Why? Why don't you listen to me?

I have had a crap weekend. You have ruined it and you did nothing to redress the balance. You offered to help with the cat flea treatment but didn't. You treated Craig before he had done his share of the housework. You didn't spend any real family time with us. I tried to earlier lie in bed with you but you were asleep so it didn't really cut it.

You would rather tomorrow spend a night out with a bunch of students without being paid for it than spend time with your family. You don't care about us. It's all about your dog, your course, your horse.

You accuse me of being on Facebook when I'm not. You disconnect me from your friends and then connect to mine. Like that's fair?!

You bought Sarah expensive flowers but not me.

You ruined the film I was enjoying by keeping adding tasks to my list and then insisting on using the computer. Kept me out of bed because I'd had to rewind it several times. You could have sat and watched with me, you might have enjoyed it. But you only want to do things if it's your idea. You can't let me have my own ideas and imagination. I tried to make a conversation with you tonight. To get you to show some interest in me. But you want to talk pain management and animals. Fine - but there's a time and place and just then wasn't it.

You tell me I can spend money at the same time as plunging us into the red. What am I supposed to do? Make it worse?

I can't socialise with my group when I go to meet them because not once have you made sure Craig is in bed before I get home. Not even once. So I never get to socialise. I go to meetings and teachings and when they go to the pub I leave because I know I can't go because my son won't be in bed. I cannot depend on you.

You wonder why I hate you or dislike you. When you treat me like this. You go on and on and on about other women. All the time. And when I complain you brush it off. Like it doesn't matter. But it still hurts every time and each time when you talk about another girl I am still hurting from the last one, two, three. You don't care.

One day we went to Lidl and a woman remarked to me that you would never change. Craig was still a baby. She's right. You haven't. You're worse.

I won't be treated like this. I can't believe you're even thinking about going. But you will. And you'll come back off your face. As always.

Interesting you think you have to go out socialising more than me. Nothing multiplied by 3 or 4 still equals nothing.

When do I get to go to Carers? When do I get to hang out with friends? When do I get to do some socialising with my group? You have me on a chain so I can't cheat. Because you don't trust me. Set me up in the Educators and similar - make sure you look like you're supporting me. Let me run m,y calendar? No way! I have been asking for a date to meet Ed for 3 months. He's actually given up asking because you haven't answered me. I don't want your diary. I want you.

You don't value any of what I do. You exaggerate the hours you work. You minimise the hours I do. Even your mum says it's not possible to work 120 hours a week.

You have no interest in sorting this out. You say I'm nasty when I write to you. But you don't listen if I try to tell you how I feel.

If you can't start to be fair I don't want to be in this relationship. I can't do it. It feels like you have so much freedom and I don't have any.

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Delirium

Where to start? I actually think I am going mad. I don't even know where it all started to go wrong. Back in September and October I felt like I had things under control. I suppose everyone's feeling the strain at work at the moment. And for that reason I suppose I'm not alone.
But I am alone. Or I feel I am. Because I think my child's behaviour - which is currently atrocious - may be down to all the animosity in our house right now.
Richard's mood has been very well controlled for a while thanks to a brilliant psychiatrist. Sadly he has not had much NHS input this year as he has moved between teams and luckily he found someone excellent in the private sector.
But just these past few weeks he has become irritable. I don't even know why. I have got to know Richard and his conditions well over the past decade. But there are still times when he moves into realms where I just don't get it. Like now.
I am so angry I cannot even put it into words. Yesterday I sobbed so hard and put my hands around my ears. I literally cannot hear anymore abuse. I just want it all to stop. I have started looking at jobs back where my parents live. I don't want to leave. But I can't live in this distress any longer.
When I say something Richard makes a joke (I lost my sense of humour a few weeks ago) or he gets annoyed. He doesn't see the work I do to keep this family together. He sees himself working all the time. That's because he's a workaholic. But he doesn't see what I am doing. Just now he has taken a whole load of stuff off my list. Which should help...
...except he keeps going on about me not doing x, not doing y. Because he is doing something to support me. But he is jabbing me with words every time he does something. Every time he does the dishwasher I am supposed to say, "thank you". Every time he irons a shirt I hear all about how he ironed a shirt. This guy could iron shirts before I was his girlfriend. Why would I need to make a big deal because he did it?
I am knackered because he needs me to pick up after him all the time. But now I have asked for support - and I am seriously depressed - I am getting it. But it is being totally undone by the person who is supposed to support me. Because I get sarcastic comments and nasty remarks.
Is it totally inconceivable that a man can support his partner? How can someone in temper throw wires all over a room and expect someone else to pick them all up? How can someone expect their partner to support them and never be supportive? How can someone take, take, take and never give without taking?
I know I sound bitter. But things really are not okay. Can I continue to live like this? I don't think I can. I have been so committed for so long. But when is enough enough? When is it time to call it a day? When do you know that the person who says, "I love you." really doesn't? How do I know if I am being weak or if I am sane? Do I even love him any more? How do I make up my mind? Am I just in that perpetual domestic violence cycle? Or am I onto a good thing? Am I taking things for granted?

