[quote=staytogether] He went off on one about how did I do that, why isn't it getting better, why am I not looking after myself properly"[quote]

I know how that is...my back pain also my fault.

[quote=staytogether] Kids and I had been to mums for tea - where I had spent a lot of time prostrate on the floor, because my back was not also painful but all the muscles were totally exhasuted. I looked D R E A D F U L. I'd managed to summons the iny last amount of energy to sort kids for bed and read stories - almost in tears anyway (and had been on the way to mums because it is so frustrating[quote]

Ahh hun!!! i feel for you for real each time I coughed this weekend I would cry...
a kiddie massage helps...honest - my 9 year gives great back rubs...get his little elbow in all the right spots...

I am sorry you didnt have a GREEAAT B-day - you deserve it!...just remember jesus was 33 when he was crucified...soooo no mater what happens our 33 year isnt/wasnt as bad as his!

I'm with you - coughs and sneezes - brace yourself, cling on to anything to hand, squeeze those tummy muscles and hope.

Hello ST!

Thinkin about you lots and I'm sorry I missed your B-day.

So here's a belated one .......

I hope that back of yours heads for a good turn soon.

Hey vit, good to see you round these parts. It's seemed a little quiet about the place

Thats cos I've been away.

Muahhahahahahaha!!!

Hi ST, I'm very sorry I missed your birthday. I hope it was a very good one.

I am starting to tire out and want to get my prayers and meditation in before I collapse. I am hoping to make it back if not tomorrow, then on Wednesday.

Wanting to post but pup taking up soooooooooo much time. I am housebound and work bound and when i am housebound I am playing with pup.

J and I are tired as tired things - he's doing pup in the day (while sleeping) and I'm doing it at night. He is certaily a very social animal but we are managing to get him to drop off now without us in the room.

I want to sleep in my own bed with J- but don't want to subject the kids to sleepless nights (or myself). Maybe at the weekend.

Me and J are bugging the h377 out of each other. Or as I see it he just keeps talking to me like s41t and he doesn't like me calling him on it.

Oh well, try and sleep train the puppy at the weekend. Did Gina Ford do a book for pups?

Aw ST, I am sorry to hear the puppy is running you ragged.

I found this link one training them to sleep. There were some others about the importance of providing a crate or bed for the puppy that is their own territory/den

Do you think you and J are perhaps not having as much UA time as you are used to with the puppy impact? Much chance of you being able to go out together sans kids, even if only to a cafe for a coffee and cake?

Thanks Lil,

He has a crate and pen which he does like. J didn't come home until nearly midnight. So Id ecided to go and sleep in our bed - what a treat!!!! And then J got up at 1.30 when he barked and then he went back to sleep til DD woke him up at 6.30 - hurray!

I could have just gone for a coffee with him - new coffee shop just down the road attached to discount hardware and it is really really nice - he's just been but I had the lady formt he domestic abuse service to visit. Which was interesting!

I think J might be having a manic episode. Probably triggered by handing in his notice - starts new job end of month.

From the MIND website:



I don't know what to do right now, it's the weekend, no doctors unless for emergency and he usually has to make an appt 3 weeks in advance to see the counsellor.

Or am I imagining it all? Is it really me?

is he on meds?

nope, no meds. when they diagnosed they said not necessary.

I'm done in. His irritation has been immense. I just realised that this has really been building up ofr 2 weeks.

I need a plan for next time and some support, I need to understand it more...

and today he has been acting normal, which I am grateful for because of the children. But this has been killing me - how can he now act as if nothing happened?

I am annoyed with myself for allowing him to reduce me to a jibbering wreck. He kept saying he was going for time out but just stood continuing with his judgements and complaints and AOs and I think because he said he was going I didn't.

I have just told him this evening how I feel about him acting as if nothing happened ( i was in tears most of yesterday) - he shrugged and started chatting about the hockey. I can't even talk about it or what we can do about it.

It hurts as much that he has totally dismissed what has happened.

Pick myself up again, find out more and make a much tighter protect ST and the children plan...

not just yet, too worn down.

It's odd: new baby in the house and J starting a new job - takes me back 41/2 years: you know what - I'm certainly not going to let anymore history repeat itself.

ST,

I wish I had some sage words for you, but alas, I got nothin' fer ya right now.

I recall our daughter when she went into a manic phase sometimes became unbearable. She was usually a real sweetheart but when that manic stuff popped up she stole from us, she and her xH stole a car, took her mom's diamond anniversary ring and hocked it (we got it back) wrote checks on our account...

It was during her manic phase that she did really stupid stuff like took a month's supply of lithium, tried to outrun the cops across parts of two states in her mothers car (made the ten o'clock news as the lead story that night) and would just make us want to kill her sometimes, when we weren't working to keep her alive until she could get her act together.

