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It is days like this! My BPDw is basically isolating herself today in her room studying away. Even excluding days like this, she is working, going to school, and studying in her room again. My BPDw's 17 year old daughter is studying away for her classes. While I accept my stepdaughter's need to get the awesome grades she is getting due to wanting to get into the best university which she realistically will accomplish, my BPDw, after putting me through the emotional ringer throughout all these 12 years of our marriage, and we used to have a close relationship. Now, it is basically "hi", "bye", or she will do a monologue for a while with a seldom asking about how I am without listening at all. It's like she's tried to tame an already tame person so that she can get her way that much more so. I respect and understand her need to improve herself, and, yet, with her own admission of being extreme, she has gone from being very nice and very compassionate to being very self-serving and isolating herself. It is days like this that I immerse myself in writing and going to movies. I just wish I could go back in time in order to tell the fool that I was that I was going to be duped, that I should remain single. From what I have read on this website, I suspect there would be a lot of you who would do the same.

Sam do you have some interests or hobbies you can focus on while they are busy? 

Her lack of attention to the marriage is a concern, no?

Have you thought about having a discussion about time together?  Have you read thru Dearman or Set to approach this?

GreenMango, I definitely do have a lot of interests, such as teaching, tutoring, writing books, giving workshops, and going to movies. All of these activities are self-energizing, although it would be really nice to have a personal life with my BPDw who obviously doesn't want to be close or is afraid to be close. Yes, her lack of attention to our marriage is a concern and frankly a disappointment, to say the least. As for having a discussion with her about allowing time together, I have done that already with the final result being that she needs her time alone, that she works, that she is pursuing something that she wants to do. In fact, she even mentioned that some adult students in the university program she is in said that they too have experienced a hiatus in their personal relationships due to all of the studying they have to do. Nevertheless, even before her university studies, she was isolated from me. As Dearman or Set, I really am not familiar with them. In fact, due to her being so busy, I don't know if it is all possible to persuade her, sad to say.