Help with a hard choice to make about wife with undiagnosed BPD

[olafinski]

Hi,

to be as brief as possible, my wife of 18 y of marriage, judging by what I have learned last 5-6 years, has a highly functional BPD. I have been on many forums, communicated with professionals, and I am certain. She is not only not aware of this, but also resist very hard any idea of couples therapy. From the start of our relationship she was "packing my bags" and pushed me away weekly. I deeply love her as she is, when not "in episode", a wonderful person and a great mom. She also changed me a lot and was by my side in my hardest times when I was diagnosed with diabetes t1 at 35, just couple of months after we met. I have firmly decided to never let her go and always see her for the good in her.

My problem is that my wife has a history of suicide in her family. Her aunt took her own life at 55, shortly after entering menopause. My wife is now 52 and on the edge of menopause. Her parents, while really incredible people, both show some beta cluster traits.

Her condition is improving and episodes are more and more rare, now on a monhtly to even bi-monthly basis. During each episode she threathens divorces and spills fire on me, saying that I ruined her, am constantly keeping her in relationship as in a prison, that she hates me an can not stand even looking at me. Our 15 yo son is always listening from his room and it is surely not good for him. I managed to do "a talk" with him when he was around 13, explaining that "mum has a strange brain with ups and downs, and you should not take it all into your heart". He is now used to it and also nows how to handle her and not put out fire with gasoline.

My choice is to stand by her as I think that if we would separate or divorce she would probably find someone else, as she hates being alone, and it is really hard to imagine someone tolerating her behaviour. I would not forgive myselft if anything bad happened to her because she was "too much". I know this kind of life is perhaps strange and not normal, but it is the life I choose to live and I choose to be by her side even if that is sooo hard at times.

But there is off course a probabilty that during a future episode she will do something that can not be taken back, something that she will not be able to forgive herself. My fear is that there is this real possibility that she would do some harm do herself. So I must do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening. I experienced someone close commiting suicide twice in my life, they were close friends with whom I was not that close anymore at the moment of their death, but I had great remorse and feelings of guilt cause they both tried to approach me during their last couple of days and I was not able to meet.

OK, that was then, but this is now.

Can anyone with a diagnosed highly functional BPD, especially if older, having a family with kids, give me any kind of thoughts on this? Or someone in a similar situation? I need to know what I can do that I am not doing right now to prevent any kind of tragedy in future in my family.

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[ForeverDad]

Our 15 yo son is always listening from his room and it is surely not good for him. I managed to do "a talk" with him when he was around 13, explaining that "mum has a strange brain with ups and downs, and you should not take it all into your heart". He is now used to it and also knows how to handle her and not put out fire with gasoline.

Yes, the walls do have ears.  While there is little you have been able to do to help your spouse, the children are a different matter.  You can do what you can to present a good example to your children.  They're impressionable and your example, even in these bad situations, can make a difference in their futures.  For one thing, you can help them to avoid choosing their own adult relationships in healthy ways so it isn't an unbalanced and dysfunctional controller vs appeaser.

In other words, our homes - as much as we wish it wasn't the case - were/are dysfunctional to a greater or lesser extent.  So our children don't know what normal family life is truly like.  So we have to make conscious effort to ensure that they don't think the life they've lived at home is their unavoidable future.  Make sure you share positive experiences and associations with them.

Another idea is to periodically have regular heart-to-heart conversations with your son.  Don't assume he's okay if he doesn't speak up or approach you.  There will even be times he won't even know what to ask.  Thoughtful parenting includes being proactive about it.

[Notwendy]

I assume the hard choice is your decision to stay in the marriage and do what you can to mitigate the situation for your son and also prevent your wife from self harming.

From my own experience in a similar situation with a BPD mother, I think there's aspects of this that are beyond anyone's control. Your wife still has free will to make her own choices. You can do what you think is possible but it's not possible to control someone 100% of the time and it's also not possible to watch them 100% of the time.

I think it's an uncomfortable state of acceptance when doing what you believe is humanly possible for you and accepting that, even then, her choices are not entirely controllable but it's all anyone can do.

I also think it's inevitable that your son will see/hear what is going on. He's in the same house. This is his mother. How he reacts to this is also dependent on his own emotional make up and resilience. It's good that you can have an honest relationship with him but also, be careful not to vent to him or put too much in him. I would strongly recommend he have counseling so he can have an objective person to help him process his feelings and perspective.

Both my parents lived into their elder years. After my father passed away, we were concerned about BPD mother's history of theats/attempts at self harm. We also were realistic about our ability to monitor her, as we had our own families, jobs and knew it wasn't possible for anyone to watch her 24/7. We decided that the best we could do was to call 911 if there were any concerns.

I believe that if someone is a danger to themselves and others- they need a medical assessment and possible hospitalization. This is beyond what a family member can do. To call 911 was the best we could possibly do.

As to divorce threats, these were frequent but the reality was that she would have difficulty being on her own and she didn't follow through on the threats. She also didn't make a major attempt to end her life thankfully. She passed away at an advanced age due to natural causes.Still, one can not tell the difference between a threat and deciding to take action and so, any threat requires a professional to evaluate.

As for your son, I think it is good to help him become independent either through university or employment when he is old enough. Let him know it's OK to seek counseling and encourage him to do so now and in the future if he feels the need to do that. I also think it will help you to have the support of a counselor as this is a challenging situation for you.