BPDFamily.com

Hello, first time poster long time reader….
My wife has BPD was diagnosed last year but has lived a life full of trauma, hints the BPD. We been together for 18 yrs and married for 15. Two kids together. Iam not ready to walk away from my marriage but she is done. Refuses to put in the work because she claims that for years she did and I didn’t. But a lot of issues didn’t start coming to light till around 2020. There were issues before that but at my own fault didn’t see them as issues and brushed it off her being irrational. There are days where I’m ready to walk away , but know I can’t. I have conflicts with her to the point she removed any and all photos of us from the walls even destroyed photos. I get what I feel are mixed signals everything seems fine compliment her talk to her and meet her basic needs but if the holes  align and I do or say something that to me is minuscule she blows up and I can’t ever get a rational reasoning from her why or what cause the shutdown or blowup. It become very frustrating because i love my wife but she wants me to change how i am. I have no problem  changing to meet her needs but since she has been in therapy she developed boundaries and ridged Barriers which I support. But wants me to know what the triggers are  overnight it seems like. she never had these triggers till therapy and there is no wiggle room for error it feels like. This has cause us friendships and friendships by proxy. She had a falling out with one friends wife and we were disassociated by a group for what I believe was my wife being irrational but the wife trigger her and the next day it spiraled.(the next day cause she didn’t want to make a commotion cause she knew it would upset me)
There a lot of deep diving I could do beyond that from both sides. I know i am not fault free by any means in our relationship.it just become very mentally tasking most days. When is it time to thrown in the towel? Where is the line between to far gone to repair and being able to bounce back? At the present moment we are in separate therapies to work on our self. Talked about marriage counseling but goes back and forth now. Truth be told most of my sessions is how to cope with the mental abuse I get from her and how to minimize conflict and be consistent with her. Yes I know where my faults are and I work on those too just difficult when it seem like I am chasing a rollercoaster of emotions and personalities. It seems like everyday is different.

Hi and welcome :hi: Do you know if your therapists have experience with personality disorders or BPD? I heard that can help because normal advice may not work in a relationship with a pwBPD.

Can you share some of her boundaries? And what boundaries do you have?

You say you're working to change yourself which is good. The right direction may not be intuitive. Check out the Tips menu at the top of the page for links to good info. I found the book Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist extremely helpful in my relationship with my uBPD wife. Self care and boundaries to protect yourself are a big part of it.

You're posting in the Bettering board but you may get different responses if you also post in the Conflicted board.