PART 2: 14 years of struggling with my wife

[GoGo]

Moderation Note  This thread is a continuation of:  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=325409.0

Marriage counseling is not helpful if you're not working with a shared reality or with a partner who is willing to accept some criticism/blame.  It's a threatening situation with BPD because they feel like they are/will be under attack and there will be two people pointing the finger at them.  The flip side is that anything a counselor says about you can and will be used against you, and even distorted if necessary.  

Some of what I say below is a response to you and some is just thinking "aloud".

I'm fine with taking responsibility for things that are my fault, that I have control over, as long as doing so doesn't become an excuse for my wife to stop all her own efforts.  That's a vitally important "as long as".  With every other couple's therapist, that's exactly what's happened.  I'm talking thousands of dollars over several years, where my wife focused 100% on what the therapist directed towards me while ignoring everything directed at her.  After all these failed attempts at couples therapy, I now view it as a place where I can tell my wife the truth about the relationship.  I can say exactly what needs to happen if there's going to be a chance for healing and love.  I can get feedback from a professional therapist who has dealt with borderline people.  I can learn.  I can try to navigate the minefield.

As for her, the message is clear.  Take responsibility or I walk.  See reality or I walk.

At the next appointment, tomorrow, I'll talk about how, after the previous session, she yelled at me about what was said in the session, making many hurtful accusations.  I'll talk about how, once again, her feelings went out of control, and she lashed out in fear and anger, pushing me away.  I'll talk about how, after a few minutes of abuse, I told her that I wasn't going to listen to her abuse me anymore, so I'd either leave the room and sleep somewhere else, or she'd stop talking.  I managed that without yelling at her.  I'll talk about how, days later, she said I was the one who yelled, not her.  I'll talk about how she manipulated my father into talking to me about how I treat her.  Talk about crossing a boundary! Somehow she'd failed to mention to him that, just 48 hours previous, she had yelled at me.

Once again, I will talk about how she has to learn to deal with her emotions so that she doesn't hurt the kids and me on a regular basis.  That she actually has to form an understanding of the trauma of her past, not make excuses for her mother's emotional abuse and brother's physical abuse.  That she does more than just say and do controlling things all the time, and that reducing the controlling behavior, while progress and definitely a step forward, doesn't mean everything is wonderful.  That she's on the start of a long journey, one she only fractionally understands.  That her belief that she's on a short journey, one she's essentially completed, is downright delusional.

As for her feeling under attack in therapy, she's going to feel that way no matter what.  She walks into the therapy room already feeling attacked just as she walked into my life already feeling attacked.  This utterly tough, take no prisoners attitude I'm using is the first thing that's ever had an impact on her behavior.  All the listening, bending backwards, and so on that this site suggests just led to the same hurtful ends.  It all fed into her personal victim narrative, that she was always under attack.  I've tried it all before.  

Now I'm taking a different path.  It's the "I don't care that you feel under attack, because you always have and maybe always will; now grow up and deal with reality" path.

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[zachira]

It sounds to me like you have reached your limit in care taking your wife in a one sided relationship. While you are sill married to her, are there some lessons you could learn that would make you a better man and father? I think it is important to learn all you can about your part in this relationship so if you do divorce and remarry you will make a happier marriage on the next round. So many people get divorced and do not take responsibility for what their part was in choosing to marry the person they did and how they choose to stay in the relationship for so many years, and then get involved with a partner who they think is different from the person that they divorced, and then find out they married someone similar to the partner they divorced.

[GoGo]

It sounds to me like you have reached your limit in care taking your wife in a one sided relationship. While you are sill married to her, are there some lessons you could learn that would make you a better man and father? I think it is important to learn all you can about your part in this relationship so if you do divorce and remarry you will make a happier marriage on the next round. So many people get divorced and do not take responsibility for what their part was in choosing to marry the person they did and how they choose to stay in the relationship for so many years, and then get involved with a partner who they think is different from the person that they divorced, and then find out they married someone similar to the partner they divorced.

I'm doing plenty of work there in my private therapy.  I've learned lots and continue to learn.

