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More confusion for me topped with a healthy dose of anger from my uBPD/NPDw.  This was a week ago.  Basically, it was about my emotional withdrawal(s) and my mother.  My mother is definitely painted black in her eyes.

After getting my son to sleep, I found my wife in bed crying.  She talked about a few things while I tried to comfort/calm her:

• She does not know if she can trust me again to be there emotionally.  These were the two recent times I had withdrawn, but she also included a time before a big move, when she was pregnant.  I do not recall withdrawing at that time.  I had been living out of state due to the company requiring it.  When I came home, I may have been more relaxed, so she thought I was withdrawn from her.
  
  I wish I could recall better if I was either truly withdrawn that one time or was not behaving as if I was under her thumb.  It could be a mixture, but I think the latter.  I had no desire to leave her and was excited to move closer to family.  It could have been her pregnancy talking which she associated with recent issues.



• She felt that when my mother told her she worked her entire life, on a few occasions, that it was to pressure her to get a job.  My wife says she really wants to work, yet our son is exhausting her with his sleep problems.
  
  I asked my mother about it.  She does not recall telling my wife this specifically but said she tells this to a lot of people.



• She said she felt my mother would come out against any woman that could take me away from her.
  
  I know my mother was unsure, for awhile, about an ex of mine in the past, but that ex never said my mother tried anything with her.



• She considers my mother to be very good at manipulation.  Because my mother never lets me see it, that is proof.



• She hates my mother.  During a very heated moment for her, she declared her to be a bhit and very manipulative.  She wishes my mother was dead.  She wishes she could reach out and strangle her or take a knife and plunge it into her heart.  She looked me straight in the eye, very concerned and exclaimed, "She is evil!  She is evil!"
  
  That was definitely scary.  My T asked if it made me mad.  I said no; I was shocked that someone could feel hatred like that.  I really doubt she will do anything like that, but it does show to me a deep-rooted hate.



• She said one good thing is that she does not have a job.  She said that is the first time she is happy about that because feeling how she does right now, she would have already have left me.

Since then, she has been nicer.  I am not sure if it is due to how I reacted, that she got to curse my mother to my face or guilt from exposing that anger to me.

Yesterday morning, she told me that she realizes she can never make me truly happy.  She said that when I and the children came back from my mother's house, I was really happy.  She described it as a glow.  Since I have not been happy like that in years, according to her, that proved that she cannot make me happy.

I did not refute it because I could not see what she saw.  Besides, it may have led to a larger argument.  I only remembered coming back after a wild time chasing and controlling children.  I said that maybe I was happy that I had accomplished something difficult to do:  the children had a (mostly) healthy snack, ran around a lot and survived.  I was happy that they could see my mother and she them, but I do not recall anything as she described.  The way I described it was that I may have felt happy at the accomplishment.  On the other hand, it may have been from being able to be with the children without worry of upsetting her about something at random, but that thought came later.

I reminded her about the counseling we have this weekend and told her to tell the counselor.  She said the counselor could possibly help the communication but not this.

I wonder if she has some envy/jealousy with my mother.  My T said the same thing today.  I think he is getting confused by her behavior too.  Of course, he only sees through me, so he can only see how it affects me.  I am definitely confused.

Your wife probably has some envy/jealousy regarding your mother.  You must feel a little torn, as your mother can be a great support, however is also a cause of some friction with your wife.  That's a tricky balance.

I recently got in the middle of a bit of a battle between my dad and his long-time girlfriend (they've been together 25 years, and live together).  The advice I was given is that I needed to create some kind of a boundary with my dad, as it's not really appropriate for him to involve me in matters such as he was.  It's called 'triangulation'.  Something you might want to take a look at:  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=121673.0

Much of what you are dealing with regarding what your wife is telling you may or may not have valid points.  One thing that can help when you run into these situations can be mediated by what we call 'validation'.  There is a great video that will explain this further - it's worth the viewing:  https://bpdfamily.blogspot.com/2013/06/validation-encouraging-peace-in-BPD.html

Validation takes some practice, and although is a simple concept, can be hard to apply sometimes because of our own emotions.  Take a look at the video and let us know what you think.   

We actually lived across the country from my mother and had limited contact with her due to the insistence of my wife.  I think I saw her five to six times over the course of just over 10 years.  My wife still reacted to even mentioning my mother or something my mother said.  I finally realized that physical distance mattered only a little.  Besides, it only helped some with my mother and not for my wife and I.


Thank you.

I think I have been doing quite a bit of what I saw in that video.  It is a good video; I like it.  Things I have done and the results:

• Nodded, showed expressions on my face and made understanding sounds when she complains about something.  She gets upset because she does not know what I am thinking.  I have told her what I was thinking in the past, but that causes her to get angry about that without the original issue being discussed.



