General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
She was diagnosed by a marriage counselor that we visited a few times (until she got mad and refused to go back). The MC told me that she strongly suspected that my wife was BPD and suggested I read the Walking on Eggshells book. That book described my wife to a tee.
I apologize for the long nature of this but I need to get it off my chest and find out if I'm going crazy.
First some background information...
I'm 48 years old and have been married to my current wife for 4 years. I had no children from my previous marriage, she has two. Son is currently 18 starting college this year and Daughter is 21 and married. I adopted my daughter and am in the process of adopting my son. I grew up in a great household with a mother and father who were strict but loving and supportive. I think I turned out pretty darn good thanks to them.
When I met my wife she was a single mom, recently divorced from a verbally abusive loser. They were married at 19 and she was thrown into a situation where she had to be a mother to his 3 children from his previous marriage. She had our son one year into her first marriage. When we married, she relocated from the small town where she had lived her whole life to where I live (300 miles away).
She was making ends meet and doing a great job of raising her two teenage kids. I admired her tenacity and seeming ability to overcome anything to provide for them. Throughout our dating (we dated for a year) she was awesome, displayed a great sense of self. The only inkling I had of a darker side was a comment her brother in law made to me about "you haven't seen her mad yet".
The night of our wedding, after the ceremony, she got upset at our son (14 at the time) because he left his bag containing his toiletries in the trunk of our car. She reached in, grabbed it, and threw it at him. I was shocked as that type of behavior was totally inappropriate to me...I told her so but didn't push it beyond that as it was 1) the first time I’d seen anything like it from her 2) our wedding night, and 3) i chalked it up to stress from wedding, moving etc...
Fast forward a week, we were moving into our new house and my wife and daughter were moving a piece of furniture into position. My daughter said something innocent to my wife and my wife got very upset. She left the room and sat down in the corner of the kitchen refusing to get up and help us move into the house. I'm thinking to myself "Ok that is kind of childish" but I didn't say anything as I didn't want to start a confrontation or call her out in front of my new kids.
During the next year, I began to witness more and more anger from her. She would fly off the handle at our children for minor reasons. By flying off the handle, I mean berate, curse, call them stupid and unthankful. The kids told me she had always been that way when she got mad. Our son is very intelligent but like many kids you have to stay on him to do his homework and study. When he would make a poor grade at school, she would start saying things like "I give up, He's your problem now" in front of him. She would threaten to send him away to a boarding school or back to live with family in the town they came from. I told her that was never going to happen as long as I was in his life.
Then one day about a year after we were married, he told me that he wished she wouldn't threaten to send him away. Later that day, he was out mowing the yard and I told my wife what he had said. She got up and went outside and confronted him about it. He ran into the house, into his room with her on his heels yelling "pack your sh*t up and get out" This all happened very quickly. By the time I got into his room, she was swinging at him. I pulled her off of him and she slapped me, I slapped her back (neither slap was hard enough to leave a trace) and told her to stop. Her response was "Fine, I'll just kill myself". She went to our bathroom and pulled out bottles of pills, opened them and I don't know if she would have taken them or not because I took the pill bottle out of her hand. I told the kids to call 911. By the time the cops arrived she had calmed down dramatically and apologized for her behavior. I told the officers that we had an argument and that we slapped each other (not hard, there were no marks etc.) and that it was over now. I didn't tell them about her attacking our son or the suicide threat/attempt.
After the police left, I told my wife that if she ever did that again, I would divorce her without question. I also told her that we had to go to counseling if she wanted to stay married to me.
I found out later from my kids that when my son was 10, she got mad at him and drove him to an orphanage and left him on the door step. She told him that it would probably break his grandfathers (they were very close) heart and kill him. This thing of threatening abandonment wasn't a new behavior for her.
We began going to marriage counseling. I was interesting that my wife blamed me for everything. It was all my fault. After a few sessions she got mad at the counselor and refused to go back. The counselor told me that she believed that my wife was suffering from BPD and that I should read the book Walking on Egg Shells. I got the book and it was like I was reading a description of my wife. She exhibits almost all of the symptoms and then some that aren't even listed.
I seriously considered divorcing her then, I spoke to a lawyer and almost went through with it but I couldn't get past my concern on how she would react towards our son. I was scared that she would blame him for the divorce and take it out on him. Also I take my marriage vows very seriously and hesitate to go down the divorce road. Ultimately I decided to stay; however, it has caused some real issues.