She'd do all this really dumb stuff and then call us or come by "How are you today, Mom and Dad? I got hope you're hungry, I stopped and got us a pizza."

Then she'd go to bed for about three days and then act like the whole world was back in its orbit where it belonged until the next episode. It took years and about a half million between insurance and out of pocket to get her on meds that actually stopped the crazy stuff. Actually, it wasn't until she got help from the state after our granddaughter was born that they found a combination that was effective most of the time.

She broke stuff, stole stuff, bought stuff she couldn't pay for, wrote bad checks in about ten states...

Sounds like J is a lot more under control even when he's out of control. Do you think you could discuss with him a plan of what to do to let him know when he is getting to be unreasonable while he is still reasonable? Since bipolars tend to not recognize their oncoming extreme states very well, especially the manic side of the cycle, sometimes they don't even know until after they look back and say "What the hell was I thinking?" I know that our daughters shrink helped us to recognize the signs that an impending crisis was looming and to have a phrase that we could use to let our daughter know that we saw trouble coming. She would sometimes be willing to let us take steps to protect her from herself during those times. Other times she would just figure out how to hide out till she was ready to run or something silly...

Her symptoms started when she was about 5 or 6 and we weren't even sure she was alive for a few years when she was away from home. She was over 30 by the time she gained any real stability and even now she has days when she becomes self destructive or destructive to her relationship with her boyfriend.

Anyway...if you and J can establish some catch phrase or some way that he understands is your way of telling him when he is acting out of control, he might be able to remember it when the time comes and hopefully get a grip before he becomes so angry and hostile that you and the kids have to leave the house.

Of course this means that you have to learn to see these things coming before he does...

Just a thought.

Mark

I'm sorry honey, I wish I could help.

Is there a BPD support group in your area? How does J's BPD work in with his anger management course?

Thanks Mark and Lil,
I need to draw on someone somewhere's experience to be able to see the early warning signs and work out what to do.

Just before he went out for his perpetrators meeting tonight we managed to have a discussion that was beginning to make sense. I told him how I was seeing the last few weeks set into the background of the last few months and asked him what he really saw. He did actually listen and paused for thought.

I can't find any info online about a BP support locally. But this came up with the women's safety officer who is part of the organisiation that runs his course (although she doesn't have anything to do with him). She instructed me to try to get some support for the bipolar and I think she will pass that info onto the group leaders (they didn't have that info on record). I'll call psych services tomorrow and I have just emailed the women's safety officer to ask for their "very abrupt" counsellor with a "heart of gold, if you can get past the abruptness"

HUGSSSS - ST does J know he has BPD?

I have long felt that my BH ay have it...for the last nine years i wondered. But no way of proving or knowing. He feels strongly that he is always right and justified in his reactions. Even when saying he is wrong he somehow justifies it "this is worst thing I ever did but if you hadnt done xyz..."

Hi Sis

( he was diagnosed with mild bipolar at the end of last year)

The dust has settled here. I'm not sure that things are fully fully resolved but J certainly seems to be taking a bit more responsibility, has lost his levels of irratibility and confessed to his group that he hadn't taken time out properly. The current module is about sexual respect and the next one is emotional abuse in 3 weeks time, so of course the emotional abuse one will be a bit more interesting for both of us - I appreciate that I have been emotionally abusive in the past.

So we're stepping up a bit - we managed to agree to paint the front of the house when I finished work yesterday - got a tin of paint and completed the job with no nastiness (there is render between the windows - not a huge job but a big job to decide to do and complete on the spur of the moment) before we picked up the kids from the childminder. Not without incident: We had Ted on a long lead out there with us - he started chewing something so I went over to get it adn the stood back in my tray of paint. Ted was sat on piles of fallen leaves which of course I walked over, so then I had to clear up the leaves too, so that he didn't eat the paint. I went to clean up and still came out to find Ted with paint on his nose! Just what I needed going to the vets for a puppy party!


I'm not sure I mentioned it here but one of J's real issues this time seemed to be the dog and he kept calling it "your dog" "your responsibility".
We discussed the decision on getting a dog and he agreed that he had been totally out of order and that he did want it and that he certainly wasn't railroaded into it ans that we were both equal in our desire to get dog. He didn't apologise for all the crap he gave me though. But I thought this was interesting - Ted obvioulsy not quite as plainsaling as he was expecting so he denies responsibility for making the decision to get him. How proud was I about the Ted POJA for the last 10 years? HE seemed a little embarassed that he had called it "your dog" during his rants.

I think I need to make a little card for J saying "this too shall pass" he seems to get totally blinded to everything good. We'll have a rest tonight try some non-R and issue chat and I'll try to talk to him again Friday.