The last group session was good.  I gave the counselor and my wife a letter I wrote, outlining what the situation is, really showing all my anger but also the direction that things could take.  The counselor, who is excellent, really saw the anger and, instead of going into it all, diverted into how my wife doesn't understand how much she's done to hurt me.  She doesn't see how I feel.  There's a real disconnect there, almost like autism.  She just doesn't reach outside herself.  The counselor said, and I agreed, that this is probably the first and most important step.  Meanwhile, my wife is just trying to do show me she's doing the work to stay in the relationship, to keep me, but she just doesn't fully get why.  She doesn't see how she's made me feel, whether she agrees or not.  It's funny, because I can, at most any time, tell you what my wife is thinking and why. I can tell you why she's exhibiting this behavior or that.  I just can't communicate any of my own personal state to her.  Well, I can, but it just bounces off.

All that said, I'm not just a whipping boy to her.  Most couples fight over money.  That's one place we absolutely gel.  We've been financially very successful together, to the point that we can afford the cornucopia of psychological help we're getting all without batting an eye. Where we should be able to retire much earlier than most others, and I don't mean retire to blogging to make ends meet.  I really just fell in love with that women I met and who I loved for that first year or so.  She disappeared, and I just thought I could get her back.

[GoGo]

I'm making progress with her, but in fits and starts.  It seems every time I'm nice, she slips, but sometimes when I push, she makes progress.  It's painful and difficult, but probably less so than divorce.  There are some good moments and some horrible ones, but at least there are some good moments.  She's actually making some progress.

Backing up to tell the story... .where I ignore most of the advice given on this forum but mostly follow the advice of my personal therapist and sorta that of the couples therapist.

She's been working at her skills in a DBT skills class while also attending private and couples therapy.  Then a couple weeks ago, as her first skills session was about to end, she announced that she wasn't continuing.  Well, I wasn't going to have that, and I told her so pointedly and angrily.  Needless to say, she ended up signing up for the class.

She's made progress in reducing the constant stream of controlling comments to just a trickle.  I've made the point that this wasn't enough, because there was so much else to work on, and she's gotten needy and offended at this.  I have no time for this, and I let her know.  It was at a standstill.

In couples therapy, we made some headway with her realizing that she wasn't listening to me.  I mean we'd have some disagreement.  She'd state her case, I'd acknowledge what she said and discuss it then say my side, and she'd just restate her side as if I hadn't said a thing.  This would happen until I was so frustrated that I'd blow up at her.

Finally, this past Sunday night, I came down on her.  I said that after all the hurt she's caused for so many years, all the pain she's paid out, she has to take responsibility for it.  She has to really, truly apologize and mean it.  All her progress up until that point was like an actor trying to play a role, not a person actually feeling anything honestly.  She thought if she just said the right things, if she just acted the right way, then she could have what she wanted.  I said it was like living with an actress instead of somebody who actually cares.  It was a tough fight. 

Thankfully, the next day in couples therapy, she'd actually thought about it all, and she was receptive. She ended up making a sincere, crying apology.  She admitted she hadn't seen all the damage she'd caused.  It wasn't like some 100% turnaround, but I felt it was a major turning of a corner.

Then last night, after I had lunch with a friend, she got extremely jealous and said she didn't want to hear me talking about my friends.  She talked about how I was so distant.  I said I wasn't having any of this garbage, and that I had hugged and kissed her right after couples therapy.  I had eaten out with her.  I had called her when I was going to be late two days in a row.  I had walked into the bedroom to say hi to her every night.  She didn't listen, of course, and after repeatedly saying I wasn't buying her garbage and she had to cut it out, I finally put on my headphones to go to sleep.

She left the room.  After a few minutes, I went out and called her on that garbage too, abandoning me in some attempted slight.  She said she was writing an email and didn't want to keep me up.  I said that was all garbage and she had to cut it out.  Then she came to bed. 

This morning she wrote a weak apology email.  I wrote back about how controlling and jealous she'd been.

[once removed]

hi GoGo,

im catching up... .can you tell us, generally, which advice has been which?

Backing up to tell the story... .where I ignore most of the advice given on this forum but mostly follow the advice of my personal therapist and sorta that of the couples therapist.

[GoGo]

I've found that the more time I spend listening to her and manage her emotions, the more she misbehaves.  The more I am firm and tough and unyielding, the better she behaves.

