Married for 7 miserable years. Need support.

[flipflop_2018]

Hello everyone. I'm 40 and I've been married for 7 years that has been nothing but conflict. I felt like I was losing my mind trying to figure out what was wrong with my wife and if I was the crazy one. I tried 150% to prove my love to her and to resolve conflict. The conflict always seemed trivial to me or would be a claim about my intentions that simply wasn't true. But they ALWAYS escalated and were NEVER resolved. After 6 counselors and advice from friends and family one therapist recommended that I read Stop Walking On Eggshells. What I read fit my wife like a glove. I am relieved to have discovered a real lead into understanding the chaos but I'm equally freaking out about the grim outlook. My wife has been aggressively blaming me for her feelings and taking NO responsibility. Her therapist has been very supportive of her and also doesn't vocalize any responsibility that she has. I have an appointment tomorrow to tell her about the book and my new insights but I'm afraid she will dismiss me. Any advice on how to approach her therapist? Thanks so much for the support.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[NonBP73]

Hello everyone. I'm 40 and I've been married for 7 years that has been nothing but conflict. I felt like I was losing my mind trying to figure out what was wrong with my wife and if I was the crazy one. I tried 150% to prove my love to her and to resolve conflict. The conflict always seemed trivial to me or would be a claim about my intentions that simply wasn't true. But they ALWAYS escalated and were NEVER resolved. After 6 counselors and advice from friends and family one therapist recommended that I read Stop Walking On Eggshells. What I read fit my wife like a glove. I am relieved to have discovered a real lead into understanding the chaos but I'm equally freaking out about the grim outlook. My wife has been aggressively blaming me for her feelings and taking NO responsibility. Her therapist has been very supportive of her and also doesn't vocalize any responsibility that she has. I have an appointment tomorrow to tell her about the book and my new insights but I'm afraid she will dismiss me. Any advice on how to approach her therapist? Thanks so much for the support.

I'd like to know this works out. We haven't done any therapy, but I'm in a similar situation. Married 14 years here, and a lot of it has been pretty painful.

[Enabler]

Hi Leroy and NonBP,

Great you have found the site and hopefully we can help you work through things, find out a little more about where you're at, and direct you towards some tools that might assist you. First and foremost your objective should be to stop making things worse.

I recommend reading as many of the articles (right hand column) as you can to learn more and gain some communication tools deal with accusations.

Leroy, you mention you have an appointment today to tell her about your book and the insights you have found. Is the appointment with your Therapist or is this a couples counselling session? If it's with a therapist on your own, this is ideal. I'm guess it is since you have read Walking on Eggshells and you will be aware that telling your wife she has a PD is likely to be met with dismissal.

Others may disagree but I feel that Therapists are in a tricky position when it comes to suffers of BPD. Their emotions are very real because they obviously believe the reality they have formulated and certainly in the case of high functioning suffers there is little in the way of discernible evidence to suggest they have a somewhat warped perception of the past. The Therapist who is essentially a stranger takes all information at face value and supports the emotions that he/she sees in the room. This is a total guess but is your wife displays fear and sadness, she portrays herself as the victim. You on the other hand display frustration, dismay, anger and want to correct the narrative. You argue her perspective on things and regularly invalidate her opinion (tell her she's wrong). You have intimated that you find her interpretation of your intention very frustrating, I'm guessing because she typically interprets you to have malicious intention.

Hopefully I haven't put too much of me into my interpretation of your messages, I'm sure I have. I'm sure you have been trying 150% to prove you love her. Can you see how she might not see it that way? She feels you don't love her, and feeling = fact.

Come back about the appointment today. I think this is pretty important.   

[Tattered Heart]

Welcome ,

I'm sorry that things have been so difficult in your relationship. Learning about BPD can be a very eye opening experience for you, but sadly, the pwBPD does not have the same reaction. They may feel like you want to make a project out of them.

I would like to second what Enabler says. If this is your T sharing that information may be very helpful for you so the T can help you begin to look at strategies and changes in your own behavior to help improve your relationship. Our lesson on Understanding Your Role in the Relationship may help you come to terms with what has been happening and how to move forward.

