BPDFamily.com

Hello,
This is my first time posting on any online forum. I've been living for 20+ years with a husband who has always been "different" from most people. The therapist I am seeing to help me deal with the stress of the relationship feels my husband has borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. He has seen a therapist for years but has never let me attend sessions and he does not believe he has a problem. He is an intelligent person and a computer professional but he has never been able to hold a job for over a year. He either gets fired or leaves the job before he gets fired and its always the result of him not getting along with someone. His defense is that he has not found the right job yet. He has now been out of work for 9 months and we are struggling with money. The most difficulty though is with our 13 year old son, who adores his father and sees no issue with his behavior, despite the fact that his father has been banned from attending some sports activities due to him having outbursts such as yelling at coaches, other parents and speaking inappropriately. He has a burnt a lot of bridges and has a bad reputation within the town but he never sees himself as being the problem. He can be verbally and emotionally abusive and last year I filed a restraining order and for divorce. It was a very difficult time for our son and after a year, and because his father had no money or place to live, I let him come back to live at the house a few months ago. My son is now thrilled to have his father back but it has made life for me more difficult. I am now very depressed and walk on egg shells in my home, wondering what is going to happen minute to minute. There have even been a few times when he has called the police falsely claiming I hurt him, which the police have never believed. I avoid socializing with my husband as he usually starts an argument with someone or causes a scene and as a result I have grown isolated from people. My only salvation is work but evenings and weekends are difficult. The worst part is that my husband tells my son that I am the one with mental health issues. He speaks negatively about me to our son and so my son blames me for everything. Recently, my son has started applying for private high schools and his father has even sent some inappropriate emails to sport coaches at the school to showcase our son's achievements. I'm trying hard to make this work for my son so that his father does not go homeless but I feel very hopeless at this point, am emotionally drained and worried about the impacts this will have to our son's future. Any help or support you can give would be appreciated. TY.

I am so sorry for all you have gone through and continue to go through. I wish there could be an easy remedy, but in my experience there is not. What has helped me most is therapy for me, and also making sure I cultivate activities and pastimes that feed my soul - exercise, music, prayer, time with friends, etc. (for each person obviously it's different). Is your husband at all willing to do family or couples therapy? Mine is not, so I totally understand if he isn't.
In addition to the book it seems many of us have found, "Walking on Eggshells," I've found "Boundaries in Marriage" to be very helpful. I think it's inevitable that when we choose to do what we can to make a marriage work with a BPD partner we have to work on effective boundaries to protect ourselves. I remember, although BPD specifically never came up, just hearing a description of the kinds of behavior going on in our household my parish priest, who is also a therapist, told me that first and foremost I was going to have to develop ways of protecting myself, whether that meant leaving or developing effective boundaries. He encouraged the latter, of course, especially given that he is also a priest, but emphasized that ultimately if I could not protect myself and stay I needed to protect myself (and our kids - I also have a 13-year-old boy, and a 9-year-old girl) by leaving.
It sounds as if for you the decision to have your husband in the household is largely one you've made to avoid having him struggling and possibly homeless on his own. I appreciate your compassion for him, and clearly your son has a close bond with is father as well, which I can see would be something you'd like to preserve. If there's any way, though, the whole family could work with a therapist, I think it could be hugely beneficial. Failing that, I am not sure what to suggest. It could be helpful to get your son involved in therapy, either on his own, or with you, or perhaps both. It would be good, I would think, for him to have an outside perspective since within the household it seems his father is making him something of a pawn in a power game.
I wish I had more helpful advice, but please know you are not alone in your struggles or in your pain.

Thank you, KatieLou. Just having someone take the time to read my post and respond is helpful and makes me feel less alone. I can't tell you enough how grateful I am that you did that. I'm glad I found this site.  I do feel sometimes that he knows his actions are inapprorpiate - even when he is doing them - but he for some reason has a need to push people and see how much he can get away with. Is that typical?

Might be some things in my response that you won't like hearing.  So take it for what it's worth.

1.  I assume you are still proceeding with the divorce?  If so, please understand you have a right to peaceful home.  If he won't respect your boundaries, then you have a right to kick him out. 

2.  Kids have to learn to live with their parents.  Parents don't have to learn to live with their kids.  Also, if you don't take care of you, nobody will.  If you can't take care of you with STBX around, then again, you are fully within your rights to kick him out.  Your son won't like it.  Your son doesn't have to like it.  However, he still has to learn to respect it.  You're the adult, you're in charge, not your son.  Do what you need to take care of you.

3.  I suggest getting your son into counseling.  Find someone that is used to dealing with abuse and domestic violence, and have a few one on one sessions with them first yourself.  Then introduce your son.  I suggest counseling for you as well.  I suspect your son is used to seeing you being the one to give in from before you filed for divorce?  It's status quo and normal for him.  It's not healthy though, and because it's different, he will be uncomfortable with it.  Let your son repeat the alienation to his counselor, and work with the counselor to express the truth.

4.  Your STBX's issues are self inflicted.  They will not ever improve with your enabling happening.  If he ends up couch surfing at someone else's place, so be it.  It won't be long before he starts alienating others, and the truth will start to come out.

5.  Suggest you get your L involved in moving the divorce along.  Temp custody orders, support orders, etc.  Start trying to move forward with your life.

6.  Suggest finding some DV advocacy groups.  Even if things aren't physical, emotional and mental abuse are very much domestic violence.  Get some help.

7.  If others socially buy STBX's narrative, let them.  Find new friends.  Let STBX spin his yarns, and eventually he'll implode and they'll see the truth.  And by then you won't care because you'll have better friends anyway.

Take care of you first, you can't take care of anyone else if you don't keep yourself in good shape.  Nobody else is gonna do it for you.