Thoughts on bad therapy?

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

I struggled to post this or not because I don't know how productive it is, but I guess I'd like to see what other people have experienced and think.  My wife and I are separated because it was such a toxic environment in our house. I had spent a large amount of time and effort into improving myself and changing my behavior to improve the situation.  I was never perfect and I didn't do everything right.  Some of my efforts might have been enabling and not extinguishing, but I really gave it my all and I was always trying to improve. 

As I started to detach, my wife decided she would go back to couples counseling.  We saw a psychologist that had helped our son with anxiety and other people have said he helped their marriage.  My first time alone with him, I tried to tell him how bad our situation was, and brought out my documentation of verbal and emotional abuse.  His response was very similar to what you read about in many books on abuse.  He said both parties contribute and If I act better towards her and turn towards her, that will help improve the relationship.  I see lots of literature out there that say when an abusive situation is known, couples counseling won't work, you need to treat people individually before you can go back to couples counseling.  It's not that the person being abused has nothing that they can't do to help the situation, but you can't really turn towards the person if you fear attack.  That didn't seem to be this guys approach.

I was finally fed up with this guy when we had a one on one session and he was telling me a story about some previous clients.  He said he was counseling a couple where the wife would hit her husband at night and give him bruises.  This husband still wanted the relationship to work.  So that was his job was to try and help the relationship.  He did try to tell the wife not to hit her husband, but while they were seeing him, he was focused on the relationship.  Eventually the wife filed a restraining order against her husband because she felt distressed because of an alarm on his watch or something and they got divorced.  I still don't remember why he told me this story or what the point of it was.  My take away was, "you knew that she was abusing this man and rather than focus on the abuse, you kept trying to work on the relationship?"  That sounds like trying to cure the headache, but not remove the brain tumor. 

I know my wife was all for this approach because it validated her.  She acted as if her berating and entrapment, while she shouldn't do it, had some justification because if I was better, it would be easier to stop.  Whenever she would do something like that, she could always say, "I'm trying but it's hard to stop doing that when I you're never completely honest with me.  You're abusive too!" I often would not tell her things for fear of another berating attack.

I know this story is not uncommon in abusive situations.  I guess what I'm posting is how often does this happen?  I struggle with why does this happen?  People come to counselors when they are the most vulnerable and in some dire need and they have such great potential to cause real harm.  I remember in another session he was trying to empathize with me about being hurt by his wife. They were arguing and she used the F word with him.  He was really taken back and she never apologized for it.  It was maybe 8 years ago, but he can still distinctly remember it.  He was giving me this example to show me how sometimes we have to just forgive and move on when we are offended and we might not get the apology we want, which I get.  I'm sitting her thinking, "Dude, 8 hours ago she didn't just use the F word she called me a name with the F word.  Did you get slapped in the face or get trapped in a room and berated for two hours?"

I mean we can't all be good at everything.  My son really respects him after he helped him with his anxiety.  He lists his specialty as anxiety and ADHD treatment.  That's why we first went to him.  It just seems that he does not have the proper experience or outlook to handle situations where abuse exists.  He might be fine for normal marriages that a struggling, but from the story he told me and the experience I have, he should not have been seeing us.  In this case he should have referred us to someone else.  Of course when I talked about going somewhere else, my wife was against it because she like a counselor that seemed to help her feel like her improvement is dependent upon me not upsetting her.

I guess I feel cheated.  I never wanted to give up on my marriage.  I always felt that it could be fixed.  My wife wasn't always like this.  If she has BPD, it was under control for a long time, and something triggered it and made it worse in the past two years. Or it's not BPD and it's something else that us undiagnosed and not being taken care of. Someone had the power to help, but they did more harm.  Rather than work on the cause of this behavior it was assigned to me.

I suppose I'm posting this looking for validation or maybe someone else reading this experiencing the same thing might feel some validation.  It's infuriating to need help and everyone doesn't believe you or minimizes it because they don't believe it exists. 

