Bringing up the subject of BPD with the BPD

[Chief Drizzt]

I’m just curious - has anyone broached the subject of BPD with their BPD spouse?  MY wife isn’t “self-aware” of her condition and I want to see if she would be willing to look into it - but I’m hesitant to bring it up with her.  Has anyone been in this situation and done it?  How did you do it?  How did it go?

Thanks

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[Pook075]

Hi Chief!  I'll let some of the more senior folks here tackle that question in depth, but it generally does not go well if you're the one to introduce it to your spouse.  Let a doctor or counselor do that instead. 

Telling my wife of our doctor's suspicions was the last in-depth conversation we had about us- that was maybe 3-4 months ago?  All she could really say was, "I'm not crazy..." as she cried her eyes out on the phone.  It destroyed all the trust between us, even though she told me to talk things out with our physician several times.  It was the final nail in trying to save our marriage.

Others will have much more direct advice, so I'll bow out for now.  Good luck though, my friend, and please don't bring this to your wife before discussing your options here.  There's so many great people here that will go above and beyond to help you deal with this and better your relationship.

[Chief Drizzt]

Hi Chief!  I'll let some of the more senior folks here tackle that question in depth, but it generally does not go well if you're the one to introduce it to your spouse.  Let a doctor or counselor do that instead. 

Telling my wife of our doctor's suspicions was the last in-depth conversation we had about us- that was maybe 3-4 months ago?  All she could really say was, "I'm not crazy..." as she cried her eyes out on the phone.  It destroyed all the trust between us, even though she told me to talk things out with our physician several times.  It was the final nail in trying to save our marriage.

Others will have much more direct advice, so I'll bow out for now.  Good luck though, my friend, and please don't bring this to your wife before discussing your options here.  There's so many great people here that will go above and beyond to help you deal with this and better your relationship.

okay - I was going to bring up the subject today but I guess I’ll hold off and see what others say.  I just don’t see things getting better until she can actually start working on it with a therapist.  She sees one as well as a psychiatrist but I don’t think they’ve brought the subject up with her yet.

[SaltyDawg]

I’m just curious - has anyone broached the subject of BPD with their BPD spouse?  MY wife isn’t “self-aware” of her condition and I want to see if she would be willing to look into it - but I’m hesitant to bring it up with her.  Has anyone been in this situation and done it?  How did you do it?  How did it go?

Thanks

  All professional sources tell you not to do this.  I did not listen.  My moral compass compelled me to do this.  There will be change, most of the time it does not end well unless the following conditions exist:

1.  Your pwBPD is self aware - mine was partially self-aware of her more severe symptoms/traits - she is still unaware of most.
2.  Your pwBPD is willing to address their issues - mine was only willing to address her issues when she perceived a loss of custody of her children in her mind after talking to a family court judge.  She coerced herself into action.
3.  Your pwBPD has an excellent moral compass and is willing to do the right thing.


The answers to your first two questions from my story can be found at:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=354229.0 it's not pretty.

How did it go... The jury is still out - there is definite change.

Would I do it again, yes I would - it has made life a bit easier, even though it lacks intimacy.

Sept-Nov - stonewalling by my wife.  I enjoyed the peace [no rages], calm before the storm.
All of November - All hell broke loose when my D15 now D16 learned of my love letter in the above link.

December first signs of progress.
January rapid signs of progress - I was also using a unique strategy with a licensed counselor that allowed tremendous insight into the borderline mind.

*Her anger management has seen a 90% improvement. 
*There was one physical violence episode in which she immediately recognized it was wrong and apologized profusely for it.
*No suicide attempts, although she has had ruminations on suicide ideation at least twice.
*Her emotional abuse has seen at least 20-30% improvement, we still have a ways to go.
*Her splitting and other borderline like symptoms [disassociation, maybe a little bit of improvement, no measurable improvement, same with black/white thinking, and other traits]
*She has started an aggressive 'self-care' routine with mixed results.

Well, currently I am being stonewalled by her as she thinks I am cheating on her which was erroneously validated by the couple's T - this triggered her abandonment issues are still as strong as they ever were.  I was using a unique method of therapy with a licensed counselor that the couple's counselor misidentified which I hope to get straightened up on the next session which allowed me unprecedented understanding insight of my wife's borderline mind.

Up until this incident; however, there has been both positive and negative progress as I was establishing 'boundaries with love' on the issues she was self-aware of.

Most of the self-aware issues have been dealt with, low-hanging fruit from a therapy perspective.  Now we are hopefully going to go more in depth on the issues she is not 'self-aware' on.

There has been good improvement, but a lot of improvement is still needed.

My short answer to you is 'Do Not Do It' unless you have done your homework on it - and even then don't do it.

