BPDFamily.com

Hi

I am new to this forum.  I need advice and I  am not sure if this is the right place or right protocal so I apologize if I am doing this wrong.

I am 8 and a half months pregnant and my husband is in a very unstable place.

He actually bought a pig yesterday against my wishes and it is all alone and scared in a dirty old barn.

I tried to tell him that getting a pig would be terrible for me because I know he wouldn't take care of it and i would be so sad.  It was total impulse because he was playing the game pig with a friend and he thought it would be cute to have this pig as a mascot... . CRAZY... . I know

I told him I felt sad and depressed about the pig this morning and he began screaming at me and telling me how selfish I am and that I am never happy and how could I not find happiness with a baby pig.  He later sent me an email stating that he didn't want to be with me anymore and that our relationship has run its course.  (this is 20 mins after he left me a loving email saying how much he loved me)

I am not sure how to handle this.  I am trying to bide my time.  If I was financially secure I would leave yesterday.  I don't have fincaial security and I also have 2 kids from a previous marriage that are dependent on him.  I am scared about how he will be when the baby is born.  I need 2 years at least to get on my feet.

What do I do?  :)o I just apologize despite the insanity of it and hope he calms down.  :)o I stay away for a bit or make efforts to reach out in a loving way?  I feel like everytime I disagree about something it flares to this level that he threatens to leave me and end the relationship.  I am so sad and so depressed and I feel so vulnerable.   I need guidance aoout how to handle this without risking being left high and dry.  He is so mean to meat a time where one would think that a husband would be overly caring and tender. 

I am so sad and so scared... . any advice about the best way to manage this without escalating it?

Welcome! You are doing the right thing by posting here.


Ooh, this is a very scary situation. Your emotions are off the chart right now, you need some strong support and not pig-buying silliness.


As you take some time to explore this forum, you're going to have 100 "Hey my H (abbreviation for husband) does that to!" moments as you read other people's posts. And it's pretty common for the pwBPD (person with BPD) to not be able to handle you needing emotional support and reacting very badly. When you get into baby-could-come-any-day-now timeframe we guys get pretty stressed too and pwBPD don't handle stress well at all. The buying a baby pig thing could actually be caring-for-baby instinct gone awry.


Step 1 is to forget about the pig and focus on your health and safety and by extension the arriving-soon baby's health and safety. Calm yourself. You need emotional support, hit the phone and email and Facebook and get some long-distance shoulder-crying out. Find an activity that is calming, sit and fold baby clothes and arrange the nursery. You need to flood yourself and Baby with soothing emotional brain-chemicals, not stress ones.

Step 2 is much harder. You have to maintain the calmness - especially when communicating with BPD hubby. The pwBPD usually cannot handle strong emotions from their partner without flipping out in their own toxic stew of super-strong negative emotions. So find a positive mantra to maintain that calmness.

Step 3 is to act like nothing happened. He didn't pack his bags, did he? Many pwBPD "leave" when dysregulating but they come back and gradually the rage subsides. Take care of the kids and be calmly courteous to him.

Ok this is important: at the top of this board is a permanent sticky thread called The Lessons. You really need to read these. Don't get lost in reading other people's sob stories, although that does help to commiserate with other Non-BPD people dealing with BPD loved ones it's not as deeply helpful as The Lessons.

Some of the most important things in there have to do with tactics and strategies that are helpful, both short term and long term, in dealing with your BPD H. I now exist in a near-permanent state of mind where these ways of acting are my first reaction to the emotional roller-coaster my uBPDw (undiagnosed BPD wife) has taken me on. Hint: I don't scream on the ups and downs of the coaster. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, feeling the knowledge that the coaster is a pattern and no matter how bad it is it will get better.

Welcome, Mrs. Hyde.  I am so sorry that you find yourself in this situate.  Mono had great advice for you.  I will only add that my dBPDh was greatly dysregulated during my pregnancy.  The fear about having babies came out in ugly ways.  So, I would also suggest focus on the baby and how much you love the baby.  Once ours came, my dBPDh was greatly enamored with them.  Ignoring the threats about ending the relationship seemed to work quite well, getting worked up and responding only makes it worse.

Mono... . thank you for the informative and thought provoking post.  It is very helpful and I am going to spend time on the lessons board today.  I know my H tends to be very reactive to my actions and reactions... . I try to be strategic but it is hard not to feel like I am sacrificing my own self in the process... . how do you detach without losing a sense of yourself... . I need to really work on that.

Missy... . I believe that my H is actually anxious about being a new father.  He has a 21 yo daughter and we are having a son and he will intermittently talk about what he is going to do and how he is going to parent... . he even asked me what do we do in the hospital?  What? we bond with our baby... . he said he would rather us all go home after the first day and be alone... . I said I am going to take as many days a s I can get to heal and then go home.  He doesn't want to deal with visitors and said that he will leave when people come to visit?  It is so irritating... . I secretly hope and I do believe that once the baby is here he will be zapped into a better place and he will calm down... . its reassuring to hear that your H did that... . I'm hoping against hope.