A lot of times in these relationships, we are as much a part of the cycle of conflict as the partner - or we don't know how to put out small fires and then they become big fires.
Do you think that is a big part of it?
What did you fight over? How did you fight?
Skip
I would say in this specific case, never having heard of BPD, I didn’t know how to put the small fire out and it became a big fire usually before I even noticed something was a blaze.
I am pretty conflict avoidant; almost never lose my temper, maybe once or twice a year, never struck anything in my life until that day in April. My reputation is to become calmer as the situation worsens. Typically I deflect conflict with humor which becomes sarcasm and then black humor as the situation degrades.
No matter how the fight started we almost always ended up in the same two places. The first was I wasn’t making enough effort to meet her needs. Sometimes we could recover from that one.
The second issue we cycled back to over and over. I have very few surviving family members. I am very close to one member of my family, exceedingly so. We survived a usual experience and recovered together, which left us with a deep bond. My partner and my family member loathed each other and both acted on their feelings.
In our final argument, my partner gave me an ultimatum to limit my own contact with my family member and I refused. We had discussed this for months, sometimes with a therapist, to no avail.
Our arguments were circular and lengthy. I could feel them brewing and there would be a tipping point and the barrage would unleash. I would do my best to avoid and evade incrimination but never could. They were very strange arguments because the perspective was so skewed, she would say things like “I have to walk on egg shells around you because you are so difficult to be with” and I would be totally baffled. I would try and talk my way through it and the discussion of course would go to pieces. We didn’t shout, we didn’t swear but somehow it always felt like we were.
Thanks for the question Skip. It was helpful to think through them and put my thoughts into words.
'ducks