Need Advice

[LonelyWife]

Hi,
My husband was officially diagnosed with BPD about a week ago. I have been struggling before we had an official diagnosis (I expected something was wrong). When I first met my husband life was so much less hectic but as time progresses it's expected life will get crazy.

My husband suffers mostly from the extreme anger, verbal attacks, self sabotage, accusations, becomes irritable and emotionally distant to name a few. He also has very low sex drive and hates his body and that does hurt our marriage. My love language is physical touch and quality time together but he wants to be constantly left alone. I feel like I don't know how to act or talk to him since the diagnosis. I feel bad being distant and I know he can tell that I am but I feel scared to get too close and lovey because when he has one of his lows he threatens a divorce and that I don't support him. I've been trying so hard for him not to have a high or a low but I know I can't control this. Within the last week I have been doing research on BPD and I'm hoping with this group it'll help me understand and be supportive to my husband.

Thanks for listening!

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Cat Familiar]

Hi LonelyWife, and welcome! There’s much to learn as far as how to more effectively communicate with a person with BPD (pwBPD). Take a look at the Tools section at the top of this page.

Much of how we’ve been able to successfully communicate with emotionally healthy people can run afoul with pwBPD, despite our best intentions.

One of the quickest and easiest things I learned which really helped my relationship was not to JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain). I’m still working on not explaining, as that is as natural as breathing is to me. It typically is not a problem when my husband is at baseline, but when he’s dysregulated, it’s like throwing gas on the fire.

Tell us more about your relationship and how we can help you.

Cat

[LonelyWife]

Hi,

Thanks for responding! I'm still learning the words and phrases to use to describe when he's in a good mood and a bad mood. If he's in a good mood everything's great, but when he isn't it's like all hell broke loose. When he's dysregulated he'll reclus drive, he'll emotionally attack me, he'll become physically abusive, he isolates me and makes me think his behavior is my fault. He'll even tell his therapist that. Afterwards he'll apologize and he thinks everything is great but I try to process what happened. I'm going through therapy myself and they are telling me to leave him and try to move on. I feel bad because I feel like I can help him but I don't know if he knows that he's hurting me or if it's the BPD controlling him? He keeps telling me he is trying to be better but I feel like I don't know what better is anymore.

Regularly, he gets very upset over the littlest things. Ex. He set his alarm for 8am when he wanted to wake up at 7am. He still had time to get ready for work but he throw his phone on the floor, punched the headboard multiple times, starts yelling and growling, breaks the closet door off the hinges, breaks the light in the closet and pulls the string off, breaks hangers while in the process and just keeps yelling repeatedly until he leaves for work. He didn't want bother so I didn't say anything to him but after a few hours he says "Hey, I'm sorry, I'm hoping your morning is going well." It makes me feel bad when something like this happens; it scares the hell out of me but I feel like I have to realize it's part of the BPD. Besides that he rarely showers, and takes care of himself. Sometimes I feel like I'm his "Mom" but I know I'm not responsible for reminding him to shower or brush his teeth. He spends all of our money or games and vape juice and stuff for his vape but will yell at me if I want to splurge and get take out here or there. He keeps mentioning that he wants to get a new job that pays so we're not homeless but he won't apply or go to interviews.

I've been distancing myself so much from him because I feel like it's not going to get better. I am so tired and drained of it all. I have a disability and am in the process of getting surgery. I feel like I have to rely on him and can't leave him until I am better at the very least, but I know his behavior is destroying my mental health. Long story short, he works, comes home, eats dinner, plays games or plays on his phone and goes to bed. If I want to socialize with him or watch a movie or tell him how my day was; to him that's to much of a chore. I have left it as I sit and do the housework as I am able and I am just emotionless. I truly feel lonely in my marriage but I want to be better. I want the man that I fell in love with back but I think it might be too late to get him back?

Does any of this make sense? I'm honestly not sure.

[deadmouse]

Hi,

Thanks for responding! I'm still learning the words and phrases to use to describe when he's in a good mood and a bad mood. If he's in a good mood everything's great, but when he isn't it's like all hell broke loose. When he's dysregulated he'll reclus drive, he'll emotionally attack me, he'll become physically abusive, he isolates me and makes me think his behavior is my fault. He'll even tell his therapist that. Afterwards he'll apologize and he thinks everything is great but I try to process what happened. I'm going through therapy myself and they are telling me to leave him and try to move on. I feel bad because I feel like I can help him but I don't know if he knows that he's hurting me or if it's the BPD controlling him? He keeps telling me he is trying to be better but I feel like I don't know what better is anymore.

