Possibly the last straw... :/

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

Hello.

Sorry about the wall of text. :/

I have been in a relationship with my husband now for 4 1/2 years. We met in October of 2012 while we were both in an in-patient psychiatric stay. I was in a 4 year relationship at the time and he was in an 8 year relationship at the time. He became pretty infatuated with me after our stay together, inviting me over constantly to visit him and his partner. My partner at the time lived 3 hours away, so I was alone much of the time.

In November, his partner showed up unannounced with a 26 foot moving van, and left to go live with his parents. Pretty much instantly, he started suggesting that we should date. He was relentless about it, and in the end of December, I broke things off with my partner and we started dating. It wasn't long before we made the decision to start living together. I was still in the Navy at the time, so I would work 12 hours a day M-F and an 8 hour shift every other weekend. We had our arguments every now and then, but nothing major. We ended up getting married in September of 2013.

In July of 2014, I was medically discharged from the Navy (for severe depression and social anxiety). We decided to move to Vermont, which is my husband's home state. My husband was able to get SSI, and I was able to get VA benefits. He said that he didn't want me to work, so we could be together all of the time. Both of his ex-partners were workaholics.

This is when things slowly started to go down hill. He had a falling out with all of his family at the time. In one incident, he tried stealing a snowblower from Walmart, which I reported to security. Probably wasn't the best idea, but I panicked. This almost lead to a break-up. But, I decided to stay. Around the same time, he had an in-patient psychiatric stay, in which he was formally diagnosed with BPD. It seemed like every week we were getting into another fight. In one incident, he smashed our computer because I was spending too much time on it. In another, he dumped out the sand from our wedding's sand ceremony.

We moved to a more stable place, and the fighting seemed to calm a bit. In November of 2015, we had a huge fight. He threw me out, and so I went to stay with my parents in TX for about 3 weeks while we decided whether or not to get back together. When throwing me out, he called my father and yelled at him over the phone about what a bad person I was, and while I was in TX, he repeatedly sent nasty texts to my mother. Despite my parent's warnings, I went back a second time.

Last April, my brother was getting married. Because of his outbursts a few months prior, I was asked not to bring my husband to the wedding. We were back together and in love again. My husband made subtle suggestions that I had to either choose him or choose to support my brother. I chose my husband, and now my relationship with my brother is on the rocks. If I had to do it over, I think I would be there for my brother.

Last November, we were finally able to buy a house. My husband had another falling out with his adult son, but we were doing OK. Every couple weeks we would fight like cats and dogs, but the next day we would apologize and make up. The arguments would be triggered by little things. Once, he was calling a business to yell at them about something, and I gave him a "Please don't" look. That was all it took to have him start raging at me.

Lately, he has been going on and off his meds, and his temper tantrums are happening almost daily. He will become obsessed with certain home improvement projects, and he will rage at whoever he has to to get them accomplished. This time around, it's installing a deck out back. We are really short on funds, so he had the idea to try and use Paypal credit to buy the lumber. We ran into some issues with them declining the high amounts he was trying to purchase. First, he raged at  PayPal, then he raged at Home Depot while we were in the store. I had to walk out because he was yelling at people in the store who had nothing to do with our problem. (If I do that, I then get accused of "not being on his side".)

I thought he had it out of his system, but today we went into another store to buy something and he wanted to see if we could get a Home Depot gift card with his PayPal credit. I told him they wouldn't do it, but he wanted to try anyway. Big surprise, it got declined. Well, he stormed out of the store and started yelling at a manager who was on break about how her employees were stupid. I was pretty embarrassed, even though I am used to him going off on people by now.

When we got in the car, he turned his anger towards me. He started cursing at me, and said that yelling at people "is part of who I am. If you don't like it, too bad!" Then he started poking me in the ribs really hard while I was driving. When we got home, he had a further meltdown, and started acting like a toddler. He told me to go eat the food we bought (that we needed for the house) so I could get fat. (He knows I have body issues.)

