BPDFamily.com

My dBPDw lost her job a couple of months ago. Since then she and I have been getting along better—she’s less stressed about her job and I’ve picked up a few pointers from good ol’ bpdfamily.com.

Lately, I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with her. She almost always has a physical complaint that keeps her in bed—I believe some, but not all, of these are psychosomatic, maybe stress-based. She doesn’t seem to be really taking her job search seriously. And she isn’t going to therapy or group therapy regularly. Frustration from these 3 major issues slips out in little criticisms about unimportant things (like the type of bread she bought at the supermarket).  So, I think I need to have a serious talk with her about my concerns. And maybe that will help me feel less negative towards her.  One thing I might say is that therapy would be a good place to learn how to deal with stress which might lead to less physical symptoms and make job searching easier. 

Any pointers on how to have that talk would be appreciated.

I've been in your shoes.  I warn you, this is a landmine.  Say the wrong thing and it could get real ugly, real fast.  And I mean calling 911 ugly.

My advice is to focus on ONE thing.  And I would focus on the therapy as that one thing.  Try to gently persuade her to go to therapy first, then trust the professionals to help her with her other issues.  The truth is, she may not be capable of working - ever.  So anything regarding that issue could come off as extremely invalidating.  She may desperately want a job but know she can't handle the stress.  If she interprets what you say as "you need to get a job", she will likely rage. 

As for her heath issues, be careful to not dismiss them as nothing or all in her head.  My fiancé also complains of ailments constantly.  I have no way of knowing whether all of them are so bad, but I do know she has been diagnosed with very painful things, and has the x-rays to prove it.  Trying to tell her to work through her pain or minimizing it in any way is extremely invalidating, and may bring out a bad response. 

Try to get her to see the benefits of therapy.  And if you can get her to commit to that, then let the therapist deal with her other issues.

Thanks Max, good advice. I'm going to down shift a little and discuss this here a bit more.

I think I will let go of saying anything about the physical complaints, some of which are legitimate, even though I'm experiencing empathy fatigue.

I also agree with focusing on therapy.

I may talk to her about getting a job. As a family, we need some income from her or we may need to sell the house and/or my son may have to go to college part time. (I've got to finish writing a budget so I can know for sure about that--bad on me for avoiding that unpleasant task.)

My wife has been able to hold down a job at times. Although she's lost several jobs, she's also stayed in jobs for years-at-a-time and left jobs of her own volition. Having just lost a job, she is feeling really bad about her ability to get the sort of job she wants, but she may need to compromise and get a lesser job.

Please keep the comments coming.