BPDFamily.com

Hi!
First of all I am really grateful to anyone that will read this and give me some thoughts cause I have no one to discuss this topic with as it is really sensitive. To honour your empathy I will do my best to keep ti as short as possible... thx!
So. I am married to my wife (will call her M) for 13 years now. When we met, I was 35 had 4 years of a stupid marriage behind me (23 to 27 yo, no kids) and 7 years of "messing around", looking for someone. That very day (movie stuff I know but that is how it was...) I decided I will no longer "be in the game" and will dedicate my life to my work (I am a musician). It just never worked out OK for me and somehow it all ended up in pain for both of us.
So that day I saw her with a friend of mine and there was this crazy spark from the first look. We soon clicked and were un-separable in a matter of days. I made a promise to myself: "You idiot, you always had fingers crossed deep down. Now give your 100% to this! If it ends up, it must not be because of you".
And I kept that promise to myself for a really bumpy 13 years. From the start M had this mood swings and it was always hot-cold. There was rarely a week when she did not almost made me "pack my bags". But I would put up with it and it would pass as it never happened. Sex was great at first and probably for the first time I felt that deep physical connection that was always lacking. It was just a perfect fit when we would do it.
She was also married before and had a son that lived (and still lives) with us. He was 7 when we met. At first I did not think that she would want to have another child, and I treated her son as my own from the start, although that was not easy since her relationship with his father was quite complicated (too big of a topic and not directly an issue here).
For quite a long period I did not feel that her behaviour is "abnormal", but rather that she was simply "like that", that that was her character, a "true woman" with mood swings etc. She would say some quite hard words when she was "crazy" but I would just not react and catch the hook, move aside a bit and it would all just pass and return to normal. But I really never felt secure in this relationship in 13 years. I never felt 100% shure that she will not dump me tomorrow. Which was crazy since I also felt really loved, like never before. Only much later I realised that this is typical for a BPD partner.
After 3 years our son N was born. It was an incredible event in my life and suddenly it all made sense, it really changed me. I became a 150% dedicated father, totally absorbed in this really powerful emotion. We had quite hard times with him all the way until he was around 8 years old. He was really lovely but also had tantrums all the time, did not sleep well, was, to put it simple, a really demanding child. But we somehow managed to get through it.
Before M was born I thought that I would be a sort of an "old school father", working as much as I can to support my family, and providing them with eveything they need, but that my wife would take most of parenthood in those early days. But, since my wife was left alone with her son when he was 2.5 yo, she probably had traumas and so she said from the start that the only way this will work is that she teaches me everything she knows about kids and that I participate equally. Since I am my own boss, and was doing quite OK financially, I was able to be that kind of father (and still am). We did everything together. Later at some stages of her "madness" she would "charge me" with plotting against her in a way to emotionally attach our son to me so that he needs me more than her (which was off course never true, as SHE was the one that wanted me to do everything with her - that was never my plan...). Off course that would only happen when she was "up" or "flipped". After it would pass all would return to normal (totally like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde).
As time passed by, her son started to show strong signs of puberty and they started to heavily confront each other, at several occasions even mildly physical (pushing around etc) and at one point I interfered and had a little wrestle with him. Fortunately it all ending OK, but she told me to never interfere again in their relationship, which I obeyed although it was really hard at times since their fights continued (and even now occur here and there, though much calmer).
Our son was always exposed to all of this and it was for me really troubling since my father had a quite bad temper, though he is a really good person and he never crossed the line, and I did not imagine that my son would also need to go through high pitched voices and drama. I would comfort him when they would fight and it would just pass and return to normal in a matter of minutes.
We raised our son together and three crucial events helped us a lot: 1. I read "My disobedient child" where I learned that you can do wonders with little tricks, like announcing your requests a bit before you make them etc. and 2. My wife (she is special education teacher in a kindergarten) talked to her college psychologist and she gave her a great advice to treat him as an individual and not by parenting patterns. 3. I read somewhere, and passed that on to my wife, that there are only two kinds of upbrining: one that is good for the child, and the one that is good for the parent. That changed her perspective totally. I also told her: you will see, every bit of energy and good will we invest into our relationship with our son, will pay back 100x later on.

