How would you approach this?

[Silveron]

My wife (BPD) of ten years seems to have an issue of giving out her number to some of her clients.  They will then often text her.  Lately though she gave her number to a guy who works two floors below.  She's 37 and he's in his 60s.  I noticed on the cell log that they will chat 20-30 messages usually every other day.  This has been going on for a couple of months.  When I bring up the issue she starts the argument with me that 'Im invading her privacy' and that 'I am a nut' because I check the cell log.  She has been deleting her texts messages to him. 

Last night I told her that this makes me very suspicious, she told me she deletes them because I take what is said 'out of context'.  She said she won't delete them if I 'don't get mad' when I read them.  What the heck?

So I look at the cell log just now and there has been over 30 messages today between the two.  I'm going to see if she deleted them and see what is the content of this info.  He's married.

How do you approach this?  I tried logically to explain what it's doing to our marriage but she then gets angry and throws a rage, calling me every name in the book.  How can I get through to her that this is not appropriate?  Do I text the guy myself?

[Mutt]

When I bring up the issue she starts the argument with me that 'Im invading her privacy' and that 'I am a nut' because I check the cell log.  She has been deleting her texts messages to him. 

She's raging and dissociating because it's triggering feelings of embarrassment, shame and guilt with her actions. This sounds very close to an emotional affair. It's hard to try to reason to that this is wrong in a marriage and she's dissociating ( lying ) and altering reality. I'm sorry.

What are your boundaries with emotional affairs? What's the climate like around the house?

[Silveron]

My boundaries with emotional affairs are pretty strict.  I was cheated on by my ex-fiancée (not her) with a close friend of mine.  And my wife, 3 months after our marriage decided to go behind my back and have contact with her ex-bf.  Her dad was trying to get them back together.  I can tell she has huge emotional issues, her past is something from a horror movie.

The climate around the house is full of tension.  If I try to approach her, she recoils and tells me she 'needs space'.  If I do something she doesn't like (for example a household chore the right (her) way) I get blasted by profanities and put downs.  A half-hour later she acts like nothing happened.  It has become second nature to her to treat me this way.

As for this texting bit, she even talked to a male friend of mine and showed him a picture of the guy, saying 'Look, he's 300 pounds and old, I could never be attracted to that'.

It has been numerous things that she has done the past 10 years and when I get upset she just walks away and it doesn't even seem to bother her.  The only time it did was when I did not talk to her for three days, she told me she was seriously considering suicide.  This was over a stupid argument.  It was my birthday and she was suppose to meet me down the street for some drinks.  I put some music in the jukebox and played that song 'Crazy B*tch', before she got there... However the song didn't play until after she arrived.  It wasn't anything against her but she took it that way.  She made a scene then left me there.

She just seems more friendly with other people than myself and I don't think I can spend the rest of my life being treated this way.

[Mutt]

I understand how hard emotional affairs are. Do you fear it may turn physical?

It's hard when we're invalidated and our SO shows little empathy.

There's conflict in the home?

What communication skills do you use with her?