# Is this considered "normal" behavior?



## Dahlia92 (Dec 31, 2012)

My husband has been diagnosed with BPD (borderline personality disorder) and is in therapy. He goes regularly and is doing a good job at changing his behavior. I am working on my healing. Today he discovered the dog had chewed up his brand new leather gloves. So he yelled and swore at the dog, locked her in her kennel and slammed some doors. 

Now I don't like this behavior at all, it triggers bad memeories of the past for me and I don't deal with it so well. I'd be perfectly happy if no one ever slammed a door in my presence again. BUT, I have been around BPD behavior for so long, it's hard for me to make sure I'm calibrated to "normal" or "usual" behavior and I want to be. His therapist has told him it's normal to get angry, and of course it is, but is it "normal" to act this way over chewed up gloves?

And yes, I have told him how the door slamming makes me feel before. I'm pretty sure he will apologize when he gets home (he found them on his way out the door) and tell me he was just mad at the dog. 

Does anyone's non-BPD spouse behave this way?


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## KathyBatesel (Apr 26, 2012)

Mine would probably react in a similar way. It's one of the few things we've ever disagreed on, because I'm hyper-sensitive to the possibility of abuse. I've had to walk away and remind myself that my husband is NOT someone from my past, that he has never laid a hand on me or the animals, and that slamming stuff around *is* the worst I've seen from him. If that's the worst it ever gets, I'll be happy.


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## SunnyT (Jun 22, 2011)

Sounds normal to me. You know he will get over it, and you think he will apologize. Sometimes people get angry...and ya, the dog chewing up your gloves is a good reason.


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## diwali123 (Feb 17, 2012)

I think it's normal. It would probably trigger me too. Now if he punched a hole in the wall or slammed a door on your face, that would be another level.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Maneo (Dec 4, 2012)

dogs who love to chew without discrimination can make even the most boringly normal among us slam doors and curse and then apologize later to both humans who witnessed the action and even to fido who will live to wag his shaggy tail.


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## Dahlia92 (Dec 31, 2012)

KathyBatesel said:


> I'm hyper-sensitive to the possibility of abuse.


This is the thing. My husband has been abusive to me, sometimes extremely abusive because of the BPD. It has never been physical, but he has done physical things such as door slamming, breaking things, punching the walls, throwing things along with all the emotional and verbal stuff. I would be long gone if he wasn't in therapy and taking it seriously. The door slamming is just about too much for me, even if it is normal, because of what he's put me through in the past. 

Maybe I'll just talk to him about it and ask if he can work with his therapist to see if there are better ways he can vent his anger. It does concern me as well because we have two small children who have also taking to slamming doors when they are angry.


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Dahlia92 said:


> My husband has been abusive to me, sometimes extremely abusive because of the BPD....he has done physical things such as door slamming, breaking things, punching the walls, throwing things along with all the emotional and verbal stuff.


Dahlia, yes, that is how BPDers typically behave. Generally, they experienced a trauma before age 5, leaving them stuck with the emotional development of a four year old. This means, absent years of weekly treatment, their ego defense is heavily reliant on the primitive defenses available to young children -- e.g., projection, temper tantrums, black-white thinking, magical thinking, and escaping into daydreams. 

Hence, the abusive behavior you are seeing largely consists of temper tantrums and hissy fits, which typically last 4 or 5 hours. This may seem strange to you, given that he has the intelligence, cunning, knowledge, and body strength of a full grown man. But they are childish temper tantrums, pure and simple, if he is a BPDer.


> I would be long gone if he wasn't in therapy and taking it seriously.


How do you know he is taking the therapy seriously? I ask because it is extremely difficult to determine whether a BPDer spouse is actually doing the hard work needed to improve. One reason is that making substantial improvements can take several years, which means that the changes usually will be incremental and small on a month-to-month basis.

Another reason is that BPDers are unstable people, which means that they are dramatically improving every few weeks -- right before dramatically regressing to their bad behavior. In the same way that addicted smokers are "always quitting," BPDers will be seen making dramatic changes on a regular basis, but it is rare for any of them to do so permanently.

