I just woke up, Part 2

[engineer]

So, continuing my thread... . To recap, I've learned a whole lot here that I am putting into practice, and I have addressed some of my own health issues that were preventing me from staying calm in the face of my wife's "flamethrowerings".

I have been really successful this week at taking her dysregulations in stride and not responding defensively or allowing her to get to me.

I have read a bit about how when the person with BPD finds something that "works" to get a reaction they stick to it, and if that tactic stops working they will try something else.

Well, that has been the story of the day.  It feels like she is grasping at straws to upset me.  It is like she is trying every tactic she can think of.  Each new tactic lasts about 5 minutes and then she gives up when she doesn't get a rise out of me.  She has been doing this all day.  And let me tell you, the stuff she is coming up with is ridiculous.  Turns out the tactic she was using before worked really well and I am not sure there are any other tactics that will.

I am feeling rather victorious at the moment

Mod note: continued from I just woke up

[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.

[pearlsw]

Hi engineer,

Nice to hear you are doing well this week!

If ya had to say, may I ask, what tool or tools have made the most difference for you here? How much did you have to change/adjust to handle the situation overall?

with compassion, pearl.

[Mutt]

Hi engineer,

 

I’d like to echo pearlsw bravo for making progress. Yes you’re right a pwBPD know how to push your buttons. Just keeep in mind that sometimes the tolls don’t always work and that’s ok too.

[RolandOfEld]

Great summary engineer and great work!

I have read a bit about how when the person with BPD finds something that "works" to get a reaction they stick to it, and if that tactic stops working they will try something else.

Not letting someone with BPD get to you takes a lot of emotional / mental ju jitsu, and it sounds like you're on your way to a black belt. When my wife is in extinction burst mode she might try 10 different tactics in the course of an hour.

Care to share some of the more ridiculous stuff just for laughs? 

~ROE

[engineer]

Heh, oh yeah, I definitely want to share some of the ridiculous things.

But first... .staying this course is definitely working.  She has really calmed down.  She is even giving some (somewhat backhanded) apologies for how difficult she has been.

The remaining big problem is intimacy.  Now, I have long since come to the realization that sex just isn't going to be a thing in this relationship.  She goes on and on and on about how highly sexual she is, but when it comes down to it her experience level is very very low and I think that although she *wants* to be interested, she actually isn't.  Her history before she met me amounts to having sex once every few years.  It is very clear when we make an attempt that she just does not know what she is doing, and that she is very uncomfortable with herself.  My own experience level is very high -- I could easily get her past her issues -- but once we are in bed she blocks me at every turn.

So, that is not the actual problem.  I'm comfortable with this being a no-sex relationship.  If she would just admit that she is not really into it we would both be a lot happier.  The problem is the constant sexual innuendo, the constant planning for "us time", the constant pushing of my buttons to make me think "this time she is actually into it", only to be turned away once again at the very last minute.

Every time I manage to get my head right, accept once again that sex is just not her thing, and move on with my life... .and the next day she starts in again with the innuendo, trying to get me interested again, trying to break down the wall I build to protect myself from her rejection.  Each time it takes a little longer, but she eventually succeeds and I find myself hoodwinked again.

I read somewhere that there is some current research going on about the effect of oxytocin on people with BPD traits.  The theory is that oxytocin works backwards -- in normal people it causes closeness, but in people with BPD it causes rejection.  If that is what is happening it makes perfect sense.  Once we get to where she gets a rush of oxytocin she suddenly feels a very strong need to push away.  It kind of explains the whole thing.

[RolandOfEld]

Hi engineer and thanks for the update.

I'm comfortable with this being a no-sex relationship.

If you don't mind my asking, are you talking about a no-sex relationship, or no-sex life? I realize every one has different level of needs, but are you really OK with no sex whatsoever? Judging from the fact that you are experienced indicates sex is something you value. 

