BPDFamily.com

I am currently married to someone suffering from BPD. He was also in the military and due to a couple of very difficult deployments, also has been diagnosed with PTSD. We have two little ones. I want so badly to believe the best in him and I empathize with him so much. We have both only recently realized and become educated that he is BPD. It's just been a lot of pain and confusion over the last seven years. He is also a blackout alcoholic. He hasn't drunk anything in a few months to my knowledge and he's trying very hard on all fronts. But he knows I am leaving, so it's constant roller coaster of him understanding and trying to be reasonable, to extreme guilting and manipulation. I know it's not intentional, but it's happening.
I am worried for my children and how this is going to go. My therapist says I should just separate and wait, and he will move on and pull the trigger and I guess it could be a lot cleaner and there's no chance for major guilty conscience on my end (very easily guilted and very afraid of potential guilt or hurting anyone... .Working on that). But if he files and does no fault and at some point I need to protect my children, as he has been abusive in the past. Or if he moves on to say, a narcissist or who knows... so quickly and things become serious and someone neither of us really knows has access to our children... .It just worries me. Should I file and file truthfully so it is on record of how he is? Or ask for a psych eval? It seems so mean and hurtful. Also, his mother is narcissist and family blind to it and very toxic, for him especially. Right now he's trying to pull away as we move back home and it is ridiculous and brutal and awful, the bullying from his family because he's not doting on his mom. Someone told her about our moving toward divorce and that I just had another miscarriage and she has spread nasty rumors and is convincing everyone that I am the problem and have brainwashed my husband into thinking I'm perfect, but also leaving because I fault him for the mc. So now even his brother that knows the general list of his transgressions (but not BPD), and always thought well of me and knew I put up with a lot, thinks I'm at fault and husband is martyring himself for me. I know it's a setup for him to go back to the family because they have his back, but also "own" him for "saving" his reputation and that they"put up" with him. I'm trying to be there for him, because he has no one really right now and his family is putting him through emotional hell and so am I, because I'm leaving. Anyyy kind of advice would be so appreciated! I apologize for this being such a jumbled post!

Wow. My BPD husband also has a manipulating mother. She knows he has a problem with alcohol and gave him $100 to go out with the night before our wedding. I mean, I know it's his choice at the end of the day but she's always there tempting him, offering him alcohol and money to gamble and spreads gossip about me, always talking about how we haven't managed to get pregnant like it's definitely my fault. I feel she wants him to fail so she can "save" him. In fact, she actually once said that if he got his act together, no one would need her and that made her feel sad.

Weird how reading your post makes me look at my situation. I think part of the problem is if we walk away and save ourselves, then the asss have won. Well let's have a look at what they've "won". My husband and I broke up for a few months a year ago, he had a massive binge episode and stole $40,000 using his mum's credit card. Think of it this way, if they step in and save him it doesn't mean he'll live happily ever after with them, they will pay for enabling in the end.

It sounds like you're being manipulated into feeling that you have to be there with him to sort out his relationship with his family. Is he responsible for your relationship with your family? Probably not.

Hi Anonymous0991 and welcome to bpdfamily.

It sounds like a rough roller coaster for you and your husband right now, and it is really amazing that in all of this, you can see and have compassion for your husband's efforts to try to do better. It is really difficult to sort out what our roles and responsibilities are in relationships with people with BPD or other personality disorder. That's because they have such great difficulty allowing, acknowledging boundaries that define them. So, stepping out of the Fear, Obligation and Guilt (FOG) is a process, but understanding that he has a disorder and how it affects you both is the starting point.

When you state that you just learned that he is BPD, has that been diagnosed in addition to the PTSD? There are a lot of common traits between the two diagnoses. Is he currently receiving treatment for the PTSD or for BPD? It also sounds as if you are in the process of a move - are you currently still living in one household?

The decision to stay or to leave is very personal and unique. I know from my own experience with my xw that my compelling her to MC with the threat of leaving did not really help motivate her to change. In the end, despite both of our best efforts, I came to the realization that our communications would never approach functional, and that I could not be the father to my sons that I wanted to be while I spent so much effort on negotiating my wife's emotional instability. Putting your children first and foremost is neither mean nor hurtful. If he displays behaviors that are damaging to the kids, then requesting an evaluation is appropriate and necessary. You can mitigate the hurtfulness of it by offering to undergo an evaluation yourself.

Can you elaborate when you ask about filing truthfully? Do you mean disclosing his PTSD and BPD? Certainly if there is an official diagnosis, it should be considered within the custody determination, because you want to put your children first and foremost in the process. The consensus on this board is that the courts usually consider parenting behavior moreso than personal behavior. So focusing on parenting behavior can be more effective in custody determination.

Have you consulted with an attorney at this point? Are you fairly certain that you are leaving? And how are you doing in all of this? It sounds as if you are seeing a therapist, which is great. Do you have family or friends to lean on during this tough time?

Please keep posting and other people will come along with some more assistance.

