So we are now 26 years into marriage, and she is two years into weekly therapy and 9 of 9 symptoms are down to 6 out of 9 on my HF- uBPD wife. She is not suicidal, outwardly angry, or cycling through emotions **as rapidly. She still gets massively weepy but I can tell she is intentionally holding back a mountain of emotions which is not sustainable long term. Weekly sessions of EMDR have helped her with the anger a lot, and process childhood trauma. She knows she is the one with the problem and has intense shame.
My wife had a lapse also on Monday the 16th of October when you posted, we are 20 years married. My wife is no longer suicidal and hasn't been for over a year. However, she got triggered at work, and it spilled over first on to our D16, then me, and then my S12 who I brought home from school after she took it out on me. My wife has individual therapy; however, it is not EMDR. My wife also cries when she has an episode.
I am sad because for 6 months she was successfully not emotionally abusive to me, but she relapsed last week and emotionally abused me again (emotional manipulation and guilt tripping). She recognized it after and apologized (kudos to her), but it didn’t change what happened.
Like your wife, my wife also recognized it after 20 hours of dysregulation (splitting) and apologized. She knew she had to apologize, but couldn't figure out what to apologize for. Our daughter was snarky and did not accept the apology; however, both I and my son did. My son, also has a hot temper like his mom, so he can sympathise with the behavior in his own way.
Outdoor, what I am trying to say, is that even though there was a lapse, she recognized her error, even if she doesn't understand it. This is progress, don't let your '
dream die'. I know in my own mind I idealize my wife's recovery, only to be smacked in the face with reality that my wife is still mentally ill with a lapse in this recovery. Use this lapse or relapse as a reminder that your wife has a mental illness for which there is no cure; however, it can be put into remission only by the pwBPD. Unlike an alcoholic, where the pathologies are similar, you cannot remove her emotions - it is kind of like asking an alcoholic to be a casual drinker (of emotions) and not relapse. From time to time when she lets her guard down, or she becomes triggered, there will be a relapse.
The relapse in physical abuse (DV) and suicidality in my wife had over a 10 year remission before it resurfaced last year. The question for you, with the reduced frequency of these relapses can you accept your wife for who she is if these episodes are few and far between. I know personally I could not when they occurred on a daily basis; however, once per month, I can deal with it. What you are willing to 'tolerate' is up to you for you and the welfare of your children.
I am sure your wife feels like sh!t for doing what she did when she did this after things calmed down. When she is back to baseline, talk with her and reassure her. My wife disassociates and cannot figure out what she did, but she has finally figured out she needs to apologize for it, even though she doesn't know what 'it' is, or denies that 'it' even occurred. However, my son, who has 5/9 symptoms can remember what he did, and apologizes for it.
My son and daughter have also improved dramatically with their mental health along with my wife's improvement with no therapy (they both refuse to go). The only thing that I can attribute to their improvement is that my wife and I are both modeling much healthier behavior.
Even though it is hard to do, give your wife some grace for what she has done. She *knows* she messed up, let her punish herself, remind her of the boundary, and move on with radical acceptance and leave it in the past once it has been addressed.
I told my wife as long as there is improvement, I will be there for her, and not leave her. What is improvement, for a pwBPD it is not linear (e.g. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... , 98, 99 , 100%) but it can look something like:
0, 1, 4, 2, 3, 5, 10, 0, 8, 11, etc... On Monday my wife went from 50 to 5 (she didn't explode like last year), and now she is back to 30. Just a reminder the mood swing symptom is hours to days, my wife's typically for hours until there is one sleep cycle, and occasionally two (3 times now, including this past Monday's episode)
I emotionally am sad because I already grieved the dream dying, and I have the knowledge of what radical acceptance would take. But it doesn’t make it emotionally easier. My emotions are always hardened around her now that I am awake, and I can never relax. It is exhausting. My personality doesn’t easily share my deep feelings, and so I get lonely holding onto my own feelings and trying to be strong for my kids. It is hard because men don’t share feelings easily with other men, and men sharing with women crosses the line into emotional affairs. It gets lonely. Also sharing what “really” goes on in an BPD relationship opens the door to many more uncomfortable questions. Nobody would understand. Hence a therapist is where I go, but I already have heard everything they have to say and it starts to be repetitive after a while.
