Opinion From Everyone

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

ok... its been awhile but i ask for you all opinion sometimes because I find that BPD SOs sometimes have a skewed view of reality that is not real and that their perception is wrong.  At same time, I do not want to assume that if I have screwed up.

No need to go into too much background on us... its been a nightmare... but things have gotten somewhat better.  Livable is another matter

Anyways, wife has been hospitalized twice in past year and been going through aggressive therapy.  It has been a heavy drain on finances as its impossible to find a decent therapist in network in my area so stuck going out of network.  Well, then our 16 year old son starts seeing a demon that is telling him to kill himself and having nightmares about killing himself nightly.  So, he has started needing weekly therapy and meds.  Our other 13 year old was diagnosed with ADD so he is getting help on the cheaper side of things, but its just a massive drain on finances.  On top of that my wife has not been doing much and been in bed alot so her back muscles atrophied and after a fall she has severe back pain requiring a ton of physical therapy to avoid possible surgery.  My wife's parents died  about 14 months ago which was traumatic and was a whole other deal but did leave her some money.  She has blown through most of it primarily on herself.  While I am the only one that works and pay all the bills, i am not allowed access to her inheritance.  My wife has never cared about how stressed I am with finances as it was just my problem to make more.  With all the extra therapy its looking like it will be a a year of $40k+ spent on healthcare again and she has dipped some into her inheritance to help with that which means she is freaking out over losing her money. 

Originally she said for VDay lets go stay at in one of the more high priced suites at a nice hotel and we can use that as VDay and anniversary which is the 26th of this money (yesterday).  I still got her some little things naturally and we had a nice time.  This week I figured this was a trap being that was being set up.  I started early in the week asking what she wanted to do for Anniversary.  She of course stated that "we did that for VDay and need to save money", maybe just us two have dinner someplace.  Of course, I agreed to whatever she wanted, but I knew this would not be satisfactory to her.  I made sure and purchased a few gifts.  I was going to go into work late on our Anniversary so we could have breakfast then after i got off we could go out and I could give her gifts.  Day before verified about breakfast.

Well, next day on anniversary she was miserable.  She refused to go to breakfast...   She then called mid day at work freaking out saying she couldnt deal with her mental health therapy that day and I offered support and understanding.  She was im sure concerned cause she would be billed for no showing but I was still supporting and I ended up even contacting doctor to let them now for her cause she was embarrassed.  The doctor informed me then that she had missed so many appointments she owed currently $750, but I said nothing at first to wife about it.  I let her know to cheer her up that I had her some gifts which she liked but apologized for getting nothing for me and not even a card.  No problem for me. 

Everything was fine until about 3 pm when she asked when I would be home...   I informed her i was closing the office that night so would be done at 6pm.  She absolutely flipped out.  Saying I should be getting off early and home.  I was confused cause she was saying all day she wanted to be in bed, she canceled breakfast which is what cause me to go in late.  I had taken an hour of my day to talk with her on phone and her doctor.  I thought i had done pretty well considering I had no input in the week about anything other than mention of possible two restaurants which we normally do not eat until later anyways.

So I am heading home and she tells me to get kids food but not to get her anything cause anniversary is ruined and she is going to sleep.  Well i seen this trap before.  I go ahead and get her food anyways because in past she said same thing and got furious i didnt get her anything.  Sure enough later she comes downstairs and then throws a fit cause I got her something she did not want... .  I do not mention gifts even though they are on table because i know when she is in this mood she will talk about how she hates them all just cause her mood.  She asks me about the "stupid looking packages".  I inform they are her gifts but do not worry and she probably will not like them anyways. she of course agreed and tells me to take them back.

She goes to sleep and gets up off and one well up to 4 am to yell at me and blame me for ruining anniversary and then our lives.  I finally say I cannot take this anymore.  I had been apologizing and saying I just misunderstood or taking all the blame for hours.  At 4 am i had enough and said I cannot do this anymore.  She of course had told me our marriage was over, she told me i am not a father to kids because biologically they are not mine even though im the only father one knows.  She said something else... i am too ashamed to talk about its so hurtful.

So, I am out of the house... she argued with me ruining work today and ruining most of work yesterday so i have clients who are pissed

I am stuck with these questions

a. Is she right?  Did I ruin everything and it is my fault?  If so with all the other stuff she said I am a pretty despicable monster

b. Is she wrong?  Many times weeks later she might admit she is wrong after earlier inviting me back home.  The problem with this is... i literally would rather die than feel how I felt with what all she was doing.  How can i keep going back and accepting that?

If she is wrong, it is abuse because her own therapist said she is verbally abusive and she used to be physically

I just need somebody outside of the forest I am in to give me a perspective.  I do not care if its harsh on me.  I want to do the fair thing for her if I a wrong.

[hurthusband]

ok... its been awhile but i ask for you all opinion sometimes because I find that BPD SOs sometimes have a skewed view of reality that is not real and that their perception is wrong.  At same time, I do not want to assume that if I have screwed up.