Richard and Rose

We met Rose and Ian a few years ago just before our son was born. I never hit it off with the mums in this particular group. I have no idea why, I'm sure they're nice people but I found them a bit dull.
For some reason Richard took to Rose. From the day we met her he talked about how magical she was. I never saw it, and she didn't appear to have very much interest in us.
In 2007 I joined Facebook and since Rose and another mum from that group were in my e-mail list I connected with them. Shortly after Richard joined up too and also connected to Rose.
Somewhere along the line they decided to meet up for coffee. No big deal: they swapped phone numbers and met up. She got completely smashed which I thought was rather inappropriate but since Rose and Richard weren't in touch that much it didn't seem much to worry about.
Last year was a very wobbly year for Richard and me. He became very obsessed with Sarah. During this time he was very unhappy about being in a relationship with me. I almost left several times because I was convinced Richard did not love me. The abuse was on the backburner, he needed emotional support through his obsession and all the time my heart was being ripped out by his apparent love for another woman I had to be there because he wanted me to give advice on how to deal with her.
Richard confided in Rose. I have no idea why. Suddenly she was on his list of best friends. I didn't think she was that keen on him but now she was having to cope with his neediness for their relationship, to my surprise she was putting up with it. And then Rose did something I wasn't expecting. She agreed with Richard that he had fallen in love with Sarah, and that it had happened really quickly. She never once reminded him he was in a relationship with me. She was enjoying the tension and she wanted to see our relationship end. Rose told him from his stories that Sarah had been flirting with him. She encouraged his fantasies and told him his relationship with me was pointless. How on earth she would have felt if Ian and I had behaved this way I can only guess.
I contacted Rose asking politely why she spoke to Richard and never me. She was reticent in being honest with me. She said that she and I didn't click. I knew this. But I had no idea why she was pursuing my partner in this fashion.
She took my questioning to be jealousy. But I wasn't jealous. She was a bad influence and strain on my relationship and I didn't want her damaging me that way. Or Richard, he was vulnerable at the time. I asked if I could speak to her but she refused. She said if I had any issues with their relationship I should take it up with Richard. Sounds fair enough doesn't it? Except Richard didn't want to know how any of this was affecting me because Rose was allowing him to live out his fantasies. Rose had no principles and didn't care how I felt. She made that crystal clear. Validation is critically important to me. We all have our weaknesses. One of Richard's is his abandonment complex. Mine is needing to be heard.
And because I had contacted Rose she went behind my back and told Richard I had been offensive, this made him adore her even more. They both felt I was the bad party here and they ganged up against me. They shared texts and secret phonecalls to plot how to deal with my alleged jealousy.
What Rose didn't know was that my annoyance with their relationship came as a result of Richard's abandonment complex and her wanting gossip and fuelling his fantasies about Sarah. My relationship with Richard was directly threatened by theirs. I was confident Sarah was not interested in Richard. Richard came to me gloating because Rose was the one person who had indulged him. When I asked if she had even questioned him about me in all this he happily told me she couldn't care less about me. In fact she hated me. I had done absolutely nothing to offend this woman. He then went on to tell me what a great friend she was, how she understood him and how he would leave me rather than lose her. He told me to leave her alone and never to contact her again. I told him not to be so silly, she met us both at the same time. She couldn't choose him and not me. It was both or neither. She had even agreed in an e-mail that she was my friend (grudgingly I admit).