• If I am at fault, I stay there and listen to her as best I can.  When she pushes very hard, I tend to shut down.  I realize it is a schizoid tendency, but I fight the urge.  I used to try defending myself, admitting fault--I am at fault sometimes :)--or even ask about it.  One part that makes it hard is that she can keep the intensity going for a long time.  Before you ask, I have told her, at separate times, to just tell me what is bothering her as that works best with me.  On a related note, she does the same with our daughter.  My daughter also shuts down which concerns me.



• Told her I understand and offered alternate views while explicitly prefacing it with telling her that I am not saying she is wrong and that I may be wrong.  Usually, I would put them in the form of questions.  "Could it be that she meant this?"  I have to ask this because I typically do not get to hear the conversation in question.  Also, she wants me to do something about it.  I have to know the situation if I am going to tell someone something.  For example, I cannot just tell my mother to stop something if I do not even know what she truly, at least in my wife's eyes, what she did.

I feel like the anger towards my mother is an excuse in a way.  I rarely mention my mother.  We rarely see my mother.  I have rarely spoken with mother until recently.  Most of my life I rarely spoke to my mother, so I do not see why my wife would even care about her.  Ironically, I am reconnecting somewhat with my mother due to my wife bringing her into the relationship more.  To rule the thought of more contact out, my wife does not even know that I talk to my mother more, so she is not seeing more of my mother in our lives.

I understand validation, at least at an amateur level, but I score high in the IN categories of INTP.  Long conflicts are not me.  Long sessions of talking are not me.  :)  I can listen a lot longer than talk to someone.

These days, I feel exhausted from trying to validate everything for her.  BTW, one of the tipping points for me was when she got visibly upset (cold stare) when I was asking questions about a subject she introduced because I was curious about it and wanted to know more.  I certainly hope showing interest in something she wants to discuss is not invalidating.

I admit that I am undecided from determination to try everything, but I feel I have which makes it harder to try.

MC (using EFT) sessions are starting, so I will see how that goes.

Any threat to the attention that she feels she deserves is going to spark some controversy and action that can be difficult to manage.  In this case, your mother.  Fear of abandonment is so strong for a pwBPD, which most likely is the underlying cause of her reactions.  It is important that she understand what this is in order for her to change it.  Your MC will hopefully recognize this and work with her to help on this level.  If you have a private session with your MC, it might be good to spend some time discussing this with her/him.


It can be exhausting, mentally draining - I know.  Some days I just wanted a break from it all to do what I enjoyed and not have to worry about what I said or did.  Do you have other support or hobbies that you can take a break every so often?

Good to hear that she has agreed to MC.  Keep us posted. 

It will certainly be interesting.  I did have a private session with the MC and she the following day.  I told him about her hate about my mother and did bring up this case to point out that it was not just a misunderstanding on my part.  I can definitely see how MC's, at least EFT, can work.  He gently centered on how I interact with people as well as what I witnessed between my parents to get a view of my communication "style".


I will keep you posted.  The first, real session will be soon.  We had the first together to get a feel of it and the MC then two individual, off-the-record sessions.  The first, joint session is next.

I have some family I can talk to and have.  I did not find them a great resource as they do not realize what I have on my hands.

I like computer games but have stopped playing to help around the house.  I used to play them a lot.  There are some other fun things to do, but I feel guilty to do much of anything.  It is very difficult to ask for time to play when she and I are so busy due to the children.  There have been some "fun" guilt trips from her long ago, so I stopped.  She is all for grand trips as a family but not for individual things.  I will see what I still want to do then try for it.

She has asked, in general, how others take care of children and have free time.  I have no idea how they do it.  I sometimes feel likes she fills the schedule just to fill it.  Not completely as our daughter has a lot of activities but something makes me feel that way at times.

I have similar problems. My wife has had issues with my mother since the day I introduced them. My wife has later revealed that she found my mother "too positive" when she first met her (i.e. she thought my mother was faking it, which she was not). We live closer to my parents now than we ever have, yet she barely sees them.

We used to do some travelling with my parents. My wife seemed to like this as she felt safer going with people we knew. Unfortunately the last time ended in disaster with my wife crying when we got home, on the phone to her own mother (in addition to being in a bad mood the entire week). What did my mother do that was so terrible? She talked in a positive way about a holiday apartment of my sister's. That was the time when I felt that I had to let my parents in on what was going on. There was simply no way to cover it up anymore.

I also like to play computer games to relax. I did not play for about 5-6 years due to her need of constant attention and work around the house. Nowadays I play with my son. It's still hard to play on my own, even if I have done all the chores for the evening. She wants me to see movies of her choice (romantic comedies), but lately I have been turning that down. I want to do more of what I enjoy and less of what she wants me to do.