Getting out of the servant role

[Think About It...]

Hello,
Starting a new thread for advice on stopping our servitude, for Art and others who have taken this role too easily. I checked out the taking care of you section in Lessons, which offers helpful examples, but I would like to continue with examples of boundary-setting that works, especially with housework. I don't know how to stop doing everything and at the same time he criticizes and tells me what I haven't done. As a female, I've taken this traditional role but I work too. I'm tired and I want a better job and just a more enjoyable life. So please let us know what works for you, and what doesn't.

[Go Fish]

Hello,
Starting a new thread for advice on stopping our servitude, for Art and others who have taken this role too easily. I checked out the taking care of you section in Lessons, which offers helpful examples, but I would like to continue with examples of boundary-setting that works, especially with housework. I don't know how to stop doing everything and at the same time he criticizes and tells me what I haven't done. As a female, I've taken this traditional role but I work too. I'm tired and I want a better job and just a more enjoyable life. So please let us know what works for you, and what doesn't.

[xeon]

Me too... not sure how and what not to do since I've done so much for so long.  I enjoy cooking and don't like sitting around, so I'm always busy doing stuff.  Tough one for me... I was writing out a list of things I might do in a day recently and I was amazed at the amount of stuff I do for others and how little I actually do for myself.  I also run through some mental checks of enabling... is this something "they" can or should do for themselves? 

Mind you I'm a husband and father, so I know I should be doing some stuff, but it made me feel a lot better for the hour or two of a day I might want to something "selfish" for good ol me.  

Interested in following along in this one...

[tuum est61]

Go Fish,

There's a series of banking commercials here in Canada that feature someone complaining to someone else in a personal conversation in a public place about bank charges.

"I hate paying all these high bank charges."  To which some third party person who happens to be in earshot says, "Then stop paying high bank charges."  Of course meaning, change the bank you are with.

But I don't suggest changing banks, just refuse to pay all the charges the bank is charging you, especially on those things you can control.  They might want you to have an Ultimate Xtreme Distinguiseed Member $400 annual fee credit card but just say no.   

I am like Xeon, and I also do a LOT - keeping the male proclivity for exaggerating housework contributions in mind perhaps? 

I make my uBPDw breakfast and lunch most every morning. I loaded/unloaded the d/w this morning as I do much of the time. We probably split dinner prep and grocery shopping fairly equally.  I did 8 loads of laundry last weekend that had accumulated during the 2 weeks before, along with fixing said d/w. (I was somewhat waiting her out on the laundry, but she does work hard and was tired.)  I am nearly always the one that makes up our bed in the evening before getting into it, notwithstanding my W's peculiar habit of thrashing it as she sleeps.  I look after changing said bedding generally once a week but definitely every 2. I am not sure how long it would go if I didn't.  Don't get me wrong.  My wife respects clean and contributes greatly herself.   

But I have backed off a bit in other areas.  She takes a bath every morning and I used to run it for her.  I used to trip over myself in picking up her son, her wine and cigarettes, carrying her bags in, and other stuff that frankly was really just for her.  I also have started doing things for me.  I brazenly go for a beer on my own with work colleagues or even by myself while waiting for my daughters piano lesson to finish.  I visit my daughters.  I go out with the dogs.  I joined a vintage car club.  Is that hard for little old co-dependent me? Definitely! I consider those personal things that we do to be the things that keep a r/s romantic, but it doesn't seem to be so with a pwBPD or at least my W. 

And that's probably my message.  Don't just stop doing things randomly - especially those that relate to the stuff that you share - like your household cleanliness. Be strategic and pick things that are a bit more intimate.  Along with doing specific things for yourself, cut back a little - enough for him to notice - on doing the things you have always done "just for him" if those exist. Stay out of fights about it.  Unless he's a raging NPD, how can he "fight" about deserving the stuff that flows out of romance? Validate and detach if he rages or sulks about it, but just keep right on "not" doing those things for him.  It is definitely a boundary you can enforce, since you are in full control of whether you do these things for him or not.