It's pretty common for a T for someone with BPD to be well aware that BPD is the diagnosis, but they choose not to disclose this to the pwBPD for whatever reason. Maybe they think the pwBPD cannot yet handle having a label put on them, maybe they don't want to cause the pwBPD to start researching and increase their behavior after reading other symptomolgy of BPD, or maybe they just don't think it's time. The reasons are endless.

It sounds like you may already be feeling a little alienated or frustrated with the direction the T has been taking with your W. Is your W the one relaying to you what the T says or is the T saying these things directly to you? Did you have an expectation for how T would change things in your W?

[flipflop_2018]

Well I just wrote a huge reply, clicked Post and the Message Board said "uh you aren't logged in anymore so tough crap" and I lost it all. Thanks everyone for your replies. I'll try again later.

[Tattered Heart]

Ugh. I hate it when that happens. If I have a big post I'll type it out then copy it to a word doc before trying to submit just in case that happens.

[Enabler]

Dude that sucks, was looking forward to hearing from you. Hope today went okay whether you took our advice of not.

[flipflop_2018]

Enabler and Tattered Heart you two really hit the nail on the head. Thanks for the replies. I spoke with her counselor yesterday with just the two of us and she was very receptive. I think she took me seriously. So I'm thankful for that but I'm still feeling really hopeless. After reading Stop Walking on Eggshells I realized this isn't simply about my wife calming down and waking up to see how she handles herself. I'm feeling that she will never change, even with her counselor now aware, and that I'm stuck with becoming an expert at dealing with her. So I'm learning to set boundaries and not let her rip me apart while I patiently listen to her for hours. Ha, what a well meaning idiot I was. I'll read the links you suggested and try to practice them. I'm really worried most about how this dynamic will impact my two beautiful toddlers. Especially if she leaves me.

I won't tell my wife about the book or the BPD thoughts. I understand how she will respond. I bought the book on Amazon Kindle and it has been a real bear to hide from my wife since we share the same account. Crap. So it will always be in the order history. I told my wife that I was going to start recording our disagreements so the counselor can hear our dynamics. My wife didn't agree and I did it anyway and she FLIPPED out. She called everyone, said I was abusing her and then everyone called and yelled at me. This was before I even knew about BPD. I wish I did it secretly because ALL our conflict is he said, she said and no one knows who to believe. I understand more about my wife's feelings having read the book. She's certain that she's right and fighting the good fight to get me and the marriage back on track. So sometimes I sympathize for her and other times I hate her. I guess I'm starting to logically understand the situation but I don't know if my heart will ever catch up.

I hear things straight from my wife's therapist. I think the therapist is disrespectful and needed a lot of help from me to see the real dynamic and BPD clues. She also argues with me about what my intentions are when I do something she doesn't agree with. She hasn't been helpful yet but my wife really trusts her. We've seen about 6 councelors and some pastors in the past and my wife always runs when they focus in on her. So I expect her the run again. She says I manipulate counselors with my smooth words. Ha. What the heck. So, I'm hoping her counselor will show me how to set boundaries with my wife and show us how to handle conflict. My personal counselor spotted all this BPD stuff but my wife doesn't have the year-long trust built with her. I'm going right now to talk to my counselor but I plan to drop her because I can't afford $800/month for two counselors unless I NEED to.

[Enabler]

Okay, there's a lot of work you can do for free using the MASSIVE  knowledge base here and the tools. You have some toddlers, this is not only brilliant because kids are awesome but they are also excellent to train yourself on... .why, because your W is a little person in a ladies body.

First things first is you need to calm your own emotions down and try and get yourself back to baseline. It's hugely stressful being married to a BPD sufferer and my guess is that you're more reactive, similar to myself. I had a period last year and the year before where my buttocks felt like they were vibrating, like a buzzing... .well that cortisone and it's the fight or flight hormone, I sit at a desk so it had to be used somehow. This continued for months. So... .chilling out and getting back to baseline. I concentrate on my breathing, how the air flows over my lips, this is an easy way to bring yourself down and portable and subtle. You may have other techniques. Getting calm and getting thinking is paramount.

