BPDFamily.com

After 30-years together, I'm starting to listen to outside input on what I've always classified as my wife's idiosyncrasies. After two days with a new couples therapist I was pulled aside, introduced to BPD as a potential root cause for certain issues, and asked to read about it before jumping to any conclusions. To say that was life changing for me would be an understatement. I have learned more about the Why in my marriage over the past few months than I did in our first three decades. Solo therapy with the guy that opened my eyes has been helpful, but it's had zero impact on a flailing relationship. We have been separated for 5-months and, beyond the enlightenment described above, I feel much worse for the wear. I want to pursue couples therapy with my newly discovered sense of awareness, but I don't know where to look. I've encouraged her to seek individual help. I know that all texts say not to, but I was cornered in fight and threw it out in desparation. She's telling me that noone will see her unless she waits 3-6 months or moves out of state. Can anyone help with resources that I can dig into? Am I thinking about this all wrong (Hail Mary vs. Divorce vs. Slow and Low)?

*welcome*

the introduction to bpd can be life changing...and it can be a whole lot to absorb.


how long has this been going? how, in general, has it been going?


what led to the separation? what are the conditions of it?


can you clarify: are the two of you no longer in the couples therapy with the therapist that introduced you to bpd?

The relationship with the therapist that I'm seeing now started last November. My wife and I were seeing him as a couple for the first month, but a conflict left us with the option of starting over, or me continuing one-on-one. My wife and I agreed to proceed with the latter. I've learned more about myself from him in 6-months than I did in the prior 6-years with other therapists.

We separated on New Years Day this year. For years leading up to that moment I had been told repeatedly that I had destroyed her life and rendered her incapable of happiness. She cited my lack of emotional support and unwillingness to prioritize her needs as the primary reasons for her depression, anxiety, and alcoholism (my words, not hers; she does not recognize her drinking as a problem). She believes that I have destroyed her trust and rendered her incapable of feeling secure in our relationship. At first I owned it and started making drastic changes in work schedules and personal relationships. To be clear, there are no issues with infidelity, only too much time spent with friends and family. I regrouped and focused solely on her and her mental and emotional health. That is when things started to spiral. The beginning of the end was June of 24 when we made an agreement with my partners for us to split time between our home state and the state that's home to one of the  businesses that I run. Within a month she asked me to renegotiate terms of the deal that she structured. That was after I leased a home and moved everything on the company's dime. She hasn't been here since last September. I continued to travel home 1-2 weeks per month. When I was home the rhetoric progressed from me not meeting her needs to full blown abandonment. While there I was treated like a leper and dressed down by my wife for hours on end. It seemed like she was making me pay for "bad behavior". On New Years Eve my punishment was her inappropriate behavior while we were out with our kids (31 and 24 y.o). I packed my things and have only been back when our son was in town on leave from the military.

Since then I have continued to work with the same therapist. She sought out a counselor from our church. I'm told that her counselor thinks that I'm the problem in that I have no desire to change to meet her needs. I'm open to couples therapy, but I want to ensure that the root cause is actually being addressed. I'm on the spectrum and have been told that my attempts at expressing empathy need work. I've put the time in and feel like I'm making progress with the tools that I've been given. However, those efforts tend to get twisted into what she perceives to be manipulation. Until we have the guidance that we need, I'll keep working on myself. I'm confident that it will make me a better person regardless of the outcome with our marriage.

After reading articles in the forum about FOG, I can see that I'm stuck in the OG portion of the acronym. It definitely has me feeling helpless. The biggest problem that I'm dealing with now is that all of my relationships were systematically unraveled as part of my penance. Rock bottom is a lonely place.

this is a good goal. its something that i think you could say about anyone.

it is probably the #1 skill needed in a relationship. with someone with bpd traits, it really calls for next level empathy skills, whether the relationship is loving and harmonious, or totally adversarial. people with bpd traits tend to communicate their needs, but they tend to go about it in dysfunctional ways (eg lashing out when what they want is attention, or love, etc), and often, it involves a lot of reading between the distortions, the accusations, the kitchen sinking, whatever they may be, to get at the heart of what theyre really trying to communicate. if youre able to do that with missiles flying, you can do it with anyone.


so, yes. the skills you can develop, are developing, can take you far, regardless of the outcome.


what is her issue here, specifically? was there something specific behind "destroyed her trust"? was this over the agreement with your partners?


by inappropriate behavior, was she airing the conflict in front of your kids?

for what its worth, she certainly sounds difficult, and she sounds like shes generally uncooperative. what i mean by that is, not that there isnt hope; its just a data point.

it means right now, shes approaching this as: "our problems are you, not me, this is up to you to resolve". thats not uncommon, particularly where alcoholism is involved.

it could also suggest, if she brings that attitude into therapy, that there is only so much that couples therapy could do. if one or both parties bring a "fix them, not me", attitude, its difficult for a therapist to get buy in on "fixing" the relationship as a whole.

in that regard, its not a bad thing that shes sought out counseling from your church, even if shes hearing (whether or not theyre actually telling her) that youre the problem. at some point, in one on one counseling, youre kinda forced to take some agency over your life/conflict. affect change, not just bitch. if she feels that the counselor is "on her side", theyre in a powerful position to ultimately direct that into more constructive action, at the very least. even assuming theyre in complete agreement with her, and validating her every breath, it is unlikely to make things worse.

how deep is her alcoholism? in therapeutic settings, this is often the first, and it can be the hardest, thing to address, because without that, its very difficult to make inroads elsewhere.

i assume that there is some communication between the two of you happening. how is it going? how often?