Like your H, my BPDer exW agreed to work hard in therapy. So I spent over $200,000 sending her to weekly sessions over 15 years with six different psychologists -- all to no avail. For the first several years, I figured she would have to get worse before getting better, because the therapy likely was putting her into touch with painful childhood experiences. Then, for the rest of our 15 year marriage, I just lied to myself, believing that she likely was making some small improvements. Instead, however, she just got worse. She had only been playing mind games with the therapists, at great expense to me.

I have described some of my experiences with typical BPDer behavior in Maybe's thread at http://talkaboutmarriage.com/general-relationship-discussion/33734-my-list-hell.html#post473522. If that description rings some bells, I would be glad to discuss them with you and point you to good online resources. Take care, Dahlia.


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## KathyBatesel (Apr 26, 2012)

Dahlia92 said:


> This is the thing. My husband has been abusive to me, sometimes extremely abusive because of the BPD. It has never been physical, but he has done physical things such as door slamming, breaking things, punching the walls, throwing things along with all the emotional and verbal stuff. I would be long gone if he wasn't in therapy and taking it seriously. The door slamming is just about too much for me, even if it is normal, because of what he's put me through in the past.
> 
> Maybe I'll just talk to him about it and ask if he can work with his therapist to see if there are better ways he can vent his anger. It does concern me as well because we have two small children who have also taking to slamming doors when they are angry.


I wouldn't recommend de-sensitizing to it, exactly. I have told my husband that I'm probably going to forever be alert to this possibility because people *do* sometimes cross the line even when they expect not to. In your case, you've seen him cross that line, so you should be on alert until you've seen enough time go by that you no longer fear that he will go too far. 

But at the same time, you should take steps to make sure you're able to keep things in perspective, just as you did by posting this thread. I think that's wise of you to seek a reality check when you aren't sure.


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## Dahlia92 (Dec 31, 2012)

Uptown, I know the general behavior. *I've done tons of reading and researching for both BPD and abuse, on the support group sites and all that. *I've been dealing with this for a long time. **

I believe my husband is changing because:
-He is doing everything on the how to tell if an abuser is changing list and nothing on the how to tell if they aren't list.*Signs he/she has changed - The CatBox - Trubble's CatBox

-He has taken responsibility for his actions, he admits to being abusive and he recognizes that he had BPD. *We had found some videos on youtube about BPD and he couldn't believe how well they described his life. *When he found a new therapist (this is his second one, omg even I think the first one was completely incompetent), he told her he thought he had BPD.

-He is doing the therapy for him, he says he can't take the way he was anymore, said he'd go whether I stayed with him or not

-He found his own therapist, makes his own weekly appointments, goes totally on his own, *pays his own therapy bills. *I do absolutely nothing with regard to his therapy.

-He says he feels better after he goes to a therapy session and he likes his therapist and she is competent (she actually has a proven track record in successfully treating BPD)*

-He tells me about the things he talks about with his therapist and the things he learns sometimes, he shares good tips she gives him for dealing with the kids with me

-He actively tries new behaviors and approaches that his therapist gives him....he will say (Therapist) says it would be good if I tried this in this situation. The things he tells me she tells him to try lets me know that he is being honest with her about what he does. *

-His behavior has changed slowly over the last year or so. *I didn't really see much for the first 6 months, but then I started seeing a real difference and I see incremental change each month now. *I don't see any dramatic improvements or any dramatic regressing.

-He is starting to figure out his own behavior and correct himself when he does something he shouldn't, he does this with both me and the kids

-When he does something that concerns me or triggers me, he listens to what I have to say without getting angry or blaming or throwing a fit, if it's something he needs to change he tells me he will try to do better and he actually follows through

-There have been a couple of times he has said I used to do this that way and now I do it this way or think about it this way and I'm proud of myself for that

-There are incremental improvements and they may not seem like much month to month, but I see a pretty significant difference from last year at this time to now

-He gives me whatever time I want and need to move from step to step in my healing, spending time together, being comfortable opening up and talking, sex, saying I love you, whatever I need time for he doesn't push me for anything. *If I make a step forward and then need to dial it back a little, he is ok with it.

