Divorce threats again

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

How do you guys deal with constant divorce threats?  I know that they’re just threats but I highly value marriage and I’m afraid that taking a threat to the next step may be a reality at some point. I’d like to try and get over it and ignore it but as of now i don’t know how too. .  Plus I feel like my relationship is day to day because of this erratic behavior. Long story short I thought I could share my feelings with Wife and apparently they aren’t the way she thinks they should be.  So now it’s the divorce threats. I understand she’s dysregulating and nows not the time to deal with her. But still!

[Ltahoe]

How do you guys deal with constant divorce threats?  I know that they’re just threats but I highly value marriage and I’m afraid that taking a threat to the next step may be a reality at some point. I’d like to try and get over it and ignore it but as of now i don’t know how too. .  Plus I feel like my relationship is day to day because of this erratic behavior. Long story short I thought I could share my feelings with Wife and apparently they aren’t the way she thinks they should be.  So now it’s the divorce threats. I understand she’s dysregulating and nows not the time to deal with her. But still!

[Cat Familiar]

So you shared your feelings with your wife and now she's threatening divorce. You value your marriage, but you're worried that with these repeated threats that she might actively take some steps toward divorcing you. Since she's currently dysregulating, you know it's not the time to try and deal with these big issues.

Well, lots of us have found ourselves in your position. We've tried to share our honest and deep feelings and wow, have they been misinterpreted!

Can you tell us more of what she's doing and saying that cause you to feel like your relationship is on the edge?

[Ltahoe]

Well basically she feels that she’s such a burden and she just feels we need to be done, she doesn’t understand why I stay with her anyways. She doesn’t care what I have to say she is just done. So far all I’ve really responded is that I understand she’s not happy with my thoughts, but please stop with the divorce threats. I really don’t know what to say. In the past ya I’ve come to rescue the marriage, but idk if I should play that game right now. I’d just JADE and it’s going to be met by some reason why it can’t work.

[Cat Familiar]

Well basically she feels that she’s such a burden and she just feels we need to be done, she doesn’t understand why I stay with her anyways. She doesn’t care what I have to say she is just done.

Here's what I'm hearing: she's depressed. So many pwBPD feel unworthy ("such a burden" and their "solution" to that is leaving and starting fresh where they don't have baggage and history.

What they don't realize is that they carry their baggage and their patterning and they will just recreate the same type of situation over and over. But in their mind, a fresh start sounds appealing.

So I would focus upon her feelings and validate them. Ask in more detail what's going on with her and see if you can get her to disclose more. Ideally it would be nice if she were to do individual counseling. When you do ask, be prepared for the blame game and bite your tongue if she tries to make you at fault. Just see how much you can get her to reveal about how she feels and be supportive. It won't be easy, but if you can do this without getting triggered yourself, she will be able to get those feelings out and perhaps get away from the divorce threats.

[Ltahoe]

Yup she’s raging and of course I’m the problem. But in those rages I say divorce became less probable. She is already seeing a therapist for depression. Long story but the therapist probably isn’t cut out for pwBPD I did a thread on that a week or so ago. I feel T is just part of her drama circle now. Probably like this in a therapy session Victim(W) persecutor(me) rescuer(T)

[Cat Familiar]

What keeps you from making an appointment with her counselor to discuss suicide threats and disclose the fact that a psychiatrist has diagnosed your wife with BPD? Perhaps her therapist has never heard that before.

[Ltahoe]

The therapist knows she’s suicidal. To be honest I really don’t know, I suppose I’ve been called controlling by my W and the therapist. I just feel it’ll come off as a desperate attempt to be controlling. The fear of just more rages and divorce threats, or how the W will feel about me going around her. Idk sounds lame I know but I’ve been playing my wife’s game and stuck walking on egg shells. I’ll just do it and call at lunch break, and post any updates.