[Wilkinson]

I struggled to post this or not because I don't know how productive it is, but I guess I'd like to see what other people have experienced and think.  My wife and I are separated because it was such a toxic environment in our house. I had spent a large amount of time and effort into improving myself and changing my behavior to improve the situation.  I was never perfect and I didn't do everything right.  Some of my efforts might have been enabling and not extinguishing, but I really gave it my all and I was always trying to improve. 

As I started to detach, my wife decided she would go back to couples counseling.  We saw a psychologist that had helped our son with anxiety and other people have said he helped their marriage.  My first time alone with him, I tried to tell him how bad our situation was, and brought out my documentation of verbal and emotional abuse.  His response was very similar to what you read about in many books on abuse.  He said both parties contribute and If I act better towards her and turn towards her, that will help improve the relationship.  I see lots of literature out there that say when an abusive situation is known, couples counseling won't work, you need to treat people individually before you can go back to couples counseling.  It's not that the person being abused has nothing that they can't do to help the situation, but you can't really turn towards the person if you fear attack.  That didn't seem to be this guys approach.

I was finally fed up with this guy when we had a one on one session and he was telling me a story about some previous clients.  He said he was counseling a couple where the wife would hit her husband at night and give him bruises.  This husband still wanted the relationship to work.  So that was his job was to try and help the relationship.  He did try to tell the wife not to hit her husband, but while they were seeing him, he was focused on the relationship.  Eventually the wife filed a restraining order against her husband because she felt distressed because of an alarm on his watch or something and they got divorced.  I still don't remember why he told me this story or what the point of it was.  My take away was, "you knew that she was abusing this man and rather than focus on the abuse, you kept trying to work on the relationship?"  That sounds like trying to cure the headache, but not remove the brain tumor. 

I know my wife was all for this approach because it validated her.  She acted as if her berating and entrapment, while she shouldn't do it, had some justification because if I was better, it would be easier to stop.  Whenever she would do something like that, she could always say, "I'm trying but it's hard to stop doing that when I you're never completely honest with me.  You're abusive too!" I often would not tell her things for fear of another berating attack.

I know this story is not uncommon in abusive situations.  I guess what I'm posting is how often does this happen?  I struggle with why does this happen?  People come to counselors when they are the most vulnerable and in some dire need and they have such great potential to cause real harm.  I remember in another session he was trying to empathize with me about being hurt by his wife. They were arguing and she used the F word with him.  He was really taken back and she never apologized for it.  It was maybe 8 years ago, but he can still distinctly remember it.  He was giving me this example to show me how sometimes we have to just forgive and move on when we are offended and we might not get the apology we want, which I get.  I'm sitting her thinking, "Dude, 8 hours ago she didn't just use the F word she called me a name with the F word.  Did you get slapped in the face or get trapped in a room and berated for two hours?"

I mean we can't all be good at everything.  My son really respects him after he helped him with his anxiety.  He lists his specialty as anxiety and ADHD treatment.  That's why we first went to him.  It just seems that he does not have the proper experience or outlook to handle situations where abuse exists.  He might be fine for normal marriages that a struggling, but from the story he told me and the experience I have, he should not have been seeing us.  In this case he should have referred us to someone else.  Of course when I talked about going somewhere else, my wife was against it because she like a counselor that seemed to help her feel like her improvement is dependent upon me not upsetting her.

I guess I feel cheated.  I never wanted to give up on my marriage.  I always felt that it could be fixed.  My wife wasn't always like this.  If she has BPD, it was under control for a long time, and something triggered it and made it worse in the past two years. Or it's not BPD and it's something else that us undiagnosed and not being taken care of. Someone had the power to help, but they did more harm.  Rather than work on the cause of this behavior it was assigned to me.

I suppose I'm posting this looking for validation or maybe someone else reading this experiencing the same thing might feel some validation.  It's infuriating to need help and everyone doesn't believe you or minimizes it because they don't believe it exists. 