-He is repairing things and building my trust through actions

So I do believe he is serious. *I'm not sure I could honestly ask him to do any more than what he is doing. *


I am curious about one thing, you said people with BPD tend to make dramatic improvements then regress. *This isn't something I see my husband doing now (although maybe in the past that's what happened), but I know someone else who I suspect has BPD and that kinda fits with things I've seen them do. *They have actually made statements like when I want to change something, I just change it, they will be better then I'll see that same behavior later on. * Is there any reference material you have on this? *Just curious because it would explain some things.

Thanks KathyB. *That's exactly what I'm trying to do, make sure I have the right perspective. *And I decided it was hard to get that on only abuse and BPD/personality disorder forums. *Thank you all for your input.

And I also realize this dog is a total pain in the azz, lol. *She chews everything, takes things off the counters, takes the kids toys, runs off, etc., etc. *She is a frustrating dog to begin with and it's not like I've never gotten pretty ticked at her. *I'm just not the door slamming type, never have been. * *So I'm working to make sure I do keep the right perspective. **

I talked to him about it and he said he was sorry and he had really been trying to not slam doors because he knows he shouldn't and he knows it's hard on me. He said he got overwhelmed and he will try to do better.


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## Dahlia92 (Dec 31, 2012)

Hmmm...not sure where all the asterisks came from in my last post


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Dahlia92 said:


> Uptown, I know the general behavior. *I've done tons of reading and researching for both BPD and abuse, on the support group sites and all that. *I've been dealing with this for a long time. **


Dahlia, I was not trying to state the obvious. Rather, I was simply responding to your two questions, 


_"Is it normal to act this way over chewed up gloves?" _and
_"Does anyone's non-BPD spouse behave this way?"_



> I believe my husband is changing because: ...He has taken responsibility for his actions, he admits to being abusive and he recognizes that he had BPD.


You are describing a man who, in a year's time, has gone from abusive BPD-like behavior (e.g., temper tantrums and verbal abuse) to normal adult behavior. As Kathy, Diwali, and SunnyT told you, the door slamming following the dog incident is normal behavior. Every adult on the planet occasionally exhibits all nine of the BPD traits (albeit, infrequently and at a low level if the person is healthy). Hence, with respect to his behavior over the past six months, you are describing the behavior of a healthy man.


> I don't see any dramatic improvements or any dramatic regressing.... I am curious about one thing, you said people with BPD tend to make dramatic improvements then regress. *This isn't something I see my husband doing now.


If you haven't seen a cycle of improvement/regression over the past 6 months, you are not describing an emotionally unstable man. Significantly, the only trait that distinguishes BPD from the other 8 PDs is that BPDers are _unstable_. If your H is not unstable, he is not a BPDer. 

BPDers typically suffered damage to their emotional core in early childhood, resulting in a very fragile, weak sense of who they are. That damage also results in two great fears: abandonment and engulfment. And it results in their carrying enormous anger and shame inside throughout adulthood. 

All of this damage combines to produce an angry, sensitive individual who is so emotionally unstable that, in ten seconds, he can flip from adoring you to devaluing you. And then, based on some minor comment or action, he will flip back again just as quickly. These flips typically result in temper tantrums and verbal abuse, lasting about five hours, about every 2 or 3 weeks -- if you are careful to avoid triggering them more frequently by always walking on eggshells. 

It is this _push-you-away_ and _pull-you-back cycle_, then, that I referred to when talking about the dramatic "improvements" and "regressions" in a BPDer's behavior. That is the way emotionally unstable people behave. And, if your H is a BPDer, he is emotionally unstable by definition. It is generally believed that, with several years of therapy, a BPDer can learn how to manage these traits and the instability -- but doing so is a continual struggle because the underlying condition cannot be cured.

I therefore have never heard of a BPDer being able to successfully manage those traits -- much less being able to satisfy all the good behaviors on the "Abuser is Changing" list you cite -- in only 12 months. I'm not saying it is impossible. Rather, I'm just saying I've never heard of it in the past six years of communicating with BPDers and their partners.

