Hello

[86steelers50]

Hello! This is my first post here and I would like to just introduce myself. My wife of 11 years has BPD. She did not start exhibiting extreme BPD traits until about 2020 when she began dealing with a chronic migraine and the constant pain has deteriorated her mental health. We live together with our 5 cats and 2 dogs. I have been searching for a support group to go to to help me but cannot find one in this area that deals with BPD family members. I am glad to have found this message board, although nervous as I have never been on one before. Nice to meet you all and I look forward to meeting you! Stay safe.

[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.

[PearlsBefore]

 

Welcome to the website, sorry you're here of course - sounds like it must be quite a struggle. It's unusual to think of BPD in an adult not surfacing for 9 years to someone with whom they're living. I mean we accept you here whatever her ultimate diagnosis (or lack of diagnosis) suggests, but my first instinct would be to not attach too closely to the specific term BPD until other possibilities have been ruled out. That said, "BPD Symptoms" appear in other mental health maladies - and who better to help you navigate managing those symptoms than a community used to dealing with them?

For what it's worth, the website is great and all - but honestly the first time I went to the "Family Connections" course for caretakers of BPD...it was unbelievable. I'd never gathered in a church basement with stale coffee and strangers before for a "support group", but half of each session was going over the CBT/DBT skills (I'm not the biggest fan having seen their failures but find it almost impossible to find therapists who deal in Deconstructive, Schema-Based, Mentalization, etc) and the other half was just a communal grief-fest which was the most liberating experience of my life.

Paramedics, police, psychiatrists, therapists, they'll all say "Oh we know BPD", but what they know is from books and dealing with pwBPDs in very short measured bursts - only loved ones understand the PTSD of coming home and calling their name and not getting a response and preparing yourself for another - God forbid successful - suicide attempt for example.

For what it's worth, BPD and ASPD are extremely similar - it's been posited they're actually just gender-based variants of the same underlying deficiency and roots. You could try reaching out, perhaps more to the police/Court/justice/prison system and asking if they know of any ASPD groups in the area. Similarly if you're in Europe, the ICD-10 leads to "Haltlose Personality Disorder" being a frequent name for what we'd clump under "Borderline Personality Disorder" in North America. Now despite their similar names, Bipolar and BPD don't have as much in common for caretakers, or as my dearest pwBPD phrased it to the judge while seeking pity "Well like a Bipolar person might cycle through extreme mania for a few weeks and then crippling depression for months and then repeat the process, I go through that cycle 3-4 times a day".

Welcome to the group, feel free to share more information about the specific concerns you've seen or questions you've had, etc.

[86steelers50]

Nice to meet you and thank you for your reply.
Yes we did struggle a bit with her diagnosis but several of her doctors have confirmed her bpd to us. When I first met her she told me that she had been diagnosed with bpd. I didn't know anything about it at the time and started reading some materials about it. I saw a lot of what I read in her, except for the anger/rage. That was what confused me the most. Until her physical pain started and she lost her job and went on disability, getting very isolated from everyone, I never really saw her angry. She was depressed, suicidal, impulsive, etc. I went to a therapy appointment with her once last year and asked the therapist why it changed. Why did it take so many years for that part of her to reveal itself. Her doctor told me that it really hadn't changed in what it was, only in what it was aimed at. The anger and rage had always been there, but she had always directed it inwards, through self hatred and suicidal tendencies. The past few years she has now been directing it outwards at me. While hard to hear, it did make sense, I guess.
I totally agree with what you are saying g about the fear when you come home. I fear that she has done something even when she hasn't seemed depressed. But I also have fear every day I come home because I don't know who I am coming home to. Is it someone I can talk to about my day? Or is the wrong word or facial expression this evening going to shut everything down?
I am currently searching for a new therapist atm for myself, as mine keeps asking me to review whether or not staying in this marriage is what I really want. I have told me many times that leaving is not an option for me. But I am not sure she quite understands bpd. Maybe like you said - more of a book understanding.
I am so glad that you found a group! I will definitely look around for the ASPD groups as well (I am in The States). Thank you!

[Chief Drizzt]

Welcome -

My wife also has chronic migraine. The worst kind you can imagine. I’ve often wondered if any of the meds she has been on contributed to her mental illness. I was also not very compassionate in the beginning with regards to the headaches - I wonder if that is also a contributing factor. Or sometimes I wonder if the headaches are just part of the mental illness - the whole thing gets confusing…

[86steelers50]

I'm so sorry to hear that. I can't imagine doing what they do, dealing with that level of a migraine every single day. I get my migraine for a couple of days and I'm DONE. They are definately strong women. I agree with you about wondering which is causing/exasperating which. My wife was on a medication from her neurologist for about a year. She got a new psychiatrist who noticed that I was telling her that my wife wasn't always this angry. We consulted with her and the neurologist, took her off that migraine medication, and it greatly improved her rage. It's so hard trying to treat one thing without dinging the other. Kinda makes us on the side feel helpless as we watch our loved one drown.

