General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
Kathy, I agree. Thanks for clarifying what I was trying to say. When I said therapists are loath to tell a BPDer the name of her disorder, I did not mean to imply she would not be provided good treatment. Rather, I meant that they generally do not tell high functioning BPDers the name of the disorder being treated. Hence, for anyone married to an abusive angry spouse, relying on HER psychologist to give you a diagnosis likely will be a disastrous course of action. I say this for four reasons.
First, psychologists may never witness the BPD traits. Because BPDers generally are excellent actors, it is a cakewalk for them to hide their BPD traits during a 50-minute session held only once a week. It therefore may take a psychiatrist years to see the dysfunctional behaviors you see all week long -- and it is highly unlikely a BPDer will remain in therapy that long (in the unlikely event you persuade her to even start).
Second, even assuming that the psych has sufficient time to identify a BPDer's disorder, it is unlikely that the psych will ever tell you. Therapists are loath to tell a BPDer -- much less tell her spouse -- the true diagnosis. Because BPDers have fragile egos, giving her the name of her disorder almost certainly will result in her immediately quitting therapy.
Third, in the very unlikely event she stays in therapy, telling her the name of her disorder may cause her behavior to become WORSE, not better. Because BPDers have a fragile, unstable sense of who they are, they are often looking to other people for cues on how to behave. The danger of disclosing the disorder name, then, is that it will give the patient a new identity as "the BPDer." The result is that a patient who had been exhibiting 5 or 6 BPD traits may suddenly start exhibiting 8 or 9.
No secret to attorneys. Likewise, this withholding is no secret to the family-law attorneys who specialize in divorces and spousal abuse. One such firm -- located in Calif and NV -- explains on its website why there is little chance of being able to use a BPD diagnosis in the divorce proceedings against a very abusive spouse. This article, by trial lawyer Joel Douglas, states:
"Often mental health care clinicians in completing their DSM list of differential diagnoses will “defer” or simply leave an Axis II diagnostic impression blank, irrespective of whether a personality disorder exists."
I'm not familiar with other posts you may have made in the past, so this is more or less me playing devil's advocate for a moment, but I found myself wondering what your wife's homework for the week was, and if the counselor really said you treated your wife like crap. If she did, what exactly does she think is crappy and controlling, and whether there's any truth to that opinion.
My wife's homework was to stop making snide, sarcastic comments, stop attacking me while sharing her feelings (ie it makes me sad when you said that instead of "you're so hateful"), and seeing an individual counselor (the non-dbt one).
So far the sarcastic comments are still coming, and I'm still being attacked, the counselor I could give a crap about because she won't get anything from it.
She didn't say that I treated my wife like crap, but she took what my wife was saying at face value and there was no time to get into specifics. For example, if it came up at the top of the hour I would have asked for details and specifics on how to not treat her like crap, but it was like in the last 30 seconds so I'm left baffled as to how to actually accomplish this feat. Another comment was made when she said that her friends all said that she wasn't the same since she married me, I asked her who specifically said that and she wouldn't tell me (I suspected it was some twisting of the truth, and it was). The counselor told me that she probably didn't want to say because she felt that I was controlling who she could and couldn't talk to and didn't want to add another person to the list of people she wasn't allowed to talk to. Which I understand if you listened to my wife at face value you would probably think I was a monster.
But the week before in my individual session I gave her the full story, which is that she's not allowed to speak to ONE person, because she was encouraging my wife to sleep around on me and not tell me about her cheating, and the counselor 100% agreed with me that that was bullcrap. So to watch her do a 180 and then start backing up my wife was pretty annoying. I'm going to call the counselor next week and let her know she can either get with the program and take off the blinders or I'm not going to show up anymore.
I don't want to say that I'm not controlling at all. But in the general spectrum of men, I would probably be somewhere in the bottom 10%. There's certain things I don't want her doing right now (like going on trips with certain friends and things like that), that has less to do with my personality and more to do with the fact that we're 6 months out from her infidelity. Until that point, I could give a flip about who she hung out with or what she was doing because I trusted her 100%.
Anyway, the level of craziness is increasing every day. Today I posted a facebook status that was about becoming a better man, and she sent me a pagelong text about how I should stop attacking her and how I have my family ganging up on her to like my facebook statuses aimed at her (literally one person liked the status). Then in the next sentence she talked about how she wanted us to get back together, and then she asked why I was being so hateful and was pushing so hard to get a divorce.
Yesterday I felt guilt. Not because of anything I had done, but it was the first day where I thought about her telling me that she wanted therapy and how awful she had treated me and how much she loved me and wanted to be my sex slave love goddess, and I just thought "I wouldn't even want her back if she said that." Now I'm sure that will change many times in the next few days, but I don't know how to respond to that feeling.
