Dear
Bluedarkblue, I’m so sorry you freak frustrated, hurt and disappointed. All of those are normal feelings of nonBPD who’s been involved in a non stop rollercoaster with no objective. As a witness to husband life you are trying to rationalize his actions, in order to consolidate them with you reality. One of my “5 cents”, don’t! It will drive you mad, you are trying to hold him accountable to the promises he’s made, which is fruitless. PwBPD often Make promises, pledges and plans in the heat of the moment. Once the emotion passes, they seem to “forget” or devalue the importance of such promise made. Now to the second point of regression, of him coming home to you at 4 am and so on. Well, this one is a little bit tougher, it stems from the boundaries you enforced on. As one of the senior members explained to me, they are made to protect you, not to control him. You can’t bargain, put ultimatums or put conditions that you aren’t gonna follow through. If you ever practiced “bluffing” with him, now is the time to stop. You can’t control what he does, you can’t nag or sit him down to let him know how much he hurts you. This will only backfire at you, he isn’t able to process or accept his share of responsibility when it comes to your life together. Gentle little steps.
Take a deep breath, many of those, understand that you need lots and lots of patience and validation to get through to him. To improve things you need to start with yourself, stop adding fuel to the fire. You have to be balanced and cantered, unfazed, regardless whAt he does or says. You can let him know “how much you love having him at home at an early hour, so you can do abc (you were thinking of giving him a massage since he works so hard to earn money for Christmas, share his favourite dinner, etc). Think of an incentive to come home, and a quiet place so he can get stabilized.
Fidelity and his interest in women, that’s one I’m also struggling with. It’s also about pushing the boundaries and the trust. You can be very clear about your boundaries, as soon as you figure out where you would draw the line. In a way I communicate with my husband, I tell him “I love you so much, our relationship mean the world to me, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Cheating isn’t part of my life, not because I’m afraid of you, but because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. If you can live with yourself, then go and do it. All the while knowing that When I would find out there won’t be any fights, trying to figure us out, I will be done”. I don’t look for confirmations or suspicions, I just live and believe that this isn’t part of my reality. At the end, of he wants to do it, he will, and no amount of talking or begging or discussing will stop him.
Lastly, in order to understand him, you have to get down on his level. Kind of like you probably do with your son, getting down on his eye level when you are talking to him. He is the way he is due to something that happened to him while growing up. Nurture plays a big part in someone becoming BPD, dig deep into his foo, it will give you clues and patterns to his functioning. It definetly helps me to view my uBPDh as a victim with poor coping skills as opposed to a tyran. Good luck dear!