I celebrated my wedding anniversary this week

[DaddyBear77]

It's been a long time since I've started my own thread here. I'm also not doing very well at keeping up and supporting everyone else here. I'm sorry about that.

This past week my wife and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. That's a LONG time.

Last week, through a completely unexpected and generous bonus from my job, I was able to buy her a new engagement ring that she has desperately wanted for years.

This week, as a part of our anniversary celebration, we renewed our vows with the help of the same mayor who married us 15 years ago. We were married on the beach and that's where we renewed our vows. Our daughter was there and we made her a part of our ceremony. We stayed for a couple of days as a family, and things were genuinely happy and loving. It was a good week.

I love my wife very much, and on the one hand, I am really happy and proud that I was able to provide some really nice things. I also really enjoyed feeling close to her and re-experiencing our "wedding" under a very different, intimate context.

On the other hand, I am really sad that my wife suffers from this horrible illness called BPD. She has absolutely no awareness of what she's really suffering from. She has created an entire "victim based" world in her mind. Over the past few days and nights, I have sat with her for hours and hours while she enters this horrible emotional abyss. While she's there, she experiences incredible pain, and she sees the pain as something that I and I alone have caused. She is convinced that I am incapable of loving her, that I do not care about her, and that I see her as less than human. She says that I am missing a critical piece in my soul, and I am missing that piece probably because I was not loved as a child. She "knows for a fact" that I am lying when I tell her that's not true. So I don't.

While i listen to this I feel so sad for what she's going through. I try really hard to not validate the invalid things she says, but I am also trying as hard as I can to not JADE. I am extremely aware of what I'm saying. I watch every single word and use them carefully and sparingly. I know that if I let my own emotions flow while she's in this place, I will almost always say something that hurts her (unintentionally), or that she'll bring up later and ask me what I meant, usually in a confrontational, emotionally pained way.

I am doing infinitely better at managing these situations compared to just a few months ago. But I'm here to tell you that absolutely none of this is easy. Nothing that I am doing is making her any healthier. Nothing I can say has ever, or will ever, convince her to seek treatment for a disorder she believes is "bullsh_t that misogynistic men made up to control and devalue women".

So I'm completely focused on improving my own communication and relationship skills. That's why I'm here. And if, in the end, I can't make it another 15, or 5, or even a few more years, I will know that I tried.

Because I love her. With all my heart, I love my wife. And that's what makes it worth it.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

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[mousemat]

Congratulations on your anniversary ... .and for being a smart, caring & empathetic person that the rest of us can learn from.

[Radcliff]

DB,

Well said, brother, you nailed it eloquently.  All of it.  The love, commitment, sadness, exhaustion, and determination to give it the best shot and not give up without doing so.  It is not easy.  But you are at the head of the class without a doubt.  With a lead-by-example post like that, you needn't apologize for your level of contribution!  And nice touch with the ring! 

Wentworth

[Turkish]

Nothing that I am doing is making her any healthier

No,  and it's not possible to do so.  She is who she is.  However,  you are contributing to making your marriage better,  which is something to be proud of 

My T told me something a few years ago, "I suspect that a lot of your anger stems from expecting her to be someone she is not," and he left it at that for me to chew upon. 

[heartandwhole]

Really inspiring post, DaddyBear. Thank you for sharing. Your love and compassion for your wife and her suffering come through clearly.

I know how exhausting it must be. You can feel confident that you are doing your absolute best to keep your family together and contribute to your relationship to make it the best it can be. That is worth so, so much.

Congrats on your anniversary and enjoy the golden moments. They are precious. 

heartandwhole

[Enabler]

My T told me something a few years ago, "I suspect that a lot of your anger stems from expecting her to be someone she is not," and he left it at that for me to chew upon. 

That has been a very powerful thing for me to radically accept, BUT, in doing so I no longer need to expect the impossible, I can just accept the way things are. I no longer need to gauge whether or not the projections my uBPDw puts upon me are real and rely on myself and other sources to be my own behavioral thermometer. I am angry with BPD and I am angry with her parents, especially so her father whom never protected/defended my wife from the razor sharp tongue of her dysregulating mother despite being the only sane one in the family.

Daddybear77... .you are a wonderful example of a human-being

[Tattered Heart]

Congratulations on 15 years! What an amazing accomplishment for you both. So many marriages without mental illness rarely make it this long. It shows your dedication to your marriage and family.

It's so hard to listen to the sadness inside our pwBPD. It sounds like many of the things she said about you are things that she really feels for herself. But for her to look at her own pain would be too hard for her. Projecting is easier. When my H goes into those quiet, sad, contemplative moments it feels so frustrating because you know the answers she needs to fix herself, but you can't share it with her. I think of my H as slowly dehydrating to death and I have water for him, but he can't even see that he needs rehydrated let alone see the cup.

[isilme]

Nothing that I am doing is making her any healthier

I respectfully disagree, here.  You can't DIRECTLY make her healthier, but by working on your own responses, and being mindful, you ARE working to provide a healthier environment for your whole family.  And I think about it a little like while we can only change ourselves, our BPD SOs and spouses are kinda tied to us with a bungee cord.  So while they bounce around, higher and lower, if we manage to climb a  ladder to a healthier place, we eventually drag them along.  They will still bounce around on that bungee, some days higher, some days lower, but their overall lowest points CAN be higher than they used to be.  We just can't let them be an anchor on us, but rather try to be the lead mountain climber, pulling ourselves up and they can't help but come along on the tether.  You are climbing that mountain, it's just a pretty high one, so it may take some time for your wife to bounce up to you.  She's clinging to the valley, but as you move highers, she will not be able to be stuck in the valley as much, as often, or as long.  Life is not a race, and any improvement is a great thing.  You ahve your lives together to continue working to make progress. 

It sounds like you've made a lot of great personal progress, and seeing how her BPD makes her hurt should help you temper your responses as possible, keeping drama and those deeper valleys farther away.  Congrats on 15 years

[startrekuser]

I have to give you a lot of credit.  When my wife enters this mode, I have a hard time feeling bad for her.  Her abusive tendencies and the accusations she sends my way make things very difficult.  You're a better man than I am.

[Notwendy]

I like Turkish's comment- much of our anger is from wishing the person we love was someone different from who they are. I can relate to wishing this too. Yet who we love and the choices we make are really nobody else's business. My father could not bear to see my mother's pain, and so he chose to do what he could to make it better for her, even if it came at a personal and financial cost to him. It was probably these moments when he could soothe her and the good times between them -that sustained their relationship even if some times were terrible. Perhaps you have found that this is where you want to be as well. I am glad for you that you found some peace and love in your anniversary celebration.

I thought this is what I needed to do in my relationship too, but it was an MC who encouraged me to let others self soothe. It's hard to watch someone struggle with their own bad feelings and the pain a pwBPD feels is intensely hard on them and hard to watch, especially if they believe we are causing it.

[Chosen]

Congrats on your 15-year anniversary!  I myself haven't been married this long, but I echo your feelings on how sad it is to see our spouses feel like a victim, and to feel that nobody loves them most of the time.  You desperately want to shout to them "but I love you!"... .but alas, they probably can't feel it.  Yes they don't know that they have a "disorder" which taints their view of the world and those around them, and nothing we can do will change that.  However, we can provide a relatively more balanced environment for them by learning the tools on here, by improving our own communication patterns.  I love how this sites teaches us that when one person's communication improves, the relationship still improves somewhat, even when the other person isn't trying.  This gives me hope.