Financial crisis BPD spouse

Hello @TSV-RM

WELCOME to the SANE forums. Thank you for showing up and sharing with us.

I am sure there will be others in this beautiful community who will jump in to welcome you and offer support.

It really is so challenging knowing how to support a loved one who is experiencing mental health struggles. You sound like a really patient and supportive partner. There are some fact sheets and guides here that might be helpful: https://www.sane.org/information-and-resources/facts-and-guides

Have you got any support in place for yourself at all? SANE offers individual support through the Recovery Club, you might like to take advantage of the free one-on-one sessions and have a chat with someone who will be there to hold space for you.

Here is the registration page: Welcome to SANE’s Recovery Club

I'm sending you all my best this morning.

We are glad you're here with us.

hopeful_hannah

Thank you, I've signed into the Recovery Club.

Hi@TSV-RM

Sorry you are going through this difficulty. Has your wife had DBT therapy? It's supposed to help with impulse control. Are you able to see a financial counsellor who might be able to advise you further. Here's a link that.might help https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-stop-my-BPD-wife-from-shopping-us-into-poverty

You might also have to seek legal advice.

Thank you, the link was useful, it was helpful to read some stories from others going through similar situations. We've exhausted all the therapies and strategies, I've received legal advice, which confirmed what I suspected, that there is no practical legal help available without my wife participating voluntarily, which is not realistic while she is so unwell. One possibility is for my wife to voluntarily make one of the adult children her enduring power of attorney for financial matters, which I'll explore. The lack of responses on this forum seems to confirm that nobody has been able to find a workable solution to this kind of financial chaos.

hey @TSV-RM it can be very disheartening to not get responses, which is something i have flagged about this forum privately without much success.

I do not know of any legal options. I do not know anything about the recovery club. It doesn't seem relevant to your situation which is about something very different, asking for financial support managing your wife's spending sprees.

When i was in sui-dal crises I gave away a lot of money. I'm thinking about what could've helped me. I dont have bpd but i have cptsd which overlaps. I did not want to be around, so thought, what point is there of money. Much of it I gave to charity, as well as buying expensive clothes froma brand I saw on a TV show.

Only half of the clothes fit and they were non returnable and from America.

I guess not a whole loss as I do wear some of them :)

Others still sit in bags.

Psychiatric admissions are not understood to be that helpful for bpd, if they go too long. I used to stay up to 10 days and get a little annoyed at the end, like sullen and moody.

But hospital always has a place.

I found outpatient teams (catt, case management, psychologists in public) better than the inpatient. Although, you can ask for a social worker in many private hospitals. Is that an option?

Hi @TSV-RM

Here is a link to a post that is a similar situation that was on the forum couple of weeks ago.

https://saneforums.org/messages/1904065

Another thing you might want to look more into why it occurs with BPD https://anniewright.com/borderline-personality-disorder-financial-abuse/

i have a spouse who has bpd im sure you know what i mean when i say there are so many ups and downs i would say that sitting down and being open with each other is the best thing to do talk about facts how its affecting you and your family if she can not see your prospective then some times it is easer to just end the relationship

although i dont identify as having bpd i have some of the traits, and i think at times i can be scary for ppl, when i "split"

I regret it and it is upsetting for me, and I have been told in treatment programs that I am not the easiest to manage.

The thing is that after we do things we do regret it, i think. I also feel I go between overspending and underspending. Sometimes spending makes me feel oddly in control, like I can choose what to buy and am free. I have in the past spent more than I can afford and then been without essentials.

I didn't know it was a BPD thing or a trauma thing. But it can make sense if you've been controlled by money or in my case, I was in a dpeendent relationship where someone else controlled me financially, so now its like I want to spend my own money just coz I can. A lot of trauma survivors seem to engage in unhealthy behaviours after trauma, just to feel something, or to feel control. For example ppl who are sexually abused who may then enter sex work, which they dont necessarily want to do, but they feel now they are setting the terms rather than someone else forcing them. It is hard to explain, but if you are the one buying things, in that moment you feel like you have some say, in a life where otherwise you may feel powerless. And having a personality disorder can feel very unempoewring.