Hi,

It's great you feel that way.  I guess my tip would be to express those feelings when your man is in a better place--when he's not fighting, antagonizing or insulting you.  I think what I would do is try to put a positive spin on things--"I'm so glad to see you today, I enjoy being with you and sharing dinner together with the kids . . ."  In other words, make it less about your sadness when he's absent/down (because he might feed off of that, try to "one up" you or feel blamed), and make it more about love and togetherness.  Anyway that's my general approach.  I don't think my man would want to hear about any negative feelings I have because he thinks that's complaining or blaming.  When he hears complaints from me, I think he internalizes them too much and starts to take on those negative emotions, which he doesn't want.  He'll say this generally:  "I don't want to hear about your work/struggles/problems, it's too upsetting."  So I'm generally careful about not creating unnecessary negativity.  Alas, sometimes it's difficult to pull him out of a funk, because he can be inflexible--he only wants to do what he wants and when he wants.  If I make suggestions (dinner out / going for a walk / doing something fun), he'll generally say NO (whereas I'm the opposite, I generally say YES to doing things together, even if I don't love the actual thing we're doing).  But I've learned to make invitations this way:  "I'm going for a walk and you're welcome to join me if you like, but no pressure."  That way he feels "included" even when he declines, which is 99% of the time.

Believe me....I sympathize....our dog (who WAS my pwBPD's dog! that she left behind) passed away this Tuesday; my husband texted her; she NEVER responded; I, again, try to wrap my brain around this....as a group, I ponder, is it truly possible, to have ZERO emotion, to ANY situation? I am befuddled....THIS started with her issue with me; it has taken 3 years (and heavy therapy) to accept that, however, I am feeling a sense of complete helplessness over any future repair; I do not pretend to understand BPD....but, can it take over EVERYthing? My daughter works at a daycare, teaches toddler dance classes yet shunned her young nieces and her DOG, it just seems to stretch further than the obvious

Yes, stunned at the severity of it but I doubt they are entirely unaware.

While you have stated the cause is your wife's focus on social media messages, is there anything else you can point to as to why the situation has worsened in the past 10 years?

For my parents, I think my father's retirement made him more available to my BPD mother to project her thinking. He also had co-dependent tendencies. His presence also served as an emotional release for her- to project, and her behavior got his attention, so it was a self reinforcing situation. While he used to not be available to her when he was at work, after retirement, she could contact him at any time. If he went out somewhere, she could still call him every few minutes.

I would second the suggestion for you to get counseling, to help you cope and also to be able to get some way to have time to yourself, so to possibly change this increased spiral.

Hi GrayJay

Sounds like exactly the same dynamics of my wife (now my ex) and I’s relationship.

I too am an introvert and I can see now became co dependant.
I also may be on the spectrum for autism too, which was also down to my wife pushing me to go and see the dr because she believed I had a problem. Whether that is true or not I don’t know, I did fill in a couple of questionnaires from the dr, one for autism and one for adhd, which led to the dr putting me forward for an official diagnosis but that was over 2 years ago and I haven’t heard a thing since.

Like you I would be accused of financially abusing her. Everyone is on a baseline level of narcissism to some extent, it’s how we survive as a human race, but it doesn’t make us a narcissist unless we display obvious narcissistic traits. I think to some extent because of the dysregulated behave we are subject to we have to be narcissistic, or how the partner might perceive being as narcissistic, to cope with some of their behaviour.

I would also be accused of all sorts of adulterous behaviour, to the extent that I would actively try and avoid making eye contact with a female, striking up conversation with a female, talking about a female, and fearing any female ringing me about any work they wanted done (being self employed in property maintenance)

We were together 27 years but got together at a fairly young age so still have a way to go until retirement age. We split up because my wife blindsided me by monkey branching. Yes the red flags were there but because of her seemingly intense love and adoration and my lack of knowledge of bpd even existing, even though I can now see where she would split I still didn’t think she would leave me like that. I always considered I had a secure attachment style which I think might have been part of the problem, because I felt emotionally secure she may have seen this in her mind as a lack of caring. Anyone that knew us knew that was not the case and I did everything I could to support her and show her I loved her.

