BPDFamily.com

Hello, I am new here. My (48m) life has become a nightmare. I love my wife (46f) and I believe she lives with bpd, but she also has complex ptsd, a history of narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma, and grew up in a dysfunctional alcoholic family watching her mom just berate her dad for his drinking. Her family of origin is seemingly devoid of compassion. She grew up hating men, thanks to her mom. From her dad, she got catastrophic thinking, intrusive thoughts (OCD), and easily confused. She is highly intelligent and can remember everything I’ve ever said or done. I live with ADHD, Autism, I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a family member, an emotionally cold, detached engineer father, who spanked me quite harshly when I was young. To cope with the trauma, I started lying to protect myself. My father was an authoritarian in his parenting style. I learned to internalize my anger, and this next part is important, there was never any discussion with my dad, it was a one-way street. 

Looking back, I can see some tell-tale signs of bpd from my wife. Nothing I ever did was good enough to convince her I loved her. I was always going to leave her. It was a matter of time before I abandoned her. Terrible insecurity, jealousy, and a belief that with her, I was either 100% in or nothing. There were accusations I would cheat on her when I went to some training modules out-of-state. She also accused me of cheating on her with the woman I rented an office from for counseling. I am a counselor by trade. I would receive comments that I must not love her because my business seemed to be more important to me than her, same thing with my hobbies, and friends. 

Last year, things got much worse. Three years ago, she took her ex to court for child support, he wasn’t paying, he is narcissist, and his girlfriend has bullied my wife for the past 18 years. They are horrible people. They managed to convince the court that she should not have primary placement during the school year and won. That destroyed her. Immediately after court, she turned on her daughters, accusing them of throwing her under the bus. There were days when I didn’t know If I would come home to find her dead. 

Problems started getting worse when she got upset at me going to my office and it got so bad I switched all clients to virtual because I could not stand the emotional and verbal abuse she was dishing out. If I didn’t answer a phone call, even when in session, it would send her into a blind rage if I didn’t answer or respond immediately. For years, she took her anger out of me and purposely tore me down so my self-esteem wouldn’t be too good because she was afraid I would leave her. I was never going to leave her. 

She learned I had visited strip clubs before we met and that is something I still haven’t heard the end of from her. She was hurt that 20 years ago I fell in love with a girl who worked at a coffee shop. She is so upset and hurt over things I did before I ever knew I would meet her. It was like she was personally offended that I had previous girlfriends. 

Last summer, she started to believe I was looking up my female clients on social media, stalking them, driving past their houses, including one 3 hours away from me, downloading photos to fantasize about them. When I told her that was not the case, she told me I was lying, try again, and of course I did what she accused me of because she could tell I was guilty because of my behavior. I do not respond well to being yelled at and talked to in a threatening manner. She mistook my fear and terror for guilt. Then, she decided I must be visiting strip clubs because I said you can track my location and the only time you would see me anywhere near a strip club is the one we pass on the freeway to her parents' house.

According to her, I have been visiting strip clubs since we were dating and that is where all the money went. She would ask me questions and then reject my answer and claim I was guilty, because I was a compulsive liar. It is during this period that her anger starts escalating and eventually she starts getting violent, but I can restrain her so there isn’t much she can do. 

Recently, I now am gay, I fantasize about my male clients, and I am cheating on her with a guy named Dave and apparently, I have been seeing him for the entire time we have been together. I have also slept with hundreds, if not thousands of men in my life. I have tried to explain that not only am I not gay, I find the idea of having sex with another male horrifying because of the abuse I suffered as a child, the perpetrator was male. She believes that I am re-enacting my trauma and of course I am sleeping with men. 

Every day, she asks me the same questions, how have I been acting out, who did I visit, and each day I tell her no, she gets upset, calls me a liar, and she ends up hurting herself even more. When things got bad, she told me on more than one occasion that we were finished, and she never wanted to see me again. After one such period, where she made it crystal clear we were finished. I decided to go on an Ayahuasca ceremony to begin healing from the abuse. 

She wasn’t done. She would “test me” and being on the Autism Spectrum, I always failed her “tests”, because I take things literally. She felt abandoned when I went on the trip. We weren’t living together at this time because she could not control her violence around me, and I was triggered the moment she started in with me. She believed that I had sex with multiple men on the trip and she dismisses everything I say and gaslights the ever-living crap out of me by claiming that I don’t feel what i feel and that my life experiences didn’t happen or she didn’t care about it. 

The most frustrating aspect is she will take something I say completely out of context, twist it around, and run with something before I am even finished speaking.

I do not think we will survive, this is more about my mental sanity at this point.

 

 

Hii and welcome.. I am pretty new myself and more experienced members can give you more insights. I just wanted to say that I feel you. I am sorry that you are going through such a difficult time. Those of us who have BPD S/o know how these false accusation feel. It really tears us on the inside. I don't know if it's ever possible to change them. What are you doing regarding your mental health? It's very important that you take care of your mental health. Also, have you tried setting up strong boundaries?? No one should have to accept blames and criticism all the time. Maybe you could set some boundaries regarding this?