First of all, I'm glad I found this site. It's taken me 25 years to get here.
Like so many other partners of people with (suspected) BPD I'll try and condense all the years into a few paragraphs...
I married my wife 25 years ago, we were both 22. After the honeymoon period cooled - maybe 2 years - I remember the horrendous PMT starting (as I thought it to be).
With 25 years of experience I look back and see that my upbringing was (to my reckoning) fairly normal. Irish mum who was very hot-tempered but very loving too. A normal Dad with a wicked sense of humour. They wound each other up and would fall out from time to time but it was usually noisy, quick and over and forgotten, and my family hugged - a lot
.
My wife's parents...well it seems now that her mum was clearly bi-polar and would flare up into frequent, violent rages for no apparent reason. Her Dad never, ever said anything or retaliated in any way. He would just shut down.
This family never hugged either.
Her Dad also tried to commit suicide after enduring years of emotional and physical abuse. (I didn't know the relationship dynamics until many years into my marriage)
So...I'm married at age 24 and crazy in love. I wrote it all off as PMT or tiredness. My wife would push and push until I snapped. I couldn't leave the situation to cool down because there would be threats of suicide or the violence would escalate until I got hit or things were thrown. I guess I learnt that in order to "end it" I had to "lose it". I would have a melt down and end up sobbing, or even put my fist through a door (I never once hit my wife I should add). Only after an "escalation" would she begin to calm down.
These events could last up to a week or more.
I seem to have crystal clarity now that I have read about BPD, and it's a strange feeling...
Let's talk about present day...Coming out of the whole Covid nonsense (apologies if I offend but personally I consider it utter nonsense) my wife had what can only be described as a breakdown. She was placed on the clinically extremely vulnerable list and given all kinds of ridiculous "guidance" such as sleeping separately, not eating with the family, not touching the children (we have 5) and of course, getting "vaccinated". She has no spleen following an adverse vaccine reaction, so the vaccine was not advised by some GPs but was by others - this conflict really contributed to the breakdown actually.
So for nearly 12 months I had 5 kids, one about to start work, one an apprenticeship, two at school and one to start reception, as well as a wife who couldn't get out of bed, couldn't stop looping thoughts about despair and was becoming increasingly suicidal.
After 6 months of suffering she finally listened to me and her family and sought medical help.
It took another few months of um-ing and ah-ing before she took sertraline. 20 years working in NHS pharmacy made her very anti-drug, and she always viewed mental illness as mental weakness (oh, how we learn eh?!)
So, we've had a relatively stable, almost pleasant 6 months while she has been on sertraline. I'm amazed as is she - we never really thought it would work I think. Moods have been pretty stable and PMT has been what I would class as easy.
4 weeks ago my wife told me that she hadn't taken any medication for 2 weeks, and asked "how have I been?"
I was taken aback but didn't respond negatively. She had been fine. Deep down I was worried straight away though.
This past 5 days have been absolute hell. Back to the old days.
It seems that I said or did something that triggered her into wanting to resolve matters. Nothing she said made any sense. The more I reassured her and listened, the angrier she became. I had all the old accusations, horrendous things that stab - she really knows what to say to get a reaction! As I've learnt - I just tried to listen without defending, to reassure without condescending, to remind her that I love her...
My eldest daughter has been in total denial about her mum's mental health but last night while her Mum was raging at me she actually for the first time defended me and said "why are you provoking him like this? You need help mum, you're not well".
My wife then turned on her and it was too much for me to bear any more.
I lost it. Big time. I have never been in such a rage in all my life.
Nothing physical happened but I shouted so much and said so much that she's laid low all day today.
I had a text message this morning along the lines of "I love you so much and I've ruined everything now..."
I took the kids out for a walk in the snow today and so far it's all peaceful.
The upshot? There are so many nuances to our story that I don't have the time. But I am utterly convinced that my wife has BPD and some major childhood trauma issues.
I've spent 25 years handling things clumsily at best, yet we're still together after 25 years and with 5 well-adjusted (I hope) children.
I feel that now I have the opportunity to set boundaries and to set a goal that we can begin to look at getting help and methods to limit the damage these events do.
Saddest thing I've realised this weekend was when my 5 year old came in early Saturday morning and asked if we could go bird watching. I knew my day would be dominated by trying to keep the lid on the pressure cooker.
I realised quite quickly that we have lost probably 5-8 YEARS in time to dealing with the fall-out from falling out.
Heck, I can't begin to describe how fed-up I feel.
Last February I was set to leave her if she wouldn't seek help - I never told her, but I made arrangements with her parents and mine for help when I did. I knew I had to escape for a couple of weeks or I would break.
Now I'm feeling the same way again and it's a horrible familiar flat feeling. The past 8 months or so have been good so I guess there's always hope?
Can anyone suggest any way to get counseling? I really hope she starts back on the sertraline, but I think we also need a third party to unravel the mess.