After that it all started to go in a good direction and our son really started to be a totally different child, loving and emphatic. We intentionally put him in the center of our universe and it worked like a miracle. He started sleeping OK, but did not want to sleep alone because he was really afraid of the dark. We did not force it since when we did, he would always wake up totally tired and had tantrums and bad temper again and we did not want him to be like that because then his whole day would be f...d up. Also he started his primary school and it was most important that he has good rest.

So he continued sleeping with us, but really soon I had to move out of the room because I snore really really loud and one day he told me, "Dad, could you perhaps sometimes sleep in my room because I woke up and your face was near mine and you were snoring really loud and I was really scared".
So I started to sleep in his room, which was anyways OK because, since I adjusted my days to his needs, I worked a lot in the evenings when they went to sleep (which I still do).
This, together with a couple of other serious issues (I have a diabetes T1 and problem with impotency, I only "work" with viagra; she has HPV and had cervical surgery and is constantly afraid of what will happen) slowly made our marriage sexless (we were intimate couple of times in 5-6 years). We do touch, gently kiss and cuddle. She is not avoiding me (except when she is "crazy" and when I am guilty as charged).

All that time in quite regular intervals (once a month or so) I would almost "pack my bags". But off course I never reacted from the Ego as I have already realised that those tantrums she had pass quickly.
In parallel things started to crumble in her world one by one.

First, her work became horrible because she finally realised and admitted to herself that she never really wanted to do that, it was not really her choice but a huge mistake, and if you really don't like that job, being a special education teacher is a nightmare. Also, her kindergarten has really toxic staff, since she was the only one of the close team that had children and empathy towards kids, as a mother, while others saw their work as "academic", trying to spend as little time as possible with kids, and pushing all that work towards her, so she ended up being abused and bullied, and since she was raised by an authoritarian father, she is not able at all to defend her self against others, and just accepts everything with a stupid smile (which she later hates).
So most of our time home for the last couple of years we speak about her job which she was trying to change, even applying for administrative jobs at half a pay. But after more than 40 applications she is still stuck there. Basically, no one will give her a job that is worse than the one she is holding, as if they are protecting her in a way, which makes her angry and feeling stuck.

Second, since she is quite asocial and does not have a need to meet with friends, and is not a fan of sports, nature etc, and also does not like to dine out or visit bars etc, our going outs were basically just shopping at malls which she adores. Which of course brought us near the financial edge and we needed to stop it (she resents me also for that), and that, combined with her job situation, made her static and constantly craving sweets so she gained some weight (she was always ultra skinny). This f...d up her already bad self image and she started to spiral down to isolation. We try dieting but her stress simply pulls her back to sweets. Also, we had a big earthquake recently and she has a real PTSD from it, which added a cherry on top, so now she again wants to move, and this time to another, smaller city where "I can go and not take my 21yo son, he can live with his dad and I can finally kick him ou", which she is unable to do if she stays where we are now because her mother, that has a special bond to her son because she baby-sitted him, and because he is "poor child of divorced parents", would never forgive her.

In our 13 years we moved 3 times. First time we moved we lost a lot of money because we need to quickly sell a big,nice but overpriced penthouse, located a bit out in a green area close to where she grew up. That place is where we had our most happy times when our son was born. She had to keep her pregnancy by laying down on the side for 4 months (!). I took care of everything in the house and would bring her all she desired, including tons of international magazines etc... But since I was totally focused on her and our son, and since that was the time of the great recession around 2010, my business went down and I realised that I will not be able to pay the quite high monthly loan payback rate much longer. Because of her character I could never really explain to her that we would be totally broke in a couple of months, and also her parents did not want to sell her old place because "What if he divorces you? You will be left with nothing". If they sold it and gave us the money, it would cut our rate to half and we would be able to stay. But that place also had many other disadvantages that we were both aware of at the time (too far from store, school, city... 5th floor not elevator... Too big to keep clean...). Off course she romanticised that place totally so when she is "crazy" she always says that she will never forgive me for making her go from there.

