BPDFamily.com

Hey everyone. This is my first post here. I need help and have nowhere else to turn. I have no prior experience with BPD; my wife, who I recently married, suffers from extreme BPD, agoraphobia, social anxiety disorder, manic depression, suicidal tendencies. Despite my best efforts, she refuses the help I try to give her. It seems that nothing works, whether it be positive reinforcement, physical prizes/shopping trips, taking her out, or leveling with her about how she feels. I constantly validate her feelings and explain that she IS ALLOWED to feel the way she does, and that she shouldn't "just change how she thinks." I think that mindset is childish and unrealistic, anyway. But in the end, it almost never works and she locks herself in our bedroom, a closet, or any nook or cranny she can hide in.

I, on the other hand, do not have BPD. I do suffer from OCD, severe anxiety, and random manic spats of depression.

I don't even know where to start with this, so I guess I'll just turn on the faucet and go. Today is a great example. I feel extremely depressed and isolated, like I'm walking all alone in this world. I'm currently at work, and my wife is at home. I feel that I am not able to express my negative mental feelings to her, because it throws her into withdrawal from her BPD. She also becomes depressed and then suicidal. She is only ever "ok" maybe twice a week; the other five days or so are "bad days" where she talks about killing herself, withdraws and hides from me, and talks about how her life will never be ok. That being said, I can't bring myself to express my negative mental states since it could destroy a rare positive mood for her.

We have a great, loving relationship; she constantly tells me that I'm the only thing keeping her from killing herself. I do believe her. When she is having an "ok" day, she apologizes for her behavior during any of her previous episodes.

This is so difficult for me to handle. While I'm in a loving relationship with her, I feel like I'm isolated and all alone in this world dealing with my own issues. She knows OF these issues I have, but not exactly when I'm specifically feeling them.

One other issue is my sexuality. I am completely open with her; I am a bisexual male. I've never been in a relationship with a man, and I've never had any experiences with the same gender. Recently, my wife has been withholding intimacy with me. It has been two months since we last did anything; before that, it was down to monthly, and before that weekly, and it was actually daily about a year ago. I don't know if this is a product of that, but I am feeling increasingly sad that I'm "missing" half of myself since I've never explored the other half of my sexuality. Let me be clear: I STRONGLY support monogamy, so it hasn't even crossed my mind to try anything. But, I still feel attraction even more intensely than before to males. It seems that my attraction to females has waned alot besides for my wife, which is odd.

I am sorry for such a long post, but I am at the end of my rope and I need help. How can I deal with this? How can I help her? How can I help me? What is your advice? And as a parting note, I intend to stay with her the rest of my life, which further emphasizes the importance of this to me. Thanks for taking the time to read this long post.

Jesse-Welcome to the site. I have just recently discovered what to call my wifes behavior after 9 years of being together which led me to the website. There are many others like you who are dealing with this everyday. The resources to the right are a great start in your journey to success.

you are not alone, but you have to decide why you choose a woman like this. you need to read up on fixer mentality and codependency.

you need to fix you first, then learn the tools for dealing with your wife.

she will not start to get fixed until she wants too

sorry bud