Can't provide the support she claims any other normal human being could

[Bluebot]

Hello,

I've been married 10 going on 11 years soon to a woman i still love very much, but for literally the past 11 years life has been absolute hell. I want to point out first and foremost that i have done some pretty awful things to screw things up. Chief among them being having kept the fact that a 17 year old girl had a crush on me secret from my wife. Though there was no sex involved my behavior was completely out of line and could have resulted on serious legal consequences nonetheless. I am not the most emotionally available person and tend to shy away from any serious emotional situation. As you might imagine this has led to unending problems in my relationship with my wife.

Though she has not been formally diagnosed my very first session with a therapist (whom i visited after the incident with the girl, at my wifes request to fix what was wrong with me and why i couldnt seem to attone for what i did) the therapist told me that my wife sounded like she was dealing with borderline personality disorder and recommend "i hate you don't leave me". Initially i was relieved thinking this might be the start of an answer to the chaos of the past weeks, but when i told my wife, she came in to "set the therapist straight" and demanded i throw out the book. I did.

The next few years were constant ups and downs, though mostly downs of horribly failed attempts at romantic gestures. Nothing i do ever seems to connect with her like it had before. I eventually went back to therapists to try to figure out what was wrong with me. Always the same response,  "sounds like you're doing every thing you can" "she just needs to tell you what she wants" She feels like directly stating what she wants means she's "puppeting" me, and it invalidates anything I've done. This always seemed like the stopping point with therapy for us.

Years later she read an article about aspergers and said it sounded like me. Initially i dismissed it, but the more i read, the more it really did fit. Social awkwardness, obsessive singular interests, conformance to routine. I was convinced this was me, but she wanted me to get tested formally to know officially. Our insuance didnt cover the $400 testing, and i ended up postponing it, which i still hear about to this day how i couldnt just do what she asked. I have recently completed testing and the conclusion was that i am on the spectrum, but without impairment. I didnt go over the results with her when they were mailed to our house, but she opened them days later and read them herself after not speaking to each other and sleeping in separate rooms. Her conclusion was that apparently video games are the only thing that made me happy according to the report. She says she cannot understand autism and never will, and that i need to learn to handle it.

Things have been particularly awful the past few months. Shes told me that if i divorce her she will absolutely kill herself. I only have suggested divorce because ive felt incapable of providing the emotional support she claims any other normal human being can and should provide. In the past week ive spent most of my time with her arguing which typically ends with me saying something really hurtful after a long series od accusations from her. Ive been avoiding taking to her a lot these past few days because of it and i think ive pushed her past a breaking point. She mentioned to me that shes thought about killing all our pets for me to come home to, "just to get some kind of reaction out of me for once " I could never forgive her if she did something like that, and i know its already super unhealthy to be where i am.

Ive been doing all sorts of reading about BPD and it seems like all the advice i see i would have needed to do years ago. I am terrified that if i take action now itll trigger something violent. I'm taking off work tomorrow to keep an eye on things but I'm up against a wall and she's demanding action. The same demands she's been making for 10 years that i cannot understand.

I don't know what to do, she just tells me that she doesn't want to be ignored and treated like trash, but every attempt i make to interact with her ends up being more confirmation to her that i hate her.

I am so completely emotionally exhausted and now with the more or less threat against my animals i feel like calling the police. If i have her committed (which i did once when she slit her wrists shortly after the incident with that girl) that will definitely be the end of it, but if they let her out her #1 goal will be to finish what she started.

I dont see any way out of this.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[pearlsw]

Hi Bluebot,

I hear a lot of fear and apprehension in your post. I am sorry you are feeling so much stress and worry. We're listening.

There is quite a lot going on here. May I focus first and foremost on your safety and that of your pets?

Do you believe this a probable threat or just extremely horrible words to get a reaction out of you that she is not getting otherwise?

She was previously put into a hospital? You mean if she was hospitalized again she would commit suicide?

with compassion, pearl.