No need to go into too much background on us... its been a nightmare... but things have gotten somewhat better.  Livable is another matter

Anyways, wife has been hospitalized twice in past year and been going through aggressive therapy.  It has been a heavy drain on finances as its impossible to find a decent therapist in network in my area so stuck going out of network.  Well, then our 16 year old son starts seeing a demon that is telling him to kill himself and having nightmares about killing himself nightly.  So, he has started needing weekly therapy and meds.  Our other 13 year old was diagnosed with ADD so he is getting help on the cheaper side of things, but its just a massive drain on finances.  On top of that my wife has not been doing much and been in bed alot so her back muscles atrophied and after a fall she has severe back pain requiring a ton of physical therapy to avoid possible surgery.  My wife's parents died  about 14 months ago which was traumatic and was a whole other deal but did leave her some money.  She has blown through most of it primarily on herself.  While I am the only one that works and pay all the bills, i am not allowed access to her inheritance.  My wife has never cared about how stressed I am with finances as it was just my problem to make more.  With all the extra therapy its looking like it will be a a year of $40k+ spent on healthcare again and she has dipped some into her inheritance to help with that which means she is freaking out over losing her money. 

Originally she said for VDay lets go stay at in one of the more high priced suites at a nice hotel and we can use that as VDay and anniversary which is the 26th of this money (yesterday).  I still got her some little things naturally and we had a nice time.  This week I figured this was a trap being that was being set up.  I started early in the week asking what she wanted to do for Anniversary.  She of course stated that "we did that for VDay and need to save money", maybe just us two have dinner someplace.  Of course, I agreed to whatever she wanted, but I knew this would not be satisfactory to her.  I made sure and purchased a few gifts.  I was going to go into work late on our Anniversary so we could have breakfast then after i got off we could go out and I could give her gifts.  Day before verified about breakfast.

Well, next day on anniversary she was miserable.  She refused to go to breakfast...   She then called mid day at work freaking out saying she couldnt deal with her mental health therapy that day and I offered support and understanding.  She was im sure concerned cause she would be billed for no showing but I was still supporting and I ended up even contacting doctor to let them now for her cause she was embarrassed.  The doctor informed me then that she had missed so many appointments she owed currently $750, but I said nothing at first to wife about it.  I let her know to cheer her up that I had her some gifts which she liked but apologized for getting nothing for me and not even a card.  No problem for me. 

Everything was fine until about 3 pm when she asked when I would be home...   I informed her i was closing the office that night so would be done at 6pm.  She absolutely flipped out.  Saying I should be getting off early and home.  I was confused cause she was saying all day she wanted to be in bed, she canceled breakfast which is what cause me to go in late.  I had taken an hour of my day to talk with her on phone and her doctor.  I thought i had done pretty well considering I had no input in the week about anything other than mention of possible two restaurants which we normally do not eat until later anyways.

So I am heading home and she tells me to get kids food but not to get her anything cause anniversary is ruined and she is going to sleep.  Well i seen this trap before.  I go ahead and get her food anyways because in past she said same thing and got furious i didnt get her anything.  Sure enough later she comes downstairs and then throws a fit cause I got her something she did not want... .  I do not mention gifts even though they are on table because i know when she is in this mood she will talk about how she hates them all just cause her mood.  She asks me about the "stupid looking packages".  I inform they are her gifts but do not worry and she probably will not like them anyways. she of course agreed and tells me to take them back.

She goes to sleep and gets up off and one well up to 4 am to yell at me and blame me for ruining anniversary and then our lives.  I finally say I cannot take this anymore.  I had been apologizing and saying I just misunderstood or taking all the blame for hours.  At 4 am i had enough and said I cannot do this anymore.  She of course had told me our marriage was over, she told me i am not a father to kids because biologically they are not mine even though im the only father one knows.  She said something else... i am too ashamed to talk about its so hurtful.

So, I am out of the house... she argued with me ruining work today and ruining most of work yesterday so i have clients who are pissed

I am stuck with these questions

a. Is she right?  Did I ruin everything and it is my fault?  If so with all the other stuff she said I am a pretty despicable monster

b. Is she wrong?  Many times weeks later she might admit she is wrong after earlier inviting me back home.  The problem with this is... i literally would rather die than feel how I felt with what all she was doing.  How can i keep going back and accepting that?

If she is wrong, it is abuse because her own therapist said she is verbally abusive and she used to be physically

I just need somebody outside of the forest I am in to give me a perspective.  I do not care if its harsh on me.  I want to do the fair thing for her if I a wrong.

[Offaleater]

Hi, so much sounds familiar in a way.

I do not think you are to blame, in fact sounds like you really went out of your way to "get it right"

It depresses me reading things like this, as it reminds me of my situation, and makes me think trying is not worth the effort.

