Infidelity

[BPDLover44]

This is my first post.  My wife clearly has undiagnosed BPD. She is also an alcoholic.  I love her deeply and she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She has a really kind heart, but she does things that just tear me to the core.  For much of our marriage, she would be drink at a bars and stay out all night and find her way into some man’s home or apartment.  She always insisted that nothing happened that she just wanted to sleep it off and she was too ashamed to come home.  I put up with this behavior for years, but in November I finally put my foot down and said that it’s unacceptable for her to do that she had been sober for 11 months and then relapsed.  She spent two weeks in a row, spending nights out and never coming home.  She claims she was out with her sponsor, but then I was able to find out from her GPS that she was in a bar.  She claimed that her sponsor said it was fine to be in a bar and I thought that was completely against the whole idea of alcoholics anonymous.  I asked her to share her phone GPS with me so I could know where she was and she refused in an extreme emotional reaction.  That behavior made me feel that she had something to hide fast-forward to a few weeks back, and we decided to sell her house because I got her a brand new BMW IX on lease.  I cleared out her car which was a mess as a favor to her when I was shocked to find a opened condom that had been discarded and was just left in the back of her car. Needless to say I was not happy.  She denies that she used it and at first blamed it on her daughter, then on two anonymous strangers who wanted to use drugs in the back of her car to not be caught.  I found her explanation is not credible. I then snooped on her and found out that she was having what at least amounts to an emotional affair with another man, complaining about our marriage and planning, but never actually executing on the plan to spend a day in San Francisco with him, and we live in San Diego.  She did break off the relationship, but it appeared from her text messages that it was because she wanted a serious relationship and he just wanted a fling. He was clearly not wanting to leave his wife, but of course he was very attracted to my wife because she is incredibly beautiful. Needless to say I was completely heartbroken and felt betrayed.  She insisted that it was nothing romantic and that she just needed somebody to talk to about her feelings and have a confidence like I did in a woman friend that I’ve known for 35 years where the lack of romantic interest has clearly been expressed throughout that friendship.  She makes a false equivalency of the two, but I am open about my friendship with the woman I’ve known for so many years and I’ve even had her meet my wife, so that my wife would know everything was on the up and up.  She on the other hand, was sneaking around with this man, and then trying to claim that it was because she thought I might get violent if I found out.   I have never been violent towards anyone in my 61 years.  She knows this, but she claims her history of violent experiences with other men makes her not trust men.  I hate the idea that my genitals justify her treating me as if I’m an abuser.  She often says that I’m emotionally abusive, but I feel like the truth is exactly the opposite.  She’s the abuser.  I want to believe all her explanations in my heart and pretend that everything is fine and that nothing ever ever happened and that it was all innocent. My heart is more than willing, but my brain just can’t go along with it. I just can’t reconcile all her statements and believe that they’re all true.  Our marital therapist says I just need them except and move on, but I just can’t do it.  I feel that she needs to make serious amends to me. It is not enough that she promises. This behavior will never happen again because I’ve heard those promises before.  I need help from those of you that I’ve had the same experience to understand how to handle this.  Is there any way to save this relationship? Is there any way to get through to her on how much it hurts me and how much I need her to be more transparent and more honest.  Or am I in a losing battle where she’s gonna repeat the same behavior over and over again and never stop no matter what.  I’m not sure how much more I can take to be honest, and I was crying for an hour this morning because of this.  On the other hand, the tails I hear about those of you that are going through the divorce process, give me great pause.  I’ve already been through one messy divorce, and it was very difficult and financially problematic for me.  I’m not sure I can bear going through that again, but I’m also not sure I can bear continuing if this behavior keeps repeating itself.  I feel like staying is basically saying that I have no self-respect, but I also feel like this person genuinely loves me in their heart, but just has a mental problem.  I used to think that once she stopped drinking, everything would be perfect, but it didn’t turn out that way, and besides which she always goes back to the bottle.  What can I do to try to salvage this mess?

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[kells76]

Hi BPDLover44, welcome to the boards -- glad you found us 

Long term alcoholism/substance abuse, plus personality disordered traits, plus infidelity, is so much to deal with. That would be a huge strain on any relationship; it's no wonder you've felt devastated, betrayed, and questioning. Really sorry this has been going on in your family -- I know it's not what you wanted.

I think I read that this is your second marriage -- is that true? How long have you and your current W been together? How old are all the kids involved, and are they hers, yours, shared?

It's good you've tried some marital counseling. Do both of you go? How does your W seem to do with MC?

And have you ever tried any alanon type groups? If so, what was that like for you?

...

You're not alone here:

I used to think that once she stopped drinking, everything would be perfect, but it didn’t turn out that way, and besides which she always goes back to the bottle.

