Started marriage counseling not sure what to think.

[hhaw]

If you're still seeing your personal therapist.....ask them for guidance.

Before you agreed to anything, you could have considered having your pdw write out a statement,you agreed with, and provided to the therapist you chose, explained things to, and agreed to speak with your therapist when necessary.....maybe? Lots of scenarios were/are still possible, IME.

You need solid boundaries, stated consequences, for failing to comply, and immediate follow through with those consequences....on your part.

We don't get into these hard places, bc we're good at boundaries, IME.

We get ourselves out of them through education,and modeling healthy boundaries it for our children.

Maybe your wife takes responsibility, and does the work to heal what's been done.

You can't control that.

What can you control?

[zad7242]

  I deeply appreciate all the incredible insights and advice everyone offered. hhaw, in particular, you are so right about setting and enforcing boundaries. I wouldn't be here if I was good at having them for sure. Not sure what it says that I regularly need to be grounded and brought back to the truth. I lose it from time to time but always find it again when I look to trusted friends, family, and this great online community who help me see the forest from the trees, when I cannot.

[hhaw]

Z:

You did the best you could.  It's ok to not have perfect boundaries and the ability to enforce logical consequences.  You didn't know how it feels worthy....and that's something you'll work on.

What's more important is recognizing your part..... learning about boundaries, and your right to kind, consistent treatment from everyone in your life.

When you know better, you do better, IME.  You model it for your children too!  How amazing is that? 

So.....forgive yourself for being imperfect, and step up.....calling your wife on every single transgression is your job AND your wife's only hope of getting better, IME. She deserves your authentic protected self....your honesty, and unflinching requirement of kindness from her, even when she's angry.

::nod::.

In any case, you'll be moving yourself forward, and learning why boundaries are so difficult for you, within the safety of your therapist's office.

You can't fix your wife, but you can work on yourself.....require decent treatment, refuse everything else, and do it with a calmer Nervous System.  Boundaries won't always feel so wrong/uncomfortable, IME.

That's your job, and your therapist's, IME.

[MaxedOut]

What Hhaw mentions make me think of two realizations I have had in the past few years.
1) There are commonalities among people in LTRs with people with PDs. Weak boundaries, struggling to communicate what's bothering us and/or to be clear about things, people pleasing, higher grace/compassion for partners than we expect from ourselves, etc. These aren't "bad" qualities and are normal human things but what allows the non-PD/PD dynamic to last long enough for LTRs (and some like communication can get positioned as equally responsible for things as abuse when also making open communication unsafe).

From these relationships, we hopefully really see and understand how traits of ours that maybe were issues in prior relationships but not hugely consequential really have destructive power. And they can drive us to really do the work - a good push. BUT while they are a great place to see the traits, they are not a good place to actually develop skills and muscles.

It's like recognizing you aren't a good swimmer - rough technique, maybe some fear, not quite understanding water resistance in relation to streamlined body positioning... then deciding you are going to fix that... while swimming in white water rapids... Or wanting to learn about electronics and wiring by defusing a ticking bomb...

I did develop some skills while in my marriage (and during but with less high stress/stakes relationships). But boy, it is so much easier, better, and more healthy working on it outside of the marriage. And for many it's impossible to really make any headway—especially when anger and abuse are part of the mix. I understood enough to also know it's ok to continue certain things because to not do so was emotionally if not literally unsafe.

And the feedback system for learning is so screwed up - was that my arm stroke or the current? did I sink because I didn't float well or an undertow? Developing these areas with non-PD folks has the space, feedback, and suitable felid for practice in my experience.

2) Similarly, PD people who genuinely accept the diagnosis, want to change their reactions and thinking, and are committed and **self-motivated** change are also undoing, rewriting, and testing new skills. Doing so in the most triggering relationship and where there are a lot of responsibilities is trying to remain calm and wise mind in the proverbial rapids. The times where it seems to go well in relationships are ones with dynamics that don't seem to match yours and often with someone who was already doing the work prior to the relationship.

[hhaw]

Lordy, Max:

So many moving parts!  You're right about learning now coping strategies, as one attempts to unlearn, under the most painful of circumstances, which tends to drive one back to old coping strategies in fight or flight mode.  Ooof. 

It's alchemy.... it's a trick to sneak up under our biochemical wiring, and snip those wires, through learned/practiced strategies to engage our Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS), which is the mission, IME.
Who knew!?!?  But we learn, and we adopt what makes sense to us, and apply it, best we can, till things ease and we restore our ability to respond and be responsive, rather than react and act out of reactivity....like getting yanked down a rabbit hole, bc we aren't aware of it.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) engagement, shuts down fight or flight reptilian brain. 

Our fight or flight brain/amygdala is responsible for shutting down higher thinking brain/logic/reason and creative problem solving/frontal Cortex.

