Confusion Keeps Me Paralyzed

I am unhappy and discontent. The reason is my relationships with my husband and my mother.

I am confused about if I have a personality disorder, and is that the underlying cause for my unhappiness.

I recently stopped talking to my mother. It has been a month since that falling out. It was her fault for being mean and irrational. But I am confused about that, too. Does my mother have a PD? Is that was causes her to be abusive? Should I forgive her and overlook it? But the rest of my family has been of no help, so I am also paralyzed about what to do about her now.

My marriage has been unhappy the whole time (over 20 years) beginning when my h started neglecting me sexually. It hurt my low self esteem. It kept us from bonding how I wanted us to be. It hindered my sexuality and I felt ashamed and rejected. I have a montage in my head of countless crying over his neglect.

Now I am paralyzed with doubt as to if it were all my having a PD and I can't bring myself to divorce him and move on.

I am seeing a new psy, but I can't get frequent enough appointments. It will be yet another week until I can see her again.

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear that your relationships with your husband and your mother have been leaving you feeling unhappy and discontent. Figuring out the best way to deal with those in our lives who are abusive can be difficult. My opinion is that if your mother has been abusive toward you for a long time and hasn't expressed a willingness to stop being abusive toward you even if you've asked her to be more respectful toward you enough times, it's probably best that you give yourself enough distance from your mother to allow yourself to meet your emotional needs. That's not to say that a personality disorder and/or something else going on with your mother might not at least partially explain why she's been abusive toward you or that you might not be able to forgive her on some level. Perhaps you can still see your mother as a person who's basically good who you might need to keep some distance from because she's abusive toward you for reasons that you don't currently understand (and might not ever be able to understand). But if distancing yourself from your mother is what you need to meet your emotional needs and/or to keep yourself safe, then maybe that's what you need to do.

As far as your relationship with your husband is concerned, my view is that if you haven't already done this, you and your husband (perhaps with the help of a counselor) would probably benefit from sitting down and figuring out whether or not the problems with your relationship can be fixed and whether or not any problems that the two of you might continue to have with one another on an ongoing basis might mean that you and your husband might no longer be best for one another. Whether or not you have a personality disorder, I think that it would be best for you and your husband to discuss the problems that the two of you are having in your relationship and to carefully decide whether or not remaining married would be best for both of you. Certainly, getting the opinion of your psychologist about how to proceed in the relationships that you have both with your mother and your husband is something that I'd advise. I wish you luck with everything, but if you have any questions about what I've written here, please feel free to ask.

I tend to believe my (or anyone's) mental-emotion challenges do not actually or directly cause trouble or harm to other people, just challenges -- and sometimes some overwhelming ones -- for each of us along the way. Manifestations of my inherent tendency to be restless, irritable and discontent are never far away for me, and just a little while ago I snapped at my wife a bit when her computer was acting up and she told me about that and then also tried to tell me it was not important! She knows all about my many challenges and was only meaning to be considerate, but there are times when I tend to be like a drama queen who nevertheless greatly dislikes feeling coddled.

Being unhappy and discontent over states of relationships is not evidence of something being wrong with you, it is evidence of frustrated instincts, desires and ambitions or whatever still in need of reassurance and/or of even being met. Our personality disorders can inhibit us from being "naturals" in the contribution department, but our disorders do not have to stop us from learning behaviours that can be appreciated and respected by others.

There is nothing we can do *about* other people, but we can learn to do things *for* them just as we would for someone who has the flu.

My second wife (who is now also my third wife) and I divorced many years ago, then not long after that I went to her and said something like this: "I have no idea how to be the spouse I should be, but I am determined to learn how to become that and I am asking you to re-consider me as I do." Saying something like that to your husband is not likely to re-start your marriage afresh, but I saw no point in moving along to someone else while still being whatever I was. Disclaimer: Your own mileage might vary greatly there!

I'm going through the same thing almost I already divorced. My family has been no support. My brother told me I think every ones trying too f me over and I should get off the f ing cocktail of meds my sister called the police on me because I got angry with her attitude and asked her to leave my house. When I told my mom I was getting divorced she said I hope you learned your lesson this time. I had to detach they can't understand why.

Divorce is up there on the most stressful thing in life list.

Why do the people who supposedly love us say such awful things? Your mother's comment was horrid.