I see that this is becoming too long, but I hope that you followed through and got some perspective. So I will go straight to the point.

Lately she started talking about divorce.
We had situations like that, even had a printed agreement once, but it all soon calmed down. When she is "crazy" she always tells me that I have her trapped in this marriage with our son because I know that she would never break his heart by divorcing me. I also spoke at some occasions with our son and he confirmed that she also told him that "mom would never divorce dad, she just needs to say that to make him change some things".

But now it is a bit different because our son is now 10, he understands much more and now I am, for the first time, starting to wonder - what is best for him? I see 3 options:
1) Leave it as it is and see what happens. Try to find some solutions for my wife's real issues. Try to get her out of that job. This year during COVID when she was working from home it was all totally different, she had perhaps only 2-3 "crazy days" in 6 months.
GOOD SIDE: We can perhaps find a solution to make her more happy. Perhaps even move (she wants to move), perhaps I could make her work for me, which is my dream and a couple of times when she would help it was incredible for both, but she is afraid that, because of our loan, we need a "stable income" which I can not provide, although I earn 4x more than her.
BAD SIDE: I am not sure anymore if it is healthy for our son to be exposed to all this "crazyness". He is entering puberty and I see that he copies her patterns towards me and that can sound quite awful. We have a really good relationship but I am not sure what will happen if there are fights between him and her with me on the side... with her son it made sense for me to backup, but with our son... I will not be able to see her becoming crazy at him and not do anything. At least I think so...

2) Really divorce her, or at least "follow that road". When next time she says she decided, just say, OK, I understand, I want you to be happy, and push things in that direction.
GOOD SIDE: Perhaps I really AM a part of the problems and perhaps she could make a bette living on her own... I really doubt that but it might be the case... I am not 100% sure.
BAD SIDE: I never did that and, reading a lot about BPD (she was never diagnosed, but her behaviour really fits...), I know that it might trigger her to the "other side", auto-destructive (she mentioned quite a lot of times that her job is that bad and her situation that hopeless that she would cut her veins if she did not have our son)... I am not sure I would like for that to happen.
Also, I am not really happy with the idea that our son would be alone with her in her "crazy" phases... it really makes me scared to be honest. I mean, she never did anything really crazy, but at times she is not really controlling herself.

3) Also divorce her, but push the issue of her mental health and totally focus on our son and what would be best for him, meaning that I remove him out of our relationship as much as possible by divorcing my wife but try to get custody.
GOOD SIDE: If my wife really has BPD, and if there is even a tiny chance that it might progress etc, this is the only way to save our son from the consequences.
BAD SIDE: This would totally break our relationship and she would never evert want to have anything with me, which is for me totally unimaginable because I still think that she is the best thing that happened in my life, and also she is the mother of my only child and my biggest love...

So 3) is currently out of the question, but I, as a parent, need to be able to have it in my mind.

OK, for those kind hearts that followed through here - your thoughts? Did I make a case, do you have enough info to form a picture? If there are some aspects that are important and I missed them, please let me know.
What is important to understand - as crazy and strange as she is, I love her like that and would really like to spend rest of my life with her. I can stand her moods and it does not hurt me (for long). But I am simply not sure how to think about the effect all of this has on our son that is now entering adolescence.

Thanks a lot for your time and patience.

