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Author Topic: Intro: Need Help. Overwhelmed.  (Read 473 times)
e-Craig

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Ex-romantic partner
Posts: 13


« on: March 15, 2016, 04:36:51 PM »

Hello,

My first post on this board was in another subform. My wife had agreed to leave the house after a few weeks of extreme behavior.

It won't surprise you to learn that she's changed her mind and has been acting fairly normal for the last few days. She recognizes her mental illness and says she wants to work on it. I don't want to break up my family so I'm posting here.

We live in a small town and I work from home. We have two children (9yo and 6yo). Because of her mental illness the children are more attached to me than her--particularly the older one.

I am committed to improving the relationship with my wife as long as we're living together, but I also need to be realistic and begin to save so that if I need to can move my business and also find a place that the children and I can live if needed. I don't know how many more cycles of this I can take.

I realize that being in a relationship with someone with BPD has changed me in unhealthy ways and I need to do some therapy/work.

I'm completely overwhelmed. My wife is very sporadic in her attention to the children and house. When I'm working (there's an upstairs apartment where I have my business) I'm never confident the children are being attended to. I'm taking an intensive computer programming course to increase my earning potential--the course is self paced, but I need to spend ~20hrs a week on it to finish in a timely manner. My sister in-law is a retired schoolteacher and she schools my children here. When she's here I feel like my children are cared for, and she understands her sister is mentally ill--she's the only person from either side of our family who lives in the area, and she's an enormous help. I feel like I'm not doing well in any of my roles as a father, business owner, student, etc.

____________________

My first concern is that I needs skills to keep my cool when my wife is flaring up. I'd classify her as high-functioning, but she regularly does things that normal people would understand to be insulting to enraging, occasionally say things that normal people would understand to be relationship ending, and her negligence around the house and children adds up--the small things I do to pick up the slack add up, and as you can tell I'm pretty busy as it is. I don't have a problem putting my hands on the children, but I really scare them when I raise my voice, and I've noticed this almost always happens when I'm having problems with my wife.

I called to make an appointment today with a primary care physician who can hopefully refer me to an appropriate therapist or group. Looking for a group on the NAMI website and contacted the person on the page but the group info looked out of date and I'm not optimistic that the group is still active. Ordered one of the books recommended on this site (Loving Someone with BPD).

Synopsis: Wife has BPD. I understand that either she and I will have to do some significant work or our family will split up. I don't feel like I'm taking care of everything currently on my plate, and I don't even know how to ask her for more help with the house and children without her becoming angry.


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waverider
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Gender: Male
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Relationship status: married 8 yrs, together 16yrs
Posts: 7407


If YOU don't change, things will stay the same


« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2016, 05:28:06 PM »

 

Welcome e-Craig,

You seem to have a fair grasp of the challenge in front of you. High functioning pwBPD bring with them a difficult situation, thi sis mainly because of their ability to display functionality it is tempting to believe they should be able to maintain this, if only they could eliminate outburst.

The reality is living with a pwBPD will compromise your own functionality as much as, if not more than, having kids. Kids adapt easily so you can reorganize your life to get things done. pwBPD will not, even to the point it feels like deliberate relationship sabotage.

At times they are capable of getting by without your help, this means you often fill your own life with responsibilities, eg extra workload etc.  Then it feels like they have suddly dumped a big rock in your path and brought you to a grinding halt. This completely throws us as we have not really adapted to work around BPD, we have actually ignored it while it is not actively compromising our life.

Low functioning pwBPD in comparison means it is in your face at all times and so a constant shift in coping and dealing with it is required. Acceptance, and adaptation, of how it impinges on our life takes place.

What all this means is that you will most likely have to use the resources to understand how you need to adapt your way of living to take account of BPD all  the time, not just when the conflictual or difficult aspects arise. If that means the increased pressure of extra study is not possible so be it. Someone who deals with low functioning BPD is more likely to have been aware of that from the start. I'm not saying this is the case for you, it is just an example of how we can often bite off more than we can chew.

High functioning can be seen as camouflage that often leads us unwarily into ambushes.

A deeper understanding of how it is always there, even if not always visible, may help you find a better balance by being more proactive rather than reactive
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