What's mine and what's hers

[baffledhuman]

Hello to all members. Brand-new here and feeling like I could write "War and Peace" as an introduction, but I will do my best to restrain myself.

I am married to BPDw. Is she u/d? I'll start there.

Recently, after several months of high-conflict between us (explained below), she announced to me, "Well, everyone says I'm borderline." When I asked who she meant by "everyone," she mentioned a therapist she'd seen for (I think?) EMDR work a number of years ago.

I was surprised. Though I'd long felt she displayed some key borderline traits/features (what is the most proper word?), I instinctively knew "not to go there" with her. I'd also had many years of exhausting, sometimes harrowing, experience with her mother, who was dBPD, as well as an exhausting, endless conflict between them that led me to say, "I never want to deal with a borderline person again." Whether or not it was fair, that's how I felt.

For most of our 26 years together, I've felt baffled and worn out by my w's extreme black-and-white thinking, catastrophizing, separation anxiety/fear of abandonment, insistence on her perfect memory and being right about nearly everything, constant stream of criticism, refusal to take responsibility for her share of our conflicts, and astonishing ability to turn every situation around so that I am to blame.

I want to be up-front about my contributions to our issues:

I grew up in a house where there was considerable volatility combined with parental neglect. As an adult, I've had to battle (often unsuccessfully) to not repeat my father's habitual pattern of tolerating, tolerating, tolerating ... EXPLOSION, rage, forcing his children to endure lengthy angry outbursts during which we were not allowed to speak (at least until he began to calm down) or leave. 

I have done this too many times to count to my wife over the years, including abusive language (cursing, sometimes comparing her to her mother), threats of leaving, displays of self-harm (i.e. smashing an insulated metal coffee mug into my head) and, on a couple of occasions, suicide threats.

I also have withdrawn in response to her behavior, but this never lasts longer than a day or so. For whatever reason (and whether it's good or bad), I am skilled at compartmentalization and am virtually always the person in our relationship who reaches out after conflict.

While I don't know if this is relevant, I will also add that I have long chafed at feeling "controlled" and "monitored" by my wife. She is extremely anxious about "dangers" I consider to be minor, which is why she wants to be able to check my location at all times through the phone. Through our linked Amazon accounts, she sometimes confronts me with things I've looked at. Those are just two examples, and again, not sure relevant; trying to be fully honest here.

Despite her extreme fears of abandonment and separation anxiety, I give her credit for allowing me to pursue some interests that she doesn't share, which have taken me away from home sometimes for months at a time. Similarly, I've always given her freedom to go out frequently with friends or alone, night or day, to pursue interests that are not of particular interest to me. This has always felt like mature and loving behavior for both of us.

Last year, however, I was away for six months, considerably longer than ever before. I acknowledge that I allowed myself to become disconnected somewhat; I often did not have access to cell service for many days at a time, and when I did, I was sometimes harried and not sufficiently tuned in to her needs and feelings.

Prior to my leaving, my spouse surprised me by saying she understood if I needed to "hook up" (not her words, but I can't use those here!) with someone because I would be so long away. "Just don't tell me about it," she said.

In hindsight, I realize that I am not a person for whom such a door should be opened. I did not take advantage of this seeming "hall pass," but I certainly thought about it (whereas on previous absences I knew there was a line I should not, and would not, cross). However, toward the very end of my absence, feeling lonely and disconnected myself, I betrayed my marriage vows with a person who showed me attention. This lasted just a few days, and was only briefly (unsuccessfully) intimate. I compartmentalized and rationalized my behavior, based on my "hall pass."

My wife discovered this affair. I immediately stopped it. (The "other woman" knew I was married and leaving soon, and I only had good things to say about my wife, so there was no deception.) I wasn't fully honest with my wife at first, leaving out the physical intimacy, but a couple weeks after returning home I acknowledged it to her.

I read a great deal about affair recovery. I did my best to be responsive to her questions, often repeated, and at times tried to decline to become too specific (for instance, about specific acts of physical intimacy), but was fully honest and repeated often that I was responsible for the choices I made. When asked, "Why?", I did my best to consider the context in which I made those choices and give my honest thoughts, emphasizing that I knew they did not excuse my behavior.

But I will confess that after many weeks of this, as she seemed to spiral ever downward, I chafed at the common expert recommendation that the betrayer (me, in this case) more or less set aside all of his/her feelings, needs and wants until the betrayed spouse begins to recover.

Eventually, hewing to my (and our) old pattern, I began to blow up in anger during endless discussions and blame sessions, which typically included a lot of mind-reading, imputing of intention and false description of my character on her part. I do not excuse these outbursts, but I do know they emerged from my frustration with the constant beatdown and (in my opinion) faulty presentation of what had happened/was happening.

A month ago, after another outburst of anger on my part the night before, I woke up and went for my usual run. For whatever reason, I "woke up" again during that run and realized I was handling this all wrong. I knew it was time to surrender, to stop trying to be "right," stop arguing, stop defending myself and simply stay on my side of the fence. I also realized that I have a pattern of surrendering only to come roaring back at some point in the future, and to prevent this, I needed to live differently. I started to attend my old 12 Step program and began to read how to be in better control of my own irrational emotions.

