BPD and impact on family and partner-burnt out

@Determined It's a cold day here, the heat pump is going but the hairs on my arms are standing up after reading your insightful remarks. Hearing of your own experiences of living with an individual suffering from BPD sounds very much in tune with my situation but with its own twists and turns. I know that you've headed of to work and that this has obviously caused some of your own pain to bubble up to the surface (again) but when you are able to find the time and space I would be more than interested to hear about how this situation manifested in your life.

The BPD diagnosis in particular is pivotal in trying to turn this around (if that is even a possibility); it sounds like your partner must have sought counselling/therapy but was it by her own choice or were you able to instigate it? My wife's condition is so intractable and ingrained having for all her life resisted any idea of seeking professional help that it will require a very profound and sustained intervention. How do you deal with someone who has seemingly no insight into their condition and would react violently to the very suggestion that it unquestionably requires treatment?

I am so sorry that your children have suffered from the scenarios that have played out in your family home. I feel gutted that my own children have had to endure the same roller-coaster as I have but without any inkling of why their mother has behaved in the way she has. Ironically, she works with children who have various issues some of them behavioural, some of them trauma-related and some of them developmental.

Anyway, I'll sign off for now and hope that my own woes haven't added to your own, take care...

@Westermann

Not sure where to start.

I am not 100% sure when the Official BPD diagnosis was, years earlier than I believed it to be. Apparently I didn't need to know such things. It came out at a hospital admission.

Official mental illness came about shortly after our first child was born. Almost comical in hindsight. Being in a maternity ward by default puts a first time mum under the microscope. I remember going after work to visit and being pulled aside by a midwife telling me how unwell my wife was and a big lecture on post natal depression.

I was like, what are you talking about she is doing great ( relative to baseline believe she was).

Queue eye roll and further lecture on all of the symptoms on pnd...

🤔 Ummm , no this is normal.

No it's not.....

Well for us it is.

That is where the referral process began.

First baby was 5 years into marriage

Rough 5 years.

Early 20s is when it all emerged.

I remember a discussion with mum in law in the first 12 months telling me to set some boundaries or this will not end well

Young and stupid the thought of 'bringing my wife into submission' was foreign to me. With some life experience I now understand there was some context to that. Aided by a carer coach grilling me about boundaries and how DV works.

@Westermann

This thread may be helpful.

Caring-for-a-wife-with-Borderline-Personality-Disorder

Covers a particularly challenging season in our life.

Link to a previous thread on page one.

And link to a follow on thread on last page.

It gets off track when I get stressed and scatty but may be of benefit to you. Particularly the section on boundaries.

@Determined Firstly, thanks so much for your honest and insightful comments, I am truly grateful to hear of someone else's experiences in navigating what is, at times, a hugely draining illness.

After reading your latest posts I can see more clearly how your wife's diagnosis came about (finally) but it seems extraordinary that the health system didn't share that information regarding BPD with you until so much later than the PND diagnosis.Your mother-in-law must have had prior experience of your wife's behaviour for her to warn you so early on in the piece about protecting yourself.

My MIL (who herself has had profound mental health issues for as long as I've known her) always took my wife's side when her behaviour spiralled out of control i.e. massive arguments and histrionics. Despite this bias later, much later, acknowledging that my wife's behaviour had always been problematical, for example, pushing set limits relentlessly until something broke when she was a child.

I will follow up on your suggestion and read the thread that you have linked to rather than asking too many questions at the moment. It's just that the penny has so firmly dropped for me it is a form of reckoning and a realisation of what I've been dealing with for so long. Your situation must have been so horrendous, I can't begin to imagine dealing with her self-harm and the impact on you and your children, but I realise that it is only one of the super-difficult behaviours going on in your household.

The DV that you refer to, and I truly don't mean to pry, how was it dealt with (or not), I think that mental cruelty is the one that I have had to contend with but accompanied by episodes where items were smashed to the floor and being repeatedly intimidated in a violent way but stopping short of actual physical attacks.

Thanks again for your help and insight and take good care of yourself...

@Westermann

DV has never been addressed.

It took me a lot of convincing working with GP and counsellor that that is what it was.

For us it has mostly been verbal and emotional attacks. Property damage and generally 'gaslighting'

There have also been physical attacks but that eased when the GP called BS on my story about falling over when I needed x-rays. That process rattled her.

The lights came on for me when the counsellor stepped me through this infographic.

Prior to that the motivation for me being there was around how can I better help and support my wife. What I am doing is not working. I thought I was fine just wanted to better understand how to help someone in distress.

The solution was consistent boundaries outlined in the linked thread.

( @moderator checking this image is not outside of guidelines )

Dear @Determined your resilience is pretty amazing considering what has happened in the past (and indeed is still ongoing). Did your darling ever take stock of what had been done in terms of the DV? I think that it is one of the most challenging parts of the equation when your spouse seems incapable of any real empathy or is incapable of any apology for their actions.

The need to gaslight, or manipulate previous "conversations" or dole out the "silent treatment" or the withdrawal of all suggestions of intimacy have chipped away at my marriage for so long now that I should be inured to them, but I'm not.

The infographic describes my circumstances quite closely (or I guess anyone on the receiving end acknowledging that it has been more psychological than physical in my case). The only difference is that as far as reconciliation goes in stage 3 there has been, over the years, virtually no attempt made by my spouse to apologise or account for her actions (or even be seemingly aware of them).

Until now there has been no one in my life who sees my partner as I have done other than our children who have had to pick me up on a number of occasions after I have had to exit the house and walk quite some distance from the family home due to the volatility and irrationality of the situation. I imagine that they think we have an "unhappy marriage", that their mum and dad just don't get on and that it is not an entirely unusual situation in today's society. I guess that about 50% of our friends have separated/divorced at this point in our lives. But then again they have also witnessed their mum have quite a number of major meltdowns which are not normal (almost always at home and not in public). They are aware of her prior history of abuse and the turmoil of her past life.

Just to counter this "pity party", I feel that your boundary setting strategies are a great suggestion for turning down the heat. I still have to somehow establish with my partner that she really does have mental health issues that have to be addressed i.e. getting a diagnosis without WWIII breaking out but baby steps at this stage... This forum has given me the first cause for hope in such a very long time.