Where do I go from here...suggestions for next steps

[peacemountain]

I've been doing a lot of processing and therapy and reading. Here are some of the conclusions I've come to. I would like suggestions on how to proceed from here.

1. The current situation is not healthy for me or for my children, or for my uBPDh for that matter. It is not one that can continue for any length of time without damaging everyone involved.
2. I am actively applying tools of validation, boundaries, etc in an effort to improve the current situation on my part.
3. My analysis is that H is suffering from a combination of issues, BPD, anxiety, OCD, and an abusive mindset. This is resulting in severe control over the kid's activities, frequent outbursts, periods of H being unable to function, and verbally abusive treatment of me (in the past there has been physical abuse as well). There is an ongoing cycle of violence as described on many abuse websites.
4. At the current time, I do not want a divorce. I want my H to find a path to healing and as a result an improvement in our current environment. This is his choice, but I recognize that the current situation cannot continue (even with the improvements on my part).

My thought is to proceed as follows:
1. Outline my concern and love for him. Present to him my concerns of how these multiple issues (he is aware of the anxiety and anger, I will not mention the others for now) are beginning to have a severe impact on his enjoyment of life, on me personally, on our marriage and on our children.
2. Ask that he seeks professional help for these areas in an effort to drastically impact the above concerns for the positive. (will need to think how I can present some specific objectives and timelines here) BTW, to this point he has refused any therapy.
3. Let him know that I'll give him a few days to consider this request and then we can discuss again.
4. If he agrees to the request then I will continue in the current situation for 6 months as long as he is continuing to meet the specifics of the agreement.
5. If he refuses the request, I will need to implement a healing separation with the main objective to care for myself and my kids and remove them (as much as possible) from the current unhealthy environment.
6. The separation would need to remain in place until there has been a demonstrated and time tested effort to address the issues I mention above.

A few concerns:
1. His reaction. When having this discussion, especially the one in #5, I think it would be wise to have it in a public place like a park.
2. Going back on his word. Historically, he promises to make changes, but they rarely stick. This is why the agreement would need to be quite specific with regards to timeline etc.
3. If we end up having to separate, I'm slightly concerned about safety. My friends are very concerned for my safety. He's unpredictable and vengeful and has threatened me (in a somewhat joking way of "if i ever cheated on him". The place I would be staying is with friends, so I wouldn't be alone much of the time.
4. If we separate and then he decides gets help, it will be difficult to know when to go back and I know the push will be strong from him with all sorts of promises and anger if I don't concede. That's why I think at that point I would need to see a long period of demonstrated change and a willingness on his part for me to "come back when I feel like I can trust him again".

Thoughts? Input? Experiences? Are there other options?
What are other's thoughts about asking one or two people he trusts and respects to encourage him in the same direction?

Thank you all so much in advance!

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[stayingsteady]

Hi peacemountain,

Wow... .There's a lot going on in your life right now.  The responsibilities in being a mother and a wife are  difficult enough even without the additional burdens of having a loved one with symptoms of BPD.  Even with all of this, you keep moving forward.  Nice work.

I like how you're looking at potential boundaries, analyzing them and running them past others before implementing them.  I had an idea that may prove useful, you may choose to disregard it after reading .

You mentioned you had identified many behaviors that are impacting your family.  It seems you also fully understand that if he receives therapy the root causes for these behaviors can be addressed.  I fully agree. 

I do worry a little bit about his response as well though.  as you had mentioned, he can become violent, both physically and emotionally.  While informing him of the boundary in a public place may prevent the outburst from occurring immediately, the impact of the statement may continue to fester inside him, resulting in the escalated behavior occurring at a later time when you are alone. 

I know you mentioned that these behaviors most often occur when a request to go to therapy is involved.  I believe there may be an alternate route that could receive this same benefit (going to therapy) while also decreasing the likelihood of a behavioral outburst.  I also believe this approach could increase his personal willingness to go, which would increase the likelihood of effective therapy sessions.  Again, feel free to disregard it if you feel it wouldn't provide additional benefit.

You mentioned you had identified "multiple issues" that are impacting your family.  You also stated that you are planning to remind him of these issues before providing the boundary (going to counseling).  The planned consequence for breaking the boundary (going to counseling) is "a healing separation".

What if the boundaries were changed to the "multiple issues" rather than the boundary being "going to counseling".  The consequence, if the boundary is broken, could stay the same (a healing separation).  You could then use "going to counseling" as an optional choice.

This conversation might go like this:

1.  You could state the boundaries (multiple issues)
2.  Inform him of the consequence (a healing separation to keep everyone safe).
3.  Provide choice - You could then inform him that you know counseling is a difficult option and you wanted to provide him with this alternate route (finding a way to do it on his own without counseling) to improve your home environment.  You could also say that you're okay with counseling too if he chooses to go that route to improve the home environment instead. 

By emphasizing that your concern is the well being of the family, emphasizing that he has the opportunity to choose between options, and decreasing the impact of the largest identified trigger (asking to go to counseling), I believe you'll have a higher likelihood of a successful conversation.

What do you think?

- Staying Steady

[peacemountain]

Yes, StayingSteady, I think this is a really good alternative. Thank you for the thoughtful input. I think the bottom line is that I need to ask him to create a plan to address the issues. He can plan to implement whatever methods he thinks will be helpful to address the issues. Bottom line will be that a plan is created, and actually followed through on, and that progress is made.

This means that responses of:
1. "I need to think about it" but never following up with a solid plan in a certain time frame
2. coming back with a plan that is essentially non action and being unwilling to discuss any additions to that plan
3. "I don't need a plan"
are in essence a NO answer to my request for change

Leaving the plan up to him to formulate and drive pushes the ownership to where it should be and hopefully softens the negative reaction.

[believer55]

Hi Peacemountain

Thank you so much for your post and showing the thought process involved. So well articulated and thought out. I am trying to formulate my own decision for a separation and this has helped me immensely.

I know I am not offering advice - but wanted to compliment you on the thought you have given this and thank you for sharing.

Best of luck 

[peacemountain]

@believer, thanks so much for the positive feedback. I feel like I've been in analysis paralysis for weeks now, and it feels so good to finally have a plan that feels solid and reasonable. Also, because living with a pwBPD is so uncertain, it's difficult to come up with a solution when the variables are constantly changing (one day he hates me, the next he loves me). It's helpful to hear that from the outside it looks logical and well thought out.

One of the things that helped me was reading Should I Stay or Should I Go by Lundy Bancroft.

I realized while reading that that although things seem uncertain and always changing, there is one constant and that is that there is always a cycle. I can guarantee that in the matter of two weeks, we will run through one or more cycles of the I hate you, I love you behavior. I can guarantee that there will be abusive behavior. In short, I can guarantee that at some point during that time the environment will be far from what I want for everyone involved. 

I also identified through reading that there are more than two options... .staying or divorce. There's separation, there's asking others to speak to him, there's going on a long vacation to see my family to get some clarity, there's living separate in the same home, etc. All with their own pros and cons.

Having this plan in place has made me feel so much better. Now it's up to me as to when I want to present it. I don't have to do it tomorrow, I don't have to do it 2 weeks from now. I can choose. I don't have to formulate something on the fly in desperation.

Let us know how your decision process is going and bounce ideas off of us here. Best of luck for you too!