First post, seeing what is going on here. Dealing with my BPD parner, M/F

[pressonetohold]

Hello there,

New to the group, and being directed here to write an introduction.

A short introduction would be that I am a 30 year old male, in an relationship with a BPD woman, for well over 2,5 years. She receives help by an psychologist, which is is going well, she has accepted the diagnosis, all good sofar. She is a high functioning, very lively woman, interesting, well educated, the light of my life, most of the time, and In general, I am very happy to be with her.

I do need some help sometimes tough, the rages, the projections, and having been blamed when we are out of contact, or when i'm getting too close, the running away, these things are taking their toll on me, leave me tired, hopeless and insecure at times.

Most interesting for me, is to learn, how others relationships might have developed in a positive manner, because I am hoping to take this relationship forward, we are stable, live apart, both function. But the nature of our relationship, with the roller coaster thing going on too regularly, makes me lose hope of ever taking some next steps, living together, making commitment. How to proceed?

I'm quite stable, and quite able to deal with the behavior of my love, I'll take the good and the bad, knowingly, and willingly, but am quite desperate to have some perspective of a shared future. And am looking for some insight from you guys.

Sometimes my language, might be a bit unclear, as English is not my native language, Hi from the Netherlands!

Kind regards, Hold

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[formflier]

Hello there,

New to the group, and being directed here to write an introduction.

A short introduction would be that I am a 30 year old male, in an relationship with a BPD woman, for well over 2,5 years. She receives help by an psychologist, which is is going well, she has accepted the diagnosis, all good sofar. She is a high functioning, very lively woman, interesting, well educated, the light of my life, most of the time, and In general, I am very happy to be with her. 

Welcome to bpdfamily!   

I'm glad you are here... .you have found a safe place to learn about BPD... .

It's very good that your partner has a diagnoses... .accepts it... .and is working with someone.

We can help you with all of the issues that you have raised.

I would suggest that you start by taking a look at "The Lessons"... .you will see them on the right side of the screen.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=56206

Also... .above is a link.

There is a lot to learn here... .ask lots of questions... .some of the ideas we have might seem a little odd to you... .because dealing with the "order to the disorder"... .is a new way of thinking for most people.

Glad you are here!

FF

[pressonetohold]

Hi FF,

Many thanks for your welcoming response.

Next to following the advice in your response, I rephrased my question by posting a new topic, I am a bit confused how I can take a topic down, as i have reconsidered my title, after seeing goings-on on this message board.

In any case, my apologies for double posting.

[pressonetohold]

Hi FF, others,

Great place you have build here, after reading most of the lessons, and some of the discussions going on, I am extra curious for responses to the issue I posted, I hope to hear from you guys soon.

[EaglesJuju]

Hi pressonetohold, 

I would like to join Formflier and welcome you.

I understand how frustrating the projections, rages, the push-pull behavior can make you feel tired and insecure. Learning about what drives BPD behaviors really helps. 

At the core of BPD is emotional dysregulation.  Emotional dysregulation is the inability to change or regulate emotional cues, experiences, actions, verbal responses, and non verbal expressions under normal conditions.  Pervasive emotional dysregulation is due to vulnerability to high emotionality with the inability to regulate emotional responses. Characteristics include: cognitive distortions/failure in information processing, insufficient control of impulsive behavior, freezing or dissociating under periods of high stress, emotional overcontrol/suppression. As a result of emotional dysregulation, behavioral characteristics and maladaptive coping strategies such as projection are utilized.

When you become familiarized with the characteristics of BPD, you can learn to take the behavior less personally. It has taken me a while to cope with some of the behaviors and not take them personally. Prior to learning about BPD, I used to blame myself for my person with BPD's (pwBPD) behavior.  Sometimes I made coping with my pwBPD's behavior more difficult.

The motto on the staying board is, "before you can make anything better, you must stop making it worse." I have truly embraced the motto and learned that I cannot change my pwBPD's behavior and thoughts, I can only change mine.  This mentality has improved myself and my relationship. 

What are your concerns with cohabitating?

[pressonetohold]

EaglesJuju

Hi pressonetohold, 

The motto on the staying board is, "before you can make anything better, you must stop making it worse." I have truly embraced the motto and learned that I cannot change my pwBPD's behavior and thoughts, I can only change mine.  This mentality has improved myself and my relationship. 

What are your concerns with cohabitating?

Well mostly, how to get there? We both have the wish to do so, although we practically never seem to get to it. As I have explained in a comment to my other question, kindly read there: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=276394.0

[Stalwart]

Hey Hold glad to see you here:

No need to question your ability with English as a second language you’re very articulate. I’m envious of your ability with languages my friend.

