I feel like I am going under and I don't know where to turn.

[LucyLocket]

Found this website yesterday when I was feeling at a crisis point - hoping it might give me some ideas on how to cope and improve our relationship. Been with my partner nearly 35 years but it's getting more difficult as time goes on.
About 18 months ago when we were living abroad his psychiatrist suggested he may have NPD. After trying to support him with what he thought was chronic anxiety/depression for many years, and I thought might be bipolar disorder, this suggestion hit me like a hammer blow. I saw a BP diagnosis as being a "dustbin diagnosis" basically when the psychiatrist has not been able to help. It seemed to say "not my problem mate, nothing doing, over to you". Partner knows there are problems - typically work stress creates conflict with family, conflict escalates everything, rage followed by depression and no energy. He has tried hard and engaged with help over the years and for a time some things have helped  - anti depressants, anger management, CBT. He could write a book on the subject. He's also very high performing, very intelligent and has more understanding of other people's emotions than I do. At the time NPD was suggested I dismissed it but now I'm not so sure. After reading website yesterday I think PD is a possibility and would explain a lot. He's currently seeing a psychiatrist who is proceeding with a working assumption of bipolar but knowing it does not fit usual pattern since his moods are so rapid cycling.

The problem is that I feel like I am going under and I don't know where to turn. We've recently moved and I don't have any friends here. There are lots of nice people but no one I want to or can turn to with this stuff. The only people I can really talk to openly are my in-laws who are kind and helpful but don't have any answers and I know it ends up stressing and worrying them. It always seems like a problem shared is a problem doubled - talking about it just worries other people. Our kids are grown up and are understanding but again they need to get on with their own lives - they lived through enough without me forcing them to confront the problems all over again.
I keep trying to regroup my strength and resolve and interact with him without getting into conflict but it can be so difficult not to react. I can retain my composure to a certain point but then I just fall to pieces and end up in tears. Over the last 18 months he has decided that my failure to support him over the years has caused his problems - I should have stepped in and prevented things escalating to this point. Every time something goes wrong, it reignites all the bad feelings about things in the past and so even the smallest thing can grow legs and arms. He's lost his confidence, doesn't feel he has the resources to pick himself up when things go wrong and has lost motivation to do so. He says the things that helped him get through in the past have failed him - he doesn't trust me or any of the family anymore. He keeps going back to a particularly difficult time over 10 years ago when our eldest was being a typical teenager. At one point she called the police as he was being so threatening and aggressive and had smashed a chair over her computer. He blames me for failing to step in and prevent this. At the time it was impossible to stop them getting across each other - he would go looking for a fight and she wouldn't back down. Things got so bad for her that there were times she went home with any man she met in a bar rather than come home. Thankfully she has moved on and she and her father have a good relationship now though I think she is still wary and keeps clear boundaries for her own sake. Anyway, he still feels aggrieved and I don't see that this is ever going to change. He just can't seem to see the other side - we should have seen that he was in pain and not called the police on him. There are other grievances he holds too from the past but this is probably the one which bothers him most.

All this sounds negative but when things are going well they can be great. The problem is that a little problem can cause an inferno all over again and then the destructive cycle follows. So for example, I leave the back door locked as it makes me feel more secure in the house if I'm alone. He won't take a key to work so when he came back early and found it locked he hit the roof as he "should be able to walk into his own house". Afterwards he told the psychiatrist that he realized that this was a trigger and didn't make sense but these things just keep happening and I need to work out how to respond and cope without collapsing myself.

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[livednlearned]

Hi LucyLocket,

Supporting a loved one with BPD in a new town without friends is pretty tough. I'm sorry you're going through this transition feeling so isolated, and glad you found the site.

Projecting blame onto you allows him to experience the feelings from a safe distance, without having to take responsibility 

Whatever your husband may be, (bipolar, BPD, NPD), there are relationship and communication skills that can prevent things from getting worse, like validation. This is an easy skill to learn that requires a lot of practice (and compassion) to do effectively. With validation, you acknowledge how he feels without agreeing to what he says, if that makes sense.

I know the feeling you mention -- like you are going under and don't know where to turn. When you say it's hard to not react, what usually happens? How do you respond?

Maybe we can walk with you and think together about skilled ways to respond.

[LucyLocket]

Thanks Livednlearned for such a helpful reply.

I think my validation skills certainly need improvement and he has raised this with me in the past. I remember he had a session with his psychiatrist and gave me an article about validation when he got back.

The trap I fall into is that when he is in a negative-thinking cycle I have a tendency to want to stress the positive side because I try to deal with problems by "always looking on the bright side of life" as Monty Python would put it. It's particularly hard when he looks back over our years of marriage and raising children, picking out the times when things have gone wrong and totally missing out the good side. So I start out with good intentions to listen to what he is saying and validate his feelings but then when he continues to demolish everything we've lived and worked for over 30+ years I end up getting emotional and upset. He ends up making me feel like a parasite and a failure.

