Just joined this forum, struggling with my wife's disordered eating today

[justcallme_m]

Hello there. I'm struggling a lot with my relationship with my wife who has BPD and my therapist recommended I seek out a support group, so I did some googling and found this site. I hope this can be a helpful space for me.

You can call me M. I use he/him and they/them pronouns. Both my wife and I are transgender, nonbinary, and queer, and we have an open relationship. She has been diagnosed with BPD for a few years now. Last year, in November, I had a manic episode/psychotic break/some kind of breakdown, I'm still not totally sure how to categorize it, and ended up calling 911 and going to a psychiatric hospital for a few weeks. I am now diagnosed with bipolar and C-PTSD. I spent the time between November and February seriously depressed, until I went to a residential trauma treatment program, where I stayed until April. Now I am temporarily staying with my best friend/secondary partner. In talking with my therapist (whom I've been seeing for years and who has been enormously helpful to me), I've realized that although of course my mental health issues are my own, the problems in my relationship with my wife and especially her BPD contributed seriously to my breakdown. I'm very worried about returning to living with her, which I am currently planning to do in early July. (Technically, I ended up staying with my partner for logistical reasons relating to my and my wife's housing, so it's not like we're undergoing a marital separation, but this time living apart has in many ways been instrumental to me realizing the depth of our problems.)

Today she hasn't been eating. I found out about this by seeing a post of hers on her locked venting twitter account. She talked about it as something she's doing to cope with overwhelming negative emotions. I tried to talk to her about it over text chat (which is mostly how we stay in touch these days) and I really don't know if it was a good idea. She's firmly in a mindset where not eating is the one thing she can control, the one thing that makes her feel good, and she doesn't see changing this behavior as something she can really do. I know I can't convince her or fix her. So I asked her for some space, and said maybe we can talk again tomorrow, when I'm hoping she will be eating. I just don't know how to handle knowing that someone I care about so much is doing something so self-destructive and doesn't even seem to care that she's hurting herself. She said she's sorry that she's disappointing me. Of course she is disappointing me, but I know as long as she just sees her symptoms as problems for me, not problems for her, that she's never really going to change.

I feel really hopeless. I want to save our marriage, and yet I know it's not really something I can do personally. We have to do it together and today I have a hard time believing that she wants to do that.

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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.

[Skip]

Hi and welcome.

Just to put the issue in context for us...

How long has she reduced her food intake? How many calories do you think she is taking in a day? Has she has a significant weight loss recently?

[justcallme_m]

Sorry for the lack of clarity, it's a very sporadic issue. I would estimate that she doesn't eat, or severely restricts her food intake, for 1-2 days every other month. So it's not something that is going to meaningfully affect her weight unless the problem gets worse, but she is denying herself food as a temporary coping strategy from time to time.

[justcallme_m]

She has started eating again after an emergency call with her therapist. She said, on her vent twitter, that she felt able to eat because she felt like she could control her therapist, and that substituted for the sense of control she was getting by not eating. That scared me so much. It feels like she has been controlling me as a way of coping with her feelings at moments of stress for a long time.

I have started working on writing out a letter to her where I tell her that I am not planning on returning to living with her for a while longer, and that I think some of her behavior towards me has been abusive. I am hoping to talk to her about these things tomorrow, after I see my therapist. In some ways it feels a little sudden but I have been trying to work up the courage to talk to her about how broken our relationship is for weeks, if not months. And now that I've realized that I don't want to go back to living with her in July as planned, I feel like I need to tell her very soon. It's eating me inside not to tell her. But I am very scared of how it might go.

[Skip]

That scared me so much. It feels like she has been controlling me as a way of coping with her feelings at moments of stress for a long time.

It's a good observation. There may be some truth to that. But that would suggest to me that it would be better for you to alter your response to her than to call her out on her coping skills which will just bring drama.

For example, if she doesn't want to eat for two days every month, do not react to it. Even if she extends it to four. If you suspect she is doing it to get a reaction from you - don't give her that reaction. You don't need to be angry at her or resentful, just understand the game (a technical term used in transactional analysis) and adjust. Here is a old, but good book on the subject

I have started working on writing out a letter to her where I tell her that I am not planning on returning to living with her for a while longer, and that I think some of her behavior towards me has been abusive.

It's good that you're seeing a therapist.    You may want to talk to the therapist about how to approach her. Saying that she is abusive and the relationship is broken is going to draw a defensive response from anyone. I think you are saying you want a constructive response. That might need to take a different and more positive and sharing type of conversation.

What do you think?