 

Hi Olafinski,
I just have to say, WOW. We have almost the same story, down to the "love at first sight" and very intense (and quick!) start of our relationship, and even the physical initmacy.
I have been with my husband for 13 years, he has a 20 yo son who lives with us (and causes a lot fo conflict in our home), we have an almost 8 yo and 5 yo. After a very idyliic period during my first pregnancy and the first 3 years of our daughter's life we had to move unexpectedly and the stress of that change was really really hard on him. Things have been pretty much downhill ever since, with the "crazy" times being more and more frequent and the good times being shorter and shorter. Recently I asked for a trial spearation. I really just needed to breather. He seemed to accept at first (a bit unwillingly, but he could see why I was asking). Unfortunately its been 2 months and we've done nothing but fight since and now he has given me an ultitmatum, either we get back together right now because he's suffering too much and can't be without me, OR he's going to divorce me.
He seems serious, and fairly sure of himself.
The thing is, he recently got the BPD diagnosis and I felt a lot of hope because that would mean he can get help, but I don't what if anything that will really change.
I heard a radio show where someone was talking about BPD, sent it to him and he listened to it (i didn't share my thoughts, just said he misght find it interesting). He agreed that the criteria seemed to fit and reached out to get the diagnosis on his own.
Maybe talking to your wife or sharing the info with her would be enough to get her to do some digging on her own? Has she already been in therapy? Have you?
I just started a few months ago and while i still have no clue what I'm doing it feels good just to have someone actually listen and validate my feelings.
I'm sorry you're going through this. I just discoverd this site a week ago and I'm both relieved and a bit overwhelemed. None of this is easy.

Hi,
thx for your response. It’s incredible not to be alone in this.
The thing is that my wife is from a “medical family” her father being breast health specialist. I am not sure how it is where you live, but here doctors don’t think much of psychotherapy and that also translated to her. But perhaps there is a slight chance she might do it because of the earthquake induced PTSD.
I really think it would not be a good idea to directly share with her my thoughts on her possible condition as she might think that this is a way for me to declare her unfit for parenting. Her ex is a lawyer and he often scared her with the idea that he will declare her crazy and take away her son.
What are your thoughts on the effect this has on your kids? Our son is really really attached to us both and especially to the idea of a family because that is how we raised him… to be honest I am totally scared of him going wrong later because a friend of mine got divorced and couple of years later his son committed suicide… I could never forgive myself if that happened as he is our everything. I know this sounds crazy bu since my wifes aunt did this, and my wife sometimes expresses those ideas, I am sure there is a risk. So I am willing to do whatever it takes for that not to happenz I loved a really nice single life before this marriage and there is nothing I long for other than doing whatever it takes to help my son and my wife.

Well, olafinski, where to start? You sound like a man struggling in rough water, who every time he comes up spits the water out of his mouth, gasps a breath and shouts something, trying to make sense of his situation. Many of us on this platform have experienced the demoralization and gradual diminution of hope that happens when you live with a difficult partner.

I think you have set yourself an impossible task, trying to make your W happy. Or making her happy enough so your son somehow doesn’t notice how bad things really are, probably also impossible. But there is still a lot you can learn that can make things better.

If you read stories here you will find many of couples who bonded very quickly, many with sex on their first date (like me and my W). And now we are trying to regain what has vanished, often turning into something horrible. And are gradually learning the difficult lessons about enabling, and about what can realistically be gained and what has to be given up.

I’ll be brief. The first thing you need is help understanding your partner and your marriage. Does she actually have BPD? Kinda sounds like it, but if you learn more you can make a better seat-of-the-pants guess. If you can figure out more about what is wrong, you will be in a better position to decide what kind of help you need.

Then you have to sort out your own priorities. You work for a living. You’re a musician (I have a lot of respect for this, as I’ve been an amateur musician for many years—currently playing in 2 community orchestras), meaning you have skill, discipline and sensitivity. You are entitled to a decent life, and to the assurance that your son has a reasonable chance for the same.

The “tools” section of this website has a lot of good material, plus book suggestions. I found my way here by searching on Amazon, starting with “borderline personality disorder” and going on from there. Crammed my way through ½ dozen books, one of which referred me here. There are many people wiser than me, and with more experience, on this website. You can’t do this without help, and if therapy isn’t available where you live, this will be a beginning.