Newbie

[Twt]

Hi,

I'm an Australian male, mid 30's living away from home. My wife, a native of the country that I'm living in, suffers from BPD. As you might imagine, it can be pretty isolating, and difficult to maintain self-confidence. I just joined the site, hoping to meet people in a similar situation, to swap ideas about gaining trust, and the right approach to use to encourage the sufferer to seek and stay with therapy.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[enlighten me]

Hi Twt

Welcome to the family.

There are a number of members here that seem to be in a relatively stable relationship with their BPD SO.

Maybe if you could let us know a bit more about the circumstances then you can get the advice that best suits your situation.

For instance does you SO know they have BPD and if so are they willing to seek treatment?

[Twt]

My SO knows that she has BPD, but is mostly in denial. She told me once after the first big episode I witnessed, that she was diagnosed as such during a stay in clinic. Since then, she has told me another couple of times, even once handing me a phone with a website: 'How to communicate with someone with BPD'.

That's pretty big for her, as 99.999% of the time she just lays the blame on me, a family member, a housemate etc. etc.

Things have become a more stressful lately, as I've been setting boundaries. I have only suggested couples therapy, and that only 2 times. Both times resulted in her raging.

[babyducks]

Hi Twt,

  I am glad to have you on board with us.   My partner is diagnosed both Bipolar 1 and BPD.   She is comfortable talking about the Bipolar diagnosis, not the BPD.    BPD has a stigma attached to it and my SO is highly sensitive to issues of shame/blame/not being good enough.   What has worked for me is to not focusing on the name or the label but to talk very very generically about issues and symptoms without pointing fingers or even suggesting hard and fast solutions.    Kind of a "wouldn't it be nice if we could find a way to communicate with out arguing"  or  "everyone needs a little help sometimes, we could manage stress a little better if... ."

I noticed you mentioned your SO pointed out communication.      that is a great place to start.   there are specific tools and skills that make communicating with a pwBPD (person with BPD) more successful.   what I have found to be true for me is that when I started to use the tools here,  I saw a very marked improvement in how we communicated.    I process life/information much differently than my SO does and frequently we communicated in ways that were counter productive, or invalidating.   I didn't meant to be and she didn't mean to be, we had gotten entrenched in our own positions and couldn't meet the other half way.   It took some work and time to lower the emotional reactivity between us and allow for ideas to flow both ways.

How are you doing with communication and trust right now?

ducks

[globalnomad]

G'day Twt (from a fellow Aussie living a long way from home).

Welcome to the board. I can really relate to feeling isolated, especially when you're not in your home country and have less of a support network.

I've also been trying to set boundaries lately, with pretty mixed results (a lot of rage). How long have you been with your partner? Are there periods of stability, at least?

[Twt]

Thanks for the advice ducks (love the name btw), I've been reading as much information as I can, and trying to do it on a regular basis as it's easy to get lackadaisical when we have a good week or two.

We've been together about 4 years, with good times and bad, but dominated unfortunately by unstable relationships with those close to us. Most problems between the two of us are triggered by me defending someone who she's negatively obsessed with at the time.

To answer your last question, trust is ok today, but has been a little turbulent lately. I was 5 minutes late to an appointment last week, for example, so she said that 'can't ever trust me', so we should never have kids. That was a nasty one.


Hey nomad! Yeah it's tough without old friends around, as my partner's paranoia sometimes makes it difficult to trust new friends. We have periods of stability for sure, sometimes weeks at a time. Though, sadly they never last regardless of how much hope there is.

Where are you living? We're in Germany

[babyducks]

To answer your last question, trust is ok today, but has been a little turbulent lately. I was 5 minutes late to an appointment last week, for example, so she said that 'can't ever trust me', so we should never have kids. That was a nasty one.

Hi Twt,

Oh my yes that would be a tough one.   The words "never"  "always" "ever" are usually signs for me that something is afoot.   How did you work you way through that one?

'ducks

[globalnomad]

Hey twt. I'm in New York. I can certainly relate to the periods of stability not lasting that long. It makes it hard to ever truly relax or let your guard down.

Does your partner have any close friends? Mine does not, which I think contributes to the sense of isolation. Many of our conflicts also result from me "defending" the behavior of friends or family of mine -- behavior which she considers outrageous but which is actually pretty normal from my point of view.