I haven't spoken to him since this incident. Most likely, he will apologize on the morning and then act like it never happened. I don't know if I can take the emotional roller coaster any more though. On the one hand, he fights pretty hard for me to get VA benefits (he has raged numerous times at the VA), but the price that I have to pay is to be the target of his rage much of the time. He apologizes after each time, but I know he is a ticking time bomb, and it will only be a matter of time before the next blow up.

At this point, I don't think the relationship is salvageable. Sometimes, I feel like I'm just a living paycheck to him because of the VA benefits. Every time something doesn't go his way now, he blows up. And god help the next person who tells him 'no'... .

[parapsycho]

Hello.

Sorry about the wall of text. :/

I have been in a relationship with my husband now for 4 1/2 years. We met in October of 2012 while we were both in an in-patient psychiatric stay. I was in a 4 year relationship at the time and he was in an 8 year relationship at the time. He became pretty infatuated with me after our stay together, inviting me over constantly to visit him and his partner. My partner at the time lived 3 hours away, so I was alone much of the time.

In November, his partner showed up unannounced with a 26 foot moving van, and left to go live with his parents. Pretty much instantly, he started suggesting that we should date. He was relentless about it, and in the end of December, I broke things off with my partner and we started dating. It wasn't long before we made the decision to start living together. I was still in the Navy at the time, so I would work 12 hours a day M-F and an 8 hour shift every other weekend. We had our arguments every now and then, but nothing major. We ended up getting married in September of 2013.

In July of 2014, I was medically discharged from the Navy (for severe depression and social anxiety). We decided to move to Vermont, which is my husband's home state. My husband was able to get SSI, and I was able to get VA benefits. He said that he didn't want me to work, so we could be together all of the time. Both of his ex-partners were workaholics.

This is when things slowly started to go down hill. He had a falling out with all of his family at the time. In one incident, he tried stealing a snowblower from Walmart, which I reported to security. Probably wasn't the best idea, but I panicked. This almost lead to a break-up. But, I decided to stay. Around the same time, he had an in-patient psychiatric stay, in which he was formally diagnosed with BPD. It seemed like every week we were getting into another fight. In one incident, he smashed our computer because I was spending too much time on it. In another, he dumped out the sand from our wedding's sand ceremony.

We moved to a more stable place, and the fighting seemed to calm a bit. In November of 2015, we had a huge fight. He threw me out, and so I went to stay with my parents in TX for about 3 weeks while we decided whether or not to get back together. When throwing me out, he called my father and yelled at him over the phone about what a bad person I was, and while I was in TX, he repeatedly sent nasty texts to my mother. Despite my parent's warnings, I went back a second time.

Last April, my brother was getting married. Because of his outbursts a few months prior, I was asked not to bring my husband to the wedding. We were back together and in love again. My husband made subtle suggestions that I had to either choose him or choose to support my brother. I chose my husband, and now my relationship with my brother is on the rocks. If I had to do it over, I think I would be there for my brother.

Last November, we were finally able to buy a house. My husband had another falling out with his adult son, but we were doing OK. Every couple weeks we would fight like cats and dogs, but the next day we would apologize and make up. The arguments would be triggered by little things. Once, he was calling a business to yell at them about something, and I gave him a "Please don't" look. That was all it took to have him start raging at me.

Lately, he has been going on and off his meds, and his temper tantrums are happening almost daily. He will become obsessed with certain home improvement projects, and he will rage at whoever he has to to get them accomplished. This time around, it's installing a deck out back. We are really short on funds, so he had the idea to try and use Paypal credit to buy the lumber. We ran into some issues with them declining the high amounts he was trying to purchase. First, he raged at  PayPal, then he raged at Home Depot while we were in the store. I had to walk out because he was yelling at people in the store who had nothing to do with our problem. (If I do that, I then get accused of "not being on his side".)

I thought he had it out of his system, but today we went into another store to buy something and he wanted to see if we could get a Home Depot gift card with his PayPal credit. I told him they wouldn't do it, but he wanted to try anyway. Big surprise, it got declined. Well, he stormed out of the store and started yelling at a manager who was on break about how her employees were stupid. I was pretty embarrassed, even though I am used to him going off on people by now.

