Im wondering if the dynamics here are similar to my ex’s situation.

We all know that the deep root cause of a pwBPD behaviour is driven by a fear of abandonment and a need to feel loved/wanted/needed. That is why it is usually only the romantic partner that gets to see all the dysregulated behaviour and bare the full brunt of it. Often anyone outside that closest inner circle are completely unaware of a disorder as they will hardly ever get triggered by anyone that simply doesn’t mean that much to them.

We have all heard the saying you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. She chose you and will have a deeper fear of abandonment from you than she will her mother, she didn’t have a choice in her parent. Maybe her abuse of her mother is more silent and less obvious than her abuse towards you.

To use my case as an example. I believe I made her split when I said the words “stop buying drugs from him you are killing me”
That is certainly when I noticed small signs of her withdrawing before she monkey branched with him.

She actually said the words to me “I don’t want to destroy you, it doesn’t matter if I destroy him”

Does she get dysregulated and verbally attack him? I don’t know the answer to that. Does she abuse him in other ways? You bet your bottom dollar she does. She was unfaithful to him for a year! That was while she was renting a house on her own.

Since she has moved in with him, for just over a year now, she hasn’t to my knowledge been unfaithful to him. Certainly not with me but then I’ve put up boundaries. But she is now in the situation that Pook has mentioned about your wife, living under someone else’s roof, so the stakes are higher now if she dysregulated and may become homeless.

My ex avoids seeing me nowadays. When she does she can easily get triggered, start playing the victim, or get angry for no real reason. She still acts with emotion, not indifference. If I meant nothing she would act with indifference.

It is a little different in your situation as there is no third party and you are working towards improvement so she can come back home at some point whereas for my ex and I that isn’t the case, but I think that is why the pwBPD will emotionally dysregulate and verbally attack, because you were chosen and the object of their love, whereas the love for a parent, and I believe the ‘love’ my ex thinks she has for her bf is nothing but an attempt to bandage her emotional wounds, are completely different.

Yes, there are always two sides to the coin and our feelings certainly play a big role in how a BPD feels.  By changing our behavior, it can stop the arguments and allow things to begin to heal.  I'm glad you finally got there.

A dysregulation of the endogenous opioid system can cause alcoholism, can cause gambling, and is present in most pwBPD. This is not new research. It is ignored research.

Medication targeting the opioid system has been approved since 1984 to treat substance addictions. And it was approved to treat alcoholism since 1994. It has been used for gambling as well, off-label (well, it is an addiction anyway).

In 2010 such dysregulation was proposed to be the key mechanism behind BPD. Later, a few clinical studies were conducted, and you can check the results and surprise yourself. Such medication does not have withdrawal effects, does not have major side effects, and does not create addiction, but yet, it's only being used in some hospitals for BPD patients with acute symptoms or opioid addiction.

I'm against psychiatric medication. I think they make people sick and dependent. But this is one of the few exceptions to the rule. In my research, even in micro dosages, it will be effective alone in addressing low opioid tone and will make it easier for the patient to adhere to therapy or any sort of self-help.

But of course, it will be up to the doctor to prescribe it for the alcoholism and gambling.

Your partner is an adult and you have only limited influence on his choices and actions.  We are here as peer support.  That is why I previously commented that your focus or priority may need to be on yourself and your children.

I am not aware of a medication that treats both the alcoholism and the gambling, all in one, but I admit I don't know the latest research.

The consensus for many years has been that while medications can moderate Borderline traits, they are not The Solution.  There are multiple factors influencing him and how he acts and reacts.  Another issue with meds is that no one can force him to continue taking them.  In the past many stopped taking meds after a while since they didn't like the side effects.  General advice is that appropriate therapy, if started, continued and diligently applied in his life, can improve his perceptions, outlook and behavior.  That's a big IF.

