Wendy - in a sense I am - intentionally.  Me saying “I don’t agree with this” with no further discussion always means that the same thing will be brought up over and over.  Reinforcing that boundary over and over hasn’t met with success.  My hope here is for W to think about reasons to choose monogamy for herself so that maybe future conversation will be different and more productive - less “black and white”.  I doubt the conversation will change from “you are controlling me because of an antiquated sexist belief”, but at this point it is worth a shot.  My hope is that she discusses what I said with her T this week.

Maybe she can think  - “Gee, he does do all the work already - and if I find other partners he has no reason to stay married.”

Or maybe she has some insight that that her issues have gotten in the way of having a healthy relationship in the past and will similarly impact future relationships.  She is capable of that insight, but I don’t expect behavior to change.  She did decide to do laundry and dishes last night.  She’s likely to see this as transactional, though - she will do housework for a week and then expect me to be okay with extramarital relationships, but if it all gets her to consider other viewpoints than her urges, I call that positive.

Hi DesertDreamer,

You said you don't ever remember feeling as anguished in your life as you have been in this relationship. Do you think that's because you are away from your country or because of her disorder?

I have been in all kinds of difficult relationships, but they never made me as anguished as major events in my life, such as the loss of a job or a kid being sick. I think that's because I protected myself. As soon as the relationship stopped working for me, I stepped away from my partner and kept myself busy with other stuff.

But in your case, as an immigrant with limited language/social know-how, it will be very difficult to make yourself happy. Being dependent on your wife, who suffers from BPD, is pretty bad, because it should be the other way around. For the relationship to work, it should be guided by a partner who is in good mental health status. However, it seems like your migration was more of her choice, which makes her the one who was leading the relationship. The problem with that is that when the partner with BPD has control of the relationship, their behaviors tend to get worse, especially the abusive ones.

So I think you only have two realistic choices. Either (A) you toughen up and overcome your current situation until you get your citizenship status, if that's feasible, so that you can get a real job, or (B) you get money to buy the flight tickets back to your home country.

Btw, I don't know which country you are living in, but there isn't any place with better job opportunities than the US.

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.