BPDFamily.com

Hi there,

I'm in a marriage with a BPD woman.  We have three kids, the eldest is from her first marriage.  I was having trouble coping with her mood swings and behaviours and made some bad choices.  I now recognise that, and have spent more than a year focussing on me.  But I have come to recognise that she has BPD.  We tried marriage counselling, but she stopped going when it looked like the focus might be on her.  Our therapist is the one who made me realise she was BPD.

She is textbook.  Feelings mean more than facts, any opinion different than hers is wrong, she threatens to throw me or our teenager out one day and expresses love for us a few days later.

I am trying to not trigger her, and not defend myself.   I try to validate her feelings, but I'm not always good at controlling my own emotions and anger.

Our teenager is starting to face more of her multi day outbursts.  She wants to control every aspect of our lives.  We must share our online accounts, profiles, emails everything.  She imagines conversations we have with others which by default means we are getting bad advice from  friends, and plotting against her.

How do I coach the teenager to deal with Mom?  And how do I control my emotions when she is triggered?

Hi StuckDad and welcome to bpdfamily.

Wow. I really understand where you are coming from, and I am so sorry for what you are going through. I have two younger children with my uBPDw, and our marriage counselor also informed me of my wife's illness. Mood swings, control, rages ... .these are so difficult to deal with, and even more so when we are raising children with our BPD spouse. I believe that Randi Kreger has a book "The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder" that some of the forum members here have suggested for having talks with older children about their BPD parent.

My S9 and S3 are not yet there to process this type of information. But, I am trying to teach them through learning to maintain healthy boundaries with my wife and do my best to maintain positive regard and civil, respectful communications. The Lesson links on the right of this page are an excellent source of information. It sure seems that you are coming here on firmer footing than many. I am so glad to hear that you have spent so much time focusing on yourself. That is definitely the starting place. Avoiding JADE (justify, argue, defend, explain) is critical, as you already understand. But it sounds like maybe there is some need for boundaries on email, online stuff, etc. Is that an area that you would like some assistance with?

As far as controlling your emotions when she is triggered, boundaries are definitely your ally. What we are aiming for is feeling our emotions when our partner is triggered and not reacting to their emotions. That is a very challenging and subtle dance. Can you describe a situation or something specific that some of the more experienced members could help with?

I encourage you to keep reaching out. You are not alone, and there is support here for you.

Thanks!  I need help setting boundaries and how to defend them.  She brings up every bad thing I've ever done, that my parents ever did and tries to belittle and control me.  Next week she will tell me how great I am.

I also am looking for techniques to avoid JADE behaviour and what should I say when she is triggered.

You will find a wealth of support and information here. Start at the Lessons, even understanding your partner's behaviors. It sounds as if you have some knowledge already from working with your counselor. The communication tools are the heart of what you are looking for right now. And the surviving confrontation and finding inner strength will help on the boundaries.

I want you to know that, in my own experience, things have gotten better simply by me not making them worse. I still feel like I am too careful walking around eggshells with my wife, but the level of out of control moments has decreased, at least to a level that my every thought is not on leaving. And this has been very good for our sons, which is most important to me. Start reading, and please post questions as they come up or feel free to vent off steam when you need to.

One thing though I will advise, don't share this site with your spouse. There are so many conversations we have here that a pwBPD would find horribly triggering and invalidating. From most of the member's experience, they don't recommend it, and I would make that same recommendation to you. Please keep posting and let us know where you are at and how you are doing.