[tamismom]

All I can say is that I can see and understand your frustration. If she is the one wanting to go back to therapy, can you make it a condition that you see someone who has some sort of specialization with BPD? Are you willing to explore more counselling at all? I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to be willing to do whatever necessary, but be sidelined by a professional that obviously doesn't have the skills to help. Justifying her actions in any way can't be helpful to either of you.

[I Am Redeemed]

I'm so sorry, Wilkinson. I imagine it would feel incredibly frustrating and invalidating to disclose such vulnerable information to a mental health professional and not receive the support you were looking for. There are reasons that MH professionals pick specialized areas. It sounds like the psychologist you saw was not equipped to recognize or treat the specific issues in your relationship.

I imagine it would be especially hard to disclose abuse as a male, because I think that some people (mental health professionals included) might not recognize a female abuser in the same way as they would a male abuser. That's very unfortunate, and I think it is likely that many men go without reporting or finding support for abuse because of this.

I can tell you, from my experience working closely with DV resources, that DV services do not recommend couple's counseling when there is abuse in the relationship. The reason for that is that the abuser may take what is disclosed in counseling and use it to further abuse the victim outside of the presence of the counselor.

There are a couple of books that I found helpful when I first separated from my husband and was unsure if I should give him the chance to work on the relationship. One was "Should I Stay or Should I Go? by Lundy Bancroft. It is written with the assumption that the female is the one being controlled in the relationship, but if you can reverse the pronouns, the principle and concepts hold true for men as well as women.

Are you still seeing your own individual counselor?

[Wilkinson]

I am seeing my own counselor who recommended that I take a break from counseling to do DV education and come back. 

I told my wife that I don't like our current counselor and I'd rather see someone else.  I know that in abuse situations couples counseling is not recommended. When I first disclosed the information to him, that's what I envisioned was that he would split us up for counseling. 

I have tried doing some searches for BPD counseling, but have not had good results. Part of what I struggle with, is she has not bee diagnosed.  I could be wrong about BPD.  I don't want to suggest she has it because that could turn out bad.  My mother, years ago, made her own BPD diagnosis on her and that did not go well at all.  So, IF it is BPD, I don't know how to covertly get her to a diagnosis.  Especially when she feels that her behavior is being validated by everyone else.

I'll definitely read the book by Lundy Bancroft.

[I Am Redeemed]

I think DV education would be beneficial to you. BPD or not, the behaviors are an issue in the relationship, and getting support from someone who is trained to recognize and advise people in abusive situations would probably be a good idea to better equip you to handle this.

[Starfire]

BPD is incredibly difficult to treat, and there are many therapists who refuse to see BPD clients at all.  

The therapeutic relationship is challenging.  For any condition or situation, finding a connection between client and therapist is important.  I tried 4 different counselors before I found one that I thought was a good fit.

Take the nature of a therapeutic relationship and add BPD, it's going to be tough.  It doesn't surprise me at all that you had this experience although the attitude towards the abuse is a little astonishing.

Anyway, I feel ya.

Edited to add:
There was a session with my counselor once when he gave me a really hard truth. It was similar to yours except the abuse was verbal and psychological not physical.  Counselor was focusing on my behavior leading up to and during the abusive episode. I was frustrated by that and called it out.  He asked me if I was under the delusion that I had any control over anyone else's behavior other than my own.  Point being that regardless of the nature or type of other people's behavior, we accept it by staying in it and our only recourse is to modify our own behaviors to cope with or to avoid the stuff we don't like out of the other person.  He said to me that day (paraphrasing) "You have chosen to stay in this relationship knowing what you're dealing with. I will assume from here on out that you fully accept that HIS behavior is steadfast, predictable, and unchangeable.  Therefore, our therapy will be focused on your feelings and your behaviors and your coping mechanisms.  Until such time as you no longer choose to be in the relationship."

[OutOfEgypt]

Whether she is diagnosably BPD or not, I don't know.  I wish I could answer for you.  How long have you been together, and it has only been like this in the past few years?