No wonder it's so difficult to neatly sort one's PD situation, catalogue it, pull together a good game plan, and stick to it, when under duress, IME.

And the PDs know where our buttons are .....they often are the reason we get flipped into fight/flight/freeze/fawn reptilian brain, IME. That's the pattern, IME.  It can be unlearned, but typically requires separation from the PD.....controlling contact, and limiting their ability to dysregulate us.

A good trauma informed therapist goes in through the body/nervous system....teaches us how to calm it, restore higher thinking, which is how one processes old and new trauma, which widens one's tolerance for discomfort, resilience.

The fruits and flowers of practicing ways to engage our PNS. 
I would push on walls.....walk backwards around a trash can, breathe slowly filling lungs from bottom to top, notice peripheral vision, colors, space around me, where I felt tension/pain in my body, give it a number 1-10 and name it....
Stinging
Throbbing
Aching
Pressure....whatever it is .. then breathe into it....check it, and repeat if the number decreased.

If it didn't, we'd switch up and DO something physical.....bc survival brain wants to ACT.  It's sure a tiger is about to pounce and KILL us, which makes sense when we remember.....
Back in the day, looking into the jungle, to make sure we see a tiger, got us killed.

The amygdala shuts that down and moves us away from danger.....moves us down the path without us realizing we moved at all. That happens to me when I see a snake shaped stick on the path.....all the sudden I've transported myself 50 feet away from the perceived danger.

We (yes, the royal we) learn to distinguish real threat from old trauma/perceived threat bouncing around in our limbic system feeling center.

Traumas became stuck bc the brain can't process trauma in fight or flight.

We learn to calm the brain, integrate our whole brain, and address old and new trauma so they process into historic files.

This is revelation, IME.  The more one practices, the easier it gets to notice our inner worlds, and choose to respond/act in the best possible way.

This is particularly important when dealing with our children/pets/vulnerable family members, bc if we get dragged down their despairing rabbit holes, we can't respond or be responsive and help them through.  We're stuck reacting, despairing, ruminating in the past and fearing into the future with them, IME.

That's not how I wanted to live, and it's not what I wanted to teach my girls.

That was a lot.  I hope it makes sense.

[MaxedOut]

Absolutely, Hhaw. I started doing mindfulness and nervous system work several years before leaving my marriage and it was hugely helpful. Several of the things you mention plus others like ice in hands, surroundings identification grounding, some Buddhist visualizations, etc.

And more-so as the FOG lifted. I did develop skills with boundaries and avoiding JADE and such while still in the marriage. It is just an incredibly challenging context to address deeply ingrained reactions and patterns (learning swimming in the rapids).

A perspective that helped was radical acceptance plus approaching the changes on my side with low attachment to outcomes with my ex. I figured "I want and need to get better at this. My marriage may or may not last, but if it doesn't I am going to come out of it with more relationship skills." And with support from my therapist, I got to be totally ok with not trying things out or going there if I thought it would just mean more abuse (I'd get stuck on not "following through" and needed to really break down that following through when it creates harm is not actually good).

When I left the marriage I treated nervous system repair like a second job. I slept a lot. I stepped away from work tasks to practice breathing, grounding, mindfulness techniques frequently the first few months. I used energy/exercise bursts to flush stress neurochemicals.

Luckily anxiety and nervous system activation were not a significant issues in my life before that relationship and within a few months, my system had calmed down a lot. Like a lot, a lot. Not everything is gone. I still have a system that reacts in different or more hair trigger or more extreme ways than it used to but I am much closer to how I was before than how I was during.

My go tos were usually not fight. Freeze and fawn are more dominant but flee could be in there (as I set boundaries better, intentional exiting became more frequent but just as what I determined as my step if certain things were occurring).

[hhaw]

My first therapy appointment, I was given a list of tasks....
1.Extend tsunamis of kindness and self compassion to myself....just keep going back to it, when it slipped.
2. Drop ALL judgement.....in every aspect of my life.  Replacing it with curiosity helped a lot.
3.  Embrace radical acceptance.  I've learned...most of my current inner struggles come from my resistance to things I can't change/control.  Giving in, accepting whatever it is....is revelation.  Truly.
4. Release expectations for everything in my life.

Therapist gave me a book.....
by Thich Nhat Hang....
Peace Is Every Step.  It was a good beginning place.

[MaxedOut]

  Great list, Hhaw. When Everything Falls Apart (Pema Chodron) is a good one too for several of those items.

[zad7242]

Just wanted to give an update. After a few positive weeks, where we focused on things that are going well and only discussing triggering issues while in marriage therapy, we had a very difficult week last week. The highlights:

- My wife became angry with me when were out at a restaurant last Sunday, when I returned the wave of colleague. She said I was acting "giddy" and was so excited to see this person and how she wished I was that happy to see her. Our marriage counselor validated my wife's position, which I agree with, my wife was saddened/angered by loss of affection in our marriage. Does make me scared to see anyone I know in public, however.