Richard is insecure about friends and always has to point out that people like him more than me. This can't possibly be true for every person we meet but he likes me to feel beneath him in this matter. It has become a sore point. I never cared how many friends I had. But Richard has made this a competition. If someone doesn't like him more he will try to convince me they are bad people. He cannot see that like Rose feels more for him than she does me, other people feel more for me than him. That's life. No big deal. He has made it into a big deal.
The consequence of all this is that they are now texting and e-mailing secretly so that they can do what they want. I am left on the outside, powerless. Every time I find out accidentally that they have been in touch I get problems with my stomach. Every single time. And it's there for a week. I am ill because of their communication.
In truth I have no objection to their friendship, though it would be great if Rose could be more objective over Richard's obsessions with other women. They are always a passing phase, painful for him and me both, but not forever. He and I have a special bond, our friendship is very strong which is how we have weathered the huge emotional changes within him. And it would be nice if Richard and Rose would stop treating me like a fool and play nicely and fairly. I deserve a lot more respect. Right now I feel I have never met anyone so nasty, selfish and unempathetic as Rose, who appears to be revelling in my angst. And ironically the only person who matches her is Richard, so maybe they deserve each other. If only they wouldn't team up against me and make me miserable.

Slowing down in posting

As a result of a lot of things happening at home in June and July I became depressed and have had to put my blog on hold. I became overwhelmed with all the tasks I needed to undertake at work and home. The past few weeks I have been getting on a lot better with Richard. But some major things have happened along that path which I hope to be able to share soon. But for now I need to get my energy back.

Woman Trouble

Let me introduce you to Sarah. I wish I had started writing this blog a little over a year ago when Richard met Sarah on a course they both attended. But I didn't really know what a blog was back then. It would have been good to share the journey as it went along and daily thoughts and feelings.

Sarah captivated Richard almost from day one. He bought new items for his wardrobe, attended college on days when he didn't have to and made him think of any excuse to meet up with her or chat with her.

Sarah appeared a bit bemused by the attention at first. She answered a few of his e-mails and texts in a semi-flirtatious style, I felt because she was being friendly. She very quickly worked out what he was about and started qualifying answers with questions about myself and Craig.

At no stage did I ever feel threatened by Sarah. She made me feel at ease. I knew she was not being drawn into Richard's obsession. But Richard really upset me. At first Sarah appeared to me to be like any other fantasy woman he had gone on about. But it slowly dawned on me that something really huge was going on here. Richard became very depressed. The more Sarah withdrew, the more depressed he became. I became very involved in their relationship. I am sure Sarah had no idea that I did. Every time Richard wanted to contact her he was running it by me. Every time she said something I heard all about it. I gave advice on stepping back himself, giving her some space and then, when Richard felt he wanted to contact her again I was encouraging about it. He no longer trusted himself to make a good decision and was relying on me for that judgement.

All the time my heart was being ripped out. When Richard was depressed and needed me I felt very close to him. In some ways these were some of the best days of our relationship because I really felt needed. At the same time I was being emotionally crushed. Richard could not differentiate between when I needed space and when I needed closeness. He was not interested in how much strain I could bear. I don't even think now he understands what a hard time it was for me.

Sarah and Richard are hardly in touch now. Richard is still working through his feelings, he probably will be for the rest of his life, but Sarah, who made it blatant to me early on has made it blatant to Richard that they will never be together romantically. Now Richard is stronger I can tell him how it makes me feel. He thinks these feelings are new. He thinks I was okay. He doesn't know that I had stomach cramps, felt lonely, didn't know where to turn or what to do. He says I make it up and he tells me this contempt is new.

He doesn't realise that I liked Sarah. That I thought she was a good 'un. That it was Richard who hurt me. That it is Richard I blame for my leftover feelings of despair and relief.

Borderline Personality Disorder - Features

The New England Journal of Medicine has a review about the characteristics and features of borderline personality disorder.

One of the brightest people I know

Richard is one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. A lot of what I am writing about in this blog is about the struggle of life living with him. This post is about his other side. Many people who know someone with a personality disorder will describe them as a bit of a "Jekyll and Hyde". Reading through my blog you would be forgiven for wondering what I see in Richard or why I stay with him. Certainly he has his moments where he lacks common sense but equally he can be quite amazing.

I don't know anyone who has the depth of knowledge of so many different subject areas as Richard. Or who can apply theories from one discipline to another with such ease. If he tells me he spoke to someone who was difficult to talk to I know he really must mean it. Richard can hold conversations with most people easily.

There is never a dull moment living with Richard. It can be draining at times. It is difficult to keep up with his level of energy. But I have done a lot more with my life thanks to Richard. He is a motivator. And not just for me. He has recruited lots of people to various voluntary roles. He is frequently an inspiration.