She's my wife, I love her, I committed myself to her, I've been praying and begging she gets help. If she really did want to get help and go for it 100%, shouldn't I have some desire to want to stay together and work on it?
Edit: Oh and on a side note, saw the lawyer yesterday. I know we shouldn't trust lawyers but the guy listened to my plan on how to move forward and handle the finances and said, "Over half my clients that come in here are immature a$$holes, I can tell just from talking to you for 20 minutes that you are really mature and respectful, and whatever is going on in your marriage is not your fault." Kind of felt good to hear someone say that, even if it was from a soulless liar.
She's my wife, I love her, I committed myself to her, I've been praying and begging she gets help. If she really did want to get help and go for it 100%, shouldn't I have some desire to want to stay together and work on it?
COguy, I understand the conflict you are feeling. My wife is a child sex abuse survivor, and so her half of the marriage dysfunction is rooted there. She refuses any therapy, and in fact refuses to admit to any real contribution to our marital problems. She'll admit to being a perfectionist and "sometimes being a bit controlling".
If my wife would come to me and say she understands how the things she has done or said would be hurtful, and she is seeking therapy for her issues, it would be reason enough to have some hope. If she would apologize for the lies and deceptions it would be enough to start rebuilding some trust.
Like you, I do love the woman I married. Though, to be honest, that woman never really existed. But we do have a lot of history, shared experiences, children, etc. Wouldn't it be rewarding and deeply satisfying if we could recover this marriage into what we once dreamed it would be?
You should realize that it is ok for you to feel you have given all you can. It is ok to know that you have given her a more than fair chance in the relationship. Indeed, you have given her every chance, while she has given so very little to you.
It is ok for you to decide that it is too late for you to continue in this relationship even if today the miracle happens where she sees reality and commits to a genuine recovery.
Remember that no matter what happens, you can handle it.
My general take on personality disorders are that they're extremely difficult to change, if they can be changed at all. However, based on your statement earlier that your journey was prompted by Uptown's experience's, combined with your back-and-forth thoughts and a less-than-ideal therapist, I'd like to ask you a couple more questions that you're free not to answer:
1. How old is your wife?
2. Has she had any kind of hormone evaluation?
3. Are you aware of whatever diagnosis the therapist *has* provided?
You say you're "95% sure" she has BPD. However, it's also possible that she has a mood disorder (actually, this is likely if she does have BPD, but it's equally possible to have a rapid-cycling bipolar disorder that can mimic BPD) and some hormonal changes can produce BPD-like results.
A counselor that is not a psychiatrist may not have the tools to really differentiate between these things, but it's possible that getting an appropriate medication could produce significant changes in a matter of a couple weeks.
If you and your wife had come to me when I was in practice, I'd have referred you to a psychiatrist for a more thorough (medical) evaluation while I continued seeing you for the behavioral aspects between you.
I don't know if it's worth it to you to do this or not. The things you're saying here make it clear that if you two did try to stay together, it would be a long, arduous path. It could take several years of endurance before you started really feeling any stability and comfort on a daily basis - and that's if you both really, REALLY wanted things to work.
However, if you *do* want it to work and you're both committed, you could begin seeing at least some change pretty quickly if she could get a full medical workup to rule out hormonal imbalances and evaluate the need for a mood stabilizer.
Kathy I would answer you but at this point it's irrelevant.
The marriage is over. Took off the ring, changed my FB status, will be filing the documentation as soon as possible. We both agreed to end it (even though legally we'll just be separated).
I'm not going to snoop on her any more and we're not going to talk about getting back together.
I feel sad, but also relieved in some ways. It's nice to be out of limbo.
I'll probably come back and post about my emotional breakdowns over the next few days/weeks. I know they'll come, you guys have to keep me strong and remind me of all the normal, eligible women out there that have been waiting for me.
Wow LOL, posted the announcement on FB, typed that post, went back and already got messaged for the rebound. Of course I'm not at all interested right now, but that felt good.
I replayed the tape from our MC session, which was quite horrible and set me back emotionally and in terms of my wife getting help (95% sure at this point she is suffering from BPD). I spoke gently and factually for 5 minutes about how my wife's recent behaviors were triggering my emotions from the affair. I got no empathy or understanding from her, she was insistent that she isn't cheating and I am just making stuff up to make her look bad. Even after I mentioned that I'm not out to punish her or make her look bad or acccuse her, just wanted to share how her actions were affecting my emotions, and looking for some empathy and understanding.
She called me controlling and mentioned that I had been treating her poorly and accusing her and making her feel bad about herself.
