I think on your part, the only thing you can do is to see how far she takes this. Unless you are watching her 24/7- she still can choose to engage online, meet someone when kids are in school and you are at work. There's not a way to completely control this. It would be up to you to decide your response to what she does.

Hi Bpdstinks,

First of all Iam sorry for your loss. 

I think that your did the right thing to let your dd know about the death of your dog as anyone  would but I also think that your udd actually made her feelings known years before when you received a text to say that you should put her dog down. My udd likes to have control and my guess is that because you didnt carry out her wishes at the time she distanced herself from everything concerning Hazels care and now also with her death. I dont think that this may be the only reason that your dd has distanced herself Btw so please dont blame yourself.

I think that it is important now and to focus on yourself and all the positives you have in life.

To me it seems you are defending what is invalid- the accusations of monogamy being controlling, etc.

And also presenting reasoning that doesn't make sense. You already are doing most of the housework and child care. If your wife is out of the house and being involved with someone else- your tasks aren't going to change much. Also, you know it won't be so great with someone else, just more drama.

Monogamy isn't about one person controlling the other. Monogamy is a choice, a choice we make if we value it. A monogamous marriage involves two people who each choose monogamy.

If one spouse doesn't want that, and the other does, the agreement is already broken.  She's already gone on a dating site, she's talking to people, meeting with people, getting involved with relationship drama.

She's declared her wish to have physical relations outside the marriage. You've already discussed this with her, and also with the MC. She still says she wants to do it. I'm not sure if this is believable or not.

Wendy - short answer - no, that’s why we didn’t go to one for ) years. After the last one basically told W she was abusive (towards MC), she would not see us anymore.  I didn’t bother to look for another after that.

This one was set up by the kids’ therapist.

Last night W again was saying our R/s can’t be fixed unless I “allow” her to date women.  Rather than address that directly, I tried to point out:
1) that her language is negative towards me, and I would not feel well if she devoted all of her emotional energy to someone else, meanwhile the parental and household responsibilities fall upon me?  I pointed out the past 3 days my son has needed clean laundry while W was devoting 100% of her time to her pursuit of women, and that what it feels like is that she does not want an “open marriage”, but one where I provide her the stability so that she can pursue other relationships.
2) when she brought up that many other people in her life handle her “big emotions” without calling crisis lines, I asked her who and how they handled her better, and asked if I was the first partner to call for help when she was having “big feelings”.  She did not answer and accused me of changing the subject.
3) I illustrated why individually processing past traumas is a necessity for a healthy relationship and challenged her to think of whether the traumas the attributed to me have roots in childhood traumas.  She basically admitted they do a few minutes prior, but did not make the connection..  W said doesn’t want to heal past traumas first because it would take too long and she would be denying herself “pleasure”.  I asked if that has been a successful strategy in the past.  She was upset for me asking, saying it was irrelevant.

I didn’t expect her to agree or “see the light” - frankly at this point I don’t care.  I only hoped to plant a few seeds in her mind so that she may see future things in “real time” and cover my bases for inevitable future incidents.  

In other words, when she brings up “open marriage” again, she already knows it’s not me having an archaic “men controlling women” view, it’s about our marriage being unequal to begin with, and that such a situation would put more of a burden on me, and why would I want to remain in such a marriage?  If she is devoting her energy to someone else and I am doing most of the house work and parenting - what am I getting out of it?  Maybe that will reframe things and help her understand that divorce is pretty much my only option at that point
 

Look at your situation through a long range lens.

How many MC's have the two of you gone to?
Has there been any positive change from it- in terms of your marriage, or how you communicate, or your wife getting any insight from them.

Or, have you two been going in circles:

• You get a new MC, there's hope.
  Wife agrees to go because new MC is a new person and doesn't know her well.
  MC takes some time to get to know the two of you and assess the situation.
  MC realizes there are some major issues going on, sees something is going on with your wife.
  MC begins to mention her concerns to your wife.
  Wife gets triggered, MC is painted black, wife doesn't go.
  You then look for a new MC, the cycle repeats.

Asking because it seems you go to MC hoping the MC will have some way to influence your wife to look at her BPD. Yet for your wife, the sessions become about her unhappiness and become circular arguments. Is going to an MC all that effective? Is it worth the time and money spent on it?

