[langaan]

I guess the reason I am posting is to try and get some insight into my wife's behaviours.
I'll try to make this as short as possible, so I will breifly explain some of her behaviours that I jsut don't understand how to deal with.

When we married (11yrs ago) she definately had a selfish side, and could get angry and unreasonable rather quickly. But 11 years later, this is how she is now:

Married 11 yrs ago, 3 kids (5/9/12)
First 5 yrs of marriage in her opinion was boring, she felt distant from me as I didnt do much with her etc...
about 5 years ago i changed alot of thigns around, but got to a point where there were a few things like gambling that were essentially eating away at any motivation to work on the marriage.
Diagnosed Bipolar and OCD about 4 yrs ago.
Gambling addiction going on 5 years
When not gambling, she replaces that behaviour with shopping or drinking.
She always needs to be busy
she has become obsessed with attention from others, including men
she talks about others to make herself look better, including me her husband
she admist she is immature and does not want to change (says she can't change, as it is who she is)
she says teh same about being stubborn, mean and no empathy.
She has gone from "super-mom" to not wanting to have anything to do with the kids. They more or less just anger her
she lies constantly to hid ebehaviours such as meeting with other guys, gambling, spending and then blmaes the lie on me. she says she wouldnt have to lie if I didnt have such a problem with the behaviour??
she can go from flaming mad to depressive crying, to "why are you with me if I am so crazy" in about 5 minutes.

she absolutely HATES anything I do or say that requies change from her. she says she will never be "controlled" or told what to do.

she makes excuses to make herself feel betetr and seems to actually beleive them herself.

she validates her behaviour by saying that it has been this way always and it has always gotten her what she wants (she smiles when she says this)

When I say she can't have her cake and eat it too, she asks "why not?"

her father and mother divorced when she was 8
her father express's love with money, and my wife fully and completely abuses it.

she outright willl admit that if anyone wrongs her she will completly remove that person from her life (says this is who she is again)

extremely self concious
wants a billion friends
brags about having so many friends
has no idea that her friends are looking at her in dis-beleif when she complains about her husband having a problem with her texting her boss and lying about it

and lastly, has absolutly no intention of ever getting help, or atleast as long as I am the one suggesting it.

so, bipolar or bpd or both?
and do I have a hope in he(( that she will ever decide to get better?

[NuckingFutz]

Wow langaan you really have your hands full. I see your wife is good at projecting her personality disorder onto you. I was learning about narcissism and as I was reading the traits, I discovered that the phrase "it's not about me" has released me from all that projection, the blaming, the mood swings to cover up her "traits" there. I use this phrase daily... I'm a narcissist magnet...that just means I'm really nice. That's all it takes to attract these people. They seek us because we are willing to turn ourselves into a prezel to please them or keep them (unknown to us, this doesn't work).

No, these people don't get help (if they do, it's rare). Even if they did get help, there is no treatment and no cure for narcissism other than walking away.

It really sounds like you have dug in there for the long haul.

Many a person have sought therapy themselves in order to improve their lives because living with their "loved one" is an emotional prison.

But a good place to start is with the phrase "it's not about me".

I don't think she can get better, but you can. It's your choice. This is a great place to get support.

You can PM me as well... my mom is a narcissist and we often end up marrying one as well... if you ever want to ask yourself if there is a silver lining in all of this, it's that we learn, educate ourselves about our partner's so we can put a stop to it... especially if kids are involved. Were there are narcissists, there is emotional abuse as well.

Keep posting. It's time for your to make some supportive friends.

[missbelle]

well it does not matter what she is.......what its about is you!
How do you feel and can you deal?
How long can you go on this way?
Are your needs getting met?

What can we do to help you?

We care..I care!
Hugs;
Dee

[langaan]

I am trying to set solid boundaries and decide if I can put up with this without going crazy. Obviously leaning towards not...

my question today is:

she absolutely refuses to let me come to her pdoc appointments.

i see this as a dealbreaker for the simple fact that I beleive a large majority of our issues stem from her ilness, maybe not all of them , but there certainly can't be any harm done by me being at the appointments.
she refuses.

she also lies which is another dealbreaker.

spoke to a man she promised she wouldnt, caught her, lied over and over again and this has happnened so many times it didnt even cross her mind to apologize for the lies.

i would like to have a chat with someone, let me know if and how we can do that.

its hard to get everything into perspective in a forum, especially when there is so much that has happneed and for so long.

[langaan]

I'd be lying if I said I haven't been told 100 times that I need to decide what I am willing to put up with. Not sure why I keep doing it.

at any rate,
the last blow up we had was just prior to this original post, and was driven by a few main things:
1 - contacting her boss with text message (inappropriate) and meeting him alone (nothing sexual happened). I have confronted other man, he stopped contact, and she had nerve to tell me she stopped teh contact.
2 - lying about the above (has happened before, she also gambles and lies about that too)
3 - refuses to let me go to doc appointments, and now she eeven claims that when i ask her to go she feels like wrapping truck around a tree
4 - refuses to talk about our (my) issues, she claims it makes her want to throw up

here we are after a month or so of pretending things are ok again, and she has contacted him again.
simple messages talking about day to day stuff, but regardless
i confronted her on it because she lied, gave her opportunity to come clean and she did not.

sent her on her own with our daughters to her families hosue for thanksgiving because i was extremely upset.

i tried to adress all issues, she either lied, or just outright refuses to talk about them.

it is so obvious that she wont change, yet I keep letting it go and pretending, and suffering with my own thoughts every day.

now catching her in this lie again takes it from pretending to all out anger again and i am just fed up. (but then again, i have said this 100 times too)

she hasnt even said anything about the lies, as soon as i told ehr I know she chatted with him, and that she lied, adn that i need a few days to think, her response was "ok i guess we will just leave it at that"
today, she is acting like she doesnt know how upset i am.

why hasnt the last 5 years convinced me that she will never change!

my obviouse downfall is sexual fullfillment. after a while i give in because i miss teh sexual fulfillment and am tired of teh distance between us every day.

i guess the only thing i can do is sleep in a different bedroom until i can afford to make permanent changes

would be nice to chat one on one with someone in similar position