spouse borderline personality disorder

[marie burton]

I am really struggling with my husband and his mental disorder. Everything is always,my fault . Every holiday is always a nightmare . Home and work has become a nightmare because not only is,my home life terrible , but he tries to control my work schedule and feels that I don't respect him if I don't do as he says . I work a lot ... .he spends a lot irresponsibly. My car has been bugged so he can listen in to every conversation and I am accused of having improper relations with virtually everyone I know . I am not the fun loving person I used to be ... .I am scared , nervous and experiencing anxiety over this,relationship where,nothing is ever good enough.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[startrekuser]

Wow, I really feel for you.  I wish you the best. 

First of all, I think you need to start establishing boundaries.  You should have a right to your privacy in the car. 

Read up on boundary setting:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=122547

Also, read up on other resources on this website and stay on the boards and keep posting.  There are a lot of helpful people here and they understand your situation.

[Recycle]

Hi Marie!   Welcome to BPD Family! You have found a really good place to express how you are feeling and get ideas about how to help you get through the rough times you're experiencing.

Is your husband currently diagnosed with a mental illness?

I can see how much you are hurting right now, that you are afraid and feel like you've lost some of your freedoms. Do you have anyone (a close friend or relative) that you can trust to talk about how you are feeling?

 

[marie burton]

Trust me I have tried establishing boundaries with him. Did I mention he stole my two former phones took them to work and dumped them . In other words read all my emails , text messages etc . The friends I do have now have become people of interest to him , where he could at any moment text them , call them or if I have discussed my home situation with them out of frustration and stress , I am told I have to tell them everything is untrue and I am crazy or severe my relationship with them .

[marie burton]

No he has not been formally diagnosed. He would never allow that to happen.

[janey62]

Hi Marie,

Sounds like a nightmare!  I'm just wondering, how does he control you exactly?  Threats of violence?  Are you financially dependent on him, or does he control you verbally with abuse and threats of withdrawing love?  Has this been going on for a long time and what was your relationship like when it was good, if ever... .?

Thinking about my own situation with my dbfwBPD, he is sweet and loving and kind and affectionate until he has an episode, then he is awful, angry, abandoning, devaluing and verbally abusive to me, then often suicidal.  Afterwards he is full of shame and remorse for the things he's said, seeming to care about and understand my pain.  I am emotionally attached to him and hanging on, whilst also working on myself, because he is trying to get better, therapy, meds etc., and recognises that he has BPD and has researched it so has an understanding of his illness.  

I wonder what is keeping you with your husband?

Sorry, lots of questions, but it sounds like he needs you quite a lot if you are doing all the work and all the running around.

This is a really good place to start to find answers and try to take back some of the control in your life.  It is very hard to hang on to yourself when someone has that much power over you... .

You're in a good place here, keep reading and posting.  Good luck!



Janey

[marie burton]

All is my fault he would never admit or even entertain the notion that something is wrong with him his focus is on fixing me . My life has become a complete nightmare of him demanding confessions for outrageous things to the point if he thought he could get away with water boarding me he would. How does he control me ... .there was a good sweet person in there once upon a time but that person comes out less and less any kind of stress real or imagined is like ahhhhhhh I can't handle it , my pain , my struggle , constant threats of suicide telling me he is going to blow his brains out so don't send my daughter in first when I come home . I work 6 days a week so managing a child , a often  intense 12 hour work day and being the cook, maid and laundress and grounds keeper at my home is just about all I can manage, to say the stress is getting to me is a understatement . The latest thing tonight Is if I want him to come back home after he ruined Christmas is I need to deactivate my Facebook page only have one with him, subscribe to a service where he can listen to all my phone calls and view all my text messages as well as read my emails . He wants to install cameras at my office (just until trust is established) ... I find this ironic that he speaks of trust while leaving me on christmas eve with a adult child visiting from out of state as well as a 7 year old to be jolly and provide a wonderful Christmas for . Trust means nothing to him... .or his responsibilities to me or marriage and if I don't agree to all of thus hr demands a divorce . I am at the breaking point with all of it .

