Help

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

   that is the only word I can use is help.   I can’t believe I have found myself in this situation.    My wife is suffering from undiagnosed BPD and it is destroying our lives.   Right now she is in a death spiral, in an extreme devaluation phase of me and our marriage, pregnant, shifting narratives/ blame/ splitting/ is in a custody battle with her ex husband and is in “secretive@ pre-litigation with me.    She is dangerous, unstable and completely unpredictable.     

[Fthr8]

   that is the only word I can use is help.   I can’t believe I have found myself in this situation.    My wife is suffering from undiagnosed BPD and it is destroying our lives.   Right now she is in a death spiral, in an extreme devaluation phase of me and our marriage, pregnant, shifting narratives/ blame/ splitting/ is in a custody battle with her ex husband and is in “secretive@ pre-litigation with me.    She is dangerous, unstable and completely unpredictable.     

[GaGrl]

We are here to support you. Many on this board have gone through similar situations with undiagnosed BPD spouses, including suicide threats and separations, and divorces.

Are you currently living with your wife? What is the custody situation with your step-child(ren)? Do you have children with your wife, other than the current pregnancy? What specific behaviors and situations have occurred that concern you most?

[ForeverDad]

Many here have suffered as you have been suffering, we've "done that, experienced that".  Yet the good news is that we persevered and came out the other end of that dark tunnel and life is better now.  Maybe not perfect of course, but life is much better.

One skill we emphasize here is Boundaries.  While boundaries cannot be enforces upon other people, boundaries are our appropriate response to the other person's misbehavior.  This can serve to limit the damage the other can do to us.  Granted, boundaries don't undo all the damage a seriously disordered person does, nor does it fix them, but boundaries do help protect us.

You are NOT alone.  The peer support, though remote, is oh so helpful in addition to whatever support you have locally with family, counselors and your lawyer.

[Pook075]

I echo what others have said; I was in that same situation a few years ago.  It's so incredibly tough.

If I could go back in time and give myself advice during the worst of it, I'd tell myself:

1) Do not engage, and do not keep score.  This isn't my fight, even though it involves my marriage to the person I love the most.  She's doing these things because she's sick and reacting badly.

2) While I can't fix her, I can spend more time focusing on my mental health and bettering myself.  That makes a huge difference because it lets me see things more objectively, and make decisions from a clearer mind.

3)  Have compassion for those that are mentally ill, because in their minds it's absolute chaos.  They literally torture themselves figuring out why we're going to abandon them, and in the process they push us away to make us abandon them (or they leave themselves).  Compassion can break that cycle, just showing we care, we want to work through things, and we're not going anywhere.