Physical & Mental Health IssuesMarriage and relationships are difficult by themselves, but coping with physical or mental health problems can make things even more difficult.
Yes, I would like to know more about fathers and daughters. It seems like my dad 'hurt' me more than my mom. I am totally ready for it. It's been almost 20 years! I have made some great boundaries, and I feel good. A little scared to open a book that may bring me back to those feelings again. We'll see. Posted via Mobile Device
I have just spent hours reading both this thread and the articles linked to from this thread. I have read a lot of information/books on depression to try and both help my wife and also help me cope with my wifes depression. I have never read anything much on BPD until today. I have never read anything which has characterised my wife and her actions so accurately.
My wife behaves in similar ways to that of the OP and I behave very much like him. I am the enabler and have sacrificed so much of myself to step on eggshells. My wife recently had a 2 year affair with her boss (my post is here : I think my wife maybe coming back. not sure on my feelings.).
I have put myself through the mill trying to get her back and on the verge of success but reading all this installs me with fear. Fear that I can not help her and that she will leave me at some point anyway. Fear that my child is going to be effected in some way without me being able to protect him.
My wife has been to lots of therapy and is generally willing to accept she needs help. She has had individual counselling, group CBT etc etc but I don't thing BPD has ever been mentioned.
Should I bring this up with her - show her these posts articles? Or is this going to make her think I am highlighting her problems?
I have to thank you Uptown for your involvement in this thread it is very very interesting to read
this thread is so eye-opening to me. The more I am reading, the more convinced I am that my H has BPD We met online, and after we started to chat and email each other, I was amazed at how much we had in common: he seemed to like the same music, the same activities, the same values and similar attitudes to things - I was totally sure I found my soulmate! He came to visit me in my home country for ten days, and it was heaven on Earth, we connected so well. He proposed, I said 'yes'. We filed a petition for fiancee visa for me to come to the US to be with him. We communicated by video chats and phone every day for several hours, I was so in love and so happy that I finally found a man who was so tuned in with me. Then we (my little daughter and I) came over to the US.
The house was a mess. Thick layer of dirt and grease over everything, piles of clothes, papers, all imaginable kinds of stuff on every surface. The waste bin - the huge one that is normally kept outside - in the kitchen. Heaps of things that were bought and obviously used once or twice, or even never - BOXES of files, business cards, envelopes, canned food that expired months before, FIVE slo-cookers of different sizes, several rotisseries, old clothes, old books like How to Learn to Play a Guitar, SIX guitars, (you probably guessed it by now - he does NOT play the guitar)... piles of unopened envelopes that contained overdue bills and letters from collection agencies. During the almost a year we were virtually dating, he never told me he was in debt or had any financial problems at all. Okay, I cleaned the house the best I could, I told him we could make it through the debt, with good planning (I have managerial background and can deal with money issues). We got married.
But things did not start to improve. All my attempts at helping him sort out the finances were met with suspicion and anger and rejected. He earns the money, so he will decide how to manage it. Fine. I learnt to cook balanced meals (he is always on some kind of diet) from scratch for five (his two sons, 21 and 17, live with us), buy groceries for $60 a week, know all the prices and discounts in grocery stores. I learnt to buy clothes for me and my daughter in Goodwill stores. I did not mind it, because I thought we had it all planned out as we agreed: we save some money for daycare, I help my 3-year old who does not speak English, learn some by going to the daycare with her for a while, then I can find a job and with a second income, we'll be fine.
Now, according to the laws here, an immigrant fiancee/wife of a US citizen can not work until she gets an employment authorization from Immigration Service. This takes several months. During the several months it took, things got ugly. My H had spending sprees (am I using the right word? not native English speaker, sorry for mistakes if any) - he'd go and throw into the cart whatever he fancied - exotic foods he'd think he'd like to try, but never would even open in the end, other things in excess - like, when he decided he wanted to start a vegetable garden, he bough a zillion packets of seeds - and they are still sitting unpacked in the basement... I would always go ahead and remind him that we can not afford these things at the moment, to which he got very angry. Several times he yelled at me that he was the only one in the family who worked, so he could do whatever he felt was right. He told me more than once that I was a gold-digger who came to the US for the sake of coming to the US, not for him. This is so unfair and painful as it is not true: I would have never considered leaving my country, my family and friends, my business contacts, if it were not for him. He told me I wanted to 'mess up' with the finances to get hold of total control of the money he earned and then run away with it. I have never been so humiliated in my life.