- My wife and I had a discussion a few days later about her mental health and the idea of her PTSD being my fault came up. Afterward, she sent me a text indicating that If I use her "mental health as a weapon" against her again, she would leave the house and she doesn't care if I can't go to work. she doesn't care if I get fired. We talked about this in therapy. Therapist didn't really comment on it.

-  my mom is having a hysterectomy at the end of the week and I insisted on visiting her and my dad for dinner this past Friday. I did have an enjoyable and relatively lengthy visit with them that evening. However, my wife was quite triggered and told me I could only see them if I arranged for childcare or visited when our nanny was already on the schedule. Marriage therapist didn't have much of a response only asked my wife if anything negative happened while I was visiting to which she said no.

Overall, marriage therapy continues to provide validation for my wife and mostly silence on my concerns, which still have only been superficially examined. Our homework assignment for this week includes questions about what she needs, none related to what I need.

In summary, I am really struggling with moving forward as we are. I feel like we are back to where we were months ago - things are probably worse than they have been in several months.

[square]

Good to hear from you, zad. My thoughts:

About the incident where your wife was upset you were "giddy" seeing someone else, you didn't do anything wrong, and it's also reasonable your wife feels the loss of your prior level of affection. Now, reacting in anger (trying to control you or shame you) is not productive at all. It would be valid for her to express sadness that she doesn't get that sort of treatment from you anymore. As for you, I understand you now feel a further constraint where you feel you have to rein in your natural enthusiasm for running into someone lest your wife have a feeling about it and take it out on you. If she is angry rather than sad, it seems she does not feel she has any responsibility for the outcome of you pulling back.

Regarding the issue discussing mental health, my personal belief is that I think there is zero benefit to EVER mentioning a mental illness to someone unless it's 100% in complete support. That's not to say you have to tolerate the behavior of a mentally ill person (or one who is not, for that matter...).

But just imagine that she says "you're doing X because you have NPD." It's not helpful to anyone whether they have NPD (or BPD or schizophrenia or anything) or not.

Can you THINK about how a mental illness might have affected a behavior? Oh yeah, absolutely. Go for it.

Should you say a thing? Nope, nope, nope. I would go so far as to full on deny it. I'd go so far as to proactively take it off the table. "I don't think you're mentally ill. I know you're upset with me because I was cheery with So and So. I don't think it's because you're crazy. But it's absolutely normal to treat a friend kindly, and it's also normal to pull back from a spouse when trust is damaged. If you want us to have that kind of closeness again we need to work on this, and part of that is for you to stop trying to control me saying hi to a friend. Yelling at me for being nice isn't going to bring us closer."

About her threat to leave the house and put you in a spot where you can't leave the kids to go to work, that does seem pretty loaded. One thought I have is, if you do divorce, how will you manage childcare in that case? You may need to get your ducks in a row either way so that you have childcare options whether you stay (and she pulls this move) or you leave. And you might consider if that move could be a red line for you.

With your visit to your mother, it also seems that weaponizing child care is again something she is going to lean on. So perhaps you need to solve it to remove that leverage. You can also point out to her that this kind of move is driving you two further apart rather than closer together - she is not acting as a partner trying to resolve a problem in good faith, but as someone controlling you. An odd move for someone who wants so much to keep you from leaving. Making it hard for you to stay.

[zad7242]

Square, really great perspective, thank you. I have grown in empathy for my wife regarding how she reacts to seeing me happy to see other people, but I think you make a good distinction between her being sad about where we are and her being angry with me as if she has no role.

I do agree with you on how counterproductive it is to discuss mental health. It is hard when she owns it and wants to discuss her treatment plans but then criticizes me for "weaponizing" her mental health against her for following up on it. I will heed your advice.

Finally, I forgot to mention that our therapist asked us to do homework questions and reply to a group chat with the therapist. My wife when discussing what we need to do to reconnect this week stated she is not calm enough to answer and right now she can only think about having her foot connect with my ass and her purse connecting with the back of my head.

I wonder how that would go over if I wrote that as a man....

[Call Me Cordelia]

My thought is forcing you to provide all of this childcare before divorcing would only hurt her chances in a custody fight. I agree with getting those ducks in a row!

[Call Me Cordelia]

She wrote that... to the therapist???? 

My own replies are short because I just can't even with your wife and I've never met the woman.

Not that you need to mention this to her, but this (lack of):

distinction between her being sad about where we are and her being angry with me as if she has no role

is CLASSIC BPD.

[IsleOfSong]

Sounds like this therapist isn't exactly being very even-steven with the two of you. You should matter just as much as your wife does in any marriage counseling office you find yourself in. (And yes, I know what the reaction would be if you had suggested violence in a group text the way your wife did. Not good.)