Thank you so much for your response, both for helpful suggestions and comfort.
So he actually was officially diagnosed with both PTSD and BPD today, and will be getting on medication soon and medical eval. It's good news, but very sad and hard. She also told him he needs to stay away from his parents, which is good for him to be validated and know really it's not just... us? Exaggerating the effects of their behavior and treatment, past and present. Also how it affects him.
I have yet to see an attorney. It's hard, because I'm trying to stay on the best terms possible and I'm a stay at home mom, as of right now. So for me to go spend a couple/few hundred dollars, he would know, and it would just send him... over the edge. Lying is just not something I really ever do... Like I can't really haha
He is a good dad. But with all the "mirroring" I don't know if he will be once he's with someone else. He certainly has moments where he seems like he's really struggling to care, when it comes to them. And when he says, "I'll have no one and nothing to live for and be all alone" etc, when I bring up the kids, he just has a blank stare. That scares me. But most of the time he seems like he adores them. That took a while, though. I hate to even say that. I'm still in a lot of "maybe it isn't true/just me" in a lot of ways.
I was really surprised today when he told me about his diagnosis.
When I referred to being truthful... I just mean fault/no fault. As I said, there has been some physical abuse (but it's been a while, thankfully), infidelity, habitual drunkenness... .
I do have a close friend here that had a VERY similar experience as mine/ours, but no kids involved. She is really the one who helped me believe in myself to confront and demand the truth instead of confronting and accepting more lies. I have a few long distance friends that are there for me too :) I just have kept very quiet for all these years and only told people/focused on the good, which there was some. The problem is I have leaned on my mom the most, and I am realizing it wasn't maybe the best for me, because she has no boundaries (thus I don't, but I am in practice of developing them/learning) and always taught us to give and give and give and never stop and always put others before yourself. I feel like she's steering me to keep doing that.
I am sure I'm leaving. It's not good for our kids or for me. Its a long story, but I have done everythinggg and waited and waited to be completely sure. I need love and I need someone to be excited to be with me and occasionally worry about my needs, someday. I kind of feel like I'm just his mom a lot of the time. It's very clear no matter his best efforts, he cannot give me that in the foreseeable future. He is very, very selfish, even outside of BPD symptoms.
Thanks again

I'm sorry for what you went through! That is awful  I don't see it as they have won at all. I think it's heartbreaking and "they" never win in life. He didn't ask to be this way. He had a horrible, very sad upbringing with a lot of types of abuse and neglect.
For myself, I have learned a lot and grown a lot as a person. Everything I lost of myself will heal and return with time, I know. Of course our children; I love them with all my heart. I know I have a bright future. I think both of us do with a lot of work!
I am SO sorry you're having trouble getting pregnant, and I don't know if you believe in God, but as devastated as I was/am about my last two miscarriages... I think God was just like... knew what was best for the three of us, like "no. Not right now"... Are you sure you want to have kids with him? (There is NO judgment on this question... if I could've seen the future and mine, I'd do it all over, even still)
I think you hit the nail on the head about wants him to fail so he needs her (and therefor she can regain complete control again)
Also I'm sure you're right about his family. But... .If I leave him to dogs, even if I could find a way not to care, is no good for our kids. He needs someone. I told him I will be there for him, but no longer at my own expense.

Does the blank stare occur when the children are present with him or when you are talking to him separate from them? Some people have posted here that their partner with BPD was very attentive and sweet while they were together and then distant when apart, as if they were different people. It is as if they are continually in a struggle to define themselves, and as immediate feelings arise or diminish, their own identity changes to match the current feelings, losing that previously formed identity or boundary that defined them. It certainly is not a sound basis for a healthy attachment for the children. I hope that his treatment helps. If he is just receiving meds without cognitive or dialectic behavior therapy, it may do little to change his behaviors. Really tough.

Right now, it is hard for you to sort out what is yours and what is his. That's the enmeshed nature of close interpersonal relationships with pwBPD. That's why the illness doesn't always manifest significantly in casual or more distant relationships, and the pwBPD can seem fairly healthy and stable. You have been under an onslaught of your boundaries, which as you mentioned, were already not really strong. And that continual erosion gradually makes it incredibly tough to distinguish what is you and what is your partner.

Seeing things as lies or truth is a way to begin to differentiate. I think, with BPD, it's not lies as much as feelings=facts, so whatever they are feeling at the moment is their truth and any disagreement or refuting that is invalidating their feelings and their reality. Kind of hard to hold on to what you believe/know in that environment. Here is an excellent workshop on boundaries. It really helped me to stop seeing my values as wrong or bad, but actually as something that deserved defending. https://bpdfamily.com/content/setting-boundaries (https://bpdfamily.com/content/setting-boundaries) I am in the life long work of this, too.  :)

So, the time may or may not be at this moment, but as certain as you are about leaving, you are going need to make plans, to consult a lawyer and to take the steps needed to protect yourself and especially your children in the process. You may want to take a look at the book "Splitting" by Bill Eddy for perspective on what a divorce can look like. It is pretty normal to be afraid and at a loss. But it seems like you have a good support network, and most importantly, some clarity of what you need to do for yourself. Be as gentle as you can with yourself. And keep posting here. Others will come along who can help with strategies and steps to take.