I'll weigh in on my own side here since this is something I've never really brought up. Our sex life these days accounts for a few times a year. You can attribute it to two kids and sharing a bed with one of them but I think it's not a valid excuse. I'm just admitting to myself in the last few days that this is another need (like sleep, eating enough, socializing, time to rest, seeing family / friends, the list goes on... .) that's not being met. I think I'm taking care of it on my own, but I find there is still a need for touch and being close to another human being. This need might not be as urgent as food or sleep, but it exists and not having it satisfied definitely has a broader impact on my functioning. Right now I'm working on sleep first.

The only time sex comes up in conversation is during a dysregulated argument, during which she brings her sexual dissatisfaction to the table as a reason for separation / divorce. She brings up how I often can't maintain, which is true. She thinks I need to see a doctor. I explain it's an emotional / relationship problem. The first layer comes with me not feeling deeply secure with her. The second comes from the fact that since we had kids she doesn't want to use protection anymore since she says it's too uncomfortable. This puts a lot of pressure on me since I am terrified of us ever getting pregnant again and therefore have to control myself very closely. The third thing is she wants me to do it a certain way right away but I have explained to her that would make it end quickly and I need about 1-2 minutes to slowly build up. She always says she's fine with it being quick if I do it the way she likes (but maybe I would like to enjoy for more than a minute as well?).  

Sex basically is the physical equivalent of our communication problems in which everything is focused on what she's not getting and she's incapable of validating any of my feelings about the relationship. So I'm not very proactive about initiation anymore.

I think there's a deep connection between sex and the state of any relationship. How do you think sex ties back into some of your relationship problems? What do you think the fact that you're OK with no sex says about how you feel about the relationship?

~ROE  

 

[engineer]

What do you think the fact that you're OK with no sex says about how you feel about the relationship?

Ha, I am NOT ok with it... .and I should have been a lot clearer.  It's just that I am much *less* ok with the current state of affairs where there is a constant sexual push that leads to frustration every time than I would be with sex just being off the table.

As far as straying... .well she made her own bed didn't she?

And, oh yeah, the relationship is completely f'd.  The part I didn't mention is that one of the things that changed to make things easier is that she broke my "care".  As in, I used to care so much that it made me crazy.  Now she yells and screams and I don't like it, but I really don't care as much as I once did.  She does a good job of keeping the house clean, and she sometimes makes food.  So, that's nice, those are things I don't have to do.  She makes a pretty good (though noisy) roommate.

I promised a ridiculous example:

On Friday she asked me to go to the DMV.  So I got ready to go, and then she changed her mind and insisted that I go on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week.  Yesterday (Monday) she dysregulated and among her accusations was that I didn't go to the DMV like I "promised" I would.  So this morning (Tuesday) I told her I would go to the DMV before work and she said "But I don't understand, we decided to do it Tuesday or Wednesday, why would you bring it up now?"

Similar situation... .Last week one day she begged me to work from home, absolutely insisting that she needed me to be at home and not in the office.  Later in the day she got very angry at me for not going to the office.  I reminded her that she asked me to stay home.  She said it was my choice to stay home and that I only did it because I don't care about her needs.

Yesterday she dysregulated at her usual 5:30.  The lead-in was that I was supposed to come home at 3:00 because I was going to a concert after work.  She asked for more time before I came home, so I changed it to 4:00 (well, in her way of asking, which is to make me guess that she wants more time).  Then she asked for more time again, so I made it 5:00.  Then I asked her once again if she wanted more time and she went ballistic, accusing me of never giving her enough time to herself, of not caring at all about her needs, of making her take care of the laundry (in fact she vehemently ***INSISTS*** that she is responsible for the laundry and will not tolerate anyone else touching it) and a bunch of other things, including the crap about the DMV I mentioned above.  Then when I finally came home she said "you are such a perfect man that I have to make up stuff to be upset about."

So, she is loony, pleasing her is not even remotely possible, and it doesn't make any sense to pay attention to her.  She is going to go bonkers no matter what, so why worry myself about it?

And I am also aware that this is a snapshot of how I feel right this moment.  I may feel less detached from her tomorrow or next week, dunno.  But at the moment I could not care less.