[Harley Quinn]

Hi Bluebot,

I'd like to join pearlsw in welcoming you and to say that you've made a good decision in posting here.  There are tools here which can help you communicate with your wife.  First and foremost though, some of your post is quite alarming and I'm sure you must be feeling quite anxious right now.  I think the best advice I can give you is to try not to predict the future and to focus on the immediate situation, which has to have a priority on safeguarding all of you - yourself, your pets and your wife.

We have a document here called the MOSAIC threat assessment which will allow you to establish the level of risk your wife presents.  I'd urge you to complete this (it didn't take me long) and it may help you to understand what you are dealing with.  You can find it HERE 

When you had your wife committed previously, was there any follow up?  Do you have contacts you are able to call for advice from that time?  Mental health helplines, or the number of the mental health professional who was in charge of her care?

We're here to support you to find the way forwards.  Stay in touch and let us know how you all are.

Love and light x

[Radcliff]

Bluebot, I'm sorry for the pain you are in, but am glad you have found us.  There are people here who have had experiences similar to yours.  You can get support here.  You are not alone.  Having autism spectrum traits can be a particularly tough match for someone with BPD who is intuitive and emotionally reactive.  Contrary to what she might say, just because a lot of the stuff going on with her is tough for you to figure out does not mean that you don't have empathy.  Check out the book, The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband, by David Finch.  His wife almost certainly does not have BPD, and was very understanding as he adjusted his approach to improve things.  So I wouldn't regard the book as a model for what can be achieved with a partner with BPD, but it is a fantastic model for how someone with Aspergers can be compassionate and highly motivated to improve a relationship -- that contrary to what a pwBPD might say, being somewhere on the spectrum is not a character issue, but a challenge that can be overcome.  Also, we might observe the irony of one non-neurotypical person criticizing another for being non-neurotypical (though I would not suggest that you point this out to your wife  ).

While your wife may shame you for spectrum traits, her point of view is likely not balanced.  Just for reference, how do you do with others -- coworkers, friends, and your family of origin?  Look at that broad range of relationships to try to get a more balanced idea of your strengths and areas for growth.

One thing that can be helpful to someone with spectrum traits in dealing with a partner with BPD is that there is order in the chaos.  There are repeating behavior patterns, and there are cues we can learn to pick up on.  One pattern in particular that is good to get to know for your partner is what her dysregulation cycle looks like.  Once she gets very angry, how long does it take her to come back to a calmer place?  Is the timing similar from incident to incident?  Some members say the time is a few hours, some a couple of days, and some a week or longer.  It often tends to be similar for a given person.  There are tools on this site that we can help you learn that can make things better.

You mentioned a threat against your pets.  It can be tough to judge the seriousness of such a threat, which makes it stressful.  Regardless of the seriousness, I'm sorry you had to hear that from someone you love.  To help you and us get a better picture, can you take the MOSAIC survey and let us know your score?  When she is very angry, how does she act?  What is her body language like?  You mentioned that she doesn't like it when you leave a room to take a break.  What has been her most extreme reaction to this?

WW

[Cat Familiar]

Bluebot,
I'm glad you've found us and sorry that you're dealing with such a difficult situation with your wife.

From what you've written, I think you certainly have empathy for your wife, but that your emotional needs are a mismatch, due to no fault of yours. I can certainly relate to this because I think it's likely that I'm on the Spectrum too. Having a partner with BPD is challenging for anyone, but for those of us who use our intellect more than our emotions--it's really difficult.

Another concept that might be useful is determining your's and her Love Languages. www.5lovelanguages.com  Unless we know otherwise, we tend to try and love our partners in ways that we want to be loved and lots of times that is not only a mismatch, but they don't realize that we are expressing our love for them at all. For example, I tend to do nice things for my husband. (Acts of Service) I spent all day yesterday cleaning his room to the point of spotlessness for his return home today from the hospital after having a hip replacement. Will he notice or really appreciate all my hard work or realize that I was doing it as a way of expressing my love? It's very doubtful. His love language is Words of Affirmation. So if I don't tell him regularly how much I love him or complement him on something he's said or done--then he feels unloved.

