Husband diagnosed with BPD HELP

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

(I had posted this in the intro section as I am new to this site. I hope I am doing this right?)


Hoping for some advice, direction, input... .anything at this point.

My husband was diagnosed with BPD a month ago. I guess I should start from the beginning... .we have been married for 5 years (his first marriage, my second).  I had divorced with sole custody of my 2 kids when they were very young for the usual reasons, he was having affairs and he needed to "have a second go at life without kids and a wife".  Looking back now there were all sorts of red flags that I dismissed off to my now husband... .being in his late 30's and never having been married, no kids or had a relationship longer than a year with anyone. But, when I met him he was everything I had wanted in a husband and he was the preverbal "night in shinning armor". He took to my kids as if they were his, even coaching teams and being the "dad" they needed for so long in their lives. But at the same time his behavior was odd in spurts. Over focused on everything one of my kids was or wasn't doing right, constant criticism of my "inconsistency in parenting" and an overall sense that our standards and values were sub par to what he wanted to see in us. Fights were a nightmare, there was never any winning against his dirty fighting tactics. His anger can be described just like all the other posts I read in these forums, with little to no reason or cause to react the way he did. He has gone to anger management counseling tons of times in our relationship. I have kicked him out for physical and verbal rages at least 2-3 times. This last one is why I am here. He was acting strange in the weeks leading up to our last fight. One minute talking about future plans of buying a new car, then printing off divorce papers to calling another therapist to get back into counseling and apologizing to me saying I was right that ALL of our issues were because of him having BPD. He got physical with me, grabbing me and pushing me across a room. I ended up slamming into a piece of furniture and left with bruises on my arms. I kicked him out that night and called the police to report it. Now there is a no contact order and I'm stuck in our house, terrified of what the next day is going to bring. There is a part of him that knows all this is insane and there is a part of him I feel like he wants to do anything and everything to destroy me. He is staying with family now. Is this normal for a BPD male who just found out they have BPD? The only way to describe him is he goes in and out of moods so fast. He has one side that is so open and admits he is severely suffering with his BPD to the other side that blames me for everything and tries like heck to destroy any hope of us having a normal relationship. Has anyone called the police on their BPD spouse? What did the BPD spouse do after their horrid behavior? I just feel so lost and I am completely alone in this, no family, no friends left. I would want someone to help me if I was the one sick and begging for help. Will he see that all I did was try to get him treatment but I had to protect myself and my kids from him at the same time? What is he going to do to me because of the arrest? Geez, I am really hurting and just feeling like my heart has been ripped from my body. Half of him is my soul mate and the other half of him is my worst enemy.   



 

[jannieslosthope]

(I had posted this in the intro section as I am new to this site. I hope I am doing this right?)


Hoping for some advice, direction, input... .anything at this point.

My husband was diagnosed with BPD a month ago. I guess I should start from the beginning... .we have been married for 5 years (his first marriage, my second).  I had divorced with sole custody of my 2 kids when they were very young for the usual reasons, he was having affairs and he needed to "have a second go at life without kids and a wife".  Looking back now there were all sorts of red flags that I dismissed off to my now husband... .being in his late 30's and never having been married, no kids or had a relationship longer than a year with anyone. But, when I met him he was everything I had wanted in a husband and he was the preverbal "night in shinning armor". He took to my kids as if they were his, even coaching teams and being the "dad" they needed for so long in their lives. But at the same time his behavior was odd in spurts. Over focused on everything one of my kids was or wasn't doing right, constant criticism of my "inconsistency in parenting" and an overall sense that our standards and values were sub par to what he wanted to see in us. Fights were a nightmare, there was never any winning against his dirty fighting tactics. His anger can be described just like all the other posts I read in these forums, with little to no reason or cause to react the way he did. He has gone to anger management counseling tons of times in our relationship. I have kicked him out for physical and verbal rages at least 2-3 times. This last one is why I am here. He was acting strange in the weeks leading up to our last fight. One minute talking about future plans of buying a new car, then printing off divorce papers to calling another therapist to get back into counseling and apologizing to me saying I was right that ALL of our issues were because of him having BPD. He got physical with me, grabbing me and pushing me across a room. I ended up slamming into a piece of furniture and left with bruises on my arms. I kicked him out that night and called the police to report it. Now there is a no contact order and I'm stuck in our house, terrified of what the next day is going to bring. There is a part of him that knows all this is insane and there is a part of him I feel like he wants to do anything and everything to destroy me. He is staying with family now. Is this normal for a BPD male who just found out they have BPD? The only way to describe him is he goes in and out of moods so fast. He has one side that is so open and admits he is severely suffering with his BPD to the other side that blames me for everything and tries like heck to destroy any hope of us having a normal relationship. Has anyone called the police on their BPD spouse? What did the BPD spouse do after their horrid behavior? I just feel so lost and I am completely alone in this, no family, no friends left. I would want someone to help me if I was the one sick and begging for help. Will he see that all I did was try to get him treatment but I had to protect myself and my kids from him at the same time? What is he going to do to me because of the arrest? Geez, I am really hurting and just feeling like my heart has been ripped from my body. Half of him is my soul mate and the other half of him is my worst enemy.   



