The saga continues...

[empath]

Well, it's been about 6 months since I've been here... .  uBPDh has been on Wellbutrin since the end of January when he had a couple of serious dysreg episodes. I'm still holding up the boundary that I need for my own safety and sanity. He finally actually admitted to me to being abusive in the middle of July, and he has admitted to others in the recent weeks, including our pastor and his therapist.

We received a letter from our bishop calling a 'time-out' to his ordination process and any process that I might be embarking on while we work on the concerns about 'physical safety' (I had told our bishop that things had become physically unsafe for me this winter). I managed to deflect the questions that uBPDh had about how people knew about that -- the letter was vague and mentioned several different sources of the information. I also know that there are people within our congregation who have picked up on the abuse aspect of our relationship through his actions and treatment of me because they have said things to me.

Of course, in his mind, there is a lack of clarity about what is going on in our marriage. He doesn't like the fact that he has to be constantly guarded and try to change his ways of thinking (to be non-abusive). He still thinks things are 'not that bad' and that it is a normal thing that we are going through.    When he talked with his therapist, he brought up the issue of trust and abuse, and she said those things are a separate issue from the depression.  (that would be at least 3 of the criteria for diagnosis... .)

I just read "Stop Caretaking" which was more helpful than some of the other books that I have read on generic abuse. It seemed more positive and worked from the assumption that we have personal resources already. Anyway, I'm still holding the boundaries up -- uBPDh hates those boundaries. He thinks they are 'walls' to 'push' him away - abandonment fears. I also repeated one of my understandings about where our marriage (or is not) is at this point in time. Our pastor also recommended that I not be at church when he was preaching or teaching -- something that I had already thought about, but was hoping that he would be out of the public proclamation for a time.

I'm also working on getting some kind of income going -- I have a training proposal in and a potential temporary job. However, I realized that I need to come up with a good boundary around finances because he has gotten further and further into debt and is hoping that I will get a job so that he can be rescued from his poor choices. That area is often a trigger for him, and I need to figure out a way to not 'pay the price' for his mistakes. Any ideas about how to handle it?

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