Let me preface that I am quite long winded, so I apologize in advance. I am a fan of details, especially when it comes to something I take as seriously as this.
My wife and I have been together for 4 years. We always got along like the best of friends. I was trying to find the right person for me for a long time and was very patient and picky and refused to settle for less than someone extremely compatible. It took til 30, but I found that. Easily the most compatible of anyone we have ever been with. We just seemed to have it all. We hit it off immediately and realized our humor is totally in line, our lifestyles, everything. Honestly it seemed perfect and we were very happy for maybe the first 6m to a year, and that’s when her BPD decided to show itself.
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She has struggled with BPD and severe anxiety most her life and I am no stranger to mental health issues with previous relationships and my mother, but this was my first experience with BPD. I am the most patient person I know, so I didn’t think it’d be a big deal. She was unmedicated and I didn’t realize just how bad it could be. I had to walk on eggshells because it would go from 0-100 very quickly. Lots and lots of yelling (I do not yell and try to calm the situation, but would fail most the time). She would bash her head on the wall or harm herself in other ways and ended up in urgent care a few times. I tried to be supportive in those moments, but it’s very awkward and hard for me to go in for a hug when I am feeling attacked. I tried very hard to remind myself she cannot help it and it was the BPD and not her. I tried to not blame her for it or hold it against her. My patience wore thin over time and eventually I would just not handle it well anymore and during any moment of her freakouts, I would put on my gaming headset to tune out the noise and tell her to go take a couple minutes to try to wear off/chill out, but she would refuse and just keep screaming at me and rip my headset off my head etc. I just got tired of dealing with it, honestly. I thought I could, but it started to make our relationship suck. It was still as great as it always was, except for when these situations would occur, which was maybe once every couple weeks.
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I gave her an ultimatum. We had discussed it previously but she was not open to it. I wanted her to look into getting treated in a way. Whether it be some form of therapy or medication. She said it would turn her into a zombie so she didn’t want to try it. I told her that I can’t do this forever and that it was wearing on my mental and I hated walking on eggshells and I really hated the drama and stress and that it’s up to her, but if she isn’t going to get it handled, I am out. I just wanted her to be able to control her emotions in a healthy way and have discussions rather than her screaming or getting violent whenever there was an issue. She didn’t want to lose me so she went for it.
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This is where I fucked up.
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She got on meds and suddenly all our issues went away. All of them. It was relationship utopia. She was able to manage stressful situations and her anxiety etc so much better. It was great. We no longer had any disputes we couldn’t calmly talk out. No issues really came up that I can recall but any disagreements whatsoever were nbd. The meds completely destroyed her libido. This was the only issue. Years ago, I had a very bad porn addiction. It was terrible and I always was ashamed of it. I collected videos like they were damn pokemon cards. I would spend 5+ hours trying to find the perfect one. It was awful. With her losing her sex drive, I turned to porn in a big way and fell back into my addiction like an idiot. Not as hard as before, but still pretty bad where I didn’t want sex anymore. I thought I had beat it for good. I was very ashamed. She was unaware of this and I was too ashamed to tell her. We joked about how we don’t have sex anymore and it didn’t affect a damn thing and it didn’t bother us whatsoever. And it didn’t, seemingly. I figured it was a pretty good situation because she didn’t have any sexual needs, and I could take care of mine on my own. Which would be fine if I didn’t have a bad mental addiction to porn. She was under the impression I was mostly just asexual and didn’t need sex. This went on for a couple years.
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Eventually, the kissing slowed to a stop. We became roommates. Which we were totally okay with because we were bros. We have always spent tons of time together and never got tired of each other’s company. Still don’t. I was actually, in my own mind, very happy with how things were. Not every relationship needs to follow a societal expectation. It’s about what works for you and your partner. I thought that’s where we were. We still loved each other quite a lot but we didn’t express it outside of saying it occasionally and me gifting her things (my love language anyway). We had stopped dating one another in the relationship so we were complacent.
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She started smoking weed 24/7, and I had no issue with that. She enjoyed it and we could afford it. She was gaining weight from poor eating habits and according to her, her meds. I also gained a lot of weight over the years we were together. We went from a pretty hot couple to a couple that looked like we had just given up on ourselves. We have pretty low self esteem and with no romance in the picture, we both feel pretty unwanted and gross. We don’t really compliment each other except when we try to look good, which is rare. We stopped dating each other and got too comfortable, ya know? The feelings were very much still there for us, but we were just basically best friends living together, that cared a lot about each other. She decided that she wanted to try getting off meds (her main motivation was weight loss, but she won’t admit that, and I surely wouldn’t accuse her of that), and just smoke weed to calm her anxiety and see if she can manage stress. I knew with that, would come a sex drive again. I told her I supported her in whatever she thinks is best for her. I also advised that if things turned to the way they were before, it would cause big issues. So, she got off the meds. I waited a handful of weeks to see if she was interested in sex again, because I know I would need to get off this addiction to porn because I just couldn’t get interested in sex with her or even get very hard anymore.
