jpatton101
Fewer than 3 Posts
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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 1
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« on: June 04, 2015, 10:40:08 AM » |
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My wife and I will be married three years this November, the first for both of us and we have no kids together. We both married late in life. I’m 47 and she’s 43.
I suspect my wife may have BPD but I can’t say for sure. In fairness there is anger and resentment on both sides, me and her – a lot has to do with her perception of my family and friends and how I refuse to completely cut them out of my life. She feels my entire family and friends do not like her and she refuses to be around them. She gets extremely angry and upset that I continue to maintain somewhat of a relationship with them which ultimately leads to arguments, sometime heated. I say “somewhat” of a relationship because I’ve always had a great relationship with my family and friends but since my marriage I very rarely see them. I’ll call my mom maybe once a week and have a quick lunch with her once every once in a while (she’s close to my work and is a widower so she does get lonely and bored). She gets enraged when I do this because in her eyes my mom is “the enemy”. My brother who I was close with moved to a new house almost a year ago (he lives about 45 minutes away) and I have yet to visit him and my only nephew who I have always been real close to – she hates my brother’s wife and insists they really don’t want us going there despite the fact they’ve invited us countless times. She says they invite us only when there are other family members there to make fun of her. My best friend and his family live only a few blocks away and we never see them (I’ve known them long before we got married). I’ve given up on telling her we’re invited to any kind of family or friend event because it ultimately will lead to major arguments later on. Any time I get a call from a family member or friend I get the 3rd degree as to what they wanted. It automatically triggers the notion that I am talking to the “enemy” which leads to more arguments. Consequently I no longer talk to them in my wife’s presence. I leave my cell phone on vibrate because of her constant calls to work (she thinks I leave work to cheat on her). I have never been unfaithful in my life and find myself having to defend myself in drama-filled soap opera arguments all the time. When we first met I knew she didn’t have many friends or close relationships but I always said that in no way shape or form did I want to live in a “bubble” and I insisted relationships of all sorts were important. Here I am 3 years later in a bubble and am as unhappy as can be. Facebook has been the death of me -- there are past work colleagues, former classmates, and current friends who I had friended long before I met my wife. The problem she has is that some of them are women. She insisted I shouldn’t be friends with any other woman which immediately lead to her suspicions that I was cheating on her, or that I “had it in me” to cheat on her (one of many red flags I chose to ignore). It got so bad and she became so untrusting of me that I removed all but a handful of women (just kept relatives) from my Facebook. So I had a friend list of mostly guys. I rarely used FB even before we met and used it to keep up with others but to me it was the principle of her telling me what to do and who I could have as friends. Ultimately I removed my FB account because it was a small price (seemingly) to make her happy. In reality it didn’t because she just focuses on other reasons why I make her unhappy.
While my relationship with my family has been fairly normal her relationship with hers has been a mess, and non-existent. She had a bad upbringing. She was abused by her children’s dad (they never married). She doesn’t talk to any of her 3 sisters or brother. She doesn’t talk to her mom or dad. She doesn’t talk to her oldest son and hates his wife. She has an on-again off-again relationship with her daughter. She constantly argues with and tries to control her youngest son (currently living with us). She has no close friends. She doesn’t care for our neighbors – our association doesn’t allow fences so she is adamant about building a wall of bushes and trees for privacy. She trusts NO ONE, even me. She says I lie, I hide things, and try to control her. She says that I wish she would die so I could move on and meet someone else. When she gets into one of her moods it could last for hours. I typically stay calm and listen to her rants (there's no putting in a wore edge wise) but as she rolls from one of my many perceived wrong-doings to another I ultimately will A) try to reason with her then B) try to persuade her to talk about it when we are in a much calmer state of mind. Neither option works so I try to remove myself from the situation by going to another room or going for a walk which in her mind results in me “running away” and escalates her temper even more so I typically stay and listen to the abuse. I eventually reach my limit and we start arguing like there is no tomorrow. I am generally a very low key guy but when we argue we both say very hurtful and ugly things. I am guilty of taking the bait but these mood swings happen so often and last for so long that I am at my wits end pulling my hair out.
