For those who've been successful living with a BPD spouse, how do you find peace

[WildernessMan]

I've been with my undiagnosed BPD wife for 23 years and we have three children. One is 21 years old diagnosed with severe BPD 3 years ago and still living with us. My wife filed for divorce 5 weeks ago, she still wears here wedding bands but insists it's over. At the same time she has also told me she just wants me to move out and get my own place, and continue paying the bills I've always paid, and maybe get back together at some point she says. The problem with me moving out is I can't afford to support 2 households, so my attorney says stay put. So far I'm still in our home.

She has practiced severe parental alienation since our children were young, and our oldest daughter confirmed that with me back in November 2016 at a moment when she was mad at her mom.

My wife sleeps on the couch and has for years. We've had no sex life in 10 years. She says she needs closeness in order to have sex, but I have tried that. It appears that I can't do anything good enough to get close enough to start uo our sex life again. I gave up years ago and have not thought of her in a sexual way in years. I"ve read that intimacy with a BPD is almost impossible. I believe it!

If I disagree with her about anything she gets upset or downright mad, depending on the subject. If it concerns a subject about our children, she goes off the deep end. I normally can not speak to her about a critical subject for more that a minute or so. If I push beyond that time she may loose control of her anger. She has been that way for 23 years but worse now I think, even if I stay totally calm.

My wife does not use logic in her thinking when we are talking about a subject which has an emotional component. In these cases her thinking is strictly based on emotion. This has always limited our ability to talk things out. I work in engineering so my thinking is almost always logic-based, so this is very hard for me.

She refuses to speak in private with me. Instead, she insists that
everything has to be discussed in front of our children. The only time she wants to talk is when the children are present. And she will not allow me to speak to any of our children in private - She insists on being right there always.

She is highly dramatic. It always appears to me that she is putting on a big show when we disagree on something. I feel like we're on a Broadway state or something. It's awful. She has been this way for 23 years. In the early years it amazed me. Now I just do anything to avoid the show.

I believe she has a strong but disfunctional co-dependent relationship with our kids. They agree with her every word and support whatever she says. I have always sensed some level of fear in their eyes, but that might just be me projecting I dont know.

Whenever she and I disagree about something, even if it isn't a bad disagreement, she makes sure to pull our children into it some way, as they always get involved in every single subject between myself and my wife. It has always been a typical thing for her to take them off to another room and lock the door so I couldnt come in a try to talk things out. Mind you, 99% of the time I was not yelling or upset - I was just trying to keep her from being able to go into another room and drive a deeper wedge between me and our children.

I know much of this sounds like I'm not telling the whole truth; like I might be hiding an awful temper I might have or hiding some other type abuse. That assumption, if you are making an assumption like this, is incorrect. That's why I'm here. None of her behavior like this mentioned above has EVER made common sense to me. Twilight Zone stuff here!

One final thing. Her father was an abusing alcoholic; physical and verbal. He also forced my wife's oldest sister to perform oral sex on him pretty regularly from what I understand. I have spoken to my wife's brother-in-law about this and he confirmed it. He also told me that all three daughters were molested in some way, although my wife has always said it was just her oldest sister whom was molested. I've often wondered, with all of my wife's BPD symptoms, especially regarding sex and intimacy, that she was most likely abused by her dad sexually.

So, for those of you who've successfully survived this type relationship, what are some words that may keep me sane? Right now I just want to quit my job, get on my motorcycle and ride out of town and never look back. I feel like I'm already in a 10 foot deep grave with no shovel.

Please help!

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[JoeBPD81]

Hi there!

It sounds like you are living in a very stressing environtment. Feeling trap, feeling you can't have a win, feeling they gang against you... .And you are not appreciated as the head of the family, and provider, as it sounds. No wonder you can't find peace while at the same time you already lost the fight.

Pardon me because my experience is from only 4 years, but kids came in the package from the start, and she came from a divorce with abuse, not trusting any men at all.

We all want for them to see logic, and above all for them to see we are not figting them, not threatening, not attacking them right? But they can't.

I take a walk with my wife and I want her to walk at my pace. My pace is better, it's more efficient, it's more logic, it's common sense... .I even slowed down a lot, but she still can't keep up. "She must be doing it to provoke me". If we don't know anything about the wife, it can be understood as that. Now, we know the wife in this example has only one leg. The story changes.

You wife has a disability. We can't see it, it doesn't make sense often, and even society and some doctors don't treat it as that. Her disability is emotional. But her emotions are so strong, that they limit her in the phisical plane, and in their ability to reason, and express themselves. One of the keys here, is that she didn't ask to be this way, she didn't ask for whatever biological basis this has, and she didn't ask to be abused by her father. You didn't ask for that either, so you are together in this, you are on the same side.

