My wife refuses to seek help

[At a crossroad]

My wife will not seek help. As a result, I continue to absorb her verbal and occasional physical abuse. Unfortunately my 8 year old son witnesses many of the outburst against me.

How do I start to set limits? I can’t take it too much longer.

[Panda39]

Hi At a crossroad,

Welcome to the BPD Family 

I'm sorry to hear about the abuse that you are suffering.  Where do you think you are in terms of your marriage? Do you want to stay and work on it or are you considering divorce?  You could actually be somewhere in between   and we can help you there too.

There can be different strategies for you depending on which direction you want to go, that doesn't mean that you must decide now, you can sit in an undecided position for awhile too as you work to process things and get some support or tools to try.  I definitely suggest reading other posts both on this board and the romantic relationship boards.

You don't have to just sit and take abuse from your wife, you can set boundaries.  Boundaries are designed to protect ourselves.  When she is particularly abusive have you tried leaving the house?  Have you ever called the police when she becomes physical?

More on boundaries... .
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=61684.0
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=167368.0

This is a lot of information on raising a child with a BPD Parent (but I want you to have it all so you can review as different situations arise), but I want to point out Lesson 5 "Raising Resilient Kids" in particular. 
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=182254.msg1331288#msg1331288

How is your son reacting to what is going on in your home?

You are not alone here you have a whole group here who have been through this and can share their collective knowledge, support and ideas.

Take Care, 
Panda 39

[livednlearned]

How do I start to set limits? I can’t take it too much longer.

When she was violent before, what happened?

Do you have a safety plan for you and S8?

Can you tell us a little more about what your wife is like (is she diagnosed, does she work, is she suicidal, etc.)? There is a range of behavior with BPD sufferers. Maybe we can walk with you and share skills that can help things from getting worse. Even if you leave, it will help to know some key relationship and communication skills. The skills are not intuitive and must be learned (and practiced).

Gathering legal information is also helpful. You don't have to use it, but just knowing how things work where you live can make a big difference in how you hedge your bets and be prepared. Being in a volatile relationship means juggling a lot of seemingly contradictory possibilities, just in case things go off the rails.

How is your son doing? Is he showing any stress-related behaviors?

Do you have people in your support network? It's pretty common for people here to become isolated. Telling your story here, sharing as much as you are comfortable sharing, can be an important step toward taking care of yourself.

Glad you found the site  

You are not alone.

LnL

[ForeverDad]

If she refuses therapy, then how can she recover?  A truism is that unless a person is in meaningful and progressing therapy, applying it diligently in life (perceptions, thinking and behaviors) and doing so over time (measured in years) then recovery is unlikely and is likely to continue getting worse and worse.  It is what it is.

Since she won't change for the better (blaming and blame shifting) then you need to make the necessary changes.  First, education is important.  What you've done in the past was insufficient, like fighting an opponent while blindfolded.  There are strategies and communication skills that can help.  They won't fix but they can redirect your efforts so you are more likely to get better results.  Also very important is rethinking your Boundaries.  She won't change to respect boundaries.  So boundaries will become what you control... .over yourself.  In general, "If you do/don't ____ then I will have to ____."  In what ways?  To illustrate one approach, If you rant and rage then I will leave with the children until you calm down.  (Hmm... .that must be why her rages were typically late at night when our son was already asleep in bed, hard to leave with a kid, much more a sleeping kid.)

As happened in my case, mere months before my marriage imploded... .Summary: "If you won't sign my 401(k) loan document which merely requires you to acknowledge the Joint & Survivorship provisions of my work retirement plan then I will have to get a rush auto loan at a higher rate from the bank for the car I just bought and I will have to deposit my paycheck into my new personal checking account there rather than into our joint account in out existing bank."  In other words, her refusal for a formality signature caused me to reduce her influence on our married lives by moving pay from a joint account to a personal account elsewhere.  Do you see?  I couldn't make her sign so I weighed my options and proceeded with a fix for that particular dilemma.  Her emotional entitled demands caused her to shoot herself in the foot, so to speak.  It made a divorce later a (very) little less complicated since my paycheck's account was protected from being drained overnight.