I have always believed that marriage was built on a foundation of love, trust and respect. Her many BPD behaviors have really caused me to lose respect and trust (When will I step on a landmine again). I have always been a person who did not want to be around someone I can’t respect. I have lost interest in being intimate with her. She has noticed my lack of intimacy and is questioning me about it. I don’t know what to tell her. If I tell her it’s because of her behaviors, she’ll turn it on me…I know that road all too well.
Lately she’s been very depressed due to foot surgery and has threatened suicide at least 20 times in the last 6 weeks. Once going so far as to put the pills in her mouth before spitting them out. I don’t think she ever means to actually kill herself, she’s just using it to manipulate me.
Okay, first let me tell you that you are not alone. My STBXW does the same thing and she is sexually impulsive to boot. The symptoms you describe, even the suicidal thoughts/gestures/attempts, are things my STBXW did. You must know that you cannot control her behavior or "fix" her. People with BPD will be broken for life. Some get better with therapy but the prognosis long term is not good. Mine actually swallowed the pills (8 klonopin and several pain killers). She made herself vomit before the ambulance got there. She was taken to the hospital and released WITH NO TIME SPENT IN A PSYCH WARD! Got to love the system.
BPD has to do with issues from childhood. You don't talk about her childhood but I bet it is not good. My STBXW went through her parents divorce at 5 and a custody battle with mom and dad not getting along at all. There are some other issues in there as well.
My STBXW has been with 10 guys since January of this year. Each time it is "the one" and then it falls apart a couple of weeks later. She's got a "boyfriend" (we are still married) that she's broke up with 3 times and cheated on once already. I can't wait for the year to be up so I can divorce her legally.
AIGC, welcome to the TAM forum. "Going crazy" is exactly how you should be feeling if you are living with a BPDer. Of the several dozen mental disorder listed in the DSM-IV, BPD is the ONLY ONE that is notorious for making many of the spouses and partners feel like they may be losing their minds. Indeed, therapists see far more of those folks coming in (to find out if they are going crazy) than they ever see of the BPDers themselves.
This "crazy making" behavior of BPDers is so well known that the "Nons" (i.e., nonBPD partners) have given it a name: gaslighting. It is named after the classic 1944 movie "Gaslight," in which a husband (Charles Boyer) tries to drive his new bride (Ingrid Bergman) crazy so as to get her institutionalized, allowing him to run off with her family jewels. One of his many tricks is to turn the home's gas lights down a tiny bit every day -- all the while claiming that he is able to see and read just fine.
Actually, the vast majority of the crazy making behavior of BPDers is not intended to make you feel crazy. Rather, it is the result of their subconscious minds protecting their fragile egos by projecting all their mistakes and shortcomings onto their spouses.
The beauty of projection -- and the reason that BPDers rely on it so heavily -- is that it occurs entirely at the subconscious level, allowing the BPDers to be adamantly convinced the projections are true. Hence, unlike lies (which BPDers will do when trapped), the projections are entirely guilt free -- an important attribute to folks who are filled with so much self loathing that guilt is a very painful experience.
I mention all of this to explain why it is so confusing and disorienting to live with a BPDer. Namely, the confusion largely arises because the BPDer spouses sincerely believe the outrageous accusations coming out of their mouths. The nonBPD spouses therefore are left thinking that they must have done something wrong to cause their spouses to be so upset.
If you have not already done so, I strongly recommend that you start participating (or at least lurking) at BPDfamily.com. It is so large that there are 8 separate message boards. The ones that may be most helpful to you are the "Staying," "Leaving," and "Raising a Child when One Parent Has BPD" boards.
I suggest that, while you are there, you check out the articles on the resources page. My favorite is Article 9 at T9 Surviving a Break-up with Someone Suffering with Borderline Personality Disorder - Columbia University, New York. If you decide to divorce, I recommend you get a copy of Splitting: Protecting Yourself when Divorcing a Borderline or Narcissist. It was released last year by Randi Kreger, the same woman who wrote the Eggshells book you already read.
Like you and MarriedinVA, I was married to a BPDer -- for 15 years in my case. If you would like to read about my experiences, please see my three posts in Maybe's thread at My list of hell!. Take care, AIGC.
our youngest daughter is a serious BPD and we believe that she had a loving and safe childhood. My other two children support this. My husband and I are continually trying to support her through her self mutilating and harmful behaviour.
