Confused and lost~

[Chamomile]

Hello,

I am middle aged, married almost three decades and I am also chronically sick. My husband says the problem is me. I am too demanding, too sensitive. He said the other day that I am constantly in a rage but that yes, he knows I don't rage or act out but he can feel it always lurking inside me that he knows me too well so I can't deny it.

He says this inner rage is what leads him to rage at me periodically. I provoke his rage with my silent, unspoken rage.

I do get irritated, frustrated, hurt, bitter, hopeless. I know this. I have engaged in defense mechanisms. I have used humor, both teasing and then at times snide and bitter, to try and get through to him. I know that when I have done these things, I have acted dysfunctional and contributed to poor communication and hurt feelings between us.

My illness gives me limited physical and mental energy. I have learned coping mechanisms to protect my energy, not sure these are all functional. I admit this.

The following paragraph about him pre-dates the onset of my illness. But he now claims it is partially a result of my illness and I get so confused about the whole matter:

He is always sad, always feeling disappointed and oppressed by the world. He's always expressing anger at something. My work is mental and requires a lot of concentration and I cannot work in the same room with him because of his frequent and random outbursts. And he will engage with me about his depression, his anger. He wants to relate his work days in great detail and to talk about how he felt (using all the emotional energy of his feelings in his tone, his hand gestures, etc. It feels like someone is yelling at me, because well I am the only person there.) If I am working and I need to concentrate, he will get offended with me.

But the truth is, his anger frightens me (I was abused emotionally and physically by my mother and emotionally abused by older brother.) It triggers me. He says this is my fault, the anger is not directed at me and I should not take it so personally. But the problem is that the anger outbursts and bitter rants are so prevalent. I find them draining and hard to cope with. So several years ago, he demanded that I see a therapist who would teach me to cope with his anger and not take it all so personally.

So, I had a therapist for years but we've moved and that's no more. My therapist helped me to see my illness in a less self blaming light and to see certain disabilities that I have as real and he supported my search to find workaround etc. Helped me to become able to find a way even as a home bound person to make an income.

Do I have disappointments in life? Yes, like everyone. My illness alone can provoke deep despair and hopelessness and guilt, etc. But I try to create places of solace for myself. I try to play and to work and just find ways of moving on. I HAVE to because feeling upset will actually make me sick and drain my energy.

His anger often engulfs me. We can't be happy. We can't play. He can't listen to me or give me too much attention because he says he needs to just be left in peace to surf the web and veg out. He says my needs are too overwhelming and demanding for him and make him feel invaded. Mostly these are my needs for talk and also my desire for sex.

I would like to have sex once or twice a month. We don't. I need the play, the physical contact of it. I feel so hurt, crushed, frustrated. Sometimes he will give in but it has to be planned. By appointment. There's a lot of tension as we prepare and lay down. He says it is hard to have sex because of several different reasons. 1) he's been disappointed w life 2) He's unhappy with his job 3) it's hard to have sex with someone who is frequently not feeling well (however he was like this years before I got sick.)

He spends lots of time on an online porn life which seems to be focused on one particular act.

He will no longer cuddle with me causally and only seems to want physical affection, a kiss and hug, before he leaves for work and it seems like this is because he is feeling badly because he dislikes work. Once on one of his days off, I tried to initiate a hug with him before he left to do some shopping and he became snide with me and said we really didn't need to have that sort of a thing when he would be back soon. Next time he wanted the prework hug, I reminded him that he'd only be gone a short while and we didn't need this kind of thing. He laughed it off and said, this is his catch phrase for me, ":)on't bring up the bad."

I feel so ashamed of having sexual drive. I try so hard to sublimate it into my work. To not think of sex, to expect it. It is actually sort of a relief when I go through bad, sick, low energy periods because then I don't want.

