Marriage Counseling

[waitingwife]

Hi All,
I have a wonderful therapist who helped me develop an insight into my codependency spectrum. I have always wondered about H being on a BPD spectrum. He has a lot of the typical behaviors but yet not the typical behaviors. He has a great job and we have built a wonderful family. However he splits, suffer from dysfunction resulting from "perceived judgement" and building walls. Now I know how I would switch to passive aggressiveness on my part from not accepting the reality. I also understand how thst helped me growing up and in the past and now I am making big changes by doing the hard work needed to change my part of the equation. Back in 2013, when i started seeing a Therapist, I could never imagine that I'd get the coursge & strength of stating my need of going to marriage counseling to my hubby so that we can get our emotional needs met in a healthier way.
He has recently started seeing a therapist, I don't know how long he'll stay in therapy coz he has vaccilated in the past. He wanted us to see his T for marriage counseling and I stated my need to see another counselor for MC coz I didn't want his r/s to be compromised with his T and then if he quits MS, thst would be discouraging for me. My T helped me see this whole issue with more clarity and we finally found a new counselor for MC.
What are the challenges and triumphs that result from MC? I definitely think if my H has BPD, it must be high functioning or he just has a lot of trauma from the verbal abuse during his growing years. My goal for MC is not to figure out what he has but how can we survive the Silent Treatment and build bridges faster? Coz we have a DD abd communication breakdown is hard when all hands are on deck to run a family.
We'll have our own Ts and seeing a Marriage counselor. I really want to be very forthcoming and honest about my childhood and reasons and how my fewrs stemmed from codependency but will it be turned against me when he dysregulates?

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[Tattered Heart]

Hi waiting,

It is possible that your H has high functioning BPD. My H is the same. He is pretty social, holds down steady work, and does not self harm.

I think it's wise that you found a different counselor for marriage counseling that is separate from your H's T.

I have heard that marriage counseling is very difficult for BPD relationships because in order for counseling to work, both partners have to be willing to look at themselves and admit their own role in the dysfuction. With BPD, that is hard for them to do.

I tried marriage counseling for all of 3 sessions and realized that it was not smart for me to do so. My H would use the things I shared in counseling against me once we got home. He began to rage at me for embarrassing him in front of the counselor or for sharing too much information. I got to the point where I stopped sharing anything. It also became all about my H. He would take over the sessions and the focus became about his emotions.

Here's a link to one of our articles about Why marriage counseling often fails with a BPD relationship:

https://bpdfamily.org/2010/08/why-marriage-counseling-so-often-fails.html

I'm not saying you shouldn't try MC. I'm always about trying new things to make things better.  I hope it works for you. Let us know how it goes.

[waitingwife]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I met my therapist today and we talked about the challenges & advantages of Marriage counseling and came to a conclusion thst there is nothing to loose. For 14 years, I was operating from a place of fear of what if MC leads to separation but I feel like I am over that. I'm a person who really doesn't like to leave ANY stone unturned when it comes to problem solving and after being in therapy for 4 years, we have sinilar relational issues crop up sometimes... .the best thing that can come out of MC is I'll lewrn to validate and the worse is more challenges... .I feel like I have mustered up the courage & confidence to deal with whatever comes out of MC.
My uBPD H has always vacillated when it comes to therapy so I'm not sure how long we can do MC but we'll atleast get started and see where it takes us. I'm also a cery optimistic person in general so I want to hope that something good will come out of this!

[Lakebreeze]

My udBPD husband and I just attended our 6th MC  session. He is high functioning, holds a job and can be gregarious and charming. We will probably not be going back. The sessions either went very well and I would share thoughts and feelings and then we would go home and he would use everything I had said against me. Or the session would trigger him and he would spend the hour in complete emotional dysregulation screaming and me and arguing with the therapist. He said he was done after the 5th session and like and idiot I said I was disappointed that he was done with it. So he went to the 6th... that's when I kind of came to terms with how futile it all is. My husbands behavior has not changed at all from it. His anger is still gets out of control and he still says it's all my fault.
 However I'm still glad we tried it otherwise I would never know and the other huge benefit is it ended up being a huge turning point in my life. While the therapist never mentioned BPD by name he decribed it and our situation so well that I was able to stumble upon my BPD family here.( You have all been amazing! Thanks!) So I wish you the very best of luck with MC just keep your expectations in check!

[waitingwife]

I am looking for some kinda breakthrough... .not uBPDH changing but some sorta solution that helps us get our needs met. My uBPDH has a big trigger when he sees me & dd with my parents coz even though they're sorta codependent, they shower love on us... .It's a constant reminder for him of his rough childhood. But after 14 years, if I have to worry about a certain way i look at him- it definitely calls for marriage counseling. I really don't want it to go south coz the way I grew up in my culture, marriages last forever and you fight with every last piece of grit. But at the end of 25 years, I don't want to look back & feel like I didn't try MC. He is making progress with his T(has seen him 4-5 times so far) and his T has recommended a low dose antidepressant(prozac) to him which he plans to get on.
Anybody have luck with prozac?