[Ltahoe]

Ok so I made a mistake regarding the counseling. So since my wife has brought up doing a couples session with her therapist before and says I have the issues. I asked if it was ok if I use her T also. She said no, so I asked ok so we can do those couples sessions that we were supposed to with your T. She says absolutely no that her T is only allowed to counsel her and not me as per her T, which I find ironic since I’ve been invited to do couples before. Idk why I tried giving my W the respect of not going around her, but now idk.

[Cat Familiar]

Here you try and do the honorable thing and now she’s foreclosed your options.

What about couples counseling with a different T?

[Ltahoe]

I set up an individual therapy with someone practiced in BPD and DBT that does couples also. So hopefully we’ll be able to go that route as a couple eventually. I think her closing off her therapist just leads me to believe that I’m being painted super black and me being allowed to defend myself will just ruin the whole fantasy or role my wife has the counselor playing. I’m tempted to get ahold of her therapist but problem is a lot of these therapists you have to go through booking and receptionist not direct to the therapist.

[BurntOutFromBPD]

How do you guys deal with constant divorce threats?  I know that they’re just threats but I highly value marriage and I’m afraid that taking a threat to the next step may be a reality at some point. I’d like to try and get over it and ignore it but as of now i don’t know how too. .  Plus I feel like my relationship is day to day because of this erratic behavior. Long story short I thought I could share my feelings with Wife and apparently they aren’t the way she thinks they should be.  So now it’s the divorce threats. I understand she’s dysregulating and nows not the time to deal with her. But still!

I feel for you. I have had regular divorce threats for the last 11 months, every few weeks usually. Living day to day is pretty much how it is unfortunately. The controlling accusations sound like a projection of her behaviour and she seems to be getting validation for her behaviour from her therapist. You may find a independent objective couples counsellor will be more effectively than through your or her individual therapists.  Make sure to look after yourself though, you cant control her fantasy of you or how her therapist perceives the reality of what she is saying. She works for her essentially and you need to make sure you have your own independent support as well as getting some support together later.

[formflier]

Ltahoe

I'm seeing you at a crossroads.  Either reach out to the T and let her know what you see, evaluate that and figure out a way forward.

or... .

Evaluate what you have at this point... .for yourself.  

Your wife has a T... .let that process work itself out.  She doesn't want you involved... .if it were me, I wouldn't talk much (or at all) about something she wants you to stay out of.

I have a lot of concern that you can describe her rages (dysregulations) so well.  If... and this is a big IF, you are involved in a "fix" (T)... .then perhaps that can be valuable.

If she doesn't want you involved in her problems... I can't imagine why listening to them helps you at all.

What I see is she gets to "offload" her emotional vomit onto you "for free" (she can say whatever she wants)... .yet doesn't have to "work on that"... .because then she can talk to her T about controlling hubbies... pink elephants... and flying monkeys.

And you sit there covered in emotional vomit.  It has... and will continue to take a toll on you.

What do you think of this post?  What is your gut reaction to which way you want to go?  (I'm very interested in your gut reaction... .I'm also very interested in you thoughtfully evaluating this for a couple days.)

FF

[Ltahoe]

Yes I’m in a difficult spot. As I’ve had more time to process this I almost have to agree with FF. I’ve pretty much said who cares about T, she don’t want me in and I’m not forcing it. I’m starting from scratch I’ll be seeing my own T that’s trained with BPD behaviors to help me and address my concerns. I’ll leave the wife joining my sessions open as needed. Not only that wife is open to couples T just not with her T so I have multiple avenues to start from as of now, possibly better that way. This may be a silly justification but in the end I’d rather have her label me black and blame me for everything to T that’s not involved in our everyday lives than those that are or those who may try to take advantage of the situation. Hopefully I’ll get a say in the couples T my main requirement is that it’s one that’s knowledgeable with BPD.

 

 What happens when a rescuing, enabling person meets a controlling insensitive person? Answer: they get married!
         
         
       

[Cat Familiar]

What happens when a rescuing, enabling person meets a controlling insensitive person? Answer: they get married!
 

  Ltahoe, thanks for the laugh! Humor has kept me going through some pretty dark times.

It's great that you are doing therapy with a T who's knowledgeable about BPD! 

