Understanding BPD; she had an extremely traumatic experience in 2018,

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi My wife and I have been together for 51 years and married for 44.

My wife has been a member of AA for some 20 years and is very active in the fellowship and has sponsored many people, and is even a member of her group’s convention committee.

She is a very wise and intelligent woman and at 65 is still very beautiful, smart and can be a lot of fun and very playful. She is also a qualified mental health and addictions therapist herself, and has conducted extensive work in this field and other similar behaviour centred courses and groups for more than 20 years.

Over the years I’ve done my utmost to support and encourage her with her career and her recovery. However, more recently she had an extremely traumatic experience in 2018, when she was at our holiday home and was burgled, while I was in London on business. The thieves broke in and gassed my wife and our dog and ransacked the house. Ever since, her behaviour, has regrettably become more and more aggressive and unpredictable, and she attacks me with uncontrollable rage, threats, abuse, unfounded accusations and put downs, for no reason I can understand, which I find intolerable, and have begged her to seek professional help because she’s in danger from destructive behaviours towards me and herself.

We moved to a new holiday home in a different area very shortly after this. Then after a year I was again in London on business, she had a massive relapse. Fortunately, our daughter had spoken to her just before this and suspected something was wrong. She contacted a friend of my wife in Spain, who after trying to contact my wife called the Police, who with the Fire Brigade, broke into the house and found my wife comatose and rushed he to hospital. Where she was subsequently diagnosed with extreme anxiety and depression. And until now she’s done little to seek treatment or therapy for it even after I gave her a book on PTSD.

Each time this happens, I tell her I love her and the behaviour cannot continue and if we are to have a future together she must seek professional help. She says I know you’re right and promises faithfully that she will seek help, but never does, and gives me a myriad of reasons why she hasn’t.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I had to leave, to allow her to seriously think about this, something I have done twice in the last two years, even though I am desperately worried about what she might resort to. Each time she becomes very sincere about seeking professional help, but doesn’t.

However, when I left this time in March this year, she told me in May that she had entered into therapy, with the very woman I’ve been encouraging her to contact. Because our daughter was in therapy with this woman, who has a sterling reputation.

Over the past two years, although this pattern of behaviour, on both our parts, has been going on much longer, but not in the uncontrollable way that it has now become. During which time I’ve been conducting extensive research to understand this and to help my wife. My issue was in struggling to understand if she was doing this behaviour intentionally, or she has a mental health disorder and doesn’t know, what, or why, she’s doing it. While working through the fog of cognitive dissonance, that I discovered not long ago, happens to the partners who love those with NPD, and was of the opinion that she was doing it intentionally, and at the same time still thinking how can someone who says they love you possibly do this?. Approximately two weeks ago I came across BPD and the first thing I read said, ‘it’s not their fault’. That in turn helped me to find a new compassion for her. And now believe she may be suffering from a combination of several of these disorders, albeit BPD appears to be the one she aligns most closely with. And I now understand that sufferers of these conditions have enormous difficulty with being honest.

Therefore, I’ve been agonising over whether to contact her therapist about some of the behaviours that I believe she may not be honest with her about. Because, unless she is completely candid, she, nor the therapist, will be able to achieve the most favourable therapeutic outcome.

Yesterday, my wife called me and shared with me she that was really making progress with the therapy and her therapist is helping her enormously, and that she was being very open and honest with her. I said I was so happy and relieved that she’d finally taken the step and was overjoyed the therapy was helping. But then she suddenly said but I haven’t told her about the tablets I take. Which I believe are Diclaphenic or similar. And it often seems that this is a cause of what she calls her ‘meltdowns’ that I believe she may be addicted to. But she’s often dishonest with me about this and denies it, even though it is clear she has because she becomes extremely anxious and paranoid.

Today I found your site and the first thing I read was a story of a man who seems to be experiencing very similar issues, and has contacted his wife’s therapist, and it sounded like she was grateful for the information he provided.

Any information you can offer will be gratefully appreciated because I do not want to interfere with her therapy, or the progress she’s making, and she may believe I’ve betrayed her trust and abandon the therapy.

Thank you.

[David72]

Hi My wife and I have been together for 51 years and married for 44.

My wife has been a member of AA for some 20 years and is very active in the fellowship and has sponsored many people, and is even a member of her group’s convention committee.

