BPDFamily.com

How is your pwPBD handling this crisis?  The stress means my wife wants to control me even more. Yet, being around each other 24 hours a day provides many more opportunities for her to loose control of me.

We have had no contact with a sick person, heck, only 18 people in our state have been diagnosed, but my pwBPD has self quarantined both of us. I am "allowed" to go for walks in the woods but cannot do errands or have any business meetings.

For us, the biggest challenge is we can absolutely afford to hide in our mansion until this passes. I don't need to go to business meeting because I don't need a salary with her family's money and we can pay people to do errands for us.

My pwBPD is super smart, too. She caps the top argument with the comment, "your not living alone. Whatever you bring home you bring to me as well. Is that meeting worth either of us getting sick?"

Dang, she has a point, but only if we have a healthy relationship. She would have to be willing to share any of her wealth with me, provide me space to make decisions that she does not like, and be willing to look at the ways she makes life difficult around the house...all feeling immense stress.  Good luck with that.

people with bpd traits dont deal well with stress. this is a stressful time for all of us.

i remember whenever my dad or i would go out of down, my mom (who doesnt have a shred of BPD) would flip out, start talking about emergency and worst case scenarios and what would happen and how to prepare for it. it drove us crazy.

first and foremost, try to remember your wife is coming from a good place and wants the best for you both. she may be pretty controlling in how she goes about it.

the communication tools are your friend here. ask questions. listen. get a feel for where shes coming from, and why. that, ideally, will go a long way toward opening the door for you to have your input. but the goal ought to be to get on the same page, rather than a power struggle.

I could see pwBPD going either way here: using an overabundance of caution, OR deciding to flaunt the guidelines, and deciding they know better than everyone else and will do what they want.  I guess it will depend on which approach gives them an "advantage" in fights with their SOs.

I am not sure how my BPDxw is going to handle this.

Last week she sent me an invite to a kid's bday party scheduled for a weekend when our kids will be with me.  I told her to politely decline the invitation, as we wouldn't be attending, and then asked her what her plans were for the weeks the kids were out of school, as I wasn't sure she understood the severity of what was coming our way.

I got a generally hostile response, along with an assurance she'd be even more cautious with our boys that I was being (I still let them go to outdoor playgrounds, although I will not do that going forward).  

I'm concerned she won't really take the necessary precautions to avoid contact with others; if a quarantine interferes with her plans or inconveniences her in any way, I don't see her complying with it.  

at least according to what I've read, our kids are not likely to face severe symptoms/illness due to their young ages, although they can pass Covid-19 to us and our extended families.  

Having two 20-somethings myself, I am also glad to know this thing does not hit them as hard as it does we old folk! 

Interesting point you make about flaunting the guidelines.  I cautiously leave the house, bottle of cleanser and gloves in hand and my wife uses that as an example of my reckless, BPD-like behavior.

For me, it's really about control. Do I let her control my behavior in this instance, bending my limits? I think I do. Ironically, I told her that this morning and she responded with "Well, I hope you are making that decision for yourself and not me. This is the right one to make."

No winning, I say! In reality, I tried employing the communication techniques I'm learning by saying, "Well, I want to go to the LEGALLY open places, being careful. But I'm not prepared to face your consequences of locking me out of the house. So, I'm willing to release these limits."

I'm not sure she heard that, but we made it through another day, so victory? 

Yup, my partner is extra irritable. He was feeling super anxious the last few days and we were doing really well at calming each other down.

Just now we were on the phone and I guess I “ruined his good mood” with my anxieties and “made him feel like sh*t again” and that it was all my fault he felt bad. He hung up on me. So annoying.

why is this, to you, about control, rather than concern?

why is your relationship in a place where you seem to feel the choices are "rebel or submit"?