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Boundaries - how ?

Old 09-22-2014, 03:44 PM
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Boundaries - how ?

Hi Everyone

I have done a lot of research as of late into "Borderline Personality" and "High Conflict Personality" types.

I found an online test for identifying if I am living with the above ... I can answer yes to the majority of questions.

I have tried setting boundaries, but to no avail. Even the attempt to set them is enough to have my spouse fly off the handle & the name calling starts.

She rages at our children on a very regular basis & it doesn't matter where or when, she will do this in front of other children & their parents as well. In a shopping mall, on a train, in public, doesn't matter.

She has lost 3 friendships in the last 3 years & I think she is on the verge of another loss. One of her friends told me on the weekend, she isn't going to tolerate her "blow-up's" any more.

We have tried couples counselling, however, the counsellor seemed to say "What do you expect she lives with an alcoholic"

However, I know from 3 people who have known her since she was 12, that she has been like this since childhood.

Just like I was alcoholic before she met me and I cannot blame her for that, it would seem she was "High Conflict" long before I met her too.

The problem is, she does blame me for her unhappiness. I am expected to be damn near perfect or "look out" the claws come out & the verbal abuse & name calling starts.

She harasses me daily with phone calls & text messages. It escalates if I do not or can not pick up. Example, if I miss one call, there will be one every ten minutes till I do pick up.

The minute I get in the door from work, the questions start, where have you been (at work), what have you been doing (working) and on it goes ..... aaaaahhhh !!

I know my drinking has not helped any of this "suspicion" of me, I get that.

However, she attempts to control every minute detail of everything I do.
Micro Management I believe is the corporate term.

I literally cannot do anything without her popping along to tell me where I'm doing it wrong and then to tell me how she would do it.

Wash the car (why aren't you doing it like this ?)
Mow the Lawns (why aren't you doing it like this ?)
Cook Dinner (why aren't you doing it like this ?)
Fold washing (why aren't you doing it like this ?)
trim trees (why aren't you doing it like this ?)
make the kids breakfast (why aren't you doing it like this ?)
load the dishwasher (why aren't you doing it like this ?)

I could fill a page, but I'm sure you get the idea.

I am literally followed around & told how to do EVERYTHING.

Last night she hacked my phone , suspecting an affair, as she has noticed I use my phone to go on SR.

This in not the first time the phone has been hacked.
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Old 09-22-2014, 03:50 PM
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Do you think it's to do with your drinking or something more?

The drinking part can be fixed, the more Sober time you put behind you, eventually she should come around, for me family members mistrusted that I was serious for a good 6 months and then they relaxed having seen I was indeed serious about things.

Time is your friend on the drinking front!!
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Old 09-22-2014, 04:15 PM
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I acknowledge that my drinking has not helped. I do.

I was 2 years sober from August 2008 to August 2010

Nothing changed in that time, not at 6 months, a year, 18 months, right through till I picked up a drink again.

I am not the only person who see's this behaviour in her.

3 severed friendships, including one of the women who has known her since age 12, speaks for itself.

In every single case, she puts all the blame squarely at their feet. I have tried pointing out it might not be the case, only to have my head bitten off.

She often organises "play dates" for our children with women she meets at kindergarten, school etc

They come over with their children, my wife turns on one of her performances in front of the other children & the other woman.

Some are never to be seen again as of that day.

Some come back for a second, third or fourth time before pulling away, but eventually they do.

She has been deleted as a friend on Facebook countless times and after that they ignore her phone calls till she finally gets the message.

OMG, the things she says about those women afterwards, it disgusts me.

She has even said, one of them pulled away because she was developing a crush on ME. Her "womens intuition" told her that

She has 4 friends left, beyond casual acquaintance, who stick by her regardless. Now one of them has said, she is on her way out too.

I have tried to point out some of this stuff, but it always ends in her lashing out. She blames her "crazy" on living with me & refuses to have a look at how she is showing up in other peoples lives.
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Old 09-22-2014, 04:59 PM
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If you are indeed living with a "borderline" ...you have my empathy. With respect to boundaries with them...er um...attempting boundaries with a "borderline" is like throwing down the gauntlet.

I blame MY drinking for ever getting involved (and staying with) a personality disordered individual.
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Old 09-22-2014, 05:05 PM
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Hope you find a resolution to this hawks
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Old 09-22-2014, 05:20 PM
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Thanks Nuudawn & SW

I think my drinking clouded things too. In being Sober, I can see what a mess our family life is.

