My Wife with BPD

[nura]

Hello, I’m new here and finally after every Google search coming back to this platform I’ve decided to give it a try.

I’m writing this as Ive just called out of work because I received 3 hours of sleep  after crying all night. Which I am ashamed to even say. I am extremely depressed, My relationship with my wife has been the wildest rollerecoaster I’ve ever been on.

We met in 2020, and have been together for about three years now. She is attractive, intelligent, funny, well off for her self and we are like two peas in a pod. I fell in love with her instantly.

We moved in together only a few months after meeting, and that’s why everything began.

I began to notice things I said got construed into negative very black and white statements sometimes. I also noticed her anger was above what I had experience before. Leading her to throwing glassware at me and small personal glass items at me. Which cut my leg open and punctured the wall.

Seeing this type of violence I immediately told her we needed therapy. We sought therapy and now we are on our 5th martial therapist ( one because I requested we try things on our own ) the rest because she didn’t like them. Which seemed off to me.

Fast forward to June of 2021. After a day of washing clothes and grabbing drinks at the local bar, she slapped me. Three times. Which completely broke me as a man. I haven’t been the same since. We currently go to martial therapy and within the last month I have learned she’s been diagnosed with BPD.

Which isn’t too shocking being that every therapist we’ve had has spoken to me privately and asked if she did have BPD or ever mentioned it.

I feel stuck. I don’t really know what to do. I love her so much and I have been willing to almost go through anything with her. But what is driving me into a deep, chest hurting, anxiety filled, crying night depression. Is that no matter what I express I have to expect it to be an hour long conversation explaining the legitimacy of why I feel a certain way.

There’s never any accountability
There’s always putting words in my mouth
It makes me extremely anxious to sleep beside her or to have sex and a huge part of me can’t do this anymore.

She doesn’t understand what hitting me did to. She thinks I should be over it, that I shouldn’t feel unsafe next to her in bed and that I should just go, in the same breathe she tells me she loves me and wants to do what she can for me not to feel the way I am.

I’m sorry I’m venting here.. it’s been really hard. My health has been impacted and so has my self esteem. I try to be a self confident gentle man. I pray for my wife every night, I love her and believe in being a husband that listens, validates, romances, embraces, and celebrates my wife in a patient, kind and compassionate way.

But I’m afraid my mental health is completely deteriorating, and this makes me feel crazy reaching out to people I don’t know.

Im trying to accept this, her BPD, and how it has impacted almost every interaction we’ve had, how she’s made me feel and I’m trying to stay strong but my tears say otherwise right now.

Thank you for reading.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[yellowbutterfly]

quick response between meetings

but you are NOT CRAZY, I've been in your situation and know that feeling. Do you have a therapist (T) or a close friend you could talk to today?

The family here will definitely relate and respond

 

[Pook075]

Hey Nura.

First off, I'm very sorry you're going through this.  I have been in your exact position and so has dozens of other members here (probably hundreds of us).  It's never good to get hit and the first few times it happened, I was furious.  Maybe the 7th or 10th time it happened, I slapped my wife back and it was probably the lowest point in my life.  It bothered me for years afterwards, and still makes me sick to my stomach 15 years later.

Read the forums, check out the tips and tools sections, and learn to better deal with your spouse's outbursts.  There is hope.  Perhaps even more importantly though, lean on other members here, get your feelings in writing and just let them go.  It's very healthy, but it's also easy because we are strangers and not a single person here is going to judge you.  

We've all had our personal hell going through this, so just remember you're not alone.

[nura]

Thank you everyone for responding this one was a long one but I will lean on this support

[Outdorenthusiast]

Nura 

I am so glad you joined this group.  You are not alone and you are not crazy.  You have been placed in situation that is insanely hard to understand unless you have lived through it.  We get it.

1) Abuse Is unacceptable. 
2) PTSD and trauma is real. 
3) Love is complicated
4) see #1

You are not weak for reaching out - that is human and you are hurting and it is healthy.  First, If you have a Therapist, you should talk to them.  If not - please get one as they are very healthy and will help guide you on processing all of this madness and making sense of it all and finding a path with what to do with it.  Dealing with a spouse that has BPD is insanely stressful.  Second, learn about BPD and your spouse.  Here is some recommended reading..

1) Loving Someone with a Borderline Personality
2) Stop Walking on Eggshells
3) Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist and get on with life
4) I hate you/ Don’t leave me
Us this website and it’s wonderful people and postings.

Lastly, ensure you don’t go through this alone.  Build a friend and family network where you can laugh, and also use this forum to share what you are struggling with.

You aren’t alone, keep sharing..

[waverider]

A couple of basic things to keep in mind.

