Is it possible to have an enjoyable Vacation

[Cloudy Days]

My mother in law just paid for me and my husband to go on Vacation with her. We just got back and while I had some enjoyable moments most of the time my husband made both me and my mother in law miserable. I wanted to go home a lot of the time we were there. We actually ended up driving home because my husband didn't want to get stuck on a plane again. We had a 3 hour delay with a crying baby on the trip there. Anyways, it seemed like no matter what if something went a little wrong my husband would flip out. From his mom taking a wrong turn to someone not understanding him if he was trying to explain something. I was just wondering if this is typical. Is it possible to have an enjoyable Vacation with someone with BPD because this Vacation was just exhausting.

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[ColdEthyl]

I've experienced both good and bad vacations. My husband does the same thing, sometimes little things will throw him off and ruin his whole day, but sometimes not.

[hergestridge]

Vacations with my BPDw are not that enjoyable, but I'm not sure that it's the vacations themselves that trigger her. To some extent it does (the stress of travelling, not having constant bathroom access etc.). But I think it's more to do with her being "herself" regardless of the situation. I think I find it more acceptable (and propably more understandable) when she dysregulates at home, but when she destroys my most valuable time of the year by being downright bored, bhity and miserable, then I just lose it.

She's been dysregulating in romantic restaurants in the french countryside and on mountaintops in Spain, acting like "Why did you bring me here for? Can i go home please?. It becomes to apparent how self-contained she is and how little she cares about what goes on around her. It's all about what goes on inside her head. Those moments make me both angry and sad.

Someone wrote about this phenomenon in another thread. How he/she talked with her T about how to prepare for a vacation with a BPD partner; "If you want to go watch the sunset, be sure  to go watch it alone even if your partner doesn't want to".

But I don't know. it sounds like a lonely life. Perhaps acceptance will lead me there, if I decide to stay?

[Cloudy Days]

What is insane is that he wished for this vacation, he wanted to do this from the day we met. When it finally was given to him he didn't want it any more. He could find a fault in the most wonderful day. The second major blow up was because his mom took a wrong turn, he starts yelling at both of us because I was in the front seat. He didn't let it go until after the next morning, because taking a wrong turn is just such an unforgivable offence.

What I am having a hard time with is that my husband is now deregulating even more now that we are home. He regrets that he made everything miserable. He regrets ruining the time we were given. He woke up accusing me of cheating on him on while on Vacation. I wasn't even alone the entire time we were on Vacation. I was hoping that he would calm down once he got home but it seems to be the opposite.

Now I have to go back to work and be swamped because I took so much time off. It just never ends, I really needed some time to relax.

[hergestridge]

My theory is that occasions such as vacations or birthdays demands us all to make a little extra effort for eachother to be good company and make it possible for eachother to have a good time. I think it¨s the BPD person's lack of extra effort that ruins everything on occasions like this.

My wife ruined my 40th birthday becaues she treated it like any other day. She got in a bad mood over something that destroyed her day and she just said ___ it and went to bed. Trying a little harder to keep it together considering it was my 40th birthday was out of the question. To make matters worse we were going to spend it alone (and so I did, eventually).

[SleepsOnSofa]

I haven't been on a vacation alone with my wife since the summer our daughter was 1 year old (she's 6 now). We planned a four-day trip to the Adirondacks, with two nights in a lakeside hotel, and two nights in a quaint B&B. My wife had been hinting and then demanding a vacation for months; I set this up, thinking it would make her happy. I was wrong.

I didn't know about BPD then, and it was our first post-marriage trip together, except for trips to visit family for holidays. She was unhappy most of the time, complaining about almost everything, including the hotels, me, whatever. She was very sensitive - even moreso than usual - and got mad at me for trivial or even imagined offenses several times a day. The "high point" of the vacation was when she was arguing with me about not "standing up to your (my) mother" at 10:00 at night by the hotel pool, when she yelled at the top of her lungs, "MY HUSBAND IS A P***Y!" I expected the management to call the cops and kick us out, but for some reason that didn't happen.

Since that experience, we haven't been on a vacation as a couple, aside from weekend trips to take our daughter to children's amusement parks and museums. Three times now, my parents have taken us with them to very nice destinations, including a southern California, Cape Cod, and a Caribbean cruise. My wife manages to make everyone miserable, to the point that my parents have told me that they aren't making that mistake again. Hopefully, when my daughter is older, my parents will take just her on trips to exotic places; I don't expect my wife and I will be invited again, and I don't blame my parents for that. Those places are too expensive to go to be made miserable by someone who could have made you miserable at home for free. Last summer, I went alone with my daughter to my parents' house in the southwest (a five-hour plane trip from our home), because my wife had to stay home and help her mother deal with a family situation. It was the most peaceful two weeks I've had in seven years, despite being on the phone almost every night for three to six hours, being chewed out for things I had nothing to do with. For the other 18 to 21 hours a day, I didn't have to be constantly on guard and on edge, the way I am at home.

I wish I could go on a vacation with the girl I thought I was marrying when we were dating, and things seemed so great. But that girl turned out to be just a role my now-wife was playing then (as much for her own benefit as for mine, I admit); an insecure, angry, unpredictable woman who usually acts like she hates me, but says she can't live without me, has taken her place.

