Used to be a success story

[Depression = 72% of members]

I'm one of those people you hardly hear from because my marriage to my uBPDh had stabilized and there was no trouble for over a year. Many of the techniques I learned here and in my personal therapy worked, and he had gotten over the immediate trauma of losing a brother to suicide in 2012.

Now with the holidays has come a relapse. I knew he was in a low mood. I was tolerating his non-helpfulness and gloom as I did everything myself for Christmas. He walked out on the kids and me on Christmas Eve because my D11 told him to "Shut the F up." He was looking for a trigger and that was it. I located him and asked him to get in the car, but he walked the other way. The next day, on Christmas, he walked through a cinema door with me holding it for him. He did not say thanks or even put out a hand to take the door from me (his hands were in his pockets). I brought the un-gentlmanliness of his behavior to his attention. One more trigger. He asserted that I was drinking too much and when we got home he poured all the alcohol in the house (bottles of ale and stout) down the kitchen sink. I had consumed some alcohol but wasn't drunk. Most of what he poured was red ale I had purchased for him (I don't like it), but he was making a point of not drinking at all, even though if I have no alcohol in the house he complains about not having any. When I protested about the wasted bottles of ale and tried to block him from the sink, he said he would call 911 because I had assaulted him.

Since then, he has been sitting on the sofa all day, napping, watching TV, looking at his iPhone, and making meals for himself. He totally ignores me and refuses my invitations to go places and do things. At night he sleeps with his clothes on, between the sheets and the quilt.

Just waiting it out. Making conversation but it goes nowhere. Really frustrated that this has happened again when I had just told my friends, "Wow, things have been so great in my marriage I can hardly believe it." What a great Christmas surprise.

[SweetCharlotte]

I'm one of those people you hardly hear from because my marriage to my uBPDh had stabilized and there was no trouble for over a year. Many of the techniques I learned here and in my personal therapy worked, and he had gotten over the immediate trauma of losing a brother to suicide in 2012.

Now with the holidays has come a relapse. I knew he was in a low mood. I was tolerating his non-helpfulness and gloom as I did everything myself for Christmas. He walked out on the kids and me on Christmas Eve because my D11 told him to "Shut the F up." He was looking for a trigger and that was it. I located him and asked him to get in the car, but he walked the other way. The next day, on Christmas, he walked through a cinema door with me holding it for him. He did not say thanks or even put out a hand to take the door from me (his hands were in his pockets). I brought the un-gentlmanliness of his behavior to his attention. One more trigger. He asserted that I was drinking too much and when we got home he poured all the alcohol in the house (bottles of ale and stout) down the kitchen sink. I had consumed some alcohol but wasn't drunk. Most of what he poured was red ale I had purchased for him (I don't like it), but he was making a point of not drinking at all, even though if I have no alcohol in the house he complains about not having any. When I protested about the wasted bottles of ale and tried to block him from the sink, he said he would call 911 because I had assaulted him.

Since then, he has been sitting on the sofa all day, napping, watching TV, looking at his iPhone, and making meals for himself. He totally ignores me and refuses my invitations to go places and do things. At night he sleeps with his clothes on, between the sheets and the quilt.

Just waiting it out. Making conversation but it goes nowhere. Really frustrated that this has happened again when I had just told my friends, "Wow, things have been so great in my marriage I can hardly believe it." What a great Christmas surprise.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

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[maxsterling]

I'm so sorry   I know how it goes - things going well for awhile, your guard goes down, and then a trigger out of nowhere.  About all you can do is wait it out and hope he can regain himself at some point soon.  Perhaps you can try a few "nice gestures" to test his response.  Offer to get him something while you are up, smile at him, etc.  Just be careful of putting yourself out there too much, because if he rejects you it will make you feel much worse.

So sorry to hear this happened.

[Haye]

I'm sorry to hear this, SweetCharlotte. It sounds to my ears that you are both trying to wait it out - he can't probably do much else to protect you from additional harm/rage than be somehow absent. I also believe these holidays are making people snap... .And remember healing from anything takes sometimes a step or two back. It feels horrible, two steps progress and one back, but it's still progress. I wish this works out for you. I'm struggling with a bit similar situation myself and try reason all this christmas dysfunction to myself as well.

