I need help and guidance, just determine my wife is BPD

[IrishGerman]

Hello, my name is Irish,
Been in a huge mess with wife for 5 years. My counselor pointed out that when I described my wifes behavior he suggested she was BPD. There is mental health issues on her side of the family. As with a lot of BPD,'s she is in denial that she has issues. We have been married for 28 years. I started counseling and told him, I only felt I had 2 choices, divorce her (I was committed and felt that would be wrong for spiritual reasons: I wanted to stay because I felt obligated she is the mother of my kids) or keep living with her ANGER outburst (which completely drain me). Now that I accept is BPD, I feel brain washed by her behavior. If only I would do... ., then I would feel better. So my counselor has been working with me on how to respond so that she will feel disconnected or fear leaving me so she will feel like she need to work harder at keeping me. I'm knew at this and so much damage has been done. 2 grown kids out of house, they want nothing to do with her. Oldest told her strait up, she will not come over to our house. She will meet us in public where she knows her mother will behave. The other, at 18 found a knew mother at one of his friends house and he tells me "it's pretty chill" over here. (Based on his behavior he could be BPD, and I'll point that out to him someday that he need help with it). So I need peace! I work my rear off and need peace, a time to relax, and chill on the 10 acres we bought 4 years ago. So I have a handful of things I need help, advice on.
1) How do I handle the borderline flare-up with sever punishments of children, screaming at them, demanding! She expects me to "Back her up", and I can't. She says I should not correct her, but she is out of control. I do try to talk to child and direct them to go to their room, say yes mam. I am grateful there is no physical side to her outburst directed at them. 
2) How do I handle her telling me her feelings are hurt and I need to fix them. I have informed her that her feelings belong to her and she has to deal with them because they do not belong to me. She insists that I have a mental illness because I am not empathetic to her feelings (online counselor told her that is a sign of PTSD in me). To be clear, whatever I have done, I have acknowledged and said I was sorry for over and over going back 20 years. She is now threatening to not take care of kids or do housework until I show her respect. When I asked her what was it that I did that made her feel disrespected (One was not backing her up and two, that I don't care about her feelings). She wants respect or she won't do stuff around the house, but I'm expected to keep working even though she calls me names and cusses me out, demeans me. I don't go lay in the bed because of things that are said to me.
3) House hold chores. She is a stay-at-home wife. She is constantly complaining about how much work she has to do. I help A LOT (cook most nights, dishes, trash laundry, hand up her cloths), I don't mean a little I mean a LOT. I work 40-60 sometime 80 hours a week. On the acreage I have lots of outside chores. She doesn't ask for help, she demands it then accuses me of not doing anything. That the kids don't do anything on their own initiative. (The kids do whatever I tell them to do, but daily stuff is up to her since I am not home.) How do I go about working on what is really fair equity in house chores. She has been known to come home all amped up, even though the house is clean and yell at everyone.
4) Finances: She thinks she if frugal. She does shop at thrift stores, buys used from people in local area, eats off the dollar menu at Taco Bell, but still over spends on our budget. Will buy tons of groceries, then not cook, waste a lot. We have chickens and threatens me about their eggs (not thrifty, feed is expensive and eggs are .96 a doz) So when I asked her to write down what she spends, she goes into a melt down. She spends $$ I put in the account, then demands that we need more and that is how much "we" spend a month and I need to get another job. She has a few on the side jobs, etc. but hoards all her money. Sometimes she will help with a birthday present or she bought new flooring for the living room (which she now hates, because the stress when I installed it cause her to scream at me for 2 days while I worked on it). How do I manage the finances, do I take control of let her whine, get angry, move out. She threatens to not pick up kids at school or etc.
5) How do I know what I should apologize for? Yes, I can be a jerk sometimes because guys just are.
6) How do I talk to my kids about this. Years ago I tired and it all got turned around on me. I was accused of talking bad about their mom and now they hate her. (My 17 year old agrees with Mom that I should not have been talking to them) I was only trying to tell them that it was not their fault their mother screamed at them.
I'm so perplexed... .
-Irish

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[Mutt]

Hi IrishGerman,  



I'd like to welcome you to bpdfamily. I'm sorry that you're going through this, I completely understand how feeling mentally depleted because your spouse has BPD traits. It helps to talk to others like us that have walked a mile in your shoes and can guide you because a pwBPD will mostly provide negative feedback about you, it's distorted life is more balanced than that, it's somewhere in the middle.

I have informed her that her feelings belong to her and she has to deal with them because they do not belong to me.

You are right, you're not responsible for other people's feelings, BPD is an emotional dysregulation disorder, a pwBPD can't regulate their emotions and can't self sooth it takes a person a lot longer to return to their emotional baseline. There's only two things that you can control and that is your thoughts and feelings, she may be dysregulated and she may try to bait all we can do is try the tools or not take the bait, but all we can do is try the tools that are available to us, they don't always work.

A pwBPD have low self esteem, low self worth, self loath and self hate, in fact they feel more negative feelings than positive feelings, start with the basics, a pwBPD need a lot of validation. Validation doesn't mean that someone gets carte blanche and they can do whatever that they want to do, you validate what is valid. Feelings equals facts to a pwBPD whereas it's feelings are followed by the facts to non's, she's just wired differently, validate what she feels first then you can follow that with your truth.

Communication Skills - Don't Be Invalidating