I'm starting to reach out for help and advicefor the first time

[BlindEcho]

Hello, I have been married for 5 years to a woman who has been diagnosed with BPD, Bi-polar disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. We live together, we have a 3 year old child and last week she told me she made a list of things I do that I have to change or she wants a divorce.

Her list she made has taken a lot of things out of context and made them huge and sound horrible. She constantly bad mouths me to her friends (despite claiming I don't allow her to have any, yet she manages to tell everyone she knows how horrible of a husband i am). I am constantly to blame for everything she does, along with everything I do. If she does something and gets mad at herself it ends up being my fault somehow because I either wanted her to do it, or she felt like I wanted her to do it.

I've read a lot about explosive or angry BPD's. She isn't like that, she will shut down and stop talking and just be non-expressive if I try and talk about anything that she doesn't like. She doesn't like to be in charge of anything in our house-hold and i am constantly left to make the decisions (and then turns around and calls me controlling, despite me wanting, begging and pleading for her to be involved in everything. I even told her I couldn't manage the finances anymore because I was stressed out and tried to get her to take over budgeting for awhile).  She will simmer for awhile or I i happen to say something about a buzz topic (childhood abuse), i don't even have to say anything bad and she hears me say something that never left my mouth and then accuses me that she heard me say and and then finally she will become angry and pace and storm and yell.

an event happened 3 weeks ago that made her become a different person. I've seen it happen, its like there is another personality and that one is the guardian. She is meant to deal with the things the normal personality can't. She becomes cold and forward talking, she gets angry and stays angry. She will cut off all her emotions and even tell me its necessary and she won't "turn them back on" Shes been like this for 3 weeks and despite trying everything I can think of I can't get her to calm down and just come back... We havn't been speaking and i've been sleeping in another room (which she calls abandonment yet puts me on trial and tells me I am to blame for everything and gets upset cause I sleep in another room)

There is a lot to this story and I know this is just a tidbit and kind of a rant. But I feel like I'm losing my mind and I am the "I can handle this alone" type and I've never sought help or support for myself but this problem is beyond me and I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like im fighting to keep my family together against an impossible force.

She is in DBT therapy, but her therapist and her are secretive and I don't know whats going on. A lot of problems started when she started the DBT and my gut tells me the therapist is possibly causing some of these problems. They are secretive. I don't know whats ever happening between them and I know they discuss our relationship A lot and my wife told me her therapist knew she was going to give me this ultimatum and apparently this is all okay.

If anyone could point me in the direction of any kind of help or anything really I'd appreciate it.

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[GaGrl]

BlindEcho, welcome! We're glad you found us, although the circumstances you are dealing with sound quite stressful. There are many people on this site who are in similar circumstances and can help and support you.   

I have a few questions --

Are you in therapy yourself? If so, does your therapist have any communication with her therapist?

What is causing you the most stress right now?

In your wife's DBT therapy, is she doing only individual therapy or is she also doing group sessions? Is there any DBT sessions for partners/families? Have you had any couples sessions with this therapist?

[Scarlet Phoenix]

Hi BlindEcho, despite the sad circumstances I want to welcome you here! You did the right thing in reaching out for help, that's brave of you. As you start reading and posting, you'll find a whole community of people who truly understands what you're going through.

I felt very insecure when my ex started therapy. I felt left out when he didn't share what he talked about. In time I came to see that therapy needs to be a safe space that we don't have to share with anyone. And remember what she does share with you about what her therapist has said, might not be really accurate if she's saying it at a moment where she is not emotionally stable.

If you feel okay with sharing it, what happened three weeks ago?

[BlindEcho]

Thanks for the replies.

3 weeks ago she had to go have a meeting with lawyers regarding her old company. She no longer works for ( because she started a roller coaster friendship with her boss which lead to being let go) and she was very afraid to go and she is a very timid person normally and not the kind that would handle being interrogated by lawyers. Her appointment was on Monday and she started getting anxious and nervous on Saturday and Sunday it got worse and Monday morning she literally woke up a different person.  For awhile I believed she had DiD and I started looking into it online more and realized that she didn’t. But she definitely has this  persona that seems to get summed up to defend her in times of stress or conflict.

She went to the meeting. She snapped at me cause I told her she wasn’t dressed properly ( she had on flip flops and jeans) I told her to she had to dress accordingly and that she also didn’t want them to think she didn’t have anywhere else to be that day and keep her until 6pm. She got mad called me controlling and that’s one of her examples that’s gone into her list she’s mad that I say and do things like that and I try and control her.

Her list has elements of truth but they are blown way of proportion. She says I don’t allow her to have friends when she has friends and I never say anything about them. But I tell her work friends are a sensitive issue cause you make your boss mad or you get upset with a close co-worker cause of a personal issue and it makes problems at work which can lead to financial crisis at home. 

