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Author Topic: Is There Hope for Change?  (Read 403 times)
Joe73312

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Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
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« on: June 28, 2018, 12:25:41 PM »

Hi.  This is my first time posting.  My wife and I have been married 9 years, together 12, and have a 7 year old child.  I recently started seeing a counselor, who recommended that I read Stop Walking on Eggshells, and the BPD lightbulb went off with respect to my wife.  For years, I’ve borne the brunt of fits of rage/anger, addiction to marijuana, and other things.  For the first time in 12 years, and after reading Eggshells and a book called “Loving Someone with BPD”, I am beginning to understand the tumult from a different and deeper understanding.  I’m also scared, and here are the issues/questions I’m struggling with:

1.  My counselor advised me not to bring Eggshells or other books home, or suggest to my wife she has BPD (she has not been diagnosed), but the reason is that BPDs are notorious for avoiding treatment.  She recently started seeing a therapist for her marijuana addiction, so I hope if BPD is there, the therapist will catch it and she’ll respond.  Is there anything else I can do to help her find the help she needs?

2.  I’ve been reading a lot, trying to employ better active listening, validation and other skills, but am just in the beginning phases.  Other than a completely different understanding of my spouse’s irrational behavior, it seems as if I need to completely re-tool the way I act and interact with my spouse... .from how I react to the criticisms, anger, outbursts, etc., to how I try to hold on to and rebuild my self-esteem and individuality, to how I raise issues with her.  Is this most people’s experience?  If so, it seems as if it will take extraordinary effort and caution, very different from how I interact with the rest of the world (P.S... .I’m known as a pretty good listener, friend, etc. to most people I know, I just don’t have to be so calculating about it).

3.  From my experience, and also from what I read, it’s common for those with BPD to basically lack the ability to empathize or provide emotional support to others.  Does anybody have experience about whether the BPD person, with proper treatment, can ever get to a point of providing empathy and emotional support to their non-BPD spouse?  Stated another way, is there any chance of my BPD spouse meeting my non-BPD needs? 

4.  I’m talking with my therapist on this point, but for those who have raised kids with a BPD spouse, if you had to do it over again, would you stay with your BPD spouse and navigate it as a family, or do you wish you would have made a clean break from your BPD spouse earlier in your kid’s life, so that you might, through your independence, be able to set a better example/try to have primary custody/etc.?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts as I continue to dig really deep.





 
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isilme
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« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2018, 02:41:10 PM »

 

Hello Joe73312.

Lemme see if I can tackle your questions. 

1.  My counselor advised me not to bring Eggshells or other books home, or suggest to my wife she has BPD (she has not been diagnosed), but the reason is that BPDs are notorious for avoiding treatment.  She recently started seeing a therapist for her marijuana addiction, so I hope if BPD is there, the therapist will catch it and she’ll respond.  Is there anything else I can do to help her find the help she needs?

Correct.  BPD is a lot of shame avoidance.  Telling her she has BPD is an accusation that SHE is to blame for something.  Telling her to get help for BPD or anything she could deny having an issue with is assigning blame.  It will likely backfire and drive her way.

I read my stuff like "Eggshells" on my kindle device.  These items are not shared in our combined e-library.  I know this may sound bad to start, but really, you need the safety to learn and she needs to not lash out at you for trying.  So you need to learn and read in private as you can. 

At this time, just be happy and supportive she is willing to get ANY help.  BPD is like any other condition.  If it's tacked with another condition, like substance abuse, then removing substance abuse can, in the long run, make the BPD itself less of a problem.  The ebst thing to do is not focus on her "getting help".  Focus on you like you;ve been doing.


2.  I’ve been reading a lot, trying to employ better active listening, validation and other skills, but am just in the beginning phases.  Other than a completely different understanding of my spouse’s irrational behavior, it seems as if I need to completely re-tool the way I act and interact with my spouse... .from how I react to the criticisms, anger, outbursts, etc., to how I try to hold on to and rebuild my self-esteem and individuality, to how I raise issues with her.  Is this most people’s experience?  If so, it seems as if it will take extraordinary effort and caution, very different from how I interact with the rest of the world (P.S... .I’m known as a pretty good listener, friend, etc. to most people I know, I just don’t have to be so calculating about it).