[SinisterComplex]

Probably not in your best interests to broach the topic. It is best to let professionals make a diagnosis. However, one thing I recommend is getting second opinions. Do not trust one professional to be the end all be all and take their word as gospel. Just as in any other field...some mental health professionals are worth their grain of salt and some are next to useless and have no business being involved in the mental health field.

Be careful how you go about this. Tact is the best the course of action.

Cheers and Best Wishes!

-SC-

[kells76]

Hi Chief Drizzt;

As you've read, members have tried various approaches, which are good to discuss. Generally speaking though, telling a pwBPD "I believe you have BPD" is considered to be counterproductive. BPD impacts relationships, and tends to show up the most strongly in the most intimate relationships. As a spouse is the most intimate relationship, it is often most impacted by the BPD type traits and behaviors.

An additional hurdle can be the anosognosia sometimes attached to BPD -- basically, anosognosia is a symptom of a mental health issue, and it shows up as believing that you do not have a mental health issue. As BPD has a shame component, being told "You have BPD" may instead make the hearer double down on: "I don't have BPD (anosognosia plus shame); in fact, you're the one with MH issues (deflection/projection)". Not very effective for moving towards treatment.

All that being said, have you had a chance to check out our article + video on Anosognosia and Getting a "Borderline" into Therapy? Might be really helpful info. Dr. Xavier Amador has written a book called I am Not Sick I Don't Need Help! about that dilemma -- how can we tell a loved one with a MH issue about our suspicions, in the most effective way possible.

Let us know your thoughts;

kells76

[thankful person]

My wife was diagnosed bpd at age 20, following a suicide attempt and struggling with self harm and eating disorders. She underwent dbt group and individual therapy for some months but didn’t complete the course. According to her she learnt about mindfulness and distraction techniques. It did help her to overcome her eating disorder and self harm over the next couple of years. So here’s the thing. I got together with my wife shortly after her diagnosis. She has always displayed extreme bpd behaviour like control, jealousy, paranoia, rage etc. She splits on me for months on end and there’s no way for her to see anything else. And yet she considers herself cured. I now understand why there are so many undiagnosed pwbpd. My wife claims she would no longer fit the DSM criteria. Whilst I beg to differ, a professional would probably disagree with me were they to meet this calm and charming mother of 3 in a happy marriage which is what most people see. My wife has put me through hell. I have managed to improve things so much from what I’ve learnt on here and from the “stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist” book. Whilst I see people that are desperate for their spouse to seek help, and sometimes the pwbpd wants to change and “get better”… at the end of the day bpd is a delusional disorder and any time your wife wants to decide you’re the bad guy then a gentle reminder that she has bpd is only going to anger her further. I agree with others that I think it would only make things worse to discuss it with her.

[Gutt3rSnipe]

I tried to explain that the reason she was treating me the way she was because of “splitting” caused by her bpd. It DID NOT go well. She cursed me out and said her feelings have nothing to do with bpd. She refused to even consider anything I was saying afterwards. She knows she has the disorder, but couldn’t make the correlation between her feelings/behaviors and the illness for some reason. My advice would be to let the mental Heath professionals make the diagnosis. I really wish I would’ve.

[Chief Drizzt]

Greatly appreciate all these replies - the common theme seems to be not to bring it up - so I’m sticking with that right now - though I do try to convey to my wife that there seems to be something off about her that she needs to address in therapy.  She says it’s just severe depression. 

On a positive note her therapist brought me into their session yesterday for about 20 minutes and the BPD really came out then.  The therapist even made a statement to me along the lines of “sounds like you are walking on eggshells.”  That tells me she is aware of the situation without directly bringing it up in front of my wife.  She was probably referencing the book of that title about BPD.  That’s my hope anyway - because if she is aware of it then she can treat her appropriately.

[kells76]

Greatly appreciate all these replies - the common theme seems to be not to bring it up - so I’m sticking with that right now - though I do try to convey to my wife that there seems to be something off about her that she needs to address in therapy.  She says it’s just severe depression. 

On a positive note her therapist brought me into their session yesterday for about 20 minutes and the BPD really came out then.  The therapist even made a statement to me along the lines of “sounds like you are walking on eggshells.”  That tells me she is aware of the situation without directly bringing it up in front of my wife.  She was probably referencing the book of that title about BPD.  That’s my hope anyway - because if she is aware of it then she can treat her appropriately.

That sounds positive to me too.

In a way, the biggest problems we have with pwBPD aren't the specific label or an official diagnosis. It's the behaviors and traits. So, if you can be okay with the T never saying "BPD", yet working with the behaviors and traits and dynamics, that can be a path forward.

Given that the T sounds pretty aware, letting the T take the lead on treatment/intervention may help preserve your marriage, as then you aren't the "bad guy" bringing up shameful/painful topics. The T will probably have a much more structured and boundaried relationship with your W that could be a better venue for touching on hard topics.

Did your W seem okay with you joining the session?

