Should I tell my wife’s family she has BPD

[Husband2014]

My wife has BPD and one therapist and a doctor both acknowledged it.  Should I tell her family? They have a good relationship but they have also ignored her enough emotionally to where it caused her trauma.  Wanted to solicit some frameworks and feedback on the +/- of doing that. Thank you

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[babyducks]

family relations are usually a mine field for people on the BPD spectrum.  so a couple of questions.

would you wife consider this a betrayal of her private information to have this shared?

what would be the benefit of telling her family?

[Husband2014]

She would absolutely think it’s a betrayal. One of her biggest tiggers that makes her disregulate is “talking behind my back”

The benefit I think I would gain is they maybe would help her see that she needs to go to therapy and help herself. They are the only people who have a boundary with her where she doesn’t go off the handle like she does with others.

[alterK]

It's very tempting to try intervening in a pwBPD's relationships with other people. You see the pain and frustration and think, if they just had a little more insight--from me--things could be better.

99.9% of the time such an intervention is fruitless, and 99.8% of the time it makes things worse. Both my W and my step-daughter are BPDers. In years past I would see things that disturbed me and try to do something. It never worked and usually provoked anger. I thought I just needed to hone my interpersonal skills in order to be more effective. Finally I understood that they didn't want me involved and I needed to keep my mouth shut.

This isn't just my experience. In the end I realized all you can do is work on your own attitude, try to learn more, and hope that if you can improve your relationship with your partner, other things might eventually get better.

 

[mitten]

My wife has BPD and one therapist and a doctor both acknowledged it. 

So just to confirm, the therapist and doctor told your wife she has BPD?  So she is aware? 

[Husband2014]

No they told me about 2 months ago.  She absolutely thinks nothing is wrong with her. Since we just had a second baby she hasn’t been seeing the therapist face to face but she does plan to tell her which will obviously cause a nuclear reaction.

[Husband2014]

I went to a doctor myself and asked her to come with me.  He sat with both of us but I was his patient and after talking to her for 10 min he asked her to leave and gave me the stop walking on eggshells book. So I have been in learning mode since then.  Obviously I wish I knew a lot of this stuff 4 years ago when things really went south as I used to argue back thinking logic and common sense would prevail.
Obviously did nothing but make things worse.

[babyducks]

The benefit I think I would gain is they maybe would help her see that she needs to go to therapy and help herself.

No they told me about 2 months ago.  She absolutely thinks nothing is wrong with her. Since we just had a second baby she hasn’t been seeing the therapist face to face but she does plan to tell her which will obviously cause a nuclear reaction.

I'm a little confused by the number of she's.    Your wife has taken a break from therapy after the baby and the therapist hasn't yet told her of the diagnosis?   Do I have that correct?

if that is the case I would absolutely say do not tell her family.   not yet.     not before she knows herself.   

[Chosen]

They have a good relationship but they have also ignored her enough emotionally to where it caused her trauma. 

I think you have the answer there yourself.  I know it may be a generalisation, but a lot of times immediate family (esp parents) knows "something is wrong" with the pwBPD, whether or not they have been diagnosed.  But they either did nothing about it, or didn't care/ know enough to help.  No offense but I don't think they'll change simply because you speak to them. 

Take my own example.  I'm sure my uBPDh's parents contribute greatly to how he acts.  But they're scared of him and also won't do anything to help if they themselves are in jeopardy.  Besides, if I tell them that H has a lot of BPD traits, and they somehow let him know, then who would be in trouble?  Me.  And I'm pretty sure his parents (although well-meaning people) would never step up to protect me. 

Nobody would benefit if I tell his family I suspect BPD.  If the pwBPD doesn't believe they need help, no amount of family pressure would cause them to seek help.  If they already know they need help, they don't need family to tell them so.  Sorry it seems a bit pessimistic, but you do have to understand that the first step to "cure" BPD is self-awareness.  Until then, nobody can really help.

[kells76]

Husband2014, an excruciatingly difficult part of recovery from dysfunction is that it isn't a function of information, it's a function of desire.

That is to say --

It's not lack of information that stops people from changing...

It's that they don't want to.

Increasing the amount of information they have isn't necessarily a guarantee that the scales will finally be tipped and they'll see the light.

I was in treatment for an eating disorder back in the olden days I knew at an intellectual level that it wasn't healthy -- it's not like I was confused and thought "hey, having an ED is a healthy move!" Yet there were things I wanted much, much more than giving up the ED. I could've read papers on the detrimental and deadly effects of EDs all day long, yet my attitude was basically "Yeah... But I'm gonna keep doing it". That was it -- it was about what I wanted.

Of course, why did I want that? Because it met a deep psychological need that for a long time was too painful to meet in more functional ways (short story). No amount of information could "convince" me of something that wasn't operating at an intellectual or rational level.

So, the downside is that even if her parents "knew", having more people in her life tell her "hey you might have BPD" isn't necessarily going to push her into self reflective territory.

The upside is that you can make changes in your life, in your way of being, that can model to her what real self reflection and responsibility are like.

It's a hard road, so I get wanting to get more people to "team up" and "intervene". Yet that approach may backfire. It could be more fruitful long term to focus on what changes you can make to walk a healthy path, one where you invite (rather than force or convince) her to accompany you.

Hope these thoughts are helpful, and I'm glad you're still posting here;

kells76

[Husband2014]

Yes, it makes a lot of sense and since I’m really new to all this I’ve been trying to consume as much as I can out of this. Recently I learned the LEAP method and that made her open up to me a lot about her anxiety (in the past that was an automatic “you stress me out”) so we’re taking baby steps.

I have made up my mind that it will do me absolutely no good to tell her family and just continue my path of learning and hope she can catch on.

The other day she did tell me she may want to get on medication to help with her anxiety but I didn’t push much.  Fingers crossed.