Likewise for me, if he leaves a mess in the kitchen that I'd previously left in perfect condition, I feel like it's a "F* you" communication to me, rather than him just being sloppy.

It's difficult for me to remember to give him the Words of Affirmation that he needs because it seems so over the top and on the edge of being insincere and silly, but that's what's important to him. So I do try, but it certainly doesn't come naturally.

If you're like me, you probably are very in control of your emotions and you process things intellectually. The behavior of a borderline partner seems inexplicably irrational and needlessly emotional to me and I'm frequently blindsided by his reactions to things. It's ironic because I've been dealing with BPD individuals since birth: my mother, my first husband and now my current husband, but it constantly catches me off guard.

Being in this community for nearly three years has been a great help since I see other people struggling with the same issues that I've been dealing with. Though I'll never fully understand my husband's thoughts and motivations, I can now anticipate trouble arising and thereby tailor my responses to keep the temperature down. Individual therapy has also helped greatly, particularly with a psychologist that previously saw us both as a couple for a year. Though couples therapy didn't help much, what did help was her confiding to me, when I saw her for individual therapy, that he has a personality disorder. Then we were able to work on strengthening my responses to his behavior, which can be quite a different strategy than when one's partner is basically emotionally healthy.

There's a wealth of information on this site in the reading materials. What I realized is that much of what I knew about dealing with healthy people didn't at all work with my husband. From the time I was a teenager, I knew that I was different than my peers and I didn't have the social skills that seemed to come naturally to everyone else.

So I went on an intensive course of study to learn how to better relate to people. In the course of doing that, I discovered that I have Asperger's traits, am an INTJ on the Meyer's Briggs Scale (Introvert, Intuition, Thinking, Judgement (meaning I like coming to conclusions rather than keeping things open-ended) and also I'm a Highly Sensitive Person.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/communication-success/201711/24-signs-highly-sensitive-person

I'm so sorry that your wife has made threats against your animals. I dearly love all my animal friends: horses, goats, sheep, cats, donkey. They love me back with no issues, which is really healing for me since I deal with a human who can be really unpredictable and difficult.

Please keep posting and reading here. We'd like to hear more of your story.

Cat

[Turkish]

My 8 year old son has ASD1, what they used to call Asperger's.  His uBPD mom pushed to get him evaluated yet after ABA therapy,  she still often doesn't deal well with it including last night.  Sure you can work on yourself, as should everybody, but it must hurt to for her not to support you.  

Like the others suggested, are you safe overall?

The tools here can help, and many of them are developed from the various books on BPD.

Do you think getting officially diagnosed would soothe her?

[Bluebot]

Thank you everyone for the responses, I'll try to reply to everyone here, but its a little difficult from a phone. (If i use my computer i think my wife will probably react to that)

I completely the MOSAIC test and got a 6 out of 10 with a quality of 175 of 200. Not entirely sure what that means other than things will probably get worse if something doesn't happen.

Especially appreciate the understanding about thoughts over emotions. I feel i receive not even an attempt at understanding from my wife on that. I feel like to her I'm just broken and that's not ok. I know in her mind its because she thinks I'm using it as an excuse for bad behavior, but I'm actually trying to deal with it. When i visit therapists they tell me that i don't seem to be autistic and don't really provide guidance, but they all agree that my wife needs to do her part. It's maddening, because it doesn't leave me with anything concrete to work on.

I actually read memoirs and 5 love languages. I spend a LOT of time searching for answers, but everything always seems to come back to the fact that i can really only solve ME. I would LOVE to have a wife as supporting and understanding as David's, but my wife struggles with the very opposite condition, where her feelings overrule her thoughts. She says her love language is quality time. But that time isn't quality to her if she doesn't feel like i love her... .and i really feel like its impossible to make her feel that way when shes convinced i dont love her and finds evidence to the contrary in everything i do. The good things are "scraps" and the bad things add to the mountain of reasons why shes unlovable.

Cat, the course to learn how to relate to people sounds promising. I'm really just trying to figure out anything more i can do here.

