A Good Friend Passed On To Me BPD From His Therapist-Was He Watching My Marriage

[NewWays]

All... .

A friend who just has just realized that his wife's behavior over the last 8 years most likely is disordered with The BPD and is struggling to try to avoid what he believes will end up a sure path to divorce... .passed it on to me seeing if I related to it!


Typically individuals with BPD have difficulty trusting others. Irritability and inappropriate anger with temper tantrums may occur. The symptoms of BPD may resemble love addiction. While love addiction is not medically diagnosable, addictive behavior is difficult to live with. Relationships build quickly and intensely. Individuals with this disorder many times are unable to see the faults of their partner, and cannot tolerate changes in intimacy.

Because no one if perfect... .and because a partner of a disordered mate with BPD

will eventually disappoint them, the person with BPD must reconcile their black and white conceptualization. Splitting shields those with the disorder from the anxiety of conflicting emotions.

One study found that those with BPD have a distorted sense of social norms, which impacts their ability to trust or cooperate. When something goes wrong in their relationships, they do not respond in a manner that would repair the damage. By doing so, they limit others from being able to fully cooperate in return.

   I now have a better understanding that since I was always the one who tried to repair, and tried to mend the fence and keep the marriage alive, my wife never really wanted to repair at all and that helps me understand more clearly why all the bad things or issues in our marriage she said were all my fault, could never ever be repaired!

Frequently these individuals are unable to focus on the feelings of others because their own emotional pain is too great an obstacle. Research has evidenced that women diagnosed with BPD display problematic sexual behaviors and patterns of unstable love relationships. Sexuality is frequently used to avoid the chronic feelings of emptiness experienced by those with the disorder. It may also be used to temper the anxiety felt surrounding perceived abandonment.

Individuals with BPD may feel that their emotional needs are not met in a relationship, but they do not have the capacity to assert their emotional needs in a productive and healthy manner. When they do not get what they want or need from the relationship, frustrations arise. Because of the intense fear of loneliness and abandonment, when the relationship is viewed as at risk these individuals may feel extreme anger.

The above paragraph, helps me further understand our cycle that without comprehensive counseling could never end:

1.  When my Wife felt disappointed or displeased about an area of our marriage.

2.  Engaging in how I could better meet those needs was like having a 9mm pointed at my head!

3.  Her fear of abandonment brought out her anger, range and physical violence

4.  When the left hooks in the face and slaps started to fly my way, I would exit stage left and leave the house

5.  That act of "leaving" the house made her even more angry and raging and physically violent.

Those suffering with BPD do not have the skills to manage their rage. Because of this, they may physically lash out at their partner. Studies have found that BPD is related to intimate partner aggression, including physical, emotional and sexual aggression.

Helps me better understand why our marriage crashed like a meteorite without my wife ever agreeing to engage in any real serious comprehensive counseling.


Not an excuse for her or her BPD behaviors... .helps me understand... .for me greater understanding helps contribute to my healing and moving on.


NewWays

[sojourner777]

Thank you for sharing that information. I can relate to that, and I know now that everything I did in trying to repair the relationship actually made it worse, strangely.

People who just advise BPD partners to go to counseling just don't get it at all, and I suppose there is nothing we can really do to fix that. The reality is that even with marriage counseling, it is not dealing with a psychiatric condition but assumes the non-BPD spouse can actually change the BPD. We know we cannot.

[maxen]

hi NewWays. do you have a link for that?

[NewWays]

Maxen... .

Let me ask the friend that sent it since it was not a link, but just a few paragraphs that he copied and pasted in the body of his email to me.

I will get back to you.

NewWays

[Turkish]

This looks like where it came from:

www.borderline-personality-disorder.com/relationships/

[Tim300]

Thank you for sharing that information. I can relate to that, and I know now that everything I did in trying to repair the relationship actually made it worse, strangely.

Yeah, it's like if you love them too much they like it at first but then it drives them crazy.  Unfortunately I don't think anyone's been able to identify what tightrope to walk to love them but not love them too much -- and the tightrope position would always be changing. 

[NewWays]

Tim 300... .

"Unfortunately I don't think anyone's been able to identify what tightrope to walk to love them but not love them too much -- and the tightrope position would always be changing."

You took the words right out of my mouth!  I always looked in the mirror every day to try and ask myself what I could do better at in our marriage and why I could not figure out what tightrope to walk... .never thinking that on a daily basis that the tightrope position was always changing.

Then I really learned just how much I had to understand and learn when I read "Stop Walking on Egg Shells... ." by Paul Mason and Randi Kreger it was like I had previously been living in a cave and had no idea what was going on!  It showed me that all the extra effort in trying to find the right tightrope was not going to have any kind of impact for positive change.

Did you really ever think that your daily assessment of which was the "Tight Rope de Jour" was accurate and how you were reacting and love them was accurate and working at all?... .or when did you realize that you were facing a no win situation?

NewWays

[Tim300]

Did you really ever think that your daily assessment of which was the "Tight Rope de Jour" was accurate and how you were reacting and love them was accurate and working at all?... .or when did you realize that you were facing a no win situation?

NewWays

For sure, at times it was accurate.  Not with consistency though. 

The whole "fear of engulfment" thing wasn't something I had any concept of until I read about it after the relationship had ended.  Despite all of the craziness in the relationship, through the end I was really giving her my heart and telling her that I loved her completely no matter what.  I didn't realize that this was likely actually causing her pain or fear or whatever.  But of course at times it was like she was begging for my love.  Her fear of abandonment was made crystal clear to me, so, for the most part, I was always trying to tell and show her that I would never abandon her, thinking that this was the solution.  If I had known about the fear of engulfment earlier I would have perhaps been able to prolong things, but probably not for too long (the intimacy of living with me was simply too much for her).