I Am Afraid To Feel

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

My BPD wife (we are separated w/kids) keeps telling me this. What does this mean exactly? We will be talking about "us" and she will say something like, "I'm afraid to let myself feel, with you, or anyone else for that matter. I miss you a lot but when it gets bad, I try to talk myself out of it. I can't let myself think about it too long. All kinds of things go through my mind and I can't handle it.  I'm sorry." She says when she misses me she just lays down and goes to sleep.

[Mr. Solo]

My BPD wife (we are separated w/kids) keeps telling me this. What does this mean exactly? We will be talking about "us" and she will say something like, "I'm afraid to let myself feel, with you, or anyone else for that matter. I miss you a lot but when it gets bad, I try to talk myself out of it. I can't let myself think about it too long. All kinds of things go through my mind and I can't handle it.  I'm sorry." She says when she misses me she just lays down and goes to sleep.

[ReluctantSurvivor]

From what I have been learning,  pwBPD have hyper-emotions.  If I had to guess them I would say her emotions are so overwhelming that she shuts down.  Feeling nothing is safer than being overwhelmed.  Just my 2cents.

[vortex of confusion]

What is the history in her family of origin? I ask that because I know that there are people that grew up in homes where the only emotion that was acceptable was happy. If you weren't happy, you put on a happy face and acted happy anyway. My husband has shared that with me. His most current therapist noticed that he seems to be really out of touch with his emotions. He seems to be happy or angry with very little in between. His therapist gave him a list of emotions and asked him to start trying to verbalize his emotions through some journaling or something.

I have always found it interesting that in my house growing up, we are all a bunch of loud mouths. There was a lot of dysfunction and we were/are very passionate people.

Now that I am with my husband, I am afraid to share my feelings because of his tendency to invalidate my feelings or want to argue with me about how I am feeling. So, if your wife has never been allowed to express herself, it could be a coping mechanism that she learned to survive childhood or some other difficult situation.

[Mr. Solo]

What is the history in her family of origin? I ask that because I know that there are people that grew up in homes where the only emotion that was acceptable was happy. If you weren't happy, you put on a happy face and acted happy anyway. My husband has shared that with me. His most current therapist noticed that he seems to be really out of touch with his emotions. He seems to be happy or angry with very little in between. His therapist gave him a list of emotions and asked him to start trying to verbalize his emotions through some journaling or something.

I have always found it interesting that in my house growing up, we are all a bunch of loud mouths. There was a lot of dysfunction and we were/are very passionate people.

Now that I am with my husband, I am afraid to share my feelings because of his tendency to invalidate my feelings or want to argue with me about how I am feeling. So, if your wife has never been allowed to express herself, it could be a coping mechanism that she learned to survive childhood or some other difficult situation.

She was given up by her mother around four. She was with her grandmother for a while then her grandmother got too sick and had to give her up to other family members who just packed her up and took her to a children's home. She spent most of her childhood in and out of children's homes and foster homes. She had a younger brother by two years who was also with her when all of this happened but they were eventually separated. He was adopted but the adoptive parents didn't want her. She lost touch with her brother and then the day after we were married he shot himself (not related to the marriage event). She only met her dad a few times. Once was when he came to the home she was in, with his new family, and told her goodbye for good. Her mother is a drug addict who is basically homeless. The rest of her family live in the area we do but have nothing to do with her. Really me and our kids are the only family she has. She almost lost us as well with the way she has been out of sorts the last four years.

[AnnaK]

I suppose it's very simple. She is afraid that whoever she dares to care about, will immediately (or eventually) abandon her.

So as soon as she feels even the sparkle of love for someone, she is like "no, no, girl, that never ends well, whoever you like, they always leave you... .so don't even try to enter that place again, let's go to sleep".

Then again, if you are separated - in truth that means, that you also abandoned her, right?

In this layout - anybody would be afraid to feel... . 

The irony is that even if you have separated by HER request, it still feels to her like you abandoned her - the right answer is to refuse to leave even if they request you to leave - it looks like they are just checking, thinking something like this : "I am sure they want to leave me, but maybe they just do not dare - so let me push them away and see if they would leave... .oh yeah! after I pushed them away, they indeed abandoned me! It proves it - exactly the way I expected - they wanted to leave! I am sure if they really wanted to stay with me, they would not leave me even at my request!"