[sweetheart]

Hello SweetCharlotte,

Sorry to hear that this is happening after such a prolonged period of time. I often think that when there is a sustained period of stability/normality we can be lulled into a false sense of security as though the illness has gone away. It hasn't and I believe it never will, it's just that we all learn to manage it's symptoms and behaviours more effectively and the pwBPD is able to stop reacting to our triggers.

For me I feel it's worth saying that if my son when he is 11 or pretty much any age told me or my h "To shut the ___-up!" I would be properly upset by this because it is a really upsetting thing to hear. You didn't outline any context to it so I can only comment on what you have written. Add that to THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES and we have what would seem for many the mother of all triggers. It's a trigger for me too, I struggle this time of year for many and varied reasons and I don't have BPD. This episode will pass, just be careful not to invest too much of your self in trying to make it better.

I now think of trigger events in advance, I have to we have a young child, I spent a good few years being caught out by holidays, birthdays, Christmas, contact from family, appointments with doctors, dentists, psychiatrists and so on. My h distorted, disordered view of the world is hard wired into his psyche and isn't changing for anyone. I have learnt to plan ahead and try v hard not to make it worse.

I suppose I figure for us nons that stay for the long haul what we eventually learn to offer is a good enough validating environment for our pwBPD to live within.

[SweetCharlotte]

Yes; thanks all 3 of you. I took it easy with him and stayed positive and he started to come around finally today. He is still moodier than usual so I am trying to keep things light. He began speaking to me again yesterday after about 3 days of withdrawal, and we made love in the evening. Today things were OK, except in the evening when we were all hungry because it was past dinner time, he got angry with me for rushing him out of a bakery after we had bought what we went in for. He wanted to load up on their left-over items that were on sale. Binge-eating is one of his habits, so I whisked him out of there and he didn't like it. He brightened up considerably after I made an excellent dinner. Tomorrow we will go on our first all-day outing in a while.

You are right, sweetheart, STFU is something my daughter should never say. She likes to shock us more as she gets further into adolescence. I have to remember to take away her iPod every time she says this. Only consequences work. Then she protests at his over-reaction. No matter what she said, he should not walk out on her and me without a word, and then walk away from our car when we go out in search of him. Yesterday she said that she never wants to get married because she is afraid that all men will be mean like my H. I hope she doesn't really think this. He thinks she is saying that to be manipulative; I say yes and no.

[vortex of confusion]

You are right, sweetheart, STFU is something my daughter should never say. She likes to shock us more as she gets further into adolescence. I have to remember to take away her iPod every time she says this. Only consequences work. Then she protests at his over-reaction. No matter what she said, he should not walk out on her and me without a word, and then walk away from our car when we go out in search of him. Yesterday she said that she never wants to get married because she is afraid that all men will be mean like my H. I hope she doesn't really think this. He thinks she is saying that to be manipulative; I say yes and no.

My kids have said things like that to their dad. It is a tricky situation to navigate because both of them are wrong. A child should never talk to a parent like that. On the flip side, the parent should say something rather than walk out unless he was feeling really angry or ragey. I would rather him walk out than rage and yell and scream. When my kids have complained about some of dad's reactions, I have asked them point blank, "How did you want him to react?" You can't sit there and treat somebody like crap and expect them to just sit there and take it. No, he may not have reacted the greatest way possible but at least he didn't yell or scream or do anything worse.

My husband has done the whole go to his room and pout thing. He has tried to leave in the car a time or two but I stopped him. When I have tried to navigate these situations, I try to make sure that my child is reprimanded for talking to her dad that way. On the flip side, I validate the heck out of my husband. I don't validate the leaving or pouting but I do validate that he has every right to be upset and angry that somebody spoke to him that way. Nobody should be spoken to like that.

And, I try to validate my child as well but I try to focus on the fact that she should NOT have said what she did. Even if dad was saying something ugly when she told him to STFU, there are better ways of dealing with things. She could have gotten up and walked away. She could have come and gotten me. There are a lot of options besides being rude and disrespectful. I feel like I have been really pressing the notion that two wrongs don't make a right.