I've also had enough experience with counselors to know that many do not have experience with this kind of stuff and they totally blow it.  My sister has an ex-husband who is likely NPD, and the counselor they went to was completely manipulated by her ex to the point where my sister was the one under scrutiny.  It was mind blowing to hear about, but I was not surprised.  This person was clearly not trained to recognize or deal with things like that.  My ex wife manipulated counselors, during the few occasions we went, which is why when it came to the point when my ex demanded I send our daughters to counseling with her, I refused.  I would not put my daughters through that, having a dumb@#s counselor get manipulated into overlooking her abuse and treating it like a situation that it wasn't.

On the other hand, I've had a few counselors get it immediately.  There was one in particular that picked out the problem probably 9 years before we actually divorced.  He was dead-on.  He had the insight and experience to recognize it right away, long before I was willing to believe him.  Those patterns pathologically continued and followed the course he described, with chilling accuracy (including the part about her trolling for our teenage son's friends, which she wound up doing).  There was another counselor who recognized what was really going on, as well, while we were still married.  The counselor pointed out things I needed to work on, but she nailed my ex-wife very clearly and challenged her.  To this day, my ex hates this counselor.

[Wilkinson]

How long have you been together, and it has only been like this in the past few years?

We've been married for 17 years with four kids.  I would have said I was happily married for the first 15 1/2 years.  It wasn't until recently that things spiraled out of control.  I asked her to see a doctor because I also wondered if it was something like a brain tumor or hormones or something. 

We did have another counselor for the last half of 2018.  Her last session was when he looked straight at her as she was getting heated and said in an assertive tone, "This criticism is poison for your marriage."  She stopped coming.

[OutOfEgypt]

Wow.  I don't know enough to know if it can "turn on" that quickly, but like you'd I'd first be thinking hormones, brain tumor, or some kind of emotional crisis point.  I don't mean this in a sexist way (so to any women out there, please take no offense), but I have heard and read that it is common for all of the junk that women have gone through in their early lives can surface later in their mid-to-late 30's.  No idea if there's any validity to that.  Probably happens with men, too.  That's tough.  I'm really sorry that you're going through this.

Sounds like at the very least her heart has become hardened somehow?  Like...unwilling to humbly heed any counsel or look in the mirror.  Sorry, man.

[Wilkinson]

, but I have heard and read that it is common for all of the junk that women have gone through in their early lives can surface later in their mid-to-late 30's. 

I've never heard this, but it is exactly our situation.  She had a rough childhood, a tough relationship with her parents and she's in her late thirties.  This is why I'm so frustrated with our counselor.  I tried to bring up how tough her upbringing was and how this all seemed to start when some other family issue came to light.  Our counselor said, "Right now your relationship is in so much trouble, I don't have the luxury to work on her deep seeded issues like this."

I just can't shake this feeling that this problem could be solved if we found the right counselor, recognition of what's going on, or something. 

Maybe things aren't as different as I think and my eyes are just opened.  My out of state family doesn't have trouble believing me.  They aren't very surprised by all this.

[I Am Redeemed]

Even if you found the right counselor and got recognition of what is actually going on, how receptive do you think your wife would be to working on her deep-seeded issues? Would she even acknowledge that she has them, or would she be more likely to refuse to accept that any of the marital strife is due to her behavior which has a root cause?

That's one of the things discussed in the book I told you about. Even if a person's issues are pinpointed, there must be a commitment to treat the root cause which means looking at one's self honestly. That can be very hard for some people to do, particularly if they experience toxic shame.

[Wilkinson]

That's one of the things discussed in the book I told you about. Even if a person's issues are pinpointed, there must be a commitment to treat the root cause which means looking at one's self honestly.

Thank you.  I just checked out the audio book through my library app. 14 hours.  Looks like there's a lot to learn.

[Sunfl0wer]

Not sure if what I have to add is helpful or not, but gonna try...

So I did do couples counseling with my ex before we split.
I got a clear education on where the counselors boundaries were and will share in case it helps you relate to how your T compares.

