Hi Icanteven,
It's a blessing and a curse: you ARE her trigger, which is hard to hear as her husband, but at the same time, you have an answer. It's lousy, but this is a heck of a lot more closure than most people get.
This is rough to hear. But I think it is very close to the truth. My understanding is that familiarity and intimacy are the triggers for the disordered feelings of people with BPD (pwBPD). But this is not to say that *you* are her trigger. For now, you are her trigger. The minute she starts to depend upon someone else (even if its a child), that new person will be her trigger. So the crux of her issue, is will she realize, and *accept* that she needs to fix herself *without* needing or depending upon anyone more than herself?
I think this is where a lot of pwBPD get sidetracked in their recovery progress.
Right now she thinks you are her trigger. A mistake would be to think that she can find someone else who will not be her trigger. This is where a lot of pwBPD end up recycling other relationships. Heck, if she starts to depend upon her therapist, then eventually her therapist can become her trigger. But at least he is a professional.
But, even if she embraced DBT and everything else she's undergoing, the power of her feelings may be so strong and so latent that you swamp all her coping mechanisms.
DBT is helping her develop tools for managing her emotions. As she starts applying these tools to deal with her day-to-day feelings, she will get better. But the problem is the disordered feelings she experiences in the context of familial and intimate relationships will be the biggest kinds of emotions she will face. It may be some time before she can handle those using the DBT tools. There is also the possibility that when those feelings get too overwhelming to her, she will drop the DBT tools and use her old defense mechanisms which result in the BPD behaviors discussed here in these forums.
sorry to be blunt, but I don't think what your wife experiences is anywhere close to healthy adult love; I just mean the intensity of her feelings and all the psychological weight that goes with them.
This is also a hard pill to swallow. But I believe it is the truth.
I relay this story because, for months on end, I've tried to drill down to the bedrock of why did this happen? Will she get better? Will she come home? Is there any hope?
Your wife getting to this point means she is a lot further down the path towards recovery than a lot of the pwBPD described here in these forums. In the short term, her emotions may become more manageable for her.
In my opinion, for a perfect resolution/recovery to occur, she needs to get *very good* at managing her emotions to the point that she can begin to face whatever pain/trauma/injury she suffered as a child that caused her BPD in the first place... .and *work through* that trauma. I imagine this is probably the most difficult part of the process.
And *if* she gets to that point, then she will have a chance to figure out exactly who she is.
Maybe she'll come home. The hope is that she has a chance to be who she was meant to be. And not be lost in this disorder for the rest of her life.
Best wishes,
Schwing