There have been other members here with PD spouses who also had substance abuse issues. Really, really difficult combination to deal with. Some spouses did seem to improve when sober, others didn't -- so there are no hard and fast answers there. It sounds like you've observed that there were still significant challenges even when your W didn't drink.

...

My overarching thought is that you didn't get here overnight. It sounds like there are some long term patterns going on, probably starting before your marriage for both of you. Understanding your own contribution to the pattern, and learning more about real boundaries based on your personal values, could be a good starting point as you figure out a path forward.

While it will be difficult, it is possible for you to make changes in your own life, that could make your situation more livable for you. It's hard to predict if your W will follow your lead -- some partners don't, some do -- but no matter what your W chooses, you get to decide to live a life in line with your own values, and that can really bring clarity to how to move forward.

I'd encourage you to keep seeing the MC (or maybe get a referral for an individual counselor) to continue getting support in this difficult space. I see an individual therapist, and it's really helpful for keeping me on track with working on myself, and having somewhere safe to go to talk about wild stuff going on.

There are also live, real person support groups (different from the anonymous setup here) like NEABPD Family Connections and NAMI support groups that are typically free. I did Family Connections and it was really helpful and meaningful to connect with real faces.

...

Keep us posted on your situation, we'll be here for you;

kells76

[campbembpd]

Let me say I'm so sorry you're going through this, this must be terrible for you.

I'm trying to figure out things myself and how to start setting boundaries with my uBPDw. I'm definitely not an expert and just learning as well. She's never been unfaithful (as much as I can be sure) but has threatened during rages or makes comments about how many men want her. (my wife is also extremely beautiful on the outside). My wife also abuses alcohol and I'm actually blown away that she's been able to stay off alcohol for almost 2 weeks now for dry January. When my wife drinks it's like gasoline on the BPD fire. She gets out of her mind very quickly, quick to temper and operates much more frequently on raw emotion. She's gone to bars when we're in a fight or demanded I take her. She's told me during a fight that she started talking to other men or when she's out at the bar and raging over text will say she's met so many nice people and the men are saying she's too beautiful to be treated so poorly (by me). It all ends up being a lie in my case. When she gets regulated she'll admit she told me those things to make me jealous. But there is a piece of me that thinks she could get enraged / dysregulated enough (especially once I start setting and being firm on my boundaries) that she could take things to another level. My wife has no intention on staying sober so I know things will get bad again. Having a lot of anxiety about that.

Are you in therapy? That's one of my next steps is to find a therapist. As well I'm looking at joining an Al Anon group. I need some help and support through this. If you're not I would recommend definitely finding a therapist, one that is familiar with BPD. A lot of people here have encouraged joining Al Anon. At this point I'm willing to try anything.

I know that there's nothing I can do to change my wife. Just like there's nothing you can do to change yours. I keep hoping that she'll go to therapy and realize what she's doing to herself, especially with the alcohol. But at the end I need to determine what my boundaries are and what I'm willing to do if their crossed. I have to take care of myself.

I can say my friend that infidelity is a boundary that would be the end. There would be no coming back from that for me. I mean I say that but I've let so much slide and I put up with so much I never thought I would (verbal, emotional, financial abuse and verbally abusing the children). But you know, that's why I know I need therapy and al anon to help me sort this out.

Best of luck...

[BPDLover44]