[Gutt3rSnipe]

Welcome to the board! You’re definitely in the right place. Dealing with a person that has this disorder has to be the most frustrating/painful thing I’ve ever done In my life, so I can definitely sympathize with you.

As for her symptoms in your relationship. Have you noticed her testing you, blame shifting, gaslighting, sensitivity to criticism, overly jealous, overly suspicions, cheating?

Or has she changed her appearance often? Or noticeably change her personality to better fit in when around new people? Low self esteem and being highly critical of their appearance is another big one.

Personally from my pwbpd experience, I knew from the start something wasn’t quite right with how extremely forward she was when we first met. Not right, but not an extremely serious mental disorder ‘not right’. I’ve never met a women before her that was like that. Constant admiration, inappropriate conversation, coping things I liked, always wanting to be near me, making up stories to test me, and basically love bombing me from the start. The idealization stage is hard to mistake once you actually know what bpd is (I didn’t before her). I fell for it all hook line and sinker..

[86steelers50]

Yes, I did not know anything about BPD when I first met my wife either.  Yes there was the constant admiration, the always wanting to be near me, if we were on the phone while dating it was SO hard to get off.  She would have us fall asleep together while still on the phone, because she REALLY didn't want me to not be with her.  I didn't think anything BPD of it, I just figured that was just her.  Like I said, I didn't know much about BPD at that time.

As for her symptoms now, yes to just about all of those things. She hasn't cheated, but there was an incident where she told a guy who was a best friend of hers that she had feelings for him (we are gay, so I found that weird on top of the fact that she told him to begin with).  She said she told him so that he could talk her out of her feelings, but I feel like deep down she was testing the fences and maybe me.

I feel like the hardest ones that you listed to deal with are the blame shifting and the overly jealous.  I feel like I can never express my own feelings about anything, because when I do, she shifts it to something I have done, even years ago.  Sometimes it isn't even something I have really done, but she has made up.  

I have been reading the book Stop Walking on Eggshells and am finding it extraordinary.  However, the more I go through this journey with her, the more I feel like sometimes walking on eggshells is necessary.  I know that a lot of what she is doing is not her, or at least not in her control.  It is something that she is suffering from.  I feel like because we are married we are one, and I am there to go through that with her.  So sometimes maybe I should keep things to myself and walk on those eggshells and just swallow whatever I am feeling in order to hold her up.  Is that wrong?  

[Gutt3rSnipe]

Yes, I did not know anything about BPD when I first met my wife either.  Yes there was the constant admiration, the always wanting to be near me, if we were on the phone while dating it was SO hard to get off.  She would have us fall asleep together while still on the phone, because she REALLY didn't want me to not be with her.  I didn't think anything BPD of it, I just figured that was just her.  Like I said, I didn't know much about BPD at that time.

As for her symptoms now, yes to just about all of those things. She hasn't cheated, but there was an incident where she told a guy who was a best friend of hers that she had feelings for him (we are gay, so I found that weird on top of the fact that she told him to begin with).  She said she told him so that he could talk her out of her feelings, but I feel like deep down she was testing the fences and maybe me.

I feel like the hardest ones that you listed to deal with are the blame shifting and the overly jealous.  I feel like I can never express my own feelings about anything, because when I do, she shifts it to something I have done, even years ago.  Sometimes it isn't even something I have really done, but she has made up.  

I have been reading the book Stop Walking on Eggshells and am finding it extraordinary.  However, the more I go through this journey with her, the more I feel like sometimes walking on eggshells is necessary.  I know that a lot of what she is doing is not her, or at least not in her control.  It is something that she is suffering from.  I feel like because we are married we are one, and I am there to go through that with her.  So sometimes maybe I should keep things to myself and walk on those eggshells and just swallow whatever I am feeling in order to hold her up.  Is that wrong?  

A lot of the times I would do the same just to avoid arguments. Eventually I realized (far too late)  that I shouldn’t have to sacrifice my thoughts & feelings for her expense. That’s not a good way to foster a healthy relationship. I truly believe my ex saw my hesitancy for conflict as a weakness she could exploit eventually.

 My advice to you would be to first, prioritize therapy for her and be supportive of her continuation of therapy. Her behaviors are ingrained in her and won’t change for anyone’s sake, wife or otherwise. Second would be to set clear boundaries that she shouldn’t cross without consequences. Everything I’ve read on the subject of this disorder states clear boundaries are a must for any non in a relationship with a pwBPD. No one deserves to be a punching bag walking on eggshells their entire life.

