BPDFamily.com

My dBPD husband and I have been living apart since his mental health breakdown in April 2023. The separation was imposed on us, first by his hospitalization and then by a Protective Order brought by the court against me. In hindsight, it was the best thing that ever happened for me, as it enabled me to see that his behavior towards me had been abusive throughout our 10-year marriage, and also for me to recognize that I had been enabling and reinforcing the abuse.

Now, it looks like the court is about to modify the Protective Order so that I can move back home. Does anyone here have any experience of moving back in with a BPD partner following a long period of separation?

We are both having individual therapy and my husband has agreed that we should probably seek couples therapy when I finally move back home.

My gut feeling is that I need to take things slowly. I intend to keep the lease on my apartment for at least a few months and gradually start to spend more time at home. I'm conscious that it will be very hard for us not to fall back into the same old patterns that we had before, especially going back to living together in the same house where all the abuse and enmeshment took place. But at the same time, I think it might be an opportunity for both of us to heal, if we can get it right.

Thoughts anyone?

While I don't have personal experience with that kind of situation, I've read about similar situations here on the boards.

It does seem wise to keep the apartment, and do a more gradual transition back, versus "suddenly back to normal".

It may also be wise to have a third person referee and structure the process, so that it isn't one of you making the decisions about "this isn't working". Having a neutral party manage the timeline, with "go"/"no go" metrics, could help keep this from turning into a partner conflict -- i.e., I could imagine a couple working on having one partner move back home, and the "in home" partner thinks "I need XYZ to happen before a full move back" but the out of home partner thinks "everything looks great on my end, let's go fully back", and the issue becomes, once again, how do the partners deal with that disagreement. I wonder if that speaks to your concern about going back to old conflict patterns. The content of the issue would be new (moving back together) but has the structure of coping with conflict changed meaningfully.

Do you think you and your H could reach agreement about getting a couples counselor involved as the "timeline referee" before you fully move back, instead of waiting for couples counseling only after you move back?

If not, I wonder if your individual therapists could work together as the process/timeline referees for you both.

Glad things are looking hopeful for you both right now.

Thank you, Kells, for this thoughtful response.

I can already see that how quickly we finally end up living together is likely to be a source of conflict, exactly as you describe. So starting couples counseling earlier in the process might be a better option. That way, the couples counselor could help us navigate both the timeline, and the eventual stresses of living together again.

Sorting out what we are arguing about (content), as opposed to how we argue about it (structure) is definitely a work in progress!

Can you remind me, do you have any sense of your H's general feelings about you moving back in? Do you think he will be the partner who wants to speed things up, or slow things down (or is it hard to say)?

My husband is keen for me to move back in as quickly as possible. At the same time, he recognizes that having lived apart for over 18 months, it's going to take a bit of readjusting. His greatest fear is that I will decide that I prefer living alone. That fear is not unjustified, as I have really enjoyed having my own space and being able to come and go as I please.

My greatest fear is that we will go back to the pattern of abuse/appeasement that we had developed over a ten year relationship. So I'd prefer to take it slowly and see how things go. I'm committed to the marriage, but a marriage where we don't actually live together would not be the end of the world for me. I'm happy to give it a go living together, but think that to give us the best possible chance, we shouldn't rush things.

Hope this helps!