Wife willing to hear me, finally. Support needed

[Sid_7]

Hi
So, after the last 6 months being a particular difficult period of blame and accusations trying to make me responsible for her feelings, I have held my self very well, been patient - yet during this time my wife has been so upset/angry she has not given me space to share my concerns...apart from when I have taken space/told her what is not acceptable in the heat of the moment.

She has been seeing a therapist - BPD has not come up from her or me, she is seeing one off the back of marriage counselling we stopped after the counsellor started picking up on contradictory language and behaviour from my wife. Since then there she signs of a more respectful communication from her, in line with my more calm demeanour.

A great step is she now is prepared to have a 2 way speaking and listening process and I want to share how these last 6 months have been for me...yet I fear what to say, what not to say, and what may make things worse I.e. I feel calm yet know a lot of anger and hositility has come my way and I'm in fear of not holding it together when we talk.

Any guidelines on how to come back to a centre for this conversation would be great. I have 'eggshells' to revisit again as a support, but would appreciate any real life experience from people on hear on how best to approach the feedback/setting limits stage whilst not getting angry.

Thank you

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[Jabiru]

Hi Sid_7 Two way communication sounds like a great step. Not being invalidating and following something like SET could be helpful in a time like this. Have you read Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist? It helped me to move on from my eggshells phase.

[alterK]

I agree with Jabiru as far as general principles of communication go. Pretty much everyone here has struggled finding ways to talk with a pwBPD, and every relationship is different. Are there any specific problems you are anticipating? Any ways your communication has gone awry in the past that you are hoping to avoid now?

[FirstSteps]

This seems like a great step, though I can absolutely relate to the uncertainty.  My wife is suddenly talking about DBT and seemingly listening to me in a new way and actually reflecting on her impact on the family.  It's incredibly hard for me to tell if I should trust and try or if I'm just falling back into a codependent pattern.  I'm giving it a couple earnest months.

I can really recommend that book though.  I got more clarity from it than all the others put together in terms of just focusing on myself and letting the chips fall as they may.