Every time I try and offer advice or offer a logical way for something it ends up being mean or controlling.  It’s like I’m meant to just stay quiet and watch her make the same mistakes over and over and just do and say nothing.

I’ve read several books ok BPD. I have walking on eggshells and I have the workbook as well. The books basically say I need to just let her make her own mistakes and just get on with my life and that seems really hard and just defeats the point of marriage

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To answer the other question. I am not in therapy nor have I ever seen a therapist. I definitely want to see one now because this list she made listing all these terriable things she says I do is just tearing me apart. I cannot believe she made this and I feel completely torn apart and betrayed that she feels like this   I want to find a marriage counselor that understands cluster B personality disorders too in hopes some kind of balance can be found.

[Scarlet Phoenix]

Thank you for coming back and explaining more. I understand better now.

From what you have said I think you belong here,  you will see that your situation is like a lot of the  other members. We are right here to walk beside you every step of the way. How can we best support you right now? If you need to vent to a listening ear, we are listening. If you want to learn some new tools, we can share them with you. If you want to read more about BPD, we have many great articles.

How are you today?

[BlindEcho]

I’m not sure what I need right now. I’ve never asked for help before and I’ve never been this desperate.

Getting it off my chest helps some. If there are tools or skills I can learn to deal that would also help

I do have a question for anyone who can answer it or offer an opinion.  Do you blame the person with BPD for their actions? Or do you tell yourself “they didn’t do or say that. The BPD did and blame the BPD”

I’ve gotten this far by telling myself once she was diagnosed that I needed to be upset with the BPD and not her. But books so to set limits and to not accept their actions. Which sounds conflicting to me.

[Scarlet Phoenix]

You did well in reaching out and coming here. There's something about seeing a whole community of people who get what you're going through tell story after story that resonates with your own.

As for skills, as good place to start is to work on validation and not invalidating. We have this 3 minute lessons on ending conflict and Communication Skills – Don't be Invalidating. It has helped me a lot not just in my romantic relationship, but also in life with other people.

I do have a question for anyone who can answer it or offer an opinion.  Do you blame the person with BPD for their actions? Or do you tell yourself “they didn’t do or say that. The BPD did and blame the BPD."
I’ve gotten this far by telling myself once she was diagnosed that I needed to be upset with the BPD and not her.

Ah, this one is a bit hard. It's true that having BPD makes a person more likely to lash out and be volatile. At the same time, it is the person doing this. This comes up regularly here on the boards and people have different opinions on it. For me, I think we should see them as a whole, a person with BPD as opposed to a person and then BPD as a different entity. I struggled with uniting the two when my ex-husband what at his worst.

Are you upset with her, or do you separate the two?

But books so to set limits and to not accept their actions. Which sounds conflicting to me.

I understand what you mean. How do you feel about setting limits (or boundaries) in general, in other situations? Does it come natural to you, or is it something you struggle with?

[BlindEcho]

Settings limits and boundaries comes natural for me. It’s actually one of the things currently being used against me. I don’t usually tolerate certain actions are behavior but my way of dealing with it is probably counter productive for someone with BPD. If something happens that goes past my limit or boundary I will usually make her talk to me about it and why it wasn’t ok. She in a normal state is very timid and doesn’t like to be accountable for things but will usually come around and say “I was upset and I shouldn’t have”. I’m a “we are going to deal with this” kind of person. I don’t like to sweep under the rug and I hate to ignore the white elephant in the room. She prefers to sweep and avoid actions.

I have mixed feelings. Until recently I was always upset with her. But in this situation I keep telling myself “it isn’t her saying this it’s the BPD”. But I’m not sure if that’s true or if I’m just trying to make myself believe a comforting thought.  She’s accused me of some really terrible things and I’m struggling with even being in the same room as her right now.

She has episodes of anger. But they are rare. Right now she is very angry. We haven’t been talking. She literally ignored me last week. Didn’t answer calls. Would clam up when she came home and I wanted to talk. Sunday she told me a lot of horrible things and I’ve just kind of shut down for the first time. I’ve stopped trying to talk and been sleeping in another room ( which she says is abandonment) and I’ve not been trying to call or do anything with her cause I’ve never felt this hurt before. She doesn’t seem to show any signs of coming out of being angry and I have no idea if or when it will settle.

My go to option right now has been silence. If I can just survive the 3-4 hours we are both home at night I can make it to tomorrow and I have 8-10 hours of peace and calm.  I need a way to figure out how to survive the time we have together and how to handle how I feel vs how she feels and what she’s saying.

[Scarlet Phoenix]

The anger and the wall of silence sounds very familiar to me, and I'm sure to many other members here. If I get it right, none of you are talking right now? You because you are hurt and she because she is angry. So you're at a sort of stalemate.

What do you usually do to sooth yourself or relax? What is something you can do today? It seems like it's very tense at home for you right now.

At some point, you will talk again. Until that point, it would be of help to you to familiarise yourself a bit with the invalidation/validation material we have that I linked in a post further up. For your sake, because it helps ease tensions. What are you thoughts?