At least booze gave me a way of coping with the emotions brought about by her constant anger towards me, the nit picking, the "I'm always right" attitude.

She has even lorded it over me with things like "you're just an alcoholic, what the F##K would you know"

We seem to bring out the worst in each other.

I don't know how to address this.

She simply will not own up to any of her own behaviour for any length of time.

She is capable of acknowledging it and doing OK for a few days, even a week occasionally, but then we get back to square one.

I feel like I am doing what I can do for myself, by addressing my alcoholism.

If she won't seek help for her problem, how long do I hang in there ?

The pain of the constant verballing, my inability to live up to her ever increasing demands are particularly painful now that I am sober again.

I really am struggling with what to do .
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Old 09-22-2014, 05:23 PM
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Maybe its time to move on this sounds toxic
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Old 09-22-2014, 05:30 PM
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It feels very toxic SW.

4 children are involved & from what I have read, divorcing or leaving a BPD person, is a nasty nasty process.

She has already threatened previously when I said I was leaving (not sober) , to withdraw the children & get the law involved by making up a story to get an intervention / court order.

It has already been my experience that these orders can be obtained easily & no one is ever interested in the males side of the story.

My poor 10 old son cops most of her wrath, I really fear for his well being if she follows through with her threats.

She hasn't made that threat lately, but I haven't made any plans to leave lately either.
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Old 09-22-2014, 05:46 PM
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I have a story, it might help, might not...

well, first, just to be clear, technically... Borderline Personality Disorder can only be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. The odds of someone with BPD going to see a psychiatrist are almost zero. But the little online checklists and stuff can really be helpful for people attempting to have some sort of life with these people.

I used to be "best friends" with a girl who is probably fits this dx. There's no doubt in my mind my heavy drinking kept our friendship together, as she loved to go out and dress up and attract attention, so that was our thing. The first time I quit, I think I was quit for 8 months (maybe one or two slips in there) it ended our friendship. Telling her "no" on anything meant nonstop harassment. So when I didn't want to go out with her, I'd receive ten or twenty texts. All very manipulative. That she was worried I was depressed, she thought my quitting drinking was an "overreaction" to a breakup I had just gone through. That I couldn't just stay home and wallow.
^^^She continued to send me these stupid "you can't keep being a hermit come to the bar/club with me" for about a year until I blocked her. Just this alone made me realize she was not a friend.

She would make up fake emergencies. Her husband raped her. She was in the emergency room getting a transfusion. <---She didn't specify of what
She would send me crazy texts complaining about her husband. She thought that because he didn't take the dishes out of the dishwasher right away it caused mold spores.
I could fill a novel with her strange attention getting texts to me.
A man followed her in the park while she was walking her dog. (This was a classic, as she actually texted me from her home and had managed to both photograph and videotape this scary man at the park)
The valet at a restaurant charged her $10, when last time it was $5, should she call the restaurant and complain? Or the valet company?
She also started sent me texts that had an odd tone to them. "Do you know my friend Greg? He was looking through my photos and he said he knows you." Strange stuff that had a very psycho tone to it.
Or sending me 20 photos of herself in 7 or 8 different dresses and asking me which one she should wear tonight.

My drinking/not drinking had nothing to do with her psycho. She was always off kilter. I didn't pay attention to it in the beginning because my judgment was off and I just wanted to go out and have fun. When I pulled away from her, she went into crazy clingy hyper nobody-gets-away-from-me mode. Which was pretty terrifying. And I tried to set boundaries. Those don't even exist in her world. What normal people recognize as boundaries, to her, that's a challenge!
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Old 09-22-2014, 05:52 PM
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Originally Posted by Hawks View Post
She has already threatened previously when I said I was leaving (not sober) , to withdraw the children & get the law involved by making up a story to get an intervention / court order.

It has already been my experience that these orders can be obtained easily & no one is ever interested in the males side of the story
Your experience or rumors/word of mouth? Have you had any legal counsel?
I'm sorry you are experiencing this but it sounds like she is using threats and intimidation to keep you in line and it's working.

Do not let yourself be bullied.
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Old 09-22-2014, 06:22 PM
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Originally Posted by Hawks View Post
I feel like I am doing what I can do for myself, by addressing my alcoholism.

If she won't seek help for her problem, how long do I hang in there ?

The pain of the constant verballing, my inability to live up to her ever increasing demands are particularly painful now that I am sober again.

