My brother passed away - uBPDw behavior startling

[campbembpd]

Good morning friends,

I received some tragic news last week that my brother and his mid 50s was found deceased. He had struggled with increasing alcohol and drug addiction behaviors for the last 20 years. He had a brief period of sobriety about nine years ago. Ever since then it’s been worse and worse. He lives across the country from me so I don’t get to see him very often. In fact, I hadn’t seen him for about five years but it made a trip back there and was able to see him about a month ago so I’m grateful for that. His death was likely the cause of either an accidental alcohol and or drug overdose or possibly a suicide attempt, he also struggled with depression and was homeless off and on, usually staying at friends houses for brief periods.


I’m perplexed by my uBPDw’s overall response. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be. She was very sad at first and had some tears with me, but her relationship with him was not the best. They had exchanged some negative comments on Facebook and the last interaction that they had was my wife basically split him and posted some negative untrue things onFacebook and would not take it down. That was a few years ago she hasn’t seen or spoken to him since.


In any case, the first day, she was somewhat sympathetic. But she was also very cold and standoffish. The day he passed me initially plans to go out that night which were canceled. She had also had a therapist appointment for the first time with a new therapist so I know she had dug up some stuff with the therapist. I think she was holding stuff in from her therapy appointment that she wanted to vent to me.


Nothing overly bad happened the first day except she did express that it was too bad that we’re having our marriage problems and things are so heavy and she was looking forward to a nice night out and a light weekend and now this happened. The next day is where things got bad and I’m still really confused and don’t understand this…

It started out at an early morning, sporting event for my son. She started talking about something that had come up in therapy and how she misses the past and how our relationship used to be. I guess I shut her down because I said I don’t have bandwidth for this and I really can’t discuss anything about our relationship or problems today. I said my brother literally just died yesterday so I can’t do this today. From that point, she was pretty much put off. We got home from the sporting event then she went out to exercise, then she met a friend after (a drinking friend). I’m guessing two or three cocktails. She had been tested that morning, so I was perfectly glad to have some time away from her to be honest. We had rescheduled some plans to try to go out and have a dinner and get my mind off of the tragedy.


Anyway, she came home and we tried to go out, but she started to bring up a relationship issues again and how she was feeling and how I’m not the husband I used to be and all this negative stuff. And I just told her I couldn’t do it and I said we’re not going out if this is how it’s gonna be let’s go home. She didn’t wanna go home because the kids were there and didn’t wanna bring it back to the house. We ended up going out for dinner, but it was literally three hours of her typical circular conversation, her drinking almost another bottle of wine when we were out for dinner. It was maybe one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced sitting there listening to how bad our relationship is and how she feels and how things are never gonna be fixed and I’m just not the person I used to be, etc., etc..

Is this typical of BPD behavior? I mean, it just was so clearly a lack of empathy and even now this morning, I am in absolute shock that she didn’t have the humanity to put her feelings aside for one day. She was in an episode and it didn’t matter that someone had died. I don’t know as a jealousy that the emotional attention wasn’t gonna be on her? I mean, I spent so much time emotionally overwhelmed by what she was doing that I didn’t even have time or mental space to grieve for my brother yesterday.

I’m really disgusted to be honest it’s like most things in our life and how she treats me. If someone in her family died, she would be a blubbering emotional mess and would expect me to have every ounce of attention focused on her and what she’s dealing with. Anyway, not much else to say just wondering what others have experienced in similar situations.
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[Notwendy]

I am sorry for the loss of your brother.

If you consider these behaviors- as well as addiction behaviors- they are all dysfunctional ways of managing difficult emotions. It makes sense they will increase during times of stress.

If you consider that pwBPD have a victim perspective and so are more self focused, then these behaviors make sense.

So, when the person who is usually focused on their feelings, their needs, is not as focused, this can be seen as a "taking away" of focus on them. Yes, we expect other people to understand that dealing with a death is difficult. You are grieving. You aren't focused on them- that is less attention.

Your wife's behaviors work for her. She acts out, accuses you, and you act to correct the narrative, and so reinforce the behavior. So why wouldn't she ramp up on behaviors that work for her.

When my father was ill, and then passed away, my BPD mother's behavior escalated. I have empathy for her having lost her husband, but we kids lost a father too, and it was difficult. While this is odd coping behavior, it is who she was and how she managed. Thankfully,  friends and relatives were able to be of comfort at this time.

Again, I am sorry for your loss. Take care of yourself, and your kids. They just lost an uncle, and even if they didn't know him well, it is a loss. Seek out support from people who can be of comfort to you- other family, your pastor, friends.

