Don't know what to do

[Kimberly2021]

My husband and I have had a tumultuous relationship for nearly two decades going back to high school.  There is deep love there, yet childhood trauma and tension came together over time to create such a toxic environment that I left him seven months ago from sheer exhaustion over fighting every day, being emotionally abused to which I began reacting in volatile and violent ways, and having my thoughts and feelings consistently invalidated and dismissed.  I'm not a medical professional and my husband has yet to seek regular, consistent therapy, so I am only guessing at a BPD diagnosis for him, though he exhibits the same behavior and mindset.  I am no angel and have my own share of severe faults that fueled his unease in the relationship; his mother consistently lied to him growing up, and I had a habit of lying to avoid any type of confrontation or disappointment, which furthered his distrust and paranoia.  I also enabled him and took blame for things that weren't my burden or facilitated toxic and sometimes destructive habits to keep the peace.  I have been asking him for years to go to therapy with me, even before we were married, and was met with either a confrontation about what was wrong in our relationship (something I didn't have the courage to answer without a mediator) or stated I needed to fix myself first before he would go with me (I was in therapy for over a year during our marriage and have been back in therapy for the last six months); he sees a psychiatrist once every three months for anxiety medication, which he counts as therapy.  On top of this, he was diagnosed with a rare illness three years ago that is fatal if left untreated.  Before his diagnosis, he had fallen ill and lost his job, which made his already abusive behavior worse; then he gets a heartbreaking diagnosis and the gloves officially come off.  He feels as though everything, including his body, is attacking him, and I was the punching bag because I had lied repeatedly in our relationship and was therefore everything he had feared I was and deserved punishment.  He has since apologized for his behavior, but whenever his fear sets back in, it's back to me being "cold blooded" for leaving him when he was sick, regardless of his behavior.  He blames the way he treated me on his illness, but it went back long before that, which I have explained to him time and again and he refuses to take to heart.  I understand he doesn't like to think of himself as a flawed person, though we all are.  He's a wonderful person who refuses to seek the tools to control his anger and fear so that he can have healthy relationships with others and with himself.  He goes on about how he's gotten sicker since I've left, but he wasn't doing better when I was in the house trying to get him to take care of his mind and body and follow the guidelines of his doctors, which he stubbornly refused to do.  He still doesn't take care of himself (in fact, smokes cigarettes, which his doctor explicitly said would drastically make his condition worse if he kept it up), and yet sends me message after message of how he's getting sicker and I had no legal right to abandon him.  Mind you, I have also been paying the bills in the apartment we shared that he still lives in, have been living with my parents to be able to do so, and have kept his health insurance in place.  I care about his life and happiness.  I just cannot be both his anger outlet and his only pleasure any more.  I am tired and my cup is empty, something I had been expressing to both him and his family members for years before I left.  Now everyone is blaming me and has blocked me from their lives.  My husband says he still wants our marriage to work and expects me to move back to our old place with him, but I still see the same behavior that drove me away.  There are some improvements, but they last a short while before something triggers him and we're back to the verbal (or written) onslaught, where I'm the hard-hearted villain.  This used to be a constant source of stress, not knowing what would trigger him.  I stopped speaking to him at one point, but that would make him angry too.  I want to be able to handle our relationship with empathy and care without compromising my dignity.  I don't want to divorce him, but I refuse to go back to a toxic dynamic.  Please help.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Gemsforeyes]

Hi Kimberly-

Welcome to our community.  I’m very sorry for what you’ve experienced over the years, but glad you’ve found this forum.  I’m also deeply sorry for your husband’s difficulties, both emotionally and physically.  I sincerely hope he will see that it’s HIS, not YOUR responsibility to do what’s needed to look after his own physical AND emotional health. 

However if he’s deeply disordered, there’s sadly a huge likelihood he won’t or doesn’t see where he bears any responsibility for anything... We can raise hope tho’.  We CAN do that.  So let’s do that.

Of course as partners we serve as *supporters* to those we love; but with disordered partners it seems (IF we allow/enable) they blame us for the very air they breathe, how the wind blows... you get the picture.  And I’m getting that you feel that way.

I honor you for seeing that you needed to leave 7 months ago.  That you needed the safety of space.  That was NOT selfish.  That was *mindful*.  Use caution and don’t return before you’re ready.   Self-care for you is going to be vital if you want to preserve your marriage, but more IMPORTANTLY your OWN emotional and physical wellbeing and balance.  Again, NOT selfish.  I haven’t always known this.

