Unaware of Verbal/mental abuse

[Mountain friend]

Hello,
I am currently going twice a week to a LMFT with my wife and I called her out asking if she is aware that her behavior is verbally abusive and damaging and destructive to our relationship. She said she has said things that have been mean and harmful and asked me what I meant and to provide an example. I said, "when you tell me 'I hate you and I want to hit you so f$*cking hard in the face right now' I fell threatened, unloved, rejected and not trusting you." I have filed for divorce 5 months ago and a week after she got served, she said she was willing to go to any length, including look at herself to keep this relationship together. I told her I would not proceed with other paperwork if I saw action and willingness on her part to change her behavior that has made our relationship very painful at times. My wife calls the "work" she is doing like going to her individual therapist, psychiatrist, and our couples therapist a checklist that I have pushed on her to control her and I am holding her in emotional blackmail. All of these professionals I have spoken to in private or have heard the BPD as a possibility. Wife is seeing all of the right people, has heard all of the right terms (seeded by others) and is blaming me for trying to diagnose her with BPD or some other mental illness and thinks I have been gas lighting her for months.
How dense is the BPD skull not to see the truth of their own behavior? If getting served divorce papers did not cause her to look inward at her own actions and take accountability for her behavior, what is the likelihood she will have the desire to change and accept the diagnosis pill when it is given to her? I am feeling that this relationship seems hopeless to improve without wife in treatment or at the least recognizing she has a mental illness, BPD or at the minimum she is verbally abusive. I really feel I have lead this horse to water over and over again but just keep getting bucked off or kicked. I know this site supports people who want to stay together and I appreciate that and all of the knowledge and support it has furnished, however, things are looking bleak for the future. I need to keep my 8 year old daughter safe and also be the best and strongest parent I can be, which I don't feel is in this relationship of 11+ years. What other suggestions can I do to help and assist in her self discovery?I don't know how much longer I can hold on here.
Mtn friend

[Mutt]

Hi Mountain friend,

If getting served divorce papers did not cause her to look inward at her own actions and take accountability for her behavior, what is the likelihood she will have the desire to change and accept the diagnosis pill when it is given to her?

I'm sorry that you're going through this a r/s with a pwBPD feels like an emotional rollercoaster it helps to talk to others to get some feedback and support. If she's saying that she's been gas lit for the last few months she's projecting it, a pwBPD project their actions, feelings that are negative on others.

If she's serious about therapy then she'll seek it but I'd suggest to not mention BPD to her because there's a good chance that is going to backfire. You can clearly see the dysfunctional / unhealthy / bad behaviours looking from the outside in. Think of it this way what if you grew up not knowing that you're mentally ill your experience is based on your background, life experiences, family etc... .if you don't have a baseline to compare it too how do you know that the reality that you know as real is actually not?

Has she been treated for anything like depression or anxiety?

[MeandThee29]

How dense is the BPD skull not to see the truth of their own behavior? If getting served divorce papers did not cause her to look inward at her own actions and take accountability for her behavior, what is the likelihood she will have the desire to change and accept the diagnosis pill when it is given to her? I am feeling that this relationship seems hopeless to improve without wife in treatment or at the least recognizing she has a mental illness, BPD or at the minimum she is verbally abusive. I really feel I have lead this horse to water over and over again but just keep getting bucked off or kicked. I know this site supports people who want to stay together and I appreciate that and all of the knowledge and support it has furnished, however, things are looking bleak for the future. I need to keep my 8 year old daughter safe and also be the best and strongest parent I can be, which I don't feel is in this relationship of 11+ years. What other suggestions can I do to help and assist in her self discovery?I don't know how much longer I can hold on here.
Mtn friend

They don't see what they can't admit to themselves. Some of them have grandiose views of themselves that no matter how badly they treat their partners, they deserve adoration. When we were together, mine was a master manipulator with verbal threats. I was largely a stay-at-home mom, and mine would harange me with threats that he would file for divorce and destroy me financially so that the kids and I would have nothing to eat. I would cave and admit fault, and we'd go on. That and more threats went on for over a decade. If the threats bothered me, it was my fault. He would convince me that all couples fight and say things they don't mean. But then he'd do it again.

Thankfully it finally sunk in after he left that I had every right to be upset by his threats. And the fact that he did that was very toxic, indeed. I'm guessing that he will shortly file for divorce and that it will be very ugly. More confirmation that I had every reason to be concerned by his threats.

[mama-wolf]

Hi, Mountain friend, and welcome!

I am currently going twice a week to a LMFT with my wife

I'm glad you're talking to someone together who can see the dynamics between you and be an impartial observer.  Even though I had started seeing my own individual therapist, I still doubted myself and my perceptions so much before my uBPDxw and I went to counseling together.  It didn't save our relationship, and I have still struggled with massive self-doubt over my journey of the past year or so, but having a clinical professional there who hears from both of you and sees how you interact can really help save your sanity.

and I called her out asking if she is aware that her behavior is verbally abusive and damaging and destructive to our relationship. She said she has said things that have been mean and harmful and asked me what I meant and to provide an example. I said, "when you tell me 'I hate you and I want to hit you so f$*cking hard in the face right now' I fell threatened, unloved, rejected and not trusting you."

My wife calls the "work" she is doing like going to her individual therapist, psychiatrist, and our couples therapist a checklist that I have pushed on her to control her and I am holding her in emotional blackmail.