[CC43]

Hi there,

I'm so sorry for your loss.  And it's no surprise that your uBPDw seems to be acting out precisely when you need a little support and understanding from her.  There was a recent post on this phenomenon in the children section of this site--How can you manage getting angry with daughter.  Notwendy sums it up nicely.  PwBPD tend to act out to reclaim attention whenever our attention is diverted, such as when there's a death or sickness in the family, during holidays or vacations, a job change, a move, a celebration, a birthday or whenever the focus isn't exclusively on the pwBPD.  It's almost like they act out to test your devotion.  If you pull away because you're mourning, sick, on vacation or otherwise engaged with something else, that's almost a guarantee of escalation.  Whereas you are expected to be understanding 110% of the time, there is almost no reciprocation from the pwBPD.  Make sense?

[thankful person]

Campbpmbpd,
I am so sorry for your loss. I agree with all of the above comments. Due to what I’ve learnt and now understand about my dbpdw’s behaviour, I have spent the last few years trying to mentally prepare myself for what I’m going to have to go through (with bpdw) primarily when my elderly parents pass away, but also losing any other family members. I know that she will not handle this at all well. I know that she feels threatened by my love for others. I know that she will start conversations about how she wishes our relationship was what it once was and how she doesn’t feel supported or desired and all the rest of it… how she’s “not important”. It is comparable to when I woke up from my six hour breast surgery and reconstruction (for cancer) to my wife seemingly thinking I was selfish because I kept falling asleep during her visit to see me in hospital. So I know that when i am in my most vulnerable state of loss… I won’t have the strength.. to validate what i see as ridiculous.. to have patience with her jealousy of my love for others when they are so much better people than her… “disgusted” is your word that resonates with me. I don’t want to be having a massive row with my wife over the coming days and months after a difficult loss. I will try to pacify her and not share my vulnerability with her. Especially as always to try and keep the peace for our kids. These are my intentions but I don’t know if I can be strong enough to not make things worse. I lost respect for my wife a long time ago but I’m happy enough with my life now that her behaviours are somewhat under control (all work I put in not her). I really feel for you and I’m so glad you got to see your brother recently before his passing.

[HurtAndTired]

Hi Camp,

First, let me offer my deepest condolences for your loss. I am so sorry that you are hurting and that this whole situation is compounding that hurt and interrupting/impeding the grieving process.

A few months ago I found out that two of my former college roommates and close friends had died deaths of despair over the course of the prior six months. One had lost a long battle with alcoholism and the other took her life because she was facing legal difficulties. I was shocked, hurt, and filled with guilt and remorse when I found out about their passing. I felt the guilt and remorse because I learned about their deaths months after they had happened due to being isolated from friends and not connected to social media anymore. This was directly because of my abusive marriage. I had isolated to hide the abuse from friends. I had disconnected from social media because it made my wife insanely jealous. I should have been at those funerals, comforting their relatives, and sharing their grief.

My wife reacted badly to the news. Rather than giving me a simple "I'm sorry for your loss" and then keeping her trap shut, she then went on to put down my dead friends. She called the one friend a drunk (which is awfully rich coming from a woman who drinks every day) and said that the other one "took the coward's way out" (again, ironic coming from a woman who has locked herself in a bedroom with a 9mm and threatened to shoot herself). Less than a week later, my wife spent two hours on the phone with a friend comforting her the whole time due to the friend having broken up with a long-time boyfriend. I just could not believe that my wife could find two hours of sympathy for the break up of a friend she sees a few times a year, but could not even give her husband a hug and a "sorry for your loss."

For me, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. This is when I finally realized that I needed to give up hope of saving my marriage. My parents are elderly and although I hope that they will be with us for many years to come, the reality is that I could lose either one of them tomorrow. That loss would crush me. Having my wife not only not giving me support during that time of loss would compound that loss and would potentially mess up my ability to properly grieve. I cannot imagine what I would do if she said cruel things about my mother or father in the way she did about my friends. You used the word disgusted. I think it is a perfect word to describe how I felt with my wife after this.

Although the experience I went through with my wife's reaction to my friends' passing was awful, it let me see her clearly in a way that none of the other things that she has done to me did. In a way, I am grateful that it happened. I was finally able to see that the way forward was clear. It meant that I had to get out as soon as I could. This woman has no capacity to give me the basic things that I need from a friendship, let alone a marriage. If a spouse cannot offer condolences and comfort when we are hurting, what are we getting out of the relationship? Isn't this one of the most basic reasons why we get married in the first place? To share joy when things are good, and to hold each other up when things are bad? I realized that my joy has been muted by fear of her reacting poorly when things go well, and that while I have comforted her many times when things are bad, she has never done the same for me. This marriage has been all give and no take on my part, and all take and no give on hers. This ratio is not sustainable. I have known this in my heart of hearts for years, but was finally no longer able to ignore it.

My prayers will continue to be with you and your family as you navigate this painful and difficult time. Spend time loving your son and daughter. Share your grief with them and find solace in their hugs. Know that you are loved and deserve to be loved. Know that all of us at BPDFamily are with you in spirit and our hearts go out to you as well.

HurtAndTired