Is this normal?

[RedShoes]

Thanks for allowing me to be in this group. Thanks in advance for your sharing and support.

I have a few specific behavior questions that I would like to know if they have been seen by other family members of someone who has BPD.

1. My SO has an absolute obsession with joining clubs and being a part of a social or professional group that she then totally immerses herself in to the exclusion and detriment of everything else and everyone else in her life. That seems to be where she gets her identity. She HAS to have an audience. She HAS to belong. She can't be just "Mary" (not her real name). She has to be Mary The Cop, or Mary the Veteran, or Mary The Biker Chick (current persona).

For the last year and a half, she has used women's motorcycle clubs to meet women and then latch onto a FP. Then she becomes 100% obsessed with her FP and the club. She has even been fired from a job because she was so distracted with her FP (texting, talking, and social media) while at work.

She totally assumes the club or group's role and an almost caricature persona within groups and then changes everything about herself including clothes (almost like costumes), social media pages, interests, symbols, favorite color, habits like drinking and smoking cigars,  and obtains and cherishes items reflective of her new persona, etc.

She goes to any length to get in groups including lying to them and traveling hundreds of miles every week to be with them. Then she spends inordinate amounts of money to draw attention herself and to stay in the groups such as buying motorcycle after motorcycle and customizing it to impress them, or buying them all dinner and drinks, giving her FP and other club members gifts, etc.

When they eventually dump her - they always do but a LOT of damage to us was done in the interim - she blames them or me (when I have had NOTHING to do with them) and seeks another one. This causes a great deal of turmoil between us. Is her behavior consistent with BPD?

2. Within those groups, she latches onto what I guess is a FP and becomes obsessed with them, spending every available waking moment in some sort of contact with them either in person or on social media or via iPhone. The last one was the most significant, disruptive one. She spent all her non-work time with her, spent a lot of money on her, and took every opportunity to spend the night with her (five and counting). I am not sure if they have had a sexual relationship, but they act like a couple.

The others were not as involved as this latest one and may have not even known she was anything other than a very loving, needy, victim "sister." I haven't spoken with them to know for sure what they thought.

These group members (especially her targeted FP within each group invariably fall for her persona and totally believe her rhetoric that I am a controlling, hyper-jealous, psychotic monster and she is a helpless, hapless, hopeless scared victim. Then, trying to help an abused "sister," they do everything they can to encourage her to make her feel better, to rebel with them, and have even encouraged her to divorce me and offered her a place to move (out of town) to get away from me. At one point, she took them up on the offer and literally moved 500 miles away. Then when they booted her from the club three weeks later after finding out she had lied to them, she came back home.

How can I manage their perception of me to keep them from encouraging her to throw everything away for them, and leave or divorce me? If I got in touch with them she would go through the roof and as she threatened me one time, "It would not end well for you." I believe her.

3. She obsesses on hundreds of photographs and selfies she has taken of her and her FP and the groups, just staring at them again and again for long lengths of time, and enlarging them so she can examine every detail. She keeps hundreds of photos of her and other people - mostly her current or past FP - on her phone and goes through them very regularly examining them. Is this normal for someone with BPD?

4. Does anyone know of a good book for families and SOs on DBT to help us live with someone who has BPD? I have I Hate You Don't Leave Me. Not much help there. 

No, she will not go to marriage counseling or therapy. She says it's useless because I am the source of all her problems (she HATES that I hold her accountable for her actions and words and becomes verbally aggressive and abusive when I do so), and that marriage counseling is futile because she "won't change a XXXXing thing" no matter what they say, because she says she's "done nothing wrong."

I believe in her own way, deep down, she loves me, and I do love her.  We've been together 16 years. I don't want to throw that away, especially because of an illness that she cannot control.

Thanks so much.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Ozzie101]

Hi RedShoes and welcome!

I'm glad you've found us here. We're a supportive family and you'll find many members have advice and experience to share (and I hope you'll share yours in return).

As to your questions, "Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self" is a very common thing in pwBPD and that sounds like what your wife is experiencing -- in the extreme. People with BPD often don't have a strong self-image. Basically, they don't know who they are. Some react to that by latching on in an abnormally strong way to another person or group. Or they'll change their own thoughts, feelings and opinions to fit those of the people around them.

This "A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation" seems to be at play here as well in her relationship with groups and friends.

Many members can share stories of their loved ones lying and spreading false allegations against them. Again, that's not out of the ordinary in pwBPD.

As for books, have you tried Stop Walking on Eggshells and the Essential Family Guide (both by Randi Kreger)? I haven't read the latter, but the former was a big help to me in understanding my undiagnosed BPD husband.

