For 15 years I have been walking on eggshells.

[ophelia759]

I have been married for 17 years. For 15 years I have been walking on eggshells. This past weekend I stumbled across the book by the same name. I read it from start to finish in one sitting. Suddenly, everything makes sense. I mean *EVERYTHING*. I could have been the 'non-BP' in so many of those quotes. And the more I read, the more it all makes sense. The 'aural dyslexia', the rages, the time I told him I was sick and needed to see a doctor and he screamed at me (on a street corner in Vienna) "IF YOU'RE GOING TO LEAVE, JUST DO IT NOW!", why I get yelled at for doing things without the proper expression on my face, why I wasn't allowed to leave the house for five years after our child was born, the deep self-loathing, the hundreds of times he has called my voice mail and screamed into it that he 'hates when he can't reach me,' the accusations that make no sense at all, the rages, rages, rages. I spent so many years on high alert that I developed an auto-immune disorder. On the one hand, I feel like I've suddenly learned how to speak the language of the foreign land I have been living in. On the other hand, I am angrier than ever at spending 15 years of my life in an absolutely hopeless, no-win battle. I don't know what to do next.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[AskingWhy]

Welcome to the forum, Ophelia.  You are not alone in what you have been experiencing, nor your "ah-ha" moment.

I, too, am married to a uBPD H for more than 20 years. 

Your anger is normal and a part of healing.  You have taken years of abuse, and it's okay to be angry.

The behavior of a pwBPD does not add up for the normal non-BPD partner.  The lack of empathy is as aspect of BPD, and the part of BPD that is NPD.

I had an instance like that with my H.  I had a minor medical procedure that required H to do something for someone other than his adult children (with whom he is covertly incested.)  I was still sedated and H was screaming at me about why he had to take time out of his day to help me, and on and on:  why I was such a burden to him, I was an unappreciative b*tch, etc.  I was hurt by his accusations. Without a word, he stopped and parked the car, he got out of the driver's side of the car and left me in the middle of traffic, walking across the street and out of sight!  You can't make this up. In the passenger seat, I could have been rear ended!  I was struggling to get out of the passenger seat and over to the driver's seat to pull the car to kerb when H reappeared around the corner.  He raged at me, called me names, and told me I had better appreciate all he does for me, or he'd abandon me in traffic again.

I also developed a health condition about 10 years ago from all the stress of living with an angry hateful man who put his adult children ahead of me in his mind and heart.  (This is common in NPDs and BPDs who see their children, of any age, as extensions of themselves due to the lack of boundaries.)

For years, I received, on the average, a divorce threat every few weeks.  My H said how much he hated me, and regretted marrying me. 

BPD men are more often than not abusive, physically and emotionally.  It took me years to understand what was happening in the marriage, why I was drawn into the R/S, and that it was nothing that I had done to deserve.

You may wish to read, "Should I Stay or Should I Go?: A Guide to Knowing if Your Relationship Can--and Should--be Saved," by Lundy Bancroft and JAC Patrissi.  It's a very good guide for analyzing your marriage in a non-clinical way (it does not discuss PDs) to see if your partner is capable of changing.  It's a workbook to help open your eyes to your partner.  Bancroft discusses the importance of embracing righteous anger, and is an expert on abusive men.

You can buy this online and as a digital book.

pwBPD are emotionally stunted at the age of infancy.  They are emotionally toddlers.  Then think in black and white, have cognitive distortions, and cannot deal with the gray areas of human communication. 

I am happy your eyes are open to the truth of your marriage.  I felt this way, too, when I began to understand my uBPD H was a sick man. 

[Enabler]

Hey Ophelia759,

Welcome to  bpdfamily  half of me is please to hear from me, half of me is a little sad.

So you ready Walking on Eggshells, strangely I've never read it but I've heard so many good things about it. So, if I had to guess based on my own experience, reading the book was like discovering the Enigma machine, everything starts to make sense. That's going to take some time to sink in and my reckoning is that there's plenty more you can learn and plenty more you can discover here on the boards.

So, you H sounds pretty angry and very impatient. Would you say that fear of abandonment is an issue for your H? Are there any other ways that your H 'acts out' his BPD symptoms? Can I check whether you are safe?

One thing worth highlighting is that I'm sure you probably want to go running to your H with your new found knowledge and enlighten him. I highly recommend you discuss that here before you consider blurting it out maybe in an argument. These things tend to not be received well and often don't go as we might expect.