What was your marriage counselor's response to this very specific statement?  And how did your wife take it? 

My uBPDxw demonstrated over an over again that she wouldn't do the actual work that needed to be done--even the little things.  She would nod and agree in session that she needed to actually follow through with doing things she said she would, like come home at a certain time.  She would indicate her understanding that doing this would help to rebuild and repair some of the trust that I had lost in her.  But then at home, the excuses would just keep coming.

And as far as the sessions themselves, my experience was that when each session of counseling focused mostly on my uBPDxw, her behavior towards me or our kids, her family of origin, etc. she started resenting it more and more.  She wanted to focus much more on me, the "damage" she had decided my mother did to me in my childhood, and my contributions to our problems.  But as my T reassured me, it's rarely an even 50/50 split between the partners when it comes to issues in the marriage.

I am feeling that this relationship seems hopeless to improve without wife in treatment or at the least recognizing she has a mental illness, BPD or at the minimum she is verbally abusive.

What other suggestions can I do to help and assist in her self discovery?I don't know how much longer I can hold on here.

I'm going to ask something that may not seem to help, but it's critical.  What are you doing for you?  You mentioned multiple professionals... .is one of them your own individual therapist?  I was in my relationship for 15 years (married for 11) before I finally realized there was no path forward for us and we needed to separate.  I'm still just beginning to discover the damage her emotional abuse has caused me over all that time.

Now is a time to focus on you.  Are you getting enough sleep?  Exercise?  Are you eating well?  Us nons tend to sacrifice all of that in order to take care of the demanding pwBPD (and when we're parents, whatever is left is spent also taking on more of the caretaking of our kids).  We forget ourselves, leaving us that much less capable of standing up for our own needs.

So my specific suggestion is to start therapy for yourself if you haven't already.  And carve out some time to learn more about BPD itself, as well as establishing and enforcing healthy boundaries.   From there, you can start to make some of the hard decisions about what to do with your marriage.  You aren't going to be able to control her, and it's a waste of energy to try.  She is going to have to make her own decisions based on the boundaries you establish, and she is going to have to deal with the consequences of those decisions on her own.

I need to keep my 8 year old daughter safe and also be the best and strongest parent I can be, which I don't feel is in this relationship of 11+ years.

And I am with you on this 100%.  My biggest motivator was the detrimental impact I could see my uBPDxw's behavior having on our kids--especially our daughter who was 8 at the time I finally started to realize what a mess I was in.  Take care of you, because your daughter is going to need you strong so that you can take care of her, too.

mw

[MeandThee29]

Hi, Mountain friend, and welcome!
My uBPDxw demonstrated over an over again that she wouldn't do the actual work that needed to be done--even the little things.  She would nod and agree in session that she needed to actually follow through with doing things she said she would, like come home at a certain time.  She would indicate her understanding that doing this would help to rebuild and repair some of the trust that I had lost in her.  But then at home, the excuses would just keep coming.

And as far as the sessions themselves, my experience was that when each session of counseling focused mostly on my uBPDxw, her behavior towards me or our kids, her family of origin, etc. she started resenting it more and more.  She wanted to focus much more on me, the "damage" she had decided my mother did to me in my childhood, and my contributions to our problems.  But as my T reassured me, it's rarely an even 50/50 split between the partners when it comes to issues in the marriage.

I'm going to ask something that may not seem to help, but it's critical.  What are you doing for you?  You mentioned multiple professionals... .is one of them your own individual therapist?  I was in my relationship for 15 years (married for 11) before I finally realized there was no path forward for us and we needed to separate.  I'm still just beginning to discover the damage her emotional abuse has caused me over all that time.

Now is a time to focus on you.  Are you getting enough sleep?  Exercise?  Are you eating well?  Us nons tend to sacrifice all of that in order to take care of the demanding pwBPD (and when we're parents, whatever is left is spent also taking on more of the caretaking of our kids).  We forget ourselves, leaving us that much less capable of standing up for our own needs.

So my specific suggestion is to start therapy for yourself if you haven't already.  And carve out some time to learn more about BPD itself, as well as establishing and enforcing healthy boundaries.   From there, you can start to make some of the hard decisions about what to do with your marriage.  You aren't going to be able to control her, and it's a waste of energy to try.  She is going to have to make her own decisions based on the boundaries you establish, and she is going to have to deal with the consequences of those decisions on her own.

And I am with you on this 100%.  My biggest motivator was the detrimental impact I could see my uBPDxw's behavior having on our kids--especially our daughter who was 8 at the time I finally started to realize what a mess I was in.  Take care of you, because your daughter is going to need you strong so that you can take care of her, too.

mw

Good thoughts. Is she in individual therapy too? Are you in individual therapy?

I briefly saw a family therapist when my regular therapist was away for an extended period, and she said that she never does marriage or family therapy unless she has done at least some individual sessions. Sometimes she does that first. She also said that she doesn't do marriage counselling if one of the individuals has a personality disorder until she's had a number of sessions with the individual. Sometimes she refuses marriage counselling outright if the individual refuses individual counselling. I later found out that she does a lot of counselling involving abused partners including emotional abuse.

I underestimated the impact on our children. My younger one basically gave up on her father and mostly gave up on me before the teen years, and that manifested in a tangle of anxiety and depression that has taken a long time to work through. My other one managed by focusing on friends and work. He worked a lot in the evening and on weekends in order to be out of the house. I knew that I was having a hard time, but I really didn't see it in them.