BPDFamily.com

Hello.  I have been married to a man with undiagnosed BPD for 20 years (last week we celebrated our anniversary).  He and I have a 15 year old daughter.  We have been separated two times.  The first was 13 years ago and lasted 1 year.  The second time was 10 years ago and lasted almost 2 years.  So we have been together continuously now for 8 years.  With the first separation I was in shock and couldn't believe that it was happening, so jumped back into the relationship when nothing had really changed.  The second time I accepted the reality of the situation and was ready to move on. This time I embraced being on my own. My husband did a lot of soul searching and in many ways it felt like he had "grown out of" BPD.  We have had a much better relationship over the last 8 years.  I felt like what worked for me was that I completely stopped trying to change him.  I also felt much more independent and happy on my own, so I stopped looking to him to define me.   I feel like the fact that I didn't jump back into things gave me a chance to learn to accept him and it gave him a chance to really realize how much he appreciated me and our daughter, and he was able to do a lot of growing up. 

One thing he used to do was to always threaten to leave me.  And he hasn't done this at all over the last 8 years.  Last Friday we were driving back from a really lovely trip away, and he completely lost it over something that to me seems completely silly.
He got upset because my daughter and I had to go to the bathroom after having dinner.  I admittedly did not react well and told him that was ridiculous, and it's perfectly reasonable in an 8 hour drive to use the bathroom more than once.  That put him over the edge and he hasn't spoken to me for 2 days.  He has slept on the couch for 2 nights in a row and has basically set up camp there to let me know that this is his new sleeping arrangement.  He specifically knows that him sleeping on the couch is terribly triggering to me given our history.  And it really feels like it's happening all over again.  And who would have ever thought it would be because I had to go to the bathroom and somehow that made him feel disrespected.  This feels very much like it used to feel where he would split me black on a regular basis and then go days without talking to me.  But this hadn't happened for years. 

A few other things to note, he is from another country and he always says he wants to go back to his country at some point in the next five years or so.  And secondly, we were planning to put an offer on a new condo this week. He told me this morning that he wanted to cancel the appointment with the realtor which I did.   I wonder if the 20 year anniversary, the possibility of buying a condo and having a really nice weekend was too much to deal with, and somehow made him feel trapped.  I'm not interested in going back to the way things used to be.  Wondering if anyone has experienced this kind of "relapse" after a number of good years, and how you might suggest I deal with it.  Thanks so much for reading my long post.

It certainly sounds like he was triggered by something. I'm afraid I don't have any advice for you, but I just want to say that I've recently experienced a very strong relapse from my partner and it is very disconcerting.