I need help

[DerrickE72]

Hello,

The other day my counselor told me near the end of our session that she believes my wife has a serious condition of BPD. She said when I first started to see her 9 months ago she did not want to go down that path from the stories and hurt I felt and my son. After 2 months my wife decided to come with me to try marriage counseling together. Then after a couple of months decided to do individual along with marriage. As the months went on the roller coaster would get worse and worse and during individual for me our counselor would tell me stay true and not let her outburst keep affecting me. But that is hard to do since it had been going on for 17yrs together. So last week my counselor said she feels my wife has BPD and is going to give me a month to prepare for when she tells her. She asked me to read "Stop Walking On Eggshels". So far reading it is like someone wrote about my life. Even my sons life. He's 13 and he prays every night with me for mom to come back to the person she was. She was not as severe as she's been this past year.

I'm looking for people in Tulsa area that I can talk to and if there's a support group. I'm in need to talk and understand what is going in and what to do?

Derrick

[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.

[Thread]

This recently happened to me during a therapy session, however I have only been with my husband for 5 years. I didn't know until about year 3.5 after a year of separation when he retuned and it kept happening, I also was suggested to read stop walking on egg shells and was also the story of my life. It's heartbreaking and I still struggle with the depression from the grief of this being my reality and not knowing whether to stay or to leave and never being quite happy.

I'm sorry that you are in these beginnings they are hard. Having a therapist who understands Bpd for you and your spouse is critical. My Bpd husband had one who didn't understand and really was counseling him wrong, it was makin our marriage worse and his rages and episodes of emotionally escalating worsened.

He is now in a program called DBT. Look it up. His therapist suggested an near by institute. It was a 3-4 month wait - more like 6 and is really doing some great things for him. It's 2 hours of group therapy per week and an hour of one on one therapy per week for 6 months. He missed last week and it was pretty obvious. His therapist said he will need to be in therapy for life. His Bpd is triggered by stress, we own our own business and it's a stressful industry, so thus he will always need to be in therapy.

As much as it's helping and I see steps forward, it is still by no means a normal relationship. I never get to normally express myself or have real heart to heart conversations like we had in the beginning of our relationship. If he ever does something wrong I don't get to be a normal girl and get upset and be a drama queen I have to do everything in a unemotional calm manner because I have to worry about his escalations rather than my feelings.

Detaching your feelings from how your spouse treats you is very hard, I still struggle with that weekly. It's hard when it's very personal and very consciously attacking, they feel like defending themselves by first attacking... .I still don't understand when a therapist says not to take it personal, it's very personal.

My advise look into a DBT center and get her there, the rest is up to her and how truthful she can be with herself to make changes and do the work!

[livednlearned]

Welcome and hello 

17 years is a long time, and your son's wish for his mom to be better really broke my heart to hear. It's not easy for family members to watch our loved ones deal with BPD, much less our own challenges on these emotional roller coasters.

What do you think the therapist means by serious condition of BPD. By that, do you mean that she engages in self harm or suicidal ideation/attempts? Anything happen this year to trigger a jump in severity?

We're here to walk with you, and there are a lot of lessons, skills resources, and support here anytime you need some ears to listen. You may also find local support through NAMI (national association of mental illness). They sometimes have local groups, though not always specific to BPD. https://www.nami.org/