It is rare for a high functioning BPDer to have sufficient self awareness to ever acknowledge -- as your H has done -- that he has strong BPD traits. Indeed, it is so rare that, although I've met numerous BPDers in my private life, I've never knowingly met a self-aware BPDer. Yet, with the miracle of the Internet, I've had the good fortune of communicating with nearly a hundred "self awares" online.

Even when BPDers manage to achieve self awareness, they are still far from being out of the woods. Sadly, most of the self aware BPDers lack the ego strength to remain in therapy and work hard on getting better. One self aware BPDer told me that, on the BPDer website she participates in, the vast majority of "self awares" just whine and complain about their condition but won't do anything about it. Instead, they just wallow in being "The Victim." 

This likely is why therapist Shari Schreiber says you have a better chance flying to the moon strapped to a banana than ever seeing a BPDer stay in therapy long enough to make a difference. I therefore would be surprised if more than 1 out of 100 BPDers have the self awareness and ego strength required to get better. And I would be surprised if a lasting, substantial improvement occurs in only a year.


> His behavior has changed slowly over the last year or so. *I didn't really see much for the first 6 months, but then I started seeing a real difference and I see incremental change each month now.


In light of what I said above, one possibility is that your H never did have a permanent condition of BPD but, rather, a temporary flareup of the BPD traits that we all have. Those traits can flare up, even in healthy individuals, for several years due to a hormone change or drug usage (or,more rarely, brain damage or brain tumor). 

A second possibility is that your H had only a mild to moderate pattern of BPD traits that is easy to treat. And a third possibility is that he has strong BPD traits (resulting from childhood trauma) but is one of those rare, amazing individuals who have the self awareness and ego strength to bring the traits under control.

I don't know what your H's issue is but it is possible that you are married to an amazingly self aware BPDer who is a rare jewel of a guy. Given that his therapist has diagnosed him as such, I believe you are wise to trust the therapist, especially if she has had much experience in treating BPDers.


> [His therapist] actually has a proven track record in successfully treating BPD.


You can't argue with success. Given that your H's behavior has substantially improved in only a year, you are very wise to stick with that therapist. By the way, Dahlia, is she a psychologist (i.e., does she have a PhD in psychology)? And, if you don't mind my asking, how do you know she has a lot of success in treating BPDers?


> Is there any reference material you have on [BPDers exhibiting dramatic improvements and regressions]?


I describe the typical cycle of flipping between loving and devaluing you in Maybe's thread at http://talkaboutmarriage.com/general-relationship-discussion/33734-my-list-hell.html#post473522. In one phase of the cycle, the BPDer will be splitting you white, i.e., being very loving and promising to treat you better -- this is where the dramatic "improvement" occurs. That is followed, as night follows day, by the "splitting you black" phase of the cycle -- at which point you know there was no lasting improvement.

That improvement-regression (i.e., push-pull) cycle is also described by Schreiber at BORDERLINE PERFECT - Splitting, Splicing and Projection in BPD Personalities. A BPDfamily article describes it at T9 Surviving a Break-up with Someone Suffering with Borderline Personality Disorder - Columbia University, New York. If you want to read a book targeted to the abused spouses of BPDers, the best-selling book is _Stop Walking on Eggshells_.


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## kate542 (Jul 25, 2012)

We all react differently in anger, who's to say what is normal and what isn't.
If his behaviour is something you don't like then it doesn't matter if it is normal or not because you don't like it and you should tell him.
I've been married 43 years and there are many things I don't like in my husbands behaviour when he is annoyed. 
I tell him but it doesn't make any difference he acts as he wants and nothing will alter that so I have to live with this as I cannot alter him. 
You could walk out of the room, ignor him but you can't change him you can only chance yourself.


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## Dahlia92 (Dec 31, 2012)

Uptown, I'll read through everything better later, just scanned it. But my husband has been diagnosed as BPD and OCD by a PhD clinical psychologist who has been practicing a very long time. She has said he is very BPD. He still has BPD thinking errors and other issues, he is by all means not fixed and his therapist said he can expect to be in therapy five years. He has gotten the outward blatant stuff better under control, but it is the internal stuff that still needs a lot of work.

