Stay or Leave?
When I wrote about healing from the Narcissist, I used the paradigm that the spouse had physically left the marriage. Today we are going to address physically staying or leaving but always with the goal of emotionally leaving the emotional abuse of the spouse with borderline personality disorder (BP). I believe a major consideration for whether you physically stay, or leave is “Is it better for me to stay and buffer the situation for the children or Leave and give them a healthy home for 50% of the time?” The answer to this question is very personal and I think best made once you have done your emotional recovery work. Once the children have left the home the considerations are different. If you have a value system that includes keeping a marriage together at all cost, you may find creative ways to stay married and maintain your mental health.
Emotional Boundaries
The anxiety we spoke about that plagues the BP is just that anxiety that belongs to the BP. The minute you unconsciously try to carry, mitigate, process other people’s emotions you are setting yourself up for failure. Would you go to work for someone one day because he/she didn’t want to go? Saying no to going to work for someone may be easy for you to see why the answer is no, and it is the same answer for processing someone’s emotions: Your job, your responsibility, your emotions, your responsibility. When you are living with a depressed person, you have a choice every morning you wake up and he/she is depressed: go down the black hole of depression with him/her or the emotional boundary of “that is your depression not mine, I hope if it is a really tough day you will call the professional who is helping you with your depression, and I will be over here enjoying my day if you want to join me.” You do not join the depression.
Read the full article here: https://www.recovery.org/pro/articles/healing-from-a-borderline-spouse/
Dr. Anne Brown PhD, RN CS, is a psychotherapist, author, speaker, and coach. She is an experienced broadcaster and contributor to the media. She received her BS in Nursing from the University of Virginia, her MS in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing from Boston University, and her PhD in Addiction Studies from International University. Dr. Brown has held numerous key positions, including Alcohol Clinical Specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA, and Program Director of the Outpatient Drug and Alcohol Program at Greater Cape Ann Human Services in Gloucester, MA. She moved to Aspen, Colorado in 1987, and developed a private practice providing therapy for families, individuals and couples.
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