What finally got them into therapy?

[Lostindirt]

For those (rare?) few who's better halves have taken the plunge what finally got them there? How many times to stick? Improving? Any advice for those of us still waiting or trying to figure out the best way to handle their partner refusing to go?

[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.

[AsGoodAsItGets]

Yes it did help her love herself,  not hate or risky self behavior,  didn't save the relationship.  Good for her, but not anyone else that I could tell, I and therapy really saved her life.

[babyducks]

What got my partner there was herself,  she decided she was either going to suicide or try therapy, and ended up in therapy.   She has improved greatly in therapy, to the point where she was released from care this summer.   It took a lot of therapy and a lot of difficult work on her part.   I didn't have anything much to do with it.   I've never met her therapist.   We never discuss her therapy directly.    That's what has worked for us.

Getting a "Borderline" into Therapy

This is a pretty good link.   No two stories are the same here, though many are very similar.   Would you like to tell us more about what is going on specifically with you?   

[Lostindirt]

Well Ducks... .It's a long story As far as refusing to participate in therapy goes: My girlfriend is the atypical BPD as I understand it.  She is the personality type that some call the waif BPD, in a couple of words: Learned Helplessness. When I met her she was isolating herself in her childhood home living with her Foo including her primary abuser and acting out in various ways.  Never had a full time job, only one part time and only talked to people online and her mother.  Never talked about the abuse with anyone and barely has now.

She refuses to call and schedule appointments, pay for things in stores, or anything to do with interactions like that unless I force her into it. She has so much anxiety that she can be shaking and crying by the end of the interaction on a bad day. Essentially she went from isolating with Foo to isolating with me, but without as much acting out. 

She has gotten psychiatric help, but only med wise.  She knows she is sick, but fears therapy and simply repeats her mantra, "It won't help me" when pushed.  She's tried twice and never made it past the 2nd session. So that is a little slice of our situation.

[Icthelight]

Lost, I have asked myself this question many times; trying to find a way to get my uBPDw to therapy. I even made the mistake (I know, big mistake) of sharing my BPD findings with my wife thinking she would be receptive to hearing more and finally to understand why she feels the way she feels. I was desperate and thought she was receptive at the time I shared, but like I said, huge mistake.

I have now decided to go to therapy and focus on taking care of myself. I have set boundaries that she does not like, but are boundaries that are important to me (remove myself if yelled or raged on and no insults or name calling). I have been experiencing an extinction burst and have been definitely painted black the last couple of months. I have held firm and she has definitely noticed. I have tried to be polite and kind, but not a pushover. Last night, she initiated conversation asking me if I was done (with the marriage). She said that she can tell by my actions that I'm done because I'm behaving differently. Although I've made a conscious effort to be kind, I have not chased her or bent over backwards trying to make her happy, but she has interpreted all of this as me being done and "really, really mean."

I almost lost my cool a few times during this conversation because she started throwing the kitchen sink at me (all my wrong doings in 23 years of marriage) and searching for words or things from me that would validate her anger. I normally just sit there and take it, but I asked her a couple of times to lower her voice or I would leave (she didn't like it) and I also told her that I needed a time out but would be back in 30 minutes. She actually responded positively to this and thanked me for telling her I was coming back.

I say all of this because I mentioned to her that in addition to getting help for myself by seeing a therapist, I also said that I thought she could benefit from seeing someone to discuss her anger towards me. She did not like this. She said the solution was for me to do what she tells me to do, stop making her angry and that would solve the problem. I validated her and also said, "you have said that I have not been able to do what you've asked for consistently for 23 years, I just don't know how. I need help to learn how to show you love. I want that for you, you deserve to feel loved by me. WE need help." I told her that we needed a good MC that would help us get along better. However, the only way that MC would work is if we were both fully on board. That we would both be willing to put in the work and not go there thinking the "other person" would be the one that needed to get fixed. I finished by saying that she did not have to go, and that she did not have to respond right now. I just wanted her to know that I strongly believed that we needed help.

She has been cold and distant the last two months but before going to bed, she asked me to hug her. I did. She then asked me if I would lay in bed with her and "spoon" her (not sexual, just hug and hold her). I did. She cried saying that every time I would hug or spoon her, she would receive it and would instantly feel better. She cried because she said the hugs were not making her feel better, that she worried that our marriage may be over. I just hugged her and held her. Right before I went to bed (I'm sleeping in our daughter's old bedroom), she said that she thought we should go to MC. I told her that I would find a couple of people and share them with her so she could have input in deciding who we should see. She also sent me a text saying Good night. I love you. That was a long exhausting night that without the wisdom and support of this family, I probably would have messed up completely.

My desire is that we find a good counselor that can be the one that can properly diagnose my w and be the one to give her the BPD news. Will she end up going? Don't know. Will MC work? Don't know. Eventually, I pray that my wife is open to getting help for herself. Sorry Lost, my story is still developing and may not be that helpful. I just thought I'd share that going to therapy myself opened the door for the possibility of going to MC. I hope that MC may be the door that leads my wife to therapy.

[Cat Familiar]

I asked my husband to go to MC a couple of years ago and like most pwBPDs you can guess the response. He thought I wanted to do therapy in order to extract myself from the marriage, even though I told him my motivation was to make things better between us. He reluctantly went with me every two weeks for a year, but thought it was a way for me and the psychologist to gang up on him. It made a bit of progress in improving our communication, but otherwise didn't help much.

Last year, not only did I discover this site, I also started doing individual therapy with the woman we had seen as a couple. My motivation was to learn strategies for dealing with him because I was at the end of my rope. If I were to read my posts from a year ago, they would be filled with anger and frustration. Thankfully the combination of being able to post here plus have individual therapy has made my life much easier--and my husband is much nicer to deal with too.

Since my therapist had seen him act out during our sessions, I didn't have to explain anything at all about him. What was most challenging to me was to set aside my irritation with him so that I had more strategies available to me. There were times I was so frustrated and pissed off that I just didn't give a damn about trying to validate him, it was all I could do to just be polite and not tell him to f@ck off. (I wouldn't really do that, but that's exactly how I felt and stuffing those feelings for years was not a good thing.)

So, he has watched me dutifully go to therapy for almost a year and then he confided about how difficult his relationship with his sisters has been (once again--this has been a recurring theme for years). That was my opening to write down the name and number of another therapist that I had spoken to when I was initially looking for someone to do MC a few years ago. I was surprised when he called this guy and started seeing him. I think it's helping.

We stay out of each other's business and don't ask about therapy other than general questions like, "Are you still liking your therapist?" I'm very glad he's going to someone and it's great for me to have someone who knows him (and has told me he has a personality disorder).