[BlindEcho]

We are at a stalemate right now because she gave me a list of 11 things I do that she calls abusive. Each one has some element of truth in it but is really exaggerated. She says I isolate her and don’t allow her to have friends, which isn’t true. I only ask her to keep people at work at army’s length. She says I’m a perfectionist and I demand perfection when I don’t even remote understand this one at all and have no idea where it comes from.

Being suddenly bombarded with a list and a divorce threat took me by surprise and I’ve been staying to myself since. Our talks only lead to fighting, so I’ve just opted to stay silent. But the silence is making her mad and each day she’s starting to find reasons to try and get me talking but all the actions are just leading to another fight. I’ve stayed out of it and not responded to the attempts but I’ve been here before and I know the attempts will get worse and worse until I finally react.

I don’t have many hobbies. I am currently in school despite being in my 30s. I am almost done and I am being paid to go to school so our arrangement is I stay home with our home and do school and take care of the home and she works a 9-5.  I generally keep myself isolated by choice. I don’t have any friends to do anything with and my only two hobbies are fishing and I enjoy going to the gun range. But both I fear will spark conflict because she likes fishing too and if I go alone she will be upset and the gun range, despite being a responsible and legal activity is a topic about firearms which some days she is ok with and other days is a bad thing so I’m even concerned to leave and go do that to try and relax or de stress.

I have watched several of the videos, all that  you linked and I’m about half way through the validation video that’s nearly an hour long. I also just ordered the high conflict couple book that one of the videos and articles here suggested.

I have agreed to respond to her list of changes and I haven’t decided how I’m going to handle it yet 

[GaGrl]

BlindEcho, there are a few things that are occurring to me.

First, your wife seems to be projecting a lot of her beliefs and behaviors onto you. Are you familiar with projection? She accuses you of a certain behavior, when actually it is one of her behaviors that she does not recognize in herself or doesn't want to admit.

Also, I wonder if you need to respond to these points your wife has said you need to change or resolve. You disagree that they are valid, and what might have a modicum of truth has been exagerrated.

Getting your own therapist who has experience working with families affected by BPD is a critical need. The most frequently seen model is: You have a therapist, she has a therapist, together you have a marriage therapist/counselor. Ideally, the marriage counselor gets permission to talk to your individual Ts.

If that is a model you could work within, could you start finding and interviewing Ts? A marriage counselor could help address those 11 points (and help validate what is or is not your responsibility to change).

[once removed]

Settings limits and boundaries comes natural for me. It’s actually one of the things currently being used against me. I don’t usually tolerate certain actions are behavior but my way of dealing with it is probably counter productive for someone with BPD. If something happens that goes past my limit or boundary I will usually make her talk to me about it and why it wasn’t ok. She in a normal state is very timid and doesn’t like to be accountable for things but will usually come around and say “I was upset and I shouldn’t have”. I’m a “we are going to deal with this” kind of person.

setting limits (different from boundaries, which are the ways in which we live our own values) works better with children than with a spouse.

it sounds like your personality styles, and conflict styles are driving a lot of your conflict, or at least escalating it.

so, how to square the two?

[BlindEcho]

My personality is assertive. I don’t mind leading and I feel like I am responsible for my families well being. I was raised more traditional to put my needs behind those of my family for their well being.

My conflict style is also the same. If there’s an issue I want to deal with it immediately. I do get mad. I do say things out of anger and I do not feel like I am equipped to deal with a person who translates what I say into a different meaning and I feel like a lot of our conflicts is because I say or do something with one intent and it’s taken completely different from how I meant it to be taken.

I am trying to figure out ways I can validate how she feels and make her feel heard without just agreeing to whatever I’m going accused of doing when I just flat out haven’t done it. The problem sometimes seems to literally be I say blue and she hears red, and I’m trying to learn how to handle that during this situation but it’s difficult for me because I am generally a very blunt person.

I agree that our styles are very different and I’m trying to be responsible and change mine because I don’t feel like she can change hers. But it still feels like a huge mountain to scale right now.

[once removed]

I do not feel like I am equipped to deal with a person who...

a lot of this is definitely not intuitive. i dont think i could have done it. i have learned the tools here though, and they have made all of my relationships more rewarding, i deal with conflict better, and theres more peace in my life.

I am trying to figure out ways I can validate how she feels and make her feel heard without just agreeing to whatever I’m going accused of doing when I just flat out haven’t done it.

validating is different than agreeing, and that can take some time to grasp. you also might find it easier to take an approach that emphasizes "dont be invalidating" rather than "validate". i think when learning about validation, a lot of us latch onto it as a way to "put out the fire" so to speak. as a result, it really just comes off as condescending, and our partners can see right through it.

think of the tools as a lifestyle. its more about making your relationship an overall validating environment with trust and vulnerability than using validation for x y or z.

does that make sense?