Today is the first day I learned about BPD.

[Hummelong]

I too am astonished.  Today is the first day I learned about BPD.  

I decided at the beginning of this year to quit drinking.  Now that I've been sober for 4 months, I am coming to see the patterns my wife of 33 years and I have fallen into, and how much I was using drinking to escape.  Last night she went off into one of her rages because I came down from the bedroom with one pair of panties when she "clearly" wanted several  (she recently broke her leg and is sleeping on our main floor).

Of course I feel like a complete heel, having a wife recovering from a broken leg and even thinking about splitting up, but after all of this effort trying to get my life in shape, I can't let her ruin it any more.

I have been aiming to be the perfect hero, but after reading all of this information today, I see I am doing some things wrong, and most importantly, not looking after myself and letting her control everything in my life.  Luckily I am already seeing a counselor and next visit I am going to ask her if she knows how to help a non-BPD deal with one.

[cosmonaut]

Hi Hummelong,



I'm really glad that you have found us and that you are learning about BPD.  Do you think it is helping you to better understand your relationship with your wife?  I know for myself that it suddenly made sense of many things that previously had made no sense.

I think that everyone here can relate to your frustrations with your wife.  Relationships involving BPD can be hard and at times exhausting.  Please don't feel badly for feeling that way - we all have.  It takes a lot out of anyone, and I think every single one of us has been at our wits end at one point or another.  So, you are in good company.  Fortunately, there are things that we can do to help our relationship with our partner.

Have you had a chance yet to take a look at the tools on the Staying board?  These are a great set of skills that we can use in order to better relate to our BPD partners, and also to help to diffuse situations when they are dysregulated.  Being in a BPD relationship requires that we approach the relationship in a very different way than many other relationships.  I would recommend that you being trying out some of these tools (particularly validation) with your wife.  The members on the Staying board can help you to learn more about these important tools and how to effectively use them.  I hope you'll give a post over there and introduce yourself to everyone.  They'd love to help support you and hear more about your story.

You are not alone, Hummelong.  Everyone here can understand what you are going through, and how difficult these relationships can be.  Keep posting.  We're here for you.   

[Lucky Jim]

Hey hummelong, I was married for ten years before a T finally mentioned BPD to me and loaned me the book, SWOE, which you might want to read.     It was a relief to learn that I was not alone and that others have been down a similar path.  There are a lot of great resources on this site and people here really "get it" when it comes to BPD.  Welcome!   

LuckyJim

[tortuga]

Hi Hummelong.

I don't want to push you to decide one way or another.

But it only takes 6 weeks (give or take) to heal from a broken leg.  Compare that to 33 years of what you've been through.  And consider that a divorce, procedurally, can take up to a year.

Other facts:  You don't know that  your wife has BPD. Right now, you can't really know anything; other than to look at her behaviors, and see if they match the diagnostic criteria.  Also; at least half of the quality of the relationship is up to you.  We partners of pwBPD's, can also develop some bad coping mechanisms, (like drinking, enabling, invalidating, avoiding) which act to make things worse. The fact that you're admitting that you numbed-out by drinking is a huge step.  It's an even bigger step to stop.  That's the first step on the road to taking better care of your half.

As far as HER half goes: If she has a problem, it would be incumbent on her to realize it. Admit it. Seek treatment (if there is treatment - and in the case of BPD, there IS).  And work to improve HER half of the quality of the relationship.  We partners can't force our pwBPD to do that.

In the end, if both of you succeed, you still have bad memories of what happened in the past.  Which isn't always impossible to overcome. 

Look at the LESSONS and other resources in the Stickies on this site.  My advice is that if your wife does have BPD, you should be very careful about considering whether you will tell that to her flat out. 

The first problem is that they will not likely accept that they have a problem.  (you drink/drank, right? It would be very easy to blame you for everything. In fact, I bet she already does.  The fact is; even if you are PERFECT - your pwBPD will blame you because of that).  The next problem is them accepting that they need to get treatment, and finding appropriate treatment.  My uBPDw did this.  At least to humor me, I suppose. 

The next problem is perhaps the biggest one: once on the therapist's couch, the pwBPD would have to tell the truth, in order for the therapist to even be able to recognize the problem.  This is a huge problem.  Because pwBPD are very aversive to feeling shame.  They carefully hide everything that might make them feel ashamed.  Especially when connected to many of the typical BPD behaviors.  In MC, my uBPDw would focus on why I was the cause of all of our problems.  We could never discuss her, or things she did.  It always resulted in lies, arguments, delusional statements, hurt feelings, dysregulation, and all the things that go with that.   Take that difficulty, and stretch it out over the months or years of therapeutic sessions, involving a lot of hard work, painful introspection, and you can see why this used to be considered an impossible condition to treat.  (which is no longer true).

Whether you decide to stay or leave - you have plenty of time to decide, and act, or change your mind.  There are a lot of great resources on this site to help you.

[an0ught]

Welcome Hummelong,

I too am astonished.  Today is the first day I learned about BPD.  

I decided at the beginning of this year to quit drinking.  Now that I've been sober for 4 months, I am coming to see the patterns my wife of 33 years and I have fallen into, and how much I was using drinking to escape.

dealing alone with a BPD partner is very hard without the proper tools and backup. Many of us resorted to some form of dysfunctional coping behavior. Alcohol is one of the more problematic ones as it impacts our ability to reason, control emotions and in particular affects our behavior with respect to boundaries. For a person suffering from BPD often a precondition to therapy is to stop drinking. You well on track getting better by staying sober now for 4 months and reaching out for a T to support you! 

Last night she went off into one of her rages because I came down from the bedroom with one pair of panties when she "clearly" wanted several  (she recently broke her leg and is sleeping on our main floor).

Of course I feel like a complete heel, having a wife recovering from a broken leg and even thinking about splitting up, but after all of this effort trying to get my life in shape, I can't let her ruin it any more.

Dealing with illness sucks. There is pain, there are embarrassing procedures and there are restrictions placed on our lives. <-- A normal person would self validate this, know this sucks, knows that it is either temporary or a sad downward adjustment that is part of life and needs to be accepted. A pwBPD has limited ability to self validate and is stewing in unprocessed emotions. Validation, often through spelling out unpleasant feelings can sometimes help to sooth her.

I have been aiming to be the perfect hero, but after reading all of this information today, I see I am doing some things wrong, and most importantly, not looking after myself and letting her control everything in my life.  Luckily I am already seeing a counselor and next visit I am going to ask her if she knows how to help a non-BPD deal with one.

You got the first step - you see you got a problem.

Step 2: Boundaries - where are your own limits, where will you not rescue the damsel in distress.

Step 3: When she gets upset validate that you are "Totally failing today living up to her expections." etc.

Step 4: Enjoy a better life  

Of course it is not so easy to make these changes considering how long the behavioral patterns on both sides have been existing. But you have already done a few very important steps with changing your drinking, reaching out to a T and finding this site here. Learning the skills here will help you making further steps and improve your situation.

Maybe let us know how your appointment went,

again ,

a0