Hi all. 

I'll try to sum this up as quickly as I can. Husband I have been married for over ten years (shockingly). We've always had a pretty tumultuous relationship, and a few years some stuff came out that kind of blew my mind (but also reaffirmed my instincts, which had been gaslit to hell). A lot of his behavior seemed to fit Narcissist Personality Disorder, but his personality didn't quite fit. There's been cheating, inappropriate relationships with women, some triangulation, and making up some pretty horrible stories about me behind my back (which all seem to be projections of stuff he'd been doing.)

Anyway. I recently started reading more about BPD, and it really, really seems to fit. He even got teary-eyed when I read an article about men with BPD where the author said so many men mention feeling like they're "on the outside looking in" that the author considers it part of a template for BPD. "Aggressively thin-skinned" fits him to a T, as do many other traits. I've often commented that he's like Jekyl and Hyde, and the person he was when  wasn't around didn't even seem to be aware of his family or that he was doing anything wrong. He's often mentioned in therapy that he disassociates. Well, I'm trying to keep this brief... LOL but there's A LOT in everything I've read that sounds like him, including some serious neglect and abandonment as a kid.

So some pretty frightening stuff came out (things he'd been doing behind my back throughout our entire relationship up to that point, ALSO including chronic lying, some risky behavior, some pretty big financial irresponsibility...) Things came to blows, and I demanded therapy. I went back to my own individual therapist, but things were kind of touch and go in marriage therapy for a while. But even when marriage therapy wasn't great, he seemed to slowly be realizing or coming to grips with how he'd been behaving and that everything he'd been doing was pretty destructive and hurtful. I hung in there because he really seemed to want to change, even though we were both struggling to find ways to make everything work. (I was having a hard time letting stuff go and moving forward.) We finally found an AMAZING marriage therapist that we both like, in addition to him also finding an individual therapist that's been doing a great job in getting to the root of his issues and helping him connect to his own emotions and giving him tools to regulate. 

Things aren't easy, but I can see that he's genuinely trying and wanting to do the work. It felt like there was some real progress. 

However, in the last couple months, it seems like he's been going backwards a little. He's started to lie again (not about anything major... yet, but still). And the past couple weeks I've been pretty hurt at some of the sarcastic comments he's made. He apologizes after and working with his therapist to be mindful of those moments and stop it, but it seems like he's been doing it more again. (His sarcasm and passive aggressive comments were pretty much nonstop before.) I guess this is all part of progress—two steps forward and one step back and all that. But does it sound like BPD? And how do you cope and keep yourself regulated when it's... I don't know, "flaring up" again? I'm certainly not perfect and have been working hard to not get sucked in and respond poorly to things. But it terrifies me to think he might go beyond white lies and sarcasm again. He's also started using hyperbole or outright lies to dramatize things he deals with at work, which he often does to derail conversations I try to have with him. 

It's also hard to be supportive when I've been dealing with my own emotional stuff. And when something comes up where I could use his support, he often makes it about himself or starts to "spin out" anytime I have an emotion, and I always feel like I wind up giving up my own emotional needs to coach and support him when he gets anxious. 

Sorry, I think this is a bit rambly, but TLDR; I think my husband has BPD? How do you cope when they're really trying to do the work and make change, but they still slip into old behaviors? And can they ever really be emotionally supportive and available to others?