Just as a heads up this feeling of not making any headway a lot of the time is just perception. You learn a lot, you see BPD in shadows were previously you could not see at all. The problem seems to get bigger the more you know.
This does not mean you are not making progress. at times it pays to do a reality progress check just to reaffirm you are still travelling forward.
As I started learning more about BPD, my T shared a metaphor about red cars. When you buy a red car, then suddenly everywhere you look, you see red cars.
I didn't think I was getting obsessed about seeing my H's BPD in every behavior, but I thought I'd entertain the thought that I had a BPD filter on my reality glasses. Instead, it seemed like a big learning curve for me to really try to understand what BPD is all about and how to manage a relationship with a pwBPD.
It was like experiencing some of the stages of grief: I was profoundly angry; I felt like a victim (why me, again?); I felt incredible grief; I felt very alone; I felt very empty.
Now I'm noticing when my seemingly innocuous comments start "setting him off" and I can backtrack and use the tools and redirect the interaction. But I don't feel like I'm in a partnership. I think it was Mie, in another thread who suggested being in a relationship with a pwBPD is like having "an exotic pet". Being the animal lover I am, with my menagerie of animals of various species, this unfortunately seems accurate.
I grieve that I don't have a relationship of equals. This sounds really bad to state in words, but that's how it feels. In so many ways, he's superior to me intellectually, but on an emotional level, he's a toddler. I can't fully be myself without monitoring my language, my body language, my facial expressions.
I miss not being able to just be my snarky self, like I can be with some of my girlfriends. Some silly comment I might make could send him into a dysregulated state for a day or two. With other people, they laugh and shoot one back at me. I miss not being able to just have fun and be goofy.