Hello everyone,
Earlier today I started googling for something to cling to after the latest argument between my wife and I. I started with the phrase "Why does my wife hate me?" and after chasing down several leads stumbled on something called "Borderline Personality Disorder" - you have all undoubtedly heard of it. Further exploration led me to some posts on this forum, and some of Uptown's posts about his ex were a real revelation to me. That's the brief history on how I ended up here. Uptown, in a separate thread, encouraged me to start one about my own married. So here's my story, such as it is...
The basics: my wife and I have been married now for 6.5 years. We have two children - a boy nearly five and a girl 18 mos. I absolutely adore my children. It's been one of the best if not the best experience of my life being a father! Both of us work and have good careers.
I almost don't have the heart to repeat all of this since it's so painful (and shameful to me, since I've put up with it so long), but I'm going to try. Some of this is going to sound incoherent because a lot of it I think I've just blocked or purposefully tried to forget and so I think the recollections are going to be a little fragmented. We have had so many arguments that the whole relationship has become a blur. I'm not kidding when I say we had two or three arguments last week (of that I am sure) but I cannot recall what the topic was for any of them. I have always had a keen memory and early on in the relationship it would irk her to no end that I could recall verbatim everything said (because she so often claimed something that was or wasn't said that wasn't true) so this kind of forgetfulness is very odd for me. Maybe it's a coping mechanism.
Things started off well enough together - seemed like we had both met "our match", to borrow her phrase - we both enjoyed athletic endeavors, working out, that kind of stuff. We found common ground in musical taste and "nerdy" things like computers. You know the drill.
First warning sign during our early relationship was her quick temper. She seemed to snap at me rather easily, even in the early stages of our relationship. But we were infatuated with one another and I had a high threshold for that kind of garbage, I guess, and didn't pay much attention to it. As I'm learning after reading threads I tend to credit myself with a high tolerance for taking abuse and really just have low personal boundaries. Anyway, I liked that she was athletic, smart, and good looking so I overlooked a great number of sins early in the relationship that should have sent me running.
I also remember oddities like when we had an argument early in our relationship she claimed she had apologized when she clearly happened. That was another eye-opener for me but not enough to send me packing: that she somehow really did believe that she apologized verbally to me when she had not. I have never met anyone with that much cognitive dissonance. Again, I overlooked it because of course when we're finally married I can make her happy, etc - all the lies young people tell themselves to rationalize the flaws away in their SO. This "reality distortion" became a constant theme in our marriage: she remembered saying something good I know she didn't say or I said something bad and forgot. I can't stress how much this colored the early years of our relationship.
I have never felt like I built up a storehouse of "good will" with her. I don't mean that I tallied the things I did for her in a ledger and recounted them, I just felt like I was always starting over every day. A good day the previous day never gave us momentum for "today". There is no momentum with her. I have commented to her on several occasions that I feel like she does not like to have "normalcy"...that's she's uncomfortable with it. Things will go relatively ok (not great, but ok) for a couple of weeks and then it feels like a bomb will go off and she just has to find a reason to fight. This has been going on since before the wedding.
There has been physical abuse. She clocked me really good once when we were sitting in the dark together having a small argument, but nothing (or so I thought) worth violence, certainly. That was 6 months into the marriage, and frankly, very devastating to me. I tend to be very sensitive even though I'm a bigger, physical guy and I'm just not cut out for that kind of thing emotionally. That one took us to see our pastor which helped temper things for a while. Still, it didn't last.
She never does anything wrong. Ever. Growing up in my family, we all apologized to each other eventually - usually quickly. My family isn't the model of normalcy by any stretch, but we knew when to throw in the towel and tell one another we were sorry for a wrong. Getting an apology for her is like getting the proverbial water from a rock. Even when offered it's through gritted teeth and almost spat out. I have this distinct feeling that she's only doing it because I expect it because that's what healthy people do.