[Mr. Solo]

We are separated because she left and tried to take our kids. All I did at that point was fight to get our kids back. That did require going to court and me having to basically spill the beans on her behavior over the last three years (absent mother, absent wife, one physical affair, another emotional affair, physical abuse, deceit,  etc.). She was very upset with that but she says she understands I was just trying to protect myself and the kids. She has left me three times. I haven't left her once. In fact, over the last three years she did tell me to leave several times but I refused. Sometimes it made her even more angry. Even when our marriage was good, she wouldn't tell me to leave but she would say things like, "If you cheated on me, I would understand. I would forgive you." "You probably think you would be better off with someone else, don't you?" I would say, "I don't want to be with anyone else. I love YOU." And I meant that!

I understand what you are saying though. Thanks!

[AnnaK]

I would just let her know that she is welcome back any moment she decides to return (right now, I understand, you and kids are together, and she is "out of family", and remain on that position no matter what.

Don't seek any justice in this - she left countless times, you never left once... .

It's the role distribution - she'll always be running around, you'll have to become the center of stability.

[Mr. Solo]

I would just let her know that she is welcome back any moment she decides to return (right now, I understand, you and kids are together, and she is "out of family", and remain on that position no matter what.

Don't seek any justice in this - she left countless times, you never left once... .

It's the role distribution - she'll always be running around, you'll have to become the center of stability.

I have let her know that she is welcomed back since about last December 2013 (she left the last time in July of 2013).

[AnnaK]

I can't tell exactly. From what you told here, it seems to me she wants back, but she just does not dare... .It's also very probable, that she believes that she is not a good wife/mother (self-respect in BPD is always below the sea level)

Maybe suggest something that does not imply long-term commitment.  Like living together for a month, no obligations... .We are still not committed on long term with my person (he seems to fear it), although I believe we are pretty much stuck with each other for life... .

[Mr. Solo]

I can't tell exactly. From what you told here, it seems to me she wants back, but she just does not dare... .It's also very probable, that she believes that she is not a good wife/mother (self-respect in BPD is always below the sea level)

Maybe suggest something that does not imply long-term commitment.  Like living together for a month, no obligations... .We are still not committed on long term with my person (he seems to fear it), although I believe we are pretty much stuck with each other for life... .

She doesn't believe she is a good person in general. She will tell me good people don't do what she did to me, our kids, or other people that were involved. She believes at one time she was a good wife and mother but lost" it" and she is struggling every minute to get" it" back. As far as our r/s, she says she doesn't want to hurt me again. I ask her what she means but she says she can't explain it. I have asked her before if she was afraid she would cheat again she says, "No. I will never do that again. I saw what it did to you. I broke your heart." Other than that she doesn't expound on that. She reminisces about the good times we had often. "We were happy then. I was staying at home. I played with the kids. I took care of the house. I cooked.  I kept clothes washed. I didn't blow our money. We spent time together." She has even apologized for everything which I thought I would never hear. She admits to things she previously would not admit to. For example, one morning she stormed in our room when I was asleep and basically was out of control screaming at me for something she had made up in her head. When I responded by saying, "That's crazy! I don't know what you are talking about." She then focused on me saying, "That's crazy." Anyways, she left shortly after that but when I would try and talk about that up to, say, nine months ago, she would say she was perfectly calm that morning. She raised her voice but she WAS NOT out of control nor was she raging about something in her head only. She insisted she was right. That was one of the things that was driving me nuts. It made me doubt my sanity. Nevertheless, she now admits I was right about what happened and she was out of control.

She really has made some changes and sometimes says the right things but she still struggles and sometimes she will contradict the right things she said before. LOL. It is very frustrating. Other than her words, she has made other changes as well. After she cheated, there were little things I would ask her to do that she REFUSED to do before she left. She would say I was being controlling and paranoid. For example, she doesn't stay on her phone when we are together. She doesn't even take it with her when we are going in somewhere when we are alone or with the kids. If she needs to get on her phone she will ask if I mind and explain why. Basically, she is more respectful now than she has been since she cheated in June of 2010. When we are together she gives me her full attention. When we are together with the kids she is there "with us" which she hasn't been in a long time. She would be with us physically but she was always somewhere else mentally. There are things that are encouraging.

Sorry. A little rant there at the end.