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Yes, that is correct. My wife actually has two individual therapists: one for her mental illness and another one that is poly-friendly. She picked the poly therapist a few months ago, when she wanted to do polyamory. There was a lot of progress over the past couple of years, when we started...

Thank you. She is getting the professional help she needs for herself. It is going to take years for her to stabilize. The hard part is that our relationship needs help. But we have struggled to find a good couple's therapist that understands her dissociative disorder, who is also truly poly...

I agree on the boundaries. What do you mean by let go of the ego?

Good observation. As she is going through therapy and as we talk, I've seen that she has very low self esteem and has grown to depend on me to make her feel good about herself. That is why we ended up codependent before we opened up. Opening up our marriage a few years ago, to start with...

Great quote. I will reuse that. My wife has that maladaptive way of pointing at a nice thing she did, to try to make up for the abuse.

Thank you. Yes, that couple's therapist was just too junior to handle a complex case like ours. The individual therapy is amazing. I don’t want to divorce, for sure. But I need an escape hatch if she continues down her path. I want to understand my options, how to protect myself, our kids, our...

Thank you. Sadly, it took me a long time to recognize the abusive behavior. Yes, she is on a destructive path. That is what my friends and family have been telling me. I have had a hard time believing it, but I am finally looking at her behavior for what it is. I don’t want to separate, but I...

Leading with compassion and empathy is very important. The fine line I am learning in individual therapy is that it is not my job to take on my wife's sudden negative feelings about polyamory and my partner. I should be there to love her, to support her through it but ultimately it is her...

Thank you. I agree and it is what I have been working on with my therapist. In my wife's mind, she is allowed to set a boundary for my relationship with my partner and she is allowed to give/remove consent for me to have a partner. If I do something she doesn't like, it is my job to fix it. I...

I 100% agree with that. I have had to learn this in therapy recently. She takes responsibility for herself and her feelings, I take responsibility for myself and my own feelings. When she has having big emotions, I tell her that I love her, that I am here for her but I won't take on her...

We are slowly heading toward separating. October was horrible, my wife ramped up the manipulation, coercion to pressure me to promise I would never talk to my partner again. I am the sole breadwinner in the family and with the mounting medical bills due to my wife illness, the extra stress has...

Yes, you hit the nail on the head. I want to be authentic, but I have to pretend I magically stopped loving my ex-partner and that I am not interested in dating anyone. Thank you. I am not caving in to her demands. I tried that route. I sacrificed friendships to make her feel better, but she...

I don’t know if she has BPD and if I am her favorite person. She has DID, where she literally has different personalities (different names, age, tastes, sexual orientations, etc.) in a single body. I didn’t realize it for years (nor did my wife), but all the personalities make up who she is...

Thank you for the link. I started reading it. Wow. It describes so many of my situations I have to deal with. My wife was diagnosed with CPSD and DID (multiple personalities) due to severe childhood trauma she had no idea about. My therapist noticed I had a tendency to people please when...

Thank for your comment. I didn’t suspect anything. We got married young, busy with raising kids. My first clue was that by the time I had reached 40, I was isolated. My wife was so anxious about me leaving her. I had slowly cut any friends, family, hobbies. I proposed swinging as a way to...

Hello I am in quite a bit of emotional pain. My wife and I have been married 20 years. We started swinging 5 years ago and had a lot of fun. Last year, my wife expressed the desire to do more solo sexual explorations when traveling. I supported her desire. She met someone during her first trip...