Any advice or help?

[Nanabee]

I have been married for 30 years. My husband showed some signs of BPD but nothing as extreme as recently. His mother passed away this summer which caused an emotional breakdown. I responded poorly. I didn’t know how to react to this extreme behavior. Since then, if I make a mistake, even a small mistake, he believes that I did that intentionally to hurt him. He splits me so fast that I can’t keep up for long enough to try to soothe him, validate him, or love him through it. Before I know it, I have moved from the most wonderful person, his dream woman and true love to an evil manipulator who is intentionally abusing him for my own pleasure. Nothing I do helps. If I am empathetic, he says I am being fake. If I am calm, then I am a sociopath.This weekend his shouting and calling me the C word and the B word, accusations of random betrayal out of nowhere, and telling me he hates me went on for 2 days and everyone in our neighborhood heard, many of them my colleagues at work. He will only begin to calm down when I tell him that what he is thinking is true even if it totally is not. I feel so bad for him because I know this is not who he is at all. He doesn’t think he is doing anything other than reacting to my abuse of him. I am not perfect. I have my own trauma and that plays a big part in triggering him. When I am approached with anger, even when its not about me, I go into fight, flight, or fawn mode. He sees that as me abusing him because I can sometimes gaslight to avoid perceived trouble. Im trying not to do that. I panic and do stupid things when he is angry and he perceives that as me intentionally trying to anger him more. When in reality its the last thing I want. This weekend he insisted that I tell him that I intentionally anger him because I don’t want to be married to him anymore and I want to blame him. He would not stop shouting and calling me names until I sad that. Once, he calmed and stopped splitting me, then I could explain that I do want to be married. Now, he is beginning to place me on the pedestal again but I know its a very long fall from here.
I know I can’t change him. I am desperate for tools on how to guide him out of a split so he can see me again. But even then he still believes that I am completely to blame and he even seriously suggested that I commit myself for inpatient mental health care for being a sociopath without empathy. I am emotionally drained and physically exhausted. I love him dearly and deeply but the screaming, wishing I would die, and threats of destroying my life that happen during an episode is too much.
Advice?

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[kells76]

Hello Nanabee and

You're not alone in being married many years to a spouse with BPD traits, and then having things really escalate after an intense emotional situation. I'm so sorry this is hitting you and your family now 

As you look back on the past, what were the less-extreme signs of BPD that he may have shown?

Also, do the two of you have any children? If so, are any of them living at home?

One of the hardest yet most freeing lessons we can learn here is that we can't control anyone else's thoughts, behaviors, words, or actions. The only person in the world we have control over is ourselves. So, it may be more helpful, long term, to focus less on "how can I guide him out of his splitting?" and more on "how can I improve my mental health and take care of myself, no matter what he's doing?" Counterintuitive, especially as you love your H and wish you could help him, yet the best way to introduce positive changes into a relationship is through working on and changing yourself.

Have either of you been in counseling or therapy? Even if your H doesn't agree to go with you, or won't go on his own, you can still get individual therapy for yourself, which can be a great way to find areas to make changes in the relationship dynamic -- all on your own, without needing him to cooperate.

Take your time, settle in here, check out some of our workshops (we have one on Splitting if you haven't seen it yet) and articles (like this section on When a partner/spouse has Borderline Personality Disorder).

Let us know your thoughts -- we'll be here;

kells76

[rattled64]

I experienced a very similar thing with my pwuBPD and it was a real eye opener. The death of her father triggered something in her - it was like all the rage she felt for how she was treated through her childhood erupted. It did not help that her mother, who her kids thing has possibly uBPD or histrionic personality disorder, responded to the situation by torturing her kids with her behavior, after putting my pwBPD down her entire life and forcing her to be the adult when she was a kid due to agoraphobia. 

It still took me by surprised but I wanted to share that it was nothing I did to trigger it. I was her rock she had said days before an incident that turned things on its head around christmas. In true splitting form, I went from "her rock" to someone she was seething at for every small perceived slight.  After two months of this I finally went back to a therapist that we had seen together who is partnered with hers and shared my suspicion of BPD which was shared with her. After a few rough weeks we are back to a stable place with occassional love bombing, although it seems to be directed to one of our kids in particular that she is concerned about liking her.

Just wanted to offer that whatever you did or did not do there is probably nothing that could have prevented the reaction - it is driven by something much deeper and you happen to be the one who is close enough to bear the brunt of it.