So what have I learnt coming out of the relationship.
Am I a narcissist? Well, no. If I was I doubt I would have put up with her behaviour for 27 years. The way she discarded me I would have just walked away, or probably destroyed her and her bf in seconds. Was I financially abusing her? No, she is mentally ill and part of her behaviour and one of the criteria on the DSM is her impulsive overspending. I on the other hand am sensible, and I will not spend what I haven’t got. While early on in our marriage I worked full time to support our young family she went to my place of work and had a row with my boss because she hated me going to work and leaving her (fear of abandonment) and wanted me to quit my job so she could work full time, open a business and I look after the kids. I’d work part time too, but she was the main bread winner then. If I went to pay for something she would always take over and pay for it, even a few months ago because our son and his girlfriend are expecting our first grandchild, we went to a local pub to meet his girlfriends parents, I was in the middle of buying a round and she came in and took over insisting on paying. But she would always accuse me of being tight fisted.
When we split up she stayed in the family home for a few months and told me to transfer the household payments I made into her name.  She couldn’t understand why her outgoings doubled because she insisted I paid for nothing, yet the reality was I paid for half of our household outgoings. She monkey branched because, as she told our son her new bf can support her financially better than I can. This is probably true but in my book is a shocking reason to leave someone and shows a lack of morals.

Am I autistic. Again I’m not so sure about that. Although I do have a tendency to answer posts like this where I talk about my own situation in an attempt to draw parallels and get my message across which does seem to be how an autistic person communicates so I might well be. Being an introvert and my ex being highly extroverted, she just suppressed me. That’s what walking on eggshells around someone does to you. You become withdrawn and a shell of your former self. In the beginning like I said I would work, and I would work long hours to support our family. I taught my wife a lot about control, told her how to sort her financial problems out, how to cook a meal without getting stressed and overwhelmed and get dysregulated. She was like a lamb to some extent at the beginning and I was a bit like a shepherd, yet she quickly turned into a wolf.

Her best friends partner (her real best friend that she has known since she was a 5 year old, not the fake best friends she seems to cycle through and discard) and I have spoken a lot since we split up. He said to me recently I have been a lot more talkative and spoken with him and had a hell of a lot more interesting conversations with him. While I will always be an introvert I am finding myself again and realise, although I always knew, that I was being suppressed by my wife. You kind of know that while you are in the relationship, but it’s only now after a couple of years you begin to realise just how much. I even did karaoke for the first time last year and was told by everyone that I was brilliant and had the whole room clapping, something I would never have done if I was still in that relationship because she liked to be the centre of attention. Sounds silly I know, but the woman I am now in a relationship with was working behind the bar that night and she had already been interested in me for nearly a year and at that moment she said made her realise she wanted to be with me.

You mention her finding a therapist. I have not read any of your previous posts so forgive me I don’t know if she is diagnosed bpd or is self aware. My wife hasn’t, and isn’t although I’ve told her since we split up that I believe she has a personality disorder that has played a massive part in her behaviour and our marriage breakup. She is also mid 40’s so still has some ability to charm men into a relationship with her, I am not aware of your wife’s age but am guessing post retirement age. Not wanting to sound harsh but the older we get the less chances there are running off with someone else. Maybe that is being somewhat misogynistic and you can never say it won’t happen but I believe there is some truth to that.

But the takeaway from that long winded message is there is a certain amount of projection and gaslighting going on here. She more likely has a mental illness so the reality is you probably are not autistic, not financially abusive, not narcissistic or any of things she has accused you of, but instead you might just be suppressed, sensible in a financial sense and defensive at times against her behaviour.

There is hope. If your wife is self aware then hopefully you can convince her to seek therapy, it’s for her own good as well as yours. I never wanted to split up with my wife, but again now that I have there is hope. I consider myself to be in a better relationship now. Certainly far less stress and I’m finding myself again. As for the fear of abandonment you have, I can’t answer in the sense that all the time I was in that relationship I was not aware of having a fear of abandonment. At the end of the day, we can not control another persons thoughts and feelings, and stressing about something out of our control is wasted energy. If you have a fear of abandonment and codependency issues are you seeing a therapist yourself as that would be your best course for developing ways to deal with these issues.

I think the ex's spending is related to the "not enough" feelings. There were financial issues in my family of origin with due to this as well. Now that your ex has moved on, this won't be an issue for you in time.