So when it came to talking about past abusive behaviors... he would not blame either of us.  In his head, it takes two, and here we are in front of him seeking help so he pretty much reset the clock on everything via the appearance of the two of us before him for our first visit, as far as he was concerned, it was like starting a new relationship.

He seemed to digest any blame of past abuse as irrelevant to our work on today and the future.  However, as the same themes popped up into our dynamics, then we could revisit stuff of the past to a degree that it is relevant and not just one of us trying to “be the right winner.”

So we were in couples counseling over 6 months when things between us did escalate to physical assault.  At the point there was physical violence DURING the time frame that we were seeing this couples counselor, THEN he divided our sessions and declared this no longer “couples therapy” due to need to separate us and work individually with us to remove the violence as a primary task.  

After he felt the violence was understood and off the table for the future, then he would work on reunification for a “new relationship” that does not allow violence.

Honestly, I was furious because I felt I was under extreme emotional abuse/distress before things got physical and I really wished the T woulda drew his line way before things escalated.  I wish he had made the emotional abuse tactics the deal breaker to the couples counseling and held the relationship accountable for a higher level of functioning to quit the emotional abuse months earlier.  Yet, he did not, and I suppose looking back I wish I did.  I can also see why the emotional stuff is a less tangible thing for him to address with all the he said/she said stuff that is too hard to sort out.  When it got physical though it was pretty easy to sort out in comparison.

She had a rough childhood, a tough relationship with her parents and she's in her late thirties.  This is why I'm so frustrated with our counselor.  I tried to bring up how tough her upbringing was and how this all seemed to start when some other family issue came to light.  Our counselor said, "Right now your relationship is in so much trouble, I don't have the luxury to work on her deep seeded issues like this."

I cannot imagine that a couples counselor would focus for a extended time during a couples session digging into unresolved childhood issues of the other partner.  The way I see it is that then the counselor would be colluding with making the one part of the couple the “identified patient.”  If a couple is presenting for help together, it makes sense that the goals are to stabilize and promote the functioning of the couple, not the individual.  

Bluntly: individual therapy for revisiting childhood trauma is likely better delt with when the person seeking help is the person requesting help for themself.  

How can a couples therapist work fairly with a couple when one partner wants to talk about the others baggage vs talk about how they can help?  Or what their responsibility is?  We can only work on ourselves.  If your partner is “the weaker” partner then wouldn’t it make more sense to approach the therapist with an attitude of “what can I do to make this better to lead this relationship towards the good values we both are made of?” Vs... “she is broken, fix her so she is a better partner for me”

Personally... I have a lot of childhood trauma unresolved and I am sure I could have been in a stable helpful dynamic between my partner and I...  first.  That is what our couples counselor seemed to be heading us towards.  He expressed that relationships can be healing or harmful and he wanted to help us turn ours around to healing.  

I am sure there is more than one way to try to address interpersonal and individual struggles, yet... I’m just offering maybe a different perspective in case other angles may help.

Anyways...
Again, personally I AM now in therapy with a trauma informed therapist who has really helped me tremendously. (I do not have BPD but am sure the trauma from my own past led me to feel like the relationship I had with my ex was “comfortable” enough not to easily walk away). Anyways... my current T teaches other T’s in trauma helpful methods and gaining initial stability to work on the past issues can take weeks, months, years and is an ongoing phase of the course of treatment.  Being able to maintain and recover a level of my own personal stability/desired baseline of functioning is required for me to be delving into my trauma past.

Not everyone can learn to modulate emotionally and maintain themself stable enough to do the work of past trauma.

So then that leave the person to sit with...
Why am I here?

[MeandThee29]

Mine, I believe, had multiplied trauma that was barely touched. His family doesn't believe in therapy and denies the diagnosis of his last therapist. She tried, but she couldn't convince him of the things he needed to address, and he quit. He left a few months later, full of blame. His family's stand is that it was a marital problem, not a mental health problem. I gave up trying to convince them.