[86steelers50]

I guess my problem is HOW do do that. My wife is generally aware of her condition (although she isn't always aware or admitting when it is actively affecting her) and she is in therapy, which is good. She says she supports my need to set boundaries and take time for myself when I need space. However often when I do, it just seems to fuel the fire. It causes more problems at that time and also down the road when she wants to throw it back at me. I know this is her condition and this is something that I need to live with because of that. Therein lies my problem. HOW or WHY do I cause more hardship for myself when I know her illness will not let her see/change?

In good news, yesterday I was accepted into the Family Connections 12-week course through NEABPD to start in April. Has anyone done this one? I'm very excited.

[thankful person]

Hi 86 steelers and welcome, I am also a married lesbian and my wife is dbpd. She went through some dbt therapy before we were physically together and it helped her to beat self harm and an eating disorder. These days she considered herself cured, however she does exhibit many extreme bpd behaviours in rage, control, jealousy, paranoia and downright delusional thinking at times. The best book I read was, “stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist”. A relationship with a pwbpd is like a “special needs relationship” and it does need additional care on our side if it is to work out. I found there was lots I could do without my wife even knowing, which has improved our relationship. To an extent the walking on eggshells will remain for this reason, however things like validating and not arguing can become second nature when it’s topics that are unemotional to me like her saying, “tomorrow will be ruined because it will rain all day”, to which I used to cause further problems by saying, “maybe it won’t, maybe it will and we’ll still have fun…” etc etc. which are invalidating statements. But where you are denying yourself self care and your own mental health, that’s where I got good at learning to stand up for myself and not walk on eggshells, but I learnt this more from the stop caretaking book than the stop walking on eggshells book. The reason I speak of my success in the past tense is because things have been on a downward spiral since my wife birthed our third child back in October, so I can only hope things will improve again as he gets a bit older. Many of the improvements I made and habits have lasted, but when my wife splits on me, (and this one is long term), I can only look after myself and I can’t communicate or seem to improve things with her. The good thing is that she’s no longer shrieking all the time, so it’s a much more peaceful life for my children, but they are mostly too young to be aware of any of my wife’s splitting behaviour towards me (she still shouts sometimes but nothing near as bad). Anyway good luck with the journey and please feel welcome to share anything you learn in therapy if you think it could help others here. My wife has told me in no uncertain terms that our marriage is over if I were to seek any form of therapy for myself. And that’s why I’m on here so much. But I’ve found bpd family amazing and so helpful and supportive.

[86steelers50]

Hi, Thankful.  Nice to meet you. I am sorry to hear about your situation. My wife also tried DBT therapy for a while to help her deal with some of her fears and to help her deal with her past traumas. It was doing wonders.  Some of the things she was deathly afraid of (bugs, going outside at night, certain topics that would trigger her past trauma) were like they never existed.  She was so chill when it came to things she never had been before.  Unfortunately, the therapist that was doing the DBT with her would ONLY focus on DBT with her.  She would ask for help with things going on between us in our relationship or with communicating better with me or with stress in other areas or with her dad...the therapist would hit on it a bit and then go back to the DBT and tell her that they "wasted enough time" and they needed to get back to the DBT.  This was very triggering for her and, once she told me, very upsetting for me as well.  I wanted her to get DBT therapy, but I also want her to get therapy where she can get help that will help US as well.  Since that happened, my wife denies that DBT ever worked and seems to forget any of the positive that came from that therapist, only the negative.  From what I read, that is a BPD trait, only seeing things in black or white.  It's just hard to convince her now that the DBT was actually helping her.  I do hear what you are saying that walking on the eggshells and keeping things to ourselves is necessary to a point.  It's just hard to find the line between what is healthy or not.  And then if she finds out I held things back or am tiptoeing around something because of her, she gets upset and feels guilty and it becomes a whole big thing.  I am not the best at making friends so I don't really have a good support system.  I have a few long distance friends out of state that I know from back in the day that I talk to.  But lately haven't been talking or venting to them much about us or her because I don't want them to think my wife is mean or bad.  She has an illness and it takes a lot of work and patience.  It is very hard for someone on the outside to always see that, so I don't want to skew their view of her.  She also found out that I feel that way, and is begging me to talk to them about it anyways.  I still don't know if I feel comfortable about it.

I am so sorry that your situation has turned downward.  That's got to be so difficult.  Especially if you can't go to therapy or anything.  I am glad you have this site.  I only just found it, but it seems to be pretty awesome.  Would you be able to do virtual therapy if you were out of the house? Just wondering.  She and your kids are very lucky to have someone like you who is sticking with them and on this journey with them.  Stay strong!