She has always blamed me for "taking everything away from her" when we first got married. When all else fails this is her standbye accusation for why things are the way they are. In reality when we got married she started adding so many things to her schedule very suddenly that, when I counted everything up we had about two nights a week left to be together. I'll be honest when I say that just wasn't enough as a newlywed. I wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to see her more than that. So I asked her to cool it for one of those activities for a little while and ever since it's been one of those things she draws on (irrationally) as if I attempting to smother her. It was patently false, but no amount of reasoning has ever convinced her otherwise. None. It's so bizarre...and even now, years later, she still believes it. We have probably argued over it at least a dozen times since then and I'll present the same reasons ("you did x, y & z every week during that first year and you claim I smothered you?") to no avail. I guarantee you as sure as she's laying in bed upstairs this instant she still believes it. To me, it's like saying the sky is purple.
If I'm giving this particular point more time than it deserves it's because this kind of dissonance is so central to the type of conflict that has driven me crazy over time - once she grasps the "truth" of something she can never be convinced of it otherwise. And the truth is whatever is currently coming out of her mouth, even when it conflicts with yesterday's version of the truth. She has said that she hates this about her mother (the constant history rewrites), and yet she does it herself. She does it just to win friends...I notice half-truths and white lies slipped into conversations just to be more agreeable or grease a conversation.
And yet, if I told her these things, she'd simply say something snide to divert us from the topic. I sense that, deep down, she hates who she is and is deeply, deeply self-loathing. In a rare moment of lucidity she once told me (paraphrased) "I can't face what I've done to you because it would be too much to bear". Of course that moment passed and now she's only a permanent victim of my schemes.
Ah yes, projection. How often have I heard my own words coming right back at me during a subsequent argument? She has no original ideas of her own about me - they're ideas I've given her about herself during a previous argument!! For instance, I'll say "You're acting like xyz" and, I'm not kidding, I'll hear the exact same phrase "You're acting like xyz" during the next argument - as if she's just catalogued a list of things to say during arguments and she's drawing on them like lines from a script. She's not actually analyzing the actual conflict to determine who's right and wrong - she's just going through the act of argumentation because that's what is required of her at that moment, if that makes sense. And I don't even think it's*conscious, either. She doesn't even realize she's doing it.
Extreme defensiveness. If she makes a mistake, you'll end up hearing about it as if it was your own fault she made the mistake. You would think she accidentally pressed the button that killed 3 billion people the way she reacts after realizing she's made a mistake. It's almost as though she preemptively chastises herself. Maybe that's because her dad was a real ass and was always ready to place blame on her and her siblings. I have no doubt she had a really, really awful childhood (she's denied that physical abuse occurred to her, although I know she witnessed it), but this crap is really damaging me and I'm worried it's going to scar our kids.
It was so traumatic for me in the first year that I saw neurologists thinking I had a degenerative nerve disease. Turns out I was just really REALLY traumatized from everything that was going on. I've seen some bad things as a child, but I've never been treated like this.
At first I bore with things patiently thinking that it was temporary or that I could love her out of it. Things got really bad for me around the time of our first anniversary when I'd had enough and started standing up for myself. Those are probably some of the darkest days of my marriage so far.
All told, the only thing that has kept me with her are the children. I grew up in a divorced home and hated the damage that caused me and wanted better for my children. But now I'm faced with this reality and these BPD-like tendencies and wondering which is worse for our kids - us together or us apart? Or, even worse, the kids alone with her when I'm not around. They are young and very sweet children right now and have a lot of built-in charm. I think that charm has held her at bay so far. What happens when they're 12 and self-centered and "bratty"? Is she going to remain patient with them? Tender? My heart tells me no, but if I'm around I could at least stand up for them. If we're divorced they will have to bear that burden while I'm not around, and I hate that mental picture.
One final anecdote: I had a brief argument with my step-father about something a few years back. We were on the phone discussing it somewhat heatedly and he claimed one thing had happened and I counter-claimed with a different interpretation. He paused and said, "You know what? You're right." It floored me. I've been so used to the countless circular arguments and finger-pointing that I go through with my wife each argument that for him to outright take ownership of something that he did was like a cold drink of water to a man in the middle of a vast desert. I wish it could be like that between my wife and I, but if I'm perfectly honest it never really has been.
Sorry for the long post. I've never fully told anyone the whole story, and I know there are things I'm forgetting or have chosen to forget. Please offer advice or ask any questions you'd like and I'll answer.
