Is it reasonable for me to expect this change?

[ArleighBurke]

I think my wife has BPD, but I'm not sure. My wife has agreed to come with me to see a BPD psych - but I've told my wife that it is for "marriage counselling". The counsellor will go along with that, so hopefully this will allow the psych to evaluate her without any stigma attached.

Even if the diagnosis comes back as not BPD, my wife is certainly extremely emotionally driven, and the techniques I've adopted so far from this website, and various other BPD books do seem to help.

So my question:

When we go to counselling and talk about what we want in the marriage, I wish to suggest that my wife change the following 2 things:

1) For my wife to accept that when she feels hurt/pain/fear etc that these feelings are already within her - that i may "trigger" them - but I don't cause them.

    Most of her bad feelings are from childhood trauma. So when I make a decision without consulting her, that triggers an abused/helpless feeling. If an unexpected bill comes in, that triggers her fear of being poor/losing her home. By accepting that these feelings are HERS would stop her seeing me as the bad guy. Rather than blaming me for how she feels and pushing me away, I could still say sorry for hurting her feelings (and mean it), and we could work together to help her through those feelings.

2) For my wife to understand that it is not up to me to fix how she feels - she needs to self soothe. (This will probably be easier if she accepts #1). And sometimes self soothing comes before the arguement with me.

    This would remove another source of pain - she normally sits there expecting me to fix her feelings. "I'm feeling X - what are YOU doing for repair? You need to apologise MORE, or SHOW you're really sorry, then I could feel better."  I want to HELP her feel better, but I want her to understand that it's not my responsibility.

   

Just these 2 things will make a huge difference in our lives. I can stop being the bad guy in my wife's head, and I can be her support. Rather than being blamed and being pushed away, we can connect and stand together.

Is it reasonable to expect these changes? And if my wife DOES have BPD - is it even possible for her to make these changes?



Thanks all

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[vortex of confusion]

Is it reasonable to expect these changes? And if my wife DOES have BPD - is it even possible for her to make these changes?

No, I do not think that it is reasonable to expect these changes.

If your wife comes to you to fix her feelings and ask you to soothe her, you can set boundaries. It takes time. My husband used to call me multiple times a day when he was at work. If he couldn't get a hold of me on the phone, he would try texting, FB, and other methods until he could get me. I had to take a stand and stop answering. It created a lot of angst in him. I didn't soothe it for him. I told him that he had to soothe it for himself. That isn't exactly what I said. I don't remember exactly what I said or how I said it. The gist was that I have things to do during the day and I can't spend my days waiting for him to call/text/etc.

Also, pay attention to how both of you phrase things. I figured out that I was saying things like "<fill in the blank> makes me mad." I know it may seem insignificant but "I" have tried to change how I phrase things so that it becomes "I am mad because blah, blah, blah." I have had to do a better job of looking at my own behavior.

Whether or not you get a diagnosis is irrelevant unless it is needed for insurance or therapy purposes. The tools here can be helpful with people that just have BPD traits.

You can't change her. If you are going to MC with the expectation that she is going to change, then it is likely that you will be disappointed. Since you are the healthier person, a lot of things will fall on your shoulders. It is quite common for a therapist to ask the healthy person to make changes.

 

[ArleighBurke]

How much hope do we have if she feels that I am the bad guy all the time? How can we bond and be connected when she is always pushing me away?

I am not asking for the emotion to stop - not at all. Just for her to own it.

Is it really unachievable?

[vortex of confusion]

How much hope do we have if she feels that I am the bad guy all the time? How can we bond and be connected when she is always pushing me away?

I am not asking for the emotion to stop - not at all. Just for her to own it.

Is it really unachievable?

There isn't an easy answer to your questions.

How many of the lessons have you read?

What tools do you have in your toolbox to protect yourself?

Getting them to own their stuff is very, very difficult. They already feel huge amounts of shame. They already feel huge amounts of self hate. To accept negative things about themselves, even if it is an emotion, is quite difficult.

Like somebody told me when I found this place, to them, feelings equal facts. I am trying to think of a good example. The first thing that comes to mind is getting cut off in traffic ruining the entire day. Likewise, accepting one bad emotion can ruin her entire personhood.

I hope that makes sense.

How do you react when she pushes you away?

[ArleighBurke]

I guess I know this - that her accepting "responsibility" for her own emotion is a HUGE ask. Because once she owns it, she then has to either accept it or change it. Blaming me all the time means not having to face it.

I don't know that I have the strength to continue to be her emotional punching bag. I am at the point that I can accept her, accept her emotion, accept her distance, accept her different view of the world. I can agree with her, validate her.