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This is where she fucked up.
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She came to me yesterday, addressing the elephant in the room, basically just saying we are just roommates and that she is worried about our future. She said she knew there was a problem when recently some guy/stranger gave her attention and she liked it. She liked feeling wanted. I told her I understood and that I’m not mad at her for that. I decided to be honest with her and tell her what I had been hiding. I explained to her about the porn addiction I fell back into when she had no libido and that I was too ashamed to tell her. She trickle truthed me about the getting attention thing. I was able to get out of her that on monday night some guy slid in her DMs and they ended up sexting. He sent a dick pic, and she said she was so horny that she sent him nudes and I don’t know what transpired in the messages other than your typical sexting session, but I didn’t want to know the details, honestly. I’ve been cheated on before with other women and saw messages with details and it scarred me. She said it didn’t mean anything and that it just happened and just wanted to feel wanted and that she has been extremely horny. This was all news to me. I just wish she had come to me first to talk about it. She said she wasn’t even into the guy, and that she just used him. She said she felt guilty about it and was trying to figure out how to tell me. She held this in for 3 days and laughed on the couch next to me watching good mythical morning as if nothing was wrong. I hate that she trickle truthed me as well, instead of just telling me. She did this before years ago when she was at a bar and some guy came on to her. She didn’t tell me until later that he had tried putting his hand down her pants and tried to take advantage of her being drunk. I let that one pass because if she was being honest, that guy was at fault for assaulting her, and I know that can be hard to talk about.
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I plan on seeking therapy because I am fairly certain I have undiagnosed depression or something. I have had a lot of issues that point to that. As for us, I don’t know what to do. I hold resentment for what she did but I know that it would have never happened if I didn’t lead her that way by making her feel unwanted. My trust is broken, partially. She likely has lost trust in me as well as I had hid my addiction. I know it isn’t a competition on who did the shittier thing, but her engaging with another person to actively cheat really turned my world upside down. I didn’t think she would ever do that. I am not absolving her of any responsibility for what transpired, but I do take partial responsibility. Me hiding my porn addiction was also a terrible thing to do, and I am fully aware of that. I know we both fucked up in different ways but both are very damaging and we do not know how to move forward. We talked about being just roommates, us divorcing, us trying to work it out, etc. I didn’t want to make any rash decisions because obviously a marriage is a big deal. You have a life built together. I gave her the option early on in the relationship to open it up as I am open minded and have been somewhat interested in the idea of being an in open relationship, but she never was interested. Now she is interested, as long as she can “get dick” but doesn’t want me to be with anyone else. So that won’t work. I asked her if it’d be enough if I got better and we fixed the sexual aspect, and she thinks so. She has a VERY high libido when not medicated. She is always down. I am content with a couple times a week but she is one of those that could do 4-5 times a day every day people. She is bi so I did give her that option as well if she wanted to bring a woman in the bedroom, but she thinks sex with women is boring and just wants dick, so, that’s out of the question. I don’t know how comfortable I am with her sleeping with guys yet as I haven’t experienced it and things don’t always go in reality as they do in your head.
Anyway, sorry again for the long winded post but I wanted to make sure anyone who gave some advice would have as much information as possible to provide their best input possible. Is our marriage able to be saved? How do we go forward from here? I am cold turkey on the porn now, and will not be partaking in any porn. I don’t enjoy being addicted to it. I can’t have a healthy relationship with it, and I hate that it had so much control over me. But I am good at cutting myself off cold turkey. I went years without it before and I can do it again, and this time permanently. She says she would never do something like that again, but I do not know if I can trust that and I am now in that mode of suspicious whenever she is using her phone AT ALL, so that sucks. She is likely going to feel the same whenever I am on my PC downstairs, gaming. I am weighing all possibilities so please guys, lay it on me. What should we do?
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\— \*\*tl;dr\*\*: Both of us have done each other wrong in a big way, is our marriage fixable?
20 comments
Ehhhhh. It definitely sounds fixable if u want it to be. But easier to move on honestly
I’ll be the honest I’ve been on both sides of the story
But after a lot of therapy I realized the excuse I gave (same has hers) were just a way to avoid accountability and I’ve even said the same exact words for the open relationship to a partner years (before therapy) ago it’s not only selfish it’s controlling and manipulative
I’m not married but I’ve been engaged and after I did this to my fiancé we tried so hard but the resentment that built over time he couldn’t stand to look at me
I would leave save yourself the amount of heart break staying would cause
(Or maybe I’m projecting either way I’d leave regardless)
This is a lot of drama and bad times for a four-year relationship and honestly it sounds like the relationship has just made you both worse people. “Worse” both in the sense of being less honest and less ethical, and worse in the sense that you’re worse off than when you started. Relationships are supposed to build you up and improve your life, not lead to this level of unhealthy codependency.
