Is this BPD?

[Dogisgood]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post and I'm going through a lot right now so bear with me. My wife and I have been struggling in our relationship significantly this year. We've been married for 22 years and there have always been intense fights that sometimes go on for days which eventually end in us making up and our relationship turning back to the loving place it is for a majority of the time. But these fights become intense and there is a constant battle over when and what was said and sometimes what order things were said in.

My wife can get very depressed and despair about everything in life. When she gets low she'll tell me "I wish I were dead," "I have no one in my life," "I'm so alone,"etc... She can sometimes have a very short fuse and small things can set her off and make her irritable. It just seems like she can't cope with normal life stressors sometimes. When she's in these moods she'll be incredibly sarcastic and critical and when I mention that to her she claims I am too defensive and can't handle criticism. Often it seems like our fights happen when she's in this mind state. I've mentioned maybe she should see a therapist, and she's acknowledged she has struggles, but she doesn't believe therapists can help her. Sometimes she can be fatalistic.

The fights will usually start with her saying how miserable she is and she can't go on and I try to listen and be open...but then she'll follow it with "our relationship is bad and I don't want to work with you anymore." I'm left feeling confused and not sure what the issue is. We run a business together and right now we are in a summer lull where we don't take in as much money as we do throughout other times of the year. It has been stressful and we're trying to find ways to generate more income for our business. At many points she has a crisis where she fears we will lose all of our customers and go bankrupt and I try to calm her down and point to the fact that this time of year is typically slow for us. This week things have just steamrolled, and her stress level seems very high. There is a lot of catastrophizing going on.

I know I'm not perfect (I can be defensive!) but looking at our fights I'm beginning to see things that don't seem right to me at all. For one she gets INCREDIBLY ANGRY and will say she wants to leave me or that she doesn't want to be married to me anymore. She refers to this as "going nuclear" and I know she can see it after the dust has settled. She'll call me names like "f***ing idiot" and just shoot down every point I try to make about how I'm feeling during the situation. If I say something wrong (which I can do at times) she'll just fume about it and not let it go for the longest time. And it's hard because I try to let go the fact that she's called me names. If I bring that up she'll just say "I apologized for it!" She's done this for years.

Being told she wants to no longer be married to me and that I make her miserable during these fights has worn me down. I don't feel any sense of security or stability with her. So much so that as soon as I start to sense something going off the rails with us I begin to get incredibly anxious. And my wife just gets incredibly angry and short tempered and then misrepresents what I said or even when I said things.

This week my wife woke up on Tuesday and said she couldn't stand the idea of signing a three year lease at our current business space, she hated working there and the whole thing...and then she told me that our relationship was terrible and we shouldn't work together. I was taken aback because the last few weeks seemed good to me and we were really working through some things as well as dealing with work stress well. So I felt caught off guard. I didn't know what was bothering her; life, work, or us?!?!

When she came home we talked more and started communicating with love. We hugged and were supportive. It felt like we dealt with some things that we were letting get in the way of our relationship.

The next morning things seemed good and we were being a loving couple again. I made a bad typo on an email I sent because I was being careless and she talked me out of it and was comforting and told me not to worry about it and that it happens. I went to work and came back home and she was in a bad mood. I could feel it right away (I do know her well enough to know when she goes dark). She was very upset about a haircut she just got. Incredibly upset. I thought it looked good and told her but she was too distraught. She then went on to criticize me for the email she had told me not to worry about earlier in the day. She was incredibly upset and I didn't get defensive I just continuously apologized. She became so furious with me that I just felt awful. I had to go out for a drive because it was all too much for me to take. She called me back and apologized, I think because she realized it was over the top and probably unwarranted. She said she felt humiliated because her name was on the email and I had forgotten to take it off when sending it (my huge mistake-even though she told me she's made that mistake before) so she felt the typos were a reflection on her. But things were better...we were making up. She does worry a lot about what people think about her and often will feel people don't like her, and it's strange because she's incredibly likable!

The next morning I woke up and found she had gone downstairs to sleep...she was hot (she's also going through menopause). When I got down there we started talking about some interaction she had with our daughter that was tense, she was irritated that our daughter left the window open when the ac was on. It sounded to me like my wife was upset they had a tiff and so I asked how she left it with her, did they talk afterwards? She took that to mean that I thought her irritation was wrong and that I was taking our daughter's side. I told her that I completely understood her irritation and that I just thought she was upset about the interaction and that usually they talk things over and make up. She was refusing to hear me out and ended up telling me that even though I meant it in another way it upset her so I behaved poorly.