[waitingwife]

We went to our first session and the T have a diagnosis of Dysthymianto uBPDH. There was spotlight on H from time to time and I could tell he was uncomfortable but inspite of that, he was pretty forthcoming & did great! I thanked him after coming home to show up & make our marriage of 14 years a priority.
He is in an active phase of dysregulation and I'm the biggest trigger... .it feels to me that just occupying space around him is triggering for him... .Ofcourse my parents are visiting for the entire summer to help us with childcare but that doesn't seem to be an issue. I get a feeling that seeing my parents care for me & DD is triggering for him, I'm not even sure anymore. We have a big party planned in 2 weeks coz things were so great and now I can't wait to get through it coz it involves a lot of partnership decisions and when I express a different opinion, I'm dreading that the other shoe will drop.
I don't know how long he'll continue marriage counseling, really hope long enough for us to figure out a path we're going in. I've been feeling quite down lately and like I'm carrying so much weight on my shoulder. My T strongly feels that MC won't hurt and the BPD is not going anywbere. She asked me if after 14 years, you can't let your hair down with your spouse, what does that say about BPD to you? I was trying to argue with her saying maybe I jumped my guns abot BPD, it's probably not BPD and something else or high functioning. Am I going down a rabbit hole to make sense of the insanity?

[Tattered Heart]

What made you want to backpedal on thinking it's BPD?

[waitingwife]

I'm not sure why the back pedaling. Whether it's from wishful thinking that it's not something as big as BPD or I'm not qualified/certified to know about mental illness. I guess because I'm off center, the self-doubt is kicking in which should not happen. Also I'm playing out various worse case scenarios in my head... .namely what if we end up separating resulting from Marriage counseling or his need to quit MC as I'm running out of options to gain some consistency in my marriage. Things have improved after therapy big time but then when the dysregulation happens, it feels like a 100 ton truck hit me. I've seen how messed up his r/s with his parents & others are so I keep asking myself, is this kind of marriage I'd want to look back on after 25 years! It really makes me sad ... .very sad actually to not have a partner who can lend a listening ear or ask me how he can help during my times of stress. I have to reach out to friends or family to lift me... .
I think the question my T asked me about- after 14 years if your H feels you're looking at him a certain way & gets mad, what does that say? I had so many emotions around that question and really thought that I can't let my hair down with him due to his emotions.

[steev]

I am not a good example for experience with couples counseling. We are on our 7th marriage counselor spanning 20 years. I calculated that we are well into 6 figures on how much this “hobby” has cost our family with absolutely nothing to show for it.
During the early years I had a false expectation that she would respect the therapist enough to take in what they had to offer when they got close to her BPD behaviors (she is diagnosed by only me BTW and the term has never come up).
Usual procedure for the first 6 months with new CC I am relegated as the identified patient with the already indoctrinated therapist*. (background – Wife has been going to personal therapy starting in 1993, couples, at her insistence, in 1995. I was to go or else…) I used to get defensive during the early sessions which slowed down progression of the therapy. I got better addressing this deficiency and just let the therapist figure it out without my JADE-ing. While it was hard not-to-JADE I prospered with my restraint, specifics eventually pile up through the weeks, months, years clearly showed the platform that my wife was presenting turned very shaky. Eventually, over time, being called on to own her behaviors (lots of crying and a lot of ‘I Dunnos’) she would “divorce” the therapist for “not being good for us” and would summon the new “good” therapist* that she was vetting months before the end. I have/had NO input.
From where I sit, couples therapy may be good advice when both partners are sane. It’s TERRIBLE advice when one partner has a personality disorder! I compromised and gave up my half (the 50/50 responsibility thing) in exchange for peace and cooperation but nothing has made our marriage better and I am just a shell of my former self.

[waitingwife]

Thank you for sharing your experience, Steev. It all comes down to what one can make peace with.
An update on our marriage counseling is it's going great so far. We have had 2 sessions and the 3rd one is next week. UBPDH is also seeing his therapist the alternate week when we don't meet with our Couple's counselor and I'm hoping he's having his T's support to rely on during this hard work. We both seem equally invested and I have been very present & straight forward during our sessions. Hubby also stsrted on zoloft per his T's rx so it's too early to say which way this is all going.
But I have been feeling a lot better, calmer and more at peace. I'd always feel like I had a great sense of humor before getting married and it had all gone away in the last 14 years. I've seen it come back very slowly & I'm starting to feel like I am finding my real self as we do this hard work.
I'll be honest that there have been days where I feel so blah