It breaks our hearts whenever we hear the 'bad childhood theory'. Whilst I know this to be true for a lot of these cases, there are also quite a few who have not had a traumatic childhood.
I can't tell you how many hours I have agonised over how she came to be the way she is, if I didn't protect her enough or could have done anything differently .
We rarely left our children in the care of others and it was usually grandparents who I have no doubts about. Although I was a working mother, it was part time and I was always able to work shifts which fitted in with my husband's work. I trust my husband 100% with the children and I am not a blind, blinkered fool.
We have never been able to come up with childhood issues which could have led to her disorder. She has had plenty of external adolescent and adult experiences which were rather hideous, but these have all been a result of, rather than a cause of her troubles.
I forgot to add
My heart goes out to anyone dealing with this as I know first hand how it hurts whole families.
To discover that a life partner has this affliction would be more than I could bear and I don't think that I could live with it.
Our youngest daughter is a serious BPD and we believe that she had a loving and safe childhood.... It breaks our hearts whenever we hear the 'bad childhood theory'.
Molly, due to the enormous expense, only one study has ever been done to determine the prevalence of BPD in the general population. That study (pub. 2008) found the prevalence to be 6%, based on face to face interviews with nearly 35,000 American adults.
I mention this because the study also found that 30% of the BPDers reported that they did NOT experience abuse or abandonment in childhood. This finding is generally interpreted to strongly suggest that BPD can arise solely from genetics alone (as well as from a combination of genetics and abuse) -- a finding that has brought great comfort to millions of parents who have a BPDer child even though they were very nurturing and supportive of that child.
It's also possible that people who had a generally good childhood experienced trauma elsewhere, such as at school or church, and have repressed the memories or are afraid to acknowledge them.
AIGC, welcome to the TAM forum. "Going crazy" is exactly how you should be feeling if you are living with a BPDer. Of the several dozen mental disorder listed in the DSM-IV, BPD is the ONLY ONE that is notorious for making many of the spouses and partners feel like they may be losing their minds. Indeed, therapists see far more of those folks coming in (to find out if they are going crazy) than they ever see of the BPDers themselves.
This is incorrect. NPD also is known for crazy making.
Living with someone suffering from this condition is no picnic! Some months ago, I realized my partner has many of the symptoms of BPD as well (not diagnosed). Providing the best help for me have been:
The Stop Walking On Eggshells Workbook — the book gives you a clear idea on what you're dealing with, along with engaging you in exercises that really force you to realize 1) what the pwBPD is going through 2) how this affects you 3) what can you do to make it better on your part. Like in any other relationship problem, also with a BPD the truth is that we, as the non-BPD partner, are also contributing to the situation and the conflicts. In order to improve the situation we need to address our part in the dance.
Secondly, I would sincerely suggest you join the forums on bpdfamily.com. There are amazingly insightful people there sharing their own experiences and encouraging each other to deal with the feelings and conflicts that the BPD/NPD relationship entails.
My husband is not in therapy, nor is he admitting to having any problem. Dispite of this, I already notice a change in our relationship, just based on me changing the way I interract with her. Every day is a new lesson and I keep realizing more and more, how my issues have also affected us ending up in a rut and how I can stop enabling my husband's crazy. This also forces him to take responsibility for his own actions and feelings more and more. This change is extremely difficult!! But at this point I feel very strongly that it will be worth it.
Marriage counceling with someone w/ BPD hardly works, as people on the other forum will tell you, because without any tools for dealing with the disorder, the BPD will likely just manipulate the situation. I strongly suggest you to get counceling of your own. Dealing with a BPD can make us non's feel insane at times, and if our feelings of confusion, fear and anger go untreated, they will start to reak havoc in the relationship as well. Put yourself first, take care of You. Finding an outside person to talk about these feelings can help you give clarity and the confidence to make the right choice for you and your son.
((Edit: Oh wooops, Uptown had already suggested bpdfamily. Well, I'll leave it there as it has really been a life saving community for me.))
She was diagnosed by a marriage counselor that we visited a few times (until she got mad and refused to go back). The MC told me that she strongly suspected that my wife was BPD and suggested I read the Walking on Eggshells book. That book described my wife to a tee.
I apologize for the long nature of this but I need to get it off my chest and find out if I'm going crazy.
First some background information...
I'm 48 years old and have been married to my current wife for 4 years. I had no children from my previous marriage, she has two. Son is currently 18 starting college this year and Daughter is 21 and married. I adopted my daughter and am in the process of adopting my son. I grew up in a great household with a mother and father who were strict but loving and supportive. I think I turned out pretty darn good thanks to them.