At the moment, I have employment authorization, but we still have not saved money for daycare - everything he earns goes to debt payments, bill payments and groceries. I can not find a job until I find a daycare and get my daughter used to staying in an English-speaking environment all day on her own. I can not find a daycare because we have no extra money. Catch 22.
I only described a part of what is going on with us, it is too long and complicated to go on... I just wanted to ask, especially Uptown, how on earth do you tell a BPD husband that you want a divorce without him tearing you to pieces and accusing you of all the sins his sick imagination can make up?
Rachel, welcome to the TAM forum. I am so sorry to hear you are going through such painful experiences with your H. I therefore am glad that you found the information on BPD traits to be helpful.
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how on earth do you tell a BPD husband that you want a divorce without him tearing you to pieces and accusing you of all the sins his sick imagination can make up?
You prepare carefully and spring it on him at the very last minute, ideally after you've moved out earlier that same day. If he will be there while you are moving, it is best to have a friend present (or, ideally, strangers like moving men present). This is the advice you will find at the BPD websites targeted only to nonBPDer partners ("Nons") like you. I suggest you take a look at the "Leaving" message board at BPDfamily.com, which likely is the largest and most active site targeted to us Nons.
But don't forget those of us here at TAM. We will be glad to be supportive as long as you find our comments helpful. For example, several of us have been supporting Le Vieux (aka, "LVS"), for over a year. Like you, she is a sweet caregiver who came here from another country and married a BPDer man already living here in the States. Also like you, she tolerated frequent verbal abuse and temper tantrums throughout the marriage. In her case, however, the marriage lasted far longer -- 28 years -- before she decided to end it. My posts in her thread start at 28 years of marriage What ca i do?.
Wow, 28 years! I started to feel I have to struggle to maintain my identity after living with him for several months. This is not life, this watching one's every step, trying not to upset him, trying to have regular sex with him, as the lack of it is 100% sure to set him off etc. I am a happy kind of person, normally, and now I feel I am gradually losing myself. He also does a lot of 'gas-lighting' - saying he never said something he actually did, or accusing me of what HE did, like spending money or making a mess. He always speeds when we go somewhere and several times I had to cry out to draw his attention to a car in front of us braking or changing lane, which he just did not SEE. This is crazy, and I know I do not want my life and the life of my child to be spent near this man.
At the same time, there is nothing I can point my finger at, officially. From the outside, he works, I don't; he never laid a hand on me in anger; most of the time, he is calm and polite, especially when there are strangers around. I have also been the one who has sometimes denied him 'intimacy', as I can NOT desire someone who was yelling at me several hours previously. There is also this aspect of many people thinking that the USA is just the place where anyone dreams of living in, and I have been so very lucky to come here, that I now must lay down and die for my husband who made it happen, and if I am not grateful enough, he has the right to 'ship us back' - this is how a relative (the only one I ever confided in) commented on the whole thing. This is really humiliating to me, I am NOT from some undeveloped country, I have a Master's degree, and did not need to be 'saved' from anywhere. Sorry if my post is a bit overwhelming, it is the first time I am trying to put it all in written, at once, from the beginning to present, and obviously, not really succeeding in being consequent.
Bottom line, I can not trust him again after lying to me for a year about what he was and what he liked, when we were virtually dating, not letting me know about finances until after I 'burnt my bridges' and had no choice but go with it; and those ugly fits of anger and empty, wicked accusations, all those heaps of lies, lies, lies about me, and him, and everything. I have no idea who the woman he lives with in his twisted fantasy world is, but it is not me, and I want out.
Re: My wife is depressed and it's always my fault 
We met online, and after we started to chat and email each other, I was amazed at how much we had in common: he seemed to like the same music, the same activities, the same values and similar attitudes to things - I was totally sure I found my soulmate! He came to visit me in my home country for ten days, and it was heaven on Earth, we connected so well. He proposed, I said 'yes'. We filed a petition for fiancee visa for me to come to the US to be with him. We communicated by video chats and phone every day for several hours, I was so in love and so happy that I finally found a man who was so tuned in with me. Then we (my little daughter and I) came over to the US. 
