After a few years of struggling with depression my husband has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I've no one to talk to about it, how or if the DBT might help him, if how he is now is how he will always be. I want a miracle and to be told 3 months down the line he'll be a new person. Or his old self would be just great too. We've had a very difficult few years recently, he's had a few long spells off work with depression resulting in debt (manageable but high levels and stressful), police involvement 6 or 7 times when he took himself off to kill himself, anger management problems, and the last 6 months I've wanted to leave as I'm so worn down of feeling like the only parent, hate how he gets angry at the children for basically being children, we can never plan anything as he might decide it's not happening and the children and I are left feeling upset that he controls it all, feeling no affection at all, being yelled at or sarcastically put down for every perceived slight multiple times a day, but I've stayed because I kept hoping he'd get well and we'd return to the happy place we were in for the first 7 years of our relationship. Because I don't actually want to go, I want us to be a family, but not with him as he is now and has been for the last 12-24 months. I'm also very very worried to leave because presumably he would have some form of custody/access and I don't want to not be there to protect them/keep them safe when that switch flips and it goes all dark in his head. He scares me and I'm a grown adult, never physically violent but so angry. Even when he is in the 'good' place he doesn't ever consider their basic needs like changing a nappy unless it's very obviously smelly, or meal times he won't think to feed them until hours after dinner time and then it's dry cereal or oven chips, never an actual meal unless I've left something with clear instructions on microwaving it. He never puts them to bed if I'm out for a couple of hours, I'll come home an hour past bedtime and they're not washed, not in pjs, he'd never do their teeth, sometimes not fed (and if they were the remains are spread all over the house, he wouldn't ever pick up the leftover plates), and he's just sat on his phone - basically they're alive and he'd take care of them if they fell and got injured, but that's about it. He does love them very very much, he's just not able to think of his own needs let alone those of anyone else, and that is very hard for everyone around him. It's a horrible thing to think of leaving someone when their issues are caused by a health condition rather than them just being a nasty person, but the end result is the same, and I'm starting to wonder if I owe the kids more than this and if that overrules everything else, a happy home, stability, not being afraid of speaking or acting in case it triggers daddy. I don't know what I'm hoping for here, some hope, guidance, anything at all because this feels like a miserable half life for all of us.
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Mental health
Husband diagnosed with BPD - looking for experiences please
22 replies
InTheRedTent · 27/02/2017 11:20
OP posts:
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