A few quick questions.  You've been dating for years and she's on the other side of the world.  Have you ever met in person?  And do you have plans to visit her, or have her visit you?

The reason I'm asking is to see how the relationship progresses past the point it's at right now if you can work past these challenges.

I met my current wife on an international Christian dating site, and I'm currently living with her in the Philippines.  So it sounds like our stories are similar but I don't want to assume.  There are many red flags to international dating and them asking for support is at the top of the list.

Wow, it sounds like so much escalated so fast in your relationships.  That's a lot to deal with at once.

Before talking about anyone else though, how are you feeling?  You mentioned that you felt like you were starting to feel suicidal over all of this.  Has that feeling passed?  Do you have anyone you can reach out to talk about those feelings?  I just want to make sure you are able to get help.

Thanks to all of you who responded to my post from earlier in the week. You have opened my eyes to many possibilities of causes of her behavior and my possible responses.
She and I live 7000 miles away at the present time. Her ongoing accusations are that I have a relationship with one of her neighbors and also with one of her sisters who lives in her vicinity. In fact, I have never met either of them and my GF knows this. She also accuses me of financially supporting these ladies. In fact, the only person outside my family that I support is my GF since in her area of residence, the job market is depressed and the prevailing wages are low. My GF also knows that I am a one-woman man and have no interest in complicating my life by having relationships with anyone else. Besides, I am 76, all of my energy is taken up my work, and talking to my GF for multiple hours every day.
I did fall head over heels in love with her when we first met. Her attention to me was extremely flattering and fits descriptions given in books on BPD. Unfortunately, I knew nothing of BPD or other personality disorders at the time.
You have given me some terrific insights and I will be working to incorporate your suggestions in my actions and behavior going forward. Thank you, than you!

Hi 13Bfmv13 ,

Since you are presenting lots of complaints against him here in the board, it's likely that you display those frustrations for him as well. Maybe not with your words, but certainly with your facial expressions. Maybe with your eyebrows? Anyway, he will capture your feelings, and the interaction will be invalidating, regardless. So this is probably why he retreated so much. I'm not blaming you. It's just how the disorder works.

This is the same reason why he refuses to accept treatment and defensively states that there is nothing wrong with him. In his eyes, you are making him feel worse because, in his perception, you are constantly judging and criticizing him. If you aren't lovable and radically accepting of him for a split second, then he will assume you were judging him instead. And if you want to regain his "trust," then it may take a lot of repair effort on your part.

The way you think about his emotional disorder and how you approach the topic is critical for how he reacts to it. If he feels accused, he will deny it and say the opposite. However, if he feels like you are worried about him and are compassionately trying to help, then he will feel accepted.

For instance, with my current wife, it was obvious that she had BPD, but I didn't want that to be true, so I denied it for myself. When I finally accepted it and communicated it to her, I was really sad about it and told her I didn't want that to be true, but that we should accept it. Soon I started sharing some material with her about it, and she became curious, so she asked her therapist to be diagnosed, and it was confirmed.

With my ex-wife, however, I didn't like her so much, and I was inexperienced, so I made her feel judged. Therefore, she never accepted the label, even though she has about all 9 symptoms and DBT was the only therapy that she liked.

Things just seem to be getting worse.  My daughter sent me another awful text.  I had sent her a text saying I loved her and I hope she was doing well and I get a response with judgments, accusations and ultimatums.  I showed my husband the text and I told him how upset I was and that this situation is starting to make me feel suicidal. Rather than comfort and console me he started to rationalize her behaviour and asked me in an arrogant tone, "Do you want to have a relationship with her or not?" I got angry because he started to suggest that he wasn't part of this and I felt so betrayed because this started because he has been triangulating with her (sharing his feelings with her and leaning on her for emotional support during his recent medical crisis), which I believe empowered  her to treat me poorly) . I yelled at him to stop rationalizing and he came at me in a rage and pinned me down on the couch and held my arms down and straddled my legs so I couldn't move. I was in shock and pushed him away. He was visibly angry and he told me to stop using "psychological words." When I asked him why he did that he said he was scared I was going to hurt myself (he needed to make himself believe that but I did not see someone who was scared - lack of accountability). I told him coming at me in anger is what you do to someone who is in crisis? Punching your open hand with your fist is how you show me your scared? I have come to believe over the years that he has a personality disorder but he refuses to get councilling.  Now the stress with my daughter and my distress has caused him to lose control and I have a whole other layer of pain to deal with. First my daughters (one with BPD the other OCD and undiagnosed NPD) cutting me off now my husband abusing me.  How much can one person take? Now I am having to set boundaries with him to stay safe and I feel uncomfortable in my own home.  He has grabbed me by the arms and shaken me once before when the children were young and they witnessed that and I know it hurt them but I was too afraid to leave the marriage then.  I feel my marriage is no longer salvagable and if I leave him I risk losing my daughters because they will blame me for the rupture and may never want to have a relationship with me again. Is there anyway out of this situation?  Any advice?

Your layout rings true: something sets it off, the surge comes, you check what's real, and things settle again. It's your mind trying to steady itself when the ground tilts a little. 

