Right now I am angry, exhausted, and sad.

[RolandOfEld]

Today I am on absolute burnout and some sharing would go a long way to recharging me. I am usually optimistic and focused on proactively improving the situation, but right now I am angry, exhausted, and sad.

I know she can't help it. I know I'm not perfect and I do things wrong. But I'm so angry.  I want to do the things she does to me to her. I want to yell at her. I want to steal her phone and hide it. I want to curse her and her dead parents the way she does mine. I want to disappear and not tell her where I am. I want my feelings and my side to matter for once.

More than anything else, I want her to stop doing these things in front of the kids, please! Sometimes she even lies to them that I hit her. Once she directly instructed our S4 to say "___ you." Not long ago she hit him on the back with that glue whip you put in a hot glue gun. She loves them so much it baffles me that she doesn't seek help after she does these things, even after she so openly regrets it.

The last argument blew up just because I asked her to move to the living room with me instead of arguing in front of our son. It's all effecting my son already and it breaks my heart so deeply because its even worse than what I went through with my mother. Anyone on the outside would just say get a lawyer and get the kids out of there but its not so simple. Financial problems to this aside, they really do need her and separating them would be worse than anything. And it would burn any bridges towards a better future, which I still believe is possible.

I'm tired of living so far from my home country and everything I grew up with and feeling so alone. I'm tired of not really having my family because of her BPD. I'm tired of being afraid to go to the one place I should feel most safe.

I'm tired of getting up sometimes at 5:30 am just to make sure I get out before she wakes up in case she decides to take a "day off" and leave me with the kids and unable to go to work.  

I'm tired of validating and not having my feelings validated back, even though I can now validate myself. I want to be taken care of sometimes, too.

I'm not looking for solutions or strategies today. Just to self-soothe and get up the energy to face her again. Thanks for listening.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Meili]

I think that we all completely understand the need to just ventsometimes, and these boards are the perfect please to do just that. We've all been there in some form or another. We all understand. So, vent away. We are here to listen and support you as you figure out what you need for yourself.

[Radcliff]

First, welcome to the team!

I am so sorry to hear about all that you are enduring.  So much of what you described is familiar to me.  You are bearing a huge burden.  I am glad you are able to find and express your anger.  Stuffing the anger is invalidating and adds to your burdens.

I totally understand that "just leaving" is not where you are.  It makes good sense to work within the current situation and see how far you can take it to make it better.  An intact family is a precious thing to fight for.  But keep striving for improvement, particularly around behavior that is in front of the kids.  My wife can be an amazing mother -- all the other mothers in our friend group ask her for advice.  She truly loves our children, and gives so much to them, and to our family.  Which makes it even harder to understand damaging BPD behaviors.  When I had kids the ages of yours, I didn't know about BPD and I had no external references or support.  You are ahead of the game.  Keep your support network strong, and keep assessing what is going on in front of your kids so you know if you need to change strategies at some point.

WW

[Turkish]

I know she can't help it.

If she doesn't act like this in public,  then she can help it,  but she's likely going from a script learned from her FOO, which plain sucks for the rest of you. I think a lot of us here have experienced the behind closed doors drama. It's additionally confusing given the rays of sunshine our loved ones can exhibit both private and public. 

[heartandwhole]

RolandOfEld,

We are glad you are here. I'm sorry to hear of the struggles you are enduring. It's very difficult sometimes, and I can understand feeling angry and tired. I know the feeling of being an outsider in a different country very well—living abroad can be thrilling and isolating at the same time.

You have a right to your feelings and to be concerned about your wellbeing and that of your children. Letting it out is the best medicine at times.

We're here for you. 

heart

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi ROE,

Thank you for sharing what's going on with you. It helps to let it out and not bottle it up. Part of the journey to healing for ourselves is learning to have others share the burden with us. You have a safe place here to share where we all understand. How few that we rub shoulders with day to day would truly grasp the truth of what goes on behind closed doors. Having an uBPDm myself as well as a DH with N traits  I can understand too well.

Keep hanging on to who you are and grow in strength and knowledge and depth of character and you will truly become a solid safe place for your children. It's a process (and one which I wish were much faster in my own life), but it does come. I don't know enough of your story to know if you're in T or not?

 

[Mutt]

Hi RolandOfEld ,

Others have already pointed out that we've been in your shoes, I was reading your post and it reminded me of my situation a few years ago. You're not alone and thanks for sharing with us.

angry, exhausted, and sad.

What do you do for release in real life? I work out and empty my thoughts in the gym, do you work out? What do you do for self care to recharge yourself?





PS I'm glad that you accepted the invite for Ambassador  

[RolandOfEld]

Thank you so much to everyone for your support! There are times to help and times where we need help ourselves, and your words all go a long way towards getting me back to a better state.

Mutt I also use working out as a means for getting out negative thoughts and feelings. Music is deeply therapeutic for me - for anyone with a troubled marriage, try listening to the The National for comfort, particularly their latest album Sleep Well Beast.

Thanks for the welcome Woolspinner2000. Not sure what you mean by T? I'm really bad at these.

Hi heartandwhole, good to hear from someone else who knows the pain / excitement of being abroad.

Turkish yes she comes from an extremely troubled FOO, full of abuse and tragedy and some love. And it's always a roller coaster.

Wentworth thank you for your understanding. It gives me great comfort to know I'm ahead of the game and I hope you are catching up OK.

Thank you, Meili for your kind words!