When we got in the car, he turned his anger towards me. He started cursing at me, and said that yelling at people "is part of who I am. If you don't like it, too bad!" Then he started poking me in the ribs really hard while I was driving. When we got home, he had a further meltdown, and started acting like a toddler. He told me to go eat the food we bought (that we needed for the house) so I could get fat. (He knows I have body issues.)

I haven't spoken to him since this incident. Most likely, he will apologize on the morning and then act like it never happened. I don't know if I can take the emotional roller coaster any more though. On the one hand, he fights pretty hard for me to get VA benefits (he has raged numerous times at the VA), but the price that I have to pay is to be the target of his rage much of the time. He apologizes after each time, but I know he is a ticking time bomb, and it will only be a matter of time before the next blow up.

At this point, I don't think the relationship is salvageable. Sometimes, I feel like I'm just a living paycheck to him because of the VA benefits. Every time something doesn't go his way now, he blows up. And god help the next person who tells him 'no'... .

[formflier]

Parapsycho,



I assure you we can help you have a calmer relationship with your husband.

I perked up when I saw you were Navy... .we share a common bond.  I'm a retired Naval Aviator, combat vet and had a couple shore commands before retirement.  Also on VA benefits.  100% P&T.  It's been a long journey.

Your Navy experience will be invaluable.  It's likely you never considered your Navy experience as a source of help for your marital relationship, but I assure you it will.  Skipper says so.

I want you to start thinking of your relationship as a "watchbill" and that you and your husband have different watch stations.

While it's certainly important that you understand what he is doing at his station, is the Chief going to chew your a$$ over his performance.  Nope... .Chief is going to "encourage" you to pull your head out of your a$$ and focus on YOUR JOB.  "What the heck are you doing looking at him... .do you job Sailor... ."

I obviously don't have the eloquence to be a Chief and should stop trying... .they have the ability to focus things.

Chief is counting on you to do that... and frankly, so is your husband.

Your job is:

1.  Take care of yourself first.  (without apology)
2.  Understand relationship boundaries, implement them without apology, take care of your own feelings, let your husband care for his feelings (even if he does it badly).
3.  Learn about validation and invalidation.  Remove invalidation from your r/s (relationship)... .it is poison.
4.  Learn about push/pull and abandonment.  It's obvious that is present in your r/s.
5.  Leave the door open for your husband to relate to you in a healthy way.  Be with him when it's healthy and respect his right to be by himself and be unhealthy... .which takes you back to number 1.

Wash, rinse... repeat.  

This will be a long process and the outcome is far from certain.  The important things in life are usually like that.

Are you ready to report to the schoolhouse and "earn your quals"?  

You've found the right place to do that.  Again... Skipper assures you of that.

FF

[parapsycho]

Thanks, Formflier for all of the info.


A little update:

We worked things out on the BPD front (for now), but now his gambling addiction is taking center stage.

The past couple weeks, money has been tight because of the deck hubby just had to build. No matter that we didn't have the money to do it. He wanted it and he wanted it NOW!

Then our truck breaks down and we have to take it to the shop. The bill is over $850. We don't have the money because of the aforementioned deck. We decide to do a cash advance from one of our Credit Cards and write a check for the rest, knowing we will get paid this week enough to barely cover everything.

I woke up this morning to see if the check for the truck went through, and find that hubby spent $116 at an online casino while I was sleeping. Now the check for our truck is going to bounce. We had it all worked out. The dealership for the truck has been awesome to us, and now we're going to bounce a check on them because of hubby's gambling.

He won't admit he has a problem.

"All of our bills are paid, so it's OK".

Well, when you have no money left at the end of the month for food and gas because it's all gone to the casino, then yes; it is a problem.

When I have to take cash out as soon as we get paid so that it can't be spent at the online casino, there's a problem.

[formflier]

This is boundary time. 

My gut reaction is to let it bounce.  Tell him that you are switching money to your account (not joint) because you don't bounce checks.  Period.

No discussion.

What do you think he will do?

FF

[Woods77]

I think you need to try and think how is this drama affecting you and is it good for your own mental well being, it sounds very difficult to deal with gambling and BPD.

What we all want our relationship to be, is not necessarily what it really is. I hope you can be nice to yourself and try to find a way to feel better.