This is what has happened in the past year, BUT it was shear and utter hell getting to the point where he would get help. He hit rock bottom and said himself that he just couldn't take it anymore. I honestly think he got to the point where it was get help or not live.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

I would not accept yelling at the dog and banging doors. 

The dog has no idea why it's being yelled at. 

And I am very sensative to abuse. He needs to learn to not even go off like that when he dog chews up his gloves. There are more consructive ways to handle things.

For example, IMO, if a dog chew gloves it's not the dog's fault. Why where the dogs somewhere that the dog would get them? Dogs chew up things.. especially young dogs. So you lean to keep yummy things out of reach and use bitter apple on things that you cannot put up.

One dog I had l liked to chew on furnature and bitter apple did not deture him. So I used some bengay on the corner he tried to chew. All he had to do was smell it. That put an end to all future furnature chewing.


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## Dahlia92 (Dec 31, 2012)

Uptown, I can only tell you how he is behaving now and what it used to be like. *I really don't have much to compare it to for speed or how much he has improved or anything because I've found it really hard to find others who have people in their life who are diagnosed with BPD who are really working on it. *

My husband grew up in a very abusive and invalidating environment. *We think his mom also had BPD, she certainly fits the behavior. *His dad was gone a lot for work, but was also abusive. He has the core issues with severe damage and trauma. *He has definitely had the abandonment and engulfment fears, very controlling and held on to me so tightly I could barely breath. *He has had the anger and shame issues. *He described the cycle to me once of how the anger and shame (and guilt) would feed each other and how it felt. *He has had the feelings of worthlessness. *He has worked really hard on letting up on the control, not freaking if I come back from the store 10 minutes later than I he thought I should (wow, that hasn't happened in a long time, used to be ALL the time), not accusing me of having an affair because I was going on a business trip, not going through all my stuff and that kind of thing. *He said he started with one thing, letting up control of one specific thing and that really helped him to let up on control of other stuff. *He gave himself a very strict boundary of never reading any of my personal stuff or getting into my desk or my email account, my support group account, those kinds of personal things. *He freaked in the past if he thought I was going to leave him, I mean full up suicide threats or hints at suicide, tons of drama, a huge scene and the whole deal. *

His fits would be all over the place. *We went for so long with him not being able to keep it together for even a few days (man, there have been times I would have loved the 2-3 weeks spacing, lol). *He would rage, throw things, say horrible things to me, slam doors, tell me it was all my fault, break things, tell me I was crazy, project his view of himself onto me (he actually described this to me once, he told me after a fit that he didn't mean those things about me, that they were what he thought about himself), call me horrible names, and just all kinds of things. *Something as small as not being able to find keys could set it off. *Then when he was done, he was fine, off to the next thing. *And I would be a beaten down pile of mush. * Fits might be an hour or two, they might go for days, he might rage for a while then punish me some other way until he came out of it. *If I was really lucky, he would reward a few hour fit with actually opening up and talking to me afterwards. *But I always had to pay the price, he wouldn't just talk to me about something. *The longest before now (after he got really bad, which was after our daughter was born, she's now 7) he kept it together was one time for 3 months and then he just freaking exploded. * I was the egg shell queen. *I'd get up early every morning looking around the house to try to figure out what could set him off that day and try to fix it before he saw it, yeah I never guessed right. *I did soooooo much stuff trying to ward off the fits. *They came no matter what I did or didn't do. *If he got triggered in a vehicle, watch out for the road rage and reckless driving, didn't matter if the kids and I were in the car or not. *And omg, if I said anything about it, there would be road rage combined with him raging at me.

When he used to tell me he'd change, he'd get all better, like 180 degrees better, it would last a few days or a week and then he'd freak on me again. *It was awful. *He doesn't do that anymore. *He is consistently doing better bit by bit and keeping it together. * He used to go out to the garage every night with his gun and sit there and think of one reason why he shouldn't kill himself. *Apparently this went on for years and years and I never knew about it. *He actually promised his therapist that he would stop and he wouldn't do anything stupid. *She said that was really rare for someone with BPD. *I don't think he does it anymore because he doesn't act like he used to, but I didn't know before so I can't vouch for now for sure. *He told me once the suicidal thoughts like that started around age 10. *He also used to sit and listen to the Johnny Cash song Hurt over and over again. *I don't think he does that anymore either.