When I met my wife she was a single mom, recently divorced from a verbally abusive loser. They were married at 19 and she was thrown into a situation where she had to be a mother to his 3 children from his previous marriage. She had our son one year into her first marriage. When we married, she relocated from the small town where she had lived her whole life to where I live (300 miles away).
She was making ends meet and doing a great job of raising her two teenage kids. I admired her tenacity and seeming ability to overcome anything to provide for them. Throughout our dating (we dated for a year) she was awesome, displayed a great sense of self. The only inkling I had of a darker side was a comment her brother in law made to me about "you haven't seen her mad yet".
The night of our wedding, after the ceremony, she got upset at our son (14 at the time) because he left his bag containing his toiletries in the trunk of our car. She reached in, grabbed it, and threw it at him. I was shocked as that type of behavior was totally inappropriate to me...I told her so but didn't push it beyond that as it was 1) the first time I’d seen anything like it from her 2) our wedding night, and 3) i chalked it up to stress from wedding, moving etc...
Fast forward a week, we were moving into our new house and my wife and daughter were moving a piece of furniture into position. My daughter said something innocent to my wife and my wife got very upset. She left the room and sat down in the corner of the kitchen refusing to get up and help us move into the house. I'm thinking to myself "Ok that is kind of childish" but I didn't say anything as I didn't want to start a confrontation or call her out in front of my new kids.
During the next year, I began to witness more and more anger from her. She would fly off the handle at our children for minor reasons. By flying off the handle, I mean berate, curse, call them stupid and unthankful. The kids told me she had always been that way when she got mad. Our son is very intelligent but like many kids you have to stay on him to do his homework and study. When he would make a poor grade at school, she would start saying things like "I give up, He's your problem now" in front of him. She would threaten to send him away to a boarding school or back to live with family in the town they came from. I told her that was never going to happen as long as I was in his life.
Then one day about a year after we were married, he told me that he wished she wouldn't threaten to send him away. Later that day, he was out mowing the yard and I told my wife what he had said. She got up and went outside and confronted him about it. He ran into the house, into his room with her on his heels yelling "pack your sh*t up and get out" This all happened very quickly. By the time I got into his room, she was swinging at him. I pulled her off of him and she slapped me, I slapped her back (neither slap was hard enough to leave a trace) and told her to stop. Her response was "Fine, I'll just kill myself". She went to our bathroom and pulled out bottles of pills, opened them and I don't know if she would have taken them or not because I took the pill bottle out of her hand. I told the kids to call 911. By the time the cops arrived she had calmed down dramatically and apologized for her behavior. I told the officers that we had an argument and that we slapped each other (not hard, there were no marks etc.) and that it was over now. I didn't tell them about her attacking our son or the suicide threat/attempt.
After the police left, I told my wife that if she ever did that again, I would divorce her without question. I also told her that we had to go to counseling if she wanted to stay married to me.
I found out later from my kids that when my son was 10, she got mad at him and drove him to an orphanage and left him on the door step. She told him that it would probably break his grandfathers (they were very close) heart and kill him. This thing of threatening abandonment wasn't a new behavior for her.
We began going to marriage counseling. I was interesting that my wife blamed me for everything. It was all my fault. After a few sessions she got mad at the counselor and refused to go back. The counselor told me that she believed that my wife was suffering from BPD and that I should read the book Walking on Egg Shells. I got the book and it was like I was reading a description of my wife. She exhibits almost all of the symptoms and then some that aren't even listed.
I seriously considered divorcing her then, I spoke to a lawyer and almost went through with it but I couldn't get past my concern on how she would react towards our son. I was scared that she would blame him for the divorce and take it out on him. Also I take my marriage vows very seriously and hesitate to go down the divorce road. Ultimately I decided to stay; however, it has caused some real issues.
I have always believed that marriage was built on a foundation of love, trust and respect. Her many BPD behaviors have really caused me to lose respect and trust (When will I step on a landmine again). I have always been a person who did not want to be around someone I can’t respect. I have lost interest in being intimate with her. She has noticed my lack of intimacy and is questioning me about it. I don’t know what to tell her. If I tell her it’s because of her behaviors, she’ll turn it on me…I know that road all too well.
