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Friends,

I thought it was my duty as H to hide my BPDxW's dark side.  As a result, I perpetuated the cover-up.  I pretended with friends and family that things were OK, when I knew deep down that my BPDxW's behavior was outrageous and abusive.  I did it, in part, to protect our kids from the chaos and to provide a stabilizing influence over her turbulent mood swings.  I guess I thought that protecting my spouse from the effects of her disorder was a loving thing to do.

Looking back, I question whether the cover-up was healthy for me or my BPDxW.  I ended up carrying my BPDxW's emotional baggage, which was exhausting.  And I insulated her from the consequences of her own actions, which only allowed her abusive behavior to continue unchecked.  Like many in an abusive situation, I participated in a conspiracy of silence.

No more.  I don't need to lug anyone else's "stuff" around anymore.  I lightened the load.  It's a liberating way to live.

Have others participated in the BPD cover-up?

LuckyJim

Lucky Jim,

I have participated in the cover up.

I was able to until my father who became ill with cancer came in to live with us for about 9 months.  Now he has seen what really happens.  I must say that I still feel embarrassed about that I am still wanting the relationship to work and wonder what is being said about me in the family when I am not there. 

If I saw somebody living with what I live with I would tell them to run.  But with a lot of kids and a couple special needs I am trying to establish boundaries (once again).   

I had this attitude that I wanted the relationship to work and didn't want to badmouth her to other people. It started off reasonably - healthy people don't run around telling everyone 'we had an argument last night', after all, since it looks bad and damages the relationship. But it started to involve worse and worse behavior that covered longer and longer times. People would think we were 'so perfect' together because the public image was great, even though it was more and more facade and less and less real happy as time went on.

One of my rules now is that I will end a relationship if my partner behaves in ways that I feel I have to hide on a frequent basis, definitely if there's at least one big thing per week. I'm not talking about 'she was sad, I'm not going to tell everyone she cried on my shoulder' or 'she had a stomach virus and threw up in the sink, that's gross and I'm not going to bring it up', but things like 'she shouted at me because of... .' or 'she told me she was breaking up with me'.

People think that all the time... .we are the perfect couple.  What they don't know what happens behind closed doors would be shocking. 

I covered for her but people close to me saw right through it. My parents, close friends and my boss. None of them bought it.

Like you say Jim, just after, in spite of the broken heart and everything else, there was a sense of relief as well. I didn't have to carry the weight of her anymore.

I absolutely covered it for a very long time.  I covered it to the point of telling my daughter from my first marriage to stay out of his way (he targeted her for rages and used her as an excuse to target me).  I made arrangements several times for my kids to be elsewhere when I knew a rage was coming and even 5 years ago when I discovered the existence of BPD and it fit him, used that as an excuse for his behavior to people, especially the kids.  "It's not his fault, he is ill and he will get better".  When I look back on that time, I am ashamed at how I allowed his behavior to control so many lives and wish I had gotten stronger sooner.  Maybe I wouldn't have as much healing to do as I still do. 

Friends, Thanks to all for your great posts on the cover-up, a subject I still feel uneasy about.  Looking back, I view my efforts at covering up as part of the unhealthy dynamic that I got into in a BPD r/s.  Chaos became the norm, as did hiding it from the outside world.  I lacked the tools to confront this issue, which I accept as part of my naivete about BPD.  Who knew?  I had never heard of BPD until after 10 years of marriage.  In retrospect, I think covering up her behavior was unhealthy for me and for my BPDxW, but back then I was walking on eggshells and it seemed natural to whitewash the problem, sad to say.

LuckyJim

Quote: "And I insulated her from the consequences of her own actions, which only allowed her abusive behavior to continue unchecked.  Like many in an abusive situation, I participated in a conspiracy of silence."

Yes I did.  And in fact towards the end, she would say you need to fix it, repair it, pay for it, ect. with sheer entitlement.

In hindsite, I wondered if I made her worse as she never dealt with the consequences of her own actions.  I dealt with the consequences.

I don't know.  Do you have any thoughts on that?

I know I am now free from it and she is looking for someone else now to fix it, repair it, pay for it, ect with sheer entitlement. 

It's nice to have the burden lifted tho. 

And I realize perhaps I am not co-dependent after all as I am no longer doing the rescuing at all any more even though through triangulation, smear campaign ect I am still expected to play that role.  And everyone is shocked I am not doing anything, not reacting, not resucing, not contacting.   Perhaps I was a nice guy?  Perhaps both?

In the end and as it was at the beginning I was simply her patsy for everything.

Exactly.   

I wish I had known from the beginning what it was... .

I did exactly the same. At first, as Gonzalo says, I thought I was doing the normal thing and the kind thing - it's good to be patient, it's good to make allowances for people, it's good not to be a gossip. But my ex's behaviour started to snowball and soon I was desperately trying to hide bigger and bigger things. Part of the reason why I didn't tell anyone else was to protect him (I felt that others wouldn't understand him the way I did, and they would assume him to be a horrible person) and part of the reason was shame that I was letting myself be treated like this. It was only when the abuse got to the point where I was questioning my own self and sanity (I considered resigning from my job and going to work in an Amazon warehouse because if I was as dangerous and abusive as my boyfriend said I was then I shouldn't be around vulnerable people) that I snapped and told a few trusted friends. They were horrified. They had had inklings before that things weren't right, but hadn't realised it was anything like this. These friends are also not the type just to agree with me without qualification and I knew that if they felt I was at fault for anything they would tell me. The hard thing was hearing them say that I was in an abusive relationship, that he was manipulating me, and that what he was doing was cruel - at first I got upset with myself for telling them and started trying to explain how he wasn't a bad person. But their reassurance that I was not an abusive person myself gave me the courage to confront my boyfriend. As soon as he heard that I'd been talking to others, he got furious and said, "So you've gone running to people behind my back. You couldn't keep your mouth shut, you had to tell them all what mean old N said about you. Well, at least now I am freed from the pain of knowing whether to call you my girlfriend any more." That was the breakup. Looking back, I find it significant that he broke up with me once I had stopped keeping the secrets - I had stepped outside his control by telling friends what was going on, and he wasn't having that.

I too hid this behaviour and made excuses for it. I realised that for me the reason I did it was more to do with shame than anything else. I was ashamed that this perfect woman that I had told everyone about wasn't and it would reflect on me. I was ashamed that I wasn't strong enough to hold my boundaries against her. I was ashamed at how she treated me and my boys. I was ashamed that I couldn't leave.

To sum it all up I was ashamed.

It seems pretty common in these relationships. I also covered up for the woman I was with, making excuses like "She's just having a bad day." While behind the scenes I was doing my best to find ways to make it more comfortable for her, so she could calm down and hopefully change her own patterns. When I found myself not being honest with my kids about what was really going on, I knew enough was enough and stopped. Since the rest of us were supposed to be on our best behaviors, with her, it seemed fair that she could be that way with us. Why not try for a balanced r/s? Not long after she had a final huge dysregulation episode and hasn't been back since. In the end, it wasn't my duty to, and she couldn't cover up very well for herself.

Hey myself, Agree, it wasn't your duty to cover for her.  I finally got to that point myself.  Now I have no interest in any r/s that requires "covering" for my SO, which is a big red flag for me.   red-flag

LuckyJim