He was horribly impulsive with money and spending was completely out of control. *If I tried to say anything about it, I got raged at. *He is doing better with the spending, a lot better, and he doesn't rage when I say something anymore, he will talk to me about money now, but the problem isn't completely gone. *He is still working on his spending. *

In the past if I would bring up counseling, he'd get pissed at me for "thinking he was crazy", he'd come up with every excuse in the book why he couldn't go, he'd scream at me about all my psycho babble, he'd flat out refuse to go. *Finally I started going myself and he threw my self help book at me and told me he didn't want me to get better because if I did, I'd leave him. *He's talked in the past about feeling empty, having no idea who he was. *He's broken down over what his parents did to him. *There were times he was so depressed he'd spend weeks locked in our bedroom. We got to the point where we simply couldn't have a discussion about anything, ever. *Omg, there is so much more, it was just bad, really really bad.

I honestly don't think I've ever heard my husband whine about being diagnosed with BPD. *I actually think he was relieved to finally know what was wrong. *He's known for a very long time something was wrong. * He broke down and said he just couldn't take it any more, that he tried to do it himself and he couldn't, that he wouldn't make it much longer in the turmoil he was in. *I thought the same thing, maybe he was a milder version of BPD, but then his therapist made the comment of him being very BPD. *His mom passed away maybe 10 months ago and I honestly wonder how much that helped (coincidentally, that 3 month stretch of good behavior was during a time he cut his mom out of his life because she did something horrible). *She was a huge trigger for him in my opinion. *Some other wake up call stuff happened in the last year, too. *

He told me just the other day it is a lot of work and really hard to take responsibility for the things he did and see things the right way. *He said it's work to keep himself in that place. *

So that's the short version on my story with the hubby. * I think he is doing a good job, but I know the internal stuff isn't even close to being all fixed. *But life is so much more peaceful now and I believe he can do it if he stays in therapy. *I can't remember the name of the therapy his therapist is using, but it was not the standard DBT/CBT stuff. *I had looked it up and it was used to treat BPD, but was rare. *I remember there not being a ton of info on it. *I don't have any hard evidence of her treatment success rate. *All I know is that he asked the insurance company for names of PhDs who specialized in BPD and she had communicated to him she had successfully treated it. *He did his own research to find an appropriate therapist. *I'd have to ask him for more detail than that.

Apparently I'm the only person on my abuse support forum who has ever had an abuser really admit stuff and try to change, I've really struggled to find people who have been through this successfully on the BPD and PD forums or even people whose BPD is in therapy (although one or two have come up as successes with the couples staying together and the BPD treatment being successful). *Maybe he is one of the rare ones, I really don't know. *He will barely accept any acknowledgement of him putting in the effort he does and doing the good job I think he's doing, he will only say he is trying and has a lot of work to do. *


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## pidge70 (Jan 17, 2011)

As a BPD'er myself, trust me, he is going to need those five years of therapy. I wish you both luck.


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Dahlia, thanks for providing us with that wonderful amount of detail about your H's behavior. It is a very moving experience to simply read about some of the many painful struggles that you both have endured.


> His therapist made the comment of him being very BPD.


I don't know what he meant by that but, usually, saying that someone is "very BPD" means that the person has full-blown BPD, i.e., satisfies 100% of the diagnostic criteria. Even when that condition is met, however, the BPDer can either be low or high functioning. The vast majority of BPDers are high functioning, which means they interact fine with casual friends, business associates, and total strangers. None of those people trigger a release of the BPDer's anger because they pose no threat to his fears of abandonment and engulfment.