But all this is acceptance - "stopping making it worse" perhaps. I dont have the energy to put back in to help her "to make things better". I know that I can probably achieve better results by leading her, helping her out of her emotional state, working with her. But i'm either stuck with no energy to do so, or a stubborn "it;s not fair" attitude.

Perhaps this will come with time. I've only been in the "stopping making it worse" phase for 2 years and still feel like I'm learning. Perhaps once mastered I will be able to then "make things better".

As to how I respond to when she pushes me away? I generally let her. I'll go do my own thing, leave her to her own mood.  She feels like an irresistible force that I just don't want to face.

[vortex of confusion]

I don't know that I have the strength to continue to be her emotional punching bag. I am at the point that I can accept her, accept her emotion, accept her distance, accept her different view of the world. I can agree with her, validate her.

But all this is acceptance - "stopping making it worse" perhaps. I dont have the energy to put back in to help her "to make things better". I know that I can probably achieve better results by leading her, helping her out of her emotional state, working with her. But i'm either stuck with no energy to do so, or a stubborn "it;s not fair" attitude.

Don't continue to be her emotional punching bag. Find a way to enforce boundaries to protect yourself.

You won't have the energy to make things better for a while. And, even if they do get better, there is no guarantee that they will stay better. There will be lots of slip ups.

The first thing is to stop making it worse. It can be very confusing though because as you work on creating boundaries, things might seem like they are getting a lot worse.

 

Hang in there! And, also try to find things to do to take care of yourself. What kinds of things do YOU enjoy?

[Stalwart]

Hey Williams:

Hold on I’ve just got to catch my breath here for a minute after going through your plan here.

Things take time and a lot of learning and effort my friend. Baby steps and feeling the bottom as you wade into new territory. It keeps your footing more sure and saves falling in over your head.

First things first my friend. You’re going to a BPD specialist so she can be diagnosed for a possible disorder? OK, if that’s the case it really isn’t about marriage counselling or really about you or your situation. It’s about her and how she sees her situation. It’s about the phycologist having the ability to hear her side. He’ll know how to do that.

Personally, I’d let him take his lead and lead both of you through it. He will have his own specific goals. I don’t think it should be about the battle of the titan opinions about your difficulties. I’d let her do all the talking – it’s her he needs to access. If she isn’t telling the truths don’t worry, he’ll see that and lead her into the discussion he wants to uncover with her.

I’d trust him to do his thing – he’s the professional and he’s seen it all. If he suspects BPD, which will be an entirely different adventure as to how he approaches that with her and he tries to get her into therapy.

The master plan forward? – Well I wouldn’t have expectations of her at the moment until I knew what I was working with and if I were looking to define expectations at that point even of a diagnosis it would be learning as much as I could to define the expectations I have of myself to meet the challenges in a better way.

If he does confirm a diagnosis and moves forward with her it’s going to be really difficult for her just to begin to handle that revelation. The psychologist knows just how to finesse that. I’d let him do his job with her and I’d start to do my job with myself in the process.

Just food for thought.

[ArleighBurke]

I'm not suggesting I'm going into the meeting with guns blazing and an agenda. I guess I'm just preparing for things if I'm asked. I've always told myself that those 2 changes would be all I need - that I can accept everything else. If they are not realistic, then I need to adjust my expectations.

I will let the psych lead the way.

And I am taking care of myself. My wife pushes back A LOT - trying to stop me from going out (once per week), trying to control what I do, all with such emotional manipulation. It's hard to see that what I'm doing is the right thing, when she keeps telling me it's not. I can see that working on me creates distance between her and me - I know it's healthy but she feels it's not. So even when I'm doing the right thing, she feels I'm doing the wrong thing.

So how can she even trust/bond with me if she thinks I'm a bad husband all the time? I guess that's BPD.

[married21years]

the first step is not to expect change but for her to realise she has an issue and to want help for it.

until that point you are in trouble.

that is the first goal. 

[an0ught]

Hi  ArleighBurke,

your goals are laudable. But they are not realistic. In many situations people are told to put their thinking hat on but here - please take your rationale thinking cap off. BPD is not something anyone can overcome alone by reasoning about it. Your wifes behavior will not benefit from these - very true - insights you want her to have. What you are asking is way too abstract, rationale or cognitive. There are risks too as some of what you want to tell will be invalidating and will make it harder for her to function.

Validation and also self validation takes time and effort to learn. A reasonable goal would be to agree to work on more constructive communication - from both sides - and then start with the "High conflict couple" and go through the exercises.

She might well start to self sooth when she has sufficient practice with validation and has to deal with a boundary. Boundaries are primarily your responsibility.

The key issue here is that one can't learn skills from reading the LESSONS. Skills take some theory but mostly practice, practice and more practice.