You know that. She doesn't. For her to know, she needs something different than logic, she needs a different show of affection, or patience, of closeness, things that would work with 95% of people, won't work with her. It sucks for you, and you can't imagine how it suck for her.

We can trust our parents to a point, they deliver to a point, and then we become adults and move on, and we care about our parents and what they think, but it's not our whole world. Some parts of them can't move int adulthood, because they trusted their parents and they betrayed them completely. Their whole world started upside down. It's like planting something with the roots in the air and then expecting it to grow right.

So, what do we do? You are right, you are not doing something wrong, per se. Still, is it working? You can spend another 23 years expecting her to change, or you can start taking things into your own hands. It's a version of "If you can't fight them, join them". You don't even want to fight them. But to join them, you need to understand their logic. It takes learning, it takes listening with empathy... .But at some point you interiorize that logic, and it's not that counter-intuitive. 

We can only change ourselves. It doesn't mean you change your core values. It doesn't mean you think it was your fault things weren't right. It means you are willing to go into the mind of your loved one, and understand her, and help her see that she is safe with you. It means doing what works, and not what's right. It means stopping doing what never worked, and we did a thousand times, because it was right. It means being true to what you really want, and doing what you need to achieve it. You have to be willing to stop, take a step back, and rethink almost everything.

You (your family) had 23 years going in one direction, it can't be fast to change course, but it's never too late. Therapy, support, and many other tools can help and are advisable. But we can always do better, and inspire a change.

I could only find peace after understanding what was going on in her head, after I understood that when she is attacking me, she is attacking her own fear, or shame, or guilt. After I was willing to react in different ways. After I started learning to answer to what is behind all that disregulated behavior, not to the behavior itself. My own emotions don't let me do that all the time, so I can understand her multiplied emotions pull her a lot more.

I understand I'm asking you a lot. You gave your best for 23 years, and I'm telling you to work even harder. It's not that, you'll see. When you manage conflict and communication better, you are not only helping her, you will feel much better yourself, you'll find some peace. And some times, doing what is needed takes less energy than following our old patterns.

Best of luck.

[WildernessMan]

Thanks Joe! Your words mean a lot and make sense. Basically stop doing what doesn't work and get in her head and try something different.

Thanks. Let me thing about how to approach that.

[Tattered Heart]

Great advice JoeBPD! WE have a lot of workshops that can help you learn to see things the way she sees it and how to change your own behavior.

I would suggest starting with
1) Learn to validate
2) Don't JADE
3) Boundaries

These are 3 areas that can really help you to stop walking on egg shells, which it sounds like is what you have been doing for a very long time.

There is hope. It doesn't come easy and it may never be perfect. But just changing your behavior can change your life completely. My H still has a lot of issues, but I can honestly say that I am no longer scared of his response. I get annoyed by it. I get tired of it. But I'm not worried about him screaming and yelling at me anymore because I know how to handle that. I've looked at my own values and I know when my boundaries are being violated and I know that in each scenario I have a way of responding to protect my own emotions and my own values.

[isilme]

You wife has a disability. We can't see it, it doesn't make sense often, and even society and some doctors don't treat it as that. Her disability is emotional. But her emotions are so strong, that they limit her in the phisical plane, and in their ability to reason, and express themselves. One of the keys here, is that she didn't ask to be this way, she didn't ask for whatever biological basis this has, and she didn't ask to be abused by her father. You didn't ask for that either, so you are together in this, you are on the same side.

^^^^YES!  Everything JoeBPD said.

21 years here, but no kids.  We can't use the same tactics we'd use to communicate with someone whose emotional coping skills are closer to our own.  For us, I gave up trying to convince him of much of anything when the dam has broken and a rage event has started.  At that point it's all damage control, get this over with and into the next phase (usually some silent treatment for a few hours to days).  If it's important to get him to work on his perception of soemthing, it's always a slow series of conversations, small statements at times he seems receptive, and a willingness to not care about certain things.

Dinner?  He's picky, I am not.  I usually don't care.  TV, same.  Movies, often the same.  He can lead and "win" all of that.  I look at things as "can this fall apart and be forgotten, late, or overall fail?  Or, is this something that will hurt me as well as him, or us as a unit?"  I try to step back from the latter and "let him fail" as needed to save my time and energy for things that can't "fail", like paying bills. 