[empathic]

A lot of vacations down the drain here. We used to do some travelling with my parents and my sisters family, which is something I really liked to do. They are nice people, we got to spend a lot of "alone" time family-wise, but it triggered my uBPDw nevertheless. One low point was when my brother-in-law wanted to treat us all to a nice restaurant one evening but my wife turned it down in a rather rude way because she "wanted to eat at the hotel".

Nowadays if I let her chose the location and hotel and we go just our family it can be ok. We've tried going with a family we know last year and it went ok but I noticed she got triggered a few times by this too. She has a major problem adjusting to the needs of others.

[waverider]

I hate to say it but vacations will always be a gamble. Change from routine always creates  triggers, they are inherently high risk.

But you cant live your life in fear of what might happen. We changed our habits to lots of weekends away rather than a big vacation. To me it was a case of not having all my eggs in one basket. Win some, lose some if you like.

Each vacation will always involve me establishing a certain amount of me time, so at least I always get something out of it.

[Foreverhopefull]

I'm more on edge during outings with my dBPDh, he doesn't really like to travel, so it's sort of a blessing (I still would love to have him around though)

[Cloudy Days]

My husband is already wanting to start planning the next trip, he's always wanted to travel. I think cutting it to a few days rather than almost two weeks would be a better plan. We didn't plan this trip and as soon as I seen how long his mom booked the trip for I got uneasy. It was certainly a learning experience, I know what not to do on many things. Crowds really set my husband off and his PTSD and once he is triggered you can't untrigger him. His brother who also has BPD told him from the get go that if he needs a break then he needs to take it right then. Interestingly enough it was his brother that caused the last and final blow up that made us leave early. You can imagine two BPD brothers it would only be time before they butted heads with each other.

I am hoping we can try again with 3-4 days instead of 11

[Hope26]

This topic is very interesting.  For most people, vacations are the time of year we most look forward to.  So it is devastating to have it ruined, which is much more likely with our pwBPD.  Like ColdEthyl, I have experienced both good and bad.  I have, however, found a pattern that seems to make the difference.  MyuBPDh, like so many others I suppose, cannot tolerate any stress at all without dysregulating.   So if we take the type of vacation where all you have to do is get to your destination and relax, he handles it well and we both have a good time.  On the other hand, if it is more the 'adventurous' type, where you are touring, on the go, and subject to other people's direction, he gets stressed.  Then out comes the "Jekyll and Hyde" behavior, complete with all the raging.  We went on an RV caravan tour this past spring, and he was just awful; there were 3 full-blown raging episodes with lots of foul temper in between.  However, I think when we return to some of those destinations on our own, when we can 'kick back' for awhile where we stop, it will be different.  So I'm trying to plan accordingly.

[Cloudy Days]

Hope26, I think you hit the nail on the head. My husband got so frustraited when we would have to try and figure out how to do something and follow his mother's direction which was getting on my nerves too. But when we were just relaxing by the pool he was awesome and seemed to really enjoy himself, he even told me he wanted to relax more and his mom wanted to give us a vacation experience. Next Vacation we take it will be all relaxation and no adventures!

[Hope26]

Cloudy Days, I'm glad if I was able to suggest something helpful.  I am still trying to figure this all out as we go along.  I do think that the less stress they have on them, the better the chances of normal behavior.  I also think that the idea of shorter vacations that both you and Waverider suggested might be a good idea, at least until you figure out which kinds of travel work for him and which do not. I love what Waverider said about 'not putting all your eggs in one basket'; if they're going to ruin a vacation, let it be a short one.  And have other ones to look forward to!  My H also loves to travel, as do I, and with the retirement years approaching, this will be a huge issue for us.

[empathic]

Yes, in my experience it is the stress that does it. My wife has said herself that she gets stressed if she does not know where we're going to eat beforehand when on holiday. She had a meltdown once when we and my parents were looking for a place to eat lunch. If you ask her then "what would you like to eat" she'd just shrug and say "I don't care". So I know that she works this way, but is it reasonable? It certainly is very limiting. Travelling with others = added stress for her.

She also got very moody when we got to a new town and didn't find the right directions to the town center immediately. My mother tried to help by asking my wife if she could ask someone for directions (as my wife knew the language best) but that only made things worse and the day was ruined.

[Kabooma]

Yes, in my experience it is the stress that does it. My wife has said herself that she gets stressed if she does not know where we're going to eat beforehand when on holiday.

This part of your statement applies to everything that makes any trip impossible for me and my uBPD wife.  She can't stand not knowing exactly the 5 W's, yet it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy of doom when she does have that information, simply because she will then create a false reality in her head of exactly how each and every detail "should" be... and it's a perfection that is impossible for any trip to live up to, so the first moment something doesn't live up to that expectation, she will melt down and the rest of the trip will be a miserable existence for her and everyone who is around her.  Sadly, this chain of letdowns for her will start before we ever even leave for the trip... she would start packing and can't find something (because she's a slob), meltdown, then ruined trip.

I don't even bother anymore.

[hergestridge]

Oh yes, the packing. A couple of days before leaving I will have to care of everything else so she can concentrate on packing. And she's not grateful that I do this. She's frustrated with me not "taking part" in her packing and planning rituals.

We'll fight before even leaving because she hates it when I don't worry.