Your second paragraph talks about how you’re so picky and you wouldn’t settle for anyone, but your lived experiences say the opposite. You got into a relationship with a woman and immediately settled down despite 1000 red flags. She physically abused you, wouldn’t take responsibility for her mental health, and wouldn’t communicate with you on major issues. You both enable each other’s bad behavior. Your sex drives are incompatible. You’re walking on eggshells. I can almost guarantee that your depression is a direct result of this terrible relationship.
If you were pickier, you would have recognized how bad of a mistake this was and backed out a long time ago. I’m guessing now you’re stuck in a sunk cost fallacy, where the thrill of the super short honeymoon period and the intensity of the relationship over four years has made you feel like you can’t give up on it because you put so much into it.
Unfortunately… I think it’s time you start thinking about what you want the rest of your life to look like. Without making any allowances for her, can you reasonably do everything you want in your future while also putting 100% into this relationship? Because it sounds like putting 100% into this relationship just barely keeps it afloat, and doesn’t leave time for a lot of other things in your life like exercise or self-improvement or hobbies or friends. If you really want to fix this, you can continue to trudge along in this relationship forever. Reading your post, it doesn’t seem like things are going to get any better, but the relationship could change and eventually you’ll have different problems than these ones. Just don’t have any kids.
Funny, don’t think those are on the same level at all.. Porn addiction is hurtful but in a dead bedroom relationship, I don’t really know if I’d call it a transgression.. Sexting a rando though yeesh. Anything is fixable, but both of yall need to forgive each other and improve, and the odds are low.. Go to a marriage counseler fur sure.
I think if you both are willing to put in the work to fix it, it can be fixed. But there is only evidence on this post of you wanting it to be fixed, and we’re just taking your word for her side of things. Not that you’re lying, but she could be deceiving you and we wouldn’t know.
You’ve laid out a seemingly fair assessment (not blaming her fully and also not taking all blame) so that’s a huge asset to fixing things. I wonder if she could lay out that same assessment marked with humility and genuine desire to resolve things with you?
I think a huge piece of this is going to be her mental health. Does she understand the impact of her acting off meds? How it makes you feel? How difficult it makes your relationship? Have you discussed this in depth to where she can accurately articulate exactly how her actions make you feel?
Can you articulate exactly how she feels? Where she can listen to you and all she can say in response is “yes yes that is exactly right! That’s it!” You should both be able to do this for each other! Listen, and then try that.
And when people fall into room mate roles (it happens to everyone) it’s a sign that the polarity is off. You’re both acting out of your masculine or both feminine instead of one masculine and one feminine which is what creates polarity/passion. (This isn’t a gender role you can be more feminine and her more masculine but passion/polarity between two people is a balance of the two regardless of the gender). You’d need to figure out which one you are and lean into it and her same. When people are not getting their needs met as their natural energy they act out of their opposite energy to compensate and im guessing that’s what’s happening to cause the room mate vibe.
And then go to therapy and get some help because you’ll need it!
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I’m going to go against most of the advice here so far. I actually connect with you on a number of points here, for better or worse, and I’ll give you my two cents:
Firstly, I understand calling what she did cheating, but honestly I was a little surprised when I got to the details of what she did. I assumed you meant she was actually with someone else physically. For sure what she did was wrong, and a huge betrayal of trust, but 1) she wasn’t physically with someone else, and 2) it sounds like this was just a one-time mistake. It’s not like she spend months getting to know some other guy and developing feelings and then that led to sexting.
And I’m sure you’ve thought of this, but I’ll go ahead and say it: yes, what she did is different than you indulging a porn addiction, but is it really THAT different? (This is why I think it’s significant that her mistake wasn’t some months long emotional affair that peaked in sexting). She got off on interacting with another person via a screen, via 1s and 0s, and there doesn’t seem to have been any personal connenction whatsoever. *I’m not saying it’s the same* – and for sure society generally accepts that porn is ok (and not cheating), but as someone who relates to struggling with porn habits, I do feel that there’s more of a parallel here with what she did than most would like to admit.
I also think the backstory of how you guys got here is important. Again, I can relate, and while it sounds like you put up with a lot of crazy shit, and were probably victimized in some really fucked up ways on many occasions, she did eventually go on meds and calm her shit down in order to make the relationship work. And it was a side effect of these meds that, in large part, led you guys down the path to platonic-ness. (Which, realistically, is probably something *most* couples struggle with over time, regardless of neuro-chemical interference).
