Trying to avoid divorce and/or protect our child from verbal/emotional abuse

[Ozling]

Hello,
I am new to BPDfamily.

My daughter just turned 6 (I think I've seen that written as D6 - is that right?).  Her father has many BPD symptoms and also seems to have attachment trauma issues and his therapist has mentioned PTSD.  He has "episodes" (as I call them) of varying degrees which range from being irritable and/or withdrawn to raging, verbally/emotionally abusive, sobbing, having panic-like attacks, etc.

He has never been physically abusive to either of us.  The most dramatic it has gotten physically is when he punched a hole in the wall a couple months ago.  That was the only time that he's done that (so far).

He has insight into his "condition" to a large extent and is working with a therapist and has very recently agreed to work with a psychiatrist on finding a medication.

My biggest concern right now is protecting my daughter through this whole process.  He speaks harshly to her, sends her the message that she should "cut it out" when expressing emotions, tells her to stop crying, has said "I don't care" when she has told him that he has hurt her feelings or something similar.  (Like, "that's not fair" = I don't care, "You made me sad/cry" = I don't care, etc.)

Also, as a role model I am not proud at all.  She sees me placate him, basically hide from him, never call him out on his verbal abuse (at least not in the midst of an "episode" as it would only escalate things).  She will see that I have been crying and doesn't even bother to ask me about it any more.  I think I used to say that nothing was wrong or something to that effect in the past but now I can't even remember those days.  Very very often his anger at one of us turns into anger at both of us.

I am afraid that she will learn to repress her emotions, develop unhealthy outlets.  She already won't talk to either of us about how she's feeling.  She will literally say, "I don't want to tell you."

As it seems is common he also has an extremely sweet and loving side as well and can be very kind and supportive but can quickly turn from that to the opposite sometimes without much warning.

There is a conflict for me because I want to be supportive to her but cannot appear to contradict him.

I do not want to divorce.  Sometimes I ask myself if divorce would be better for her but then I think of the times that she would be alone with him on a regular basis and that makes me think no.  Currently they are very rarely alone together without me around.

Any guidance that anyone has I will be happy and grateful to consider.  It is really nice to hear that I am not the only one with this concern.  Thank you for sharing and thank you for listening/reading.

Ozling

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