Secondly, not everything your wife says about you is about you. You are the target for sure as you are her primary emotional attachment but look through it. Has your kid been annoying all day? The old phrase sht rolls down hill, well with a pwBPD you are at the bottom of the hill. Her bad feelings will come your way. Let those bad feelings run through you and don't take it personally. Use these incidences to get clues as to what is actually the issue. Does she feel like a bad mother? Is she anxious because she feels abandoned because you went out? Does she feel insecure? It could be anything depending on her triggers. This should bring your anxiety down further and reduce the amount you react by JADEing. As mentioned before JADEing is pointless.

Thirdly familiarise yourself with the drama triangle, be conscious of when you "rescue" and feel how things play out when you do. My hunch is that you have learnt to intervien and rescue when you sense your wife is under any stress. You do this because experience tells you that stress = W dysregulating, it's probably automatic now and you jump to attention to avoid her getting angry with you. Google "3 faces of a victim" and read the top article. It will give you an excellent insight into how you enter a situation trying to help and before you know it you are being mysteriously moved to be the vixtim when your wife attacks you, you respond and she finishes as the victim with you as the bad guy. It's a hideous slight of hand but it's ultimately how nice guys get turned into bad guys eg recording arguments... .you end up as the bad guy.

You can make your life better and the life of your wife by changing some of the ways you react to her.  Remember, she thinks her reality is normal and you're the crazy one, fighting that is like me telling you the sky has pink dots and clouds are actually candy floss. Someone's reality is precious and people virulently defend it.

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Thank you so much. You keep nailing it. I especially related to the idea of how I magically become the bad guy when I try to help her with stress unrelated to me. Give me some time to chew on this. Again thanks so much.

[flipflop_2018]

I have definitely been riding that triangle. I'm probably an 80% Rescuer Starter. Now to get off the ride.

[Enabler]

Observe and analyse how you are pulled in or you volunteer yourself into the triangle, it's likely so compulsive now that you won't even know that you're doing it until it's too late... .but reflect on that afterwards. Think about how you could avoid participating but instead sit in the middle as coach. One thing I find helpful is by asked no myself "is this anything to do with me?" And "can I swerve this?". The reality is that your W will always look to end you in the bad guy spot as she more than likely has a phobia of being the bad guy. Being the bad guy carries feelings of guilt. Irrespective of what has happened during the dance round the triangle she will always look to exit with you as perpetrator and her as victim or rescuer (ideally rescuer and this brings powerful good emotions).

Avoiding drama doesn't come overnight and it certainly doesn't come without some personal anxiety or even some backlash from W, remember she wants/needs you to emotionally rescue her, not from the situation, but from the negative emotions associated with being the bad guy.

In the long run you will need to find positive ways to discipline your kids. Shouting and reprimanding will instantly put you in the perpetrator position and your wife will in my experience jump at the chance to rescue your children. Google trauma reinactment if you want to read more on that.

I believe you can delete items from you order history on amazon. I have done so but not sure how that impacts kindle items. At worst you'll have to buy it again or recover deleted items which again is possible I'm sure if you contact amazon customer services.

[Tattered Heart]

Learning about BPD is a lot to take in. We spent years thinking either we were the problem in our marriage because we were told that we were or thinking that we just have really serious marriage problems that a little MC can fix. Then we learn about BPD and we get this revelation that we are NOT the problem and that something is broken in our spouses that has nothing to do with us. And then the realization sets in that BPD will always be there and if we choose to stay that we could potentially live in a chaotic home for the rest of our lives, that our pwBPD may NEVER change, may NEVER realize they have a problem, and may NEVER choose to get help.

And this becomes the crisis point. Are you willing to Be an Emotional Caretaker for your spouse? If yes, then you will need to find a way to come to a point of Radical Acceptance of the realities of living with someone with BPD and what that means for you. And finally once you get there, you'll need to learn a whole new way of living your life so that you can find peace, strength, confidence, boundaries, etc within yourself that does not rely on your W or any other external source. And that's where this site can help you. The tools, skills, and lessons can help you look at your response to your pwBPD. We can help you work through specific issues, going so far as to help you practice ways to have conversations or approach difficult topics.

[flipflop_2018]

Thank you so much. Let me soak this in.