The truth is my family treats her well and wants her around. The problem is she perceives certain comments, looks, or actions on their behalf as a major slight or insult to her – and to compound things she blows up on me (later when we’re alone not at the time) about how I didn’t defend her because of how cruel, hateful, and what a bunch of a**holes they were to her. In actuality looking back at the evening everyone seemed to have a good time, even my wife. But I am lumped into the “enemy” category about how I’m always on everyone else’s side but hers. In her mind they are the spawn of the devil and would like nothing more than to have me leave her. And even though my family misses me and senses my unhappiness and frustration they continue to be supportive of my marriage and let me know that the important thing is for me to be happy and that we -- her and I – are always welcome. They don't mettle in my marriage. And unlike my wife they have never drawn a line in the sand and declared to “pick a side”. My wife always does that. There is no middle ground. There are no gray areas. If you don’t see things her way or side with her opinions then you are the enemy. Additionally if she’s feeling really hurt or has a passion for something and I don’t empathize with her with the same kind of vigor and passion (whether it’s anger, happiness, etc) then I am the worst husband in the world and in her mind proves I don’t really love her – because if she hurts, I should hurt just as much. She’ll also flip in a matter of minutes. I’ll be the best guy in the world one minute and she is so in love with me and she is the luckiest woman around but soon after I am sludge underneath a rock.
She has this some kind of roller-coaster ups and downs with in her work life as well. She has work experience as an admin assistant. Her past 4 jobs over the past year have lasted…3 months, 1 day, 1 day, and 2 months. In the ones that have lasted for more than a day it’s the same old thing: every girl there is a b**ch and they are jealous of her. Management treats her like s**t and they don’t know how to run an office. She has now been at another new job for 3 weeks with the same kind of stuff. It’s always the same woes – that she is over stressed and the job will literally kill her (which she says is what I want). The truth is my income alone cannot sustain all of our bills and debts and we need to have two incomes – she knows this. I pay for everything except for her credit cards. So I live paycheck to paycheck. I have paid off her credit card balances twice already totaling 20K (which includes taking out 401k loans and a home equity line of credit) but her debt is climbing once again – she can’t control her spending. She bought a brand new SUV just before being let go of her previous job so it’s imperative she keep good graces with her current employer. However for me to insinuate that it’s important for her to keep her job means that I don’t care about her health which leads to me being an unsupportive husband which leads to my cruel family which leads to accusations of me cheating, and on and on.
What I’ve noticed in re-reading my letter is that I never mentioned my love for her. At one point I did. But her behavior and antics have become so draining, so frustrating, so unhealthy that I have become numb to all of it and I have closed off. I suppose indifference and exhaustion is how I would describe my feelings towards my marriage. We hold hands, we have sex, we enjoy similar things, and publically we appear to be happy. But behind closed doors it’s a roller coaster of emotions that have my head spinning – I never know what to expect from day to day and walk around on eggshells. And while I don’t know if my love will ever rekindle I do know that I still care for her and don’t ever want to hurt her. During our frequent arguments we throw out threats of divorce like it’s nothing but I don’t suspect she thinks I would ever go through with it. If it happens it will certainly not be amicable at all. I’m certain it would devastate her and infuriate her at the same time. She refuse medication. She refuses counseling or therapy since “it’s all my fault” and it would do ME no good. I disagree because I think it would help and I also recognize I am not completely blameless in all of this. At the same time I know I’m also not 100% to blame.
As I mentioned earlier we have no children together although she has 4 from a previous relationship – 3 are out on their own and the youngest, 21, is living with us. The youngest also has 3 young children but they live with their mom. She seems to be happiest when she is with the grand children (and our dog) and confesses as much. They give her unconditional love, she says, and they don’t judge her. Every weekend the grand kids are with us, typically Thursday or Friday through Sunday. I love them tremendously myself and enjoy spending time with them but there are times when I’d like to do adult things.
So here I am at a crossroads, married not even 3 years. I’m not a therapist so I can’t say for sure if my wife has mental issues although I suspect there has to be some kind of chemical imbalance. I don’t want to believe it. But if I do believe it what do I do? Cut my losses now and avoid a potential lifetime of unhappiness and stress? Or try to ride it out to see if things progress in a positive way trying to do my part in better understanding her? Any advice would be most welcome. Thank you.
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