BPDFamily.com

We hardly ever go anywhere without the kids.  This Saturday, we went to a concert that my wife really wanted to see.  The concert itself went well.  She was generally nice to me.  The only real problem was that she kept falling asleep.  She has expressed a lot of displeasure with the summer job and it was a factor in her being so tired.

When we got back to the parking garage, the gate was down.  It turns out that after she had missed the entrance for the parking garage where she had bought a ticket online, she had gone into a completely different one.  (Yes, I should have paid more attention to where she was parking.)  She started trying to walk to the garage we were supposed to be in, but I got her to walk the long way around to the other entrance to the garage where she did park.  The gate was down there, but it went up as someone exited.  Then a guard let us in the door.  The garage was empty.  As we were leaving, she wanted to try to use the online ticket.  There was no one to give it to (the guard had disappeared) and no obvious way to enter it.  I started to pay by credit card, but it was confusing and I was not sure if it had gone through.  At that moment she decided to start talking about how much better she was handling this crisis than she would have before.  But I was flustered with the credit card machine.

Given how tired she was, I was driving to get the kids out our friends' (mostly her friends, really) place.  My one reservation is that I wanted to avoid a very high bridge--I am not good with heights.  We got almost to a point where the road splits to go to that bridge.  I was not sure whether I needed to go to the left or the right, so I went from the right lane into the center lane.  She started yelling that I needed to be in the right lane.  I tried to explain that I wasn't sure so I was just giving myself options.

She started falling asleep a couple of times and I woke her up to help me figure out how to get to the friends' home.

When we were approaching draw bridge, someone honked at me and she got upset because I "needed to be in the right lane."  I pointed out that she had not told me that yet.

When were almost at the friends' house, we came to an intersection with two one-way streets and two stop signs.  I stopped and started again, but noticed that a car in the other street was going through the intersection.  I stopped again.  I then proceeded.  She asked if both cars had a stop sign.  I though she was going to be angry at me for stopping, but no, she criticized me for not stopping at all.  She complained that I was being snappy and that I had snapped at her about falling asleep.  (How does "Are you falling asleep?" become snapping?)

I waited while she ran in to get the kids, but it took a long time.  She offered to drive, but I said I would because she was so tired.  There were arguments going on between her and the kids that were making it hard for me to drive.  I forget what exactly happened, but she criticized my driving again.  I pulled over and said that if she did not like my driving I would take her up on her offer to drive.  I went around to the passenger side and her door was locked.  I used the remote to unlock it.  She started getting angry and projecting that on to me (I had "stormed out" of the car), but I remained calm.  She grabbed the key from me.  The ring was around my finger, so this hurt.  I thought she was going to drive, but no, she waited and insisted that I drive.  I finally started driving again, only to have her say a short while later that she would take over if I was too tired.  I did not take her up on that.

She insisted that she had not been criticizing me, but rather "helping" me with navigation.

My take on the situation is that she was angry at herself for parking in the wrong garage and was projecting her anger onto me.

Last year, something similar happened when we came back from a camping trip.  We had been in a big fight about the restaurant that she had chosen because somehow her choosing it meant that I wanted to spend too much money.  A few hours later, she said that she wanted to take over driving because I was going to fast.  I resisted at first, but eventually pulled over.  Oh, no, she did not want to drive after all.  I resumed and she made wincing noises when I slowed down because a bus that was 100 yards ahead of us put on its breaks--apparently I had not slowed down soon enough.  I pulled over again.  Again, she refused to take over.  This happened several more times.

During the camping trip, she had driven ON THE SIDE WALK.  A few weeks ago, we were late for a movie with the kids and she missed a left-hand turn.  She impulsively made a dangerous and illegal U-turn and went through the lane behind the pedestrian island on the other side of the street.

Sorry - sounds like standard BPD behaviour to me... .!

It's dissappinting how such little things can trigger them. Makes me feel sad that they are in a constant state of unhappiness/turmoil. Given that your wife was constantly falling asleep - I'm not sure that having HER drive is a great solution. But I'm not sure how to handle it. Perhaps "If you don't like my driving, you may get out and walk!"

Interestingly, one of the top 5 Google searches that get people to bpdfamily.com is "hating everyone syndrome"... .

Avoidance of shame seems to often mean avoidance of responsibility, as well as projecting any and all bad feelings onto the nearest person - usually the spouse it seems.

I try to ignore H most of the time when I drive.  He gets fidgety, fussy, and side-seat drives a lot, but refuses to drive most places, so I have gotten pretty good at disregarding the fussy stuff.  I feel if he won't drive, unless we are in immediate danger of hitting something or being hit, I can ignore it.  I am looking 360 degree around the car as I drive - he's at best paying attention to 180.  So when I don't slow down as fast as he wants, it's because someone behind us will hit us if I slam the brakes, etc.  Or because I am more aware of the traffic signs/signals.  We were in a town with lots of one way streets recently, and they have the lights on posts on corners, not stretched above the street - he couldn't understand why I kept stopping because he never saw the lights (good thing I was driving and not him).

People honking freak him out, because he assumes they are honking at us (not always the case) and I think it triggers embarrassment for him. 

When possible, I find out all I can before we go anywhere, no matter who is driving, just to not need to rely (sadly) on someone who is not able to control his emotions. 

In you case, I bet exhaustion was a big factor in your W's reactions.  I know when H is sick, tired, and especially when hungry, he is far less likely to stay what I call "even". 

After all of the criticism of my driving on Saturday night, she called me this morning to report that she had an accident this morning.  She said that she hit the neighbor's car, which was backing out of the driveway, because they both thought the other one was going to stop.  

A few months a go, I took time off work to get the car fixed after another accident--she claims a flatbed truck hit her, but I have not heard any other side of the story.