[GoGo]

In other words, all the advice about not fighting, about not pushing, didn't work with her.  It was only by fighting and yelling that I've gotten anything.  Otherwise she just doesn't listen.  Granted, she didn't listen before when I yelled, but then I didn't understand quite how sick she was back then.  Once I realized the issue and once I saw a path for treatment, I could threaten her with divorce and shout down her garbage.  As I said, two nights ago, she laid into me with a bunch of jealous garbage.  For a minute or two, I tried to deal with her emotions and what she was saying, but when I realized that it was just her garbage and nothing real, I came down on her.  I was unyielding.  I wasn't going to accept it, and I was angry, and she had to face that anger because that was the consequence of her throwing garbage at me.  That was the quickest I've ever seen her backtrack and realize what she'd done.  It only took like 5-10 minutes.

I'm not saying these techniques are bad.  They just didn't work for me and her.
I'm also not saying this forum is bad.  It's great!  Just knowing what others are going through helps.  Just having you guys listen helps. 

[once removed]

It was only by fighting and yelling that I've gotten anything. 

what have you gotten?

[GoGo]

Lots of ups and downs over the past many months.  She's been in DBT therapy for almost a year now, both in groups and one on one.  We've also had a couples therapist with a strong DBT background.

There have been signs of her changing for the better, but only signs.  She'd promise everything and be good for a day or an hour then go back to the same old stuff.  This was better than before all the therapy, because back then there were essentially no good moments.

About six weeks ago, the couples therapist said to stop using anger against her and that if my wife didn't respond then we'd go somewhere from there.  So I stopped using anger against her.  Still she was her normal bad self, but the cracks were widening.  Little bits of light were shining through, but she kept talking about quitting therapy.

Then suddenly the past two weeks have gone darned decent.  I mean, it's like a normal relationship.  Bam!  She said that she realized she had to take and do things differently.  She made some leaps in understanding of what validation means, six levels of it according to her.  But essentially, she gained control of herself to a much larger degree.

Two weeks out of 15 years isn't a whole lot, but it's a massive change.  She says she's going to keep it up.  I sure hope she does.

And all it took to get here is a year of intense therapy three days a week plus an infinite amount of patience and insistence on my part.

Now maybe I can heal and then we can build a good relationship on the rubble.  Maybe.

[GoGo]

what have you gotten?

Her to stay in therapy.

[once removed]

Lots of ups and downs over the past many months. 

experts will tell you that a strong support system is critical. you dont have to do this on your own. why not be a little more regular, and seek feedback?

[GoGo]

experts will tell you that a strong support system is critical. you dont have to do this on your own. why not be a little more regular, and seek feedback?

I have personal therapy twice a week plus couples therapy.  This board is not my primary support, but I appreciate that it can be for many people, and I appreciate you offering.  I do come back for a reason.

Also thank goodness for that personal therapist.  She mentioned Walking on Eggshells, which led to me learning what BPD is which led to finding DBT which has led to a lot of good in our lives.

About 10 days later now.  Last week, she was a bit rocky, saying and doing controlling things, mostly small.  I told her this and then talked about one specific example, a small unimportant one, hoping it would be easy for her to handle.  She went right back to her old habits of defending (telling her reasons for her behavior), attacking (you're just nitpicking), changing the subject (I should just not talk to you or anyone else, is that what you want?), and walking away (she complained the car was hot and got out of the car).  These are all behaviors I've seen before in many different forms.  I was irritated but patient, and within 30 minutes, she had shown understanding of what I'd tried to say to her in the first place, and showed understanding of how her reactions to what I said were the kind of behavior she didn't want to do anymore.  One roadblock is that she often denies saying something, even moments after saying it.  I pointed out that it didn't matter whether she said it or not.  I'm telling her how I feel about something, and if she wants a relationship, she should understand that thing and how I feel about it.  I'm trying to tell her about something that bothers me, not that she's a bad person, so whether she said it or not is relatively unimportant.

Anyway, then we had a nice dinner out!

30 minutes!  That's a downright miracle.  In the past, she would never get there, or she'd get there if I broke down and yelled at her, neither of which are good outcomes.  Now she managed to arrive there in a measly 30 minutes.  I mean, it was a painful 30 minutes, but that sure beats weeks, months, and years without resolution, which was the norm before.

Even our daughter has seen the change in her behavior.

I said to my therapist that it sucked we had to reach rock bottom, me saying I was going to leave, for her to get off her behind and change.  That change has taken a long time, and it's still happening, but change is possible.  We're no longer digging a hole.  Now we're actually climbing out of the hole we're in.

She's acting like a somewhat reasonable person!