All that said, her issues do sound very serious, and very challenging to navigate as a partner. (Again, I can relate – and there is a big part of me that wants to scream RUN, and suggest that as you get older, you will find that stability is maybe not as over-rated after all.). But from most of your post, it sounds like you guys still really click as a couple. That you still have feelings for her and want to be with her. In which case, I absolutely think the trust can be rebuilt. And I suspect it won’t be that difficult if you two can start up a sexual relationship again.
Feel free to DM me if I can offer any more feedback/advice.
You both seem to be exasperating each other’s issues. You both need to get healthy on your own and not have each other as excuses. Breaking this cycle might mean separating and working on yourselves. Then you cannot blame anyone but yourself. If you are not compatible you will find out. Right now there is so much drama it’s hard to say if you can ever get back to your marriage. The first 6 months everyone one was on their good behavior. The last 4 years is what you can expect to be the norm unless major changes happen.
sorry but it is not fixable. with her, you have to choose between her being a kind and rational human being who treats you with kindness and respect, and having a sex life. not a choice anyone should ever have to make. and that trickle truthing bullshit is unacceptable. You can never trust her again. No trust, no respect, no sex…why do that to yourself?
Sounds toxic as fuck. I would recommend you leave and find someone who doesn’t have BPD.
Porn addiction is no joke. It’s the main reason that my 5.5 year relationship failed. We were great roommates in a lot of ways, but if sex is even minimally important to someone, then a partner’s porn addiction is going to be a HUGE problem. I’m telling this to you straight so you can consider this for your next relationship. Your current relationship is not viable because both of you have made major mistakes. Good luck in the future. Porn addiction does have scientifically-based treatment just like other addictions.
Is it fixable? Yes. But I agree with the earlier commenter – why fix something that was never really working. You talk about how you both were so perfect together but her mental health issues are always going to be there. She’s either medicated and you’re both not having sex or she’s unmedicated and engaging in problematic behavior. You’re both so young to be in a dead bedroom relationship that’s not making either of you happy. You’re not pushing each other to be the best version of yourselves. You say you got along perfectly and honestly sometimes that’s a bad thing. You both have turned into versions of yourself that you hardly recognize anymore. It was a sad read.
I think it can be fixed if both of you want it to be fixed. You have to want something for it to actually work, with addiction or anything else.
If you truly love her and she truly loves you I think couples therapy would be extremely beneficial. And therapy of your own to work out your issues while she works out hers. This has to be a complete team effort or it won’t work out. Trusting one another really does make or break a relationship. You really have to communicate to one another through this process.
And if for some reason you decide to make it work and it ends up failing, don’t beat yourself up. You tried your hardest, it just wasn’t meant to work.
Edit:
Two more things:
– In my opinion what she did is 100% cheating. I do not excuse that in any way even if her libido is high and she was horny. Most people might see what she did as just porn. Absolutely not. She cheated on you, even if it wasn’t emotionally. Having a porn addiction some people might say is also cheating, I wouldn’t go that far. I think there are a lot of components to it and that’s something you really gotta work on if you want a relationship to work…. BUT you have to really ask yourself if you think someone who has cheated can change and not do it again at the next inconvenience in your relationship.
– You also mentioned letting yourselves go. I think working together to become your goal selves again would benefit your relationship.
All that in just four years? Man the majority of your relationship has been toxic. You would be better to cut bait and move on. Trust will never return and you will always be looking at her with doubt. Why live that way.
Dude I’m not reading that
Sometimes two people are just toxic together and draw out all the worst the other has to offer. Regardless of whether you stick together or not you each need to take a moment away from the other and work on your individual problems and make yourselves whole.
There is a lot going on here but no.1, she needs to continue with her meds for the rest of her life. You can not be in a relationship with her while unmedicated. She is abusive when unmedicated, she knows that, and is willing to put you back in that situation.
Let her go and work on yourself man. It’s never too late to find love. Workout, do the things you love. Don’t keep yourself from finding something better.
Is it weird that I only read the tl;dr; and my answer is a confident “no”?
I don’t know a lot about BPD meds, but with antidepressants there are different meds with different side effects. Couldn’t she try some other meds that won’t kill her libido?
As the situation currently stands, I don’t know that your wife can be trusted to not step outside the marriage again, even if it’s just sexting with some random dudes, or whatever. Think about the idea of her going out and sleeping with other men. How could that possibly sit well with you? Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but that would tear me apart. Marriage is supposed to be about finding a partner for life. Why get married if she (or you both) are going to sleep around?
This is a complicated situation, and I don’t know that there’s any simple solution. My ex was hyper-sexual, and even though our sex life was good (she always said it was good) she still cheated on me, because she “needed to be noticed” and wanted outside attention to validate her in whatever way.
You both are kind of all over the place, but my main thought is that without her BPD under control, there’s no hope.
Good luck – I hope you find a resolution that works for you both.