[believer55]

So many times we fall into the trap of who is right or wrong and who is to blame. I try to avoid this point of view all together. It is more helpful to try to understand the way she sees things - which may not include logic at all. But at least try to understand how she comes to her conclusions. For example my uBPDh judges peoples value on his friendship by facebook - now this is not only not logical but completely misguided. Now I don't agree with him but when hes started dysreg about my dad yesterday I knew how he had gotten to that point and was able to tell him I understood why he felt the way he did but I that I saw it differently. This does help to start a discourse about things.

Now it doesn't always turn out in your favour - ie the dysreg yesterday got worse and is still occurring today - but I felt I had tried to connect with him without dismissing his feelings.

Best of luck.

[Thread]

I can relate to your story. Especially the bringing food part I just had this happen and I didn't bring food home and got chewed out for it. He said he didn't want anything I asked over 3 times.

But it's nice that you question whether it's you or not. I think in the confusion of our BPD situation, BPD partners cause us to question our reality and sanity.

A BPD relationship is in general emotionally abusive.i went through the same and sometimes still experience emotionally abuse. It had gotten better and has been acknowledge much more since he got into a DBT therapy program. Other uneducated untrained therapists who are not specialists in BPD or DBT only made our situation worse. I had much more emotional abuse under their therapy.

My advice is to actively find better therapy for yourself to cope and for her!

[TheRealJongoBong]

You're dealing with someone with a mental illness. They don't make sense a lot of the time, I'm sure you've noticed. So no, you didn't do anything wrong. You've been trying to take the path of honoring your wife and you commitment to her, and she is busy finding fault and problems in everything. You can't do anything about that.

My therapist told me a good thing once. It was that my wife suffered a lot of trauma to get where she is today. When she is dysregulating it's not her doing the yelling, it's the trauma. It's her mental illness that's doing the speaking. It means nothing except that she is in pain. Your wife is the same way, and if you want to survive you have to decouple from her pain.

[Grey Kitty]

Whether you did the right thing or the wrong thing, she was absolutely going to find a way to blame you for ruining the anniversary. Nothing you did could possibly have prevented that.

Could you have done anything better? Perhaps getting more space away from her sooner, rather than later when she had gone from upset into full-on-abusive.

[hurthusband]

yea... another issue that is causing serious trouble is our 16 year old son.

Last year he was in sports and active and jovial.  This year he quit sports, and has been more sedentary. At same time, he started dating this girl who has severe mental issues.  She was raped at 10 and been in and out of mental facilities since.  She kept messing with his head.  She would text him pissed off at 2 am over nothing.  She would break up with him then next day say it was her sister on her phone for like 50 texts.  Finally she broke up with him and said he was just an experiment, but now is on same bus to school so is trying to buddy up to him too.  Really messed with his head.  During this time he apparantly got very depressed and while at a friends house (whose parents left them unsupervised to go out all night) they took a ton of pills and flipped out.  It was then that we also found out he had been seeing some demon type thing that was constantly telling him to kill himself or it will kill his family

Needless to stay set him up with psychologist and psychiatrist.  Psychologist first at doctors recommendation and he goes weekly.  Since though he has developed trouble sleeping and refusing to eat.

Obviously he has tons of issues.  He expressed one fear is coming home every day not knowing to expect from his mother who he once found during a suicide attempt with blood... . 

My wife is freaking out over all of this and that on top of her own crap.  Its a nightmare.  Meanwhile I am spinning out worrying but have nobody for support.  I am working multiple jobs and throwing out about 4k a month it seems on healthcare alone.  with taxes coming up

[Ceruleanblue]

Yes, you are dealing with someone with a mental issue. So am I, and I sometimes question if he's right about me. Briefly. I now I'm not to blame for "antagonizing him" though, as he stated today amidst his divorce threats. They might not even be threats. He may mean it this time. I spent an hour on an abuse crises hotline, and I'm telling YOU, as they told me: It's NOT your fault.

My husband is to blame for his anger and over reaction, even if I "trigger" him not meaning to. His anger and reactions are on him, but I spent the morning questioning myself, even while I knew that was crazy.

Like you, I'm doing the very best I can, and they need to take responsibility for how they feel, their actions and reactions, and stop blaming us. Period.

Hugs to you, my morning was awful too, and I'm still scared and shaky.

[rei]

hi hurthusband.

i do not have much input to offer. i just wanted to say that, as i read your post, i felt very sad because it sounds like you are doing so much and may not see it. it is wonderful that you have the fortitude to be able to do all that you do in the face of so much hostility.

know that you are not causing her to behave the way she does. in this sense, it is not about faulting or blaming, but accepting that she has an illness that leads her to be this way--it is not her fault and you certainly cannot be at fault for said illness.

so, it definitely is not something you should blame yourself for. maybe take time to really consider if this is a life you can lead without it causing significant damage to your self. it is great that you are considering her well-being, but you must not disregard yours and your children's.

best wishes!