Help or advice with complicated BPD and ADHD marriage

[Swimswithsharks]

Hi,

I hope somebody on here may be able to help. I have been with my wife for 19 years and we have three gorgeous children, aged 14, 10 and 8.  About three years ago I found out about adult ADHD and immediately recognised myself in the list of typical symptoms and was formally diagnosed. The diagnosis, medication and subsequent coaching have really changed things for the better for me and I am far more positive and effective - while of course still facing significant challenges. However the diagnosis has made a very difficult marriage almost intolerable.

Before the diagnosis we had huge difficulties around the distribution of the burden of working and financial provision and my wife's unfounded belief that I didn't care about her or want to support her. My feeling has always been that my wife had a complete disconnect with reality around this and with my ADHD diagnosis she has now become completely obsessed with my behaviour and the effect ADHD has had on her life.  I 100% accept that my ADHD has had a very negative effect on my wife's life and I have spent at least the past three years bending over backwards to apologise and making real changes in our life to remedy some of our issues. 

But there are some things that one person cannot change in another no matter how self aware the first person becomes or how they turn their life around. Without making my first post overly long by listing all of them I feel my wife matches numerous criteria for high functioning BPD.   So does her mother who has extremely fractured or completely non-existent relationships with almost all of her large family including my wife and some of her other children. Many of my wife's behaviours were present before she ever met me. If anyone is interested I can put details about them in a reply. My wife is seeing a therapist at the moment but as far as I can make out it is not achieving much and seems to revolve largely around how difficult I am to live with.

My big question is this - how do I even begin to discuss this with my wife? Our relationship at the moment is just soo horrible and every day feels like a toxic psychological war. I know that if I mention BPD it will just make things worse. Whenever I say to my wife that she should look at her own behaviours she says I am trying to divert the blame from myself.  I'm not - I have nothing to gain from doing that. I would ask someone from my wife's siblings who I get on very well with to discuss it with her but that would not be easy to set up either as her relationships with them are pretty shaky also.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

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RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Notwendy]

It is good that you are here so you can find support and get your questions answered. I agree that bringing up BPD to your wife while your relationship feels toxic is not helpful. Read the tools and learn how to not make things worse as a first step.

Having your own "label" is good in that it caused you to focus on yourself and how you can function in a more emotionally healthy way as well as own 100% of your own issues. People with BPD tend to project their issues on to others and blame others which unfortunately keeps them from looking at themselves. While having ADHD might give your wife a reason to be focused on your issues, know that if this was not the reason, the blaming and projection are part of the problem and so would likely exist anyway.

Therapy for pwBPD can be difficult because of their tendency to not look at themselves. However, if your wife's therapist can support her in how to be in a relationship, it may still be helpful and therapy in general can be helpful so it is good that she is seeing someone. One good thing for you is that you can let the therapist work with your wife while you focus on you.

For me, looking at myself inststead of at others helped me consider the part I played in relationships. Yes, it seems unfair if someone else is causing issues and is not taking responsibility, but trying to change that is much less effective than working on ourselves. We can't change anyone but ourselves.

Since you are on medication and have some coaching, maybe you can include relationship issues in the counseling.

[maxsterling]

Hi swims... .

This is a sticky situation, one that I am involved with as well because I, too, have been diagnosed adult ADHD.  This situation is sticky because people with BPD tend to want to blame everything on others.  My wife will blame stuff on my ADHD.  And it doesn't matter if you are diagnosed or not, your wife would still want to blame you for everything.  Mine has at times tried claiming I have Asperger's  ?

My experience is that having ADHD makes it more difficult to deal with a BPD spouse because her constant neediness is a constant distraction, and it leaves me no time to do the things I need to do to stay focused.  I'm on medication, and it helps some, but does not solve the problem.

I'd suggest this: 

- don't continually apologize for the same things over and over.  It only enables her.  No need to apologize for having ADHD.

- Read as much as you can about BPD, why it happens, how people with BPD function, etc.

- learn to validate her feelings rather than get defensive or apologize for things you have no control over (there are lessons on this on the right side of this page)

- Don't try confronting her about BPD.  99.9999999995 of the time, this will result in a very ugly rage.  Instead, focus on you, and focus on learning about BPD.  Diagnosis and treatment is between her and her therapist. Perhaps this topic can be brought up much later when things are calmer, but if she is in a mode of blaming you for everything, I can guarantee suggesting she has BPD will not go well at all.

I'm sorry you are dealing with this.  I've been there, too.  Unfortunately, there aren't any easy answers.

[Swimswithsharks]

Hi maxsterling and Notwendy and thanks so much for the helpful advice. Both of you said that my ADHD is just the channel for my my wife's focus and if it wasn't that it would be something else - which makes me feel at least a little less desperate

The idea of my wife having BPD is still new to me and I am learning about this issue and reading the really useful material on this site. I appreciate what you say about not discussing BPD with my wife and I have no intention of doing that but I must confess I worry about where that approach will lead.  I suppose I am struggling with the one way nature of what you propose - me dealing with my behaviour and responses (again) while my wife carries on as per usual. I don't mean to sound negative (i'm actually delighted that I think I can finally understand a bit more about why our lives have been so difficult) but can things really change for the better if only one person is even aware of what (they think) the situation is? We will be facing a big decision point in our family's life in the next 6 months and I am not confident about even being able to have a semi-civil conversation about it under current circumstances. I guess I will just have to see how changing my own behaviour and eliminating some of the anger, defensiveness and frustration from my responses to my wife will lead.

Thanks again for the good advice.