Having increasing anxiety and depression and so are my kids

[swan716]

Hello all!

I am new to this site but looking for support and validity. My husband is not diagnosed with BPD but I'd bet my life he has it. We've been together 23 years, married for 17 and have two kids ages 10 and 13. I'm looking for validation on this please.

My husband always has had angry rages, road rage, cursing and yelling, saying I act like an idiot or act like a whore (beginning of relationship), has been jealous accused me of an affair, locked me out of our bedroom,  locked me out of a hotel because I didn't read his mind that he wanted to have sex. He has insomnia, doesn't eat for a few days sometimes, has taken too many Advil at times to the point if getting gastritis at times, has had alcohol binges and the latest thing is anabolic steroids. He makes me feel guilty for visiting my family, has told me to terminate a friendship because she was coming between us (he had a gun to his head and left with a rifle and she was concerned for my safety), he has thrown a lamp, broke my camera, threw a plate because I put too much ketchup on his hamburger, and has broken a few of the kids' toys. He has monitored my phone calls, read my email, and got into my facebook making changes. I had to get rid of my social media. He likes to place blame on me, cause me to doubt myself, manipulates at times. He says he's very insecure and has a lot of self hate. Says a lot of self deprecating things and is very emotionally needy. If I don't get back to him via text in 10 minutes he thinks I hate him. There is so much more. He comes from a childhood of abuse, sexual abuse and neglect. I am now having increasing anxiety and depression and so are my kids. Thanks for listening!

[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.

[juju2]

Hello and Welcome!

You are in the right place.  There is a caring, experienced, wise community here.

Write more, when you first started noticing things, if you are able to take care of yourself, share as much as you are comfortable with.

Thank you.

j

[Harri]

Hi Swan and welcome to the site!  I can assure you that you are in the right place to get validation and support.  Many of our members have been or are in a similar situation so you are not alone and you will have a chance to chat with others who can relate and offer advice if wanted. 

Your situation sounds quite unsettled and even dangerous.  How is your husband today?  Has he ever hit you or the kids?  What is your primary goal for your marriage?  How would you describe your situation today in terms of how your husband is behaving and how you are feeling?

Sorry to bombard you with questions!  Over on the right side of the page there is a column with links listed that are a good place to start reading.  The lessons and tools can help you focus and develop strategies in dealing with your situation. 

I am concerned about your safety.  You mentioned a friend, are you still in contact with her?  Other than here, are there any other people you can talk with?

I hope to hear more from you soon. 

[snowglobe]

Hello Swan,
We are so glad to welcome you into the community, you will find a lot of helpful resources and support from like minded members. I’m very sorry to hear that you and your children are under stress due to your uBPDh (undiagnosed borderline personality husband). The incidents you are describing do fit into what we know as “lows” of BPD, with manipulation, intimidation and control. How do the “highs” look like for you? Are you being idealized, cherished, praised? Emotional sensitivity due to biological predisposition and early traumas are correlated with BPD. We can’t really define the causation, after all, human studies are tightly controlled, for a good reason. What the scientific community does see, especially in correlation studies, or anecdotal, is that there is a certain trigger that gets activated. By the way you are describing, your uBPDh certainly went through a lot in his early years. It’s not to say that there is any kind of excuse in his abusive actions against you and the family. Can you give us a little more, so we can understand your dynamics and family setuation. Do you work? Does he? Do you have your family close? What about him?

[Mutt]

Hi Swan716,

 

I’d like to join the others and welcome you to bpdfamily. I’m sorry that you’re going through this, it has to be hard to go through this without support from others. This is a safe place to share your thoughts and feelings without getting invalidated or judged we help one another because we have a pwBPD in our lives diagnosed or not diagnosed. Are you safe at the moment?

[Turkish]

swan716,

Is anyone else aware of all of this? How much does your friend know of other than the incident you describe?

What works or doesn't work on your side of communication when he rages?

T

[swan716]

Thank you all for being so welcoming and supportive already! It's greatly needed and appreciated!  To answer the "safe" question, I am safe and never have had any physical abuse.

To give some background, my husband is 9 years older and we met when I was 17 and he was 26. He has always been like this with the angry rages worse in the beginning. He had a hard time keeping jobs and found he did best being self emplyoyed. Today, and over the last year, his behavior is more passive agressive and covert. His behavior is more angry (stomping, slamming doors, cursing, sarcasm, and silent treatment) when I try to set a boundary. We have both been going to marriage counseling separately for 2 mos. My Christian faith plays a big role in not leaving him.I am trying to exercise and I pray a lot. As far as other people, I am trying not to talk to anyone but counselors now. I used to talk to my Mom and sister but he says they are biased and only hear my side of things. He also read my emails to a friend/christian counselor which revealed how dissatisfied I was in my marriage. Then the blame game started.  

