Couples Counseling Tips/Success?

[CreedsaMaybe]

Does anyone have any tips/successes for couples counseling?  We have been going for over a year either weekly or every other week.  We've made baby steps worth of progress.  In the last session, our counselor said she thought we were fine "as long as we continued with our individual therapies."  My wife with BPD stopped DBT after a few weeks when she started her master's program.  She sometimes attends her own counseling.  Since the last session, our conflicts are quickly getting worse.  I was shocked the couple's counselor recommended stopping.  Since then, I've been stonewalled for:  making plans to visit a friend for his birthday; expressing surprise when I found out her mother was visiting; asking to have a conversation at a later time because I wasn't able to listen, and refusing to talk further on a topic until after our son was asleep.

I'm looking for a new couples counselor, recognizing that my partner is the one who needs to continue her work.  But, in the meantime I need some sort of structure that will help and is informed about the patterns she has.

So, does anyone know if there's couples counseling informed by BPD?

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

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.

[alterK]

If you look through these boards you will find many threads featuring your problem. The one helpful thing I got from couples counseling was that in an individual breakout session the therapist said, "You know, your W has BPD, don't you?" That lit up a light bulb for me, and I've been working on educating myself ever since. For couples counseling to succeed both partners have to want to work on the relationship, and each has to be willing to accept responsibility for solving problems they're involved with.

A huge part of BPD is fear. For a person with BPD to accept responsibility for being part of a problem is terrifying, because for them it carries the implication that they are entirely bad, failed, hopeless. Thus they typically spend their time in couples counseling defending themselves, almost always by casting blame on their partner.

Maybe there are exceptions, but if you want your marriage to improve your best hope is to work on yourself. The mantra being that you can't control your partner's behavior, but you can control your own. There's a lot to be learned about how to deal with a pwBPD so as to diminish conflict and not provoke harmful behavior. It may seem lonely, but at least it's something that's in your control.

[Cat Familiar]

In agreement with alterK—my experience with couples counseling only provided minimal help in our communication patterns. He no longer tried to “talk over me” so that was helpful, but after a year of therapy, a negligible improvement. What was helpful was returning to that same psychologist a couple of years later for individual counseling and having her tell me that he has a personality disorder.

There’s a lot you can do to change the dynamics of your relationship without her cooperation or involvement. Take a look at the Tools at the top of this page.

[waverider]

A comment I once heard is that couples counselling for BPD is like trying to build a house on quicksand. You can make detailed plans but if the base on which it is built is constantly shifting its all going to fall down.

I have not found any form of counselling or therapy has done the slightest bit of good for my wife, they just become blame shifting vehicles, taking therapist down the rabbit warren of dead ends trying to find the root cause of her problems. It is always a different historical hole. Psychiatrists have been the worst as she is focused on the script pad and it usually just results in a tablet shuffle, which does nothing except reinforce that all her problems can be fixed by shuffling her tablets, which she then goes on to do of her own accord, making things worse and creating more medication obsessions.

I agree having a professional to talk to yourself is useful as they can drag you back to what is normal and acceptable. We often end up being in a state of delusion ourselves. If we are off kilter by being swept along with the  distorted reality we can find ourselves in how can we begin to build anything useful, we need to keep our foundations solid

[formflier]

I'm looking for a new couples counselor, recognizing that my partner is the one who needs to continue her work. 

I spent many years thinking that if (fill in the blank) was just placed in front of the right counselor that "it" would be solved.  Counseling would fail (usually FFw quitting) and then I would spend time...a lot of time analyzing what the counselor did wrong under the guise of figuring out a better counselor..."so the next one would work".

I'm not suggesting there was never a benefit to us of couples counseling.  I am suggesting our relationship would have gotten better sooner (thankfully things have been calm and placid for a while) if I had focused on me and my "reactions" (which I can control)...vice finding the right counselor or "getting my wife to see" that if she would just (fill in the blank)...things would be better.

So...my advice is to put finding a couples counselor much further down on your priority list than it is now.


Best,

FF

[CreedsaMaybe]

Thank you all for the tips and kind wisdom.  I've been through the tools page, I am reading a lot of books on the topic, and nothing is working. 

[alterK]

I don't think anyone is trying to say the situation is hopeless, just that couples counseling is not a good bet. The books can show you better ways to relate to a person with personality problems, especially how to lower conflict, avoid frustration and set boundaries. All of these things take practice and no one can use them perfectly or totally avoid mistakes.

You can't expect your W to change because you or a counselor ask her to. It is possible she may behave differently in response to your learning what the books have to teach.

[PeteWitsend]

I'd set some expectations for what you hope to accomplish if your BPD partner is uncooperative, or refuses to continue with the sessions.

If nothing else, as some have noted above you may at least get a professional opinion that your partner is BPD/disordered, so you can understand what you're dealing with better. 

Be prepared for how you will handle it if your partner sabotages the sessions by screaming/talking over you/arguing with your comments, etc. 

[lmnoprob]

Hi there,

I'm pretty new to this board, and dealing with my own challenging BPD flare up with my partner right now, but my experience was a bit different than some of the other posters on this thread, so I'll share. Couples counseling made a big difference for my relationship with my BPD wife.  It was a really wonderful, committed, skilled couples counselor that helped my partner get a BPD diagnosis, and helped us both navigate what that meant for us. Frankly, I credit her for holding the space that saved our relationship. She was not the first couples counselor we had tried though.
I do agree that both partners have to be willing and committed to doing the work--it was really really hard, but both of us showed up and put a lot into it. Our therapist was a very strong presence and she would actively intervene when things got out of hand in sessions, and give us hard to hear advice (take a break). I've had therapists who are more passive and just there to listen, but this one was clear that we had to do homework, practice new ways of relating, and sometimes make really hard choices like taking major breaks from the relationship in order to work on our own stuff, before we could move forward with relating to each other. We both underwent EMDR, and worked through some really hard stuff. But it was the most successful therapy I've ever had, and I miss that counselor and her support with all my heart (we moved out of state and can no longer access her). Having moved around a few times, I've had experience with quite a few therapists, and I have to say, fit matters a lot. All this is to say that a good couples counselor may be able to help you, if your wife is willing to do it with you, and if you can find a good fit. It is worth a try, in my experience. Good luck!

[FirstSteps]

We are on our third counselor, and I have to agree that fit matters.  We've only had one session but more came out of it than all the others combined.

I'm actually very nervous about getting into any emotional issue, as that has not gone well.  My wife turns the discussion to harmless and surface topics and then there has been angry chaos afterwards.

Honestly, I suggested therapy from advice here on a smooth transition to exiting the relationship.  I'm backing off that for the moment but it's still very much a possibility.

What I'm hoping for is for the therapist to reinforce some structure in our relationship.  For example, I have been clear I cannot dwell on our relationship for hours per day.  I set an artificial  limit of 20-25 minutes per conversation on "us", which seemed harsh to her.  But in the first session, the therapist talked about "fair fighting" and just sketched out a system where we each talk and limit the time.  And she's accepted that for now.

That said, I think the quicksand analogy is also good.  She is in a good place at the moment and is always very sensitive and willing to work and take responsibility.  She's good to the point that I wonder if she actually has BPD (or actually suffers from bipolar or CPTSD) ... until it all goes to hell and I don't wonder anymore.  So I don't have great faith that this will take.