I went to therapy off-and-on for years for my childhood and then trying to "stay well," but I really wasn't able to dig very deep until I began seeing someone for dealing with the post-separation issues. In many ways, I feel more like myself than I have for decades. I have good friendships and richer relationships with my side of the family than I've ever had. I have zero interest in pursuing another intimate relationship at my age, and that's fine.

Anyway, it goes to say that getting help for yourself pays off. 

[Sunfl0wer]

Eventually the wife filed a restraining order against her husband because she felt distressed because of an alarm on his watch or something and they got divorced.  I still don't remember why he told me this story or what the point of it was.

. What if his point is: In the end...  if you are choosing staying in a high conflict relationship then with that choice comes risk of not just bodily harm, or emotional harm, but also jail and the possibility of false accusations.

What if he WAS in fact saying useful things to you.
How would that shift your understanding?
Or would it.

[Wilkinson]

What if he WAS in fact saying useful things to you.
How would that shift your understanding?

No you're totally right.  I'm not sure that's what he meant to do, but you're right.  Man I don't want a divorce.  I mean, I can't live like that any more.  It still pings a little bit of guilt that after all this, she keeps saying, "What are YOU going to do to restore our marriage?", but I can't be the only one to do that.  I can't burden the blame of the demise because I finally said enough is enough.  Things were only getting worse and counseling wasn't helping.  Jeez.  This sucks. 

[MeandThee29]

Believe me, I don't want this either. But when I starting writing it all out including the threats, the empty promises, the comparisons, the gaslighting, the discard cycle, refusing outside accountability, rewriting the story of our relationship to make me at fault, oversharing with his family, being jealous of my relationship with the kids, things that our kids have told me since, etc. etc., I saw how bad the picture had been.

He asked for reconciliation multiple times because he said he was better. No accountability, no counselling, and no chance for me to see if he really has changed and time to rebuild trust. Part of me wanted to believe, but thankfully I knew enough by then to be a skeptic. So the divorce process is horrid but is moving along.

[Wilkinson]

MeandTher29.

I really struggle. Monday she filed for divorce. Wednesday she withdrew it. I filed on Friday. She said she withdrew because she wanted reconciliation, but again all she did is accuse me of not doing my part for the relationship. Today she keeps acting remorseful. The abuse has been very bad in the past. I just can’t believe that she’ll change like that. We’ve already been to two counselors, a marriage weekend. I don’t want to raise my kids in a divorced life. I’ve always held the belief that love is a choice and I’m marriage you have to choose to live even when you don’t want to. But I can’t be the only one who does it. Making the decision to divorce hurts more than anything. I guess I started the tread because I was angry. I want to blame someone and be angry at someone that they couldn’t help. I guess that’s not fair. I don’t want to be angry at my wife for choosing to treat me like this. I want so bad to trust her when she says she loves me and really wants to commit, but as you said, I’ve heard that all before.

[OutOfEgypt]

I don't want to minimize or cast doubt on anything you're going through.  Aside from the whole thing I mentioned about many woman (and probably men) sort of "crashing" from all their childhood stuff once they reach their mid-thirties, could some of it also be bitterness?  I had a woman counselor explain to me that women are like a bath-tub... they slowly fill up with so much stuff over often many years, but once they reach the brim it just starts spilling over and pouring out everywhere.  I don't know your wife at all, but based on how you explained that the marriage was more or less just fine and happy for many years, perhaps she's just past the brim, now, and is bitter/resentful?  Bitterness and longstanding resentment can explain a lot of behaviors such as refusal to take responsibility and a desire to blame.  Idk.  Just an idea.  I don't want to make this harder or more confusing for you.

Also... is legal separation an option?  Or taking time apart?

[Starfire]

On the subject of BPD-like behaviors showing up after years, that's how it went with my mother.  In hindsight, my dad was able to pick it out when he knew what to look for, but my mom apparently was able to remain high functioning and keep things (mostly) together for many years. At least from his perspective.  He was blindsided by a woman he didn't seem to know although she was all too familiar to her daughters and other observant people outside our family.