I really am struggling with what to do .
Abuse of any kind is never acceptable.

And, I fear for the safety and sanity of your children.

My advice is to stay sober, and separate yourself from your wife. The children need to be cared for by a sober parent and they need to be removed from the abusive parent.
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Old 09-22-2014, 06:27 PM
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Originally Posted by Hawks View Post
My poor 10 old son cops most of her wrath, I really fear for his well being if she follows through with her threats.
You need to stay sober for yourself and family. And you need to stop your children from being terrorized in their own home. You need to seek counsel..both legal and psychological regarding the ongoing trauma in your family whether that be as a result of personality disorder and/or addiction. You are responsible for building young human's here.

Godspeed my friend...
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Old 09-22-2014, 06:34 PM
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Thanks 3arai

I'm not sure & she hasn't been diagnosed for the exact reason you said. She did attend one counsellor, he dared to suggest she might have her part to play in our troubles, started to zero in on her a bit, she came away declaring him a "quack" and never went back.

This pattern has emerged on several occasions. She counsellor shops and prefers women counsellors who will fall in with her victim mentality.

She has narcisist traits, high conflict traits & borderline traits, although doesn't tick all the boxes for any.


I did get an intervention on me.

She was blowing 7 shades of s##t out of our son at breakfast time. (Very regular occurance)

I calmly took myself away & googled the medical opinion of what that type of regular behaviour does to a child. I printed it out & tried to "confront" her with it.

I figured it might be a "wake up" call of some type.

It wasn't, she flew into a full blown rage, and then I did too.

I ended up throwing a chair through a window, in pure frustration that no matter what evidence I presented .... she knew better & could minimise & justify her behaviour.

Cops were called, didn't even ask what happened. Just served me with notice to appear in court.

Judge handed down one year, again, no time for my side of the story. No concern for her behaviour what so ever.

I felt labelled as the sole cause of all the problems in the house & of course, my wife just lapped it up.

During the counselling I was to attend, again, I was the out of control brute who had terrified my wife & children. Never was I to tell my side of the story. Not interested, period !!

It seems in many cases there are brutes who just run rough shod over their wives, brutalise them, control & manipulate them, verbal them constantly.

The assumption seems to be a "one size fits all" when it comes to any domestic dispute.

The male cops it & that is that.

I won't even list all the stuff that has happened to me at her hands or more succinctly her tongue (main weapon).

Your story rings some bells, I have had 10 or 12 text messages in a day, all just attention seeking stuff. I drive a large part of my day as part of what I do. If I ever pick up the phone whilst driving & she is in the car .... thats a verbal.

Knowing I drive a large part of the day & shouldn't use the phone whilst driving, if I don't get back to her quick smart .... thats a verbal too.

I'm not "thinking of her" and it makes her "sad"

Good grief. Writing all this down, makes me look at it in a whole new light.
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Old 09-22-2014, 06:57 PM
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Thanks Nuudawn

It is a tough & sh##ty scenario right now.

The girls will be OK, for some reason she doesn't take to them like she does me & my son. Although I do fear she will turn on them if we are not around.

If I leave, I feel I have to get my son out too. But it is hard to do. The courts seemingly always award custody to the woman. I have experienced first hand how sexist it is.

I know when push comes to shove, she won't hesitate to use my alcoholism as leverage, she has already threatened just that.

I think she knows deep down that our son would be better off away from her. But for her to admit that, seems to go against every instinct of the personality disordered person. So it seems very unlikely to ever happen.

She will fight tooth & nail to prove she is right & perfect.
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Old 09-22-2014, 11:11 PM
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Update.

we just had a huge sit down talk, I asked her to look at a web page & see if she could see herself in there.

Lots of "grey area" responses at first. I can't say much about that, God knows I looked for "grey areas" for years before finally admitting I drank alcoholicly.

But a wee breakthrough came when she admitted she brought anger & control issues with her into our relationship just like I brought my alcoholism. Neither of us "caused" those traits, but at the same time, we have exacerbated each others traits.

So ... plan is, I remove the "Boulder" in my life, alcoholism, She will remove the "Boulder" in hers.

After that, we can pick up the rocks, stones & pebbles.

Progress not perfection. First things First.

I have renewed hope.

I know I am already taking action on my problem & will continue to follow through.

I feel my wife has taken the first step today in admitting she can see her problem.

Thanks for everyones help on this. You all rock
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