[engineer]

On the upside... .I got to the concert late, but I had a good time.  The lead guitarist from my old band was there so we got to catch up.  I really need to start a band again.  Perhaps if I can induce some permanent tinnitus it will drown out the screeching at home

[engineer]

Ok, so I'll answer the obvious question... .Why am I still with her?

First of all, I have no compunction about leaving.  When I'm done, I'll go and I won't look back.  I don't care about going NC.  She can whistle in the wind.  I know myself, and I can break an attachment with no problem.

What kept me around is that when she is not dysregulating she is absolutely lovely.  She is funny and smart and genuinely cares about people.  She is someone I want to be with.

If I fully believed that things would not get better I would cut my losses and wander off.  But I have reason to believe things will get better.  First of all, even though I am in a detached state right now, the tools I've learned here have helped.  Second of all, I still have work to do on myself -- I am not 100% at the moment due to some health problems that have impaired my normal mental resilience.  I think I need to be fully myself again before I decide to cut and run, because otherwise I might be making that decision led by my current mentally-weakened state.  And finally, I have strong evidence to suggest that her BPD traits are being magnified by perimenopause, and once she gets past that she may calm down a bit on her own.  If she calms down just a bit more then the balance of good and bad becomes much more tolerable.

[RolandOfEld]

engineer, you've come a long distance since your first post a few months ago. I'm so glad you've found the tools here so useful. I think you would be a great case study for other members here in how to use them.

If she calms down just a bit more then the balance of good and bad becomes much more tolerable.

I guess this is how we decide to say yes or no to any relationship. There will be good and bad with anyone. This it totally your call.

I'm in a very similar place and I'll share myself one more time. My wife is seeing a doctor and possibly taking some baby steps towards getting help. This is a good thing. If she does improve then the good / bad ratio may begin to tip even more. But at the same time I'm deeply conflicted as to if I could move forward with this marriage even if the bad goes away. I don't know if those wounds can heal yet.

Here's the shortlist I've made of things I would need to continue in the event of her recovery (sorry if it reads like job qualifications, but it sorta is):

- Full accountability and apology for the things she did to hurt me (hitting, stealing, destroying, emotional torture)
- Demonstrated ability to validate and accept my feelings, most specifically negative ones
- At least one year of no abusive episodes
- Efforts toward reconciling with my family

What would your list look like?

~ROE

[engineer]

Here's the shortlist I've made of things I would need to continue in the event of her recovery (sorry if it reads like job qualifications, but it sorta is):

- Full accountability and apology for the things she did to hurt me (hitting, stealing, destroying, emotional torture)
- Demonstrated ability to validate and accept my feelings, most specifically negative ones
- At least one year of no abusive episodes
- Efforts toward reconciling with my family

What would your list look like?

~ROE

I like your list, and in my case all of those things would be nice, but my metrics for whether I would stay in this relationship are very different.

For example, I don't need an apology.  I think I may be different from most people in that regard.  An apology would be nice, but it would be sort of meaningless for me.  What works better for me is an admission of fault, such as "oh I went nuts because I mistakenly thought you were a space alien for a minute." -- something that makes the behavior understandable.  Also, I don't need the abusive episodes to stop entirely, but I would like them to be lower intensity and I would like an admission of fault following such an episode.  I think people get upset and do or say unreasonable things, and that's pretty normal.  What isn't normal is refusing to be accountable for it afterwards.

Anyway, my list is:

- Do what you say you are going to do.
- Make an effort to be accountable for behavior.
- Stop setting traps.

Geez, the traps drive me crazy.  She tried it this morning.  Yesterday she made it abundantly clear that she would not be able to get her day started today if I didn't leave for work by 9:30 -- she has a lot she wants to do today.  Then this morning she tried to convince me to stay at home until after my morning meeting (which usually goes to 10 or 10:30).  But it was not so easy to just say "nope, I'm leaving in time to be at the office for my meeting"... .because... .she delayed making my lunch (she makes me lunch every day for very good reasons that I will get into at another time) until the very last minute, so if I did not stay home for my meeting it would result in her having to scramble to assemble my lunch, which would result in a very unhappy wife.  So, she set up a catch-22 on purpose.  She *must* stop doing that.  This is a basic requirement for me to stay.  Unfortunately she is not quite to the point where I can even broach the subject with her.  She needs a bit more self awareness first, and I need to figure out how to approach it without sounding like I am blaming her.