Thank you for your response and the others. This is my second marriage and we’ve been married for four years and together for five years.  It’s a bit of an unusual situation because she worked in the sex industry at the time we met.  We are both seeing individual counselors and have tried some merge counseling.  We’re having some challenges getting the right counselor.  We tried her therapist, but she felt like I was intruding on her special relationship.  We tried a couple others before that, but it didn’t work very well.  The latest one we tried is very biased towards her and makes me feel like it’s too against one.  I’m still wanting to try more but she’s a little reticent.  With her therapist who I met with a few times jointly, and my therapist are very good.  I have asked her to get a recommendation from her therapist on her to see, but she has been reticent to do that for some strange reason.  She does want to get sober and she was sober for 11 months, which was a godsend.  They’re definitely is improvement when she doesn’t drink however, she still has the BPD, and still says some of the unkind things that she also says while drinking, and even less unkind ways.  Some of the comments I’m hearing echo my situation for example she’s constantly telling me that she many other choices in men, which I do not doubt for a minute.  On the other hand when she’s seeing me in a totally an overly positive way she tells me that I’m the only man she’s ever been able to trust. I understand that it is very common for people with BPD to say these things.  I have been attending remote Al-Anon meetings, but admit it’s been rather sparse attendance lately.  I know I need to dedicate more time for that, but I’ve got many many things competing, including challenges at work with my boss thinking I’m not meeting expectations. I’ve also got challenges with my own health since I am in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.  I am doing relatively well, but I need to dedicate time to personal training to gain back my full mobility.  I can do all the basic things and people who see me don’t always know that I have it.  I am lucky enough to have very mild symptoms but nonetheless, I know it’s a progressive disease.  I am working on setting boundaries. I even use ChatGPT as a electronic therapist to understand how to set boundaries.  On the other hand, I found my wife extremely unreceptive to the explanations that I have been giving her around why I need to set boundaries.   Which is to say that she doesn’t want to hear the emotional side.  On the other hand, she always agrees that she will change her behavior and obey the boundaries and that she was wrong to transgress, which is nice. Unfortunately it’s not the first time she’s made such promises and not kept them, and it makes me rather worried.  I did find that the one thing that helps her stop drinking for a while is a recognition of how much pain she was causing.  She herself is in a lot of pain though, and she has a hard time handling facing the fact that she’s hurting me so severely.  I believe when it sinks in it has more of an impact, but she resists letting that happen.  The latest marriage therapist was absolutely zero help on this matter.  She kept telling me that I needed to accept Stacy’s word that she wouldn’t do it anymore and move on, but I find I just cannot do that so easily.  I feel like amends are owed.  My proposal was to share GPS on our phones, and also open our phones to inspection periodically so that I can check to make sure that she is not up to any of her shenanigans.  She downright refused to do so, which makes me wonder what exactly she’s hiding.  She insists that her experience with her last boyfriend who stalked her and abused her is the reason for her, not wanting to give me that information.  I’m not sure what to believe. When she tells me the extreme stories of her past, I try to take it as truth, but I don’t think it’s fair that she lumps me in with him and her other abusive boyfriends.  He’s telling me and other people that I’m emotionally abusive, and I feel like she’s got it backwards.  I feel like I’m the one who’s the victim of emotional abuse from her when she is disregulated or splitting.  When she’s really mad at me, she says not only will she divorce me but she’s gonna drag me through the courts and make it miserable for me.  She knows my last divorce was very difficult and she seems to want to repeat that trauma for me to get back at me for God knows what.

Regarding children, I have one from my ex-wife who is 14 and living with my ex. She has a 25-year-old daughter who is living in our guest house and I have a very good relationship with honestly her daughter kind of sees my side more than her mom’s, but she doesn’t want to say that to her mom obviously.

We don’t have children of our own because I had a vasectomy after my last child and I’m 61 years old.  My wife is 46 years old, but both of us you look younger than our age. 

When she’s on the positive side of splitting, she tells me how she finds older men, attractive, and really appreciates by qualities of like financial stability. On the other hand when she’s on the negative side, she criticizes me for being old.  She would criticize me for my weight, although I’ve results my weight problem with the help of medication.

When things are good, they are really good and wonderful, and when things are bad, they feel really bad to me.  It’s the classic roller coaster phenomenon, and it’s a little bit crazy making.  I have to admit that at times I have acted crazy as well.  One time she wanted me to leave the house to give her space and I was willing to, but as I walked out the door, she yelled out that don’t come back.  I worked really hard to get this wonderful house that I haven’t San Diego, and it’s something I’ve been dreaming of moving back here for years.  I got really frightened by the idea that she was going to basically just take over the house and kick me out, and so I thought that if I refuse to leave that that would preserve my stake in the ownership.  It wasn’t very rational, but it’s how I felt.  After that, I went to a separate room, but she continued to invade my space and harass me, and say mean things about me and not leave me alone.  I got so upset that I called the crisis line to see if they could help her stop behaving so crazy and they said there’s nothing they could do unless she wanted them to come.  Finally I got so desperate that I called the police, which was not helpful.  I’ve learned that the police are only interested in arresting one of us and talk to us to try to find an excuse to arrest the other one.  Fortunately, neither of us would lie so badly as to suggest the other was physically violent, and they left and suggested that I need to move into a hotel for a couple days because otherwise from their experience, one of us was going to get arrested for sure. I reluctantly went to the hotel and things were resolved within a night or two.  After that, she pledges to stop drinking and did so for 11 months.  Then she got this brilliant idea to go back into the sex industry as a stripper and a topless bar as you can imagine my first thought was not about her being topless in public, which is not a big deal to me, but about her being in a bar.  My fear is turned out to be very well founded and she went through a couple of months of binge drinking.  She did have the good sense to quit her job, but it was hard for her because she was making $500 plus a night.  Even though we are pretty well off and her financial allowance for free spending is $5000 a month as is mine, she still complains that it’s not enough. Her life in the sex industry was very lucrative though she never saved a penny.  She has a hard time adjusting to civilian life.  Her life was always either feast or famine, and she’s coming to believe that money is best spent or otherwise it’ll just disappear.  For that reason she had a huge spending injection I was spending $12,000 a month an average for a while.  I had given her access to my credit cards.  Finally last summer I cut off access and change to giving her a debit card and joining account which I deposited $5000 in a month. I tried to explain to her that she’s better off than 99% of people in this country and 99.9% of people on the planet.  It never seeks in, in her mind she is poor.  She thinks that she should buy what she can because she knows that someday she’ll be completely cut off in her mind.  She’s accused me of financial abuse as well because I live in her spending.  She will overdraw the account and when I tell her the following month that she’s gonna get less because of that, she throws an absolute fit.  Honestly, I thought she was the only one in the world that was like this, but from everything I’m reading and hearing, this is not unusual behavior for BPD.  I have to admit that she is so attracted to me that and makes it very difficult to even consider leaving not only is she physically as beautiful as it gets, and exactly my type, but she is also so kind and sweet and insightful and has so many wonderful qualities when she’s feeling in a good mood