She is a very wise and intelligent woman and at 65 is still very beautiful, smart and can be a lot of fun and very playful. She is also a qualified mental health and addictions therapist herself, and has conducted extensive work in this field and other similar behaviour centred courses and groups for more than 20 years.

Over the years I’ve done my utmost to support and encourage her with her career and her recovery. However, more recently she had an extremely traumatic experience in 2018, when she was at our holiday home and was burgled, while I was in London on business. The thieves broke in and gassed my wife and our dog and ransacked the house. Ever since, her behaviour, has regrettably become more and more aggressive and unpredictable, and she attacks me with uncontrollable rage, threats, abuse, unfounded accusations and put downs, for no reason I can understand, which I find intolerable, and have begged her to seek professional help because she’s in danger from destructive behaviours towards me and herself.

We moved to a new holiday home in a different area very shortly after this. Then after a year I was again in London on business, she had a massive relapse. Fortunately, our daughter had spoken to her just before this and suspected something was wrong. She contacted a friend of my wife in Spain, who after trying to contact my wife called the Police, who with the Fire Brigade, broke into the house and found my wife comatose and rushed he to hospital. Where she was subsequently diagnosed with extreme anxiety and depression. And until now she’s done little to seek treatment or therapy for it even after I gave her a book on PTSD.

Each time this happens, I tell her I love her and the behaviour cannot continue and if we are to have a future together she must seek professional help. She says I know you’re right and promises faithfully that she will seek help, but never does, and gives me a myriad of reasons why she hasn’t.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I had to leave, to allow her to seriously think about this, something I have done twice in the last two years, even though I am desperately worried about what she might resort to. Each time she becomes very sincere about seeking professional help, but doesn’t.

However, when I left this time in March this year, she told me in May that she had entered into therapy, with the very woman I’ve been encouraging her to contact. Because our daughter was in therapy with this woman, who has a sterling reputation.

Over the past two years, although this pattern of behaviour, on both our parts, has been going on much longer, but not in the uncontrollable way that it has now become. During which time I’ve been conducting extensive research to understand this and to help my wife. My issue was in struggling to understand if she was doing this behaviour intentionally, or she has a mental health disorder and doesn’t know, what, or why, she’s doing it. While working through the fog of cognitive dissonance, that I discovered not long ago, happens to the partners who love those with NPD, and was of the opinion that she was doing it intentionally, and at the same time still thinking how can someone who says they love you possibly do this?. Approximately two weeks ago I came across BPD and the first thing I read said, ‘it’s not their fault’. That in turn helped me to find a new compassion for her. And now believe she may be suffering from a combination of several of these disorders, albeit BPD appears to be the one she aligns most closely with. And I now understand that sufferers of these conditions have enormous difficulty with being honest.

Therefore, I’ve been agonising over whether to contact her therapist about some of the behaviours that I believe she may not be honest with her about. Because, unless she is completely candid, she, nor the therapist, will be able to achieve the most favourable therapeutic outcome.

Yesterday, my wife called me and shared with me she that was really making progress with the therapy and her therapist is helping her enormously, and that she was being very open and honest with her. I said I was so happy and relieved that she’d finally taken the step and was overjoyed the therapy was helping. But then she suddenly said but I haven’t told her about the tablets I take. Which I believe are Diclaphenic or similar. And it often seems that this is a cause of what she calls her ‘meltdowns’ that I believe she may be addicted to. But she’s often dishonest with me about this and denies it, even though it is clear she has because she becomes extremely anxious and paranoid.

Today I found your site and the first thing I read was a story of a man who seems to be experiencing very similar issues, and has contacted his wife’s therapist, and it sounded like she was grateful for the information he provided.

Any information you can offer will be gratefully appreciated because I do not want to interfere with her therapy, or the progress she’s making, and she may believe I’ve betrayed her trust and abandon the therapy.

Thank you.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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[once removed]

hi David72, and

i had a struggle very similar to yours.

i wondered how someone who claimed to love me could say such hurtful things. i told her that her behavior was a serious problem, a mental health problem (sometimes she agreed, and sometimes she suggested i was the problem). and for most of the relationship, i had one foot out...backing out, trying to get away from the hurtful behavior, and trying to get her to see the light.

this approach, while completely understandable, is not going to help save your relationship. it will, over time, erode trust between the two of you.

but believe me, things really can get better. it will pay to learn the tools and lessons here. and they can be awkward at first, so it really pays to learn them and practice them as soon and as much as possible.