I feel very alone like no one knows my truth. He is like Jekyll and Hyde and I love him and hate him sometimes. I feel scared to do anything out of my routine or even go out with friends or family. Scared of his blame, accusations and I don't want him to act out in front of our kids. My son has been crying and been depressed here as of late. It's awful. I am a nurse and have been one for almost 20years. He manages his Dad's store (seasonal) and does side work.

My goal? I will exhaust everything I can do (counseling, setting boundaries, reading tons of books) and when my kids and myself have had enough I will have to leave. His "highs" are very charismatic, bubbly, passionate, putting me on a pedestal. His "lows" are sullen, frowning, arms crossed, silent treatment, yelling, slamming things and extreme sarcasm. When he rages, speaking calm, not defending and listening de-escalates him. However, I don't ever feel heard either.

Who is aware? My Mom, sister, boss and a few friends. I had a panic attack last summer from him constantly berating me and ended up sleeping at the hospital (my place of work). His mother enables this behavior also (as I do also) and just says "he's just stressed out." She has a lot of BPD traits as well.

Last thing, his behavior seemed to get much worse over the last year with him having a dissociative episode (I called Crisis because he wasn't eating or sleeping for days with suicidal threats. They asked for his weapons to be secured and he went bananas. His eyes got large, he stormed in house, packed up his gun and rifle, went to car and said "let them come after me! " He looked crazed). He has been taking anabolic steroids over the last year and I wonder if this exacerbated his behaviors. Thanks so much again for listening!  .

[Enabler]

Good morning Swan716,

What a lovely name, I'm wondering if this is a bit like you, calm and graceful on the surface but furiously paddling underneath the water.

I'm not sure how well read up you are on BPD traits however I want to describe emotional dysregulation as it's very key to understanding the manifestation of BPD traits. I like visuals so here goes:

The red zone - Everyone's mood goes up and down throughout the day, some more than others and some of us have way less control over those fluctuations. Lets say the barometer goes from 0... .totally chillaxed, to 10... .the polar opposite. At some point, lets say 7, we enter the red zone, we're emotionally engulfed. This is when we have little control over what we say, do, even believe. Gloves are off and bad things are possible. At this point... .7... .we all become very narcissistic, it's all about us and we switch to primal survival behaviours... .anger, violence, threats, defensive mechanisms. By the sounds of things your H can get to 7 pretty quickly and his emotional volatility means he gets there pretty regularly. Interestingly you say there has been a change in behaviours, he's been doing this for some time now, my guess is since his teens, violence, threats and anger are pretty socially uncool and probably made him feel quite guilty, so, he might deny these feelings of anger to himself and instead of showing them outwardly he internalises them... .but anger always finds a way to seep out. So, it comes out as passive aggressive anger, silent treatment. The anger is still there it just comes out in different ways.

Overflowing glass - Take an empty glass, put it in the sink, take a jug of water and start plopping water into the glass bit by bit. Each time you fill up the glass this is negative emotions... .bad day at work, kids annoying, no beer in the fridge, guns being taken away from me. When the water reaches the top all negative emotions are contained, we can function... .just. When we add that additional amount of water, our emotions spill over, we dysregulate... .you... .me... .pretty much everyone and certainly your H.

Throughout our development we learn ways to deal with these point of dysregulation most of us learn healthy way to control our emotions such that they avoid reaching the spill over point, we avoid the red zone, walk away, go for a walk, watch TV, resolve the things that are causing stresses (hence you're here talking to us). It would seem that your H has not learnt these healthy ways to respond to stress, and from what you have eluded to, it's no surprise.

Going back to the glass analogy, someone who has unresolved childhood trauma is always likely to have some water in their glass, they're never 100% emotionless. Like tinnitus in their ear, the buzz of worthlessness and core shame may make them emotionally half full all the time... .therefore far more likely to overflow under the same stressors. Additional factors such as smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, change of circumstances, job stress increases will all contribute to getting to the red zone. I googled "anabolic steroids moods" and this is what came up... ."Points to Remember. Anabolic steroids are synthetic variations of the male sex hormone testosterone. ... .Abuse of anabolic steroids may lead to short-term effects such as mental problems. Extreme mood swings can also occur, including "roid rage"—angry feelings and behavior that may lead to violence." ... .So, combine this with what I have described above and yes, the steriods will directly contribute to the frequency with which he is likely to emotional dysregulate, get into the red zone, whatever we want to call it.

You have clearly adapted your way of 'dealing with him' and his moods. It's good to know you are safe in as much as you have never experienced anything directed at you. Mothers are rarely a good gauge of their offspring's deficiencies.

How are you ensuring that your messages on bpdfamily are kept private given your H's snooping? Would you like some help with that?