Now, here's the crux (I know it's very long!): I'm proud of my behavior in the last month. I have never felt even slightly out of control. I have managed better this time by not "silencing" myself, but being more judicious about when and how to speak up. I have not engaged in conflict even once, even briefly. I've stayed on "my side of the fence," only occasionally mentioning my feelings (without blame) and making a couple of requests.

In short, I'm thrilled: I feel lighter and cleaner. It's nice to remember that I can control my own behavior, mostly through awareness and recognizing when my feelings begin to rise.

The punchline: My wife's BPD-like behavior has only gotten WORSE during this last month. Indeed, I would argue that each time she has blown her stack (four so far; usually I blow first, so this is unusual for her) it has gotten more severe. For example, the last time, in her rage she shook her fist in my face, coming very close to my nose and glasses. Her irrational outbursts tend to emerge, in my observation, in response to a) expressions of vulnerability on my part ("I'm feeling sad/lonely") b) my requests for a behavior change and c) seemingly when backed into a corner by her own outbursts.

One quick example: I give her lots of time to vent while holding her hand or her head in my lap. This is usually a litany that doesn't necessarily reflect reality as I have experienced it, but I don't respond, just acknowledge. Recently, after she'd gone on for almost an hour, she happened upon my recent statements that I was no longer going to engage in conflict, but that I recognized it also would not be helpful for me to suppress my feelings, so she would hear from me occasionally about my feelings.

Talking about this, she almost instantly flew into a rage that ended with her screaming and waving a fist in my face, close enough to bump my glasses. I felt the first, tiny spark of anger within (an old reaction to physical "threat," whether this was one or not). I gave it a minute, said I heard her anger, and said I was going to go for a walk. In the past, I would have blown on the spark and joined the fray, but this was (for real) delivered calmly, in calm language, no body language amiss, etc.

I got up to leave and asked if I could make a request. She said yes. I said, "Please don't wave a finger in my face."

At this, she went bonkers, zero to 60 in less than a second. She screamed, "It's over!" and slammed the bedroom door. She fell to the floor in her bathroom, where I could hear her yelling things like, "Oh my god, oh my GOD!" and "You are INSANE!"

I suppose my timing was bad on the request. I got dressed to go for a walk and went in to see how she was. She was huddled on the floor, muttering and crying. When she saw me, she immediately began to explain why this was my fault, how could I not see that her shaking her finger in my face was justified because of A, B, C, and don't you dare talk to me about finger shaking, given how abusive you have been to me, and the like. She briefly tried to block my exit (this has happened numerous times of late) but I was able to go out for a walk.

In my recollection, there was no apology. The next day, I felt shaken, almost as if I'd suddenly realized my wife had been taken over by an alien. Not because of the behavior, which I'd seen before, but because I knew for certain that for the previous month of refusing to take the bait or join the battle, I could not possibly be the source of her rage.

So here I am. I suspect I may have traits of NPD and she has (at least) traits of BPD. But I feel as if I'm going crazy. When I read lists of traits and so forth I realize that my own angry outbursts are not acceptable or justifiable, but I also resist the notion that they make me THE "perpetrator" and render all her own behavior ineligible for consideration.

I am and always have been comfortable with gray areas. I have always, including in therapy with my wife, vocalized my belief that responsibility in relationships is 50/50 (it's like a mantra), or at minimum, never 100/0. I fancy myself rational (until I explode with anger) and as a former journalist, am truly interested in understanding what underlies any given situation.

On some days, I feel like Leo DiCaprio's character in "Shutter Island": Am I the crazy one? So crazy that I really am to blame for all my wife's ills? So crazy that I cannot see it? Am I "gaslighting" internally when I think her behavior is at least part of our problem?

She resists therapy; I adore therapy. We have tried couples counseling in the past, but I ended up feeling that the female therapist really took my wife's side. I have finally persuaded her to do couples therapy again and as it happens, we are going to see therapist who told her she had BPD or BPD features.

That gives me hope that the therapy will be fair and reasonable. But I also live in fear that I will find out that I AM the guy from "Shutter Island," so crazy, so beyond reality that I cannot see what's really going on — that my wife is the victim and I am the perpetrator, responsible through my own bad behavior for all her woes and ours.

If you've managed to read this novel-length intro, I appreciate your time and any insights you may have for me.

[Penny Lane]

Hi and welcome. I'm sorry that you're dealing with this. This is all very hard and at times scary.

I don't want you to discount the physical intimidation you've suffered. Abuse (physical or emotional, and it seems that you're experiencing both) is not ok, and that is true whatever the genders involved.

I'd encourage you to look at the toolbox at the top of the page. It seems that you've stumbled upon medium chill on your own. That's great! I'd also look at fleas as well as other "things to do." These might help you develop strategies as you go forward.

Speaking of going forward, where is your head at? You don't mention separating, but it does seem that the idea is looming in your post. There's a board for that, as well as a board for if you want to stay and work on the relationship.

It seems that you've realized that you don't like how you behave in this relationship. That seems like a great thing to work on - either by changing the relationship or changing how you react to her. But either way it's much easier said than done.

[baffledhuman]

Hi, Penny Lane. Thanks for your kind reply.

I wrote a longer reply that was saved to my Outbox, but I don't see it here and I don't know how to see my Outbox. Any advice appreciated.