Housework, on the other hand, mostly needs to be done.  And you probably like a clean house.   

 
 

[united for now]

Rather than a rapid decline, I used more of a slow approach... As maligned said, don't stop everything. Choose one or two to let go of.

Also, Add one or two times for "you time". You don't go out 6 nights a week, but you do make time for 1 night out/free.

Change that is gradual and focused works better than sudden and dramatic. Cause the widen and dramatic is gonna create friction and conflict and you may waver and back down. Slow and gradual is doable and hardly noticeable 

[shatra]

Hi
 THe list of whether the person could be doing the task for themself (to see if we are being codependent or not) is a good idea. I also try to think of whether I am getting much in return. For example, I pick up his laundry, I feed his pets, I take his phone messages----what had he done for me lately?

Shatra

[Sir5r]

Just say no.

Examples:
No we can't go out to dinner tonight, remember we have bills to pay.
No, you can't paint the house tonight, it's too late to start. (said this, 5 minutes ago)
No, I can't go with you "for a ride to the store" as you can see I'm working on _______ now, remember we have to get this done for ______ reason.
No, you can't stay home from ______ family obligation because it's important that you are there with me.

Start slowly. My wife is extremely emotionally dependent and can be very demanding. If I'm not careful she will rage.  If you say no give a good reason.

Sir5r

[yeeter]

A great thread.

For me its a been a mix of some sudden changes, along with more gradual.  I tried to start with what 'I' wanted to do and didnt have time for, vs playing a matching game on who did more.  (because if it works, I dont really care if its evenly balanced)

Maybe start with identifying what all those chores are preventing you from doing that you want to do.  Then start doing some of those things, and see what falls off the chore list.

But also understand that if you let something fall off the list - he may not pick it up (it might not be as important to him, or he may not do it to 'suit you').  I know I get criticized a lot on how I do things, as well as what Im 'not' doing.

A list of all the things you do is ok to give perspective/reality check that you really are contributing.  For me this comes out pretty quickly in MC discussions though.  After that - tear up the list and start spending time doing things you want to be doing and let the other stuff fall off.  Lists, and 'counting' sets up a winner/loser mentality.

I have been surprised at just how little goes a long ways.  Just a few items for me, has made a big difference in my energy to contribute to the chore list and in the end not all that much fell off.

[megocean]

I fall more into the defective servant category. My bf w/BPD does a lot of chores and is very rigid in his thinking about the way things should be done. My problem is that I keep trying to do things his way and get criticized for my technique (in washing the dishes, etc.). I know I should back off then and let him handle whatever it is, but I keep trying to win his approval. Writing about how I am like this makes me feel gloomy! Time to read about boundaries, I guess?

[peacebaby]

I think the most important thing to focus on in changing this dynamic is getting past the fear of repercussions and realizing that no matter what you actually do, the outcome will probably be the same.

For instance. Often my SO is stressed when she comes home from work, so btchiness is close to the surface. Sometimes I worry about making the apartment as nice as I can by the time she gets home, to try to reduce the things she could attach her stress to. But it doesn't really matter--if the house is perfect and she still feels stressed and can't control her responses, she will still find something outside herself to focus on. And sometimes my stress about what she will be like when she gets home is what sets her off.

I think the slave thing is a reaction to the feeling of our partners crazy behavior being out of control, and trying madly to reduce their stress and control their behavior. Point is, as always, we cannot control the behavior of others.

[Sir5r]

I think the slave thing is a reaction to the feeling of our partners crazy behavior being out of control, and trying madly to reduce their stress and control their behavior. Point is, as always, we cannot control the behavior of others.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I agree, the fear of their raging is why we do so much to placate the angry child in them.
But that's when they run ramshackle over us, their stress is reduced while we carry more and more.
It's much more healthy for them as well as us to get them to be independent. It helps them with their self esteem. We need to encourage their accomplishments, give them recognition and compliment them when they do for themselves and others. Their going to fail as well, the failures have to be framed as learning experiences and successes in themselves for even trying.