[swan716]

Thank you for your feedback Enabler. I've never looked at my husband's behavior that way. He has said he has always felt worthless and unwanted. His mother told him as a child "I wish you were never born". This seems to be the beginning of his empty feelings. I can look at this and understand why he feels this way, be empathetic and I try to have him train his brain so when something triggers these feelings,  he will in turn trigger a positive emotion. I try to get him to rationalize his feelings. ":)o you really believe we all think your worthless? " Sometimes this works and then sometimes I think, I'm giving him the attention he wants right now and that's what he wanted.

If you haven't already guessed, I am probably somewhat codependent and hate conflict. Not ideal for setting boundaries. I'm really struggling with what I tell my kids when he acts like this. They see it as "you guys are fighting again!" And all I want to say is no, daddy's bullying me. Often his issue with me is that I am "pretending" and my affection is insincere. He says sex makes his anger go away. So the other night when he was behaving this way, he wanted sex. I, for one if the first times, graciously refused him because of how he was acting. He then got up, yelled, cursed me, said I'm divorcing you and you will never reject me again! He packed his bags, ripped his cross necklace off his neck and ring off his finger. He left for the night it turned out. I was left consoling my kids who heard it all.

As for keeping this private, I delete my search history every time and permanently delete my email from this site. Sorry I am so long-winded. I've got a lot bottled up because he admits to very little and rarely if ever apologizes. Thanks for listening! .

[Enabler]

Swanny,

Long winded... .you obviously not seen some of my posts! 

Can I make one little suggestion to start with... ."I try to get him to"... .lets park that for now. In fact, lets park any ideas of trying to change him and concentrate on ourselves for now. You're probably thinking "what the heck! He's the one with the dysfunction!", and that's a totally reasonable thing to think. However, it's normally ineffective trying to change someone else and get them to see things your way, to them it's invalidating, and there are many many things we can do to change the way we interact with the other person to reduce or nullify the behaviours such you no longer fuel the proverbial fire.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/ending-conflict

Well done for stating your boundary and refusing sex with him when he was angry. This must have taken a lot of courage. So, one of your personal boundaries is "I will not have sex with my husband when he is angry". Not wanting to teach you to suck eggs but a boundary is something YOU will do in response to someone or something you do not find acceptable. We cannot control other people. It will be interesting to hear how he responds when he calms down. What do you plan on doing if/when he comes back? Do you think this is a boundary you can maintain going forward?

Regarding your security on this website, try incognito window if you're using Chrome cntrl+shift+N and that will bring up a session that leaves no trace. Ensure on settings that no private messages or notifications are sent to your email address as you can't control the timing of these emails. You might even consider changing the email address to a work email if that's private enough. Given what you have said, especially about the potential for leaving your H it is essential that he does not have access to this information. This is your safe zone.

You mentioned that the kids are observing some of the behaviours, do you feel it is effecting them in any way?

Enabler

[Catlady3.14]

Hi Swan,
Welcome to the board. A lot of the things you've expressed here are very similar to the things I've experienced and bless you for dealing with this for 23 years. You are a strong person. It sure seems like you are very supportive and calm in dealing with the issues that arrise. The tools here have helped me by leaps and bounds!
I'm proud of you for setting a boundary around sex. That is something I deal with too.
I've been with my husband for 4 years. And we combine have 4 kids. It is VERY hard not to say things to the kids. And how to express what's going on.  One book that was suggested to me from Wentworth was,
Raising an emotionally intelligent child by Dr. Gottman.

Hope that is helpful.

Catlady
 

[swan716]

Thank you again for listening ears and support! My husband came back the following day and 3 days later, he gave me a rose, while passing each other in our cars he got out and gave me a kiss, he constantly called and texted me telling me how much he loved and missed me, and made large love notes and taped them to the wall. I guess I should feel happy about all of this but I'd much rather a sincere apology. Sometimes it's actually easier when he's in an angry mood because I can be myself. When things are good, the anxiety of what tiny thing will set him off is so uncomfortable. An analogy:  I feel like I'm constantly balancing a basketball on my finger. His rage or blaming mood is when the ball falls. I know I am his biggest trigger.

The kids: Overall, pretty typical kids but struggle with anger and anxiety from time to time. Their grades suffered a little this year and when my H has his moods, they are depressed and feel confused. I listen to them, validate them, and apologize. They recognize Dad's behaviors are not right and are frustrated but they see him as their hero too. I try to separate the man from the behavior when I talk to them. They don't understand why the fights keep happening. I want to tell them I have very little control on Dad's behavior (it's not me!). So yes, they are affected. And when we are all together,  it seems I am the center of my H attention or frustration and the kids are on the back burner. I think my H relationship with them is better when I'm not around because he focuses on them then.

What I need to happen: My kids and I somehow must be able to cope with his negative behaviors and somehow not make them personal. The problem is that they are always personal and where is the fine line of respecting the parent and identifying where the line is crossed? Thx for listening!