"...and you think you're just perfect..."

[comma8comma1]

Hi

My wife was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2005. I supported her for 10 grueling years while trying to raise a growing family. Alcohol abuse. Infidelity. Endless lies. She hit rock bottom in 2015, ended up in a psychiatric clinic and was finally diagnosed as having co-morbid BPD (with some NPD also) . I thought this was the end and prepared to raise our 3 kids on my own. Incredibly she recovered herself and for the following 3 years, she was amazing. She owned her mistakes and responded well to treatment.

Lately it feels as though she has relapsed somewhat. Not in terms of the former excesses of her behaviour but certainly in patterns of behaviour. She fails to recognise this and I'm terrified for what her her mood swings and insecurity is doing to our kids. When I raise concerns she inevitably reverts to furious and irrational accusations. The most common refrain usually ends up along the lines of "I'm horrible and worthless and you can never be wrong, you are perfect, you think you're a god!" "ask anyone, ask your dad, ask my friend, they'll all tell you the same!" I've heard this for years and the most frustrating part is that it often doesn't form part of a logical discussion. It's more intended to shut me down.

Is this common with BPD?

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[Harri]

Hi and welcome.  I am sorry for the struggles you are going through but happy you found us. 

I can't say if a 'relapse' is common but the behavior your described here is.   Has anything happened or changed recently that you can link to her reverting back to some old behaviors?

Can you tell us more about the sort of treatment your wife had?  When you say she 'recovered herself' what did that entail?

Sorry for all the questions.  I am trying to get a better handle on your situation so we can support you better.

[comma8comma1]

Thank you for the welcome - and the questions. I found this group because my wife's therapist suggested to her that it might benefit me to look to an online support forum. At the time of her hospitalization, my wife's double life took me my surprise. I knew she had mental health issues but when the staggering lies and the sheer extent of the betrayal became evident it was utterly devastating - to me, to her family and even to all of her closest friends. I knew she was sick and I knew (or should have known) that she was lying 50% of the time about anything and everything but somehow she had managed to repeatedly convince me otherwise for a decade. In fact, she had made me feel such guilt - as though I was being unreasonable, suspicious, insecure etc. When it turned out that every single thing I was worried about was true? That was seismic.

She no longer drinks and I know she's not engaging in deception. Therefore, in many ways I suppose 'relapse' is perhaps an unfair characterization. I guess by 'relapse' I just mean that she uses the same defenses and tactics I recall from when she was ill. And by ill I mean frantically insecure, angry, lying and manipulating towards me and those close to her (including her psychiatrists). I don't think this was ever 100% intentional but the effects were apocalyptic.

Now she's on a heavy regimen of lithium and some other medication for the bipolar. She has a great psychiatrist as well as weekly therapy sessions. Sadly, her career has stalled and every time she tries to pick it up, with my unconditional support, her insecurities end up derailing her - which was always the case in the past. I think her inability to do the work she loves in a consistent and sustainable way has been the trigger for the lapse back into old patterns. She is simply not content to be "just a mom and a housewife". Her former career was quite glamorous and exciting. She's also always been prone to binge eating and this has resurfaced again. So much of her self esteem is rooted in her appearance and she seems again unable to control her weight - to the point where her eating is amounting to self-sabotage. It seems intentional yet she blames everything but herself.

The latest serous incident was in a session with her psychiatrist and her therapist. I was lamenting the devastation caused by her insecurity - the depression, the aggression etc... and I told her in front of them that her BPD was affecting the kids and that I felt I didn't want to be married to someone who behaves in the way that she does. On the car ride home she screamed at me at the top of her lungs and accused me of always always always having to be "right". This defense, historically, was always her tactic. It served to shut me down when I was saying things that turned out to be entirely accurate.

When I express my sense that she's defending her behaviour in ways identical to before she regained control of her life, she deflects. She says I'm stuck in the past and that I refuse to acknowledge her progress. She uses always/never language. Her recollections of conversations are warped. She berates me in front of the kids. Her mind gets stuck in a loop. My words that day in the psychiatrists office are warped and repeated in a loop. I'm tired of pleading with her. I was so amazed and relieved by her turnaround a few years ago and now I find myself feeling that it was perhaps just the eye of the storm. I'm much stronger and I won't repeat the same mistakes from the past but I really really want the marriage to succeed. When things are good, they are very good. The children deserve that healthy version of her. I want to help her but I'm out of tools.

[Harri]

Hi and thanks for the additional information.  There is a lot there to unpack ins't there?

So your wife sees a psychiatrist and and psychologist for weekly therapy.  That is excellent.  Has she ever gone through DBT therapy?  It is a therapy developed specifically to help people with BPD though it is helpful for others as well.  A lot of the tools we use here are DBT based or have elements of it.  Sorry if you already knew all of that.

What sort of tools have you tried to use when communicating with your wife?  We have several here that can be quite helpful.  Sometimes they can help the pwBPD (person with BPD) not to escalate but I also like to think of the tools as being for our benefit as well. 

Can you tell  us more about what has and has not worked well for you?  What about your kids?  How old are they?

Take care.

[ziasquinn3000]

Sorry to hear you're going through this with the kids too.

This used to be my wife's go to. I typically didn't speak to anything unless I knew I was right or educated on the subject, so she would label me as the god, know it all, always perfect and always right, because, well, I was right . No matter how much I tried to tell her I was on her team and just trying to help it didn't work.

So what did work? I just stopped speaking to the things about trying to help her. I only tell her when she asks me. These pwBPD are adults too. Let them figure out the right and wrong things unless it affects you. If it affects you, simply speak to how you feel, not what they are doing is not the "right" thing. Even if someone was always objectively right and gave you advice or their opinion frequently (frequency tolerance will be different for different people. maybe your wife can only handle a few instances while you are more pragmatic and open to hearing correct opinions), wouldn't it be tiring? Make sure you're honest with yourself if you're being "right" too much. I know that I was and once I stopped I never had those problems and she would come to me asking for advice when she needed to and we would both be happier for it and we could be on the "same team" when trying to figure out what was right. The disordered thinking and realities of pwBPD typically have a kernel of truth to them, you will read about that on these forums.

Try to look at yourself and be accurate about yourself. Being right or accurate isn't working, so what do you think would work for your wife? What has worked in the past?

Regarding the past and what you say "When I express my sense that she's defending her behaviour in ways identical to before she regained control of her life, she deflects. She says I'm stuck in the past and that I refuse to acknowledge her progress." maybe instead of pointing out her bad behaviors, you could frame it as a story of both of your struggles in the past and remember how it was good when she did X or Y and how helpful it was to the relationship. I think this would validate her progress while acknowledging that better behaviors she's already capable of need to come back into your relationship.

[Harri]

Regarding the past and what you say "When I express my sense that she's defending her behaviour in ways identical to before she regained control of her life, she deflects. She says I'm stuck in the past and that I refuse to acknowledge her progress." maybe instead of pointing out her bad behaviors, you could frame it as a story of both of your struggles in the past and remember how it was good when she did X or Y and how helpful it was to the relationship. I think this would validate her progress while acknowledging that better behaviors she's already capable of need to come back into your relationship.

I like this suggestion.  Does that sound like something you can incorporate comma?  pwBPD, and lots of people actually, can be more easily invalidated even when we have the best of intentions.  Invalidation can lead to dysregulation or escalation in a relationship.