I’m in quite a distressed state right now, so I don’t know if the following will make sense, but I will attempt to comment and reply to several of the people who have so helpfully written to me in this thread.
Rowdy, my most recent therapist was an expert in narcissism. We had almost 50 sessions together, and he was absolutely certain that I was not a narcissist. It didn’t take him long to come to this conclusion, either. As to contact with other women, nothing is acceptable. I have to avoid even looking in their direction. Eye contact is almost adultery to her. I receive countless ragebait Facebook reels on cheating and cheaters from her every day.  If I am autistic, I think it’s in subtle social cues and below average eye contact. On the subject of projection, I think a high percentage of what she’s shouting at me actually applies more to her than me. It is just mind-boggling frustrating and exasperating.
NotWendy and CC43, you have hit the nail on the head as to why things have gotten worse. During my working years when she was a stay at home mom and taking care of the kids and she was quite occupied. When we retired, we suddenly were together all the time. And we have quite a bit of unstructured leisure time in each day, which she began to fill with rumination on her childhood, marriage, relationships with her family of origin, and then delving deeply into emotional hurts and relational problems. The deeper she went, the deeper down she went emotionally and the worse our relationship got. Aside from gardening, hiking and exercise, she spends almost all of her free time reading about psychology, personality disorders (especially narcissism), intergenerational trauma, and so on. Too much of this type of rumination is bound to lead to depression, anger and sadness. When we retired, we moved far away from where we had raised the children and made many friends.In retirement, we became somewhat isolated, and she had no one to unload on except for me.
SuperDaddy, I have not had time to look at your links and videos yet, but will. I do believe she gets some sort of a high though, from pouring out her rage on me. Ironically, she accuses me of feeling pleasure when she is really upset. I cannot convince her otherwise. I am very conflict averse and codependent. Her moods really affect me strongly. My stress level is very high, and I have a very hard time getting a good nights’ sleep, tossing and turning and lying awake for a long periods of time, wondering and worrying.
CC43, do you have a menu for self-care, and if so, I’d love to see it. In bullet points here are mine, in no particular order: 1. EFT tapping, 2. 4-7-8 breathing, 3. Five senses grounding, 4. Mindful meditation (feeling, naming, not judging.), 5. Hypnosis recordings, 6. Mindful self compassion recordings, 7. Guided meditation recordings, 8. Journaling (feelings/thoughts dump), 9. Read recovery literature: ACOA, Alanon, CODA.        These things all help a little, but it feels like bringing a squirt gun to a gun fight. Anyone who has other suggestions?
At Bay, thank you for telling your story. I didn’t clearly extract what helped you or what advice you could give me, so if you can respond specifically, that would be fantastic.
NotWendy, I love the vomit analogy. It seems so accurate, but it is so painful for both of us to deal with. I’m about 95% sure that I am such a permanent trigger to her now that even when I’ve done nothing wrong I still get blamed and it brings up everything that is hurting her from her entire life. It all gets raged out onto me.I just don’t see how it can ever heal.
PeteWitsend, thanks for the encouragement. I need to become very strong internally and know who I am. I know how important that is, but as you know how difficult it can be to actually practice. One thin silver lining to this raging thunderstorm is all of the personal growth regarding my own self knowledge that I have gotten from this ordeal.
I’ve no doubt forgotten to reply to some of the other items, but that’s about all I can do right now. Thanks again everyone.

sm1981,

If you get him on a medication that treats both the alcoholism and the gambling, all in one, my guess is that his life will change and so will yours. Because this will treat the moving force behind his BPD behavior.

You can do this regardless of your decision to leave or remain in this relationship. After all, an uncontrolled ex can make your life much worse than a successfully medicated ex.

I just did it. I managed to stop being attacked.

I think it is all about my feelings. I'm not having any negative feelings about her now, so it was easier for me to let her know that I miss her, want to be with her, and that she is very important to me. That was enough.

So it seems like the trick is to maintain the distance, allowing the mutual attraction to build up, and perhaps sometimes have a casual night together, just as a reminder of how good it is to have each other.

Bingo!

Hey GrayJay, sometimes explaining something actually helps in cooling them off. But it depends on the emotion and motivation. If you get angry and frustrated about her reaction, then whatever you say can be interpreted negatively as well, because she will pick on your negative emotion. If instead you are accepting her behavior (radical acceptance), not judging her, and only reacting because you are worried about her, then chances are you will help her to cool off. This is because as soon as she notices you are being compassionate, she will have the opioid release that she needs (her relief).

The problem is that we don't have a button to choose whatever emotion we feel, I know. And also there are things that we don't want to accept.

I think this thread can be retitled “wife dysregulated almost every day.” Another big blowup today. I was trying to share all the passwords in the password manager with her. I helped her download the app to her phone and then went to look at technical documentation on how to do this. It was pretty confusing, but I was making progress. We were watching how-to videos and looking at whatever information we could find. Suddenly, she exploded and said that I was gaslighting her, trying to prevent her from having access. She got really mad, stormed out of the room crying, and sent me a string of really nasty, ugly text messages. Threatening divorce again. The accusations were just so wrong, being accused of gaslighting her, that I snapped and began to JADE. I just couldn’t put up with her completely false gaslighting accusation. It just feels so hopeless. It’ll be another long, depressing evening with her angry at me, sending me endless threats and accusations, articles to read, reels to watch, all while avoiding each other‘s presence.
Later today, I will try to make comments on the helpful things that all of the responders have posted.

Thanks for the link SuperDaddy

I know my ex’s new relationship is shallow, superficial and nothing but a band aid to fix her perceived emotional problems, along with using her new supply financially.

Too late for my relationship but I wish you luck with yours and hope the meds have a positive effect.