The way he sees it is that we've made decisions over time that in the long run have lead to unacceptable levels of pressure being put on him to keep working and earning even when he is ill and I totally see his point. We had three children close in age so I became a stay at home Mum and then worked in part time low-paying jobs. He was ambitious and could always rely on me to cover everything at home so he never needed to consider childcare or chores. If he needed to go out of town or work late he rarely had to plan it in advance. So he got the kudos of the good career and the high earnings along with it and we seemed like a good team overall. When we went abroad, I didn't work and since we returned I've considered a part time job but he has said this would put more stress on us as the things I do at home wouldn't get done. I do everything at home - he doesn't need to do anything apart from go to work. So now, if he gave up work I'm not in a position to earn anything like he can and decisions of the past have come home to roost.

We came back from abroad as a result of unacceptable levels of stress he faced due to his relationship with his boss. There has usually been a particularly problematic workplace relationship with all the jobs he's done but he's usually got by. This time it reached a crisis and he resigned without having anything else lined up. He blames me for failing to support him properly though it and now he has lost a great job and the prestige which went with it. He's still grieving over what has been lost and I understand he blames me.

We are where we are and I need to get it right to build up his confidence again and avoid any conflict at home. So back to validation: he's far too bright to accept an "I know how you feel" sort of response and I need to be incredibly careful how I choose my words. Anytime I relax too much or don't give it 100% attention it can blow up immediately. But when he paints such a black picture of our lives it's hard to take it. The negativity can go on for hours, or days - you feel like the life is being sucked out of you and all the things you were proud of are failures. I can validate sympathetically for so long but then something gets said which hurts to the core and I end up in tears.

Sometimes I have tried to remind him that it is the depressive mood talking and that he doesn't see things that way when he's feeling better. That would result in an explosive reaction so I have learned not to say that even if I think it.

So, any tips for better responses will be gratefully received!

[Tattered Heart]

We are where we are and I need to get it right to build up his confidence again and avoid any conflict at home. So back to validation: he's far too bright to accept an "I know how you feel" sort of response and I need to be incredibly careful how I choose my words. Anytime I relax too much or don't give it 100% attention it can blow up immediately. But when he paints such a black picture of our lives it's hard to take it.

This is where our own thinking gets twisted. We take in on ourselves to build up the confidence of our pwBPD. That's not our job. That's their responsibility. We can only change ourselves and we are only responsible for our own actions. We have spent our relationship trying to avoid conflict and that's what led us to being in an unhealthy relationship. We stopped taking care of our own needs and put our partner's needs over our own. That's part of our struggle with Enmeshment and Co-Dependency . Once we allow our pwBPD to figure out how to deal with their own stuff and we deal with our own, then we can start to flourish and grow in our relationship.

As to your question about validation, our workshop on Validation Skills might help you see ways to validate better and ways to not be invalidating. When it comes to validation, our goal is not to validate to calm our pwBPD. The goal is to truly and genuinely listen to our pwBPD. If we validate with the intent to control their emotions, they will pick up on that and respond negatively. I like to use validating questions with my H. It lets him know that I"m interested and listening to what he is saying.

Can you practice a validating conversation you might have with your pwBPD so we can help you walk through that?

[isilme]

LucyLocket,

I share a lot of your feelings about having a hard time finding ways to be validating when H is hellbent on only seeing the worst in everything.  I'd like to see how to do validating questions, too.

Statement - "I KNOW my future and its to be broke and end up homeless and alone and then just die in horrible pain, and you will leave me."

Things like this are where I get stuck in late nights like last night - he's in a lot of pain pretty often and he has told himself this is how things will be so long he believes it.  Like the OP, I want to have him look at positive things or accept that worrying today about potentially having his job move in 5 years is not going to help us sleep.  But that is very invalidating, it's telling him he's wrong and I get that.  I just get stuck and don't know what to do.  I nod - I'm attacked.  If I agree I'm "blowing smoke up his ass".  I try to ignore it - I don't care.  There is little escape in a tiny house at 1AM, can't go for a drive, can't go sleep on the couch without that causing even more upset and potentially being locked out of the room in the morning when I need to get dressed. 

When he's like this, anything less than him losing his legs next week and me running off to sleep around with the Olympic volleyball team is "being an idiot living in a rainbow unicorn fart fantasy."

[LucyLocket]

Thanks Tattered Heart for great suggestions - I will follow up as soon as  I get opportunities.

lsllme: it really helps just to know there is someone else somewhere that is going through the same thing. How many night have I listened to negative ruminating till 4am wondering if there is any chance of a bit of sleep before the next day begins! I hope the validating workshop helps you too.