Please please please stick around and learn a bit more, interact with other members on their posts and immerse yourself in the knowledge and experience of others. It's not only educational but uplifting how many shared experiences we all have. It really doesn't matter where members are globally, where they're male or female, straight of gay... there's soo many similarities.

Bestest

Enabler

[ophelia759]

Thank you for welcoming me. As with Enabler's feelings, part of me is happy to finally have a group that understands what I'm living through, and part of me is angry/sad that I need to have these discussions.

First off, my child and I are safe. Although he has broken more than his share of stuff over the years, we have not been the physical targets of his rage. This has always bewildered me (I've never known a man so angry, but I assumed they always hit if they were that angry) but obviously it is a positive!

I do think the anger stems from a fear of rejection and abandonment. I realize now that I have been circling this diagnosis for years as I've tried to figure out his problem (undiagnosed brain injury? anxiety disorder? post-traumatic stress from childhood trauma?). I've even gone so far to ask him a couple of times if he was sexually abused as a child. His answer was 'not that I remember' (and he didn't rage in response which also surprised me!). His three (very adult) siblings all have relationships that I would categorize as 'unusual' in the spectrum of partner relationships which makes me think something was going on in their childhood home that none of them have shared in the 18 years I've known the family.

In answer to other questions--his main ways of expressing his symptoms, in addition to rage, are over-spending and reckless driving. The over-spending nearly brought us to the brink last year. With the external confirmation of a financial planner (apparently that's what I needed to FINALLY trust my instincts on this one), I took control and told him I was going to see a lawyer to create a post-nuptial agreement (this was new to me, but essentially you draw a line in the sand and each partner becomes responsible for their own debt accumulation without it impacting the other).  He of course saw this as a step before divorce. At any rate, the urgency and my seriousness FINALLY got through. He made a deal with me that so long as he sticks to a budget (a flash-point, trigger for so much f****** rage directed at me over the years every time I mentioned the 'b' (budget) word to him) each month, I will hold off on the post-nup. He has stuck to it for 15 months.

Ironically, this also helped me immeasurably to start beating down 15 years of resentment for him sucking up more than his share of resources from our family and telling me I sucked the joy out of everything by worrying about money, questioning his spending, etc.   I can't tell you what a flash point money is with him. I've realized for years that he buys stuff to fill the void in a bottomless pit inside of him. Ironically, he has said that he actually likes having a spending limit each month (once again--15 years of probably the worst rages of the relationship have been over budgeting/spending/money and now he tells me he likes it?)

I am rambling...I am sorry...just so relieved to be able to share because the shame has kept me hiding this from virtually everyone.   

[Enabler]

Morning Ophelia,

I'm glad to hear that you have not been the target of his physical rages. A word of caution (but not to be alarming, more to heighten awareness) it's not uncommon for a person to move FROM hitting and breaking stuff, to hitting and breaking 'someone'. Does he have any history of hitting others when for example out on the town drinking?

What do you do when he rages? Do you stick around to try and correct his view of the world? Do you tend to have any success with your approach?

It's wonderful news that you have managed to put up boundaries here with regards to money. It is a shame that you didn't manage to push through with the post-nup as that would have meant that was a 'fence' you wouldn't ever need to patrol again... but, he took you seriously and seems to have kept to the budget. It's now a habit/lifestyle for him and he seemingly see's the benefits of it.

It's an interesting reaction to say "not that I can remember" to the suggestion of child abuse, I think I'd be a bit weirded out by that suggestion. What can you piece together about his childhood, even a basic narrative?

I'm super happy you feel welcome and as though you've met other members who have comparable experiences, that's really what these boards are all about. It looks like you've read one of my own posts about over consumption of family resources, I hope you found the conversation useful. We're all looking forward to furthering your exploration and understanding here. Try and get some perspective on your situation, zooming out on life a little. Often we can get too in the thick of things to see in colour.

Enabler

[ophelia759]

Ha! Hadn't realized Enabler, that you were the author of the overconsumption post. It was one of the first that I read because it used the *exact* same terminology that I use to describe my situation.

What do I do when he rages? I tried everything over the years (rationalizing, turning turtle, raging back, comforting). Now I completely ignore. I decided a few years ago that I utterly, completely do not care anymore what he says about me or thinks about me, so I pretty much just shrug and walk away. This was also important, I felt, as our daughter had got to the age where she was asking why I let him yell at me. I needed to be able to tell her, honestly, that he yells because he's anxious about something (I had figured that part out at least), and that I don't care, I don't let it hurt me. This is another form of boundary-making that has provided some reprieve. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to do the same for my daughter. I've told my h on many occasions that if she ends up in a relationship with someone who screams at her all the time, we will have ourselves to blame. That does seem to have caught his attention.

