BPDFamily.com

Hi there everyone first time poster, just looking for a place online where I can get support and maybe vent a bit if needed, we just came off a 3-month separation overlooked by our counselor, things seem to be going in the upward direction but we had another blow up last night over the fact that I want to wait to have kids until we can work things out, and she can't imagine the thought of waiting for children for an unspecified amount of time, and while I've been getting better and helping her through the blow-ups it still hurts when she tries to guilt Trip me with religion and my parents not being grandparents, cause it seems like she will say anything she can to make me say let's have kids now


Sorry I've never been good at writing or spelling or grammar for that matter so sorry for the run-on sentence

Welcome Phillies2021, you're in the right place to vent, share, and get support. Lots of experiences and backgrounds here, so please know you're with people who really get it.

I want to start by commending you for staying strong in your value to not have kids when the relationship is unstable. Guilt-tripping a partner to get what one wants is not healthy.

Often, pwBPD (people with BPD), because they have an "external locus of control" -- i.e., they see life as "happening to them" instead of themselves as choice-makers -- believe that if only something outside of themselves were different, they'd feel better. I'm wondering if your partner believes that all her inner turmoil would go away/feel better if only you guys had kids. There are many stories on these boards of the pwBPD having an intense focus on one external thing that the partner needs to do, and then "everything would be better" -- if we had a different house, if we'd just move back to our hometown, if you'd clean the bathroom the way I asked, etc etc etc.

What has your counselor's perspective been on that conflict between you guys?

Looking forward to hearing more from you;

kells76

Our counselor agrees we have a mountain of work on ourselves as individuals, and our marriage, to work through to even be a marriage that won't end in 6 months at any given moment. This is also what I tell my wife, she will hound me in her episodes for a timeline, and I consistently tell her lovingly, I am fully focused on us right now that I don't even think about what comes next, and she can't live with that, but in her time when she's not next to the void, she can rationally say she agrees and commends me for protecting our family in this way

Hi Phillies2021, welcome!

I just want to say that you need to trust your instinct on this and be very careful. Here's my story, maybe you can learn from my mistakes.

My exGFwBPD pressured me into having children with her. The therapist I had at the beginning of the relationship, said I should be open to it. That I had convinced myself over the years due to my believe that I was undeserving of love, that I didn't want kids. I was also in my mid-forties, and felt like I was too old, that I needed to focus on saving for retirement, and that children would impact my freewheeling lifestyle. It turned out the therapist was pregnant herself and was doing some sort of projection on me for her own personal life. Anyway, it really messed me up...

I took all of my exGFwBPD's reasoning for wanting children and internalized it as a form of cognitive behavioral therapy. However, in hindsight, what was really going on was total emotional abuse. Almost as soon as I moved into her house, it became a circular argument. For a while, almost every morning I was getting screamed at about, "When can we have kids?" "Do you want kids?" This would happen every morning before work, and before I'd had any caffeine.

Her reasoning for it, "I take my birth control in the morning and it's a painful reminder that I don't have a family."  I tried to stay open minded about it and respected her feelings and point of view.

If she wasn't berating me about kids, she was making wild promises. For example, she promised me "Nothing would change. You will still be able to go out hiking. I will do all of the work raising the kid." This seemed unrealistic to me, but when I told her not to make promises she couldn't keep she became insulted. Turned into an argument about, "How can you say something so hurtful." I wanted to believe her promises and she seemed so convincing. However, I also had close friends with kids that I helped raise, and knew how challenging parenting could be.

Finally it got to a point where even though we had only been living together for a couple of months, I was at the end of my rope. I basically told her I was breaking up with her. She started crying and told me how, "I ruined her life, that she no longer had any friends because of me and that she was going to kill herself."

I had a change of heart on my way to work that day and apologized. I told her she needed to back off the kids conversation until a date in September. She shaped up and her attitude improved. We went on a major trip to Japan for some mountaineering fun with friends. The conversation about kids was left on the back burner and there really was no fighting for a long time. However, it was always weighed heavily on both of our minds.

Then a couple weeks before the deadline, she brought up the, "Do you want kids?" debate. After much gnashing of teeth and a near breakup, I decided the past few months had been really good. She was the best relationship I'd ever had. (I only had one other which was also pretty dysfunctional with me being a codependent for most of it). I was scared to lose her, and be alone again, I had been single for seven years previously. All and all, when we weren't fighting about kids things were pretty great. So I finally agreed in order to maintain the relationship, and state that I wanted to have kids. She stopped taking the BC. The next month and a half were also really wonderful. We had a great beach vacation in October, and we were doing really well. However, I was really nervous about having kids, and kind of secretly hoped she wouldn't get pregnant.

So the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend she shows me a pregnancy test as positive. I panicked, and said "I feel like I was diagnosed with cancer." Admittedly this was a terrible choice of words. Don't say this. However, I have had those words hung over my head so many times over the past two years. Our relationship continued to deteriorate throughout the pregnancy as Covid took hold of the world. I almost moved out after one really bad fight, during this timeframe but we decided to get therapy. We had one session, Covid took full hold and the therapist disappeared. At this point, we were completely on our own. Totally isolated. It was us against the world with no support from friends or family.

In hindsight, she continued to dysregulate throughout the pregnancy, as did I. I was continuously reminded of every hurtful thing I said or did in our relationship. Eventually, after the baby was born, I had serious health problems of my own. Between the health concerns, stress of an infant, stress of pandemic and political unrest, along with verbal and emotional abuse and manipulation it all culminated in a week's long fight. I became depressed and suicidal. I was standing on a bridge ready to jump. I didn't think parenthood was for me, but was afraid what everyone would think if I abandoned her and the child.

I found a therapist, and we had couples therapy. After a few sessions she yelled at the therapist for not treating me correctly. That was pretty much the end of couples therapy. I tried sticking it out on my own for another five months. I really worked on my cognitive behavioral therapy. I realized that I had blamed the baby for my dissatisfaction in life, when the problem was really the pandemic. I was making big strides. However there was always an underlying current of how hurtful things I said in the past were. Sometimes I make poor judgement, but overall, I'm really not that big of a dick and don't deserve this.

Finally everything came to a head after a fight where she was trying to say I was not being an equal in the parenting. She seemed to forget about her promise that she would do all of the work raising the kid. Things went off the rails. She brought up me being suicidal, yet again. This was a constant refrain for her. I finally had enough and told her not jumping off the bridge was the biggest mistake I made in my life. That the last five months of hell would have never happened to me. She started going off about me being suicidal, blah blah blah. I was trying to get away from her, because leaving the house was the only way to end an argument once she got started. She was convinced I was suicidal, but mostly I just wanted to get away from her. She physically wrestled with me trying to prevent me from leaving. Then she called 911. The police came. I was taken to the hospital in handcuffs. Fortunately, I was released that day with the understanding that I would not live at that house anymore.

Last night I went over to her house to visit my son. I can expect to be screamed at or verbally abused on most of these visits. Last night was exceptionally bad. After the treatment I received last night, he will be coming to my house for my weeknight visits moving forward.

I love my son immensely. However, I was pretty reluctant to be a parent at first, and I definitely wasn't planning to be a single father when I agreed to it.

Not sure if there are any similarities between your relationship and mine. However, in my experience, having a child did not eliminate the conflict. It only made it worse. I suggest making sure that your therapist agrees that you are both ready for this major commitment.