Trying to keep my relationship together

[Merriam]

Are any of you living apart but trying to keep your relationship together? I'm trying to leave my ubpd boyfriend of 2 decades but it seems impossible. I love him so much, but I'm really struggling. This week we started fighting and I escaped to my parents house for a few days, but the time is coming when I will have to go home to try to explain that I feel like I need to move out. I know I will go back. I feel so weak that I always break down and go back. FOG plays a huge part in this. I just wish he were nice to me. I cling to the past memories of when he was.

For as long as I can remember he's been waking up angry. He controls me with his sleep. Always waking up super upset or taking naps in the middle of the day on the living room couch so that I'm forced to tip toe around him trying to avoid a rage. Its where I first started using the term "walking on eggshells". Even during my sleep he controlled me. I felt him sucking my energy. You can imagine when I found the book (on his mother's bookshelf) that I couldn't believe it, it was exactly what I was going through. Its true, very rarely does anyone outside the family know this other side of the bpd. I felt such validation. We started sleeping in separate rooms. Finally I could recharge. It hasn't made it any easier to leave the relationship though. 

For a long time I thought I was the one that just wasn't smart enough to figure out our problems. I couldn't even put in words what he was doing to me. Why our conversations always turned into arguments. He talked me in circles. I was always the one that would give up on the fight or cave to the seemly pointless rages and endless monologues. It wasn't until a couple years ago when he repeatedly kept saying things like "quit playing games" and "you don't care" that I literally Googled "what does it mean when your boyfriend keeps telling you that you don't care?" I was so lost. I am lost still.

My parents want me to move home. Quit my job, co-parent the dogs, spend my savings if I need to and make it easy on myself. Sometimes I am able to twist it in my head so that it seems like an adventure. Even better if he agreed to trying it this way. It sounds so horrible to say but I feel happy when I think about living by myself. I like to believe that it would force him to be more intentional with our relationship or at the very least force him to take responsibility for his own happiness. I'm tired of being blamed for everything that he does...or doesn't do.

I hope connecting with people here will give me the strength that I need to take better care of myself and find a way to have a relationship that is caring and supportive for both of us. 

[Pook075]

Hi Merriam.  Very tough situation and I'm so sorry you're going through this.  Most of us have been in that identical situation and it is no fun at all since there aren't any clear answers.  How do you balance loving someone while also hating to be around them at times?  It's mind numbing.

Time apart can sometimes help these relationships, so maybe you'll return to a more stable home.  Maybe not.  But for now, you can't worry about what's to come because you can't really know until you get there.  Now is a great time, however, to focus on what matters to you and what you will/won't accept in the relationship going forward.  For instance, if he wants to take a nap....there's a bedroom (with a bedroom door) for that.  Don't expect silence in the living room since other people live there. 

Get some of these boundaries built in your mind and discuss them when he's stabilized.  Then stand your ground and stop walking on eggshells.

When you do this, it usually receives bad behavior at first, and that's where you'll have a decision to make.  Marriage is about compromise though and it's unfair if one person is carrying the majority of the burden.  So find your voice and speak up, not to argue (it does no good) but to explain how you feel and what you want out of the relationship.  Then enforce healthy boundaries to protect yourself.  Boundaries are not punishment (how your spouse will make them out) but a way to protect yourself when he makes certain poor choices.  Make that known and make it a constant.

I wish you luck and hopefully things are better once you do return home.

[ForeverDad]

Establishing proper boundaries can seem impossible if we're not aware howto set appropriate Boundaries. <-- See link. Also here:
Setting Boundaries and Setting Limits

Have you pondered that your relationship is dysfunctional?  While you hope for good, all you seem to get back is strife, anger and worse.  The discord is unhealthy.  You know it, your family knows it but why can't you stand up for healthy and functional?  Look up Stockholm Syndrome where people taken hostage can develop feeling for their captors.  Even if you're not strictly a hostage, do you see how that can be what you're experiencing?

It is his choice to be the way he is. He's an adult, he can behave however he wishes, as long as it isn't abuse of course.  He could decide to seek therapy to aid him into becoming a better person, but he doesn't.  (No, you can't fix him, you are in a close but dysfunctional relationship where the decades of the past close relationship combined with BPD perceptions make it hard for him to truly listen to what you say, better for him to have a trained therapist.  Sadly, many people with BPD traits, or even just poor behaviors, refuse to seek and stick with meaningful therapy.)

You too are an adult, if you decide you can't live like that then you have the choice to make changes in your life relationships.

Granted, it's hard to make sweeping corrections to your life, but you know the first steps are difficult until you're firmly on a better path, right?  But we can't make your choices for you.  We are here in peer support to inform, educate and help you.

Unfortunately when you have a spouse with BPD, they are unable to fill up their cup with happiness, so you end up pouring a continuous flow into a leaky cup, until you just get worn out.

Similar examples are described here:

Over in our Topic discussing The Bridge there is a post there about The Backyard Black Hole.  (If you haven't read The Bridge, then please read it too.)

The Bridge
The Backyard Black Hole

In short, no matter what you do or say to comply, appease or whatever, there is little if anything you can do to help long term ... unless your spouse wants and tries to improve himself/herself.  Only a very few can do so without experienced guides by means of intensive therapy.