I'm so sorry you are going through all this. I relate to wondering if it's all you and less them but realistically, it's probably a combination. I hope you can make some peace with all this and decide what it is you really want and need. You are a good person and you deserve to feel more supported and content....whether that is with your mother and husband at your side or far away, you deserve to have what will bring you the most overall contentment and healing. (((Hugs)))

TishaBuv,

This article reminded me of your challenge. Actually, I have noticed this is a challenge vented by a lot of different members I have come across on this site.

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/psych...tional-family/

As far as your relationship with your husband is concerned, some of the dysfunction you are dealing with in your family could very well be something taking place in your relationship too. Yet, it could most definitely be affecting/getting in the way of your developing or maintaining a healthier relationship.

Also, when it comes to your husband stepping away from engaging in a sexual relationship with you, it could be that his libido is off, especially if he is 40+. Women believe that lack of libido means lack of love, not true. And many men distance because they are embarrassed by their issue.

Good article. Thank you so much for thinking of me!

I'm so happy to say that I don't think anyone in my family was the designated scapegoat.

There was a father, who cracked up because of his disappointment from his father, and died. A mother, who tried to hold it together, but just created an illusion. An oldest daughter, who was a disappointment to the mother, because she was the opposite of the illusion and refused to play the game. A middle daughter, who had no sense of self at all, and floated off as far as she could run from the mother and the illusion. Then there was me, the youngest, the 'last hope' for the illusionist.

Thanks for the support. I don't know why people close to us say these things. I hope you can keep your marriage and be happy

Me too. I am just going to have to change my attitude, shut my mouth, and either learn to stop freaking out with emotional hysteria or just leave the house when it happens.

My h is determined to stay with me no matter what. He says he really loves me. It's obvious that is love, to be so devoted to never throwing in the towel.

Now that two doctors have diagnosed me with borderline traits, I am thinking that my thinking must be wrong.

Here's my 'faulty' thinking on this: my h is only willing and capable of loving me and giving me the things/ways he is willing and able to do. No matter how I have told him I want/need physical, sexual attention in a consistent way, and no matter how he has seen his neglect has destroyed me, driven me to SH and hysteria, he still does nothing to meet my needs. Therefore, he doesn't really love me.

But I just have to let that go.

This is so hard to do as we age, isn't it? I have days/weeks where it seems like I have let go of the past only to have the same old hopeless thoughts return. Since they want to stay with us so badly, this means that we must make them happy in some way. Or do they just not want us to take half of their stuff? Unless they are willing to let us go without waging extreme battles with us, it is so unfair that we have been driven to our current states of confusion and discontentment. Your hysteria and my attempt would not have happened if they had not beaten (not in a physical way of course) us down so much. My H is always telling me that my problem is that I want to blame him for everything, that I was damaged since the beginning of our marriage, that I never loved him but he has always loved me, that I don't consider his feelings (only mine), that I make decisions about the children without him, etc but I have been looking mostly at myself for the past year or so and I am totally confident that he did play a large role regarding my current discontentment. The closest he has come to acknowledging it was only to agree to disagree and this was only because I was threatening divorce--even then he quickly added that we need to let go of the past. So basically, in my marriage, we can talk about all the ways in which I have let him down but his issues are always off limits. Sorry to hijack your thread as usual. I am feeling moody but am tired of wondering if it is because I am bipolar, hormonal, a bad person, etc!

I think all those same things as you.

Especially the 'doesn't want to let go of half his stuff'. I watch the ID Channel a lot, there are plenty of murders for that very reason, scares the crap out of me. If my h hasn't done that by now, I think I'm safe...

Then, if you tell those thoughts to a psy, they diagnose you with a disorder! What's so disordered about that thinking? It is very real!

But-- since we made the choice to stay, we must look at the positives and dismiss the ugly, underlying truths, whether they be real or not.

My own mother turns on me on a dime. She didn't like me having any say about any of her bad choices, so she called me and my h unforgivable names. Ugly, twists, of facts, distorted to meet her vicious intentions.

Should anybody really be trusted, when your own parent can't?

But now I have to try to act like I am very calm and grounded.

As far as parenting decisions, I'm glad my h was so withdrawn. I made most all of the decisions without ever consulting him. He never even mentioned having any issue with that.

Hi Trisha, I think you deserve to be in a loving, supportive relationship where your needs are recognized as important because they are. (((Hugs)))