Because the low-functioning BPDers are miserable and in great pain, they are at great risk of committing suicide and they sometimes will do cutting or other self abuse as a way of "externalizing" the pain -- which actually reduces their suffering somewhat. In contrast, the high-functioning BPDers generally are not at great risk of suicide and they generally do not do any self harm like cutting. Although they will sometimes threaten suicide, it generally is done only as a way of controlling the spouse.

I mention this distinction because it sounds like your H was, in many respects, a LF BPDer (e.g., carrying the gun into the garage every evening) who has improved to the point of being a HF BPDer. It is not uncommon for BPDers to migrate back and forth between LF and HF, depending on their stress level (or a change in hormone level). What is remarkable about your description of your H's improvement is (a) his amazing level of self awareness and (b) the enormous behavioral changes he has managed to accomplish in only a year.


> I think he is doing a good job....


No, "good" doesn't even come close. He is doing an _amazing_ job! Although BPD creates thought distortions, those distorted thinking patterns are such a normal part of the way the BPDer has been thinking since childhood that they almost always are invisible to him. This is why BPD is said to be "egosyntonic," i.e., in harmony with the person's self image and usual way of thinking. 

On top of that, a BPDer is filled with so much self loathing and shame that the last thing he wants to find is one more thing to add to the long list of things he hates about himself. His conscious mind therefore protects his fragile ego by allowing him to see only a little bit of reality when it comes to close relationships. This is why BPDers generally have little or no self awareness with regard to their own issues.

I suspect that, if your H had only been HF, he would never have developed such a high degree of self awareness. His LF episodes likely created such intense pain and feelings of emptiness that he was compelled to be introspective. Yet, even if that is true, the level of self awareness you describe is still astounding.


> Maybe he is one of the rare ones.


There is no "maybe" about it. He is a rare jewel of a man. There are millions of people all over the country (like me) who would love to lock your H up in a hotel room for a week -- together with their BPDer spouses and ex-spouses -- in hopes that some of his self awareness would rub off on them. Please ask him to consider it. I would offer him lodging at a Marriott, meals delivered to the room, and a large flat-screen TV. And, of course, he would be the one to hold the remote.


> I've really struggled to find people who have been through this successfully on the BPD and PD forums


If you've not already tried it, your best chance of meeting such couples likely is in the "Staying" forum at BPDfamily.com. Here on the TAM forum, the only couple I know of like that is Pidge (who has already responded above) and her husband, JoeKidd. Both of them are active participants here and are very knowledgeable and articulate writers. There also are several other self aware BPDers on TAM. I am hopeful they will join your thread too. 

Similarly, at eNotAlone.com, you will find Cheetarah. Like Pidge, Cheetarah is very self aware, highly articulate, and has worked hard for many years in therapy on her BPD issues. She started therapy at age 14. Although Cheetarah has been in several long-term relationships (including one with another BPDer), she is not married at this time.


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## Dahlia92 (Dec 31, 2012)

My husband does just fine with interacting with others. *No one would ever suspect he has BPD. *No one would ever suspect he has done to me what he has. *To me, he meets 8 of the 9 diagnostic criteria. *He is in a profession where he interacts with the public. *He can make friends and strike up a conversation with literally anyone about just about anything and likely get them laughing. *He is very intelligent and has a wealth of useless knowledge in his head, lol. *He could convince an eskimo to buy ice. *He does occasionally have someone he clashes with, but I can't say that isn't normal for anyone. *The only people who I believe have really seen the other side of him are me and his family. *I'm not even sure his other two serious girlfriends saw it (we have been together for 17 years). *But his family has seen it in the past when he was younger and they chose to be nasty to him about it instead of trying to get him some help. *They are very dysfunctional. *His brother is a miserable drunk and my husband suspects his sister may also have BPD. * Neither sibling thinks they have problems. *We had Christmas with his family a couple of weeks ago and his sister did something very dysfunctional to him. *He pulled me aside and was like did you hear that? *Oh I heard it alright, lol. *I told him he had done the same kind of thing to me many times. *He said he used to think that was just how people acted, he didn't realize it wasn't normal. *Later he told me he had a hard time with what I said, that he had done it. *I told him I wasn't criticizing him or anything, just talking about it and letting him know I understand how it feels to have someone do that. *

