15 year relationship and I feel lost and confused

[sidpitter]

I have been with my spouse for 15 years and married for 5.  I inherited a wonderful daughter when I first met my spouse.  I have been a loving father since the day I met them.  Our fights have become non stop and the level of discord is too much to fathom.  My wife most definitely matches closely with 8 of the 9 traits of BPD.  She has been in therapy by herself as well as couples therapy.  Nothing seems to work because she is in denial about having any issues and instead projects it on me as the one that needs help.  I am in fear of her as she rages and becomes out of control, irrational, and violent.  She yells and attacks me if I have to meet with my business partner.  I basically feel trapped and like a prisoner because I have no freedom to do anything outside of dealing with her.  She finds ways to manipulate and guilt me into not having a relationship with other important people in my life.  I am walking on eggshells every day, frightened that the slightest misstep will set her off.  It is so encompassing that my financial life is a struggle.  I am a husband that is dazed and confused.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[babyducks]

You have made a brave first step by posting here, and I wanted to welcome you to the family.   What you will find is a lot of people who understand exactly what you are describing, because we have all been there.  I have been on the receiving end of those rages where I was blamed for everything.   And it always sounded so convincing too, that I nearly believed it myself.   

Feeling trapped and at the mercy of someone else's harmfully intense emotions is difficult.   It wears a body down.   And make us question ourselves.    I can tell you for myself that my first six months of being here, reading and posting were hard.   But I am glad I did it.    It's helped me and my relationship more than I can say.

A good place to start your reading is HERE

You mentioned she becomes out of control and violent during her rages.  Would you feel comfortable telling us more?    What course of action are you taking now for you and your daughter if things become physical?

We understanding being dazed and confused.  You are dealing with a lot of hard to handle, complex behavioral traits.  BPD is a serious mental illness.   

Keep posting and let us know how you are doing.

'ducks

[Flexion]

I have been with my spouse for 15 years and married for 5.  I inherited a wonderful daughter when I first met my spouse.  I have been a loving father since the day I met them.  Our fights have become non stop and the level of discord is too much to fathom.  My wife most definitely matches closely with 8 of the 9 traits of BPD.  She has been in therapy by herself as well as couples therapy.  Nothing seems to work because she is in denial about having any issues and instead projects it on me as the one that needs help.  I am in fear of her as she rages and becomes out of control, irrational, and violent.  She yells and attacks me if I have to meet with my business partner.  I basically feel trapped and like a prisoner because I have no freedom to do anything outside of dealing with her.  She finds ways to manipulate and guilt me into not having a relationship with other important people in my life.  I am walking on eggshells every day, frightened that the slightest misstep will set her off.  It is so encompassing that my financial life is a struggle.  I am a husband that is dazed and confused.

Man, I'm sorry your going through that. As I've said before, this all looks familiar. ANd, as others have told me, you're not alone.

However, there is one thing we have in common, besides a BPDw- business owners! 

I have had to cut my work back to be able to pick our son up some. As you might know, her 2 hour wine and bath is more important than me working to support us. I mean, I have put us in a whole by letting work go. she complained so much about having to pick up our son everyday, I had to just let it go.

Now, she is asking me "so you don't mind going back to working more?" I mean, I got the worse treatment and abuse from working so much. I took months to eliminate afternoon clients. I carefully told her about how cutting back would affect us! she didn't listen!  But, now it's ok?

[kentavr3]

11 years together. 10 years married. Daughter of 9 years old. For the first 3-4 years she was the best woman I ever had. But… had one or two episodes of smashing phone tube or smashing a door. I didn’t pay attention to this. Oh, forgot to say, she left her son of 5 years old in her home country. What happened after these 4 years is exactly as DR. Melton described. She started feeling physically bad. No medical worries were. Just everything was bad with her. I’ve got crazy going to doctors’ offices or calling specialists to find out what was happening with her. I thought that she had cancer or something like this. I would prefer to die instead of her. I started looking to the world through her eyes, means she such influenced me with only her opinions. I had 4-5 good close friends and relatives who supported me a lot. But she didn’t like some of them and I lost them (It called isolation).  A little by little, she started blaming me for the little things. She started demanding more taking care a little by little.  She started having more and more demands from my 73 old mom and complained more on her. My mom couldn’t even say word. I started choosing words also. One word against her opinion could make her nervous outbreak.  Her mood started changing rapidly. More words “hate” appeared in her language to me.  More finding fault with. I’ll continue writing. Why I do this? Wanted you to understand dynamics which everybody of us in this supporting group went through. Try to educate yourself. Read books suggested. Do not scary her with divorce. All BPDs have fear to be abandoned and could do something legally bad to you as restriction order.