Since you won't go back to your ex if she wanted that- there's no reason to tell your GF if she does. I agree with the others that to do so to encourage her to be more committed would be triangulation and also feel manipulative.

It seems like there's potential in the new relationship and also some time to let it evolve in the way it's going to go. Marriage isn't an option in the immediate future, so there's no rush to decide on that. That the two of you can communicate about issues is a good thing.

  I have posted mainly on the “bettering a relationship” board, but the relationship continues to deteriorate. It feels like the ship is sinking, and I’m filled with anxiety, fear, sadness, regret, and shame. My uBPW wife of nearly 34  years has been steadily getting more and more dysregulated over the past 10 years since we retired. It seems as if she’s heading into a true mental health crisis, and it’s really really hard for both of us. We have two adult children, and we try to keep our marital conflict out of their lives, so they would be stunned to know what’s really going on behind closed doors. I’ve written about it elsewhere so I won’t go into detail here, but in the last couple of months, her extreme anger and rage has become apparent on almost half of the days, and even on the “good days” she always finds several opportunities to harshly criticize me for at least five or 10 minutes.

Briefly, she considers me a covert narcissist, autistic, financially abusive, guilty of coercive control, a womanizer and flirt, completely untrustworthy, etc. I am far from a perfect husband, and I may be mildly autistic (difficulty with social cues), and there is some truth to financial abuse if you consider frugality in the early years of our marriage. I thought I was creating a great life for her by being the breadwinner while she could stay at home and concentrate on raising the children, and she seemed to be just fine with it at the time, but now she looks at her life as an opportunity wasted to achieve bigger things. I am guilty, in a much milder sense, of some of those things, but one thing that I am not, and she is convinced of, is that I am a flirt, and I’m looking to have another woman. I would say I do have some of the traits of covert narcissism, but I don’t have it at the disorder level, that’s for sure. But as I hear these and many other criticisms over and over and over again, I start to wonder if they’re true. She thinks that I am 100% to blame for all of our problems as a couple and for any of the struggles that our adult children have. She has even reached the point now where she doesn’t want to be out in public with me for fear of how I will behave, either flirting with women or trying to look like an impressive person.

I am an introvert, codependent, with a deep fear of abandonment. I have been as supportive, validating, and empathetic as I know how to be. I have tried not to JADE, although I do sometimes. I have assured her repeatedly of my devotion to our marriage and that I am not looking for another woman, but she doesn’t believe me, and it’s almost a daily threat of divorce now. This is so corrosive to my morale, and I see how much she is suffering, and it is heartbreaking. Lately most evenings we don’t even eat dinner together, and we spend the evening in our separate bedrooms.

I guess I’m just venting. I feel hopeless. I found this website extremely helpful, and I’ve looked at “rage phobia” and the distress tolerance techniques in particular.

I really don’t want to divorce, but I may not have a choice. Should I be secretly planning in the background just in case? I don’t want to follow through unless I’m forced to, say, if she moves out or wants me to move out.

She keeps mentioning finding a therapist, but nothing seems to happen.

Any thoughts or words of encouragement?  Does anyone know how to deal with a deep fear of abandonment?  Thanks for listening.

Thank you NotWendy for your thought provoking reply.

To answer your questions, yes she knows I’m still married, and she knows I am committed to her. As I said, we have talked a lot prior to starting our relationship and she knows exactly how I have been treated. She has herself been in a relationship with a pwBPD and it left her with anxiety so understands, to an extent, how damaging those relationships can be.

I’m not so worried about her ex. I’ve not met him but I can understand he is a good father and has moved back in his parents house so it’s easier for him to go to my gf’s to see him.
I am giving her son driving lessons as his father doesn’t drive.

It is not so much that I want her to reply to my texts sooner, it is more the fact that I can at times see she has been online after I’ve messaged and then wait for some time for a reply, but this can annoy her if her siblings do the same thing.

The good thing is we have spoken about and resolved these issues. She has some family issues with her parents and siblings that overwhelm her and makes her shut down which has been a big part of the problem as she has said her learned behaviour has been to sweep things under the carpet and not talk about things but now understands this only creates more problems. It is much easier to have a grown up conversation without treading on eggshells and ending up in a circular argument with her.