It was an hour session and I didn't have time nor the desire to correct every statement she was making about me, I was trying to listen and get a fix on what her feelings were. Of course the counselor had no choice but to assume everything she said was true.
My "homework" for the week was:
1. Stop reading her messages and "snooping" - something I would never agree to do if I was staying married
2. Stop treating my wife "like crap"
3. Start talking to my wife respectfully
At the end I told her my homework was pointless, as at some point I have to stop pretending that I can do more to work on this marriage, and that I believed in my heart that I was already treating her to the best of my ability and giving her as much respect, care, love, and understanding as possible.
At the end my counselor undid all the conversation we had in our individual session by just outright believing my wife that I was being controlling and treating her poorly, even though we spent most of the hour discussing the reasonable and well communicated boundaries I had set up and how my wife is displaying several BPD traits.
That should tell you something about how messed up I am....
I would think one of the key ability of a counselor is to know if their client is lying. Since your counselor cant do that, time to find one who can read people better.
COguy,
I know this is a tough time for you. And I believe you that your wife has treated you poorly. I also think that in a "text book" checklist of "controlling behaviors" you would score very well.
And now I want you to think about the primary dynamic between you and your wife, and what that is really all about. Before proceeding, it is only fair to mention that my W is full of mischief, so I have a lot of experience with a "mild version" of what you experienced.
You: Being nice to your Wife
W: Suddenly behaving in a hostile or disrespectful manner
This is where you have a choice. And ultimately this choice fully reflects whether your focus is on your behavior or your wifes behavior. If your focus is on enforcing your boundaries by controlling what YOU do, then you briefly convey that her behavior is not acceptable (by the way - she KNOWS it is bad - this should not be about explaining why her behavior is bad - because that implies it is open to discussion. Because that implies your boundaries are negotiable - which is very dangerous with an aggressive spouse).
If your focus is on controlling yourself:
Coguy: This is unacceptable. (Absent an immediate apology you end the conversation)
And this is the hard part. You then stop interacting with her - other than coordinating basic logistics - until she is ready to apologize and resume normal relations. And this is HARD for certain personality types. They dislike conflict - so they attempt to make peace as fast as possible.
If your focus is on controlling HER behavior towards you (primarily getting her to return to acting in a loving way to you - on your timetable - which is ASAP - then instead of enforcing YOUR boundary for respect and being reserved until she comes to her senses - YOU start being nice/extra nice to her shortly AFTER she has behaved badly.
And you are wrong if you think she doesn't understand what you want. She understands perfectly well. In a way she feels PRESSURED to be nice/loving towards you - even though she is irrationally angry. And at some level she sees that as: Your need for her to be loving towards you, far exceeds your need for her to respect your boundaries. Or your need for love, exceeds your need for respect.
Eventually of course she is able to be hostile enough to get you to lose your temper - in a prior thread you blamed your fury and cursing on her. Again, the focus is on why she should change HER behavior, and not be mean to you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by COguy
My wife's homework was to stop making snide, sarcastic comments, stop attacking me while sharing her feelings (ie it makes me sad when you said that instead of "you're so hateful"), and seeing an individual counselor (the non-dbt one).
So far the sarcastic comments are still coming, and I'm still being attacked, the counselor I could give a crap about because she won't get anything from it.
She didn't say that I treated my wife like crap, but she took what my wife was saying at face value and there was no time to get into specifics. For example, if it came up at the top of the hour I would have asked for details and specifics on how to not treat her like crap, but it was like in the last 30 seconds so I'm left baffled as to how to actually accomplish this feat. Another comment was made when she said that her friends all said that she wasn't the same since she married me, I asked her who specifically said that and she wouldn't tell me (I suspected it was some twisting of the truth, and it was). The counselor told me that she probably didn't want to say because she felt that I was controlling who she could and couldn't talk to and didn't want to add another person to the list of people she wasn't allowed to talk to. Which I understand if you listened to my wife at face value you would probably think I was a monster.
But the week before in my individual session I gave her the full story, which is that she's not allowed to speak to ONE person, because she was encouraging my wife to sleep around on me and not tell me about her cheating, and the counselor 100% agreed with me that that was bullcrap. So to watch her do a 180 and then start backing up my wife was pretty annoying. I'm going to call the counselor next week and let her know she can either get with the program and take off the blinders or I'm not going to show up anymore.
I don't want to say that I'm not controlling at all. But in the general spectrum of men, I would probably be somewhere in the bottom 10%. There's certain things I don't want her doing right now (like going on trips with certain friends and things like that), that has less to do with my personality and more to do with the fact that we're 6 months out from her infidelity. Until that point, I could give a flip about who she hung out with or what she was doing because I trusted her 100%.