My wife is emotionally demanding, she has OCPD and accomplishes a lot on her own. Her needs are different in that she has no trouble getting things done. I measure her success on how she handles her emotions, how open she is with her feelings, etc.

Sir5r

[SmileAnyway]

Maybe this is the difference in L/F as opposed to H/F.  In my case around the house there is very little for me to do... its almost OCD like.  Though I do think she would at least credit me for being a tidy person.  I tidy up for both of us, I look after the car (even refueling), garden and DIY - and I am the only breadwinner.  Our child's leisure-time, medical appointments and parent-teacher meetings are all left to me.   

Conversely in her most recent episode, she has stopped cooking for me or preparing any meals.  She has done this before, but never for as long as this time (many months), nor does she grocery shop for me, though I will happily use whatever groceries are in (I did pay for them all!) and she hasn't so far complained (about that).  She does launder my clothes.  Paradox, within a paradox!

[isilme]

BF was raised by a hoarder.  He cares little for day to day cleaning, and only cares if company is coming - but will complain a lot of the house is cluttered (mostly with his own, un-put-away stuff).  I grew up a caretaker, and felt in junior high on I was to clean and do all housewife duties my mother never did to ear my keep.  This continued in my OCPD grandmother's house, my dad's apartment (ironed shirts must face east), my stepmother's house, and my BF's parents' house when I lived with them on school breaks.

For a while when we first got together I spent a lot of time feeling as the woman I had to do all cleaning/cooking/shopping regardless of the fact I was the only one in the apt. working FT (or at all).  I got overwhelmed and admit I gave up when BF's brother and a friend of his moved in, too, all feeling it was okay for 'the girl' to do it all, even working 60 hours a week. 

I just made a decision to try to ignore as long as possible things that don't 'really' affect me, while doing whatever cleaning and chores I'd mostly do for myself if I lived alone, anyway. 

• I do my own laundry - I stopped doing his at his own request and try to ignore him complaining about not having clean clothes
  
  I do all dishes in the sink (no dishwasher) - I can't stand not having a clean kitchen in which to prepare food, and though I can let them go about 1-3 days, once I find I am hunting for a spoon (somehow all got used?) I take the 30 minutes to wash what will fit in the strainer, let them air dry and put away as soon as I feel like it.
  
  I clean the rest of the kitchen again, for food prep - I hate how he can leave trash and his own dishes on the counter and then try to cook around them.  The kitchen IS small, the trash is two feet away from where he chooses to leave his garbage.  The sink, likewise.
  
  He cooks about 65-80% of the time, because I stopped jumping to do it after he stopped eating what I'd make.  It wasted my time and food.  If he's picky, he can cook it himself.  If I don't like it, I will cook my own dinner right after.  I am easy to please with most foods.  Since he's gone back to school and works later sometimes to make up hours, I am cooking more.  He is pre-diabetic I'm sure (won't see an MD) and needs food to keep from crashing.  I also see more dysregulation when he has not eaten making me think for him the sugar levels are a part of his emotional lack of control.  So when I can, I cook dinner so we can eat by 8PM those nights - if I wait any given night, he won't remember to eat until 10PM - that's his mother coming out.
  
  I sweep, mop, scrub bathroom (he WILL do this if we have people coming over in about an hour).
  
  I take out the trash about 96% of the time, the litter box all the time.
  
  He never makes the bed, and will mock me for doing it, until the cat vomits on his side of the sheets.  He never changes or washes the sheets.
  
  He does not care about dusting.
  
  I do all yardwork.  He 'might' join me by weed eating for about 30 minutes after I've been mowing/weeding for about 2 hours.  Little house, big yard. 

Most of these things I would do single or in an r/s, so I don't feel it's serving him like it used to be.  I spend his time at work doing things around the house, like mopping, that are hard when he's home.  He thinks I sit on my butt like his mom, like him, and like he sees a lady at work do at work, and then projects all that onto me calling me lazy.