Anyways, thanks for listening today. Just feeling lonely and sad.
You are not alone. I get it, I am very similar point - and it feels like you are dealing with this all by yourself. Shoot me a PM and we can talk, as I too could use an ear to vent-to from time to time.
My emotions are hard too, I am using the 'detaching' skill to 'not give a f*' when she is this way. I let her explode, much like you would an epileptic, and then help her pick up the pieces when the episode ends - gray rock during the episode like I and the kids did by not JADEing during the episode - hunker down and weather the storm until it passes.
Regarding talking to another woman with our 'man' feelings, since they can understand better than most men, I did that who was a licensed counselor who is also an ordained minister who approached me in a facebook peer to peer group and was accused of having an affair, because I didn't pay her, as it was a 'peer mentor' type relationship I was accused of having an affair, even though I had boundaries in place. This is as severe catch-22 for us men when we do share emotions, but there is no one that will listen to us outside of a paid therapist.
My wife has made huge progress in the past year, as much as double weekly DBT (weekly individual and weekly group), and she sees her individual T every other week about 1/4 the amount of time of a DBT program. There is hope. Keep the boundaries up. My wife blew threw these boundaries on Monday, all my children maintained the same boundary and I was blasted by the couple's counselor for not validating the invalid - I pushed back on her hard, and she called me a 'fake therapist'. After I explained how my wife's feelings were not supported by the 'facts' that I didn't care, even though just a few minutes prior she agreed I made several supportive statements and actions! Normally this couple's therapist is gender neutral; however, the drama on her computer screen of me and my wife made her instinctively defend my wife, which is rare for this therapist, unlike the last one who did it just about every session who was likely a recovered cluster B herself with an eating disorder.
The following statement may sound narcissistic, but it is not. My individual therapist (supervisor level licenses), trains therapists for a living, and she has commented several times that I know more than some of the therapists that she trains - which doesn't say much for the profession. In addition to the 'peer mentor' I have had other therapists ask me questions in this area, and eating disorders. I let everyone know I am not a therapist, even though I've been told I would make a good one....
.... so, I am in training to be a crisis counselor, and I am applying to grad school to become a (wait for it, wait for it).... a therapist - if you can't beat em, join em... and then make a difference for the severely under-served male population. I plan on serving the non-PD'd partners of the cluster B, much like shrink4men does; however, in a much less abrasive way with sympathy and empathy for the pwBPD, as they are well intentioned people too who occasionally become the proverbial werewolf from time to time when their mood swings with anger management get the best of them.
I am changing careers from an extreme male dominated one to an extreme female dominated one -- I find extreme irony in my own black/white choices in career paths moving from a highly technical male one to a typical female feelings based one.
Keep your head up, and you are not alone.
P.S. One tip that I have learned from the past several months, go into couple's therapy like you would a divorce court in the book "Splitting" by Billy Eddie - this is geared for divorce; however, the negotiating and highlighting techniques found in its pages is also good for couple's therapy which more often than not doesn't work for pwBPD (and other Cluster B disorders) when traditional methods are used - it is a 50/50 crapshoot for normals and a disaster for PD's. I would prompt my wife to show a symptom to the couple's therapist (pervasive feeling of emptiness for example), who would then address it from a 'non-fake' perspective without calling out the specific symptom. The therapist has seen 8/9 symptoms in session and is aware of the 9th (gesture of suicide), my wife acknowledges 7/9, yet neither one can 'connect the dots' even though the couple's therapist on several occasions has given me advice consistent for BPD - she might, but is not letting me know. My wife becomes aware of the symptom, and then she can address it with her own therapist.
