Cheetah1
 Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 7
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« on: March 27, 2017, 04:18:57 PM » |
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My story? How long are your attention spans cause I can write a long while on this. The short? I am 38, husband is 46. Married for 7 years. He's the BPD. We have 2 girls, a one year old and a 3 year old. 2 dogs. We both work in the medical field. He has been diagnosed with depression. About 8 months ago I realized I was in an abusive marriage. I left him for about 2 months over November and December 2016 with the intent to divorce, but he convinced me to try again and I moved back in January this year. Things went great about 2 months, but now he has resumed much of his abusive behavior, though also made a lot of improvements. Several times a week I am in tears or very upset over things he does. I need help making sure that I am standing up for myself rather than allowing abuse, because I don't want to be a doormat anymore. I don't want to be miserable. I need help knowing when and if I'm being unreasonable, because it's hard to tell sometimes as he is so smart and so sharp witted. I want to make things work if it's possible and he says he is trying to change, so I need help with that too.
That was the short version.
Our marriage has been severely troubled for about 4 years. It started when we moved to California for a job. It got worse when the kids were born. Things steadily worsened after our move to Utah for work. I talked him into going to marriage therapy. It helped some, but really seemed to teach us how to argue better. Things did get better for a while and we stopped going. My husband seemed to see it as a husband bashing time and didn't like going much. I read books on marriage improvement and had a hard time getting him interested. (he later admitted he was trying to win or be right, so he wasn't invested in going)
Last year I realized I was being abused. It came as somewhat of a shock honestly, because my husband does not hit me I didn't recognize it as abuse. But when I read a book on abuse I found he did most of the things listed. My breaking point to learning this about myself was when I was being berated for peeling apricots into a bowl he deemed too small. I was making more work for him by not “thinking”. He was behind me as I worked and had an angry tone of voice. I was mostly quiet. My 2.5 year old girl stood behind me, and said, “Daddy stop. That my mommy, Daddy stop!” It broke my heart and I realized how bad things had become that my little girl had to protect me.
I read books on if I should leave or stay in the marriage. One of them had a great insight, that even if I was rightfully leaving him, that I had some component of fault, some personality flaw that had brought me here, and that if I didn't address it, I would never truly move on. I didn't know what this was, I guessed perhaps I was just too sensitive, but I started going to therapy. The therapist explained many things to me, I would share the conversations I had with my husband and she would patiently explain that was abuse and why. She helped me gain the self confidence I needed to see how poorly I was being treated. My flaw, was standing up for myself. Self-doubt. Tolerance of his poor treatment. I needed to work on trusting my own instincts, and not hiding my feelings.
I tried with the therapists help to tell Jason I was ready to leave the relationship because of how hurt I was. He didn't seem to get it. Finally I made the decision, I wanted a divorce. It was a long hard decision but I made it. I was going to move in with my parents who lived 45 min away from my work. But I wanted to be fair and just. So one night after work I waited for him to get home and I told him I was leaving him and why. I thought he might get violent but he didn't. He was really upset. After about 2-3 hours of talking I left.
My husband was shocked to learn he was abusive as well, but he embraced it. He had abusive parents himself and said it was terrible. He wanted another chance, and was doing a lot to try and change. Lots of self reflection. He took up mindfulness meditation for the first time. He did a lot of reading. Went to therapy. Though I didn't think it possible he began to convince me he was capable of changing. In one of the books we both read together on abuse, we both discovered he had all the qualities of someone with BPD. For him this was an amazing eye opening thing. He understood himself the first time, had hope for the first time in his life.
At first I didn't understand one of the things about myself in the books... .they said that to end up with an abusive man that I must have been abused and I didn't see it. I had a happy childhood. I didn't get it. Perhaps I just wasn't very smart to pick this guy. But then one night my dad and I had a fight. More appropriately, my dad unleashed on me some of his anger and I got very upset. I recognized his comments and behaviors as abuse. I was so upset and angry, I stayed at the house with my husband. I never moved back in with my parents. I had a period of great loss and sadness as it dawned on my my dad was verbally abusive also, and that my mother had always pushed my boundaries inappropriately. I had been taught to accept that behavior from my parents as normal. But now, living with them again, but this time ARMED with knowledge from reading and therapy I didn't stand for it anymore and it brought things to a head with them.
I have never doubted my parents love me, and I love them, and we are very close but they couldn't' handle this new me. I have sense mostly healed things with them, mostly by just not talking about it. I don't tolerate abusive comments and I think they have learned to be more careful how they talk to me and I try and let it go when I see them treating each other poorly. I now feel more disconnected from my family and support than I ever have before. It's really hard.
In the last month or so, my husband has returned to much of his verbally abusive behavior. He gets emotional very quickly and lashed out at me. My kids are noticing, my oldest jumps in and tells him to stop. I tell him much more often if something he does hurts me where before I held it in. It's hard for him to hear these things, and I don't react well to criticism from him either. I just bought stop walking on eggshells, I read about 1/3 of it before, but had to return it to the library. I also found him a therapist who trained at the institute in Washington on BPD who he will start seeing soon. My husband wants to go but wanted me to find one because he was overwhelmed. When I spoke to her, she advised that i read Walking On Eggshells cover to cover multiple times until i could recite it by heart. I wonder if I too could see her for therapy on how to hangle this life with my husband?
I have been pressed this last week with my faith in us as a couple. It hurts so much inside when he blames me for our disfunction. My hope has started to crumble. He came to me a few mornings ago and apologized, he said he was wrong, that he had been blaming me again but things were all his fault. He said he wouldn't blame me for leaving him that I had given it a good try. This helped... .at least he can see he is causing this, but I suppose I could use some success stories. All the books on Abuse say men can never change.
My oldest daughter also is struggling with her emotions and anger. She is only 3, so it may be the age, but part of me is worried she is like her dad in this. I'm reading books on how to help her, such as No Drama Discipline but bizarrely I find myself thinking, my husband does this too!
It's hard to talk to anyone about this because most would just tell me to leave him. I love this crazy man. I know he is hurting, I know he doesn't mean to hurt me. And I'm not perfect either, but I'm trying.
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