new member introduction

[barnowl]

Hello, I'm new here and this is my story. I am hoping to keep it brief. Thank you for listening.

My wife and I have been married for 20 years. She has always had BPD tendencies/episodes, but not typically enough to arouse my suspicion. In 2011 she sustained a traumatic brain injury in a bad car crash, but is considered to be fully recovered and not disabled from it. After this injury she had some fairly serious and fairly textbook BPD episodes, but we did not seek treatment or diagnosis for it.

In the past several years, partly as a result of how much care she required immediately after the crash, I settled into the role of trying to meet her every need and desire. It got to the point that when I recently sought counseling it took me several weeks to come up with an answer to his repeated question of "What do you want?" that wasn't "I just want her to be happy." This of course was something I could never possibly achieve, and having set it as my life's goal, I felt like a complete and total failure.

The proximate causes of me seeking help recently are a couple of things: one was the recent revelation that we had both had marital infidelities; in my case somewhat numerous "hook-ups" with other, mostly married men (probably many married to BPD wives, now that I think about it) and in her case a long, emotional long-distance affair with another married man (they did meet at least once) who abruptly cut things off and devastated my wife. This revelation led to her completely losing it and some very ill-fated couples therapy sessions that led to me seeking individual therapy instead.

The manipulative behavior accelerated with numerous threats if I did not comply with every demand including moving out of our house and regular money transfers and so on. In fact I am still only allowed to sleep in my own bed with her upon her express invitation, and when that would happen I would be overjoyed at the "progress" right up until the day I realized I was being abused and manipulated (Monday the 13th for the record).

The realization was facilitated by my therapist, who had been virtually begging me for weeks to admit abuse (on Friday the 10th he had flat out asked me "how long have you been battered by your wife?", a question to which I still reacted quizzically at the time) and the divorce attorney I sought advice from on Monday, who quickly recognized me as an abused spouse and suggested my wife may suffer from NPD (which there are elements of but I think she is closer to BPD from what I know so far). Some hours after I left it dawned on me. She was holding me hostage, threatening to divorce me if I didn't comply with her demands to sleep in my office, transfer her money on a regular schedule, and not seek to see what she spends on her private credit card.

We are both self-employed and recent instabilities in our businesses have also contributed greatly to our difficulties, but I promised I'd try to keep this brief.

Obviously she is seriously threatening divorce, which is ironic because the moment I acknowledged to selected friends and acquaintances that I recognized I was being abused they were like "duh, finally you see it, you should divorce her". Of course all of her friends and family who are aware of the particular infidelities I inflicted are in favor of divorce. Quite honestly I feel like the only person in the world who feels we should stay together.

We have a 14-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. In a fun twist, she decided to tell my son what I'd done (I discussed it calmly and rationally with him, admitted to it and said I was working as hard as I can to fix things with his mom, but not lying and saying I knew we would stay together), and I'm sure my daughter has heard her yell "you were out having sex with men!" at me numerous times. So obviously I am hugely concerned about the impact all this is having on my children.

Oh, and last Wednesday the 8th was our 20th wedding anniversary, which spurred an episode so grand in scale that it was finally obvious enough for me to see. She started in first thing in the morning and it was full blown for several days. One of my questions is really about does BPD present this way often? Sometimes it's not apparent that she has these tendencies at all and we've had many happy, stable times over the years. But in the aftermath of her crash and now most recently with our 20th anniversary triggering her, there have been severe episodes.

There are about a million things I am struggling with and confused about at this point. I've identified some of the main self-help books for this and have them queued up, and I will be going to my regular therapy session (the first one since I "saw the light" on Friday. My wife is currently out of town so I can sleep in my own bed without her permission. I'm so distracted I can't work (extremely bad for a self-employed person) and it took me a full day to stop shaking after I figured out what was really happening. I of course haven't divulged my new understanding to my wife yet and I guess one of my biggest worries is what will happen when she gets back. I am not good at keeping my real attitudes and opinions secret, but I gather a calm, rational conversation that goes something like "I think you have BPD and have been abusing me for years and it has to stop" would not stay calm and rational for very long. So any practical advice to get through the next week or so is especially appreciated, but of course I recognize that any progress that might be possible with this condition will be very slow.

She has planned an overnight camping trip for all of us on Tuesday of next week and preparations for that have led to some of the more peaceful moments of the past week. Focusing on that and plans for Thanksgiving etc. should give some breathing room. Her relationships with my family are extremely smooth and loving for the most part; with her own (in particular her mother) are much more turbulent and possibly involve other BPD sufferers now that I consider it.

