Maintaining relationships with family and friends while supporting a BPD spouse

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hi All,

This post is half question and half venting, but I am curious what advice/personal wisdom everyone has on maintaining outside relationships (friends/family) while trying to support a BPD spouse? 


And the venting portion:

In my case, my family understands my wife's issues (though she has never allowed me to tell them about them) and does their best to support her as best they can.  I distance myself some for her sake and their sake if I know she's in the wrong state of mind, but other than the occasional blow up around the holidays and her generally disliking my mother and grandmother (not a huge suprise for a woman to dislike her mother-in-law) things go ok.

My friends on the other hand have been a different story as I made the somewhat unconscious decision to push many out of my life early in my relationship with my wife.  Though I love the time spent with them, it seemed that eventually she would find reason to claim each was against her, hated her, trying to steal me, etc, etc, etc.  In the end, I limited my relationships with many including my best friend from high school (guy) and best friend from college (girl).

During a recent blowout (my wife left her medication in favor of therapy a few months ago, so the blow outs are more frequent), however, my wife threw out that my best friend from college had become engaged.  It was an attempt to hurt and I brushed it off as I hadn't spoken to her in 6 years and really wasn't sure why it should affect me.  A few days later though, when things had calmed down, my wife began speaking to me about how we need to reconnect with some of the friends we've left behind over the years.   It seemed odd, but as she began calling friends she hadn't spoken to in sometime, I told her ok.  And said, I'd return a few emails from last  year that had been forgotten when work got busy and if I could find an email send one to my old best friend just to say congrats on the engagement.  She said that sounded great and that was that.

A week passes, I find the time to send the email and almost immediately receive an excited reply from my friend.  She had been trying to track me down for years and was elated that I had taken the time to send her an email.  I told my wife this thinking, she'd be happy I had followed her lead... .  

Next thing I knew, however, a plate of food came flying across the room.  Followed by the words "YOU SPOKE TO THAT WH*RE" and various screams of "HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME WHEN I LEAVE MY PILL." I was dumbfounded.  I had done this at her prodding.  Yet, her mind that conversation had never happened. 

She continued to scream for near two hours, not allowing me to say much more than a word.  Once she had calmed down she demanded to see the email and insisted she get to help write the reply.  Even calm now days later, she continues to rotate through three demands: "you let me know if she ever emails you again," "I don't ever want to hear about it when you talk to her," and "don't you ever speak to that (insert choice explative) again!" 

I have to admit, I'm lost at this point.  I did something in an attempt to support her, informed her I was doing it ahead of time (gotta cover my bases), and still was attacked for it after the fact.  Worse yet, I've now potentially re-opened old wounds for someone doesn't need to be involved if  I suddenly drop off the face of the earth after contacting a friend for the first time in 6 years.

In all, the last few days have done a great deal to remind me why I've done so much to distance myself from friends these past 8 years and probably won't be contacting my old high school friend any time soon.  It's just too much to care for her and maintain the friendships.

[ADecadeLost]

Hi All,

This post is half question and half venting, but I am curious what advice/personal wisdom everyone has on maintaining outside relationships (friends/family) while trying to support a BPD spouse? 


And the venting portion:

In my case, my family understands my wife's issues (though she has never allowed me to tell them about them) and does their best to support her as best they can.  I distance myself some for her sake and their sake if I know she's in the wrong state of mind, but other than the occasional blow up around the holidays and her generally disliking my mother and grandmother (not a huge suprise for a woman to dislike her mother-in-law) things go ok.

My friends on the other hand have been a different story as I made the somewhat unconscious decision to push many out of my life early in my relationship with my wife.  Though I love the time spent with them, it seemed that eventually she would find reason to claim each was against her, hated her, trying to steal me, etc, etc, etc.  In the end, I limited my relationships with many including my best friend from high school (guy) and best friend from college (girl).

During a recent blowout (my wife left her medication in favor of therapy a few months ago, so the blow outs are more frequent), however, my wife threw out that my best friend from college had become engaged.  It was an attempt to hurt and I brushed it off as I hadn't spoken to her in 6 years and really wasn't sure why it should affect me.  A few days later though, when things had calmed down, my wife began speaking to me about how we need to reconnect with some of the friends we've left behind over the years.   It seemed odd, but as she began calling friends she hadn't spoken to in sometime, I told her ok.  And said, I'd return a few emails from last  year that had been forgotten when work got busy and if I could find an email send one to my old best friend just to say congrats on the engagement.  She said that sounded great and that was that.