So many times, I've been so confused. About a month before I first became sick years ago, the day my Dad had a brain biopsy and he came out of surgery with his hands in restraints. Wow, it cut me to the bone. I tried to hold it together but I ended up crying in the car leaving. And what happened was that my husband raged at me in the parking lot of a department store. I told him that I just had to get through the tears thing and then I would be okay. But gestured at the sky and told me it was a beautiful day and then yelled at me "Here's another happy day RUINED by you!"

I admit I had been really emo as we left the hospital. I was probably not that easy to deal with. If he had comforted me, I would have stopped crying probably. But instead I went to this really awful, hopeless place inside, I felt like a cornered animal, someone who had no place to go lick wounds, I can't even express it well. And I cried harder and harder and he said I was insane. That I was trying to bring him down. He said that he was fed up with my unpredictable emotionalism, my mental immaturity (I am 12 years younger than he is) and that if I didn't change and soon he would divorce me. He said the last very angrily. I tried to explain that it was just seeing my Dad in the restraints had affected me and I would be over it soon. He shouted at me to shut my F mouth and repeated the frustration with my emotionalism and how miserable that I make him and how much wasted time has been consumed with my emotionalism and that he would divorce me because he wants peace.

Later he said that he had no other way to deal with my emotionalism. I had provoked his feelings and he couldn't help it and said ":)on't bring up the bad"... .

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[Chamomile]

I guess the fact that I ran out of space sort of proves his point that I am too intense, too emotional.

We recently had this episode. I had not been feeling well and I texted him that I was doing better and would be able to fix his afterwork meal but that I wanted to sleep for the next two hours.

He texted back within 30, after I had fallen asleep. I couldn't wake up enough to answer. He texted back 30 min later. I managed to pick up the phone and look at the message. He was asking if he should just go out to eat and did I want anything, since I apparently wasn't feeling up to cooking.

I texted him back and asked if he'd received my last message. He didn't answer and I thought he must have missed the previous message and was now clear on how I was doing, etc. It was a lot earlier than I wanted to get up, I'd wanted to sleep because I had a lot of work to do after our meal and I wanted to feel clear headed.


But I couldn't get back to sleep so I got up and tried to begin my day and after a while I began the meal. Then I waited over an hour past the time he'd normally be home.

I texted him and asked where he was and then said that he had woken me up and that I'd been making the meal.

Was I mad and irritated? Yes. Was I worried that something might have happened to him? Yes, that too.

He didn't answer.

He arrived home and threw away his fast food bag.

I asked why didn't he text me back and let me know that he was going out anyway. Was I feeling  hurt, disrespected, frustrated and perplexed? Yes. I admit that. But I kept what I said calm and matter of fact. Or I tried to. I remember it that way. Maybe I remember wrong. Maybe I snapped. But I honestly remember trying and succeeding to be calm. He'd been so touchy ever since we moved into the new house.

He said "We're not having this discussion"
Coldly, he looked angry. His tone was rigid, final.

I asked why didn't he simply text me? That I had been up to make the meal and if I had known he was going out anyway... .

He then became very angry and snarled at me to ":)rop it!"
This put me into a bad place in my head, my emotions. I felt like that cornered animal again. I asked why was it so wrong for me to simply ask why he didn't text me.

He charged at me and got in my face and told me to shut my F-ing mouth.
When I cringed, he almost smiled and he said "Yeah! That's what you get for pushing things! You never know when to shut your F mouth!"

He shouted at me that I was insane, that will divorce me if I don't stop "mentally torturing" him.
I shouted back that I am not insane.

He then began shouting it louder and threatening divorce, alternating with telling me that I don't know when to shut my mouth.

I admit, I was crying, I was hurt, angry, probably not thinking clearly. I did tell him that these episodes were eroding my feelings for him (not that calmly of course) and that if he wouldn't relent and just answer why it was so wrong of me to expect a reply text that he was going out to eat, then I would begin treating him like a person who hates me and that I have to cope with.