[Merriam]

i haven't gone back yet. but i have to admit that those first couple weeks were the hardest. i've resorted to writing letters to him to communicate my feelings and what id like to do. even though i've asked him so many times, he has never written me back. writing helps me to get out what i have to say without him talking over me, contradicting me or side tracking me. it also gives him time to process what i'm trying to say without me getting the emotional knee jerk reactions from him that often include anger, accusations and blame. we've agreed at this point that i will live mostly at my parents and a couple days a week with him because of my job, but i had to ask him if i could do this and i get the feeling that he is holding it against me. i believe he thinks we have to live together or what is the point of being in a relationship with me. but when we're together he's up to his same old ways, ignoring me, talking to people on his tablet but not with me, saying "maybe" whenever i ask him about making plans, raging when he wakes up in the mornings (or anytime he wakes up), saying rude and uncaring things. when i'm with him lately we both notice his jabs. he is quicker to apologize for being so provokingly rude, but i still find myself waiting to leave. his mood swings and demeanor brings me down. i'm feeling like maybe we have grown too far apart, but i cling to the idea of the person i fell in love with. the one that made me feel better after feeling ashamed, the one that made me laugh when i cried. i keep telling myself that one day soon this will all make sense and that my happiness has to come first. i can stand it, i will stand it, and i will come out the other side stronger and wiser. thank you to everyone here. just reading through the posts gives me so much validation.

[ForeverDad]

Maybe he hasn't replied to your letters because he'd much prefer the in-person confrontations, rages and reactions?

I too would prefer the in-person communication but of course not the confrontations and rages.

[zondolit]

Dear Merriam,

Welcome to this forum where you will find a lot of support.

Are any of you living apart but trying to keep your relationship together?

I proposed this to my STBx husband in the form of a therapeutic separation (overseen by a therapist) and he refused (after leading me and the therapist on for months).

but the time is coming when I will have to go home to try to explain that I feel like I need to move out

You are not required to explain anything. In fact, with someone with BPD, explaining often makes things worse. (See this site's information on not JADEing.) It may feel really rude to not give your reasons and you may wish to heaven he was interested in your reasons, but it is perfectly fine to simply tell him you are taking a break from living with him. No rationale required. Or say you're not even sure why you need the break but you do.

It sounds so horrible to say but I feel happy when I think about living by myself.

This does not sound horrible at all to me! Quite the contrary, you sound like a person who has the courage to listen to her heart after many years of being told not to by the very person who is supposed to love you most.

Your parents have recognized your boyfriend's disorder and they wish to help you. This was my situation too. There may be a tendency for parents to want to swoop in and save you. They hate seeing your distress. Hopefully, they can offer help without being pushy. Hopefully, they can treat you as an adult. In my case, I was hoping to improve my marriage. Ironically, it was my relationship with my parents, siblings, and friends that grew as I left the marriage I so desperately wanted to save.

[Goodpal]

I can totally relate to the anger issues. We are living separately but it still occurs when we are under the same roof for a few days. It feels so good to be able to leave though and have my own space.

I have always struggled w/ being a people-pleaser so a dominant emotion like anger triggers my anxiety. For me I am now beginning to understand that I have way more options and that only one who is limiting me is myself. I don't need to be with my person yet I stay. I'm finally planning my exit.

Have you considered your options outside of the relationship? Have you taken the time to think about the possibilities of a much better life w/o this person? For me that seems to be working. Also, reminding myself what got me here in the first place (Family of origin dysfunction).

Hope this was somewhat helpful to you.

[Purplegiraffe]

Wow, I truly feel like I am reading my own situation!

I did move out and back in with my parents, after one rage that went too far and I could see absolutely no rationale in. Prior to that I was staying  with my parents for at least 1 night, usually 2, once a week because of my pwBPD’s rages.

He said he had come to quite like when I’d go and stay with my parents, as he had a few days of space. He thought it was a positive thing. So when I didn’t come back after 4 days, he realised I had moved out ‘for real’ this time and tried a lot of attention seeking behaviour to get me back which led to him getting kicked out.

I wrote him a letter saying that I would like to stay in a relationship while living apart, and for him to take the time to work on himself. I asked him to seek anger management or CBT. I said I loved him, but didn’t love living with him, as I felt so drained by trying not to trigger him which had become impossible.

He was very upset, and over time seems to have increasingly lost motivation to work on himself and I have seen less and less of him. He has tried to manipulate me in many different ways into caving and living with him again, but unfortunately now even if I wanted to, this isn’t an option. Now he’s seen these attempts aren’t going to work, he’s said he needs the stability of a relationship and a base so will have to look for it elsewhere. Like your partner he didn’t see the point of a relationship if we weren’t living together.

It’s been really hard, I love him, am devastated and miss him every day, and feel horribly guilty for triggering his fear of abandonment and causing him so much pain, but I am healthier now and significantly less stressed. I still like to think he will come around and might give it a try living apart and being together once he’s gotten used to the idea - it’s still relatively early days. But if he can’t then I understand, and am still glad I moved out. We will see!