A saying l LOVE... “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep another person warm.” 

These are hard hard days.  Keep your support around you.  And in these moments, sorry to say, you’re going to have to just swallow whatever his family wants to think they know.  They don’t.

You and your H essentially grew up together, having been together since high school.  But the groundwork for the emotional damage of his suspected BPD was dug for him long before you met.  Please know that.  You didn’t create it and you cannot “cure” it or fix him.

What you CAN do, and my friend what you seemingly already HAVE done is to own up to how you’ve had to compromise your OWN behaviors to match what you *thought* would “manage” him.  Sometimes what we think will help, hurts.  And we often have to address behaviors of our own that we’ve not proud of... you’re facing those.  We’ve got to learn to respond rather than react...

So for starters, this is about YOU.  Please go to the TOOLS, WORKSHOPS SECTION... scroll to JADE... Learning NOT to JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain) is extremely helpful when engaging with pwBPD (people with bpd).  And ALL people for that matter.

Nothing changes until something changes.  When YOU begin to engage differently, he will likely respond differently.

Kimberly, this is a tiny step.  Please take your time.  Dip your toes into other tools.   Breathe.

You can tell him the truth.., that you’re working on skills to communicate more effectively so that the two of you can hopefully meet and discuss ways to walk TOWARD one another.

Please stay with us.  Your thoughts?

Warmly,
Gemsforeyes

 

[Kimberly2021]

Gemsforeyes, thank you so much for your advice and insight.  I came across this website, as I've seen many people have, from "Walking on Eggshells" which was recommended to me by my therapist.

It feels as though anything I do is wrong, but I'm determined to keep trying.  Using "I" statements when talking to my BPDH instead of "you," so he doesn't feel attacked.  Through research and reading these forums, I have a much better idea what to expect when interacting with him and that makes things easier to deal with.  Easier, not easy.  There are still times I feel I need to block his number to retain my sanity, otherwise anxiety peaks every time I get a new notification or call (he has sent me over 70 texts back-to-back at a time).  He has never hit me, though I escalated my reactions during arguments or when he was threatening to kill himself in front of me holding a gun by slapping or punching him.  Those aren't my proudest moments, and he reminds me of them often.  He keeps asking me why I left, and when I give him my reasons, he brings up that I physically abused him and all he did was argue with me and call me names.  I don't like that I became violent, but I know that I am not a normally violent person and it takes a long time to get me to the point where I am triggered into being so.  This is another reason I left.

I had sent him an email yesterday expressing that I understood his anger stemmed from him feeling abandoned and unwanted by me, and that he feels like everything in his life is out of his control.  I also stated that I cared about him and his happiness, but that I would never be able to take his pain away.  He responded that he is and always will be happy.  One sentence.  It's disappointing, but not surprising.  He called me minutes later, but I didn't answer.  I make it a point not to put myself in situations where I know a fight is coming.  I used to either get angry and rage with him or cower in a room/closet and cry while he kept the verbal onslaught going through the door.  There was no safe place in our home.

I just want peace.  I had moved two states away to live with family, so I had the money to keep supporting him.  He claims he can't find a job, but I know he's capable, even with regular surgeries (non-invasive) every 4-6 months to create a livelihood for himself, and he refuses to try for disability.  I feel my continued support only enables him to stay stagnant.  He resented being dependent on me before I left, and now resents me for encouraging him to be independent. 

I plan to move out of my parents' home this coming Summer and will not be able to afford to pay his bills after that, as I'm a teacher.  I've communicated this plan for the last several months, and it's only just now hitting him that I'm serious.  As can be expected, it's caused a new wave of anxiety from him.  He's now trying to convince me to stay where I'm at in order to keep supporting him.  His brother was living with us when I left and has been there ever since, but neither has saved enough money or made any arrangements to be able to live on their own, though his brother has a full-time job and is making the same as I did just a couple of years ago teaching, when I was the sole income for my household.  He keeps threatening to take legal action if I "dump" him.  He's convinced this is all a ploy to divorce him, as we'll have been separated a year by this coming Summer.  I plan to move just two hours away from him in order to give us a chance to see each other if we can be on a course of healing.  I won't live with him again until I'm sure we're on that course together, which I've communicated to him as well. 