-bnc
Earlier today I started googling for something to cling to after the latest argument between my wife and I. I started with the phrase "Why does my wife hate me?" and after chasing down several leads stumbled on something called "Borderline Personality Disorder" - you have all undoubtedly heard of it. Further exploration led me to some posts on this forum, and some of Uptown's posts about his ex were a real revelation to me. That's the brief history on how I ended up here. Uptown, in a separate thread, encouraged me to start one about my own married. So here's my story, such as it is...
The basics: my wife and I have been married now for 6.5 years. We have two children - a boy nearly five and a girl 18 mos. I absolutely adore my children. It's been one of the best if not the best experience of my life being a father! Both of us work and have good careers.
I almost don't have the heart to repeat all of this since it's so painful (and shameful to me, since I've put up with it so long), but I'm going to try. Some of this is going to sound incoherent because a lot of it I think I've just blocked or purposefully tried to forget and so I think the recollections are going to be a little fragmented. We have had so many arguments that the whole relationship has become a blur. I'm not kidding when I say we had two or three arguments last week (of that I am sure) but I cannot recall what the topic was for any of them. I have always had a keen memory and early on in the relationship it would irk her to no end that I could recall verbatim everything said (because she so often claimed something that was or wasn't said that wasn't true) so this kind of forgetfulness is very odd for me. Maybe it's a coping mechanism.
Things started off well enough together - seemed like we had both met "our match", to borrow her phrase - we both enjoyed athletic endeavors, working out, that kind of stuff. We found common ground in musical taste and "nerdy" things like computers. You know the drill.
First warning sign during our early relationship was her quick temper. She seemed to snap at me rather easily, even in the early stages of our relationship. But we were infatuated with one another and I had a high threshold for that kind of garbage, I guess, and didn't pay much attention to it. As I'm learning after reading threads I tend to credit myself with a high tolerance for taking abuse and really just have low personal boundaries. Anyway, I liked that she was athletic, smart, and good looking so I overlooked a great number of sins early in the relationship that should have sent me running.
I also remember oddities like when we had an argument early in our relationship she claimed she had apologized when she clearly happened. That was another eye-opener for me but not enough to send me packing: that she somehow really did believe that she apologized verbally to me when she had not. I have never met anyone with that much cognitive dissonance. Again, I overlooked it because of course when we're finally married I can make her happy, etc - all the lies young people tell themselves to rationalize the flaws away in their SO. This "reality distortion" became a constant theme in our marriage: she remembered saying something good I know she didn't say or I said something bad and forgot. I can't stress how much this colored the early years of our relationship.
I have never felt like I built up a storehouse of "good will" with her. I don't mean that I tallied the things I did for her in a ledger and recounted them, I just felt like I was always starting over every day. A good day the previous day never gave us momentum for "today". There is no momentum with her. I have commented to her on several occasions that I feel like she does not like to have "normalcy"...that's she's uncomfortable with it. Things will go relatively ok (not great, but ok) for a couple of weeks and then it feels like a bomb will go off and she just has to find a reason to fight. This has been going on since before the wedding.
There has been physical abuse. She clocked me really good once when we were sitting in the dark together having a small argument, but nothing (or so I thought) worth violence, certainly. That was 6 months into the marriage, and frankly, very devastating to me. I tend to be very sensitive even though I'm a bigger, physical guy and I'm just not cut out for that kind of thing emotionally. That one took us to see our pastor which helped temper things for a while. Still, it didn't last.
She never does anything wrong. Ever. Growing up in my family, we all apologized to each other eventually - usually quickly. My family isn't the model of normalcy by any stretch, but we knew when to throw in the towel and tell one another we were sorry for a wrong. Getting an apology for her is like getting the proverbial water from a rock. Even when offered it's through gritted teeth and almost spat out. I have this distinct feeling that she's only doing it because I expect it because that's what healthy people do.