Lately she’s been very depressed due to foot surgery and has threatened suicide at least 20 times in the last 6 weeks. Once going so far as to put the pills in her mouth before spitting them out. I don’t think she ever means to actually kill herself, she’s just using it to manipulate me.
Your last part about her behavior, in your state, I am surprised about your response about how she would treat your son. 1. Get her to a Dr, and get a perfessional Diagnosis. 2. Get her on medication. 3. Use this as the basis for sole legal, physical and primay Custody of the child. 4. Do supervised visitation and if she ever hits the kids again have her ass arrrested. You are enabling the sick chick. These woman are manipualitve, controling, you have been brainwashed and fear her. That's their game bro. Untangle yourself from her control of 12 year old behavior, you made a choice, you didn't know what you were getting into. you read the book. They are great actors. No one is getting this woman treatment and I don't know if she would be compliant, as 95% of BDP's aren't and this is the most difficult personality disorder to treat. Run!!!! Run like hell, because you are already in there. Sorry bro. Been there, left there.. Still working on the scars that I got from being there.. Grow a set and get your son, get a good attorney and get the hell out. she's sick. You start the paper trail. Oh. btw. these people are very intelligent too. So, don't tell anyone.. she is probably reading your post. Good luck. PS. I bet if you talked to her ex... Just like she blamed you for everything that goes wrong, is wrong, you are the fault of the problems in her life?... Think about what you said about her previous marriage.. She left because HE was abusive and now your seeing HER being verbally, physically, mentally and probably sexually abusive.. I bet she controls the sex between the two of you. has to control everything..
Your last part about her behavior, in your state, I am surprised about your response about how she would treat your son. 1. Get her to a Dr, and get a perfessional Diagnosis. 2. Get her on medication. 3. Use this as the basis for sole legal, physical and primay Custody of the child. 4. Do supervised visitation and if she ever hits the kids again have her ass arrrested. You are enabling the sick chick. These woman are manipualitve, controling, you have been brainwashed and fear her. That's their game bro. Untangle yourself from her control of 12 year old behavior, you made a choice, you didn't know what you were getting into. you read the book. They are great actors. No one is getting this woman treatment and I don't know if she would be compliant, as 95% of BDP's aren't and this is the most difficult personality disorder to treat. Run!!!! Run like hell, because you are already in there. Sorry bro. Been there, left there.. Still working on the scars that I got from being there.. Grow a set and get your son, get a good attorney and get the hell out. she's sick. You start the paper trail. Oh. btw. these people are very intelligent too. So, don't tell anyone.. she is probably reading your post. Good luck. PS. I bet if you talked to her ex... Just like she blamed you for everything that goes wrong, is wrong, you are the fault of the problems in her life?... Think about what you said about her previous marriage.. She left because HE was abusive and now your seeing HER being verbally, physically, mentally and probably sexually abusive.. I bet she controls the sex between the two of you. has to control everything..
My ex h has diagnosed BPD. I tried my best to get him help. It was useless. He did not want to get back on medication to control his anger and rages. My ex was very abusive. He also self medicated illegally with smoking and was unfaithful. 18 years later, everything is still my fault. He always puts the blame on others for his very poor behavior and misery. We had one child. After I found out about the unfaithfulness I left. I should of left due to the abuse. I could not stop visitation fully with my child, but it was limited. In the short time he saw her, he tore her apart emotionally. I didn't find out until my child was much older and he wanted nothing to do with her since the age of 14-15. He won't let his child contact her siblings either. If he finds out she calls, he hangs up. Her siblings no longer will speak to her either. My ex told his children that their sister hates them which is far from the truth. My child spent nights in her room crying due to being cut off from that family.
My ex left me abandoned several times. I was in my 9th month of pregnancy and he kicked me out of my car in the pouring rain in the dark on city streets. He left me stranded several times where I had to call for a ride. The anger in him is nothing I'd ever seen before. I was always told how worthless I was. I certainly did not meet up to his expectations until I left.
Once I left, it was a big weight lifted off my shoulders. He stalked me for a year. One of his gf's at the time moved in 3 days after I left. They are now married and he's had several affairs on her. I'm not sure what she expected when she knew he was married to me and she slept with him.
I remarried a few years later and I couldn't be happier. My current husband is the polar opposite from my ex. He's kind, gentle, always putting my needs first, a great father, ect... I made the right decision the second time around.
Good luck. Unless she recognizes she has an illness, she will never get help.
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Wife has BPD, I am going crazy 
