Hi Cat21,
My uBPDh's older sister has a lot of power over my husband; she always has. I suspect that she also has BPD, and is probably largely the biggest influence in terms of my husband's traits. But that's a story for another time...
A few moments ago, she called husband to reprimand him for not returning her phone call on HIS birthday (yesterday). The conversation continued as they discussed an upcoming visit of mutual family members. These family members will be in town (where we live) for a work event, and conveniently, we have a few nights available during that week, so we'll be able to spend time with them. His sister became upset by this, as she has been trying to nail down a time for she and her kids to come visit us, but my husband "never responds to her texts." This is not true; he has told her numerous times to pick a weekend and we'll make it work. (Our work schedules are not 9-5; we rarely have 'free' weekends.) This argument spun out over the span of 20 minutes, with my husband being the logical voice and his sister completely dysregulating- interrupting him, talking over him, hurling insults, and completely fabricating lies. He even used the same language with her that I use with him! He was calm and direct and told her that it wasn't productive for them to argue, and he hung up the phone. I was actually very surprised. How can it be that he is capable of being rational in a disagreement with her, but is not capable of being rational with me? I even heard him say, "You're projecting your own feelings of insecurity onto me". He was right- she totally was!
Has anyone else experienced this role reversal?
I think this type of conflict is very common - a lot - not all - of our partners come from families with issues and have siblings or parents that are at least conflict prone.
What you are describing is imho. actually a very good sign. Your husband is emulating some healthy conflict behavior he picked up from you. I found that these conflicts with external parties - theirs or ours - often present opportunities for exercising different behavior and contain teachable moments. A validating comment in your situation could have been "She was too upset to listen properly. Better to talk another time. Well done hanging up after tried a few times to get through.". When our partners adopt healthier behavior with others chances are that they will at time also do the more difficult step of applying them to something that is much closer to them i.e. us. Also healthier conflict behavior helps to build self esteem and reduces the overall level of conflict in their and thus our life. Especially for learning boundaries standing together and going together through the (e-)motions can be helpful. Unlike validation where there is a win-win boundaries are often a win-lose and that makes it hard to have open communication during a conflict.
It does feel weird to observe and it is important to remember that intra relationship conflicts are emotionally more charged and in addition our ability to observe might then be warped too.
We don't talk much on the board about this transfer of skills to the pwBPD as the focus of the Staying board is squarely on what we can control i.e. ourselves. But when you read stories of members that have been here for a longer while it crops up between the lines. This is one of the reasons we should all be trying to use the tools as well as we can - we are important role models in the medium to long term.