You cannot use logic to reason with a pwBPD to come to an agreement that they will stick to going forward. The emotion of the now overrides everything. Trying to use reality to counter them will extremely invalidating and escalate things. You will have your aspirations continuously shattered if you allow yourself to believe otherwise

They do not "get over" conflicts and emotion outbursts. It may seem so while your are hurting/healing and they accuse you of holding a grudge. What happens is they actually just compartmentalize it and store it away. As a result they learn nothing from it nor change their behaviour. The drama can be brought out of storage anytime in the future and reused with the same intensity as it was previously, catching you completely unawares.

In short her behaviour now is likely to be the same going forward in the future, despite endless trips to therapists etc and all the pacts and promises in the world. The only thing that is likely to change is the way you respond and allow it to dominate your life and mental wellbeing. Your "normal" will shift until you find yourself being someone different to who you originally were. It is important you keep grounded, with others as your benchmark, to make sure you dont end up somewhere unhealthy.

All the "tools" you will find here are simply the good oil to keep a relationship moving forward, essential with a damaged individual, but a broken cog is still a broken cog, you cant totally fix it with oil you can only help to make it a little more functional.

In short you have to work on changing YOU, as that is what you can control, you just have to make sure you dont change for the worst. Every emotional hit takes a chip out of you and over time they accumulate and can have serious consequences, so always self monitor how you really are.

[bluebutterflies]

Nura, I relate to you so much. While my husband has never hit me and does take accountability, I am crying so much and in a depressed state often.

Only you can make your decisions and it's not an easy one. I'm in the same boat, got no sleep last night and have been crying all day. We deserve better, but it's not easy. We love our partners so much.

Some things I have been thinking a lot about is attachment, cycle of abuse, charming, many terms that are associated to people with BPD. While I understand these things, I still find it so hard to assign them to my own relationship. Like your wife, my husband is amazing and everything I wanted in a partner. I'm not ready to accept that it may not work out. My friend did tell me that if we're soulmates, we'll make our way back to each other.

Your wife will need to want to change in order for your relationship to work. For me, I am moving out of the apartment and going to a women's shelter. If my husband's behavior doesn't de-escalate and if he doesn't get a diagnosis etc etc then I am leaving the relationship. So it's up to you to decide what you want to do. Just remember that you don't deserve this and you shouldn't tolerate it. Over time it will be easy for you to start accepting more and more bad behavior out of fear (FOG). Don't let yourself do that.

Here if you need anything, DM if needed <3 hang in there, you're not alone.

[fisher101]

Hello, I’m new here and finally after every Google search coming back to this platform I’ve decided to give it a try.

I’m writing this as Ive just called out of work because I received 3 hours of sleep  after crying all night. Which I am ashamed to even say. I am extremely depressed, My relationship with my wife has been the wildest rollerecoaster I’ve ever been on.

We met in 2020, and have been together for about three years now. She is attractive, intelligent, funny, well off for her self and we are like two peas in a pod. I fell in love with her instantly.

We moved in together only a few months after meeting, and that’s why everything began.

I began to notice things I said got construed into negative very black and white statements sometimes. I also noticed her anger was above what I had experience before. Leading her to throwing glassware at me and small personal glass items at me. Which cut my leg open and punctured the wall.

Seeing this type of violence I immediately told her we needed therapy. We sought therapy and now we are on our 5th martial therapist ( one because I requested we try things on our own ) the rest because she didn’t like them. Which seemed off to me.

Fast forward to June of 2021. After a day of washing clothes and grabbing drinks at the local bar, she slapped me. Three times. Which completely broke me as a man. I haven’t been the same since. We currently go to martial therapy and within the last month I have learned she’s been diagnosed with BPD.

Which isn’t too shocking being that every therapist we’ve had has spoken to me privately and asked if she did have BPD or ever mentioned it.

I feel stuck. I don’t really know what to do. I love her so much and I have been willing to almost go through anything with her. But what is driving me into a deep, chest hurting, anxiety filled, crying night depression. Is that no matter what I express I have to expect it to be an hour long conversation explaining the legitimacy of why I feel a certain way.

There’s never any accountability
There’s always putting words in my mouth
It makes me extremely anxious to sleep beside her or to have sex and a huge part of me can’t do this anymore.

She doesn’t understand what hitting me did to. She thinks I should be over it, that I shouldn’t feel unsafe next to her in bed and that I should just go, in the same breathe she tells me she loves me and wants to do what she can for me not to feel the way I am.

I’m sorry I’m venting here.. it’s been really hard. My health has been impacted and so has my self esteem. I try to be a self confident gentle man. I pray for my wife every night, I love her and believe in being a husband that listens, validates, romances, embraces, and celebrates my wife in a patient, kind and compassionate way.

But I’m afraid my mental health is completely deteriorating, and this makes me feel crazy reaching out to people I don’t know.

Im trying to accept this, her BPD, and how it has impacted almost every interaction we’ve had, how she’s made me feel and I’m trying to stay strong but my tears say otherwise right now.

Thank you for reading.

I'm going to tell you something that nobody else will...

Staying with your wife means you will have to accept that she is not a "good" person. Now you have to figure out how to handle it.