I've stopped trying to convince him of my motives and just thank him for sharing his perspective whenever he tells me how wrong/selfish/heartless I am.  I also hang up the phone if he gets heated and don't respond to him if he tries to barrage my phone with texts or calls.  His emails automatically go into a folder whenever they come in, so I only have to engage with them when I want to.  This all keeps anxiety down and makes it easier to deal with.  It's just heartbreaking.  We had a lot of great times, and I still consider him to be my best friend, but no one is worth compromising my dignity for.

I love the quote you shared, "Don't set yourself on fire to keep another person warm."  That's a perfect example of what I'd been doing for years.  I have codependency issues that my therapist has called attention to and I'm working on.  I know now there's a reason I ignored the warning bells for fear of being abandoned and unwanted by my BPDH.  It's the reason I would lie to keep the peace and make sure I was always what he wanted and he was never upset with me.  It's no way to live.

Thank you, also, for directing me to JADE.  I'll read everything I can and do my best to use every tool at my disposal.

[Kimberly2021]

These were extremely long posts, and I apologize for going on.  Everything is still raw.

[grinandbearit]

Hi Kimberly. Please don't apologize for going on. I read every single word of your posts, some twice, and identified with so much of what you have experienced and what you are thinking and feeling in relation to it. I also read Gemsforeyes' thoughtful and supportive response. Like Gems, I'm so glad that you found your way to this community, Kimberly. I will continue to follow your story with interest, as long as you are willing to post about it. Thank you for sharing.

[Kimberly2021]

grinandbearit, thank you for connecting with me.  I hope you don't mind, but I read your posts to others and can identify strongly with your situation as well.  Especially the feeling of your partner being a Jekyll and Hyde personality.  I had often thought that about my pwBPD before ever hearing about personality disorders in general.  I am an extremely optimistic, wishful-thinking type person and even I found myself waiting more and more for the Hyde personality to come out.  I got to the point where I didn't trust anything during the good times anymore, especially anything nice he said to me. 

Being around a person with a personality disorder does change you.  I wasn't a normally anxious person before this relationship.  I didn't often lose my temper or get riled about anything, and I certainly didn't view the world in a negative light.  Now I find I've developed all of these traits and am working hard to change that, though it's a slow process.  We open the deepest parts of ourselves to our partners, especially once we've gotten to the point of cohabitating, and this leaves us vulnerable.  I used to think I had a personality disorder too, especially when my pwBPD accused me of such, but now I recognize it was part of being in his "distortion zone."  Now that I'm out of it, I can see things much more calmly and clearly.  Every day gets better, even if by a tiny margin.  You start gaining confidence in yourself and your reality when you're not constantly influenced by someone's distortion of it.

I'm encourage by your partner's willingness to go to therapy and work on himself in any way.  That's wonderful and I hope he stays in this journey of healing.  He will come out a much stronger person.  Hopefully he recognizes the love and support you obviously give him and that it helps you two come together stronger. 

Thank you for being supportive.  We've all got each others' backs and things will get better.  I will keep following your story as well, my friend.

[Kimberly2021]

Update:

I feel no anxiety whenever my BPDH threatens divorce.  He doesn't like that I'm moving into my own place in June and will no longer be able to afford paying the bills in our old apartment that he lives in.  I gave him a heads-up about this plan 6 months ago, and he behaves as though this news is brand new each time.  I don't read any of this messages anymore and just file them away in case I need them during court proceedings later on.

I've come to a point of realization that I want and deserve better from a partner than what my husband is giving me.  I will always love him and believe in him as a person, because he is a great person with a lot to offer the world.  He isn't making the effort at this time in his life, and I am only enabling him to stay stagnant the longer I take care of his needs.  I have to let him go, and it's a liberating point to be at.  I feel more like myself than I have in many years.  My friends and family have commented on this as well, and it feels good to reconnect with loved ones I had pushed aside for the sake of my relationship with my BPDH. 

There will always be sadness that he didn't take this opportunity to grow--that me leaving him wasn't enough to prompt him to gain control of himself.  That's my ego talking, though.  He didn't reject me.  He rejects himself.  That's the most tragic thing.

Universe, take care of him.  Help him find his inner peace and strength.  I speak this every day and mean it.