Hi there,

I might be a little unusual here, but I tend to look a lot more at actions than words and moods.  If your husband wanted for things to get better between you, then my opinion is that he would do exactly that.  He'd start by being nicer.  He'd make some apologies.  He'd come to you with a list of therapists that he researched, and he'd offer to make an appointment at a mutually convenient time.  He'd say something like, he's going to do what it takes to make the relationship work, because he loves you and he believes you two have a future together, and it's worth fighting for, in the sense of doing some work and making some positive changes.  And he would follow through with his plans.  First off, he'd start working on repairing the financial betrayal, to show you he's serious.

Also, I don't love the set-up you describe, which sounds to me like your husband is merely agreeing to "go along with" therapy, as in, he doesn't really believe he needs it, except to get concessions out of you.  I get the sense that he thinks that YOU are the one who needs to do all the changing.  While you might need to make some changes and concessions, a relationship takes two people to work.  It's not fair to live in an all-take-and-no-give situation.

I guess my point is, for a reconciliation to work, your husband needs to take some actual actions--hard ones, and on a consistent basis.  For whatever reason, I'm dreaming up an analogy based on dieting.  An overweight adult might declare:  I'm going on a diet!  He might get motivated by the prospect of losing some weight and feeling better, and that's fantastic.  He might get enthusiastic about going on a diet together with a partner, because it would feel like a team effort.  But while temporary motivation and declarations can signal a good start, that's not enough, not by a long shot.  To lose weight (and keep it off), he'd typically need a major lifestyle change.  Maybe that would include some trips to a doctor and taking medications at first.  Yet he probably needs to relearn how to eat, while letting go of poor dietary habits--junk food, bingeing on sweets, sugary drinks, emotional eating.  With strong motivation, good training, and maybe some medications to get a kick start, he might be able to lose a few pounds.  But the only way to reach his goal weight, and keep the weight off, is to change his lifestyle, permanently.  That typically takes months and months, lots of practice, some setbacks, a ton of effort, but most of all, consistent effort and ACTION.  He has to really want to change and be willing to do the work to achieve it.  Nobody else can do it for him, no matter how much they'd like to.  It's all up to him, if he puts in the work to change.  The rewards are typically worth it, but only if he goes all in.  Otherwise, it's likely to become a yo-yo cycle.

Just my two cents.

Thank you both. I needed to read this today and I'm so sorry you've both been through it. Anyway, the sudden turn around has done another turn. I said something that I thought was pretty safe ie. not triggering, which triggered him, he told me to be more sensitive to him,  and he's taken himself off to a hotel for the night! Which of course is not very sensitive to me.

The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

I do feel for him that this is coming from a very wounded place in him but I'm losing empathy as I realise just how reluctant / unwilling he is to address it all.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and taking time to reply. I was beginning to think that yes, this could be his turning point - recognising what he's doing to me and us (and done in previous relationships) and maybe he will admit he and we need help.

Then I got home today and told him that my mum has offered me to have her car on a permanent loan basis because she can no longer drive it. This is great for me because we currently share a car and half the time I have no transport if he's working. Anyway 5 mins later he says 'do you think that you could be a bit more sensitive about how you share things with me?' Apparently I had sounded way too excited and it was insensitive. He has now gone and booked himself into a hotel overnight!

I could literally say 'the sky looks very blue today' and he would hear it as some kind of personal attack. Yet, he's constantly being insensitive and just blatantly disrespectful. It's infuriating!

Maybe I'm wrong but this doesn't sound like a man who is remorseful and desperate to work on his marriage!

 

I'll tell you my thoughts, and provide my experience of going through this very thing below:

Thoughts: Well, as they say, talk is cheap.  If you had everything you wanted from a relationship: compliant partner, security, leeway to do what you wanted at their expense, etc. and the other person deigned to complain, what would you do?  Assume that you're like your partner.  First you'd do the easiest thing: use the same verbal and emotional threats that always worked before.  Then, escalate... show them how bad it can get if they don't go back to being a doormat.  Then if that doesn't work, okay, make some minor verbal concessions,  reassure them, etc.  That doesn't work, maybe promise therapy.  Whatever to get them to back down, and then slowly start to work on convincing them how wrong they were to put you through this, how much you love them, how they should never stand up for themselves like that again because it's so unfair, it stresses you out, they should actually get therapy to learn to deal with their emotions, etc. etc. UGH!

