BPDFamily.com

I've been married for almost 15 years. I love my wife very much, but over the years I've often wondered how she could treat me the way she does randomly, how she could accuse me of things that never happened, why she's so untrusting of my mother and my sister, and why she goes from happy to extremely angry with no catalyst that I've ever been able to find, only to be happy again a few days later (or in rarer cases, weeks later). I've also wondered why she gets angry at the mere thought of me having feelings that matter, and I've been accused by her of having a depressive order even though I've always had a joyful, happy life, and my only real agony, other than normal life issues here and there, has been in dealing with her behavior toward me and my kids.

Over the years I've thought that she was bi-polar, but not everything fit. I've had more than one of her doctors tell me that they believed she had some type of depressive disorder, but they weren't sure what. A few months ago, I got fed up with her behavior again and for probably the 10th time in several years, started researching, and for the first time ever, I came across the book "The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder." I've been reading it slowly for a couple of weeks and have reached page 50 or so. So far, I've never read anything in my life that described my wife so exactly. Of the 9 symptoms, I'd say that she has 5 of them strongly, 1 moderately, and 1 mildly. She does not have any suicidal tendencies that I've ever seen, although maybe twice in our marriage in 15 years I've heard her say that sometimes she thinks things would just be easier if she was "gone." After reading the first parts of the book, I can definitely say she's higher functioning as she's been able to keep jobs and most people outside of our immediately family don't know what she's like in the privacy of our home. She would also never admit or even consider that she could have any kind of personality disorder.

Again, I love my wife very much, and I know she loves me and our kids. When she's behaving in what I would call a normal manner, she is wonderful. But when things change suddenly, and almost always without me having any inkling why, it's very difficult.

Reading the book and knowing what is going on has helped tremendously in that it helps me see that what she's doing is not a direct result of how she feels about me or even of reality. And that has helped me to blow off her rages more easily when they happen. I still have a lot to read in the current book, and I plan on getting others, but it's great to know that there are others out there who are successfully dealing with this.

Welcome!

I agree - it's an amazing feeling when you finally have answers!  It's great that you have found BPD and us - I hope that you are able to make improvements in your family life.

A BPD is extremely emotionally sensitive. They react to their feelings, even the tinest ones with such an amazing force. And at that time, they completely believe whatever they feel. And to "justify" why they feel that way, they make up (or pick and choose) "facts" to support their feelings. They must do this - because they can't acknowledge any facts that don't support their feelings - because then they would be wrong - and they can't be wrong. So Feelings = facts.

This is also why argueing, or debating, or correcting them just makes things worse. Focus instead on their feeling, and ignore WHY they say they feel that way. "Wow - I can see you feel very betrayed" (I don't understand or agree with  WHY you feel betrayed, but that is irrelevant - you currently FEEL betrayed).

I hope you find a lot of stuff here to help you.

It is very difficult ... .very hard on relationships.

Sometimes I have to remember that as painful as it can be for me - she has to live it, all the time. It can help, in keeping compassion.

Welcome to the board. I remember the feeling of relief in finally figuring out what was going on with my husband. It made me realize that I was not going crazy. Your wife sounds like she may be a high functioning pwBPD. My H is the same. He does not threaten suicide and as far as I know has only really considered it a few times in his life.

I hope you can find some answers to your questions here. Along with continuing to read your book, I would suggest reading through the lessons on the right side of the page. It's a great place to start working on you and how you handle the dysregulations that happen so quickly.

Thanks for the welcome, everyone. I will add to what I wrote before, that I feel my wife, even though she would never admit to needing help or consider having an emotional disorder, has improved some over the years. It's still very difficult sometimes and she can be unrealistic and harsh, but looking back to the early years of our marriage, her episodes don't usually last as long as they used to.

I remember when we first got married, my sister told me that my wife mentioned to her that she found herself "being really mean" to me and not knowing why. I asked my wife about it back then, and she denied ever telling my sister that. Of course I know my sister wasn't lying, and I now see how that statement that my wife made to my sister fits with BPD.

Also, thanks for the encouragement. I'm really trying to see her as separate from the behavior while not condoning the behavior, and changing how I react to the false accusations and irrational reactions to things most of us wouldn't think twice about. I have some improving to do myself in how I react, but it's a good start, and it's a little easier knowing that I'm not nuts in being so confused about her behavior.

Have you ever discussed with your wife her early childhood? Any issues with abuse or any trauma? That seems to be the basis for some of the BPD in later years. My wife's family consisted of her parents, an older sister, older brother, twin brother and younger sister. The mom had extreme anger issues and was probably BPD, the older sister seems normal, the older brother is BPD and has anger issues, the twin brother was normal, and the younger sister is BPD as well as bi-polar. There was abuse during my wife's childhood as well but to what extent I will probably never know. To have three children out of five with similar mental issues as well as the mom makes me believe either that they all endured some form of abuse or trauma, or there is a genetic component at work.

She's often said that her dad was not a very good dad, but in 15 years she's never mentioned any abuse other than normal punishment. I may see if I can gently breach the subject to see if it's something she'd even consider talking about.