|
Hi again,
So if you allow me to do a little more mind reading, what I see is that your husband is trying. He's going to therapy, and when he's in a good mood, he's helpful. But he still struggles, because it's hard to change his natural emotional and learned behavioral responses, and deep down he continues to feel incredibly insecure. I think he knows perfectly well that you turned on the home alarm because you thought you'd be alone for the night. But his natural impulse is to lash out, to yell at you, because he was ANNOYED and highly reactive to feeling the slightest stress or inconvenience, such as setting off a loud alarm. Instead of taking it in stride, and maybe helping you by shutting it off and easing the kids back to sleep, he goes straight into accusation mode ("You intentionally try to keep me out"), putting you on the defensive. Furthermore, he's thought about you having an affair often because he's insecure, and in so doing he's worn a rut in his brain, making this negative thought pop up whenever he sees you exercise a life that is the slightest bit independent of him. He lashes out to release the negative feelings and to try to reel you into the emotional drama. He bosses you around in a vain attempt to reclaim control. He makes untrue accusations all the time, right where it hurts most (You're keeping the kids from me! You're seeing another man!). He can act like a bully to get you do things that he wants and you don't. Right? I'm saying this because my husband acts the exact same way sometimes--I wouldn't say he has BPD, but he shows some of the traits from time to time when he's under stress and feeling insecure. His adult daughter who has been diagnosed with BPD shows these behaviors (albeit in the female, more passive-aggressive manifestation) all the time. She too has gotten treatment and has shown some progress in moderating her emotional outbursts and blaming tendencies, but nevertheless they're still there, and her life and relationships, though better than they used to be, are suboptimal because of her emotional reactivity, taking everything like a personal affront.
It sounds to me that your husband relies on moving back and forth between houses, perhaps as a distraction from getting his work done. I'm saying that because my adult BPD stepdaughter does that all the time--driving back and forth, changing up living situations, bouncing from couch to couch, this constant movement which feels like procrastination and a distraction, anything to avoid getting actual work done! Then she'll work one day, and she'll need two or three days to recover. When she has her own space, she feels comfortable, and yet, it allows her to retreat and be too comfortable, as well as lonely. I suspect she spends inordinate time procrastinating (with TV and social media), anything to avoid "real life" and facing responsibilities. When she's in her own space, far away from prying eyes, she can get away with procrastinating even more, until she falls inextricably behind. If allowed too much space, she eventually self-destructs. . . .
I think you're trying really hard to create an environment to accommodate your husband's ongoing challenges. You're stepping up to take care of bills to avoid arguments. You've created a separate space where he can self-regulate. I love the idea of regular work outs to manage his "energy." I love the idea of a job that has a schedule and some predictibility to it. I love the idea of your husband going into the workplace to foster some workplace interactions--anything to enforce a routine and take some of the focus away from you, as well as an opportunity for him to forge other relationships and accomplishments that would build up his identity and self-esteem. It does sound like he has potential, if only he'd learn to embrace the notion of a predictable schedule, and if only he'd use his emotional regulation skills more consistently. It seems to me like he knows it, but he just can't seem to follow through consistently. He's too easily "derailed" by his emotional reactivity and moodiness. His daily choices aren't yet where they need to be.
I'm not sure what to advise. On the one hand, I think I'd encourage and praise him abundantly any time he follows through with healthy habits ("It looks like you had a decent workout, your committment to the treadmill in the mornings is really impressive/I'm glad you were able to work all day uninterrupted at home, it must feel great to get so much work done/It's so nice to wake up and see a smiling husband first thing in the morning/Thanks for taking out the trash, I appreciate having such a helpful husband/I'm proud of you for committing for therapy, my guess is that it must be hard, but I see you're really trying.") It's not very difficult for me to make these sorts of comments, because they're true! And I think that by being reassuring, it can help husbands to see that following through on seemingly mundane things is actually conducive to a happy life.
Yet it may be that no matter how hard he tries, your husband might never learn to control his impulsive outbursts and learn to "do things he doesn't necessarily want to do" for long-term benefits. But it does sound like he's reasonable when he's in a good mood. Maybe you could try to talk with him when he's in one of his good moods and ask that he take some topics off the table. You might say, Darling, I love you and choose to be with you every day. It's very distressing for me when you accuse me of seeing other men (or threaten divorce), when you know perfectly well that I've been nothing but committed to you and our kids. I feel hurt and insulted when you say that, and I don't like feeling that way. I don't like having to defend myself of false accusations, and I don't want the kids to hear you say that about their mom. It's not fair to me or to them, we don't deserve that. Saying I'm having an affair doesn't solve any of our issues, it only creates ill feelings. From now on, if you accuse me of an affair, I'm not going to discuss it any further. If you say it in front of the kids, I'm going to insist that you leave (the house/room).
Anyway, when it comes to BPD, I tend to think that the direction of movement is more important than the speed of change. Do you feel like your husband is "on track" more than "off track"? Is he generally headed in the right direction? Look, he's going to go off the rails sometimes, because that's the nature of BPD. The question I have for you is, is he getting back "on track" pretty fast? If he is, then I think you have some reason for hope, and that the therapy is working.
|