Hello. I think I belong here.

[BeebeLovesMochi]

  l I have had a week home alone for the first time in a long time. My husband out of town fishing. While he's been gone I have realized how nice and calm my life could be. I'm 54 and work from home. We are stable financially with very little debt. Hubby is older, retired and takes care of our home and pets. We are 10+ years married with no kids. We go from one crisis to another. He is always mad at someone, neighbor, relative or friend. We go from having a wonderful fun evening together to him telling me how awful I am. He even recently threatened to not come home from his fishing trip. I had not heard of BPD but once I learned of it I had my lightbulb moment. Now I need to figure out where to go from here. I'm reading the "Quit Caregiving" book and it's completely resonating with me. So much it scares me.
I was directed to this forum after posting on Reddit about my frustration and overwhelm. I truly feel like I have been in a fog. Wondering how to keep the peace and how to get through the next outburst not knowing when it will happen, only that it will. Thanks in advance for reading this far. Peace to all.

[Cascade]

Welcome! I hope you'll find this forum helpful as it has greatly helped me. It's nice to know we aren't alone.

[notrightinthehead]

Welcome! You have come to the right place.

After realizing how nice and calm your life is without your h, his threat not to return from his fishing trip looks more like a promise that, sadly, he wont keep.

Medium chill is your best friend. Look it up in the Toolbox. There are some clips on YouTube too, practise, practise. If you have any brilliant ones that you came up with, please share them here, so that others can benefit.

The Stop caretaking is a brilliant book, most of all does it teach us, that WE must change our behaviour and stop wishing for the other to change. Once the eyes are open to how we enable and support our abuse and exploitation, we have the option to change our behaviour or continue to put up with it.

Looking forward to your contributions!

[MaxedOut]

Beene, I call those "penny drop moments" - when you realize something significant that you can't unlearn that clears the fog or clarifies how *you* are doing in a relationship. I had a similar a few years ago when still with my uBPDxw (also together a fair amount of time, no kids, me working).

I did notice feeling more relaxed and happy when she/I was away. Teh penny drop about that was more specific as I could sort of frame the others as stress having to do with her other mental health/health challenges. I unexpectedly ended up hospitalized. My ex was kind and mostly focused on me while hospitalized for I think it was 5 days. She would leave before it got dark. The nights were so peaceful and felt safe. I wasn't exactly not in vigilance or just being me during the day when she was there but I knew she would have some limits ipeven if she did dupisregulate and would probably not while with me. The combo of feeling blow ups were unlikely... breaks at night... and a stretch of time feeling supported and cared about at that point was majorly different.

I remember there was the "we think we can discharge you tomorrow" conversation and my inside voice hoping I'd need to stay another night.

My wish was another night. in. the. hospital. I also was feeling pretty good generally (perhaps steroids, LOL, but the medical crisis wasn't painful at that point (some of home recovery was).

  Penny drop.

Sure enough, I did get discharged that next day. My ex was able to let the stress control mask fall some and her anxiety ramp up (she was genuinely very worried/freaked out and did care). It took about 40 minutes of being back home (from being hospitalized for something that could have gone deadly sideways) for her to blow up at me (then go silent treatment) about how I phrased a social media post about the ordeal thanking her and others.

I had been pretty conscious of the sorts of patterns you mention (always a crisis, always mad at someone, turning on a dime towards me). In my case coming Out of the FOG I did some documenting about behaviors that also showed me more of a cycle of abuse type pattern of build ups and releases. The Verbally Abusive Relationship and Why Does he Do That are a couple of good books in that arena. That helped me better detect when things might be bad soon and calibrate more authentic behavior, medium chill, gray rock, and finding reasons to get out of the house. And it led to more penny drop moments that helped really confirm abusive elements and that she felt entitled to treat me and others that way.

I mostly work from home too. It can sometimes be good to take some days or half-days working elsewhere if your work can be mobile. Being 24-7 in their reality and with some constant level of awareness of their mood/state... is not healthy for partners.