I have to choose when I can ignore and not rise to fight-inducing comments.  H needs to fight sometimes,  He can't process some emotions without yelling AT a person.  It does not have to be the person who made him mad, it does not even have to be a person that made him mad at all - it could simply be raining on a day he did not want it to rain.  I get yelled at for things his mom does.  For the weather.  For things, he chose not to do and then so did I.  I KNOW in my head it's not about me, and so I know I should not respond as if it is.  A lukewarm, non-emotional response sometimes can short-circuit them.  If you avoid arguing back as much as is reasonable, avoid trying to convince them they are incorrect, why you did something, all of that, it can go a long way to maintaining peace.  This is not to say be a punching bag, but to try new reactions and strategies to 23 years of habit.

Kids - as a child of 2 BPD parents, I can say it's very confusing to have your parents pitted against each other.  They are both supposed to be the supreme rulers of the household, so when they fight and disagree, even in non-BPD families, it can be hard and confusing.  Kids don't want to take sides, unless one parent has been painted black (you seem to ahve been).  Controlling who talks to whom and when is a big part of this.  You wife has probably sold the idea she is a righteous victim and all drama is your fault - this is the reality SHE needs to believe in to cope, quite possibly.  I can't give any feedback on how to adjust this.  JoeBPD suggested looking through the tools and lessons.  Pick a couple that may work for you.  Practice, practice, practice.  Things won't change in a day, but they CAN change.  It takes time, practice, and re-wiring your own responses.  She can't change (at this time), and sees no reason to do so.  So, it's on you.  You can do it, and working to protect yourself from all of it as needed is a good place to start.

[storagecold]

Wilderness, I'm sorry for what you're going through. I know how trapped you feel because I've been through most of the exact same stuff for a couple of decades now. I stay only for the sake of letting my children see 50% of normal most of the time.

Our fights used to be brutal. Typically, uBPDw would make some sort of hurtful comment (e.g., "I wish you were dead," "You're such a loser," etc.) or make some insane accusation, and I would react like any rational person would.

Setting boundaries does absolutely nothing for me, but learning to validate and not JADE has been very useful. What has also been helpful is keeping a mental log of her "off" times. Her "up" and "down" times vary by time of year and monthly cycle. Typically the worst time is during PMS, and then as soon as her period starts, it's like a bell rings and she is as normal as she's going to be for about a week.

I was especially interested in your W's refusal to speak about anything in private. I have the same issue. Every argument she tries to pick with me has to begin in front of somebody. Our children are old enough that they just take off when they see it coming, but she's tried to engage me in the most public of places, or especially in front of any of my relatives that she hasn't already run off. She has NO friends but has a good network of relatives who enable her. If she is particularly angry, she will call one of her enablers and unload "her side" of whatever story she's telling, and then report back to me whatever negative thing the enabler said about me. Mentally that used to bother me quite a bit, but now my reaction is. "OK. Thanks for letting me know." Not that long ago, we went to a family function without the children and she was forced into speaking to me without an audience, and she was like a different person.

I understand how she makes you feel that you are the cause of all life's problems, but you have to be able to get out of that thinking. As someone said earlier in this thread, everything you do with her needs to be almost counter-intuitive. My old way of behaving was to confront uBPDw's crazy/insane rants/accusations with careful logic and/or proof of something; after seeing how that REALLY doesn't work, now I validate. It's amazing how much that de-escalates almost anything.

In other words, if you want different results, try another approach. Hang in there.

[WildernessMan]

Storagecold -

I hate to say it but I enjoy reading that someone else suffered the same as I have. Appreciate your words for sure.

I've experienced the same as you. My wife will often be a very different person (nice) if none of our kids are around. As soon as she has an audience however, watch every single word coming out of your mouth. 

Wish I had heard of validation years ago. That would have helped to stiffle her hurtful words. 

Unfortunately we're in the process of divorce and there isn't much hope of solving our problems.

My justification for believing divorce is acceptible for me at this point... .I'm 52 years young and tired of living with someone who doesn't have the ability to meet my needs. Her awful childhood caused a lot of damage that has made it alomost impossible to have any sort of intimate relatonship with her. She sleeps on the couch, no sex in years, self focused and only wants to talk about what she wants to share and says negative things to our children about me (heavy Parental Alienation going on for many years). Refusal to get help as a family is another. To top things off I cant even disagree with her without some type of negative response. I probably said these things before. I'm rambling.

I know the focus of this web site is to help others, so let me say this in that effort. If you are early in a relationship or just now experiencing BPD in someone, please work as much as possible to get a handle on your end. You may not be able to change the BPD person, but you can change yourself and learn to respond in the best way.

Over the 23 years my wife and I have been together, mostly what I did was just keep my mouth shut and take it. This to avoid conflict. Now I'm suffering deep scars because of it. I'm a survivor so I'll be fine nonetheless.

I still have time remaining to find someone else with "normal" emotions, if there is such a thing.

Hope this helps someone.