Experience: I went through this twice...

first when I nearly got divorced about a year before it finally ended.  we agreed divorce was on the table and both saw attorneys.  She freaked out, called all my family members, begged me to reconsider, apologized for her behavior, and promised she was going to start therapy and "work on" herself.

I gave in because I considered the cost &  effort of divorce & decided I didn't want to go through it then.  although I really didn't believe she would actually change, I hoped at least we'd get some improvement.

That lasted about a week, before she started "re-writing history," telling me I was "too emotional," pinning all the responsibility for our near-divorce on ME, not on her threats and demands (she had been refusing to allow my family for a visit, and told me, well, screamed at me really, that if I wasn't going to accept that, I should divorce her!  She LITERALLY was the source of the divorce threat!).

Things went back to "normal" later that month... i.e. a big fight over nothing every other week, along with a week or so of silent treatment before we quietly made up.  This pattern continued for another year, during which time we had our third and final abortive attempt at marital counseling.  This attempt ended when she got angry with the therapist's questions toward her, screamed at the therapist and refused to go to more counseling.  

Second time I went through the manipulative attempts to keep our marriage intact was when our divorce started.  I ended our marriage a few months later, after another pointless blow-up fight.  This time, she attempted to do the same thing, only less nicely than before: she played hard ball longer, acting like I should be the one to come crawling back.  When I moved out and filed for divorce, she realized it was really happening, she started acting sad and remorseful (though not accepting responsibility for it).  The next stage was her begging me to come back and call it off, promising to work on herself, and saying that if we went to counseling again, she promised not to say anything or yell at the therapist, as though that was the whole problem...  

I ignored all this.  She was awful and contentious throughout the divorce process, but did very little about it.  Once she started getting bills for her attorney's fees, she dialed down the fighting a lot; making baseless accusations is easy and cheap normally, but in court you have to back it up with evidence, & paying your attorney to collect and formally categorize that evidence gets really expensive.  If the pwBPD doesn't have a spare $100,000 to throw around, they get quiet (at least in court proceedings) really quickly.

I wish I was a cup-half-full person but the deep mental health issues of BPD traits makes that difficult since so many don't follow through with meaningful therapy.

Couples counseling would only partially address the relationship issues.  He can't do all his personal therapy with you.  That is his own responsibility.  Think of couples counseling as the relationship aspect only.


If he does, then Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is the best approach.  It is not a total cure and may require years or life-long efforts.  But he can't do it reluctantly or half-heartedly.  If he is not fully determined to work on himself, then...

It's hard to estimate whether he will follow through and actually improve enough enable the relationship to prosper.  I would expect those with minor marital issues due to BPD never seek us out here, so perhaps that's why quite a number here decide to divorce, not a representative sample. 

To comment on the topic's title... This might be classified as an extinction burst where the other's sudden thought is to promise something just to go back to the prior pattern.

Whether you continue with a separation or not, either one may not make a difference and improve your spouse.  You are in a close relationship and the BPD traits make it exceedingly difficult for him to truly listen to you due to the persistent emotional baggage of the close relationship.

You can't fix him.  (You didn't cause it, you can't cure it.)  Only he can fix himself and that requires intensive personal therapy.  As I understand it, couples counseling can only provide supplemental support, in other words, not enough to address all his issues.

How for him to first work on himself and demonstrate lasting progress and not simply resume the endless on-again, off-again cycles?  Hard to answer that while in the midst of the relationship.

A few thoughts.

1st, people don't change unless there's a solid reason to change.  This is true if we're talking mental illness or not.  Your husband has a solid reason to change, so he took the first few steps to see what would happen.  That doesn't mean he's changed...so things certainly aren't fixed...but just the acknowledgement from someone with BPD is a major, major step in the right direction.

2nd, I don't think you should be concerned over the AI.  Why?  Your husband may have literally been incapable of putting his feelings into his own words.  He probably did a search expecting validation and found something else entirely.  That's a good thing and the fact that he said it out loud is also a major step in the right direction since he was vulnerable.

