any experience with emotionally focused therapy?

[FirstSteps]

Hi.  As I explained in a recent thread, my marriage is hanging by a thread, mostly because I've finally had enough and no longer am putting up with a range of emotionally abusive patterns.

This has snapped my uBPDw to full attention and now she is all in on getting herself therapy, giving me space, embracing what I want, accepting with a smile that I've started with Codependents Anonymous and so on.  It would be incredibly heart warming if I had any confidence it would last.

However, in the middle of this, she has agreed to work through a DBT marriage book - The High Conflict Couple - that I've previously suggested and she has angrily rejected.  But she also went and bought a book focused on EFT - Emotionally Focused Therapy.  

It seems to have to do with attachment therapy, which I do not want to dive into with her.  But other parts of the book look fine.  I'm not sure I want to do any of this.  But if I do, does anyone have experience with EFT and BPD?  I've searched for it in the site search and nothing seems to come up.

I think she found it because she has self-diagnosed (probably correctly among other undiagnosed issues) herself as having C-PTSD.  

We also do have a marriage counselor but he does not seem to have a technique per se.  He mostly just listens and tells us to forgive each other.  He is at least not taking her side and clearly sees that she is splits and dysregulates.

[kells76]

Hmmm...

Well, I personally haven't had experience with EFT. This line from the Psychology Today website about EFT (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/emotionally-focused-therapy) did stick out to me:

EFT focuses on the present time to makes changes in the here and now.

so that seems "not bad" at least, given how often pwBPD want to relitigate the past.

I'd be concerned that she's only buying a book for you on it, vs engaging with a therapist using EFT approaches. It kind of feels "tit-for-tat" in that she's like "Well if you make me read a book, then I also get to make you read a book". I wouldn't necessarily argue about that with her; instead, one way to handle it could be to bring both the books to the therapist and have some dialogue about that -- "Here is the book I got for W, and then after that here is the book W got for me. Both of these books seem important to the other person. What can we do with the content with you in here?"

Maybe that would help focus your MC's approach?

[zondolit]

I can't answer your question, FirstSteps, but your post made me curious: What about The High Conflict Couple book did your wife not like?

[FirstSteps]

Thanks Kells - I think that's a good approach.  It turns out she had bought this book before.  We had never started it and it ended up in the back of my office bookshelf.  So she's clearly taken with this particular book.

As for the High Conflict book, I just don't think she liked being labeled "high conflict."  I even specifically told her I had read parts myself and it had helped me tremendously.  And she also off and on admits she is high conflict though she'll deny it soon after.

She's now open to it because she googled "DBT and couples" and this is the book that comes up.  So maybe she thought I was trying to sneak in a book that blamed her?  She's now all for it.  We'll see for how long.

[maxsterling]

First, neither will "cure" her.  The fact that is is willing to read any book at all is positive - it tells me she is at least admitting there is a problem, that she is at least part of the problem, and that she is at least part of the solution.  It is better than nothing.

My W was diagnosed BPD in her 20s.  She went thru months of DBT in patient, and years outpatient.  To the P, it was a success because the drug abuse and suicide ideation is under control - W is still alive 25 years later. 

But W no longer talks about BPD - she claims she has cPTSD.  That diagnosis shifts blame onto others/events and "excuses" bad behavior.  I think she was given that new diagnosis not instead of BPD, but to get W more accepting of treatment. 

Couples counseling has been mostly a disaster for me.  W wants someone to say that our issues are 50/50, when clearly they are not.  So if the T suggest to W that a certain change (usually related to abuse) is up to her alone, she becomes enraged and does not want to go back to the T, or in one case the T no longer wanted to work with us.  In other words,  T might say "I can't work with you unless you agree to let him talk and quit screaming."  W will then go on about how she is "triggered" and has PTSD, and T will then say that W needs to work on that with her own T in order for us to make progress as a couple.  I think we have had 4 Ts so far - results all the same.

All 4 Ts have recognized Ws issues without me having to mention them. The only success we had was with one T who recognized Ws issues, recognized that issues as a couple could not resolve unless W addressed her own issues first, and used our sessions to help W with her issues (she had no T of her own at the time).

Kudos to you for recognizing and setting boundaries against abuse.  That has been the biggest game changer for me as of late.  I recognize and call out the abuse and put it upon her to either change her behavior or leave. 

[Couscous]

We also do have a marriage counselor but he does not seem to have a technique per se.  He mostly just listens and tells us to forgive each other.

IMHO this sounds like a waste of time. What could possibly be helpful is family therapy with a family systems trained therapist. EFT could possibly be helpful after you have both worked on healing your childhood attachment trauma. Or, if you could find an EFT therapist who also has experience with childhood trauma that could also be a a good option, or better yer, someone who has had training in Diane Poole Heller’s D.A.R.E. method.

I also encourage you to check out Al-Anon if you qualify. I’ll bet you could find someone in your family tree that was/is an alcoholic.