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Title: beginning to think I made a mistake Post by: Kdk228 on October 12, 2019, 09:41:25 PM the more I read about BPD the more I think my wife has it. We got engaged nov 2018. Married April 2019. And today is our 6 month wedding anniversary and I’m in bed alone and sobbing crying. I always suspected she had BPD, in fact, I’m 100% positive she does. In August we had an extremely rough patch. Every weekend I was being blamed for something, yelled at, even hit at one point. It was terrible. It got to the point that I had to completely call her out on everything, which led to her coming to me crying realizing she messed up. That leads me to recently. I’m a new grad school grad and trying so desperately to find a job. She has lots of family money and recently got out of the military and has bought a few trips for us (which has now turned into manipulating me with money which is a whollllllle other story). We’re in Aruba currently. She got so so so drunk at happy hour and then started to yell at another person at the bar because they were fans of a certain team. I told her to stop yelling and let them watch their game. I was called “a piece of garbage” “trash” “c**t” among other things. So I left the bar. I guess my biggest question is how do you set limits without triggering them? Especially when they don’t know they are BPD? Any help is truly appreciated. I just don’t know where to turn and I think this marriage may be a huge mistake. I’m willing to do just about anything to turn it around. Thank you everyone.
Title: Re: beginning to think I made a mistake Post by: Radcliff on October 14, 2019, 03:18:42 PM *welcome*
We're sorry to hear of the tough spot you're in, but are glad you're here. The good news is that there are skills we can learn that can reduce the conflict levels. The most important thing, though, is to not try to do this alone. You've taken an important step by reaching out for help. Stick around here, and you'll get a lot of support and learn tools to help your situation. You asked an important question about setting limits. We make a distinction between limits, which control the behavior of others can be set when there's some kind of control relationship (like at work or with a child), and boundaries, which we set in a regular relationship and only define our own actions to protect ourselves. Take a look at this page on setting boundaries (https://bpdfamily.com/content/setting-boundaries). When she was yelling at the bar, you first, unsuccessfully, tried to impose a limit on her behavior. Then, when that didn't work, you successfully enforced a boundary by leaving the bar. Does that make sense? We can only control our own behavior, not that of others. This is the #1 most important lesson for us. As we get practice with the skills, we can handle situations with even less turbulence. For example, to protect yourself from being mortified by her behavior in the bar, you could excuse yourself for a short bathroom break to lessen your exposure to it. There's a lot of trial and error with these things (a lot ;) so there's no one right answer, but as your skills improve you'll feel a big difference. Can you tell us a bit about another situation that's given you trouble? RC |