[flipflop_2018]

So our pastor recommended to my wife that the both of us go see a psychologist or psychiatrist. He doesn't know my idea of BPD but understands we've had no progress for so many years. My wife is agreeing to go but I'm sure it is so I'll get help. I'm considering going but with the expectation to help myself and no expectation from my wife. I'm not able to see anything major about myself and I think it is 99% my wife's BPD. But I figure I wouldn't be able to see anything wrong about myself anyway if something was wrong. Any thoughts or experience? Could this be harmful? I'm a little concerned if the evaluation was wrong or right she would never let it down if it came back less than perfect. Could it help her? Thanks.

[flipflop_2018]

Well she went through my Amazon account and discovered the borderline book I'm reading. I think she had to try multiple times to guess my password. She drilled me with questions. I told her it was recommended and no one was diagnosed. She blamed me a lot but I refused to go around the triangle. But I don't know if I did a good job and today could be a real challenge. She's always reading my personal notes, demanding my passwords, drilling me with questions and then gets upset when I lock my phone or want my own account.

[Enabler]

What are you doing to protect yourself here? I wrote something on another thread which I will copy in here re personal info protection.

[Enabler]

 I have done my fair share of snooping in the last 18m trying to work out what is going on with my uBPDw and her lies/behaviour/"special friend". It's not something I feel particularly proud of but I did it and I justify it rightly or wrongly by attempting to keep my family together. Anyway... .that irrelevant. What is relevant is your safety. Things I have done and you need to be careful of:

- any iphone backups on personal computers he has any access to. You can scrape whatsaps, texts, photos, emails, internet history from those files with a free download online.
- notes on iphone which are linked to an email account like hotmail or gmail will sync with that account and can be access on the email account if he has any access to that.
- Old phones that still have access to your accounts can be used to access email and other ex whatsap (only one device at a time is allowed to access that).
- Find my phone on any shared apple accounts can be used to track you when the device is on.
- Google account can be set up to track your location, will record all your internet browsing history.
- Whatsap - huge vapor trail, shows your status when you are online and last seen... .it also shows when other people are online or last seen. Although there's a lot of assumptions involved (and if he's paranoid as I was/am that won't be difficult) he can deduce who you are speaking to on whatsap... .e.g. my W has a "support group" as well as her OM. I see her online and then I see he support group light up like a Christmas tree. Similarly I deduce when she's been chatting to the OM till the small hours of the morning. Telegram is an alternative to whatsap and there is much less vapor trail.
- iMessages are terrible, avoid them. All it takes is an old phone with your i account and he can see all of the messages.
- email - it's a good idea to set up a new one and ONLY use it for very trusted people. Beware of recovering deleted items. It might be deleted and deleted out of deleted items but if he can access say the hotmail account online he can recover those deleted items.
- Make sure you log off and don't store your passwords for email accounts on the PC.
- how safe is the information you are putting on this website? Is there any crumb trail that might lead him here? Do you get notifications sent to email that a post has been updated? Where do personal message alerts go to?
- Small personal tracking devices are easily purchased on ebay, small enough to go in a handbag and certainly small enough to be attached to a car. Bare this in mind if you are planning to visit DV or visit somewhere out of the ordinary.

I don't mean to be alarmist but clearly this is not a safe situation and any information leakage is paramount. There is little point in you painstakingly planning to evaporate if he's fully versed about the plan. Information is VERY powerful.

[flipflop_2018]

Hey everyone. Are there any resources for when the suspected BPD wife no longer shows any emotional intimacy? She never showed much but now it is completely gone for the last few years. Do I keep holding her and doing nice things only to get nothing in return? Sometimes it just opens the door for her to blame me about something. Any thoughts or articles? Thanks.

[Teno]

Thirdly familiarise yourself with the drama triangle, be conscious of when you "rescue" and feel how things play out when you do. My hunch is that you have learnt to intervien and rescue when you sense your wife is under any stress. You do this because experience tells you that stress = W dysregulating, it's probably automatic now and you jump to attention to avoid her getting angry with you. Google "3 faces of a victim" and read the top article. It will give you an excellent insight into how you enter a situation trying to help and before you know it you are being mysteriously moved to be the vixtim when your wife attacks you, you respond and she finishes as the victim with you as the bad guy. It's a hideous slight of hand but it's ultimately how nice guys get turned into bad guys eg recording arguments... .you end up as the bad guy.