What's more, if you have to tone-police yourself when you're doing something as simple as saying hello to an acquaintance, that's not good either. Please continue to be very clear about what's happening in your marriage. Listen to your gut. Believe in your own good nature; don't diminish it to keep the peace. And do not let your wife's moods interfere with spending time with your ill mother. Coincidentally, my 85-year-old mother is having a hysterectomy at the end of the month — and if my wife tried to impede my being there in any way, that would be the point of no return for me. Your needs matter!

[MaxedOut]

Sounds like your wife (aided and abetted by the therapist) is doing a good job of trying to isolate you from others and connections by making you pay for totally normal stuff. And sounds like she is trying to bring you to heel generally through threats, controlling behaviors, and FOG.

My ex would use tactics like this after periods where I respectfully and usually gently, but firmly, stood up for myself and tried to make room for my needs/perspective. She'd perhaps be supportive for a bit but then whatever mix of anger and resentment for being even mildly criticized would kick in with fear of abandonment and pretty much set up this type of response. Often it would be a hat trick with her also being sick, injured, unwell, or otherwise suffering suddenly and needing extra support, which would then be an excuse for extra lashing out because she was not doing ok (something she probably knew would be pit of bounds normally or at least in the period after I brought things up).

It's a maddening complex/long-form version of DARVOing...that leaves you switching from hope and some feeling that things may get better to realizing you are somehow back where you started or worse off (and somehow bending backwards accommodate and reassure them).

Still wild to me that the therapist is eating the perspective out of your wife's hand. Like with the restaurant thing - yes, absolutely normal to be excited like that unexpectedly running into someone you are happy to see. And, yeah, I have sometimes felt "I wish you were as ———- with me as you are with ———." But I usually realize it's a normal thing and immature comparison before saying anything. And if I do say something it's along the lines of "I had this reaction and it made me realize how hurt I am feeling about ———. I want you to be excited and feel free to show it with others. And I want to figure out how we can get back to a place where we also feel some of that."

I am sure you wish your wife would talk to you and treat you like she does random people she likes and doesn't have frequent interactions with! The anger piece and bringing it up the way she is the part of what gets at this being manipulative (whether consciously or not). You get her perspective and can relate but you also will likely now behave differently in similar situations in the future because there was no addressing that reactive part of the incident.

[square]

I was just sort of musing about how some people just really don't get how human beings work.

So, ok, I'm sad that my husband is happy to see someone else and he doesn't seem happy to see me anymore. So I'll.... yell at him?

Yeah, that'll make him happy again.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[MaxedOut]

 

[zad7242]

Our marriage therapy has sort of taken a turn. My wife no longer thinks very highly of our therapist, although I don't think she is totally being irrational. Our therapist spent our session last week talking for 35 minutes about how he handles boundaries within his own family and we only got to speak for a few minutes at the end. Our therapist is also starting to challenge my wife much more with comments like "I just don't see where he said or did......" Today, my wife was extremely angry during the session and told our therapist that she does like the person I am and that she is emotionally going to cut herself off from me and we can just stay together for the sake of the kids. She says we cannot "agree to disagree" about events of the past particularly how she greatly inhibited by ability to have a relationship with my parents or the free practice of my religion. I have told the therapist I can be forward looking and forgive, she believes I have to acknowledge how terrible we all were to her and how she didn't defame and scream at me for expressing my beliefs. She accused me of both ignoring her this past week and yet trying to initiate small acts of physical intimacy at the same time. Our therapist questioned her on the contradiction, and she really had no answer.

All the while I am honestly getting more and more frustrated at my own therapist whom I see about once every 2-3 weeks who keeps telling me to take divorce off the table because my wife is trying marriage counseling and is able to regulate her rage somewhat better and I'm supposed to be hopeful. I know if I am going to do marriage counseling and it appears like she is making some progress, I need to be all in and not have one foot out the door. But it is still hard because the fundamentals of the relationship still have not changed. I can't imagine going on for another 6 months or year just to see if sufficient gains are made. Right now, my wife is very critical of our marriage counselor so I don't know how long this will last.

[MaxedOut]

Yeah... folks with PDs discard therapists easily and often. If she's on the discard path and the therapist is challenging her it will probably be pretty short-lived. I'm not sure how many individual therapists my ex went through, but a fair number and if her anger got triggered and the therapist even mildly challenged something she said that was usually it.

This is part of why couples counseling with a PD partner is rarely productive; they tend angrily Nope out of it when there's accountability or anything they perceive as not "on their side."  So it's either counterproductive or it ends before being helpful. If your PD has a root in shame, and your main response is controlling others, but you can't regulate your own anger and other emotions, and you view relationships with black and white with win-lose dynamics... it's a pretty rare thing to have couples counseling work in the typical ways people find effective.