My dad was partly blinded by his love for her and commitment to their marriage, but also he's the rose-colored glasses kind of guy.  In addition, she was an expert at manipulating him, and he simply wasn't the recipient of her abuse most of the time.  

Anyway, there were definitely some events that flipped a switch in my mom's life that led to escalation of her BPD-like behaviors.  She actually did have a brain tumor that required invasive surgery and a long recovery. All her children left the nest (including a grandchild she had claimed as her own).  She achieved a modicum of financial independence which was something she had never had, and I honestly think this overwhelmed her. She lost contact with some key people in her life. There were some other things that happened over a couple of years, but suffice it to say that she had built this martyr identity for herself and suddenly all the things that had made her a victim were gone.

Then was when my dad started being on the receiving end of her dysregulation.

I don't know if this is helpful at all, but thought I'd share that experience as one example of when BPD tendencies seemed to come out of nowhere.  For my dad, at least.

[MeandThee29]

MeandTher29.

I really struggle. Monday she filed for divorce. Wednesday she withdrew it. I filed on Friday. She said she withdrew because she wanted reconciliation, but again all she did is accuse me of not doing my part for the relationship. Today she keeps acting remorseful. The abuse has been very bad in the past. I just can’t believe that she’ll change like that. We’ve already been to two counselors, a marriage weekend. I don’t want to raise my kids in a divorced life. I’ve always held the belief that love is a choice and I’m marriage you have to choose to live even when you don’t want to. But I can’t be the only one who does it. Making the decision to divorce hurts more than anything. I guess I started the tread because I was angry. I want to blame someone and be angry at someone that they couldn’t help. I guess that’s not fair. I don’t want to be angry at my wife for choosing to treat me like this. I want so bad to trust her when she says she loves me and really wants to commit, but as you said, I’ve heard that all before.

Anger is good when it makes you think as long as you are not driven by it. It doesn't sound like you lash out irrationally when you are angry but try to be deliberate.

It's one thing to be married to someone who is quirky in some ways or picky about certain things. It's another when there is an ongoing pattern of destruction. In that case, no way would a marriage weekend or marriage counsellor help. The person with significantly disordered thinking has to address that issue if there is to be any hope for the marriage. Of course this is all on a spectrum. They may be early signs of BPD/NPD that can be worked with, and then it may be such a spiral downward that you have to separate.

I've posted this before from Margalis Fjelstad:

Why doesn't their behavior make sense?

They will scream at you to convince you to love them, or blame you and then expect you to understand their feelings, or push you away only to beg you to come back. These are all due to the poor brain connections between their feelings, thinking and ultimate behavior. They confabulate reasons for why they act this way--often blaming you--but it's their disordered brain functioning and confused reasoning that are the real reasons.

Why do I think I'm the wrong or crazy one?

The BP/NP has hundreds of reasons for their negative behaviors--most of which involve blaming you for saying or doing something they don't like. AND, as a caretaker, you're very vulnerable to thinking you cause other peoples' feelings and behaviors. You don't cause the BP/NP to think, feel, or behave in any particular way. They act as they do because of their dysfunctional brain, their unwillingness to take responsibility for what they say and do, and because they frequently get what they want by acting out and blaming you.

[Wilkinson]

I’ve started listening to should I stay or should I go by Lundy bancroft.

I guess in the end I’m scared to go through a divorce. Things have been so bad for so long I don’t know what it would take to convince me that things could be better. She’s managed to control the narrative in our community so I’ll end up being a pariah. Which I guess is fine, I just have to accept it and if I want friends I need to find a new circle. My town is big enough this is possible. Right now I’m living in an apartment. I’m fine with being separated for however long it takes just as long as I have shared custody.

Maybe it’s not BPD or maybe a little in combination with other things. I just can’t take anymore and the toxicity is affecting my kids. I’d rather be alone than live like this.