BYUJazzFAN
Fewer than 3 Posts
 Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Relationship status: Married
Posts: 1
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« on: January 08, 2021, 11:51:41 PM » |
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Like many of you, I could write pages of background to why I'm here. Like many of you, I have been so upset that I've stayed awake all night, talked with confidants all night, and cried all night. Like many of you, my life has many wonderful, happy times, but also times so turbulent I don't know how I'll survive.
I am here because my wife likely has BPD and I have no idea how to approach her about it. We've been married 17 years. Ten years ago we hit some rocky patches that were due to my own emotional regulation issues and I was diagnosed with AD/HD in 2012. I have studied it and sought to manage and channel it as best I can. I've tried 8 medications, none have worked, so I'm not on any meds, but would love to find some that work. For many years, I believed, and my wife reminded me, that our relationship problems were my fault. It was my genetics. It was my behavior. It was all my fault. About 5 years ago I finally came to know myself confidently enough to know when she was lying about me and I was confident enough to know on my own who I was even when she was telling me I was someone different.
For a couple years after that, I made dramatic improvements emotionally and mentally, she kind of stayed the same. She approached me to see a therapist who had a 12 week emotional trauma recovery program, and asked if we could do it. I was immediately on board as I had been trying for 3 years to get her to see a therapist and she always refused. "Why? They can't help. They can't change us." We met with him, and he immediately told me, "I specialize in BPD and am 90% sure your wife has it. It's a high functioning case, and not all symptoms manifest, but several of them are quite severe and apparent." It was then I began studying BPD. Five weeks into the course, she abruptly stopped. She had been seeing significant improvement, but once he started touching on things that illuminated some of her weaknesses she shut down, refused to go anymore, and retreated back into her old self. He did tell me it would take time before she would even be willing to consider she has BPD, and that I should not be the one to approach her about it. The reason for that is I am already blamed by her for ALL her problems, because she's broken and I'm the one who broke her. When she argues with our kids, she re-directs her anger towards me. She blames me and my genetics that I gave the kids, even though her own mother and siblings have mental illness.
I could go on, but I'm sure I'll add more to my story in future posts. For now, I finally came to this site because she's reaching a breaking point. The last 2 years there has been a pendulum. Good times, then bad times, and back and forth. She stopped meeting with our therapist last July after she got defensive when he tried helping her recognize her potential BPD. Like she does to me if I ever begin to try to talk about potential weaknesses she has, she cuts me off, shuts down the conversation, and accuses me of not being accountable for MY weaknesses and just trying to blame her. She then walks away and hides away in our bedroom for hours, or even a couple days. With stress from Covid, and her working in healthcare, her emotions have been more sensitive lately. She argued with our son a couple days ago, and sure enough, retreated to our bedroom and within 5 minutes was texting me about how she can't survive anymore with me here. She pleaded with me to go to my parents for a couple months to give her time and space to heal. I told her I am happy to allow her time and space to heal, but if she needs it, she's free to take it. She said I'm selfish and narcissistic because I won't give her what she wants. I told her I'm not locking you in the house, you are free to go and take whatever time you need to heal, and I'll take care of our 3 boys and we'll be waiting here for you and hoping you can come back to us healed. Ultimately, I feel like her forcing things and bringing things to a head needs to include some direction to her that she should seek psychiatric evaluation and potential treatment. Her sister agrees with me. Others agree with me. She gets so depressed at times she wishes she was dead. She's never said suicidal things about taking her own life, but she has said at times she just wishes she was dead.
Already a very long post and I feel I'm barely scratching the surface. I feel like this is merely a single sentence in what could be a novel written about our background, personalities, and lives together. I am forgetful so have been keeping a journal for over a year with many observations and things regarding BPD traits so when she is confronted with the possibility, I can have clear examples. Our therapist 2 years ago asked me to start doing this to help him during our sessions. Anyway, I just am at that point where I WANT her to simply seek psychiatric evaluation and potential treatment, but have no idea how to do that when I can't even talk to her about her problems, and me just coming out and saying it would lead to a massive emotional explosion on her part, and would only confirm to her, in her mind, that "See, you are 100% a narcissist! You are so selfish! You try to blame ME for your problems which are why I feel the way I do? You can't even SEE your problems, you're not accountable for your own horrible actions, so don't try to blame me for them!" ALL my confidants are telling me "Under no conditions should you leave and give her a separation." They are all adamant about that. But I don't know how to stand strong in refusing to leave without then explaining to her why, which is I feel that my simply leaving will NOT resolve her underlining issues, which is the BPD. I wish I could just say, "Yeah, I love you. I will do this for you. I will give you 3 months at home with the boys." But then if she does want to make it permanent, I've already shown I'm willing to leave the home and she could use that against me if she then chose to pursue a divorce on her own. I want her to heal, and I want to show her I love her, but I also want to protect our family, our kids, and our marriage.
I'll end my novel of a first post here, but I'm looking forward to finding support here and offering what support I can as well. Thank you.
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