BPDFamily.com

I am finally not in denial about being married to someone who has many BPD symptoms. It took a very long time for me to accept it and partly because my mother displayed many BPD traits. It has been one of the primary traumas of my life and has been a significant force in shaping my identity and personality. It took such a long time for me to acknowledge the situation because my trauma was wrapped up into it.
My wifes’ volatile emotions both flabbergasted me and felt normal. My attempts to talk about the situations were rebuffed and defended against. Her highly charged attacks and criticisms were absorbed by me. When I would participate in my twice month league, my wife would throw a giant temper tantrum. Feel abandoned and melt into a pile or attack me for spending too much time away from the house. Because of my childhood these and other behaviors seemed normal.

This started unraveling a number of years ago when my mother died and Trump was elected a few weeks later. I hardly had time to grieve when my wife went into full crisis over the election.  She would attack or berate me whenever I didn’t think the world was going to end or if I disagreed with her about the situation.  The result of her crisis delayed my grieving process. Full disclosure I have a lifelong pattern of delaying grief.
Six  months later my team at work was disrupted by internal  politics. The combination of not grieving and having my work family disrupted threw into one of the worst depressions of my life. I had been depressed for a number of times for 6 month periods. Those depressions all ended through natural progression but this one wasn’t lifting. I ended up turning to Al Anon for help.  The process of sponsorship and twelve steps helped me tremendously. The tools and techniques that one uses with one’s thinking and one’s relationship with the alcoholic were very helpful with my depression and with my relationship to my spouse. I understood that I was affected by the behaviors of my spouse much like if she was an alcoholic.
My return to wellness and my rejection of the messages from my spouse had a profound and disruptive effect on my wife. She entered into a long and chaotic depression. In this period she sought professional help and got therapy 2-3 times a week. She got on antidepressants. These helped her feel better and to cope somewhat better.
For myself I stopped participating in the cycles of closeness and rejection. I kept my wife at a distance emotionally. Because of this we tried expensive couples therapy. I kept trying to share the pattern with the therapist but I don’t think she was well versed in BPD and related illnesses. She had us do active listening practices, which I took to immediately.  But when it was my wife’s turn to listen, she would listen at first but as soon as I said something that triggered her, she would go on the offensive. Or if I didn’t follow some rule she imagined about how I was supposed to share she would attack. Being criticized in the middle of an active listening session is one of the most painful experiences I know of. When I listen I give myself completely over to the other person. When it is my turn to speak, I sort of expect the same thing and when I don’t get it I feel deeply wounded by the experience.
So therapy didn’t work and repeated attempts at active listening didn’t. Well they worked fine when I was listening…
I basically gave up in a way.  I burnt out and dialed down my feelings in regards to my wife. It became more of a logistical relationship. We have 4 children together and leaving hasn’t been a good option for me.  We moved to a larger house and I claimed my own room. When my wife’s aggression flares up I go to my own room.  I have developed a meditation and prayer practice that help.  I have learned to grieve.

In the last six months I had a crisis at work and it dawned on me that I was experiencing PTSD. I have been getting specialized treatment for it which has been helping me with dialing up my emotions. Because of lifelong interactions with people with BPD traits I had to learn to dial my feelings way back. Or atleast hide them from myself.  Well it had stopped working as a tactic especially in regards to my work crisis.

PTSD treatment has been helping feel and has made me want to connect to my family members more. My wife was having one of her super loving stretches recently and because of my treatment I opened up to my wife. We had one of the loveliest weeks we have known. She woke up one morning and it was gone. Her loving feeling was gone and it was replaced by an anxiety ridden and depreciative outlook on life. Where there had temporarily been a loving person, there was a shell. Instead of coherent responses, I was getting automatic and almost robotic responses.

The change was so dramatic that it woke me up. I have been aware of this dynamic the whole time but I was in a state of pseudo-denial. My wife’s responses had so triggered me that I spent most of my time just trying to take care of myself. This time because of the PTSD work, I have been able to see how bad the situation is with my wife. Just how hard of a time she is having.  I now realize that she does an amazing job of pretending normal behavior. When I was in a state of constant PTSD, her behaviors and mine fit perfectly. As I have been recovering, she has had a harder and harder time pretending. As I have become less and less reactive, she has been less and less able to place blame on me. As I become gentler, I see now a hurting person who is lost and doesn’t know how to cope with life.

hi FriendlyMan, and *welcome*

it sounds like there is a great deal of resentment in your marriage, and there has been for a long time.

it also sounds like the there is still love between the two of you, but some fear of being vulnerable.

its hard to break the cycle...to get on a better trajectory. but it is possible, and there is hope.

can you have a read of this, and tell us what stage it feels like your relationship is in: https://bpdfamily.com/content/your-relationship-breaking-down