[engineer]

On the upside... .I got to the concert late, but I had a good time.  The lead guitarist from my old band was there so we got to catch up.  I really need to start a band again.  Perhaps if I can induce some permanent tinnitus it will drown out the screeching at home

Oh I forgot to tell you the funniest thing about the concert.

wife: what will you do if someone hits on you?
me: nobody is going to hit on me.
wife: but what if they do?  You need an action plan!
me: there won't be any girls there.
wife: of course there will, and they will just love you.
me: ok fine, if one of these girls that won't be there starts hitting on me I will start talking about you.
wife: no, that won't work.
me: um, ok.
wife: point to your ring.
me: ok fine.

So, sure enough, there were about three girls there, and they were hanging on for dear life to the guys that brought them.  I am sure this was the last date for all of them.

Oh, and in case you are wondering:  nobody hit on me.

[engineer]

Well the last few days have been beautiful.  Many overtures of love and commitment from my wife.  Lots of "I finally understand" and "I finally get what unconditional means" etc.

And then... .(and yes I expected the dysregulation... .but she has left me a bit floored with how far she went).

She asked me for the temperature and humidity.  So I told her the temperature from the temp gauge in the kitchen and started to open the weather app on my phone for the humidity.  She said "that gauge is useless, I want to know the real temperature (when she decided this I don't know). So when my weather app opened I gave her the temperature and humidity.  My exact words in the entire exchange were "24 degrees... .ok... .23 degrees and 41% humidity".
 
She then proceeded to rip me apart about how I flood her with words and refuse to just answer the question without giving her more information than she asked for.  Eventually I realized that she had forgotten she asked me for humidity too so when I told it to her it triggered her (answering more than she asked is a known trigger for her... .and believe me it is very hard to avoid, especially when she doesn't remember what she has asked).

She kept ripping and ripping and for some reason I didn't want to leave it.  I said "would you like to hear my side of it?"  She did not like that one bit, of course, but I told her that I misheard her and thought I heard her ask for humidity.  She said that I was flooding her with words again.  So at that point I figured it was enough jadeing and left it alone.  She went on for a good half hour longer and then finally calmed down.

Then she asked me to get her eye ointment.  I did.  I brought it to her and said "here is your eye ointment" and she once again started in on me about flooding her with words.  Then she started to get personal.

She said "you are not the man I met two years ago".  I said "ouch".  That made her angrier.  Then she said (paraphrased... .I can't remember quite the exact language) "you are not a man at all.  When you said your testosterone was low I thought you would stay a man but you aren't.  You are barely even human."  Then she went on her usual rant about how she has had to deal with all my issues and didn't want to do it anymore and we're done.  Yeah, yeah, I hear that every day.

So here is the problem.  It was a very typical fight.  She snared me in something that I didn't do... .fine, that happens every day.  She yelled and screamed.  Fine.  She said awful things.  Fine.  But I am having trouble getting over the testosterone comment.

One of the things we say (SHE says) all the time is about how alcoholism is a disease and alcoholics are sick people.  We would not vilify someone for having diabetes and we do not vilify people simply for being alcoholics.  But... .apparently low testosterone is not included in that concept.  Apparently it's just fine to hit me at my most vulnerable point.  She wonders why I didn't tell her about it for a long time.  Well, she shouldn't wonder.  I really wish I had not told her at all.  I could have predicted she would use it like this.

So, logically, I know this.  I know about her mental illness.  I know she will use any vulnerability she can.  I am not an insecure man by any means.  But I am really bothered by what she said, and I am very troubled by how much what she said bothers me.  I need to put this in perspective and get my head together but at the moment I seem to be unable to do that.

