BPDFamily.com

Hi i found this board last night and want to introduce myself and my situation. You all seem so knowledgeable and friendly and I sure could use some help. My husband and I dated for 3 years and have been married for seven years next month. We have 2 children infant and 6 years old. When we were dating I honestly do not remember any signs of problems. Maybe i was blinded or just did not know what to look for. Anyways problems started soon after our marriage but really didnt escalate until a year after. That is when i really started noticing that we were not fighting fair. He always wanted to win and i felt like there were mind games I would feel so confused afterward. Screaming matches would occur. Over the years there has been some pretty bad fights with him screaming violently at me, saying very hurtful things, mocking me, mimicking my voice, and cursing for very minor things like my tone of voice or asking him to do something. A year ago he was honest with me that he had been abusing substances and recently has been able to come clean from most of that. He still drinks a few times a week. He usualy apologizes the next day for the fighting or sometimes doesnt. It makes me feel like i am enabling him to yell at me and treat me horrible. He does not talk like this to our childre which i am grateful for but they do see how he treats me. Recently i have figured out that he suffers from BPD. It just fits pretty perfectly.

His childhood he has two parents but he was the middle child and felt left out and unloved kind of like a servant because he was easygoing. Does any of that fit your significant others? Just wondering about patterns here. He tries to control many things.

If he is not in a good place things can trigger a bad mood instantly with no warning. Other times those same things can not bother him at all and he is patient helpful and kind. How do i recognize what place he is in?

I want to find ways to better communicate and resolve our conflict. I want ideas on what to try and how to understand how he fights. I want to create a better homelife for our children.

I was reading last night someones post said they keep hoping for the old person their SO used to be but realized that is them. That hit home. I say that a lot. Many times i feel so duped about who i married. There were secrets yet i want it to work out. I want to have a great marriage and believe that is possible with hard work.

Please help and thanks.

Hello Neveralone and welcome 

I just answered your other post. :)

I'm glad you found this forum, it's great with many lovely like minded people who can offer support and advice to you.

I want to say that so many of us on here, including myself, come to this forum wishing and hoping for that person we fell in love with to come back, to reappear and replace this angry, often unrecognisable person standing in front of us.

What this forum really helps with is understanding that these are both aspects of the same person, but what is happening to your SO is that their behaviours and moods are being affected by aspects of BPD.

Here is a link to the lessons to get you started,

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=56206.msg913187#msg913187

Take your time and read around this subject as your starting point. Reading the information here is the start of making sense of what is happening for your SO and also for you. I know I was reacting to my dBPDhs behaviours in a very negative way, feeding his stress with mine and often making things worse for us both. I thought I could make him better.

Coming to this forum helped me to take a step back and start looking at myself and my needs, and realising that my focus needed to be on taking care of me and my s7. I appreciate that this can be hard and overwhelming finding the starting point to putting this into practice. Do you have anyone like a T that you see for support ? Does your h have anyone he sees for support ?

For me reading the lessons and putting into practice some of the techniques I have learnt has helped improve my marriage, it did not make the illness go away, but I understand more now and I am better able to disengage and read situations better.

How old are your children ? It is positive that your h does not rage at them, my h never has at our son either, but like you there have been occasions where our son has heard things I wish that he hadn't. However that has also stopped since I have learnt to manage myself better in response to my h's dysregulations.

Keep posting and keep reading.