Baby steps, but yes, we as the "nons" need to change.  Pick one thing you can do, like simple, easy validation of things you agree with (or don't care about, too).  Get used to how that works in conversation.  Then work on applying it to more difficult conversations, and how to communicate about things you WILL disagree on.  Once you get basic validation down, move onto SET, where you try to bring up things that need more work than simple validating her feelings. 

One way to work on dealing with outbursts is hard to start and is never easy, but simply laving the conversation when it reaches that point, or before if you can, protects you.  You can't change her mind, especially not in the midst of a rage event.  so don't even try.  Just take a break, find a place to be wher you are not being yelled at, and force her to self-soothe by not being there. 


3.  From my experience, and also from what I read, it’s common for those with BPD to basically lack the ability to empathize or provide emotional support to others.  Does anybody have experience about whether the BPD person, with proper treatment, can ever get to a point of providing empathy and emotional support to their non-BPD spouse?  Stated another way, is there any chance of my BPD spouse meeting my non-BPD needs? 

Yes and no.  I think of my husband as emotionally disabled.  He can be empathetic, but he can't climb that ladder as easily, as fast, or as high as I can most of the time.  And I can't expect him to.
 I accept what he can offer, and we work on communicating better, and I learn to stop making things worse, we have grown closer.  We are in a prickly spot now, but I guess this may be a normal part of aging in addition to how his BPD may change with age.  But yes, you can get needs met, but you have to be honest and radically accept there will be limits to how much she can meet.

BPD (IMO) must make them so full of terrible feelings so often, they have little room to remember ours.  This is not an excuse, it's just how I see it.  They are overflowing with self-doubt, needs to project it away, brains full or rewriting history to avoid feeling blame and shame, needs to justify things that may feel like they made mistakes or were mean.  Imagine of every step you took in life was tempered with that kind of thoght process.  Do you think thre's a lot of time to stop, be mindful of others?  When they manage it, it was a supreme act of will.


4.  I’m talking with my therapist on this point, but for those who have raised kids with a BPD spouse, if you had to do it over again, would you stay with your BPD spouse and navigate it as a family, or do you wish you would have made a clean break from your BPD spouse earlier in your kid’s life, so that you might, through your independence, be able to set a better example/try to have primary custody/etc.?

It was not the only factor, but I admit it was a contributing factor to us not having kids.  I grew up in a BPD household.  I would not wish that, or my messed up ideas of "normal" for children onto any children.  But you have kids, and you want to work on this.  If you can get yourselves to a place where drama is less intense, less often, and does not focus on the kids, I think you can be fine.  When people are in a situation where custody is a concern, I recommend having an initial talk to a lawyer, not to start anything, just to get a few things on record - like suspecting a spouse has BPD.  I think fathers need to do this early - our system sides more easily with mothers and it takes a hell of a lot of work to show the father may be the more stable parent.
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« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2018, 03:08:42 PM »

Hi Joe thanks for posting. I'm sort of a newbie here myself but have I hoped learned a bit on the few 100 posts I've made and the 1000s I've received so I hope I can at least be of some help here. Please not I did not deal with nearly the challenge you have with both a wife and children (just a potential BPD almost-girlfriend Smiling (click to insert in post) ) so I'll try to give you some feedback based on that and hope it applies to you at least somewhat. I'm sure you'll get some great feedback from others here who have been in similar situations and I'd encourage you to stick around because although the people on this board can be 'tough love' their insights can be life-altering if you are open to them. Which can of course be the hardest part.

One thing I think that helped me is to realize that BPD or not I had / have a lot of my own issues/triggers that contributed to my situation and that besides not telling your SO that they may have BPD is to not use that as a way of explaining all of your troubles in other words to not make the easy mistake of that being a 'pass' on your own behavior (especially since it is all you can really control). I'm not accusing you of course of any bad behavior just saying be open when you assess situations what you may or may have been able to handle differently to diffuse, understand, empathize.

Excerpt
2.  I’ve been reading a lot, trying to employ better active listening, validation and other skills, but am just in the beginning phases.  Other than a completely different understanding of my spouse’s irrational behavior, it seems as if I need to completely re-tool the way I act and interact with my spouse... .from how I react to the criticisms, anger, outbursts, etc., to how I try to hold on to and rebuild my self-esteem and individuality, to how I raise issues with her.  Is this most people’s experience?  If so, it seems as if it will take extraordinary effort and caution, very different from how I interact with the rest of the world (P.S... .I’m known as a pretty good listener, friend, etc. to most people I know, I just don’t have to be so calculating about it).