I hope you don't mind if I ask a question or two of my own. You say she hates it when you hold her accountable and she turns aggressive and abusive. Could you give a little more detail? Perhaps share an example of one such confrontation? The more we know, the more we can help!

[once removed]

hi RedShoes, i want to join Ozzie101 and say

it sounds like your wife struggles with a sense of belonging. i suspect that her initial connection to these groups is that they feel like a place where she wont be judged. people with BPD traits can certainly over rely on that, though at the end of the day, its something that we all want.

the trick might be associating her sense of belonging with being a family member, with being a wife, with being a partner.

I am the source of all her problems (she HATES that I hold her accountable for her actions

what have you tried?

[RedShoes]

Thank you both for replies. Helpful to know that some of her behavior is consistent with the illness.

I will get both suggested books. Thanks.

An example of her hating when I hold her accountable for her actions and then turning aggressive and abusive. Hmm. Literally dozens and dozens of examples. One recent one comes to mind. In late September, her most recent FP (CP) had a birthday. My wife planned far in advance for it, bought several gifts for her, wrapped them herself, and then went to her house (45 miles away) on the night of her birthday (Wednesday) to celebrate with her. She came home after midnight. Then at 5am Friday morning, she got dressed and said she and the club were going riding to a destination 250 miles away and she didn't know when she would be home. I didn't hear from her until around 6:30 pm she texted and said that she and "other club members" decided to stay there overnight and she and CP were getting a motel room. She said that another female club member was going to be in the room with them.

I saw from our bank account, she paid for the tourist attraction they went to, the motel room, and meals and snacks for two people. The next day I didn't hear from her until around 7pm when she texted that she was too tired from the ride to come home, so she was going to spend the night at CP's house. CP supposedly has a boyfriend and is not a lesbian, but she also said that he is out of town a lot. I don't know if he was at home then or not.

I saw on our bank account that again she paid for meals for two, entertainment, etc. that whole day.

I did not hear from her the entire day until she returned home around midnight Sunday night. I didn't say anything to her that night. The next morning I told her that I was very hurt and angry that she spent so much time and money with CP and especially that she chose to spend the night with her TWICE knowing that I felt like she and CP were having an affair. She became very angry and threatened to divorce me if I didn't "shut the XXXX up about" them.

She said that she took CP up there for her birthday because that's where CP told her she wanted to go and that's what she wanted for her birthday present. She said I was insanely jealous and it's my jealousy that is the problem, not her "friendship" with CP.

I found out that the other club member spent the night in the motel room with them, but that she left before dawn to go home, leaving them the motel room to themselves until check out. She and CP posted about 40 very cozy, tight hugging, and non-sexual but intimate, couple-like photos of them together on their weekend on their Facebook accounts. Lots of sweet looks into the camera, lots of breast-to-breast selfie hugs, lots of hearts in the comments in each others' posts.

I told her that it looked to the world like they were not only a couple but that they were telling the world as much. She angrily called me psychotic and said that I didn't understand friendship, and that I was the problem because of my psychotic jealousy.

She became very verbally threatening, saying she would "crush" me in a divorce and leave me homeless if I didn't stop hassling her about her and CP. So I shut up.

My birthday was ten days later. She didn't acknowledge it at all. No verbal acknowledgement, no card, no gift. Nothing. I told her the next day that I was very hurt, especially considering how she treated CP for her birthday. She told me that I didn't "deserve" to be acknowledged by her on my birthday because I had been so "mean" and "insane" about her friendship with CP.

That's just one of many, many, many such arguments we've had, many about her obsession with other women.

[once removed]

what do "FP" and "CP" stand for?

[RedShoes]

FP = Favorite Person
CP = the initials of her most recent FP

[Ozzie101]

One thing about pwBPD -- they think in a very different way. It can be difficult to wrap your mind around if you're a non. Something that seems perfectly normal and non-confrontational to you can come across, to them, as being a personal attack on a nuclear scale. That's something I learned with my H.

Often times, to achieve the desired outcome, you have to be very careful about how you approach things.

Validation and not invalidating are big things. Have you read anything about that? We have an article on that here:
https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-dont-be-invalidating

Communication tools can actually go a really long way in making a relationship better. It's not always easy (I still struggle myself) but they've helped a lot in my marriage.

Take a look and let us know what you think.

[Purplex]

Hi RedShoes,

did you try to get involved with her new activities and friends? Let her show you her motorcycle, take you on a ride -- stuff like that that indicates that you are interested in her (current) passion and eager to learn more about it? Maybe ask her to introduce you to CP or other people she likes to spend time with?
If so, how did she react?