We had a blow up last night where he accused me of being a lazy do nothing.  After he'd spent the last several weekends and nights playing video games.  He can see the house is clean, but he never puts two and two together that someone did it, and unless brownies came by, it was me. 

So I guess what I am saying is do what you need/want for yourself.  If you feel like cooking for both of you, great.  If you want to do all the laundry, great.  If you can split things with a chore list and have it followed, great.  otherwise, do what you'd do if you lived alone.  If s/he doesn't have clean clothes, wants an errand run or wants something for dinner you can't make, let him/her do it.

[Go Fish]

Thanks so much for these replies and concrete advice. He's also said or implied I'm lazy and do nothing around the house. It helps to hear from others with this problem.

One concrete issue is dinner. I make it every night and he won't tell me when he'll be home. Could be in a 2-hour window. He could do some of his work at home to accommodate his family schedule. He sets his own meetings, etc., has a high level career. I told him yesterday that I'll have dinner ready by 6:30, which is possible for him, and I can no longer work around his schedule since he won't communicate.

When he came home late with no call or a last minute call, I just called hello and let him fix the leftovers himself. We have two kids so this matters, but waiting all night isn't a good model. I'm hoping not rewarding this behavior and setting a boundary will help. It's inconsistent behavior. Sometimes he'll be home early, sometimes late. But you can bet he's never late for work meetings.

How does that response sound?

[yeeter]

Thanks so much for these replies and concrete advice. He's also said or implied I'm lazy and do nothing around the house. It helps to hear from others with this problem.

One concrete issue is dinner. I make it every night and he won't tell me when he'll be home. Could be in a 2-hour window. He could do some of his work at home to accommodate his family schedule. He sets his own meetings, etc., has a high level career. I told him yesterday that I'll have dinner ready by 6:30, which is possible for him, and I can no longer work around his schedule since he won't communicate.

When he came home late with no call or a last minute call, I just called hello and let him fix the leftovers himself. We have two kids so this matters, but waiting all night isn't a good model. I'm hoping not rewarding this behavior and setting a boundary will help. It's inconsistent behavior. Sometimes he'll be home early, sometimes late. But you can bet he's never late for work meetings.

How does that response sound?

I have the same issue Fish, and my wife fixes the meal for the kids and her at a certain hour.  Sometimes I make it, sometimes I dont - and I dont always  know or get influence on my schedule (managing the work place in a high level job means you dont always get your own time).  So if I miss - sometimes she leaves out the leftovers for me (which I then clean up and put away after eating), and sometimes she doesnt (which I make my own - which might mean cereal if I dont feel like cooking).

Another couple I know the wife cooks two separate meals.  One for the kids earlier in the eve, and then one for her and her husband later (7:30pm when he gets home) - this way they eat together.  Their kids are older though (high school) and can be off doing homework, etc, when the second meal time.

Lots of ways to handle this.  But setting a time and letting him determine if he can make it or not is a viable way.  If he misses he is on his own for the meals (and then can decide if he wants to just eat out before coming home, or come home and make his own, etc etc - dont be surprised though if his solution to this is different than what you want it to be).

Just dont fall into this trap of making it a competition between making your meals at the specified time vs making meetings on time.  (sounded like comparing this you were feeling like your meals werent as important to him as his meetings... ). 

Now - if its something YOU would like to do as a family, then it means an open discussion on wanting this and a request to him on whether its something that is sufficiently important to him to prioritize (vs extra effort at work, which could directly affect his work performance/contribution).

Several different aspects of this to consider...

[isilme]

We don't have kids, but can have issues wanting to eat at the same time.  He will gladly 'forget' dinner until 10PM some nights, while I like to eat before 8-8:30 when possible.  If he's working till 8, then I usually have dinner ready when he walks in the door.  If he takes too long and I am starving, I just go ahead and eat - he knows how to use the kitchen.  If I cook and don't know if he'll like what I make, I cook plenty for both of us, and if he chooses another dinner, I just eat the leftovers for lunch the next day, or dinner. 