Why am I still married. I am still finding my feet financially. The situation my wife left me in means I am having to build up my business while taking on all financial responsibilities so, at the moment would struggle with the added costs of going through a divorce. As I mentioned earlier, it has come to light she left me for financial reasons, using her new bf to pay for everything and I am still getting letters and emails every month for payments that she has missed for things she is responsible for. Would I go back to her if she wanted to reconcile…… I would have to be stark raving mad. 

CC43 she has been texting her dad but no mention of cutting me off to her dad.  I am sure she knows that my husband is aware of her actions so texting him and acting like nothing happened between us tells me she is trying to get him on her side somehow.  He didn't respond yet and he is not going to engage with her until she brings up the issue.  He doesn't want to reward this behaviour because he is also hurt because he spoke to her about taking time to figure things out and the next day she cuts me off. I'm just listening to a podcast from Randi Kreger and she is saying the goal is to get their child independent so hopeful your step daughter will eventually not need your financial support.  I'm glad our daughter is independent and whatever choices she makes the consequences are hers.  I just want her to be happy but I can't suffer to have a relationship with her.  It's unfortunate as she is starting a new chapter in her life becoming a mom but she will see how hard it is to be a parent.  We love her and always will but the "adult temper tantrums" are hers to manage now.

I totally agree with the “adult time out”, and that he doesn’t deserve my attention when he goes into this mode, but also feel like looking back, I saw this coming and feel like I could have possibly derailed this one. My H looks super depressed in this mode. When I asked him his thoughts on a new event that is on all news and well known, he had no idea about it and told me that he doesn’t watch the news as he has enough to worry about with his life and he doesn’t need to know about all the problems of the world, but I am sure that next week he will be reading and watching the news!  He has a lot going on right now, and while I couldn’t fix his problems, I do want to be there for him through some of this stuff. The only way I have gotten as far as I have is by shutting down with him when he goes into his mode and reengaging when he comes out of his mode. I guess, I completely go off of him and I guess I wonder if that leads to his abandonment feelings. I have done so for self protection, but I think I am ready to take a step forward and see if I can help ease some of his abandonment feelings, by leading with my feelings. Ie. I miss him when he is at his place, I tell him or I ask if he wants to meet to go for a walk, etc. I understand this is not on me. I understand that sometimes he will be open to my connection and others he will not.

Hi there,

That's a tricky situation.  I'm not sure if I'm reading things correctly, but you think that your man increasingly sees you as content and self-reliant.  He thinks you appear to be indifferent to whether or not he spends the night with you, whether or not he helps with bills/chores/kids.  In short, you're not phased by his moods, and you let him have his space to calm down and do as he pleases, while you try to live your best life.  Rather than interpret the situation in a positive way (you are giving your man freedom to come and go as he pleases, to take the space he needs to self-regulate), he's thinking you don't NEED him, and he finds that upsetting.  After all, he appears to be losing his control, his power over you and your feelings.  His reaction?  He tries to provoke you, with passive-aggressive hostility, anything to get a rise out of you, to force you to MATCH his emotions.  It sounds to me like he's actually upset that he's not getting under your skin as he usually does.  Even your young child detects that he's in a mood and unfairly picking on you.  Does that sound about right?

I guess I'd advise to hold your "boundary" (not to get sucked in to his negative behavior/attitude, and not let his outbursts get in the way of you going about living your life in a healthy/productive way).  My thinking is, don't "dignify" his little meltdown with a text message.  I'd say, wait until he returns and is in a good mood, and then provide praise and reassurances.  If you jump the gun, he might still be in a funk and take your message the wrong way.  Worse, he might take a message as an invitation to start a text war.

Now, I'm not saying that you should stonewall him whenever he wants to broach an important topic, such as the divorce he brought up.  It's just that it sounded to me like he wasn't trying to have a real discussion, but that he was making a scene, an empty threat, in front of your young child no less, just to unleash some of his anger your way, pique you and get you riled up.  I think in that situation you did well to remain calm and defuse the situation by going upstairs.

I imagine that by now you've seen on these boards the advice not to JADE--justify, argue, defend or explain--whenever your loved one with BPD is having a meltdown.  I've found that avoiding JADE is helpful when loved ones are dysregulated, and instead I pretend to be a gray rock (still, solid and boring), and I usually give them some space as soon as physically possible.  I think of this as an "adult time out."