BPDFamily.com

Hi everyone, non-BPD spouse of husband with severe mental health issues here.

He's had 10 years therapy + medication for depression, bipolar, and other things. I'm pretty sure it's BPD, and told the therapist who said he cannot either say yes or no (I know people shouldn't be in touch with therapists, but this was after the separation when I had nothing to lose, and the therapist replied with my husband's consent).

We've been together for 3 years, but long-distancing in different countries owing to work since October 2019, also not spending the lock-downs together, so last seen live in March 2020. Which is also when I came across BPD by chance through a news piece which *absolutely* changed my life -- the past years finally made sense! The relief of reading that other people have made the exact same "crazy" experiences as I have!

The discovery triggered what I call a "cycle of destruction" -- I started to read lots on BPD, and also realized my own lack of boundaries, co-dependency, childhood traumas of domestic violence. I started working with a therapist and have finally moved a bit forward after around 4 months. I feel like my previous life has collapsed and I'm building something new out of the ruins. But this was necessary.

After months and months of negotiations on the phone, my husband and I decided to separate at the end of August. It was heart-wrenching. Neither of us wanted it, but the past experiences were just so tough and scarring. In our conversations, I never said the word "BPD", but I used lots of the concepts I had learnt and the expressions -- and my husband actually listened? Sometimes. But it felt so liberating and even connecting to have him listen and even agree sometimes, and just me establishing boundaries and speaking up about what's not okay, and explaining why I thoughts he was doing this and that.

Ideally, I'd like us to take a year or so, and both do intensive therapy, and then meet again, and see where we both are with our feelings and everything. I'd be doing my own stuff, and he DBT and Otto Kernberg-developed therapy -- but I can hardly suggest that since that would spell BPD and drive him away. And anyway, he is refusing contact with me, although I have reached out.

However, even without him doing BPD-specific therapy (yet?), I'd like us to get back together. I know I still have so much to learn, but I feel I understand our relationship dynamics much better now, and I could navigate and manage better. I know, my therapist says it would still be ME doing all the work, but... I don't want to give up like that.

I also think it'd be so much better NOT to live in the same apartment, so that both can do their thing, and go to their own spaces if necessary. Of course, it's not how I imagined my romantic life (we'd probably not have kids, and just always dance on thin eyes) -- but I might as well try!

So I wrote to my husband explaining I'd like us to try again at some point. He hasn't replied, which I expected. So I opened a Google document and am writing there and sharing it with him, and he can read it if and when he wants to. This was recommended to me by a recovered BPD lady on a Facebook forum. She said she never replies to her fiancée when she's feeling low, but she is always reading and appreciating his messages of love. I also still have half my household in our previously shared flat in the other country! He doesn't reply to me concerning what happens to that, and he hasn't replied concerning a "proper" divorce. So I feel like I don't know where we are, practically and status-wise speaking. I feel so stuck and passive about this, because he simply doesn't reply, not even to those non-romantic questions and issues.

My question now is: am I fooling myself? Should I stop wishing to get back together? It took me 6 months to bring myself to separate -- should I risk reverse to the heartache? But I feel quite different now, I feel much more conscious and empowered (through therapy and reading and exchanging on forums). What do people think? Also, anyone experience with a non-responsive spouse...?

it is genuinely hard to say.

there are a lot of moving parts. and no one gets married because they want to separate eventually.

ultimately, whatever you feel, the prospect of getting back together, or reversing separation does depend on your husband.

how long ago did you write him?