[marie burton]

Threats of violence... .Yes to everyone that  he thinks is after me . He describes in detail how he would murder them and I mean in detail . I am like a deer caught in the headlights thinking holy cow ... .who thinks like this ... .who does this ... .why would anyone think about that type of thing to actually go so far as to chronicle every detail. He had bugged my car and heard me talking to a friend and venting about such things . He now says I have to go to this person tell them I'm crazy and made it all up or he wants a divorce over that too. His logic is I'm supposed to have His back it never occurs to him that he is tormenting and torturing me with living under this kind of stress.

[123Phoebe]

Hi marie burton,

Wow, I don't know how you've managed this long without losing it; there's a lot of wackiness going on!

The latest thing tonight Is if I want him to come back home after he ruined Christmas is I need to deactivate my Facebook page only have one with him, subscribe to a service where he can listen to all my phone calls and view all my text messages as well as read my emails . He wants to install cameras at my office (just until trust is established) ... I find this ironic that he speaks of trust while leaving me on christmas eve with a adult child visiting from out of state as well as a 7 year old to be jolly and provide a wonderful Christmas for . Trust means nothing to him... .or his responsibilities to me or marriage and if I don't agree to all of thus hr demands a divorce . I am at the breaking point with all of it .

Do you want him back home?

[flowerpath]

Hi there.  You really do have a lot going on and all of us here know how it feels to live with behavior that is over the top.  I'm glad you found this resource for help.

Since he is following you closely and he’s technologically savvy, if your user name here is your real name, ask an administrator to change it for you.

 

To a pwBPD, feelings are fact.  From what you wrote, it looks as if he feels that someone else is interested in you and feels that what you are saying to others about his behavior is untrue.  He is taking desperate measures to get control over this.

The lessons about boundaries will help you to actually enforce your boundaries.  The lessons about communication tools will help you learn more effective ways to respond in the conversations about video and phone/text/email surveillance, etc.  

Learn as much as you can here about the behavior and how to protect yourself from it.  “Before making anything better, you must stop making it worse” is a little bit of a hard pill to swallow.  You can't change his behavior, but you will find out that learning about the behavior and changing your own responses to it changes the status quo, and you will not feel so powerless about what is happening in your life.

[marie burton]

How do I stop making it worse? I am all up for advice ? I have read the article on boundaries and defined mine ,but that has no meaning to him.

[JohnLove]

Hello marie. There appears to be almost no boundaries in your relationship. Reistablishing  boundaries in a relationship is SO much tougher than having them in the first place.

Healthy boundaries have consequences when they are trampled on. Boundaries have meaning for YOU. They are to protect YOU physically and mentally from harm. They may only have meaning for him when he realises the consequence of his actions.

Marie... .I need to tell you this man would seem to be over the borderline between neurotic and well into psychotic. You need to appreciate this. I feel you are in the FOG of Fear, Obligation, and Guilt. You need to be strong for yourself.

If he is having psychotic episodes nothing will be about you... .you won't be able to make any difference. He will have little control over himself. I see your descriptions of his actions as an indicator of this. He needs to make the difference. I don't know that he can.

Think of yourself and your children first. He has a mental illness. This is hard.

[flowerpath]

Do you have any family members who understand what you are living with and who are there for you or a good friend you can rely on if you need a safe place to go if you feel that you and your daughter are not safe?  His behaviors are alarming and you need to prepare ahead of time how you will leave quickly and where you will go if you need to get your daughter and yourself away from harm.

Saying what your boundary is and enforcing it are two different things.  If you do not allow video surveillance at your workplace, do not deactivate your Facebook account and have only him as a Facebook friend, and do not subscribe to the service that allows him to monitor your phone and text conversations, will he actually go through with filing for divorce?  If he does file for divorce, what position does that place you and your daughter in and how will your life be different?  