He yelled at me that I would not get away with that sort of emotional torment and making his life hell.

I have moved out of our bedroom, currently living in my office room. I told him that the rages have to stop and that I want more of a sexual life, once or twice a month, or I am staying here in my room.

Now, he says that episode was my fault, that I was in a rage" over his having gone to fast food. He said he had simply tried to do something nice for me and that I didn't appreciate his effort. He said that he tries to be understanding of me and my anger towards him but he reaches his limit and that we must divorce.

I am so utterly confused and he is livid with me over it still.

[Chamomile]

I feel like yes, I do get angry with him. I do get hurt. Sometimes I do reply with anger or hurt and act dysfunctional, etc.

I am hurt and bitter as hell over him turning away from me to porn.

But I don't know if I see my own actions clearly enough. I was reading in the book "Stop Caretaking" and I honestly can't see if he is simply tired of dealing me and my needs and the limits of my illness. The author says that a caretaker will get frustrated and explode with anger at times. Is he simply getting worn out from me and venting?

He says that I tried to force a conversation with him and that no one has the right to do that sort of a thing and that it is emotionally abusive of me.

Or is he overreacting?

I've spent a month trying to sort it out and I can't. We've tried to discuss the matter three times and each time ended up with him so angry he began coughing and then he tells me I don't know when to stop pushing at him. It's all my fault.

We would calmly agree to discuss what happened. Then he wouldn't seem to have the time to talk. Then when we would talk, he ends up raging at me all over again saying that I push him too much and don't know when to shut my F mouth.

I admitted that I do at times react with hurt or anger or frustration. He snapped back that I was unbalanced and that living with me and my illness is like living in a science fiction story. That I am freakish, abnormal.

I asked if he would go to a counselor with me this time. That yes, I'd been to counseling on my own. And then he snapped that hadn't done any good, I was still being disrespectful, too sensitive. He says that I am always condescending to him, treating him like I know better and that he's 12 years older than me.

I said, well, my counselor was my advocate, that if we went together then it would be more about us as a couple and his side would be equal with mine. He just stared at me with this cold look like how dare I even suggest it.

I told him that I understand that men look at porn but when he used porn to completely replace me, he had betrayed our marriage. He became angry and then told me that marriage to me had destroyed his life. My illness forced him to make decisions that he never wanted to make. That I have "killed" him and turned him into a zombie.

But we had these problems all along. All along I've worked so hard to try and be less sexual, less demanding. Sometimes I can't help it. I just want the connection and the fun and all of it so badly that I do press him for a change.

I just get so confused.

[livednlearned]

Hi Chamomile,

Welcome and hello  

It's hard to see our own actions. Most of us aren't privy to what it's like in intimate relationships, and it can be hard to figure out what's going on if our own family of origins were confusing (and abusive). What does it mean to be healthy? That's what we're all learning here.

I'm sorry for the chronic illness you have to suffer through. That makes a challenging relationship even harder

It's not uncommon to feel "crazy" in a relationship with someone who suffers from BPD. Much gets projected and if we are prone to taking on responsibility for other people's emotions, we end up buying into those projections, losing sight of what is ours and what is theirs.

It's also hard to get out of the right/wrong and black/white thinking of dead-end arguments where no one wins. There is a middle way and it takes some study and practice to understand what is happening. Communication skills can really help, though it has to be said that all relationship building is built on the back of taking care of ourselves (and not feeling guilty about it).

A book that you may find helpful is High-Conflict Couple by Alan Fruzetti. I believe it was written for couples where both have PDs, although many here have found that it helps even if only one partner is BPD, simply because after long relationships we tend to fall into the same communication dynamics and this book offers skills to work our way out of those ruts.

In the meantime, there is a link in the sidebar to the right (Lesson 3) that offers some guidance with communication skills like validation that may be helpful.

I'm glad you found the site, and sorry for what brings you here. These are not easy relationships and we are here to walk next to you