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Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

This thread is a follow on (or starting over) from my previous thread Caring for a wife with borderline personality disorder – sequel to diary of wife's hospital stay, I wanted to start over and in order to leave all the trauma and negativity of last year behind me and start fresh.

Those of you who have been following our family journey will know that after a number of hospital admissions for my darling I was encouraged by my councillor to implement some boundaries (lovingly implemented guidelines, not rules to be enforced) as well as self-care for myself as what we were doing was clearly not working and my health was /still is being affected.

Well after a smoother than expected start the boundaries and self-care were forgotten with my darling having a complete melt down and further lengthy hospital admissions due to high risk of self harm and a genuine attempt to leave us. The last 6 months particularly have been quite difficult for us all. S2 particularly had a lot of issues at school during this time and is currently seeing a councillor.

The purpose of this new thread is to again document our journey of healing, working on implemented boundaries and commitment to self care. As with the previous thread this is so that I can have a visual plan for myself with some accountability to follow through with plans in place and in the hope that it may help others in similar situations to ours. And so that I can track our progress. This was especially helpful in the last thread leading up to Christmas when I was feeling down about our current position to review what I had written and see just how far we have come.

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In response to: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

The other really important piece of advice is to get some professional support for yourself.

I refused this until a complete but out and then it was unfortunately too little too late .

Hindsight is wonderful but I do regret not getting adequate support and setting clear boundaries.

In response to: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

I tried with boundaries or just common sense, asking her intentions or what is her reasoning behind behaviour. Nothing worked ever. I always will be pushed into the “dangerous man corner” she puts her walks up and I have no chance at all to reach her. Talking about it is accused to be negative and that’s all we have - negative and pressured conversation. So she seeks joy and fun with people who don’t care about her, don’t ask questions and she does not have to have a conversation about events or behaviour even if it is meant just supportive.

I like your boundaries. We are far away from anything. She is doing as it pleases her and I try to work around as per her anything else causes her stress and she will feel then suicidal. 😔😢

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

You know what really gets me. Everything is not her fault. She was abused when she was young, had bad and abusing experiences after that. No one ever tried to safe her, no one cared. People just took from her what they wanted. It makes me feeling devastated about man - I’m this case and I am just preparing a big campaign against sexual abuse against women by men - however I am suffering so much to make her believe, try to be there and all i can see is someone who should be happy with her children, struggling and making decision who hurt herself every day. I would give everything for her but I am at breaking point.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

You are sounding very much like I felt when I landed here on the forum a bit over 2 years ago now. My heart goes out to you.

For us that breaking point is what brought about the boundaries. Because for us my perception was that the sh reached a point where it was done to hurt me, pay me back for some imaginary slight or just manipulate me. Now if she hurts herself she goes to the hospital and thankfully she believes I will follow through. We have not had any major sh now for 12 months based on that.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

For us implementing the boundaries went much smoother than I expected. Much of darlings venom was directed towards my councillor for 'poisoning me against her'

So instead of fighting it she actually tried to disarm me with sweetness. I didn't fully believe my councillor that this was a disarmament strategy untill darling proved her right.

It did help that I introduced the boundaries while she was in hospital and her assigned nurse supported me through the initial tantrums.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Still procrastinating formally withdrawing from my class at uni @Faith-and-Hope @Former-Member @Smc

In the past when I have made that decision it has been a relief... this time I am just feeling lazy and useless. And am I giving up to easily.

I have been over the course content again and I should be able to do it but.... I am so tired I just cant motivate myself to do the required work. 😥😴😖

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Then this afternoon someone implied I should get another job. Sent me a job add and told me I could do do that after a heated discussion about money.

What is more amazing is that the job she suggested would be emotionally taxing at the best of times.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Carer’s burnout symptoms @Determined ..... talk to someone who can help you carry through on what you know you need to do, but are bound by inertia.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

And your last post ..... obviously had the best of intentions, but missed the mark ..... can respond “thanks for your concern, will consider it” ..... then consider it no longer .....

❤️

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

lol @Faith-and-Hope so far I have ignored it.

Wait and see of it is raised again. I'm not sure about beat intentions. More she thinks I am lazy and should be earning more money. One of those lack of insight moments . And we are quite fortunate financially... just not as fortunate as we were before I lost my job.

I have not let on yet that I am going to withdraw from the away class as I dont have the energy to explain why just now.

I had considered not saying anything and just going for a long ride for the day but that is not in my nature so would not work. Relationships need to be built on trust and I need to set that example.

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