IF husband has borderline personality disorder- a death sentence for the marriage?
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Anonymous
7:27 and 11:00 here again. This is hilarious! I clearly have stepped into unchartered waters. For the record, I do not have a spouse or child with BPD. I do not know anyone with it. I do not know any of these authors or speakers mentioned. I found this thread interesting and thought I'd chime in about how I *might* respond differently to a child versus a spouse. That's all. Backing away slowly... |
Anonymous
| @11:13. Yes, I did borrow it from the library. I am sorry, unlike you, that i found nothing useful in the book. I am not iin a mutually satisfying and healthy relationship with my BPD spouse. I am tired of giving 110% to the rekationship snd getting nothing back. I refuse to accept her rages, verbal and ohysical sbuse and her serial infidelity. Her BPD does not give her a pass to treat me like dirt, whether she "wants to or not." I have a right to be happy and to love too. I will no longer subsume my needs to hers. Let her get ehat she needs from one of her "lovers." You are in a relationship with a chid. You are not in one with a BPD adult, do yiu are in no position to judge. |
Anonymous
13:14 OP here. I have not read all the back and forth on this topic, but here is my 2 cents: Whether my husband has BPD or not, one thing is clear: he has a pattern of feeling entitled to special treatment for his rage and demeaning verbal abuse that means I am supposed to not do anything to trigger him, AND I am not allowed to get upset myself about anything. Especially not anything HE does. He really does NOT see at all that this is "nuts" and totally unreasonable. He really doesnt. Im not sure if he got a diagnosis that it would not make things worse, as in "I am the way I am and you have to love me anyway and be understanding" when he does not do the same. He lacks empathy for ME and what he has put me through. I know he feels bad about it, but he does NOT empathize. He feels like HE is the victim. Its rather hopeless sounding, isnt it? Your wifes serial infidelity is a total dealbreaker. Abuse is abuse, regardless of cause. To cheat over and over and expect the other person to absorb that betrayal, Im sorry, I dont care what condition that person has, that is a real character flaw. Can we agree? I mean, that is just not ok. If she is incapable of fidelity, and you married with the idea that you would both be faithful, then its not fair to impose a culture of infidelity that the other person does not control. Its not like both people saying "hey lets see other people". Stranger, I feel for you. The position I am in after 20 years of marriage is more than a bit excruciating. I have come to terms, or am tyring to come to terms with the fact that my marriage has been taken from me. I have been the recipient of terrible verbal and emotional abuse, and I was blamed for it, and lived with the shame of this happening to me despite me being more than smart enough to know the true source of the problem. I now am peeling away the layers of hurt and realizing that inside I am pretty much the same compassionate and clear headed person I was before, only I was not treated as I was expecting. And there is a sense of loss of the person who once treated me very differently. There is so much more. But I cant even type about it any more. I am so tired. |
Anonymous
you are wrong. I do not have a BPD child. I have a child born with an overly-sensitive temperament. For BPD to occur, you need that AND an invalidating environment. I am making sure than the second does not happen. My child will NOT have BPD. |
Anonymous
| Sorry, but I had that impression from what you wrote. |
Anonymous
OP, when did your husband take a turn for the worse? Several things are making me think he probably does not have BPD. First, it usually starts in adolescence. Or early twenties. Second, it is much more common in women than in men. Third, apart from these unacceptable outbursts, you haven't described anything that sounds like BPD. |
Anonymous
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Mom of BPD child. I have not heard of Randy Kreger, but you can bet I will google that now that I see this person is a controversial person! I had no idea there was a landmine in the world of BPD! This person sounds very one-sided. The world is not black and white. Every family has its issues, as does every human being. We are all fragile and need to treat each other well, BPD or not.
Our family is able to stick together through the challenges of a BPD member. I would never want my healthy kids to abandon an ill sibling, or for parents to abandon a child. But all family members need to learn to treat each other respectfully, and our child with BPD has greater challenges in this area. Hence, the amount of work that DC is doing with the counselor and the amount of ongoing therapeutic parenting we are doing with a young adult. The attachment needs to stay secure within the family for the healing. Abandonment is what all people fear, but BPDs fear it very deeply. We aren't going in that direction. So I don't know who Kreger is, but that's my philosophy on coping with this. And I will surely google this author because I had no idea there was a sensitive controversy in the literature about BPD. Interesting. I guess I have alot to learn. It sounds like this person has touched a nerve for some reason. I hope this thread can get away from that and back to real people trying to help each other from their experiences. I stated before and I will again: it is one thing to be a mom of a BPD child. It is another thing altogether to be a spouse. I have the strength to live within the orbit of BPD and not get pulled into the drama, because I have a healthy spouse and we support each other and give each other breaks. If your spouse is the one with BPD, you don't have that. It would a very difficult place to be. I don't know if I could do that. I just don't know. And I would never blame someone for deciding not to stay. I have never walked a mile in those shoes. Peace to all of you on this thread. I hope we can continue to help each other. |
Anonymous
| Pp here. It looks like there are at least two mothers of BPD children on here. I have not read about Kreger or the other guy that was mentioned. So different poster here. |
Anonymous
Except to BPDs. |
Anonymous
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^^^^^
Hello, pot. Meet kettle. |
Anonymous
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"Randi has different ideas. She thinks, and says in her books, that they should be separated from their siblings. She suggests that any therapist who implies that the parenting or the environment of the BPD child may be part of the problem should be shunned. She advocates keeping book on your kid. Asking one sibling to testify against another. Placing them in a hospital permanently, or maybe a residential facility. In one comment to a blog she asked you to consider how much your BPD child was costing you, and how much more of yourself should you really have to sacrifice for your child.