[once removed]

full stop: she has major life challenges that are going to put a serious strain on any relationship, or even make it essentially impossible, no matter what you, or anyone do or dont do. i think thats important to understand.

you are also, like all of us that found ourselves in relationships with someone with bpd, doing things that arent helping.

with her substance abuse issues alone, there is a ceiling on what your relationship, or any relationship shes in, can be. that can change; things can always change. it would be best though, not to assume she wont, but to operate - to imagine a relationship - where she wont.

it also sounds like sexual promiscuity has been a lifestyle for her for most of her life, or a substantial part of it. not a judgment of her, but its important to understand those fundamental differences between you. competing values can, and often do, breakup relationships. its also important to understand that trying to get her to see things your way, or treat you differently, may not be something shes capable of, or want to do.

I am working on setting boundaries. I even use ChatGPT as a electronic therapist to understand how to set boundaries.  On the other hand, I found my wife extremely unreceptive to the explanations that I have been giving her around why I need to set boundaries.   Which is to say that she doesn’t want to hear the emotional side.  On the other hand, she always agrees that she will change her behavior and obey the boundaries and that she was wrong to transgress, which is nice. Unfortunately it’s not the first time she’s made such promises and not kept them, and it makes me rather worried.
...
My proposal was to share GPS on our phones, and also open our phones to inspection periodically so that I can check to make sure that she is not up to any of her shenanigans.  She downright refused to do so, which makes me wonder what exactly she’s hiding.  She insists that her experience with her last boyfriend who stalked her and abused her is the reason for her, not wanting to give me that information.

a great deal of what you are doing looks, from here, like trying to manage her condition, and to get her to agree to the relationship on your terms.

it might help to think of these things as "rules"; not boundaries. you want her to take steps to be accountable to you; she doesnt seem like she is prepared to take those steps. i dont think you should "accept" that - especially if its not the kind of relationship you want to be in - but i do think you should take it at face value. we cant make a relationship or a person be what we want them to be.

furthermore, im not sure where it would help if she agreed to these things. changing behavior is something a person has to want to do, not something they can be dragged into - or if they are, its a recipe for resentment.

in essence, youre not just fighting for respect, but for control of something you cant control. i think that when you are, if reluctantly, able to let go of that idea, things will become easier for you to navigate.

and if you do, that can, over time, lead to real change. cleaning up our side of the street, and changing the overall environment of the relationship can go a very, very long way. but i want to stress, that even if you do those things, and you should (if you want to improve the relationship as opposed to ending it), your partner has major problems that arent a matter of will power, arent a matter of prioritizing you or your love, but major, years long (if not lifelong) issues that will require not only professional help, but first and foremost, a genuine desire on her end to want to change. you should face the relationship, not solely based on what you wish it would be (although goals are important!), but with realistic expectations of what she can or even wants to achieve, what relationship fulfillment looks like to you, and, while things can always change, what it would look like if they dont.

it may be that these things arent something she can overcome - or they may be deep differences between the two of you that she has no real desire to change - or both. ideally though, when we lead the relationship into healthier territory, our partners follow our lead. i think thats a very realistic goal here, its just important to have realistic expectations of what it can look like, and how soon. when youre deep in dysfunction the way she is, there simply is little or no capacity for the kind of emotional availability it takes to build a secure relationship. she cant simply pull it together because she loves you - it just doesnt work that way.

its good that youre both exploring therapy..to the extent shes able, these are the sorts of things (relationship rules, boundaries, and values) the two of you should try to work in conjunction on with a professional, and get feedback here. i should also mention, its not too surprising that you saw a therapist where it felt like she was taking your partners side - your partner, in her current state, is the emotionally weaker party (the one less capable of enacting change) - you have the greater capability, and its possible the therapist sensed that. its a common experience, but yes, it can be an uncomfortable one, and really easy to feel ganged up on or invalidated.