Just getting started "learning I'm in an abusive relationship"

BPDwife has no idea she's BPD and even if she did, she wouldn't want any help. I don't know if there are different levels and she has not been diag. however this looks spot on. I believe she is in better shape w/fewer issues than many if that matters, however some of the issues are quite serious and deteriorating. Out of concern, I reached out to J. F. for possible bipolar coaching (to save myself and educate me how to navigate and survive). With a decent amount of information on the relationship symptoms, J. quickly ruled out bipolar and then killed off all of the "wrong trails I've been looking down" and pointed me in the right direction. J. said "this is going to be like the smell of flowers on a crisp sunlit morning" when you start finally learning what's going on. She was so right and it is quite relieving. J. said "she's not an alcoholic; she's not BP; she's not any of these things. She is a person with BPD and she's using alcohol to mask the pain. From the untrained eye you would think she was an alcoholic. However, my wife has always maintained that she wasn't and she can certainly go days, weeks, even months w/o drinking.

My BPDwife and I have been together since 98 and married since 05. There have been a number of issues that are like "hot trails that lead to nowhere". Oh, it's prescription drug abuse; no it's alchoholism; maybe it's bipolar; maybe it's PMS; maybe it's "the change of life" and on an on adnausium. Wife's mother has run into a serious life health issue and everything is "unfolding" before my eyes. In layman's terms, Grandma is crazy; I think my MIL seems crazy; and I was pretty sure I was watching my wife "go crazy". I'm learning, NO, it's BPD handed down the line.

As I've watched my wife spiral through different phases of life only the last couple of years have I begun to notice more rapid deterioration and debilitation. We run a successful business together of which she was a pillar and co-founder. Recently, with my posturing and her poor choices, I have managed to pretty much get her on the sidelines and out of a participatory roll. Very sad. However, our business is a very social one and we deal with quite a bit of short and long term stays with clients and there is quite a bit of face time. She had developed a technique which I call "terrorist spouse" where she would seemingly be walking around with a suicide vest on and if I caused her any problems, she would push the button and detonate right in front of our client traffic. She leveraged me big time with that one and I'm learning that she has a "low functioning disorder". She can't stay off FB and I've slowly been distancing the biz from any social connection. One can only imagine the effort it takes me to overcome these issues in the biz and keep driving it in a positive and lower left to upper right position (but I have). It may become less exhausting now that she is further removed.

So there are a number of issues the most prevalent would be "alcohol abuse which it taking a toll"; past script/alcohol abuse; which are big problems for this "straight lace guy". Over the past two years she has developed a tendency once a month to manufacture an issue which triggers a big blow up with her leaving our home and staying a night in a motel. This has been going on like clock work. She starts a pattern of alcohol/insomnia/rage/leaving/self loathing/deval and discard attempts. She will work herself into such a frenzy and feed it with alcohol to the point of insomnia that will last typically 3 days but has gone as many as 5 or 6.

In October of last year, after abusing xanax/ambien/alcohol for about a year and a half which produced big time rage, insomnia, and dementia, she finally pushed into "suicide talk". I had been riding her doctors for about six months and warning them of what was going on. Their response was for me to "call the police if she becomes a danger to herself or to others". Well in October she scared the living hell out of me. In what appeared to be a manic period of insomnia/alcohol/rage she terrorized me late into the night as she walked around the porch with a loaded pistol in her back pocket and was talking about ending it. I finally managed to get a hold of her and started praying for help and healing out loud which diffused the situation. I didn't know what to do and thought it was "just drama" until the next day she approached me and several of our employees minimizing the event by saying "hey, if I died this place would be back to normal in less than a week". She also started acting OCD/manicky later that day AND THAT DID IT. I called the police and had her escorted to the ER for an eval and they commited her. I wasn't sure if the relationship would survive or not, so far it has. She stayed in the hospital for 5 days and they released her back to me because insurance wouldn't pay. When she got home there was big time drama. The hallucinations were stunning as she had reportedly been without sleep. They were terrifying. Somehow I dug in with a one minute, one hour, one day, one week, one month approach to surviving by breaking the time down as needed. We've made it so far.

Anyways, as you can imagine, I'm studying furiously with my feet on the right path and I've already learned S.E.T. I'm a pretty rugged guy, type A straight shooter that doesn't mix words, so you can imagine my communication style to this point has been very poor. One of the first strategies I've seen is "stop making things worse" so that's where SET comes in. I'm combining that with learning quickly. One thing I've learned real fast is HOW BIG A TRIANGULATOR SHE IS. This was a huge discovery. So I'm looking to break triangulation, escape, and evade.

I know this isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. I know I can't fix her but I can damn sure stop making things worse and as a CEO, better communication techniques can't hurt.

Dropped The Bomb - Had To BC I was so elated

I was so excited that I had to tell my wife about the great news I was hearing. I wanted to apologize to her for all of the "mis-self-diagnoses" on my part. I told her that I was getting help "for me" and that I was quickly learning how to stop "making her worse and damaging our relationship". She cried, I cried and we may have got somewhere. I told her that I know she is in a lot of pain "with good reason and I have taken great strides to validate so many feelings that I have quickly invalidated before". There were more tears. (Learning more I can see I screwed up here bc I shared personal information w/her) It went pretty well and then it started to get a little dicey when she started grilling me on who I was talking to? I had to escape and evade at that point asking her to "please respect my infancy in the process and allow me to heal and work on me". That helped a little and I did find some deflection. Still more digging and probing later that evening and I did more escaping and evading. What she is looking for is triangulation and a blame game like marriage counseling. Well, bad news, she's not going to get it. I explained to her that this isn't a blame game. "Well, what background do they have and it's all one sided from your perspective" type comments. I reiterated that "it's not about blame" it's about healing. There were a few comments along the lines of "oh you're trying to fix me", etc. however by and large it went ok.

I let her know that there are issues and that my apologies in no way mean "approval or acceptance". She tried to find out who I was talking to again by saying "well I'd like to talk to them myself". That's a trick and a trap. I did tell her that there were very problematic issues that were threatening to tear us apart and these were coming from the symptoms of her inability to deal with her pain. We lightly touched on the subject of her investigating ways through therapy that might be beneficial. Very lightly, too much too fast. Baby steps.

Anyway, we are getting ready to get on a plane for a vay-k and sometimes just getting her there can be a miracle in itself. So, wish me luck.

Texas T



Diagnosis + Treatment The Big Picture Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? [ Video ] Five Dimensions of Human Personality Think It's BPD but How Can I Know? DSM Criteria for Personality Disorders Treatment of BPD [ Video ] Getting a Loved One Into Therapy Top 50 Questions Members Ask Home page Forum List of discussion groups Making a first post Find last post Discussion group guidelines Tips Romantic relationship in or near breakup Child (adult or adolescent) with BPD Sibling or Parent with BPD Boyfriend/Girlfriend with BPD Partner or Spouse with BPD Surviving a Failed Romantic Relationship Tools Wisemind Ending conflict (3 minute lesson) Listen with Empathy Don't Be Invalidating Setting boundaries On-line CBT Book reviews Member workshops About Mission and Purpose Website Policies Membership Eligibility Please Donate