By themselves, these two things mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.  They are the start of progress though and if your husband were to ever take therapy seriously, it is right now.  BPD is treated through therapy, learning to process emotions and talk out complicated feelings, so this therapy COULD save your marriage long-term.  More importantly, it could save him from himself.

I'll stop there though because it is ultimately your decision to stay or go, to try therapy or just walk away.  I'd respect your decision regardless because I've been there.

One more thing- you're right, this is a desperation move.  But at the same time, it's also your husband hitting his rock bottom and realizing that he needs to change.  Nobody moves past BPD tendencies without this type of Earth-shattering realization in their lives, and a lot of BPDs never achieve what your husband discovered this week.  Kudos to him for that. 

I will repeat though that saying he'll try therapy is not the same as actually going to therapy and working through things.  He's completed step one, which is awesome, but it's also just the very beginning.  Two days from now, he can have a complete reversal and decide single life is what's best.  That's the nature of the beast when we're talking BPD.

Hi and welcome. So sorry that you're going through this, but know that you're not alone. This behaviour is pretty standard BPD - almost like a computer program that loads up and runs - and everyone here has been through it, in my own case for 4 years but in some cases for 25+ years.

Depending on his mood at the time, he will go through the 'I'm not bothered' phase and even seem to help you in your desire to end the relationship.. but then his mood changes and the fear of being alone - one of the strongest BPD fears - kicks in and he'll promise to change or do anything to have you stay with him.

Sadly, unless he truly is determined, any attempts at change rarely work out and once the BPD knows they've averted the main crisis - the breakup and fear of being alone - the old cycle resumes. You can read this in the many, many similar posts on here.

Sometimes my exBPD would seem to respond positively if she thought I really would leave but after a while she'd revert to her old ways.  Usually what you see now is what you'll always get.

You're doing nothing wrong, even if he tries to guilt-trip you into thinking that way (another BPD trait). You didn't cause his problems, you can't cure them and you certainly can't control them. None of us could.

I'm sure others will be along to offer their advice. Stay strong.

My heart goes out to you for being a caring and loving person who only wishes the best for your mother. Unfortunately your mother does not seem to want what is best for herself. It could be extremely helpful and healing to work on differentiation from your mother, owning your feelings while letting her own hers. With a disordered person, it never helps to feel their feelings for them, because having another person take on their feelings just allows them to disown what they feel. A good example of this is the cycle of anger. The disordered person gets angry, dumps that anger on another person and then the disordered person feels temporary relief that the other person is upset until the cycle of anger repeats itself. Is any of this making sense?

I've just realised I probably posted on the wrong topic so re-posting here:

I'll try and keep this brief but I could do with some advice from those who know what it's like to be with / separate from someone BPD (undiagnosed and unacknowledged in this case).

After 2 years of lies and defensiveness, mood swings, acting out, no repair etc. a couple of weeks ago I said that I've had enough and I want a separation.

Initially he went into impulsive mode - went out to find a flat to rent, secured it etc. Moods all over the place, ignoring me, being outright rude to me, then being nice, then back again. All over the show, which is what I had braced myself for. Always saying 'I've done everything to try and make things better. I'm not doing therapy, therapy doesn't work for me'. (he financially betrayed me which I found out in January).

In the last couple of days he's clearly realised this is actually going to happen and panicked. Panicking about losing me, the lifestyle he has with me. I felt for him but realised I can't rescue him from that.

Then came the change 'maybe therapy could work for us. I have realised that I haven't been able to hear your experience without getting defensive' (chatGPT helped him word this), "I need to work on that. I'm actually terrified of therapy. The fear of losing you is stronger than the fear of having couples therapy" (I understand that better than 'it doesn't work for me') He asked "what do you think?" I told him that I'm utterly confused because he says a different thing each day. He has also said "If I move out that's us done, no going back"

I'd like to hear other peoples thoughts on this. To me it feels like a desperation without the actual realisation of what's going on for him. I think it would feel different if it had come from him without the help of AI! Also if he was saying 'I've realised I've been awful and there are some things I need to address in myself".

Thank you in advance for anyone's thoughts on this. I was kind of expecting this turnaround to happen once we were separated which would have felt easier to deal with!