Something like the events below

"Printer does not work, I help to sort it out, she's rude and my face says I'm not happy about that and the door gets slammed in my face" I did address this event in a calm way, but I think the printer got blamed for the behavior. I think I've got better at not stepping straight into it anymore, quick pointer and then I change the subject.

I'd another of the many event: My wife was asking the kids to clean up and they were taking their time. I made a slight joke to my youngest: "Better clean up or your or you going to get it from your mom" I did say it in a encouraging way and not my intention to undermine my wife. She storms out of the kitchen and calls the two kids and I annoying. It is a bit of blur here, I think we were made to apologies. I was in shock and complied and help the kids to clean. Maybe I did undermine her, but why that reaction?

Next day the kids won't listen to me and took their time getting ready for school and I put them in the naughty corner. My Wife goes around and tickles the kids and makes a joke about it. I just said you can't do that. I think she thought it was Ok to do that. I said the kids were super naughty and her reply was. No they not super naughty. I was just thinking, this is so uncool. I did not react and finished getting the lunches ready.

[Teno]

In the long run you will need to find positive ways to discipline your kids. Shouting and reprimanding will instantly put you in the perpetrator position and your wife will in my experience jump at the chance to rescue your children. Google trauma reinactment if you want to read more on that.

This happens to me all the time, Funny thing is I don't correct my wife when she shouts or discipline them. I hardly shout at kids ,but dare I shout at my kids or even hint about her parenting. I read this article recently and I still not sure what to make of it. https://bogbit.com/is-your-spouse-undermining-your-parental-authority/

I do my best not to be the bad cop parent anymore.

[Teno]

Hey everyone. Are there any resources for when the suspected BPD wife no longer shows any emotional intimacy? She never showed much but now it is completely gone for the last few years. Do I keep holding her and doing nice things only to get nothing in return? Sometimes it just opens the door for her to blame me about something. Any thoughts or articles? Thanks.

My W decides when we cuddle. Have had some hard words  and that rejection fried me. Now I listen to my meditation tracks and fall asleep.

[Enabler]

Hi Leno, it’s rubbish when there’s a lack of unity in the way you and you SO approach parenting. It can often feel like a power struggle of one upmanship between you and your wife as to who can be the better parent. I’m not sure it’s the case here but worth pointing out as an observation anyway that each member of the couple comes from a different family with different parenting experiences and different concepts of how they wish to execute their parenting plan. Initially we middle through but when things settle down and try and execute the plan the differences can come to light.

For ease some split parenting into 3 groups, authoritarian, authoritive and passive. I found myself being authoritarian in an attempt to compensate for my W’s chaotic parenting approach which flip flopped between passive and authoritarian. She would expect them to just bumble along and then yell at them if they didn’t mind read. It wasn’t a parenting style I wanted and have reassessed MY plan. Unfortunately if your W has BPD traits, discipline is tough, she will do what she feels makes her life better and could struggle to see the cause and effect of her own actions on the children. I have found a massive improvement moving towards an authoritive stance having wide BUT FIRM boundaries and rules which are AGE APPROPRIATE. My rules are not necessarily dependant on my W although I am careful not to undermine her. I try to avoid getting involved when she is disciplining the children other than to briefly reinforce her if the kids are answering back. The kids respect my boundaries and although test me from time to time we live in greater harmony.

My wife sees the benefit of my approach and I see her reinforcing me a lot more than she did. If she tries to undermine you, I suggest you ignore it at the time and when the kids are out of earshot say “I understand you might not agree with every time I discipline the kids. If we show a united front they are more likely to respect the discipline each of us dishes out. I will not undermine you, could you not undermine me please”... .end of conversation move on avoid discussion. She will likely not like this comment but putting it out there will hopefully sow a seed. Since you might not be able to manage joint parenting it might be better for you to parent individually without the need to crossover. I found issues arose when I tried to joint parent and she was doing her own thing. It isolates you as bad cop and makes you prone to triangulation.

My T says that children require consistency, something that peBPD struggle with. Try and offer this