Feeling Alone

[JoyfulOne777]

About a year ago I was searching mental illness, trying to understand my husband's strange behavior better and I found BPD. His dad is Schizophrenic, but those traits didn't fit him. We've been married for 18 years, got married just out of high school. At first I felt such relief when I found BPD because I was in the confusion stage for so long. I started reading up on BPD and it totally explains his lack of concern for consequences, rapidly shifting mood swings, and especially his treating me like I'm totally perfect one minute and the next I'm totally the enemy (he tries to get me to rescue him in any life problems which I actually would do quite a bit). Now, I've been using the tools I've learned on this website and he's doing so much better as far as not raging and I've been setting boundaries, especially in regards to making financial decisions that would affect our whole family negatively (I used to try to make him happy so I would go against my instincts and then we would own a house that was too much for our budget and have a hard time affording food etc.)

Now, I feel like I'm a caregiver to someone, which is fine in one sense, because I'm able to make decisions that will protect me and our three young kids... .but on the other hand, I feel like I'm acting. He doesn't acknowledge that he has anything wrong, and I've stopped trying to get him to listen to me or see reason.

Anyway, right now I'm feeling like he's one of my kids. Like I take care of him and can't really tell him any of the real grown-up life issues because he usually just makes them worse by getting angry etc. I do all of our finances now, and our landlord just raised our rent by $100 which is really no big deal because we're finally getting ahead financially because we moved to my dream island and I have a thriving business here, we are close to buying a house again, but he has made our current island "black" in the sense that he freaks out anytime there's any little set-backs in life (like one house we almost bought fell through). He uses that as an excuse to say we need to move back to our previous state that we had lived in where he didn't have a good job etc. and we weren't thriving financially). I'm feeling like I don't want to even bother mentioning that our rent went up a little because he'll start talking about how we need to move away.

I guess I'm treating him now like he's fragile, like he has autism etc. I'm kind to him, and our relationship seems healthier to him I'm guessing because I've stopped asking for anything. But I feel so sad and lonely now, because I always wanted a healthy relationship like my parents had. How do you guys cope with feeling like you aren't with someone who is able to be a life partner to you?

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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[Tattered Heart]

I'm sorry you are feeling so alone. I go through this every few months and it is really tough. For me, the way I cope with it is that I remind myself that I am choosing this life. And I cry a lot. I can imagine that a new move has created extra stress for both of you. I try to spend time with friends that I can share things with. Have you made any new friends in your new location yet? If not, I would suggest finding activities for you so that you can meet others. Taking care of yourself is really important. 

One thing that might help is to figure out what is your H's responsibility and what is yours?

Is he capable of handling more of the stress that you are carrying for both of you? By not sharing this information with him, is it helping or hurting him? Are you not telling him about things because you don't want to deal with his response or because you don't think he is able to handle the responsibility? There's a big difference. One is walking on egg shells and the other is being a caretaker.

[JoyfulOne777]

I'm sorry you are feeling so alone. I go through this every few months and it is really tough. For me, the way I cope with it is that I remind myself that I am choosing this life. And I cry a lot. I can imagine that a new move has created extra stress for both of you. I try to spend time with friends that I can share things with. Have you made any new friends in your new location yet? If not, I would suggest finding activities for you so that you can meet others. Taking care of yourself is really important. 

One thing that might help is to figure out what is your H's responsibility and what is yours?

Is he capable of handling more of the stress that you are carrying for both of you? By not sharing this information with him, is it helping or hurting him? Are you not telling him about things because you don't want to deal with his response or because you don't think he is able to handle the responsibility? There's a big difference. One is walking on egg shells and the other is being a caretaker.

Those are good questions. I guess I'm not really sure. We've actually been living here for 4 years and I feel like we are finally making progress towards our goals for the first time ever.  I have a good support system in place and the kids are thriving which is why it's so stressful whenever there is a slight problem he wants to uproot us to start all over again somewhere else. I am a little afraid of his reaction because he is on an emotional high right now and happy, but whenever he faces a small setback he freaks out and wants to change everything (it's either all good or all bad, he can't see that the setback is really not a big deal).  So I guess I'm helping him in a sense to not have extra stress, but also protecting myself from having to deal with the life stress PLUS his reaction to the life stress.