Most of the time, tightening that loop doesn't come from a sharper argument. It comes from spotting the pattern earlier and remembering you don't have to wrestle with reality each time it appears. When you start to trust your first read-even a little-the surge tends to pass sooner. 

It also seems reasonable to expect that contact will still stir things up for a while. A small plan you can use right away makes those moments easier. Take a few slow breaths. Eat something plain. Reach out to someone calm who knows your usual baseline. Then return to what you were doing, even if it's just the next simple step. 

You're not trying to win the debate now. You're trying to recover faster. That's real progress.

I think it depends on how dangerous you consider the situation. You got some female responses, and females tend to think it is very scary. But some people would just downplay it as a childish threat. For me, given my knowledge of BPD, I think this situation is completely predictable, given the rejection sensitivity, suicidal ideation, the situation that had happened, and the firearm availability.

I would actually blame myself for having left my firearm reachable to a mentally ill person. I would probably resolve it by saying what is needed to calm her down, then getting closer, distracting her, and then suddenly taking the pistol out of her hands. That's assuming it was my current wife, whom I love. But if it were any of my ex-wives, instead I would just hide against a wall, provoke her into shooting, then escape from the environment and call the police, just to make sure she got arrested. In either case, assuming there were no kids around, I would not be scared.

I have been threatened with firearms before, by police and by drug dealers, but I always resolved it calmly. I have also been threatened with knives by different women, but since they are so much weaker, I just stepped closer and challenged them to try, and they never tried. With a firearm I would not challenge, because pulling the trigger does not require strength, but I would try to outsmart them.

Note: This is not a recommendation. It is just how I handle it.

Thank you for sharing your perspective. There are no kids together. We are not married. I’m in individual therapy, but he is not currently in treatment and refuses any. (There is nothing wrong with him).

What’s hardest for me isn’t just the escalation — it’s the lack of repair and the shutdown afterward. It is exhausting. I love him and I am tired. He recently went to visit his mom and while there he barely called me for two weeks. He's been back...not even a week...and here we sit hours later and is still avoiding me from this morning's event.

Hi again,

I second the notion of not asking for digital communication and leaving the ball in your wife's court.

If there is any hope for a healthy relationship post what has happened (if you are still interested in that, once things settle and you have time to think), your wife needs to take accountability and put in the very hard work needed to change her patterns of thinking and behaviours. When you rush in to rescue her and find solutions for the messes SHE created, whether that is with money, trying to lessen the restrictions of the restraining order, or some other way, she learns that what she did was actually not that serious and you will be there for her no matter what. Which is the foundation of a very unhealthy relationship. Yes, she has a mental illness, and as I said before, we can empathize with her and support her if she puts in the work to heal, but if she is abusing you and putting your life in danger, the relationship by its very definition will be unhealthy.

Personally, I do not allow any digital communication between me and my husband, as I have found many times in the past that it spiralled out of control and made me feel like I was losing my mind. This realization came about for me one time when I was furiously responding to some insulting texts that my husband sent and I almost dropped my newborn baby. From then on, I never text, email or respond to any of these except in an emergency. And he knows the "rules" and generally does not even try to use digital communication anymore. He has reached out to me through sending physical letters  (we are currently not living together, and there are times when he can't handle talking calmly on the phone or in-person), so there are out-of-the-box ways of communicating when someone is motivated.

Sometimes, when I am unsure of how serious my husband's behaviour is and how I should respond, as it is easy to lose sight of what is "normal" when exposed to so much chaos,  I imagine someone else talking about the incident to me (ie as though my friend is telling over what happened to them). That helps me put things in perspective. So, for example if your friend told you an imaginary scenario about how their wife has been out of control for the past few years, to the point where their wife recently came at them with a pistol, and now has a restraining order against her, would you recommend digital contact? You get the point.

I can attest to the fact that it is so hard to have conflicting feelings of loving our partner and wishing we could have only the "normal" part of them without all the drama, even when they behave in abusive ways. It is also incredibly hard to have the strength to not rescue them and to focus on bettering and healing ourselves, and leave them to work on themselves if they choose to do so . But in my opinion, not saving your wife will increase the likelihood of you healing regardless of the outcome of the marriage, and of her potentially getting the help she needs as well. I have tried all the overlooking, all the validating, all the rescuing, and there comes a point where it just doesn't work...

All of what you have said up to now seems compatible with BPD.

Asking them why they behaved in this or that way is a bit futile. They may point to triggers, but they don't actually understand why they behave abnormally. All they know is to blame you for their behavior, often trying to reignite the conflict.

According to the OES theory, this is well explained because of the unconscious and uncontrollable attempts to stimulate endorphins out of the self-defeating conflict.

Staying grounded and not absorbing will be impossible while you are around them and very difficult even when you are far from them. But if you can keep yourself apart, it may be feasible, but only if you are emotionally self-sufficient and mentally healthy. If anything makes you weak and you need proximity, while seeking their emotional support, you might just get trouble instead.

But 10 years is a lot to survive. Do you have kids? Do you or he do any kind of psychological treatment?