BPDFamily.com

  Hello all

  I know my husband has BPD. I even told him I know he does and he told me that therapists in the past have thought he had it too. Sometimes his treatment of me is absolutely awful, sometimes its wonderful. We met last Feb of 2015 and were married nine months later in November of 2015... .My question is: I notice sometimes he checks my phone... .He has done this numerous times without knowing I know. Is this typical of Borderlines? Ive NEVER given him any reason to suspect that IM being unfaithful or not honest with him about anything. Is this due to his insecurity?

Any feedback would help. I love him dearly and am reading books about BPD, but most days I feel like I live in the Wizard of Oz.

Dot

hi DotinOz  

i can certainly relate to having my phone checked. nobody likes their privacy invaded, but its a big trigger for me.

it may be common among people with BPD, though it is not unique to BPD. yes, you could say this sort of behavior comes down to insecurity, but also impulsivity. a person with BPD feels abandonment anxiety in close relationships, sometimes even more so within marriage. a person with BPD also tends to feel feelings very intensely, to the point that feelings may equate with fact. in other words, the fear of abandonment (or even just insecurity) is a feeling that manifests the belief that he will find something if he checks your phone, so he does. even if he has the self awareness to know that this is not necessarily the case, the impulsivity makes it very hard to control the urge.

how do you feel about it all?

Hi :)

Thank you so much for getting back to me. To answer your question, I really don't care if he checks  my phone :) I have nothing to hide and in comparison to his other "behaviors" (devaluation and angry outbursts) its really not bad lol 

 Why is it that my BPD husband can hold a very successful job (he's an engineer for a very reputable bridge building company that is worldwide) and seem to hold it together there; not blow up at people, have meltdowns, etc... .if he did he would lose his job right? What pisses me off is that if he can "keep it together" there why does he not do that with me? Im so pissed thinking about it right now !

The people at his job do not have the emotional pull on him that you do.  Intimate relationships are by far harder to "hold it together" when interacting.  Close relationships amplify any emotions being felt.  Everything someone who loves the BPD does is under a magnifying glass, the BPD is hypersensitive to any sign of rejection from people who matter to the pwBPD.

My NAMI group says that they spend all day trying to keep it all together, but when they come home they just want to vent and let it all out. They feel comfortable with us to do it unfortunately. I think this is why sometimes mine said he wanted to have a man cave where he could go to do what he wanted and not bother me or be bothered by me. To know I was there, but not in the same room. They need to blow off the ticking bomb in their mind... .problem is, we are there to get hit with the shrapnel.

My wife has a hard time on weekends.  She does do a good job of holding it together around most people.  She self harms to help her deal with emotions and has had to engage in that mildly at work.  Though usually something else has happened with regards to me or someone important to her.  I agree it is a strain to not release the emotions when they occur, and this can make the trigger easy to set off.

Hey DotinOz:

Sorry about the situation with your husband.  Did he behave differently before you married?

Is your husband in counseling now?  Is couples counseling possible?  It would be nice if they came with an operating/maintenance manual, lol


It is very hard to rationalize how they treat other okay, but not you.  The reverse seems most logical to us - treat the ones you love in the best possible way.  Only, that many times doesn't happen.

I've had a tough time rationalizing how my uBPD sis can spend so much time at church.  She appears to be a respected member of her church, and, her church friends don't know what they don't know.

I put a couple of tutorial links in you other post

This is something that baffled me too. It's because BPD and traits exist on a spectrum. My mother is on the severe end - low functioning- and this is what I thought BPD was like. Yet even though she is very symptomatic, she can pull it together for a casual friendship or social event. I have met friends of hers who tell me what a wonderful  and sweet person she is. Yet they haven't a clue about how she has behaved with her family.

I never imagined these same dynamics would be at play when my- competent as his job- admired and loved by everyone H began raging at me at home. Although he isn't anything like my mother, I was astounded to find that we had similar marital issues that I had observed in my parents. Since he blamed me for the problems- ( and my mother did too for her problems) - and because he was so wonderful to everyone else- I assumed it was me. I took his accusations to heart, and slowly began to change to please him, walk on eggshells to keep the peace, until I lost touch with who I was.

There was a point where if someone asked me what I liked to eat was and I would not know what to say. I wouldn't say that my H was overtly controlling, but I was so afraid of the rages or the silent treatment that I just did what he wanted to do. Like your Facebook liking post, it seemed anything would provoke them- talking to someone on the phone, being late for something. Saying something that angered him might result in a response like " you just ruined the whole weekend" and then days of the ST.

I read many books on marriage and relationships- searching for some kind of reason, or idea about how to fix this. Yet, he didn't read any of them- it was my problem to "fix" the marriage and it seemed he wasn't interested in reading. If I brought up an idea, he would say it was ridiculous. As far as he was concerned, I was the problem. But in my readings - some interesting ideas stood out to me. One was that we tend to choose partners that match our childhood issues somehow- and we tend to match partners with similar levels of maturity as we have.

The common thread to the issues was in part- me. I thought my mother had the problem and that my father was the normal one, and also a victim of her behavior. Then, I learned about co-dependency and his role in the relationship- and the connection was me. Being raised in my family, co-dependency was my idea of how to be "normal" in a relationship. I didn't know any different when my H was upset- than to act like my father did when my mother was upset. It was co-dependency that was enhancing the dysfunction in my marriage. I could not control my H's moods but I could change my behaviors, and with counseling that helped. The issues didn't go away, but it takes two to engage in them. I stopped reading marriage books- stopped trying to "fix" things, as it was more effective to work on my own situation.

Hope this helps.

Yes, this can be frustrating and make it hard to get support from others because they are not experiencing what you are experiencing.  They don't know what to make of it.

These other areas of life which your BPDh can compartmentalize generally entail much quicker and more severe social and life consequences for dysregulated behaviors.  Without the intimacy, other parties don't hesitate much on implementing consequences.  These are more straightforward r/s.  Folks that are high functioning and lower on the spectrum can comprehend this, especially if they've slipped up in the past and go burned. They can comprehend consequences and learn.  In partner r/s, often the boundaries and resultant consequences are weak, so the pressure check on dysregulation isnt there.  It goes on and on, much longer too than other types of r/s.  As non, boundaries and consequences are important areas we need to examine ourselves to make sure we are solid in them.  Otherwise the pwBPD will just be carried away by the illness.  Compartmentalizing can infuriating, but it can also be a good thing in that it shows the pwBPD has some ability to regulate.   Many BPD don't even have that ability and are essentially disabled.

Simple answer: Yes, it is due to his insecurity and is typical Borderline behavior.  My BPDxW did the same thing, and would also check my laptop.  I had  to put a passcode on my phone and change the password on my laptop in order to prevent what I viewed as a breach of my personal boundaries.  It was all so juvenile, but that's the emotional immaturity of many who suffer from BPD, in my view.

LuckyJim

Trust is a big issue for people with BPD and checking your phone plays into the lack of trust. Can you ask him why he checks your phone and somehow maybe through therapy work on him trusting you rather than constantly having to check your phone. My ExBPDgf checked my phone and it led to many disagreements.