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I am married to a BPDw with three kids for more than 10 years, but just learned about the BPD part a few months ago after doing a search on why my wife is a bully. Subsequently read Eggshells by Kreger. I have shared this with my parents and her father/step-mom. All of us think she has it, but there is no official diagnosis yet by a medical professional. No one has talked to BPDw about it.

She has been seeing a pscyhologist (who happens to have experience with BPD) off and on for about seven months. The psychologist wanted to meet with me separately and I went through a list of behaviors that I'm seeing that correspond to almost all of the 9 DSM characteristics. I then mentioned that perhaps my wife has BPD. The pscyhologist said she was not as interested "labels" as results.

My wife is now at the point where she says she doesn't need to see a pscyhologist, she just needs to talk things out (with me, with her sister, etc.). She's made a few interesting comments recently such as: "At least I'm not like my sister in law [who has bi-polar], that's way worse than depression."

Or, "I don't need to see a pscyhologist because it's not like I have a mental health problem."

So, she doesn't even want to go. I've been encouraging her to do so, but am at a loss. I feel like she needs to get a diagnosis before we can move forward. How do I move forward to get a diagnosis?

the problem you have is here


She is not ready to accept she has problems, hence taking the next step to accept the problem is BPD is huge. That in itself can cause major denial and conflict. Accepting the diagnosis can then be devastating if they are not yet ready to commit to long term treatment, which the initial statement obviously precludes.

I think you probably need to work more on your wife realizing she has 'a' problem, before even trying to put a label on it. It is common for Ts to treat the problem without labeling it as it does cause an adverse reaction often leading to rejection of therapy, hence being counter productive.

I found concentrating on aspects of the disorder individually is less confronting. eg black and white thinking, and how it links to different areas in her life. Once it becomes normal to discuss these separate components, then they are more receptive to combining them under a full diagnosis. But going from "nothing wrong with me" direct to "you have BPD" is too huge a step, especially as there is no quick fix.

What you can do is work on you and in particular stop being an avenue for her projections and thus an outlet for abuse an anger. Let her self soothe, and carry her own anger and issues. That way if she is left holding her own bagage then they will become more obvious to her and she "may" go back into T to address it. That is force her to reconsider that opening statement.

Until you have got her out of that mindset, you will get nowhere, even with a diagnosis

All that wave said  |iiii

Labels truly aren't important, since it is the desires to seek change that creates change... .  She needs to want to change, and that will only happen if she feels uncomfortable with her life and how she feels.

This may sound lame, but the best thing you can do to help her is to focus on changing "you". When you change she is forced to adapt by default.

+1 on this  |iiii

Focus on the actions and behaviors, and most importantly how your engagement affects things.  By learning how to engage differently, you will get different behavior in return.

Thanks for the tips and for setting me straight. It just seems so logical to tell her, but I have resisted so far and will keep doing so. Spoon feeding. I guess I struggle with the validation bit. I find it hard to validate a lot of the things she says because it seems like doing so is an admission I've done something wrong as I am the #1 subject of her frustration, anger, rage, etc. Partly, this is my fault as I have tried to divert these traits away from our three kids. The challenge is how to achieve waverider's suggestion of stopping being the avenue for her projections. Any further suggestions are welcome!

Yeah, it's not important to label it. Alot of therapist don't like to because then the client goes into denial and is really difficult to work with. Also, insurance denys claims for BPD in many cases and so that is another reason they are reluctant to use that diagnosis.

Read.  Learn.

Get your own self emotionally and physically healthy.

Surround yourself with friends and family that love you.

At that stage her projections will not impact you as much, because you will know what they are, and also will be grounded in your own healthy sense of self.  You will have new skills to mitigate, and not make them worse ( which should be very very helpful as she needs to 'talk things out'.  Ultimately you will be doing a better job caring for your children, since you will now be more capable yourself as a person.

And the great thing about all of these is, they are all completely within your own control.