[Chief Drizzt]

Did your W seem okay with you joining the session?

Yeah - she seemed to be okay with it.  I wasn’t in it for the whole time and it wasn’t a pleasant experience for either of us - but all in all she didn’t have a problem with it.  We are supposed to be starting couples therapy together soon but not with this therapist in particular.

[Pook075]

Yeah - she seemed to be okay with it.  I wasn’t in it for the whole time and it wasn’t a pleasant experience for either of us - but all in all she didn’t have a problem with it.  We are supposed to be starting couples therapy together soon but not with this therapist in particular.

All good stuff.  Keep staying positive, keep supporting with boundaries in place, and hopefully couples therapy helps you turn the corner.  Very good news.

[SaltyDawg]

My wife is diagnosed with depression and anxiety, the two most common misdiagnoses for BPD - imagine that?

With regards to communicating with the T's on the BPD, without my wife knowing about it (or your pwBPD), pick the worst symptom/trait of the week that needs to be addressed and bring up the trait without calling it BPD.  I have actually been banned by the couple's T to use BPD or anything related to it, so I use the description of the trait to raise the issue - slower, less efficient; however, it does force you to articulate exactly the trait/symptom that is occuring.

I will avoid directly conveying to my wife as that will be triggering to her; however, I do reserve this conveyance to our couple's therapy.

If she makes an observation on something that might be a symptom, I try to stay focused on that topic in couples' therapy, if my wife detects it, she then changes her narrative immediately.  So, please be careful, if you focus on a topic that is borderline-like.  My wife will also project and transfer her traits on to me, in which I have to spend an inordinate amount of time defending perspective in a couple's session instead of addressing more serious issues.  Borderlines will use distraction tactics to avoid confronting an issue that they are doing.

While in couple's therapy, each week, I would pick a borderline-like trait in her, or a reactive one in me and or the children to talk about in response to her behaviors.  The first couple's T eventually ghosted us as my wife started displaying traits in session and my wife confirmed many traits out of session as being true.  Twilight-Zone stuff.  Learn about the traits, which ones she does, and highlight them in a therapy session, a good T will recognize it and adjust accordingly, a bad one won't.  Keep in mind T's are people too, and if they are not looking for something specific, they can easily miss it.  I find a single topic may require up to 3 hours of sessions to address, it will be a slow and arduous task to enlighten both the T and your pwBPD.

Regarding the 'walking on eggshells' comment, our first couple's counselor made that very same comment on at least half a dozen different sessions - her specialty was DBT; however, when I directly questioned her on BPD she said my wife did not have it.  Eventually this therapist ghosted us after my wife smacked the s**t out of a wall [projected violence] and I started to mention the false allegations of child abuse my wife was making against me, which the therapist called 'weeds'. 

Most T's will not make a diagnosis nor suggest it, as they want to keep them in therapy, as most patients do not have a good moral compass and will 'run' and deny that they are crazy which is counter-productive to therapy.  So, we are left to figure out if the T is any good (about 15% are) or are useless or worse (about 85%) for dealing with PD'd individuals.  Keep looking until you find one that is based in reality and is effective.

According to a peer-reviewed scientific study, in the general [college] population there is about a 5% rate of diagnosable pwBPD in the general population (even though only 25% of the group actually are diagnosed), pair them up in couples; therefore, logically 10% of couples have at least one person with BPD in them.  Yet, most marriage counselors indicate they don't have any.  Mathematically that does not compute.

Unless you want to suffer continued abuse [gaslighting or worse]  by your borderline, you need to do something to stop it and break the cycle.  If I didn't have children, I would leave.  However, that won't happen for another 7 years.

There are ways of getting help for you pwBPD without actually highlighting that you think they have BPD.

[Chercher]

Hi Chief,

I understand your dilemma of wanting to get your wife to be diagnosed without causing a whole other set of problems.

My husband is an undiagnosed BPD, but he became aware after several escalations, that he needed to find a way to stop having such crazy escalations and conflicts, so after he was in a much calmer, wiser state of mind, I was able to get him to read this book with me together called The High Conflict Couple, which never mentions the word “Borderline”, but instead teaches you about conflict cycles and several DBT techniques and skills. So it is a great way for you to read it together after things have calmed down following a conflict, in order to help you both understand how to stop escalating and keep things from getting worse. Hope it helps.

[Unhelpful]

I knew that telling it straightforward will be a huge mistake, like me blaming all of our problems on her mental illness. Over something like one month I shared some memes from bpd reddit, and told her I found discord with people having similar problems (she has no friends to talk to and I still haven't mentioned the bpd). She joined the discord, had good vibes with those people, learned on her own about bpd and did online test which showed really high possibility of bpd. Then we started to learn "together" about it (I've read several books by this point already but kept silent) and at some point she shared her discovery with psychotherapist