Spouses/Partners and levels of support and understanding

[januarygirl]

Let me just apologize in advance if I hop around in this post.

I have been married to my second husband for almost 5 years, together for almost 7. He comes from a single-child, dual-parent household.  His parents were stable and loving and by his own admission he lived an idyllic childhood.  He So for obvious reasons it is very hard for him to make sense of the things that have transpired over the years. He understands that parts of my childhood were chaotic and strained, to say the least.

Right now, my mother is currently hospitalized for a suicide attempt, the second in a week's time.  I have had no contact with her since June, when I sent her home on a plane after she created unnecessary chaos in my home and saying horribly inappropriate things to my children.  My grandmother passed in November, so I called her and gave her the information.  That call lasted less than a minute.  My second call lasted about 10 minutes, and that was after she was discharged last week after her first attempt.  So maybe I'm limited contact?  Anyway, each time something happens with her, I say things to my husband that I am done with all of it, that I wash my hands of it, that I don't want to deal with it, etc. He always supports me but still reminds me that she's my mother, and I love her, and all of that. 

So last week he was on the other side of the country for training when everything unraveled with her suicide attempt.  She was brought to the hospital as "unknown female", and because no one had identified her, there was very limited information they would give me over the phone.  I was in text message contact with my husband and giving him updates, which initially he responded that I should go to Indiana where she was.  I live in South Carolina.  I declined that for several personal reasons.  But after that text, he sent a text about his retirement, paying the plumbing bill, complaining about the weather etc.  I was in crisis mode, trying to get information from the hospital because she was on life support and I was being told someone would have to go to Indiana to make medical decisions for her.  I felt that he was being incredibly insensitive.

When I was able to have a face to face conversation with him about the way his responses made me feel, he seemed genuinely confused and reminded me that I said I didn't care what happened to her, and that I wasn't even talking to her, and he reminded me about all the ways she's hurt me over the years.

The truth here is I am genuinely conflicted.  Since she's been back in the hospital, I've called at least three times each day for updates, but I don't want her knowing it, and I haven't spoken to her.  I love my mother, truly, but I am also so so so angry.  It's so conflicting.

And I can't really talk to my husband because he just repeats back the things I've said about not caring, which I shouldn't say things in anger.  And right now, actually for the past week, my raw nerves are at the surface, and I feel so vulnerable and I am very sensitive, and he senses that but doesn't understand that it's not him, so he pokes and antagonizes me.  I know the simple answer is to not engage him or let him bait me, but this is an area where I need a lot of practice.

So my question is this.  How do you communicate to your spouses or partners what your needs are as far as love and support?  What do you do when your partner is incapable of providing these things?

[Notwendy]

It sounds to me like you have a pretty good marriage in general, and that your H is supportive of you. However, in this situation, it may just be out of his ability to relate to or to support you emotionally. Yet consider that this is OK- it really is, and if you are not OK with it, or feel resentful for what he can not do, then this may not be good for your relationship. What all of us want, really, is for our SO's to be OK with us, and none of us are good at everything.

In reality, it is too much to expect one person to meet our emotional needs all of the time. This doesn't mean we don't honor our marriage vows or threaten the marriage by complaining or venting about the spouse to another person. ( discussing issues here is anonymous) . However, for some issues, like being raised by a mother with BPD, the emotions involved can overwhelm friends and spouses. It also can effect them emotionally to be dealing with our strong feelings. This doesn't mean that we can't cry on their shoulders sometimes, but they will be feeling some emotions for us too ,and that's a lot for them.

The bottom line: I was overwhelmed with issues that concerned my parents, and I realized that the best person to support me was a therapist, not my husband. Sometimes if I am emotional about something else- the best person for me to talk to is one of my female friends. I don't share emotional things with males- that is a boundary that I keep because, it is important that my marriage is a strong bond, but some things are better understood by my female friends, and that is OK.

I also found support from a 12 step co-dependency group and an ACOA group and a sponsor. None of these violated my marriage and in fact, probably spared it by not overwhelming my H with issues he doesn't relate to. So I think perhaps this is an idea that might help you.

Think about this- many women have their mothers to talk to, and other family members as a support system. We don't and that can mean our spouses are our only support system. However, it may not be good to expect them to be it all the time. It is hard to not have a mother, but we can also try to gain support from others- and therapists, friends, other people in the community- can have a supportive role for us. We may have to make an effort to gain support from others.

[januarygirl]

Thank you for giving me a different perspective, notwendy.  I've read your response several times, and tonight I apologized to my husband for expecting of him what he cannot give.  It puts us both in a really bad position where I need the support, and he knows he cannot give it to me, and from there it blows up.

I called my insurance tonight and was authorized 25 visits to my current therapist.  It started out as marriage counseling, but I think there are bigger things at play here that I need to address stemming from childhood.  I see a lot of the behaviors in my own self, although I feel like maybe some of those things are learned behaviors, but I also have the fear of abandonment, and that is very real.

When my sister and I were growing up, we experienced parental alienation, where my mother vilified both my dad and my stepmom and ultimately we went through several years of broken contact.  I've struggled every now and again with the knowledge that my dad knew exactly the type of woman she was and yet he didn't fight hard enough for us.  He sort of gave in.  Then she married our stepdad, and that lasted for ten years, and he was a great guy, but naturally that marriage ended too when I was 17.  I chose to live with him instead of my mother, and you all can imagine how that went.  Eventually he met a woman and married her, and she didn't want to deal with our mother, so she asked him to break contact with us.  I don't think I've ever had my heart so broken since then.  I just turned 36, and the pain is still very very real.  So the point of all of this is that I know I have so so so much to work through, and I can clearly see now that this is far too big to do on my own.

Rambling again.  Sorry.

[Notwendy]

I know the feeling. When my father was ill, I naively jumped into the drama triangle to try to rescue him from the way she was treating him. Not knowing about the triangle, or the relationship dynamics of BPD, I didn't realize how these dynamics worked. I saw my father as the victim in the marriage, and was unaware of the role of the co-dependent. Dad was her rescuer. So, when she perceived me as persecutor, painted me black to him, he colluded with her as the rescuer, and became angry at me. As much as I tried to connect with him before he died, the pattern persisted.

I don't know how much this was orchestrated by him or my mother, but by the time he died, it appeared that they had disowned me. His last words to me were angry, and I don't know if he meant it, or it was confused because of his illness.

I agree with you that the feeling of rejection of a father feels worse than any break up of romance. Like you, I think this was a heartbreak in a way I don't think I can describe. I know I cried for months- at the grief, and also the lost hope for the relationship I wanted with him.  I think as daughters, we want our Daddy's to love and protect us in a way that can not be described. In an emotionally healthy family, I think there is room for parental love and spousal love, because they are different and both parents love their children. To a BPD mother, and I can imagine even more so, with a stepmother, the love of a daughter is seen as competition. It's as old as the Cinderella story.

Your step mother, and my mother, put our fathers in a difficult position. Counseling has helped me to reframe this, to understand him, forgive him, and realize that yes, he did love me, but the situation made that difficult. I had to realize that while I could be away from her, he lived with her every day, for which the situation was much harder. I also recognized that the patterns in my family affected my marriage as well. It is great that you apologized to your H. I know I am glad for the counseling and work that I have done, and so, I hope that you will be too.