Regularly, he gets very upset over the littlest things. Ex. He set his alarm for 8am when he wanted to wake up at 7am. He still had time to get ready for work but he throw his phone on the floor, punched the headboard multiple times, starts yelling and growling, breaks the closet door off the hinges, breaks the light in the closet and pulls the string off, breaks hangers while in the process and just keeps yelling repeatedly until he leaves for work. He didn't want bother so I didn't say anything to him but after a few hours he says "Hey, I'm sorry, I'm hoping your morning is going well." It makes me feel bad when something like this happens; it scares the hell out of me but I feel like I have to realize it's part of the BPD. Besides that he rarely showers, and takes care of himself. Sometimes I feel like I'm his "Mom" but I know I'm not responsible for reminding him to shower or brush his teeth. He spends all of our money or games and vape juice and stuff for his vape but will yell at me if I want to splurge and get take out here or there. He keeps mentioning that he wants to get a new job that pays so we're not homeless but he won't apply or go to interviews.

I've been distancing myself so much from him because I feel like it's not going to get better. I am so tired and drained of it all. I have a disability and am in the process of getting surgery. I feel like I have to rely on him and can't leave him until I am better at the very least, but I know his behavior is destroying my mental health. Long story short, he works, comes home, eats dinner, plays games or plays on his phone and goes to bed. If I want to socialize with him or watch a movie or tell him how my day was; to him that's to much of a chore. I have left it as I sit and do the housework as I am able and I am just emotionless. I truly feel lonely in my marriage but I want to be better. I want the man that I fell in love with back but I think it might be too late to get him back?

Does any of this make sense? I'm honestly not sure.

This sounds a lot like what I'm going through! Unfortunately I don't have much in the way of advice as I'm struggling myself to  make sense of the insanity. I do find that not sharing too much and especially not sharing anything even slightly upsetting helps, but then again that makes you feel very lonely in the relationship.

Has your husband always been like that? My guy split on me on our very first day together. Sometimes he'll dump me several times in one day.

I do believe people with BPD don't know what they're dong when they feel that all-encompassing rage. For lack of a better word, it does look like they get possessed by a demon.

[LonelyWife]

He started splitting when we officially got an apartment together (3.5 years ago). One moment we were putting away dishes and unboxing our stuff and the next minute he was throwing stuff at me saying that I mess everything up for him. I thought at the time that he was having a bad day but then I realized that something seemed off and it took many therapists to finally diagnose him.

[Cat Familiar]

The difficult thing for us *nons* is that we are still processing our feelings after witnessing their emotional outburst, while they’ve gotten out all that pent up emotion with the rage episode. Since they feel *done* with the incident, while we are still breathless and freaked out—then they can accuse us of “hanging onto things.”

You mentioned that things started to go sideways when you moved in together. This is typical of BPD, as it’s a disorder of intimacy, and the closer you get, the more it will be outwardly expressed.

I’ve dealt with this by having my own space in the house, while he has his own area. Thankfully I had an inclination that I would need this when we first got together, even before I knew about BPD and his personality disorder. It was just because I’m very independent and have been accustomed to having my own space for a long time. And he likes to spend hours with the TV on, which would have driven me crazy, had we shared our living space more closely.

[LonelyWife]

All of what you mentioned sounds spot on!

We sadly live in a very small apartment so we don't have much space to go in different places. I try to have me time when he's at work and when he's home I try to give him a room to himself but that only leaves me to the kitchen or our bedroom to stay in for however many hours. Before we moved to our current place we had a good amount of space. It wasn't a house with lots of rooms but it felt bigger and less squashed.

I think my biggest fear is that I will have to leave him and I don't want to do that but my therapist and my friend don't understand what BPD is, I guess? Because they will say he's just an abuser and you should have him arrested. Deep down I know his behaviour and rage is due to his BPD but I feel torn. We don't have a lot of friends because they don't understand what's going on with him. It all just makes me so sad.

Last night, he was good, joking having a great time until we were heading to the car from the store. He was singing loudly in the parking lot and I joking said, it's funny but maybe save it for in the car. I didn't understand why he got angry and slammed the doors of the car and said I guess we're not going to our date night tonight. I felt like I was being punished for saying something that was a joke to him. It made me feel sad but he was raging for about 2 hours. We finally ate and he calmed down. Later he wanted to cuddle and thought it was all okay but it again took me awhile to get close and I felt bad. Is there a way for me to process my feelings faster or a way to somehow lie almost and be able to cuddle right after that without him sensing I'm still processing what happened? Sorry if that doesn't make sense.

Also is there any books that you would recommend that might help me be able to understand and communicate with him better?