She has always blamed me for "taking everything away from her" when we first got married. When all else fails this is her standbye accusation for why things are the way they are. In reality when we got married she started adding so many things to her schedule very suddenly that, when I counted everything up we had about two nights a week left to be together. I'll be honest when I say that just wasn't enough as a newlywed. I wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to see her more than that. So I asked her to cool it for one of those activities for a little while and ever since it's been one of those things she draws on (irrationally) as if I attempting to smother her. It was patently false, but no amount of reasoning has ever convinced her otherwise. None. It's so bizarre...and even now, years later, she still believes it. We have probably argued over it at least a dozen times since then and I'll present the same reasons ("you did x, y & z every week during that first year and you claim I smothered you?") to no avail. I guarantee you as sure as she's laying in bed upstairs this instant she still believes it. To me, it's like saying the sky is purple.
If I'm giving this particular point more time than it deserves it's because this kind of dissonance is so central to the type of conflict that has driven me crazy over time - once she grasps the "truth" of something she can never be convinced of it otherwise. And the truth is whatever is currently coming out of her mouth, even when it conflicts with yesterday's version of the truth. She has said that she hates this about her mother (the constant history rewrites), and yet she does it herself. She does it just to win friends...I notice half-truths and white lies slipped into conversations just to be more agreeable or grease a conversation.
And yet, if I told her these things, she'd simply say something snide to divert us from the topic. I sense that, deep down, she hates who she is and is deeply, deeply self-loathing. In a rare moment of lucidity she once told me (paraphrased) "I can't face what I've done to you because it would be too much to bear". Of course that moment passed and now she's only a permanent victim of my schemes.
Ah yes, projection. How often have I heard my own words coming right back at me during a subsequent argument? She has no original ideas of her own about me - they're ideas I've given her about herself during a previous argument!! For instance, I'll say "You're acting like xyz" and, I'm not kidding, I'll hear the exact same phrase "You're acting like xyz" during the next argument - as if she's just catalogued a list of things to say during arguments and she's drawing on them like lines from a script. She's not actually analyzing the actual conflict to determine who's right and wrong - she's just going through the act of argumentation because that's what is required of her at that moment, if that makes sense. And I don't even think it's*conscious, either. She doesn't even realize she's doing it.
Extreme defensiveness. If she makes a mistake, you'll end up hearing about it as if it was your own fault she made the mistake. You would think she accidentally pressed the button that killed 3 billion people the way she reacts after realizing she's made a mistake. It's almost as though she preemptively chastises herself. Maybe that's because her dad was a real ass and was always ready to place blame on her and her siblings. I have no doubt she had a really, really awful childhood (she's denied that physical abuse occurred to her, although I know she witnessed it), but this crap is really damaging me and I'm worried it's going to scar our kids.
It was so traumatic for me in the first year that I saw neurologists thinking I had a degenerative nerve disease. Turns out I was just really REALLY traumatized from everything that was going on. I've seen some bad things as a child, but I've never been treated like this.
At first I bore with things patiently thinking that it was temporary or that I could love her out of it. Things got really bad for me around the time of our first anniversary when I'd had enough and started standing up for myself. Those are probably some of the darkest days of my marriage so far.
All told, the only thing that has kept me with her are the children. I grew up in a divorced home and hated the damage that caused me and wanted better for my children. But now I'm faced with this reality and these BPD-like tendencies and wondering which is worse for our kids - us together or us apart? Or, even worse, the kids alone with her when I'm not around. They are young and very sweet children right now and have a lot of built-in charm. I think that charm has held her at bay so far. What happens when they're 12 and self-centered and "bratty"? Is she going to remain patient with them? Tender? My heart tells me no, but if I'm around I could at least stand up for them. If we're divorced they will have to bear that burden while I'm not around, and I hate that mental picture.
One final anecdote: I had a brief argument with my step-father about something a few years back. We were on the phone discussing it somewhat heatedly and he claimed one thing had happened and I counter-claimed with a different interpretation. He paused and said, "You know what? You're right." It floored me. I've been so used to the countless circular arguments and finger-pointing that I go through with my wife each argument that for him to outright take ownership of something that he did was like a cold drink of water to a man in the middle of a vast desert. I wish it could be like that between my wife and I, but if I'm perfectly honest it never really has been.
Sorry for the long post. I've never fully told anyone the whole story, and I know there are things I'm forgetting or have chosen to forget. Please offer advice or ask any questions you'd like and I'll answer.
-bnc