I think something about PD's makes reasonable scheduling of home life... difficult?  BF's hoarding mother is terrible... TERRIBLE about eating on schedule, and throws things off a lot.  And she's majorly diabetic and needs to eat on time to maintain her health.  Last visit, she told us she'd cook hamburgers for lunch.  This was after everyone slept in and got up about 11AM-12PM.  We figured we'd be eating lunch about 1PM.  But she never went back into the kitchen.  And found other things to do.  And so BF and I went and found something to eat for lunch.  And she mentioned the hamburgers again.  And her husband went and made a sandwich.  Her 92 year old mother made some oatmeal.  And then, by 4:30PM, while we are packing to leave at 5PM, she goes to make 'lunch'.  Meanwhile, to keep from crashing, the super-diabetic mom ate a Mr. Goodbar  ?

But she's like this all the time, late to holidays, late to eat - once year she showed up to Christmas lunch, loosely set for 12noon at 3PM.  We, the kids, got in the habit of meeting with snacks set out while the turkey and casseroles stay warm in the oven - someone will bring veggies tray stuff, pigs in a blanket or monkey bread.  We even made a late-ness chart using a joke-word we coined to mean how late she was running.  But now kids are involved and eating on time is important.  So the adults hold out as long as they can - but the nursing mom and kids eat when they need to.

But the mom can make a doctor's appointment just fine, and used to be a teacher, so she can manage time okay when it's not family. 

[Go Fish]

Thanks so much for your replies. Yes, dinner time is a touchy issue, in part because when we do eat together, he usually complains about my cooking or spends the time putting me down in some way. He's actually slowed down on that lately, can't remember what effective thing I did, but anyway, this is one of those things that I'll have to be somewhat flexible about, I guess. Maybe the issue is me just wanting someone to talk to at the end of the day. Maybe if I just focus on that instead of the dinner issue, we'll be less pressured. Maybe that person could be him, or a family member or friend. I think I'm getting tired of the loneliness.

I'm glad you understand. Not all of this is BPD, just adult life, so thanks for your comments on both fronts.

Go Fish

[LoveNotWar]

Dinner time is a huge stressor for my BPDh and I definitely contribute to that stress in this case. I love to cook and enjoy setting a nice table, sitting down together and having good conversation over a meal. He has said to me at least a hundred times he won't eat till he's ready (not when the food is ready) and "it's just food" . And if he did show up at the table he would bring his laptop or a catalog or suduko puzzle, complain I made too much food, not the right food, it was too cold...I am sure you know exactly what I mean 

So why did I try, over and over again, to get him to participate in this ritual? It was important to me that's why. I thought this was just a quirk of his but now I see it's another characteristic of BPD.

And I did all the housework because, believe it or not, I like cleaning. I used to clean motel  rooms way back in high school. I can clean better than anyone I know. It's a total no-brainer activity for me and I check out mentally when I clean. Plus I like the results, cleaning is instant gratification for me.

But now we are on a therapeutic break, I'm in an apartment and he does manage to keep the house clean, he's eating microwave meals that he prepares when he's ready to eat and I can see we would all survive if I never cleaned or prepared another meal.

Honestly though, of all the adjustments I have had to make due to BPD, giving up a nice meal together has been one of my hardest adjustments. I miss the ritual and companionship. It just seems like a nice and civilized way to connect with each other.

[Go Fish]

Thank you LoveNotWar,

I'm glad you understand. It really is hard to give up the idea of something I really wanted. Still, once in a while it works out, just maybe not often enough to justify the effort I have made. I wonder if there are alternatives, to have a friend over or to make it special for me and my kids sometimes, so it's not so dependent on his mood. I don't really understand the BPD connection in this but I guess he feels pressured and he's tired at the end of the day. I just can't bear the brunt of it anymore. I'll do something different.

I hope your TS helps with clarity and maybe building other friendships.

Take care,

Go Fish