His family history? They moved around a lot, but all within the same city, sometimes in public housing. Father was in and out of the house due to excessive drinking and died before I came on the scene. Siblings are all really, really lovely people but as previously mentioned, none of them have what I would consider a 'typical' relationship history (e.g. one absolutely resolved never ever to be in a relationship and hasn't been and is now late 40's).

Something I don't understand--my marriage has been essentially over for years. We are roommates who co-parent. In my mind, that would totally signal rejection. And if fear of rejection/abandonment is the hallmark of bpd (and I now realize that it certainly triggered a lot of the rages in our early years), then why/how do I trigger him now? Raging has subsided over the years which I've attributed to many factors (e.g. my boundary-creating) but is the relationship status part of it I wonder?

As for violence, he has alienated virtually all of his long-standing friends with his splitting and bpd behaviours that 'going out on the town' is something that is not part of his lifestyle. I have been with him twice when strangers have called the police on him for behaviour I'd generally categorize as 'road rage' incidents. I'd say many of his very, very worst instances of raging at me have been when we have been in a car while he is driving.

Thank you for reading/listening. These thoughts are pouring out of me. Finally.

[ophelia759]

WRT my bpd h's unusual  response to my question about childhood sexual abuse, I just had a strong recollection that I am now reinterpreting in light of all I have learned over the past week...

Early in our marriage (14 years ago), we were travelling, working and living abroad for nearly a year. That's when the raging began and cycled nearly that entire period. In an episode that I now know/realize was a break from reality, he locked himself in a room for several days crying, raging, drinking (he had never turned to drink as an outlet in the 3 years I had known him). He was utterly inconsolable and I had *no* idea what was going on. I honestly thought he was losing his mind.

In the midst of the raging, and me trying to talk to him to figure out what I had done to make him so mad at me, and how I could fix it, he accused my father of molesting me. I remember thinking 'where the F*** did that come from?' as there is no history of abuse whatsoever in my childhood, and in the context of that episode, it would have been akin to him stopping raging suddenly to ask me if I had ever been to Mars.

 When this was all going down, I remember feeling like if I said my father had abused me, then this nightmare situation I was in, would end, and my h would get himself back together. I'm ashamed to admit it, but for a moment, I really considered throwing my poor father under the bus just to make the insanity stop. Thank goodness, I didn't (was able to think through the long-term implications of that bad short-term solution!) and said in no uncertain terms that abuse was absolutely positively not part of my relationship with my father.

Now that I know that situation was a form of psychological break, that he was projecting on me, I am also seriously wondering if the accusation of sexual abuse was also a projection.

[Radcliff]

Let me join in the warm welcome that Enabler has given you.  Take a look at this article, ”Is Your Relationship Breaking Down?”  What stage would you say your relationship is in?

RC

[ophelia759]

I've thought on this for the past day. There is definitely long-standing contempt and definitely stonewalling. It's just not worth it to engage.

[Radcliff]

I've thought on this for the past day. There is definitely long-standing contempt and definitely stonewalling. It's just not worth it to engage.

Can you tell us more about the contempt and stonewalling?

RC

[Red5]

ophelia759 writes… I do think the anger stems from a fear of rejection and abandonment. I realize now that I have been circling this diagnosis for years as I've tried to figure out his problem (undiagnosed brain injury? anxiety disorder? post-traumatic stress from childhood trauma?). I've even gone so far to ask him a couple of times if he was sexually abused as a child. His answer was 'not that I remember' (and he didn't rage in response which also surprised me!). His three (very adult) siblings all have relationships that I would categorize as 'unusual' in the spectrum of partner relationships … which makes me think something was going on in their childhood home that none of them have shared in the 18 years I've known the family.

BINGO!

… its always there, in almost every case, from what I've read, and understand about borderline, as well the others of the cluster "B's"… is that it is most cases from trauma… childhood trauma… everytime!

Welcome and keep posting ophelia759

Red5

P.S.

Enabler, you ride (commute) the train every day don't you?… SWOE (Paul Mason - Randy Kreger) is on YouTube as an audio book… so you could use your iphone and some "buds" and listen to the whole thing while you commute  … its eight hours long, cheers!, Red5
*link~>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QY4JZJonCs

[Enabler]

Dude, thanks, didn't know that. Top work