BPDFamily.com

Hello everyone.
this is my first time on this group, and was hoping to find some empathy and support.
My wife was recently diagnosed with BPD. We suspected for a long time that there was some un diagnosed issue with her. This new diagnosis explains a lot of what her and I have been dealing with.
I am literally falling apart on the inside. My wife has recently asked to have an open relationship.
I seriously do not know how to handle this. :help:

Knowing that she has BPD might actually help you.  If you read plenty about it, you may have a better understanding of her condition and be more prepared to deal with certain situations.  In retrospect, I certainly wish I knew that my ex was diagnosed with BPD.  It would've put things in perspective.

As for the open relationship part, how do you feel about it?

Sexual compatibility with your partner is important -- but it's even more important for you to respect your own preferences and boundaries.

I am grateful for the diagnosis, it really puts the last 11 years into perspective.
Some people would say I'm the crazy one for staying with her. God knows I've had plenty of opportunities to leave. Heck, she has even begged me to leave a couple times.
I cannot bring myself to give up on her, us and our kiddos.

I am devastated with the idea of an open relationship. She at least had the decency to ask me if we could have an open relationship.
She went out and hung out with a coworker. She told me everything that happend. At least I think she shared everything.
They fooled around, but no intercourse.
But I found a stain on her panties that looks a lot like dried semen.
I dont know...
Weve had a great sex life and are extremely compatible.
I understand where a lot of her urge for sex comes from. She has had several sexual traumatic events happen to her.
She wants to attempt to regain some control over her body and sexualality.
She just started therapy for her BPD, but I am afraid that she is going to potentially do more damage than good to herself and our marriage if she continues to want sex with other men.
Of course she says she only wants to be with men she trust. I'm not sure how this will help her.

Hi and welcome to the board.

Sorry to hear what you are going through and went through something similar but wasn't asked what I wanted.

Has she asked to be nice or is this more because she doesn't want to worry about lying and deceit? Regardless of this, she has already gone out with someone so this suggests that she does not care what you think or how it impacts you.

If you are finding things in underwear then you need to consider whether you should practice safe sex - whilst that may sound odd, you need to protect yourself because you cannot depend on someone else.

What do you want out of the situation? What is the benefit for you? How are your boundaries and what happens if they are broken?

Do you have any counselling yourself as I would recommend doing this.

Also, why would you be the one to leave? Can she cope with the children, can you? How old are they and what would be the impact on them if they are left in her care? Do you have support and can be their protective factor?

I just want to say, "Amen". You're the one that those kids need, man.

This post resonates a lot with me, as the personality sounds rather similar to my ex, who was certainly hypersexual, which of course was AMAZING when things were good, but was awful when things were not good. She talked loosely at times about having an open relationship, or going to swingers' parties. I'm pretty open-minded, I think, but not emotionally set up for all that. She never followed through on those suggestions, but that suggestion, along with all the other madness was enough for me to go through several long periods when I was so nervous about everything that I simply wasn't able to perform, and of course I got a lot of abuse for that. I went to psychosexual therapy, and found that very helpful in persuading me that my sexual competence wasn't the issue. Now I completely understand what was going on, and I have absolutely forgiven myself for that at least. In fact I think that I'm probably more sexually confident than I've ever been (albeit that I haven't yet dipped my toes in those waters - I'm pretty fussy in my choices, and still healing in any case so just not ready).

She needs to understand that you have limits, and that if she goes beyond those limits you will consider pulling the plug, and taking the kids with you. Easy for me to say, sitting where I am, very much looking back on it all now. Also, we didn't get close to having kids, maybe because we're both over 40 and one of us is no longer productive. I don't know. We never got around to checking properly - too much other crazy stuff going on. She blamed me for the fact that she wasn't getting pregnant, but I thank God now that it didn't happen, because I can of course imagine how crazy it would have been.

I really regret not ever having had children in my life, but am absolutely sure that it would have been a nightmare with her, and ultimately unfair to the children, which is what really counts. I don't know if I would have had the strength to be the guy who took custody of the children away from an "incompetent" mother, but I think that that is probably the situation that you are in. I have a friend who was in pretty much exactly your situation. He went through a very difficult time, but ultimately got custody of their daughter, and is now happily remarried. I'm not saying that that is what you must do, just pointing out how things could be in an alternative scenario which you should at least be thinking about.