Grieving

[Overseas1899]

My uBPDh has recently agreed to go for assessment. I feel both relieved and sad. Sad because I won't ever (I can't imagine ) have a completely trusting, normal relationship. I am not convinced that meds and therapy will take it all away. I think I am grieving the relationship that I signed up for but will never have.  Anyone else have similar feelings / thoughts?

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[maxsterling]

Yes.  Absolutely.  While I am hopeful that she is now in therapy, I am accepting the reality that therapy won't "fix" her, and that she will always be a work in progress.  More than likely she will always be emotionally needy upon me, always be low functioning, probably never have a stable job or income, and probably never be completely capable of taking care of herself. 

That alone is a tough reality to face, and I think I can navigate that as long as I keep seeing improvement and recognition on her end that she has things to work through.  But I am grieving a few realities - I think with her current mental state, travelling internationally with her is a bad idea, and would be huge stress on me.  And I am also grieving that I think having a child with her would also be a very bad idea and result in huge stress on me. 

[lostandunsure]

Absolutely! I have been there, in fact I keep going there.

When we got my wife's diagnosis, it was like the clouds parted and everything suddenly made sense... . I didn't feel like I was doing everything wrong and that there was a real, medical reason for what was happening in our relationship. I could now point to the diagnosis and say, "That's what the problem is! It's really not my fault!" On top of that, there's a treatment for it, i.e. DBT! Yay!... .

Well, as I did research, reality started to set in. DBT helps, it really does, but it's not magic. It helps someone who has trouble regulating their emotions to have a better tool set than they had before... . But it doesn't mean that they won't have those strong emotions, in fact it teaches that they will and how to accept that they will. My wife will always be prone to emotional outbursts. There will always be difficulties, some of them major, we have a long road ahead of us. It's scary and its a struggle sometimes.

It's a shock and I do think that grieving is the right word. You're discovering what this means. You are mourning a relationship that you've always wanted but may not be able to have. Grief is important, give yourself time to process this, it's a lot to take in. Acceptance can bring some peace, but it is a process (heck see my last post, we're going through some stormy weather right now and I really needed some validation myself.)

It won't always be dark and stormy times. Now that my wife is learning new skills, she's coming out of her emotions faster and she's getting better at trying to use new skills. I try to hold on to those days.

None of this is easy, give yourself time.

[takingandsending]

Hi overseas.

You are definitely not alone. I have posted this NAMI stages of emotional response before, but will do so again, because it really is helpful to see that the stages we are going through in response to the mental illness of our loved ones is not at all unusual. This is human dynamics, and the best thing is to accept where we are, recognize it is going to change as we (and our partners) grow. Bouncing between these stages of response is 100% normal. The thing more of us need is emotional support for ourselves as we go through it.

STAGES OF EMOTIONAL RESPONSES

I. DEALING WITH CATASTROPHIC EVENTS

Crisis/Chaos/Shock

Denial; “normalizing”, Hoping Against Hope

NEEDS: *Support *Comfort *Empathy for confusion, *Help finding resources, *Crisis intervention, *Prognosis, *Empathy for pain

II. LEARNING TO COPE

Anger/Guilt/Resentment, Recognition, Grief

NEEDS: *Vent feelings *Keep hope *Education  *Self-care *Networking *Skill training  *Letting go *Co-op from System

III.MOVING INTO ADVOCACY

Understanding, Acceptance, Advocacy/Action

NEEDS: *Activism *Restoring balance in life *Responsiveness from System

Hang in there. Loving someone with mental illness is incredibly demanding, and it takes a huge level of bravery and strength. And humor is really, really helpful if you can manage it.

[Overseas1899]

Max sterling:  I agree.  I would not have had children with him if I had known or seen this coming. After child number 2, everything fell apart. He couldn't handle the stress and the last 12 years have been so terrible.  One of my kids got out photo albums of their younger years and I coulnt help myself from sobbing in front of them. Although the pics are all happy, my memory of those years was full of confusion as to wth is happening here and trying to shield the kids from his rage.

Lostandunsure:  I keep rereading your post. It's reassuring to know that it won't always be bad. Do you find that you continue to walk on eggshells not knowing when the storm will come again?

Takingandsending:  humor sure helps!

[ColdEthyl]

Yep. At first, I was so confused about what was going on when my dBPDh would start to rage... .make up things I said... .fly off the handle on seemingly small things. I remember him screaming at me because I didn't like the same band he did thinking to myself "I know there's something wrong with him. This can't be normal. Am I normal? What am I even doing here?"

After doing research, at first I thought Bipolar, but when I found this site... .I cried. I knew it was BPD then. The beast had a name! Before I knew I wasn't supposed to... .I talked to him about it and at first he tried to tell me he was on disability for depression, but finally admitted he was a diagnosed BPD.

Then, the mourning of what would never happen came. He would never be the kind of husband to have my back, to support me, to take care of me if I needed it. I would always have to be more mature, more thoughtful in how I speak and what I say. I would be the one that would have to put in most of the work.

I still mourn from time to time. I don't expect that to change. But, with using the tools, things have improved this past year. We don't fight all the time, he doesn't name call anymore. We are both talking more about how we feel. He's still my best friend, we still enjoy similar things, laugh at our stupid jokes, and enjoy each other's company

[Loosestrife]

Yes.  Absolutely.  While I am hopeful that she is now in therapy, I am accepting the reality that therapy won't "fix" her, and that she will always be a work in progress.  More than likely she will always be emotionally needy upon me, always be low functioning, probably never have a stable job or income, and probably never be completely capable of taking care of herself. 

That alone is a tough reality to face, and I think I can navigate that as long as I keep seeing improvement and recognition on her end that she has things to work through.  But I am grieving a few realities - I think with her current mental state, travelling internationally with her is a bad idea, and would be huge stress on me.  And I am also grieving that I think having a child with her would also be a very bad idea and result in huge stress on me. 

I have been feeling and thinking the same the last few weeks

[vortex of confusion]

You are not alone. I have had those same feelings. This isn't what I signed up for when I got married. I spent years thinking, "Once X happens, things will be better." X would happen but things wouldn't get better. Once my husband was diagnosed with diabetes, all of his behaviors were explained away as "It was just his health. Now things should get better." Things didn't get better. My husband has tried to blame things on his sex addiction. I have read stories about how people take their recovery seriously. He has yet to take his recovery seriously. He is in counseling but it doesn't seem like he is taking it seriously.

So, I take things one day at a time. I have made it almost 17 years living one day at a time. I only recently (in the last year) discovered BPD and this site. I am finally grieving the fact that I will probably never have the marriage that I thought I had and wanted to have.