Wentworth, i do recognize a pattern of what's essentially "distraction" followed by peace, which culimates in an explosive rage about physical intimacy, and then back to depression and silence. I don't know I'd the timing is consistent so much as the circumstances. When she's really angry she's very still and just glares at me while she talks. Its not so much about me leaving to take a break, I've just run out of things i feel can be said. She feels like I've given up. I wouldn't say she's reacted extreme to that necessarily. Just slamming the door as she goes to the guest room to spend the night instead of with me. As far as aspergers goes with other people, nobody even seems to think it applies to me. I know it does, but I've come up with ways of handling it for most situations to not appear odd.

Harley, there wasn't any follow up. The place she was committed to basically just drugged her heavily and locked her up. I don't have much faith in that sort of system, but i understand the need in emergency situations. That was overall a horrific experience for her so no i didn't retain any contacts from there.

Turkish, ironically it helps to be less emotional when i dont get support from her. I had hoped a diagnosis would help her treat it like a real thing that was out of my control.

Brief update, we did get out of the house today and things are calm for now, but i expect them to crash down again tonight if she expects me to be physically intimate

[Radcliff]

Bluebot, I think you're dialed in well on this.  Any spectrum traits you have you have adopted workarounds and learn things that work in most situations.  They might be an additional drag when dealing with a pwBPD, but with BPD you are battling headwinds that would be stiff even for a neurotypical person (assuming that one exists  )  It certainly shouldn't be a point of shame or guilt against you.

You mentioned sexual intimacy as a pain point in the relationship, thinking that she might initiate tonight.  It sounded like you were not feeling like reciprocating, and expected a negative reaction from her.  Can you tell us about that?

WW

[Bluebot]

Thank you again for the encouragement WW.

I think my issues with physical intimacy are kinda twofold. The major issue i have is really just initiating at all. My wife is absolutely physically attractive to me and i have no problem as far as desire goes, but i feel like evey interaction is a "test", not just an opportunity to express love to one another. I feel like she is trying to see how far Ill go to ensure we have sex, and it becomes this completely unnatural, forced interaction. She also tells me that Im never actually "communicating" with her when we get intimate. I feel like that probably IS true and something i could work on, but i really dont know how i would work on it aside from creating numerous frustrating situations for her.

Second is... .when i feel like sexual intimacy is "a test", i feel like the whole time im being judged, and there is definitely resentment... .which invariably leads to a loss of erection. As a result ive tried to resort to other forms of stimulation, but shes at her wits end and essentially nothing else will do at this point.

Honestly, if i could make some progress on either one of those, it would probably improve things for our relationship significantly.

[Bluebot]

Im doing a lot of reading while I'm here of articles about conflict. Most every single one of them seems to mention using skills that people on the autism spectrum classically struggle with. I'm not one to just excuse myself of responsibility because it's "too hard", but i wonder if there are pieces of this that I'm glossing over, or failing to mention, because i haven't actually recognized them as being important.

[Radcliff]

i feel like evey interaction is a "test", not just an opportunity to express love to one another. I feel like she is trying to see how far Ill go to ensure we have sex, and it becomes this completely unnatural, forced interaction. She also tells me that Im never actually "communicating" with her when we get intimate. I feel like that probably IS true and something i could work on, but i really dont know how i would work on it aside from creating numerous frustrating situations for her.

That does sound terribly frustrating if it feels like you're being tested, especially on a task like communication where it's not clear how to do it well.  Am I understanding correctly that the difficult part is that "dance" of figuring out if she's interested, making her feel comfortable and feeling good about things, what the right things are to do and to say?  Have things always been awkward like this, or were there times earlier in your relationship when things were smoother?

Im doing a lot of reading while I'm here of articles about conflict. Most every single one of them seems to mention using skills that people on the autism spectrum classically struggle with. I'm not one to just excuse myself of responsibility because it's "too hard", but i wonder if there are pieces of this that I'm glossing over, or failing to mention, because i haven't actually recognized them as being important.

Can you give us an example?

WW