That is my story. Obviously I am in crisis mode and just trying to see if we can make it through this without anyone filing for divorce. I know that if we can somehow avoid these extreme BPD episodes, and I can learn how to better handle the more minor level that is surely around most of the time, that we can get back to a happy marriage and family life.

Thank you again for taking the time to read. I appreciate any thoughts you have to share.

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[pearlsw]

Hi barnowl,



Welcome to the family! Sorry to hear about what's brought you to us, but glad you are here. You will find many who can related to the difficulties of having a partner with BPD or BPD traits.

Have you been able to talk to your therapist about feeling abused and manipulated? Does your wife often make divorce threats? It is not easy to get past infidelity but it can be done, but it sounds like that is adding some of the fuel to your wife's fire. Trust has to be rebuilt and that is not easy. I think there is no way around a volatile time to one degree or another after affairs come out, but sounds like you may need to go ahead and start reaching out to lawyers to prepare a plan of action. Are you in a place where there is no-fault divorce and such issues won't be brought into things? I am hoping she does not make you fear in any way, if others are unaware, that you also have sexual relationships with men. I am sorry she gave this information to your kids in a cruel, unthoughtful way. At those ages it must be quite confusing for them and perhaps some counseling for them is in order? Is that an option?

My h has made a lot of threats regarding divorce and I have to admit I've felt a bit held hostage at times too! Yikes! The best thing you can do is get legal advice and see where things stand for you. Knowledge is definitely power in this instance. Has she expressed any desire along the way to stay married and work it out?

A rational conversation about you suspecting her having a mental illness is unlikely to produce positive results for you. In an emergency I'd read up on two things here, skills you need and can start using right away. Learn not to JADE (justify/argue/defend/explain) https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=139972.0 and also learn about not getting caught up in circular arguments https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=118892.0. I had to learn this stuff too during a crisis, but I did and used as best I could! It helped me stay grounded and strong in the face of a giant onslaught of junk from my h.

Hopefully others will join us here and pick up other pieces of the story and offer support and ideas!

I wish you the best! Take care!  

[barnowl]

Thank you, pearlsw, for the welcome and for all the good advice. I am trying to digest and incorporate all these little nuggets of wisdom so I can act appropriately when my wife returns from her business trip. I am anxious about it because my whole worldview has changed completely. I need to act appropriately, but I also am worried that obvious changes will trigger her controlling behavior.

I have only just realized all of this since my last therapy session. I have spoken with him briefly on the phone since then. We have spent most of our previous sessions with him trying to get me to realize what was going on. My next session is on Friday morning and I am looking forward to it, although I'm sure I won't get any super specific advice (as an engineer, I was detailed instructions, but of course that's not possible because humans and all).

She's been threatening divorce a lot lately, but it's not like that never happened in earlier episodes. I'm in Texas and my understanding is that the divorce laws are not particularly problematic for me in any way, other than it's virtually impossible for men to achieve custody any greater than the standard split. I'm not particularly afraid of my wife divulging my misdeeds; while that would be upsetting I take responsibility for my own actions. Her inappropriately sharing that reflects more poorly on her than it would on me. Our kids are remarkably mature and resilient about things so far, seemingly; counseling for them would be an option but I don't see it as an urgent need. As best I can tell, she does not pull her BPD shenanigans on them, at least not very much; although I suspect her mother also suffers from the same malady and inflicted it very much on her kids. And as time goes on she resembles her mother more and more.

I have consulted a lawyer but am not planning to engage one unless she files papers. Lately she has not expressed much, if any, desire to work things out, but as the fog of this acute episode lifts I expect she will. What I'm coming to realize is she has much to lose from (and I potentially have much to gain from) divorcing, and she is one smart cookie. If her emotions get out of the way for a brief instant her cognitive functions may ask for a chance at reconciliation.

Thanks for the advice on JADE, etc. I think JADE has been my modus operandi for the 21 years we've been together so it will be a sea change for me. The first advice the therapist gave me was to "create some space" between us, which was counter-intuitive since I present as somewhere on the autistic spectrum and tend towards being distant by default. I see now where he was trying to go with that but of course it was a huge disaster since any unilateral change in my behavior is going to represent a giant threat to her ability to control me. This is why I am so apprehensive about what is to come.

Thank you again for everything. I will keep you posted.