Anyway, the level of craziness is increasing every day. Today I posted a facebook status that was about becoming a better man, and she sent me a pagelong text about how I should stop attacking her and how I have my family ganging up on her to like my facebook statuses aimed at her (literally one person liked the status). Then in the next sentence she talked about how she wanted us to get back together, and then she asked why I was being so hateful and was pushing so hard to get a divorce.
Yesterday I felt guilt. Not because of anything I had done, but it was the first day where I thought about her telling me that she wanted therapy and how awful she had treated me and how much she loved me and wanted to be my sex slave love goddess, and I just thought "I wouldn't even want her back if she said that." Now I'm sure that will change many times in the next few days, but I don't know how to respond to that feeling.
She's my wife, I love her, I committed myself to her, I've been praying and begging she gets help. If she really did want to get help and go for it 100%, shouldn't I have some desire to want to stay together and work on it?
Edit: Oh and on a side note, saw the lawyer yesterday. I know we shouldn't trust lawyers but the guy listened to my plan on how to move forward and handle the finances and said, "Over half my clients that come in here are immature a$$holes, I can tell just from talking to you for 20 minutes that you are really mature and respectful, and whatever is going on in your marriage is not your fault." Kind of felt good to hear someone say that, even if it was from a soulless liar.
CO, your wife doesn’t respect your boundaries and so she hurts you. When she hurts you she has no remorse, empathy or compassion for you.
Sick isn’t it. And the really sick part is she could well know and be fully aware of what she does. Which if that is the case makes it even sicker.
And yet you love her. It sure is a crazy world sometimes.
When we separated I thought I was grieving at first. But the intense anger I felt and the depth of my dislike for my wife didn’t feel right for grieving. After quite a while I realised my anger and dislike came from the fact that I felt immensely betrayed by the woman I so deeply loved. You may want to look into that, to see if you do feel betrayed. It’s very different to grieving and I think we have to work through our emotions stemming from betrayal and then we get to work through our grieving.
I'm sitting here tonight going through the five stages of grief. Stages that I remember all too well from the infidelity. The sadness is a tough pill to swallow, but I remember that I got over the infidelity, and I did it in what I considered to be a short period of time, and that I will get over this as well. I just have to ensure that I allow myself to feel and process all the pain.
The saddest thing about divorce, or infidelity, we don't have our partners to go through it with us. I'm glad I have a lot of great friends and family. My heart breaks for my wife because she has so little support.
I'm going through a similar situation right now except me and my wife aren't on talking terms right now so we haven't even mentioned divorce just yet. We decided we didn't want to do the couples counseling thing because we have had a lot of friends who got divorced claiming that the counselor often sides with one side over the other and it ends up straining the relationship even worse than before.
As for the infidelity, my wife slept with another man when we were seperated, I know what you mean when you say its sad that the other side can't share in the heartache over that. My wife actually smacked me in the face figuratively over that situation telling me that its actually harder mentally on the person who cheated than it is on the one who was cheated on because of how badly she beats herself up over it and how she knows she was unfaithful and messed up our relationship. I think thats a selfish point of view, or maybe not perhaps but I don't see how she could be more hurt from cheating on me than I was being cheated on.
My wife has addictions and very well could have BPD as well. She thinks everybody has bi-polar though so she doesn't want to look into or get tested for it. She also displays symptoms of NPD as well but thats not the point. I just want you to know that I can relate to your problems, me and my wife don't have children which should be easier but I can relate to you saying you wish she would apologize, say she wants to make it work and you would go right back to her if she did that. I feel the same way. I feel like a broken man right now. Emotionally spent, countless sleepless nights, even when we got a long I was always looking over my shoulder waiting for the next time she was going to start a fight, or the next time she is on facebook until 8am in the morning messaging her ex. The trust was gone after she cheated and after that it was hard to give back, I'm still not over it and her not changing her ways as far as attitude and how she handled everything didn't help. She stopped sleeping with the guy but her behavior was still erratic.
Constant mood swings, constantly getting drunk, she would have a really good day but you knew the very next day that it wasn't going to last and that tomorrow might be a really bad day. Just zero consistency in mood. I mean you can't expect anyone to have a good day everyday, everybody deals with depression but when its so hot and cold, so often and totally random it just mentally screws up your head.
Thats where I am at right now, pretty screwed up over this, my friends tell me about how I was before her, how nice of a person I am and how well I treat people, yet now look at me. I'm a shadow of myself pretty much. Still nice but broken.
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Re: It's official, I'm getting divorced 
