In 16yr marriage on the ropes, trying to figure out what I'm really dealing with

[CrispyTofu]

Hi!

Came across this site in searching for information on BPD. I've been married to my wife 16 years, we have 2 beautiful girls.
I've always had this feeling that I'm walking on eggshells with what I say or do around my wife for what seems like most of the time we've been married. I've learned a pattern deal with it and avoid confrontation at almost all costs. That seemed to work. We had our ups and downs, but it did work enough to stay and raise our kids together. Usually it meant me giving up something I wanted or needed in order to keep her happy.  But it also led to a pattern of avoidance and omissions about myself and slowly built up resentment over not being able to be myself with someone thats supposed to be the closest to me. My relationship with my own family and friends has suffered. And I always justified it by saying its for the good for my immediate family, and there was no way I could leave the situation for my kids to handle on their own.

Recently our marriage was pushed to the brink by my behaviors involving co-workers at my last job. I did what I had to do to save the situation, moved and changed jobs. But now I'm dealing with more severe emotional behaviors. The good news is that it challenged us to seek out couples counseling. I started individual counseling as well and that where I was introduced to BPD as a possible diagnosis for my better half which has led me to here. Hi everyone! 

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[NGU]

Hi Crispy.

I'm partially following you so far. Long term marriage with children, challenges with your wife's possible undiagnosed BPD, individual and couple's counseling.

Recently our marriage was pushed to the brink by my behaviors involving co-workers at my last job.

That sounds like it could have been a pretty big stumbling block, although your wording could be taken a couple of ways, so I don't want to outright assume what happened, or what impact it might have had.

To start, maybe you could share some of the traits your wife has that have been difficult for you to handle.

I'm glad you found us. Hope to hear back from you.

-ngu

[Mutt]

Hi CrispyTofu



I’d like to join NGU and welcome you to the family. 16 years is a long time BPD traits are more prevalent when a pwBPD is under stress they don’t handle life’s stressors easily. There are ways for you to cope with her behaviours and strategies to pacify her stress.

I’d like to echo NGU can you give us examples and we’ll help you from there?

[CrispyTofu]

Thanks for the replies.
I didn't know how much detail to go into on a first post. But I'm happy to elaborate.

Here's what I meant by my behaviors at my last job :  I developed a pattern of omission and hiding of small company social events because I know it would trigger her . I had gotten into this pattern long before, many years, trying to avoid any and  confrontation because how it escalates. But in this latest example, I held a get together with coworkers when I started working there, with her in attendance, and all it did was trigger jealousy, with her constantly worrying about me running off with one of my younger, single coworkers.

It  was a small startup environment, lots of happy hours, celebrations etc. I definitely excluded her from that part of my life, mostly as a precaution is how I justified it to myself. And admittedly I was having a very fun time. I had made many new friends and a good number of them were female coworkers. I would downplay how well I knew them, etc. Of course she would eventually find out or I would eventually tell her about events, and who was there etc. But it only fed the insecurity and my trying to hide things only made it that much worse. It got to the point where she was convinced I was having an affair at work. It derailed from there. That period of time was a series of nasty verbal clashes that would occur on a more frequent basis. It came to a head one very late night where she went through my phone and was convinced she had found evidence, to me which was innocuous , that I was having said affair with one particular co-worker. She had lost control that night. Afterwards she was severely depressed and had a panic attack

For a year I tried to make it work by excluding myself from social interactions with co-workers, and being upfront about what I did and where I was going and who was there. But it didn't seem to ease things. Work became a bad place in her mind. And my friends there became accomplices and everyone was covering for me and my affair. Nothing I could do would change her mind about it. Finally it had gotten to the point where it was impossible to function normally there or I'd be risking some HR disaster. Thats when we decided it would be best to restart and move jobs and location and reboot.

Since then its definitely been more dancing on eggshells trying to keep the peace. But little things will come up and become huge and she will in her mind wrap everything in with this past betrayal. Everything became maybe 'you'd like it better with someone else'. After one of the last big fights we almost called it quits. We agreed to couples counseling, and I started individual counseling. And its been eye opening for me. During my sessions it became evident that I was doing quite a disservice to myself and her by how I was coping with this condition. I would frequently just give in and agree, and avoid confrontation. And what I perceived as being short tempered was a more elaborate condition. And I relayed our issues, my counselor recommended to me 'stop walking on eggshells'.

The more I've read about the condition the more I realize that this fits what we've been dealing with. Not just from this one instance but from our entire relationship together.

Something that I do need help with right now is with regard to getting help.
We're doing couples counseling, but its pretty clear to me, and I think to our therapist, that my wife could use individual counseling... It tough slogging through our sessions now because of how easily the dynamic is. My therapist recommends she find someone that can do DBT therapy. The challenge here is she doesn't think she needs individual therapy. And she does not have previous good experiences with therapists (from dealing with childhood trauma). Our couples therapist has been pushing this for the last few weeks now.  I feel like if I push on it the more she will dislike the idea of getting help for this. 

Has anyone had success getting their significant other who is resistant to therapy to realize they have BPD (horrible name btw)  and seek treatment?

Thanks!