She seemed very annoyed with me again and immediately I started sensing my distress. I found her in our room dressed for work and lying on the bed. I asked her how things were and she just said "she didn't want to go to work." So I thought ok maybe she needs a day off and I suggested I can go to work for her. And then she started with the "I just want to die" talk. And from there it goes back to "our relationship is terrible and I don't want to work with you." It all feels very extreme and harsh and I don't know how to cope with statements like that.

We spent the night fighting, making up, and now we're back to fighting. She constantly accuses me of being defensive, which I can be, and I feel like she's being critical to an extreme. She'll often make statements about what I'm thinking or feeling that aren't reflective at all of what I'm feeling. And when I try to tell her what I'm thinking and feeling she says I'm being defensive. She'll accuse me of not caring about her at all and misrepresent what I say in ways that aren't reflective of what happened. For instance she said my response to her telling me she was suicidal was "Can I give you a ride to work?" But she'll forget that 45 minutes to an hour had passed before with a lot of things happening in that time and that I had said that because I was worried about her driving in that state when she was leaving to go to work! She'll be incredibly distant and cold and tell me to get away from her and then lambast me for not caring enough about her to check in. And as always she ends it by emphatically saying she doesn't want to be married to me anymore.

I'm not perfect during these fights and I do get very frustrated and upset and I acknowledge that. But I feel that she makes me the focal point without recognizing her own behavior. I become this abyssmal person who reacts poorly to her "rational" behavior. But it feels highly irrational to me. She claims that during these fights I take her distress about something and make it about myself...but she doesn't seem to understand that when she's distressed she finds things to get on me about. She says we're incompatible - and when she gets into these moods I think she's right. I'm pretty sensitive and can take things hard, especially when she can be so harsh. And she can get really harsh with me during these fights. I often think there's this unwritten code that I should understand and know and follow when she's in these mood swings and when I don't do what she wants (which she can't express) I'm failing her. It's VERY HARD.

Lately though I've been thinking about these fights and how they start and what is the trigger for them; for the most part I think it's due to normal life stressors. But I wonder if it's common for people with BPD to react this way during life stress? And I should say when there isn't something stressful going on...we're great! She's loving and friendly and sweet...but when she is stressed out things get bad and they get bad quick. She does come from a dysfunctional family; her father and sister are both narcissists and her home life was chaotic and stressful with her parents fighting ruthlessly all the time. Her mother was the only real parent given the father's issues and she passed away during the pandemic. And I know that my anxiety that comes when she's in these moods does not help...part of it is just me wondering how bad things are going to get. I want to go to therapy with her to help understand these issues.

I guess I'm wondering if this is normal? And is this reflective of an "episode?" I feel really wary of diagnosing anyone but from what I've been reading volatility definitely seems to be a part of BPD symptoms. It hurts because earlier this week she said I was her best friend and she'd work on anything with me and now two days later she says she's done. Sometimes I wonder if she just wants to sabotage her life. And I'm left wondering if she'll come out of it and apologize for going "nuclear?" She does, but I'm still left with a feeling of insecurity. She'll be loving and affectionate... until it happens all again.

I'm sorry for the long post...I'm at a loss and have no one to talk to about this.

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[livednlearned]

Hey Dogisgood,

It does sound like a lot what you're going through. A bit of quicksand followed by some roller coaster and then into the deep end 

Being told she doesn't want to be married to you -- that has to be tough to hear. Has she done this most of the marriage?

She seems quite fused to you so maybe the sentiment is how she registers a 10 on the mad scale.

It's pretty common to try and figure out what triggered a mood, although it sounds like you also know these things can come out of left field, and quickly, for no reason.

Whether she's BPD or not, her behaviors sound like they cause a lot of marital pain and stress. I'm really sorry you've been working through this alone. It's a lot to go through without feeling there's someone out there who understands.

Most of us came to these boards based on the behaviors so you're in good company here.

Glad you decided to pull up a chair 

[LittleRedBarn]

Hi Dogisgood

Your post describes my ten years of marriage, down to the finest detail. You are definitely not alone.

There is a ton of resources on this website that can help you. The most important thing to realize is that the only person you can change is YOU. Changing your own behavior, the way you respond to your wife, will definitely help. That needs to be the focus of your work.

If your wife will not go into therapy, have you considered going on your own? It can be enormously helpful.

If your wife is open to working on things with you, I found Alan Fruzzetti's book 'The High-Conflict Couple' was a good start. (I had to hide the cover as my BPD husband refused to acknowledge that we were a 'high-conflict couple'!!)

Oh, and I read somewhere recently that every accusation from someone with BPD is actually a confession. I found that very illuminating! So when your wife accuses you of being defensive, or not caring, she is actually describing herself.

Glad you found this site.