BPDFamily.com

I am stuck in a downward spiral. My undiagnosed probably BPD husband is feeling extremely negative about himself, his life and specifically me. It started about 1.5 years ago, 6 months after our daughter was born. He was 49 then. Depression hit really hard. He got on Zoloft, then switched to Wellbutrin and then finally to pristiq. He spent a year on the latter. It did not seem to help much. Frequently he was depressed, sometimes convinced our then 5 year old doesn’t love him, mostly that I am not there for him. I spend so much of my time on him: he chats me many times during the day, I do all the house chores/kids care. He is often emotionally abusive. He blames me for ruining his life,  never caring, and similar worse. Now he decided to quit Pristiq. The last 1.5 months have been hell. And I try to be understanding: it’s just the disorder, I think. But I feel like I allow too much, that I am losing myself. I also fear that I am hurting him by being so accommodating. I don’t know how to get back to a normal person with boundaries.

Hi Trony and welcome,
You have found a wonderful supportive community of folk who understand all too well the difficulties you are facing. There is so much advice on this website. I am a married lesbian with a dbpdw, we have 3 small children and one on the way, and the last few years have been very challenging. But bpd family has been life changing for me, alongside a book called, stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist, I bought the audio book and listened to it in my car countless times. Stop walking on eggshells is also highly recommended, though I didn’t find the advice as meaningful. Because I read it, but I didn’t get it, stop walking on eggshells means exactly that. Like I was scared to take photos of our kids and share them with my mother because I was banned from doing this. But what I had to do was just start doing it, and what you will learn about bpd is the best way to handle the fallout. (Unfortunately I started this crazy journey before I found bpd fam, and I handled this badly and our marriage nearly didn’t survive it… but here we are 4 years later. Things are sometimes still very difficult but generally better). Your husband will be losing control as you regain it. You have the power to make changes yourself, he does not have to want to change. But he will be terrified of losing control so it’s good to do lots of reading before you make any changes so you can be prepared for how to handle things. Read lots about validating his feelings and ask questions on here, I found it really helpful to report back here how I handled things and get feedback. If you let us know what you are dealing with specifically then we can be more helpful with advice and shared experiences. I wish you all the best with this journey.