Hello and welcome to the family!  You're among friends here and I'm looking forward to hearing your story.  How long have you been married?  Does your 35 year old son still live at home?

Hi!
This is my first post...Just today, out of exhausted desperation, frustration, hopelessness, etc, etc, I found my copy of "Stop walking on Eggshells" and saw there were Support groups online.  I started reading a post from another Mom with a similar situation as me and I teared up.

I'm too tired to write much tonight, but will definitely be back to explain my situation and hopefully garner some wisdom and advice.

Thanks!

Superdaddy-

I am a scientist through education, but my career heavily involves the legal profession, sociology, and history, and that requires considerable thought about why people do the things they do.

I think about BPD the same way in that at some basic level it boils down to brain chemistry and neuro pathways.  It’s not about learned behavior but rather a maladaptive response to a genetic or environmental factor sometime in childhood.  In the case of my W, she does have many addicts in her family, and her mom had BPD.  Being that her parents were divorced and she lived with her mother, she grew up in a world that viewed everything in extremes where survival depended on picking up her moms behavior cues and reacting in calculated ways. Being that mom’s affection was on/off for no apparent reason, she probably adapted strategies for getting that affection that were transactional - something must be done in order to get affection.  This may have worked for getting rewards from a caregiver, but doesn’t work very well in adulthood.  The addiction, whether it be drugs, shopping, sex, etc is an attempt to get that reward in a counterproductive maladaptive way. 

From what I have observed in W, and from what I know about W’s past, this theme repeats many times.  Even today she tells MC, “i don’t know what you want me to do”.  Or ro me she said, “I don’t know how to truly feel close to someone unless I have sex with them.”  Happiness does not exist for her on its own. 

Her life is “what do I have do to make you love me?”
For emotionally healthy people, we do things that we enjoy, and people love us for that. 

That’s why my W doesn’t have hobbies.  Hobbies do not bring her happiness on their own because they are not transactional. 
 

maxsterling ,

In my view, the crisis of someone with BPD can be compared to a crisis of other types of self-destructive compulsions. Once they start, they tend to keep up, engaging in more and more compulsions. For instance, some huge guys like to intimidate people, so they mix alcohol with some drug in the nightclub to get high and then get someone smaller to beat, or they just scare everyone around them.

In the case of BPD, she was high on opioids when you got close, so you became a target of her opioid compulsions because you were a familiar source (conflict with an intimate partner is a source).

It's not just that they have low opioids. They are also addicted to their opioids (to behaviors and thoughts that get them to release opioids).

In my wife's maternal family, 3 parents have problems with alcohol (her mother, her uncle, and her grandpa). This is caused by an opioid addiction problem. However, it seems like my wife has the depression, which would come from a low opioid baseline tone. I think that's because of her upbringing, and it's what made her develop BPD. So I have empathy for her when she is sad but quiet. But I stepped away when she was dysphoric and aggressive, because in my understanding this is an opioid compulsion behavior.

Though now that we are living apart, our interactions have become healthier each day. That's because I'm no longer an opioid source for her. More recently, she began her opioid blocker medication, which might be helping as well. Time will tell.

Wendy - that is still MC conclusion.   It seems to me the goal at this point is to get W to be receptive to that conclusion. 

Over the past few weeks it like It went from “this couple has a lot to work on”
To “we have to solve individual issues first before we can constructively work on marriage issues”
To “there are major issues  happening here and those may be a barrier to addressing individual traumas.”

This has been the same course that we have been in with previous MCs.  When things get to the point of W being belligerent with MC or “i want to die” conversations begin, the focus completely shifts to W’s mental health.

Not sure how this is viewed from T’s end, but it feels like once a certain line is crossed T has to open a new instruction manual.  Same happens with my individual Ts.  Once they know W is diagnosed BPD - every issue I have is reframed in that shadow.  In other words:

Me:  “I am having trouble concentrating at work”
T:  “you are on emotional overload dealing with BPDw.  No wonder your work is suffering.”

MC has not specifically mentioned BPD, but W has easily checked every box in the DSM the past few months, so if she is a competent T she knows what she is dealing with.