she could raise in a very different way that her mother did), but understandably demand a lot of our energy and time; Having kids and still breastfeeding have put my wife through a lot of hormonal changes that are likely still impacting our relationship; And finally, at least once this year I have seriously thought of leaving her, but decided not to because of the kids.

I am considering asking my wife to go back to marriage counseling, at least to try to raise the issue that "we" need help. I don't want to tell her to go back to her own therapy, both because I have never done it myself despite her recommendations, and because it didn't seem to help her anyway. Who knows? Maybe I can find a marriage counselor who understands BPD and could point her in the right direction.

I'm sorry to hear about your difficulties with your wife. I too had suspected my husband of having BPD and read a book about it a few years ago. However, the symptoms mentioned were much more extreme than anything he manifested, so I let go of that idea.

Things kept deteriorating in our relationship and I pressed for marriage counseling. We did that for a year, but he wasn't very forthcoming and the improvement was only marginal in our communication.

Somehow I decided to revisit the potential for BPD and this time I discovered that as a spectrum disorder, the same symptoms can be there, but manifest in a much "milder" form.

I currently am doing counseling with the therapist that we saw for couples counseling. It's a real benefit to see her because she's seen his behavior (and his anger issues) and I don't have to explain who he is. I began seeing her because I wanted strategies to help "manage" him and to learn how not to "set him off" on one of his dysfunctional episodes. Between that and this board, I'm learning so much.

You might consider doing therapy individually. It seems that BPDs are not too eager to admit to any faults.