[ames102]

Hi! I have been married for just over 2 years. My husband and I only dated for about 2 months before we got married. He is very honest and doesn't cheat and can be very loving. Our relationship has been rocky since day 1 but I fell in love and wanted to marry him and vice versa. I have a child from a previous relationship. I don't think my husband treats him with any sort of respect. I do think respect is earned for both and I do think kids deserve respect. He jumped in as disciplinary which wasnt wanted and wasnt discussed before it happened. Now they seem to be ok and my son has come to terms with the constant nagging from step dad but I have not and I know it's not right. He was sober when we got married and decided to do drugs again a few months after I had our baby. He now takes methadone for the habit but the only differance that is for me is that it is legal and doesn't cost as much but he still gets high from it and it still costs 600 a month and we dont have the money to support that. All the responsibilities fall onto me and I am tired of it. He threw things at me when I was pregnant and after I had the baby he no longer did it but the fact that he did has made me very resentful. I have lost jobs because he wants He is very inconsiderate of me in general. He used to be thoughtful which was what I loved about him but now he is not. There are so many many issues but those are just the major issues. I am completely miserable in our marriage. I don't want to divorce but I don't want to be with him anymore either. I thought about proposing to get seperate places and try dating again and see how that goes but I know that wont go over well and I have asked for counceling before and that wasnt something he was super interested in although he may reconsider now. I am just not sure what to do. I just know I don't want to live like this. I don't want to put my older child thru the divorce and I don't know if my husband would visit my son. The baby I assume he would be involved with but I don't want my big boy to get the crappy end of the stick considering part of the reason I want out of this situation is the way he is treated by my husband. Any advice would be helpful!

 

[Uptown]

Ames, welcome to the TAM forum. The behavior you describe -- lack of impulse control (e.g., drug habit), inappropriate anger, temper tantrums, verbal abuse, physical abuse (throwing things at you), and rapid flipping between loving and hating you -- are some of the classic traits of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). If your H is a BPDer (i.e., has strong BPD traits), he is throwing tantrums like a spoiled child because his emotional development stopped at about age four.

Significantly, only a professional can determine whether his traits are so persistent and severe as to meet 100% of the diagnostic threshold for having full-blown BPD. Yet, even when the traits fall well short of that level, they can make your life -- and the lives of your children -- miserable. Moreover, spotting the red flags for such traits is not difficult because there is nothing subtle about behavior such as verbal abuse, temper tantrums, and the inability to trust. Hence, given what is at stake (your children's welfare), I believe it will be worth your while to read a bit about BPD traits to see if they sound familiar.

An easy place to start is with my posts in Berilo's thread at Distressed. Another description of BPD traits is available in my posts on Blacksmith's thread at Complicated Marriage Dynamic. If those discussions ring a bell, I would be glad to discuss them with you and point you to good online resources. In any event, I believe it would be prudent to visit a clinical psychologist -- for at least a session or two on your own -- to get a professional opinion as to what you are dealing with. Take care, Ames.

 

[ames102]

He may have that if so only mildly. I may have it as well. I am not completely innocent in our marital problems. I am not what starts the cause of disagreements but when they occur I am no longer nice about it, I hold a lot of resentment and so I can say some really nasty things when we argue. My problem is that he never admits wrong doing and never corrects the wrong except with his addiction and getting on methadone thing which I dont think that corrected the wrong, just made it a little more livable. I disagreed with that decision and feel that if your making a decision to stop doing drugs, you stop and don't go to another drug bc it's considered treatment. It's not, it's just legal and controlled.