One thing you can control here is your own behavior.  This pdf from the lessons can explain far better than I can the different ways you can respond differently in an effort to keep from making things worse – basic tools to stop the bleeding in your household.  

https://bpdfamily.com/pdfs/fuzzetti.pdf

I know your concerns are about his behavior, and rightly so, but “To help stop things from getting worse we need to begin by recognizing what we are doing wrong. Before we can validate, we must stop invalidating.” Even if he does have some other form of mental illness besides BPD, here are some suggestions for how to determine whether there is any way you can change what you say to him in an effort to make things better.  

https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-dont-be-invalidating

Once you have figured out whether you are saying anything that might be invalidating to him, and are trying to change that, this page can help you to learn appropriate ways to validate instead.  

https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-validation

It is obvious that you are living in a very difficult situation and I hope you are able to find a way to validate his feelings without agreeing with them when they are unrealistic.

[marie burton]

So... .I picked him up after he wrecked the truck under the influence ... .after he ruined christmas and has terrorized me by text email and fb messenger for two days ... today home he says that the reason he was drunk was because I pushed his buttons . Little one is a happy little soul as usual running around talking chatting just wanting to cuddle interact and be loved and he can't deal with this,its to much stress for him ... .he's just to tired and stressed ... .I mean he has lost his job... .which means,paying all of our bills has fallen completely on my shoulders . ( but he is the one soo stressed... .oh did I mention I paid the wrecker to have the,truck pulled out and repairs ohhh and did I mention I paid the lawyer to have his child support reduced ( did I mention he is a lawyer his self) but it was just to stressful to him. ... .You know,maybe I am the one with the,mental condition ... .to much forgiveness, to much compassion and to much poor thing he is sick ... .

[marie burton]

No, I don't have anyone to talk to he is terrified of me talking about him . He puts bugs in my car to listen to conversations etc . Now he is without a job he is a attorney , brilliant , but his ability to get along with people is zero.

[janey62]

So... .I picked him up after he wrecked the truck under the influence ... .after he ruined christmas and has terrorized me by text email and fb messenger for two days ... today home he says that the reason he was drunk was because I pushed his buttons . Little one is a happy little soul as usual running around talking chatting just wanting to cuddle interact and be loved and he can't deal with this,its to much stress for him ... .he's just to tired and stressed ... .I mean he has lost his job... .which means,paying all of our bills has fallen completely on my shoulders . ( but he is the one soo stressed... .oh did I mention I paid the wrecker to have the,truck pulled out and repairs ohhh and did I mention I paid the lawyer to have his child support reduced ( did I mention he is a lawyer his self) but it was just to stressful to him. ... .You know,maybe I am the one with the,mental condition ... .to much forgiveness, to much compassion and to much poor thing he is sick ... .

Hey Marie,

Ok, about those boundaries... .

I think what you might need to do is stop!  Stop bailing him out, stop paying for his behaviour and stop reading his text messages when they are abusive... .switch off your phone if necessary, and stop arguing and defending.  If he yells at you leave the room, tell him you won't be spoken to that way, take your daughter and leave the room, or the house.  If he is frightening or threatening you then call the Police and have him removed if necessary... .you have no obligation to put up with it... .

Each time you do this bailing out stuff you let him know that he can get away with his behaviour, with no real consequences.  He threatens you with abandonment (divorce) and you run around after him... . I bet he doesn't treat his friends/work colleagues or associates the way he treats you?

I have been advised not to interact with my pwBPD when he is drunk or abusive, which is hard to manage, but I'm learning, and I'm getting there slowly.

You can't change how he behaves, but you can change how you respond to him... . 

So take a deep breath and take the plunge, do something different, one thing at a time. Boundaries can take a while to change because it feels alien, but you don't have to tolerate anything which makes you feel afraid, controlled or abused and he will benefit soon get the idea.

It may even help him to realise that his behaviour is out of control and seek some help... . 

Good luck and keep posting... .