 

[jannieslosthope]

Hello all! Thank you Cmjo, Turkish and livednlearned! I can't tell you how much your words of kindness and support mean to me! As suggested I will move this topic to the undecided relationship status category as that seems to be where I am at these days. I'm new to this whole thing so I guess I will just copy/past my original post with a follow up.  I really hope you guys follow to there because it was a true blessing to have someone validate how I was feeling the other night, even complete strangers that can understand what I am talking about and going through.

UPDATE: Today I am still feeling lost, hopeless, angry, sad, indifferent and just overall confused. The no contact order has no exceptions to it. It's pretty stringent and states he can't come within 300 yards of me or my kids or home. He can't send messages through anyone, not even his attorney to me or my kids. I did have to see him in court last week for the first hearing and boy did he stare me down with this really blank stare that didn't look angry but more just a creepy blank stare. I have a great victim witness advocate that calls me every day or so to check in on me. She has been a blessing! I am also taking up as many of the counseling/help from the local victims of domestic abuse center. Without them I don't know how I would have made it this far. To be honest after it happened I was so scared and depressed I actually contemplated suicide for the first time in my life. It stemmed from all the horrible things he would say to me and the fact that ALL of our friends and most of the family flocked to his side. I honestly felt like me and my kids were lost at sea on a raft with no hope of rescue in sight. He was pretty good at acting like the perfect husband around everyone else and nobody knew the horrors that were going on in our home over the last couple years. Except for a few of his family members and I think they just avoid because it's their son/brother so it's only natural for them to do that in cases of separation. My family keeps saying get over it, move on get back on your feet, but they just don't understand what your heart and brain go through when you have a BPD spouse. It's so different than a normal relationship. Plus after 5 years my therapist seems to think I pretty much went through a brainwashing experiment that went horribly wrong. All kidding aside, this has been devastating to me. On top of that I had a surgery last year that went wrong and left me with some pretty bad health issues and I've been a stay at home mom because I couldn't work full time. Now I have to push all the limits and get back on my feet but it was like the last straw got stacked and my entire life and everything came crashing down at once. It couldn't get any worse right now. I'm staying strong for my kids, but inside I am just a pile of rubble.  And I realized that me committing suicide would be his dream come true and I gave up that notion because of my kids and it really scared me that I felt that way.

[Turkish]

Suicidal thoughts aren't fun, jannie. Even before my r/s started really breaking down, I was so depressex that I had thoughts of wandering into the hills some nights to die of exposure. My kids would be set up financially. I hated feeling like that. I should have sought help, I wish that I did. I'm glad that you did.

5 year marriage. A NC order. Your family means well, but that's invalidating. Many of us have been or are there. They want to "fix" by basically telling us how we should feel.  

It's great that you have professional support, the best. However, what are the next steps? What does your T say to do when the NC order expires? It's there for a very good reason, but while it protects you, it also leaves you in a sort of limbo.