J's BP is very mild and he cannot use it as an excuse or fail to take responsibility because of it. We are new to this and have not been given a n y info on how to handle things. I think he may have known subconsciously thatit was going to hit because he tried to make an appt with his counsellor about 3 weeks ago - couldn't get one til 18th March. I'm going to find out whether there can be priority access.

I must keep a diary, to log things said and done and see how much life it takes up.

I'm here alone tonight and feeling a bit rubbishy about things.

I kind of feel that we are not so much recovering from the A now, more working on the pre-A M. So I'm not sure whether to keep posting here in recovery, whether to move to 101 or whether to keep looking ot see whether there is any forum for people trying to recover their M from forms of abuse other than infidelity. There are forums for people recovering form abuse but not their M.

Maybe it's a little project for me. E commented earlier that this isn't always the best place for putting an end to abuse and I understand why that is - although it did seriously put me on the right track.

I find myself today, really wondering whether I should be going all out on the ENs and things and the MB prog. Buto n reflection I'm still thinking that I don't have the real remorse yet, I don't have that full change in behaviour that a BS needs from a FWS.

I am still blamed when things aren't right (my A is not blamed) and I have been frustrated and saddened lately because I have not been able to enforce my boundaries. I have removed myself and have been hounded down so that the torrent can continue.

He wonders why I don't hug him or kiss him when all of a sudden he's nice again.

What am I doing wrong? Why are things reverting back?

I've been trying to work out what is accepatable and what isn't again. Making excuses - a stressful time: changing jobs, it'll be 6 weeks between pay days despite continuous employment, a new puppy, going away for the w/e.

Does that mean that if I have called Time Out and respectfully explained why, that he can come chasing after me when I am sat alone ,in the bedroom, against the door and force the door open, bashing it against me to do so?

Write it down and it sounds wrong. What's my next move?

Any of you reading that have any experience of recovering an M like this. Did the bad bits just stop one day and never return - how do you keep recovery from this up?

I guess in much the same way as R from an A.

Maybe we should start another forum that tackles this.

Please can someone bring me some clarity?

I agree we need a forum that deals with these issues and is locked like the OC and pregnancy forum...melodylane and I have gone back and forth - she says physical assult not as bad as being cheated on...i just dotn agree with her. THere can be a real physical threat to life and death with an abuser..just my opinion.

ST - HUGS and I am so sorry you are at this place emotionally right now. Thisis where I think I disagree with MB principles. Agape love is an unself interested love that comes from an external source (god)...so you can give and give and give even when your love bank is at zero...see a love bank is a man made accounting of man made love. Agape love sustains you through the drought that you are in. To say you are wrong in how you treat me and I will not allow you to treat me this way...but to not allow his actions to impact your love bank I think would be getting to a place of ULTIMATE love. Right? I am not there yet but its what I am striving for. It doesnt mean i LET H hurt me...it means I wont let his sinful and stupid behavior affect my agape love for him...because that is letting sin win. Protect myself and love anyway. Jesus loved those who whipped and beat him...who killed him with agape love. Now do NOT let a person physically harm you...but dont let his anger, his sin problem impact your love that you give out. Good in theory right? Not sure its totally obtainable...but its what i have gotten out of "Practicing the Presence of God"..Loving my H isnt done FOR H...but as an act of love and service and devotion to god...therefore...even if he doesnt return the love..GOD does and I am fullfilled. What I have taken from all this is a realization that man made attention and man made love is perishable..and can sour and rott if not oh so carefully tended and maintained. The love bank is good to restore a marriage when to people are working together towards it but you need something more when one spouse is not on board. . .

The earth was cursed by God and man was made to labor to bring forth fruit. So to was man cursed with sin. Pain in childbirth. Pandoras box (to add a non christian metaphore) was opened. So to - man made love is cursed...one must labor to maintain it our it perishs. Just like some day in heaven we will never need to labor for food...godly love requires no labor.

So - to quote broether lawrence - "it is a simple matter of making everything you do an act of love and devotion to god. Then in all things will you find peace and love and blessings" From waking up and making breakfast to taking out the garbage and scrubbing the floors to kissing your husband when you dont want to...if its an act of love and worship to God...you are fullfilled by it...not resenting the fact that H doesnt help enough or is being a jerk...because really it isnt about him at all...

see totally anti MB but thats where I have been coming from...

Establish Boundaries
Then Patrol them (christ did this to - see the money changers and the temple)
Love your husband as christ loved the church...when they rejected him he loved them...when they hated him and cursed his name he loved them..
And when he asks for forgiveness grant it as christ granted forgiveness to you...

OR I am completely batty and off the wall and wrong