Object Constancy

The first memory I have of my wife and her lack of Object Constancy comes from before we were married. I was living in a different city and she came on the train to visit me one day. I was waiting for her on the platform excited to be reuinited with her after what felt, to me, like an eternity of separation (2 weeks). I saw her through the window of her car and was happily and excitedly waving at her. She just blankly stared at me. When she disembarked, she gave me a cold, formal, unsmiling hug and kissed the air beneath my ear. "Is something wrong?" I asked. "What did I do?". "Nothing. There's people here." was her response.

It felt thoroughly surreal to me. A couple weeks ago she had no problems with me. She was happy to see me. What had happened while we were away? I swallowed my discomfort.

Later, when she was acting more "normal", we talked about her behaviour at the train station. She remarked that she was afraid that she would not recognize me. Huhh? I thought by that time, knowing me for 2 years and dating for almost one, she would recognize me and be happy to see me! I could identify her by her dental work by that time! "I didn't know _Who_ you were or what you were like anymore." She explained. "It's only been two weeks. You make it sound like we've been apart for years."

It's like I don't exist if she can't see me every day. This has happened many times in various forms throughout our life together. She honestly cannot remember the _feeling_ of me (and others) being with her. The _feeling_ IS her reality. She couldn't remember the _feeling_ of my love for her (without seeing me each day) therefore, I don't love her.

Stop Walking on EggShells

I am currently reading Stop Walking on EggShells written by Paul Mason and Randi Kreger (of http://bpdcentral.com ) It seems to be the bible for people trying to deal with Borderline Personality Disorder in the lives of their loved ones. I intend to write thoughts and memories invoked by this book here.

last night

I don't know what to say. What can I take from last night? What am I for you? What is my purpose in your life from your perspective? It is clear to me from last night that you consider me to be a source of money. When that source of money shows signs of being unstable or reduced, you behave like you have been cheated out of the deal you thought you had purchased. It is also clear from last night that no matter how _I_ feel or what my hopes, plans, and dreams are, or what I have happening in my life, that your feelings are more important. No matter how tired I am, or late it is, I MUST bow to your emotions. It is also clear that you feel that I am uselessly immature. I cannot be trusted to be wise -- or even to consult with professionals about anything of substance.

Chess

My wife has recently taken a liking to playing chess. We are very close in chess abilities: she is a morning person and she [naturally] wins when we play in the morning, I am an evening person and I win when we play in the evenings. Yesterday evening we were playing and I was winning, as the game progressed, she dug deeper and deeper into the "black" side of things. When I tried to abort/concede the game, she took a large jump to the dark side. I ended up engineering my own defeat while making it look like an honest win for her. By the end of the game, she was back to white. After reading this co/BPD stuff I realize that I have "enabled" her "emotional blackmail". But practically, what can I do? I'm trying to run interference for my son to create some peace in the house. This literal game is a wonderful metaphor for my life: I can't quit, I can't win -- if I do either, I hurt my son.

New Developments

I need to do my blogging surreptitiously so I don't get to post very often. I was planning on writing about how my wife had exploded and berated me and our son for no identifiable reason.

However, I first found links to Erin Pizzey on fathersforlife.com After reading her book and looking into her background, I stumbled on "menweb.com" (don't try "mensweb" -- it's a porno site). From there I found batteredmen.com. From THERE I found out about "Borderline Personality Disorder" (BPD). The descriptions I find there make me feel like someone has a hidden camera in our house! It is incredible. I have only been reading about BPD for a couple days, but it seems to me like it really fits my situation. In the Borderline community parlance, I am a "co-dependent" "non" with a "BPD" wife.

Treatment for my wife doesn't look very likely, and I need to talk with our Family Dr. about future steps, but at least I don't feel so alone anymore!!!

I really AM living in Oz!! I thought it was just me!

Look up bpdfamily.com, bpdcentral.com, and bpd411.org.

Kids website

My son and his friends have been talking about creating a website to share video game tips, school assignments, and such. I figured that there are a lot of completely unsupervised sites "Out There" on the information superhighway. But I'd rather they not play unsupervised on any sort of highway. So I created a webserver that they could play with. A week ago, my wife even arranged for my son to go to a friend's house to work on this site.

Yesterday when I got home, my wife was FUMING. She was angry that my son and his friends were using the site! "What if someone downloads pornography?" I answered "It's supervised honey! I get notified whenever things are added to the site." This very quickly devolved into "You two HATE me -- that's why you use the computer. You don't want me in your life. What use am I to you anyway. I just cause pain in your life. Why can't I just kill myself -- we'd all be happier." How on earth do you answer that? If I spend 5 minutes on the computer when she's around, it's a guaranteed explosion. "What do you need me for -- go kiss the computer".

She is jealous of anything that takes my time, or she doesn't understand, or doesn't like. Whenever I mention names of female co-workers she gets very agitated and angry. She tells me not to talk to them -- even at work. If any male friends who call me at home,
she accuses them of being gay and tells me to keep my distance from them outside of work hours. Argh! I can't even have friends anymore. She's jealous of time I spend playing with my SON! At times, she has asked me to do something with him and within 5 minutes I am accused of ignoring her and trying to make her feel left out!

Argh.

Dollar Store Ruler

today was a busy day running errands. One of the things I was to buy was a ruler for my son. Fine. I bought two from a dollar store. When I get home, I am berated for buying the wrong kind. He needed a clear ruler with marks that go right to the edge. One of the rulers I bought was opaque. The other was clear but didn't have marks that go right to the edge. For this, my intelligence is insulted. I am told that I am useless. That I can't be trusted with money. That I can't be trusted to make decisions. That I am filling the house with useless junk. That my wife must keep her eyes on me at all times. I didn't complain earlier in the day when she dropped $50 on clothes that we didn't need! Why is she complaining about $2 worth of rulers? Her happiness is worth more than $50 to me. Why is my happiness worth less than $2?