A week passes, I find the time to send the email and almost immediately receive an excited reply from my friend.  She had been trying to track me down for years and was elated that I had taken the time to send her an email.  I told my wife this thinking, she'd be happy I had followed her lead... .  

Next thing I knew, however, a plate of food came flying across the room.  Followed by the words "YOU SPOKE TO THAT WH*RE" and various screams of "HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME WHEN I LEAVE MY PILL." I was dumbfounded.  I had done this at her prodding.  Yet, her mind that conversation had never happened. 

She continued to scream for near two hours, not allowing me to say much more than a word.  Once she had calmed down she demanded to see the email and insisted she get to help write the reply.  Even calm now days later, she continues to rotate through three demands: "you let me know if she ever emails you again," "I don't ever want to hear about it when you talk to her," and "don't you ever speak to that (insert choice explative) again!" 

I have to admit, I'm lost at this point.  I did something in an attempt to support her, informed her I was doing it ahead of time (gotta cover my bases), and still was attacked for it after the fact.  Worse yet, I've now potentially re-opened old wounds for someone doesn't need to be involved if  I suddenly drop off the face of the earth after contacting a friend for the first time in 6 years.

In all, the last few days have done a great deal to remind me why I've done so much to distance myself from friends these past 8 years and probably won't be contacting my old high school friend any time soon.  It's just too much to care for her and maintain the friendships.

[onward]

I'm sorry to see your struggling, but your issues sound quite familiar.  My uBPDW has also kept me alienated from friends.  I've been reluctant to reconnect with many friends even though I think it would be good for me and them.  I also have to tell her details of any conversation I have with any friends I'm allowed to have.  If I fail to mention that I've even had a brief conversation with one of them, I'm accused of being dishonest or hiding things from her.  The thing to remember is there is no logic to their beliefs.

[Clearmind]

 

curious what advice/personal wisdom everyone has on maintaining outside relationships (friends/family) while trying to support a BPD spouse?  

Isolation in any relationship is not healthy LH09 - by not maintaining outside relationships the relationship you have with your wife can become very enmeshed leading to more outbursts, rages, fear.

A support system for yourself is so very important.

Rather than avoid friendships and walk on eggshells, we need to learn and your wife needs to learn how to cope better with any fall out that may occur. You cannot protect your wife from emotional outbursts - we need to live our lives too and instead of just avoid, learn some new skills to help to do what we need to do.

We need to brush up on Validation and Boundaries:

Validate her abandonment fears using - Validation

Communication using validation. What it is; how to do it

Protect yourself from these outburst using Boundaries

Protecting Ourselves with Values and Boundaries

Time Out during an outburst is recommended.

[ADecadeLost]

Thank you guys.  I appreciate the replies.  I do regret leaving many of the folks I've had to along the way.  Many, including the friend I recently emailed, made every effort to make my wife feel welcome and comfortable around them along the way.  Obviously not an easy task, but something they were willing to do for me.  Sad I didn't do better for them.

And I have always made a point of not isolating myself (my wife complains about how easy of a time I have making friends each place we move, though I'd qualify most as acquaintances), but just struggle to maintain the deep friendships I had prior to meeting my wife.

I think I've done well on the validation front, but outside of taking the occasional "time out" (something I read here when I signed up a few years ago) I think I have struggled to really maintain boundaries.

The most disappointing thing, however, is I found myself strongly in the staying camp when I began reading the articles 4 years ago and now find myself posting on the undecided forum.  Hopefully things will improve as her therapy moves along.

Thanks again for taking the time to read my rant and offer your replies.

[Clearmind]

Whether you are undecided or staying the lessons will certainly help - you will make a decision when you are ready.

take care of you

[ADecadeLost]

Thank you.  I've begun reading through the lessons you linked and really need to spend some more time reading through all the material available here.  Things have calmed for the moment (after a severe blowout in my office Friday morning), but I have a feeling things will head south quickly if I have any further contact with my old friend.  Even when calm these last few days, my wife has made the continual accusation that I'm "acting like I did when we were in college" and demanding that " it better stop."  She of course is neglecting the fact that the only recent change in our relationship is that she has left her medication for the first time since college.

Regardless of the reasons, I still find my head more knotted up than it's been in recent years.  My friend's email had asked me to  call, but I'm cringing at the thought of dealing with the unnecessary fallout from that simple phone call.  I think I'm as much disappointed in myself as anything else at the moment.