I hope everyone doesn't mind if I take a few days to recover from this latest one before I start reaching out to others. It was the latest in a series and I want to be in a strong place before I give help. 

[Radcliff]

ROE, take your time.  Like a physical injury, if we take on a load too fast after an emotional injury, it just takes longer to recover.  The work will be here when you are ready.

WW

[wendydarling]

Hello ROE  

As others say, take your good time. We are here for you, we understand - as you'll see from others during tough times posting here when we are struggling provides the relief we need, a chance to catch our breath, to just be and gain the support we need right now - I'm glad you are feeling that with us ROE.

Thank you Tattered Heart for bumping up our FAQ | Amby Self Care on the board, it really helps.

We are here for you.

WDx

[RolandOfEld]

Thank you, Wentworth and wendydarling, it means a lot.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi RolandOfEld,

T is therapy, and I don't mind clarifying.  Hope you are having a better day.

 

[Turkish]

I found this after 6-8 months of being here,  all the while pretending I knew what uBPDstbx and the like meant 

What do all these abbreviations and terms mean?

It also took me a while to ascertain DD, DS, DH. Maybe it's the lack of vegetables in the wolf diet... .

T

Signing off as "T" is my NLP trick

[RolandOfEld]

Thanks, Woolspinner. No I am not in T at the moment, but I had a few free sessions late last year through my company. The fact is that we can't really afford it right now, but I am working hard to learn how to take care of myself emotionally. I'm also lucky to have a network of therapists that I've worked with in the past that are happy to get on the phone with me now and again for support.

Right now I'm also learning about DBT via YouTube videos to help with my own issues in controlling anger, and I plan to introduce them to my wife at the right moment. The videos don't reference BPD directly so I think she might be more open to them.

Turkish I wish I had found this months ago, thanks! 

[Tattered Heart]

Are the videos helping?

[RolandOfEld]

Hi Tattered Heart, I think they absolutely are helping, especially in terms of controlling anger in the moment. I'm not BPD but I can certainly go into a rage sometimes myself. And if I'm not the stable one in my family, who will watch out for the kids?

[Tattered Heart]

I use them when I start to get anxious.

[JoeBPD81]

Stay strong ROE, I so get what you want for yourself. I hope you get the positive things and you don't need the "revenge" ones anymore. But it is understandable that you would like to be able to have weak moments too. Whenever I raise my voice, once in 2-3 months, I get labeled as super agressive, when I get screams everyday 10 times over from everyone else in the family. I sometimes have gotten punished for imitating one of them. AS in "This is what you do:  (... .) " and then being accused of not controling my anger, when I had announced I was gonna do theatre, imitating a son. i often think I can't even show tiredness or sadness, because it makes things worse.

It's like the crazy job is already taken, so you have to be perfect, there is no more tolerance for failure in this house. Right? Oh Lord, have mercy on us!

We are there with you, pal. Take care of yourself.

[Meili]

Why worry so much about what your pwBPD thinks? Why is that person's opinion of you greater than your own?

[RolandOfEld]

Thank you, all.

I think the situation has finally pushed me into the Radical Acceptance phase, which I thought I had already entered but clearly hadn't. I've been feeling so much anger and sadness recently, really wanting her to change and to stop. I've been having some trouble at work at the same time, but I see it really comes down to me not facing the job for what it is and doing it the way I should be. I need to see that this is the reality and accept it the way it is and control and change only what I can.

Case in point, she started drinking again last night after having it under control for so long. It's because I challenged the way she was disciplining our son (using threats and fear) and comforted him, which led to an argument. She chose to drink and will wake up with a massive hangover today. I may have been the trigger, but I'm not the cause, and I can't stop her from doing it.  Whenever she used to do this I would buy her favorite "hangover breakfast" to cheer her up, but no more.  One argument I chose to start will not be the ruin of her entire life.

[Tattered Heart]

I've found that Radical Acceptance is a process. I'll get there and process everything well for several months and then bam! it hits me that I'm not accepting things anymore so I go through it all over again.

Great job not fixing her hangover. Question though: did you REALLY start an argument or did you just address an issue that turned into an argument?

[Meili]

I agree with TH about radical acceptance. We all go through those phases from time to time where we find ourselves unintentionally trying to control that which is beyond our control. It is good that we can recognize those times.

I was also going to ask the same question about the argument. Regardless of who started it though, it may help to look at why you decided to engage in it.

[RolandOfEld]

Thank you TH and Meili for sharing your experience.

I didn't mean to start an argument but I knew I was bringing hell on myself by comforting my son. I think I did the right thing morally, but EQ wise with my wife there was probably a better way of handling it. She got angry and went into "command me to do chores" mode, and I told her calmly (but maybe not so politely) that she couldn't command me but had to ask me. I asked her to lower her voice and please stop shouting. I also turned my back and didn't reply to her for a moment, which is the thing that drives her more insane than anything. Too many boundary assertions in 5 minutes I think, again poor EQ. So now into day 3 of silent treatment and really not terribly sure what she's most angry about or if she's in a shame cycle. Not yet in the mood to make an effort. 

[Meili]

  ROE

Just checking in on you here.

I also wanted to remind you that even when you are feeling up to giving direct support, you can used the "canned" responses in the Things to Say to Newbies thread.

[RolandOfEld]

Hi Meili, thank you for checking in, and for the checklist. I just updated my situation in post on the open board about my job situation. Feeling extremely beaten up today so hope I will have the strength to post to newbies again soon.