I think your first sentence says it best "I am just in the beginning phases". They are hard work my friend.  I'd really take a look at the Tools section here on both Empathy and Validation. I considered and consider myself empathetic (and have been told by many friends I am) but didn't realize how lacking I was regardless. For instance I/we often think if we related a story about ourselves that is similar to the other person we are empathizing but in fact often we are invalidating. One excellent insight in the Validation page is that you should picture/remember/imagine a similar situation but NOT discuss it aloud; remember it so as the other person talks about their issue you actually GET it. Without interrupting or inadvertently  changing the subject to yourself or even accidentally making the other person feel as if they have NOT been heard.

I bet you are a good listener and a good friend but if you step away from that viewpoint and really embrace what you read in those toolsets you might find yourself becoming a fantastic listener and an amazing friend.

Most of what I've done since I was here is in fact step away from where I came from 'crazy BPD woman who did ABC wrong why?' and taken a long hard look at my actions towards her and my assumptions about her and my communications with her. I can't change her so the only thing I can really do is change how I interact with her without blame and really put a lot of my own ego away. I'm learning for instance the anwser to say 'do you know how hurt  I get when you do abc!' is not to say 'yes I do and I'm sorry' because you haven't really validated it you've just... apologized. A better answer can be "I'm trying to understand, tell me more' or 'I can see how abc would hurt you when you expected xyz what else about it hurt you? what can I do so you don't feel so hurt by it?'

I guess other people her can weigh in more on dealing with BPD and BPD spouses far better than I, but I thought I'd reach out with at least what I've learned since being here as it has been quite helpful for me and hopefully can for you too.

I do encourage you to read

https://bpdfamily.com/content/listen-with-empathy
https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-dont-be-invalidating

to start. and listen to the people who reply here they are very wise. In particular I'd keep an eye out for Skip, Pearl, and GemsforEyes. But I'm sure most of the advice you get here will go a long way towards helping you with your goals here.
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pearlsw
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« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2018, 08:55:38 AM »

2.  I’ve been reading a lot, trying to employ better active listening, validation and other skills, but am just in the beginning phases.  Other than a completely different understanding of my spouse’s irrational behavior, it seems as if I need to completely re-tool the way I act and interact with my spouse... .from how I react to the criticisms, anger, outbursts, etc., to how I try to hold on to and rebuild my self-esteem and individuality, to how I raise issues with her.  Is this most people’s experience?  If so, it seems as if it will take extraordinary effort and caution, very different from how I interact with the rest of the world (P.S... .I’m known as a pretty good listener, friend, etc. to most people I know, I just don’t have to be so calculating about it).

3.  From my experience, and also from what I read, it’s common for those with BPD to basically lack the ability to empathize or provide emotional support to others.  :)oes anybody have experience about whether the BPD person, with proper treatment, can ever get to a point of providing empathy and emotional support to their non-BPD spouse?  Stated another way, is there any chance of my BPD spouse meeting my non-BPD needs?  

Thanks in advance for your thoughts as I continue to dig really deep.

Hi Joe73312,

It's great that you wrote this out this way! It's helpful for so many of us to consider all of this!

I would say yes to #2. It takes a total rebuild I think, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially if you value good communication, and it could extend very well to other areas of your life. I thought I was a good listener too, heck, I thought a lot of things, but I learned that I had to get better at validation. It is a lot of work. Some days I just wish I'd get "fired" from this temp job of a relationsip that is stuck on groundhog's day, and it is okay to feel that way, other days I'm more willing to try, even if it is just to practice the tools for myself.

Keep in mind not all folks with BPD/BPD traits are the same. In my case I do feel some empathy from him. I would not describe my partner as lacking empathy. But he is very emotionally needy, emotionally demanding, and sucks a lot of energy out of me. He is exhausting at times... .and I'm a pretty giving person. I'm luckily also fairly independent emotionally and don't need much from him, but it would be nice to have more, sure. I find I can teach him some things... .For example, and this could be because he's an engineer who grew up in a male dominated society, and not just because he has BPD traits, a technical guy who isn't so verbal (some people are/some aren't), but I helped him learn to respond with something other than silence when I talk about my feelings. It's a bit formulaic, but it is much better than silence like I used to get. Does he meet all my needs? But I would not ask that of anyone. He offers what he can. I just wish it was more nice time and fewer problems if we're gonna be together... .