Therapy has really helped me, in addition to participating here. My T saw both my husband and me for marriage counseling for about a year. Little improved in that time, other than we were able to discuss things a bit better.

I went back to her about a year or two later to see her individually and that was a far more productive use of my therapy dollar. She told me that my husband has a personality disorder, but didn't specify which one, as she sees tremendous overlap. Though talking with her over the last couple of years, I can see that what she noticed was a bit more indicative of NPD, as he's rather good about hiding the BPDish behavior when he's around other people. He saves that for me.   

She gave me a lot of strategies and helped me see how I was trying to get him to change (not drink so much, quit loudly exclaiming "F*!" in my presence, help me more with household chores, take responsibility for his own messes, etc.)

Now there's nothing wrong with expecting a marriage partner to be responsible and not abuse substances, but we'd gotten into a dynamic that was sort of disapproving mother/rebellious son. And I had to step out of my part for any meaningful change to happen. Which meant that I had to fully accept him the way he was, which was exceedingly difficult for me to do.

But over time, I did that, and to my surprise, he did start to change in positive ways. It had to be on his terms, not mine.

I changed too and through using the tools I learned here, now if we have a disagreement, it gets settled quickly. It's not my picture of an ideal relationship, but it's quite pleasant nowadays. That's a big difference--for both of us!

[Ltahoe]

Yeah I got the joke from the book “boundaries”. So far seems to be an informative book. When it comes to boundaries I’m starting to realize where I’m going wrong I’m too compliant and avoidant, I’ve also have pulled some moves out of being a controller, that’s usually once my limits are being tested and I’m past my threshold. Wife is definitely a controller and Non responsive to my needs. So I just thought the joke was funny. Probably some truth to it regarding a lot of relationships here.

When I called and set up the counseling appointment they did reccomend that I do individual first. That appointment is Early next week. I’m sure my wife will be happy, I’m working on me. She also will see a psychiatrist again soon on top of her T, I’ll see if I can see who she’s seeing and look up their areas of help, Hopefully BPD w/DBT. I think the main thing with a couples would be someone that can help us communicate. Someone that will allow me to talk, and hopefully help her realize it’s ok and she doesn’t need to take it as a threat or without her using threats to shut me out.  Of course if she does take it as a threat in counseling it’ll end up to the same arguments as always right in front of a counselor. At that point it’s where it would be nice to have a couples T experienced with BPD to maybe walk us through something like that.

Idk why my initial reaction was anger when I was accused of being controlling overall I’m convinced I’m not, especially since I’m too compliant as stated above. I suppose my JADE wanted to take over at that point, plus the emotional effects  of being threatened with divorce at the same time. I once read somewhere that care takers and pwBPD have some of same internal issues, But they handle it differently caretakers are just more over accommodating and tolerant vs BPD behavior. So ya the threats of divorce really get me, always have. I suppose she knows it’s her “atomic bomb” so to speak, I got her to quit the threats for a good year or so but perhaps the other attacks didn’t work well enough for her.  Plus I did make a mistake that will be held against me forever in one of our arguments a few months back. She asked why I was even with her, and I responded “trust me I ask myself the same thing” ya bad thing to say but ever since then every little argument turns to divorce threats.

  At this point I’m just going to see the good in her T maybe her T can continue to validate and play a role as where now I can just avoid needing to do what her T can do, whether I agree or not another story though.

[formflier]

Pleased... .don't discuss your T with her... at all.

If it "has to come up"... .for some odd reason... .be very nonchalant about it. 

If she asks questions, "give it some thought", instead of answering.

There is a potential that you may invite her in later.

The corollary to this is you stop discussing her T as well.  If she wants to bring it up... .listen politely and quickly disengage.

We can work on the wording later.  The exact wording isn't so important as the concept.

Her T for her... .so... .no need to talk with you.

Your T for you... so... no need to talk to her.

Once you and your T agree it's time to invite her in... .talk (since there is a need).

Same with her... .if she and her T want you to come in... they can invite you.

FF