[isilme]

Setting boundaries does absolutely nothing for me

I just wanted to ask about this.  How do you set the boundaries, what would you hope the outcome to be, and what is it usually?

I think the idea of boundaries is a little wonky for many of us.  Initially, it sounds very much like an ultimatum, and demand to change behavior, a way to make someone else change.  I see a lot of people on here stating their boundaries to their pwBPD, expecting that statement to sink in and be recognized by the emotionally disabled person, and that they will learn to respect it and not push back.

":)on't yell at/insult me."  Ok, the boundary has been stated.  But we have to be the ones to enforce it.  So what can we do?  It's always going to fall on us to take action.  We are the ones recognizing that the current status quo is not good, is not the only or best way to exist, and that things cannot continue as they have.  So, we have to take a break and leave.  We have to refuse to engage.  :)o our best to not be present and act as an emotional punching bag.  It sucks, because there are times when you can't take the action needed to change things in all instances - 3 AM, it hard to get away.  It's triage - leave the argument when you can.  Really.  Walk out.  Go to the store, the park, plan ahead in calms times to always have phone and keys in reach of the door.  If you can get away with it, go into another part of the house.  Close the door.  For some people this works (for me, it would just escalate).  

Boundaries are internal rules for what you will stand there and take, and what you won't.  I have a boundary that my mother is not allowed to steal my identity.  To enforce it, we are NC.  Sadly, having to be the more responsible person, this is where we get stuck - having to make the hard choices about sticking around for the fight, sticking around for good.  

[JoeBPD81]

Hi WildernessMan,

I'm sorry to hear things are going so wrong.

It sounds silly to say how many times I've thought my relationship was over, because she has always come back. But that doesn't mean I didn't think it was over, so I felt the sadness and the anxiety of that. I also had a divorce before this relationship, and the process was the worst thing in my life. So I know you must be going through a really rough time. Hang in there. Here you will also find tools for detaching and even legal advise from other members. I hope we can help in some way.

Best of luck.

[storagecold]

Wilderness, we are in nearly the exact same boat. I've been down the close-to-divorce road but in the end, she changed the behavior that pushed me to that point. Years later, the entire episode -- which was caused solely by uBPDw -- is remembered as being "my fault."

It took me nearly a decade of marriage before a therapist suggested BPD. It was like a light went off over my head. When I found others who were going through the exact same stuff, it made a big difference to me. Instead of feeling like I was alone in the most horrible place on earth, I felt like I was supported.

The hardest thing for me, still, is being beaten up emotionally and then expected to just snap back to "normal" with uBPDw whenever she feels like it -- sometimes it's minutes, other times it's hours, or days. In her moments of clarity -- which tend to come up for a few days a month -- I have asked her flat out, "Is the 'real' you nice person who says horrible things, or a 'bad' person who occasionally says nice things?" I don't think I've ever gotten a straight answer.

I hope for the best for you. You've certainly earned it.

[storagecold]

I just wanted to ask about this.  How do you set the boundaries, what would you hope the outcome to be, and what is it usually?

I think the idea of boundaries is a little wonky for many of us.  Initially, it sounds very much like an ultimatum, and demand to change behavior, a way to make someone else change.  I see a lot of people on here stating their boundaries to their pwBPD, expecting that statement to sink in and be recognized by the emotionally disabled person, and that they will learn to respect it and not push back.

":)on't yell at/insult me."  Ok, the boundary has been stated.  But we have to be the ones to enforce it.  So what can we do?  It's always going to fall on us to take action.  We are the ones recognizing that the current status quo is not good, is not the only or best way to exist, and that things cannot continue as they have.  So, we have to take a break and leave.  We have to refuse to engage.  :)o our best to not be present and act as an emotional punching bag.  It sucks, because there are times when you can't take the action needed to change things in all instances - 3 AM, it hard to get away.  It's triage - leave the argument when you can.  Really.  Walk out.  Go to the store, the park, plan ahead in calms times to always have phone and keys in reach of the door.  If you can get away with it, go into another part of the house.  Close the door.  For some people this works (for me, it would just escalate).  

Boundaries are internal rules for what you will stand there and take, and what you won't.  I have a boundary that my mother is not allowed to steal my identity.  To enforce it, we are NC.  Sadly, having to be the more responsible person, this is where we get stuck - having to make the hard choices about sticking around for the fight, sticking around for good.  

Sorry, I should have clarified. I have set many boundaries with uBPDw: "You will not scream at me and insult me," etc. etc. Typically if it gets too out of hand, I leave the house. Most of the time, that helps. On lesser occasions, I just let her grind on and respond with "I'm sorry you feel that way," etc. Eventually, she loses interest and moves on to something else. But for many years now, this hasn't changed her behavior a bit -- it just helps me maintain my sanity.