So hold, I’m one of the success stories here and to keep it brief I went from a ten year relationship that had slipped into Dante’s inferno, learned what was wrong and changed the page two years ago. Today we have developed a really good relationship from the carnage it was in. Firstly, I would like to say that it’s really encouraging that she accepts her diagnosis and is taking therapy. I don’t know if you understand how rare in some cases that is and ultimately that’s the first step to improving and giving hope to a relationship. Your one lucky man – as I am.

There are a couple of things apart the very valuable lessons you’ll find posted here that make all the difference. One thing is to clearly understand that you can’t change her but you so have the ability to change yourself to relate better to your spouse. Learning the lessons and how to better validate and communicate is really important. It goes further than that from my experience. I’ve been on a three year mission to learn and my profession is a writer/researcher so you can imagine I’m driven in that direction.

The first thing I had to do was understand what BPD was and how it directly affects my wife. That’s a big challenge but worth every  moment. I find that really learning and developing a real EMPATHY toward my wife’s condition was so absolutely necessary not only to better depict her swings, triggers and emotional instability but to also understand it’s not about me.

The more you can understand about her illness, the better you can understand and move the responsibility from yourself in anyway and place it where it really belongs; in learning how you can improve your closeness, trust, patience, radical understanding and acceptance and ultimately all those things that relate to loving her in a better way.

Apart from learning, reading, and going on sites of people that have BPD to read more and understand more from their perspectives I actually used to carry a list of reasons why a person who suffers from poor self-esteem, or this disorder, feel that way as a result of childhood experiences. You can’t read that and not be able to feel for a person who relates to those experiences to the extent your partner probably does. It was like a pocket wakeup call whenever I needed to hold on to patience, hope and strength.

There are so many really good books out there and I think I’ve read them all and even completed all the workbooks and sessions that go with many of them. I would suggest one really good book: “Loving someone with Borderline Personality Disorder” by Shari Y. Manning. There’s a reason for that apart from being an informative book, if your mate should pick it up it’s very gentle in its descriptions of the disorder.

You’re on a good path my friend and have a start to your relationship with a borderline person that so many of us spent really hard years coming to. If you’re committed my friend I’d go straight down that path and make sure it leads into a direction where you can both find happiness together on. Remember though, that even though she’s high-functioning (which my wife is) you’re the one with the real abilities to mold what that future will be and it takes work, but any relationship does. It really is possible to change that chaos of the roller coaster and smooth it out to be able to walk in peace together.

Best of luck my friend inthe Netherlands from Canada.

[pressonetohold]

Dear Stalwart, EaglesJuju and others,

Changing my perspective on BPD seems to be a key advice around here, I have taken up reading over here, and already found a lot of advice that is very meaningful to me. Understanding the emotions, the reason for the emotions, and recognizing the behavior, not enable-ling it, but do recognize, self protection, understanding, all very hopeful toughs.

Stalwart, indeed, when reading around here, I might consider myself a lucky man, I might add that she was already in therapy when we met, and has had various (failed) relationships before that have served as a learning environment for her. I sometimes feel I owe these men a lot.

Thank you for mentioning the list you keep, I have a list like this, although not in writing yet, and indeed, when I give what has happened to her in her youth some consideration, I can hardly see how she would have come out of it in any decent state of being. That helps me accepting any difficult behavior on her part.

As mentioned before, a large part of getting here has been on her account, having had multiple relationships before, and actively seeking help. What I can take for my own, is that I am blessed with quite a stable character, have patience and empathy. Your saying that I am the one to mold a stable future, both scares me (I'm 'only' 30 years old, hardly ready for such responsibility) and gives me hope and strength, knowing that I might have the means to do so.

So, thank you for sharing your success story, a great reminder that things might work out, however hard it might be sometimes.

Best of luck to you from the NL's

[Stalwart]

Hey Hold:

Seems to me you're off to a great start just having the early awareness you have. Bottom line my friend thiry or not, if it's the road you're comitting youself to it's the one you have to travel. The real trick I found is in defining the want to travel that road.

Most of our spouses had really turmultuous relationship prior to being with us just like you've experienced but in many of our cases it just led to a repeat of the same errors they made in past relationships. I think a lot has to do with the person. I'm sure you see differences in yourself from some of the other choices she made.

It's great that you're learning and I hope one thing for certain, that you've learned to ensure that you care for yourself my friend. Keeping up your strength, health and hope is really vital to being able to cope with irregularities.

I don't have the list electronically where I am, it's at home but I'll PM it to you sometime.

You know my friend in any relationship no one offers us a 'bed of tulips', we have to cultivate and nurture or own - that's the same in any relationship. BPD offers challenges but if they can be met it also offers great rewards. I hope you find the rewards my friend.

Best of luck to you from Ca. BTW your people's tulips are starting to bloom in our capital city of Ottawa. They're more beautiful every year - thanks.