He was never the intense love, love bombing, crazy whirlwind, make you think he was your soul mate start of the relationship guy. *We took things very slowly, dated for over 6 years. *He said he wanted to fix himself before we were serious because he knew he wanted to be with me and he thought he had before we married, but he later realized he had just buried the problems (told me this a while ago). *I never saw the extent of it during that time, no criticism, no rages, no craziness. *We even lived together for a few months before we married and he was just a really nice partner. *Sometime in the last several months he told me his happiness during that time in his life was just an act. *He seemed like a care free happy young guy who liked to have fun, was a hard worker and had a few issues due to his family to me. *But I was young and naive, so I could have missed a whole lot of warning signs. *

The only other low functioning thing I know about is once he told me he would sometimes punch himself in the head. *I had no idea he did this either. *The suicide threats if he thought I wanted to leave were of the controlling and manipulative kind. *For example he'd say something like I want to make sure you know that whatever happens after you leave is in no way your fault and I don't want you to feel responsible for it, followed by some hinting at what he was talking about to get his point across. *He told me he admitted to his therapist that he used suicide threats to try to control me. *He is aware of the things he does to a pretty good degree. *He has flat out told me he would punish me for things, says he is really trying not to do the punishments. *He told me a long time ago he would be in pain because of something I said or did or just in pain and he'd do stuff to make me feel the same pain. *He's actually told me a lot of things over the years about what he does and why, just a little statement here or there, more in the last year or year and a half. *I had asked about the telling me one thing one time and then telling me the exact opposite another time thing he would do (stuff like, yes I need to go to a therapist, then later this is all bs and psycho babble and there's no way I'll go) and he told me what he said is really what he felt or thought right then, that his feelings and thoughts/wants really could change that much. *I guess he does have quite a lot of awareness.....but it used to be mingled in with soooooooo much bad behavior, blame and crap that I guess I never realized what it was.

It wasn't just the thought of me leaving him, sometimes he'd blow up at me, tell me he couldn't take any more of this bs and that he was leaving me. *He always calmed down and didn't actually want to go though. *He told me several times that people always leave and he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop with me, always waiting for me to leave. *The problem was I am very much an empathetic person (which is great as long as you have boundaries, which I didn't), I was way too much of a caregiver (I am fixing that, I want a partner) and I always very much believed that marriage was forever.

I honestly hadn't considered him low functioning based on what I had read. *I do know he has been in a lot of pain for a very long time. *I would guess your assessment of cycling between low and high functioning could be accurate. *I will do more reading on it. *The self loathing and shame, definitely there. *He would say things like he was a bad person, he already knew that, he didn't need to hear about all the things he did wrong, what a piece of **** he was (just a small example of what I would get if I tried to talk about anything he did that hurt me). *If he kept going until I cried, he had no empathy whatsoever about it, would even attack me more if I cried. *He told me once he thought I was just trying to manipulate him when I cried. *I actually had to explain to him that I was crying because he had hurt me so badly I just couldn't keep it in. But he can also be a very kind man, paying for strangers groceries at the store if they don't have enough money, donating to the food bank, doing nice things for neighbors, even thinking about what he could do for others as part of dreaming about winning the lottery.....

I have almost daily journals and emails from the past 3-4 years of what life was like, everything that happened, things he would say, how I felt. *It's like the book of living with someone with BPD. *I literally thought I was going stark raving mad. *I am so glad I have stuff to look back on, I think it saved my sanity in some small way. * He just about destroyed me with so many years of this. *There was nothing left of me. *The constant and never ending criticism alone was too much, let alone the rest of it. *I have had to completely rebuild myself from the ground up over the past several years. *I look back at what I wrote and I really don't understand how I survived it.

I don't know if he would have any interest in talking to someone or not. *He does really enjoy forums, though, he has a couple "man stuff" ones he's a regular on, lol. *Don't know if he would in any way feel comfortable talking about the BPD stuff. *Although he did offer once to write something for my abuse forum....

Thank you so much for the insight and conversation and the suggested resources. *It's really nice to be able to chat a little about this.


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