So, all that to say that, yes, you can work on yourself and you might some changes trickle into the relationship overall that can improve your quality of life. I sure hope so!

Does she ever exhibit any kind of empathy to you or others?

Great that you are digging deep! Good for you - that is very inspiring to me today!

with compassion, pearl.
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Joe73312

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Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 9


« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2018, 02:36:23 PM »

Thanks to isilme, 1stTimer and pearlsw for your responses.  These thoughts and support are incredibly helpful to me, and I appreciate you taking time to reply.

As far as treatment is concerned, I remain hopeful that the therapist who is helping her with addiction will make inroads.  It seems some of the roots of the addiction (anger from things that happened during childhood/teenage years) are common to both the drive for addiction and BPD.  As the non-BPD spouse, however, the addiction is really hard.  I go through cycles of rage, then dealing with someone who is basically stoned during all waking hours, and then back to rage/withdrawal-like symptoms.  It's a vicious cycle that I've lived with for several years now (and periodically early in our relationship), and the hardest part is realizing the impacts on my young daughter and also my self-esteem.  For now, I'll continue doing what I'm doing... .reading discreetly, working with my own therapist, and working most on the only part I can control... .me.

Each of your thoughts about communication and validation skills is invaluable.  I think many of us think we are good listeners, and we probably are for people who view the world from a non-BPD perspective.  It's funny, at work I participated recently in a workshop that involved reading another book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and many of the techniques there are similar to those that appear useful here.  The BIG difference, however, is those skills are geared toward dealing with people who view the world from a non-BPD lense. 

I'm willing to do the hard work, but feel as if I've been the only one in my relationship doing the hard work for a very long time.  Any tips you have for persevering would be appreciated.

Like you, pearlsw, I'm not a particularly needy person.  That said, I have emotional needs and believe that a healthy relationship should be more of a partnership and mutual supportive concept.  I'm hoping my spouse can get there, but am skeptical given everything I've experienced.

As far as how this affects my child... .that's the part which troubles me the most.  I chose to marry my wife, but my daughter didn't choose to be involved.  I'll keep reading and praying and trying.

Again, thanks for all the helpful viewpoints and advice.  This seems like a really great support system.



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« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2018, 02:52:22 PM »

the number one indicator of likelihood of change/recovery from anything really, is a strong, consistent support system.

our article here talks about "what it takes": https://bpdfamily.com/content/what-does-it-take-be-relationship

it seems as if I need to completely re-tool the way I act and interact with my spouse... .from how I react to the criticisms, anger, outbursts, etc., to how I try to hold on to and rebuild my self-esteem and individuality, to how I raise issues with her.  Is this most people’s experience?

it is awkward at first, for most. it can come off in a robotic and unnatural manner, which will be pretty transparent, and its tempting to quickly conclude that they dont work.

practice makes perfect. the tools work with everyone. practice them with friends and family. start today. practice them here, with other members... .in their threads and yours. lot of hurting, invalidated folks here. youll start to get more natural at it, youll see what works, and youll see results. it gets easier from there. ask questions here, and the more detail you can provide about interactions/conversations/blow outs, the more we can help walk you through it.

Does anybody have experience about whether the BPD person, with proper treatment, can ever get to a point of providing empathy and emotional support to their non-BPD spouse?  

there isnt a yes or no to this i dont think. it very much depends on your spouse uniquely. i had a friend (who does not have BPD) who was the WORST shoulder to cry on, and you could count on him to say the wrong thing. stubbornly, i kept trying. that was his limitation, thats where he was. i finally got the message and stopped expecting it of him and enjoyed the things i enjoyed about our friendship. years later, he could not be a better shoulder to cry on.

im not just sharing an anecdote, im talking big picture. everyone is limited in some way, and no one person can meet all of your needs. we meet our various needs through a variety of outlets, and this is really critical in a relationship with someone with BPD traits. a strong support system is vital.

and yes, you may find, as turmoil dissipates, and you better connect with your spouse, that they follow your lead and you see a greater emotional connection.
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