[engineer]

.

[RolandOfEld]

I am not an insecure man by any means.  But I am really bothered by what she said, and I am very troubled by how much what she said bothers me.

Hi engineer, wow. I don't quite no what to say. Just want to let you know you are not alone in facing these behaviors. Among the things I've been fed this week:

"You are not the man I married." (You're right, I'm 100 x better but OK).
"I said you were getting fat to point out of a truth." (And it had nothing to do with the fact you were angry at that moment and knew I'd been sensitive recently about putting on a tiny bit of weight).
"You can't control your anger, go take a class or something (referring to the behavioral classes the psychiatrist is recommending she join.)

Right there with you at the end of the rope, brother.

~ROE

[engineer]

Right there with you at the end of the rope, brother.

~ROE

Thanks Roland.  I think I really needed the commiseration.

[engineer]

Ok.  I am in a much better frame of mind than I was last night.  Today I did a little more careful observation of behaviors and came to a conclusion I have suspected for a while but didn't really want to consider until I felt like I had a better handle on the BPD.

I have come to the conclusion that my wife has more going on than BPD... .specifically I believe she is suffering from dementia.  She is a bit too young for it to be Alzheimer's (although my mom started showing symptoms at 57, and my wife is 55, so maybe she is not too young after all).  Anyway, I don't think it's Alzheimers, but rather a brain-injury induced dementia.  She has had a lifetime of daily drug abuse, and there was a suicide attempt when she was younger that the doctors were surprised didn't leave her brain dead, so there's no way she came out of that without some brain damage.

I know very little about non-Alzheimers dementias.  I am going to start studying to see what I can find out.

Anyway, as I said I have suspected this for a while, but I had not really accepted it yet.  Today, however, it just kind of hit me like a brick.  It's sad, really.  This is a woman who once had a 160 IQ and a photographic memory.  Now she can barely figure out the remote control and every time I buy toilet paper she asks why I am trying a new brand, even though we switched to the new brand over a year ago.  I think the best thing I can do for her in the short term is be as patient as possible with her.  If I can get her to see a doctor I will put a bug in the doc's ear about it so she can make some observations as well.

[RolandOfEld]

Hi engineer, my heart breaks for you to hear this news. I have experienced both Alzheimers and dementia in my family. Also, my wife suffered a brain aneurysm and nearly died a few months before I met her and I have always wondered if that had any impact on her current mental state.

I think you are absolutely right to alert her doctor since it is unlikely she can do this for herself. Do your best to take care of her, but please do not slip in your self-care. Please keep us informed of how the situation progresses.

~ROE

[engineer]

So... .my research yielded frontotemporal dementia.  It fits for sure.

There's a forum like this one for family members and I joined... .it's amazing how many of the behaviors overlap, but it is really clear that in my wife's case it requires both BPD and FTD to explain the whole thing.  I kinda didn't expect that... .I expected dementia to explain the, um, dementia, but instead it explains everything that seems different about her BPD.

It's like this:

She thinks she is the master of all technology, because she probably once was.

She can no longer work the tv remote because of FTD.
 -> This upsets her greatly because she should be able to use the remote.
 -> She dysregulates because of BPD.

Whereas the usual BPD person would not have lost the ability to use the remote, the usual FTD person would get snippy but wouldn't dysregulate.  And at the intersection between the two is my wife.

Unfortunately this is a terminal diagnosis.  Life expectancy is 2-6 years.

So... .I am as of this moment (as of yesterday really) changing my attitude.  I'm going to let the crap slide off of me and enjoy her ability to be a person while she still has it.

[WileyCoyote]

 I am sorry to hear that you suspect this is part of the issue. 

So... .I am as of this moment (as of yesterday really) changing my attitude.  I'm going to let the crap slide off of me and enjoy her ability to be a person while she still has it.

You sound like a very loving man Engineer.

I can't even think about the possibilities of co morbidity with something like this in regards to my own wife.  Her grandmother died of Alzheimer.  And she has mentioned to me that it is her worst nightmare that she could do the same.