Needless to say, Randi Kreger is not a parent. Yet she's an expert on how to be one." Someone said something that has a number of factual errors: "Randi has different ideas. She thinks, and says in her books, that they should be separated from their siblings." o, I do not say that ever at all. Also, only one of my books talks specifically about children with BPD. I do have a booklet called "Hope for Parents." If you would like a copy I will send you one. : She suggests that any therapist who implies that the parenting or the environment of the BPD child may be part of the problem should be shunned." My goodness no. I don't even believe that the person who posted this believes this. What I do say is that because people who have been abused go to therapy, there is an over representation of people with bpd who have been abused. Also, since the DSM says 25% of all people with bpd have not been abused and many people who have been abused do not have bpd, we need to take a closer look at this. I also say that we have no idea how the stats were put together and how they defined abuse. This is not a black and white issue. I know of many non-abusive parents who have spent their lives and their own money fighting stigma and the assumption that all people with bpd have been abused. "She advocates keeping book on your kid." I have no idea what this means. Isn't "book" some slang for gambling? "Asking one sibling to testify against another." I have no idea what this is about. Testify where about what? I did talk about what siblings face living with a sibling who grabs all of the parents' attention and what it is like to have a bpd sibling. I did give an example of a sister letting her parents know their borderline child was hiring someone to kill them. Are you seriously saying the sibling should have kept that to herself? We will have to agree to disagree about this, except to say that the mother became a very vocal advocate for children with bpd and for many years helped other parents. I am glad she lives. "Placing them in a hospital permanently, or maybe a residential facility." Huh? "In one comment to a blog she asked you to consider how much your BPD child was costing you, and how much more of yourself should you really have to sacrifice for your child." There is a difference between a child under 18 and an adult child in their 20's and 30's. If your adult child is leaning on you totally for money and not taking any responsibility for their lives, I advocate setting limits. So does the National Education Alliance for BPD. People have all sorts of opinions about me and my books. They make many assumptions about me personally as if they have ESP or perhaps met me and were one of my best friends. Perhaps doing that makes me not a person to them, but just an object. I don't mind opinions, but the facts are important to me. I would never want anyone to advocate that I promote an idea that I don't. My fear is that someone might believe it and take that as good advice. That is not me. That is on your head. |
Anonymous
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I think "porn addiction" is, like "sex addiction" a completely made up pile of BS pushed by people who want to pathologize things they don't like.
The substance abuse, and the other poor impulse control stuff you cite, could all be related to the ADD - attempts to self-medicate and classic behavior due to ADD. I'd seriously - very seriously - question a therapist, who based on your description alone - would hint at a diagnosis. That seems to me (not a professional) to border on malpractice. All that said: I was engaged to a woman with BPD. I ultimately fled (literally) what was an abusive relationship. From everything I now understand about this diagnosis, the prognosis is very poor - yes, for a small number of pts., who aren't severe sufferers and are willing to recognize they need to work on it, there is some success with DBT. What I am struck by in your post is the degree to which your husband is pathologized. That's not necessary for you to decide "I've had enough". And even if your husband had a diagnosis, you would still be stuck with learning to accept (tolerate without being miserable) living with those behaviors. It sounds to me a little bit like you're looking for validation or an excuse to do what you've already decided you want to do: leave him. Just do it. You don't need an excuse. Yes, he may very well be hurt. Suck it up and take your guilt lumps. - signed, someone who left a BPD (who lost her shit for about oh 2 weeks, then hooked the next guy). |
Anonymous
OP here- WOW this thread being bumped back up is SO timely. My husband has in the meantime been definitively diagnosed with BPD by his psychiatrist. I left him just before, when he had another and FINAL rage outburst, this time in front of our daughter, charging at me getting in my face AGAIN. And it was game over. My reasons for wanting to know what I was dealing with diagnosis wise OR understanding wise was so I could have some idea if it was fixable. Interestingly, I have figured out that the meds he was on for depression cleared up some of his fog, but only revealed more deep underlying severe problems in relating to the world. The unstable sense of self is at the core. I could not tell for a while if he was "losing it" and could regain it or if he was simply cracking at the foundation that was not up to code in the first place. Im not sure how pathologizing figures in here as a negative. He has pathological behaviors and there is no other way to acknowledge them except to do that. You are right, I did not need the diagnosis to know if I had enough, but I personally did need to know the diagnosis to know if there was any point in trying to reason with him. Again, the meds cleared his depression but revealed his very clear deliberate toxic choices. Im on a support group now for spouses of BPD, and I agree with a previous poster that if its your KID, its another matter. I would go to the ends of the earth to try to help my kid if she had it. My husband I needed to cut loose to survive emotionally and now rescue my daughter from more damage than already has been done by his recent behavior towards her. I still need to call that therapist and tell her she nailed it, eventhough she never definitively said that was the diagnosis, only that his behaviors and attitudes sounded like it. Anyone dealing with BPD in a loved one, you might want to try this forum: http://outofthefog.net/ |
Anonymous
Glad things are getting better OP. Thanks for the link. Dealing with BPD now in a tangential way. Brother is living with his BPD girlfriend and its wrecking his kids. 
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Anonymous
I'm the person you quoted. My reason for making a big deal about pathologizing your husband is that often people feel the need to erroneously paint people black in order to do what they want and know they need to do OR they use lack of a definitive diagnosis as an excuse to avoid doing the same. My response was from your original post, but your husband, based on your follow-up comments, was pretty clearly abusive regardless of diagnosis. That's reason enough to leave, particularly if there are children involved. Good for you that you went ahead and did that. BPD is a sneaky nightmare. I was stunned at how much better I felt almost immediately after freeing myself of my fiance. She managed to get pregnant by the next guy, very quickly, so he's on the hook. |