So, I'm going to be pretty frank: I'll try and put it behind as many cuts as I can, but let's slap on the Not Safe For Anyone, Really content warnings— just short of the whole nine yards of abuse, shy of physical and sexual, with a deep helping of depression, self-harm, suicidal ideations. Especially for the fact that I am, without question, the abuser in this situation, and I more than realize that that's difficult for most anyone to read. Especially for the sake of "please, someone seriously help me right the hell now, I am so out of control and need to stop before my wife actually kills herself" and I'm deeply ashamed of it. I'm also attempting to write this as objectively as I can for the sake of being clear as to what my situation is, so it might read more like a report than anything else, which I apologize for. The Plot? Shit got super real in April of this year. As in, my behavior went from generally okay to ridiculously out of control in a short span of time, and it resulted in complete breakdowns, especially on her part, which didn't encourage me to change my behavior. Nope, it got worse. More so as time has marched on. Resulting in her finally managing to force me into going and seeking therapy and a diagnosis of BPD. Which you would think would start to improve things, not enable me into getting worse. Last night was the absolute worst I have ever behaved towards her. Hopefully it's needless to say that things are absolutely tail spinning... Spoiler: Which I'm very aware is my fault, so that said, best gird your loins for the disaster I've made of things. (CW abound.) Let me be clear: Even as I write this I am frantically trying to get a hold of my therapist and anyone else available. Until I do, I'm trying to use every resource I have, this forum actually being one my wife had suggested in the first place. Which is why I'm putting this here. One of the major problems right this moment, aside from abusing another human being to the point that dying looks like the more attractive option here, is that I get the diagnosis and was immediately left out in the cold. In particular, I had an appointment that was not only canceled to really start my DBT and MBCT, but moved ten days away without anyone notifying me. This was not supposed to happen. Ever. This is important because we'd been holding out small shreds of hope for me to actually start DBT instead of relying on a friend who had held on to her DBT binder and the internet for me to try and self-teach it with very little success. And I say "limited" because in the end I used it to enable the very abusive behaviors I want to change instead of actually using the skills in the first place. I know that's not something you're supposed to do, especially since it made things worse than ever before, but my options have been a little slim in trying to do something now, not later, to try and change my behavior. In the years that we've been together, there began an awful pattern. Couples fight all the time, sure, but over time, especially in the last three or so months, it would go from occasional fights to fights that lasted all weekend (while things appeared —read: she pretended it was fine and I enable that— fine during her work week), and now it's gotten to the point that I'm not even nice to her for more than half an hour or for the initial phase of taking care of her while she's in the suicidal depression I've kicked her into. Over the course of this, I've devalued her to the point that my wife genuinely feels like I don't actually care about her or about changing my behavior, that she quite literally means nothing to me, and that I'm honestly trying to convince her that she should kill herself. Trust me when I say that this is entirely justified. I've pulled every classic emotional and mental abusive tactic you can imagine, then invented some new ones. I've undercut her value both verbally and through my actions. When she would get angry with me (mind you, after more than a fair number of warnings that I was making her upset), I've done everything I can to avoid answering everything but the questions she wants answered, weasel, deflect, and minimize any blame on my part, let alone take responsibility, and if that didn't work, it would turn ugly with my trying (often succeeding) convince her that it was actually her fault and not mine. When I did put in any work, I would immediately tear it down, showing that I'm (or a stronger part of me) doesn't really want to change and I'm not willing to put in any hard work if there isn't any pay off for me and only me. I've weaponized my own suicidal depression against her. Then weaponized hers. To the point she has harmed herself. I've started to even entirely withdraw my affection when she's needed it the most. And I've perpetuated this cycle by creating a reality in which my wife is the one who's abusive for yelling or even daring to get mad at someone that has not just BPD, but bipolar (type II), ADD, and the heaviest of all artillery: brain damage. She's the bad guy for even thinking about leaving someone who might very well hurt themself if they dared leave, with the high likelihood of turning that on her, too. Not to mention she knows I have no where to go if she did throw me out, and she isn't the type of person that wants to do that to anyone. I apologize, beg her to give me another chance until she gives in, give my wife just enough to give her hope, then effectively kneecap her, and I can quite literally make a flowchart out of the pattern. This isn't something I'm proud of in the slightest, it's a fact. On top of it, last night was not only the most aggressive and meanest cycle, I finally told her about the worst lie anyone in a long term relationship could tell anyone (which she'd been suspicious of to begin with; I'd been inconsistent with what I'd been telling her), and in the worst way, while I was trying to reassure her that she is special to me: lying about the number of people I've dated. For years. Making the number much smaller than it actually was. Which wouldn't have been an issue at all, regardless of the reason for the lie in the first place, even if I'd fessed up after telling the lie, but I told it for entirely self-serving reasons. It was something that made her feel special, being able to think about the fact that I chose her. So, as you've all likely predicted, I've left a broken-hearted wreck in my wake. When I tell my wife, "I don't want to actually to be like this" and "I really do care", it's something I truly mean. I don't want to be like this. I don't want to keep treating her like this, but it's no small wonder she thinks I'm possibly some kind of sadist or sociopath, considering the fact that if I cared, I wouldn't do these things to the person I love most. Which I do— I'm absolutely crazy about her. I'm not saying that she doesn't have every damn good reason not to trust me, or that I was every in any way right to do any of these things. She's beyond disgusted with me and I'm beyond disgusted with myself, too. Because nothing has stopped the cycle. A part of me that's, for whatever reason, stronger than the rest of me, is resisting, and I've yet to completely pinpoint why I keep choosing not to do the things that will make the situation better (or tear down an improving situation) even when the rest of me wants to change so agonizingly bad. What I'm trying to say is that I'm desperately needing something, some kind of help, or anything, really, because I do want to try. I'm not interested in saving my marriage as much as I am trying not to drive my spouse to an early grave. I realize that this is a mess I and I alone have made, that I horrifically fucked up, am horrifically fucked up, while I'm working to get a hold of a professional, and I'm absolutely terrified that my wife may truly end up committing suicide. I'm terrified of what's possibly going to happen and I'm terrified of myself. And that's where things currently stand.
At first it was out of a lot of anger. Now, it's not anger. I'm beginning to wonder if my initial realization really was that now there's just panic, or if there's something I'm still not seeing. I'm currently still in the works of trying to piece it out while I'm able.
To both chaoticArbiter and Vierran: thank you for responding. To everyone else: Sorry for reviving this-- however, I felt it important to respond now that I'm a) no longer a newt in a better place to even approach this without losing to anxiety and b) things as a whole got better to say that... well, things got better and are continuing to get better, rather than just leave this here like some kind of cliffhanger and have a bunch of people worried. A long story short, my wife and I are still together, she's fine and getting the help she needs, and only one extremely unfortunate backslide on my part (thankfully without reaching anywhere near the sheer levels of monster from back in August) happened between as of the time of this posting and the original posting of this thread.
