How do you do Radical Acceptance?

[ArleighBurke]

Background: My wife of 15yrs is uBPD. We have 3 kids (6-13). I found out about BPD about 3 yrs ago. I left her about 2 months ago - but came back 1 week later to try to keep working on it.

I've had a really crap week. I started writing all the details about all th fights and conversations, but ultimately I don't think it matters. She's been feeling off because I think she's worried about me leaving again. Nothing I can say satisfies her (I have said "I feel generally positive about the relationship. We have a lot to work on still, but I like where we are and where we're heading". She has told me she wants me to say "I'll stay". Black and white.)

I resolved to try radical acceptance. This phrase keeps going through my head whenever we are talking. We had a miscommunication yesterday that she *could* have easily fixed 4 times - but she didnt - she just let it play out and got pissed at the end - but i know that's not acceptance. Her being annoyed and not wanting to talk to fix it is just her. But how do I accept this? She is narky and pissed with me. She feels like I don't love her or treat her well. Do I just empathise and keep living? I can't really even do that. Although my words empathise, and I don't try to logic it out or change her, I don't believe my words at all. And she knows it - shes told me my words are just words with no emotin behind them.

I can accept her views. I can accept that she doesn't make logical sense a lot of the time (something that was Ok yesterday is not OK today - or she has double standards) - i can accept that. I can accept she feels strongly about things that are so minor. But how do I accept her telling *ME* that my motivations are bad. How do I accept her saying that she feels distant from me bacuse *i* don't compliment her enough, or talk enough, or whatever - even though I *do* those things. And we're not talking different love languages - I know hers and I do things on her language. But she discounts them, or questions my motivations, or they simply don't make her feel different so that must be wrong.

I only see 2 solutions:

1) I ramp up everything and try to satisfy her desire for "love" - pour everything into trying to make her feel good. I beleive this is destined to fail because she is a bottomless pit. And her old/triggered feeligns will always win over whatever I do, so there is no chance this can make her feel good. But this *will* make *me* feel crap - which is where I was years ago - trying so hard to fix the unfixable.

2) Radically accept. Which looks like what? How do I empathasise that she feels I don't do enough for her? I can say "it must be horrible to feel unloved by your husband" etc but then she's hanging out for me to do more - to fix how she feels.  And when she doesn't feel close to me - it must be my fault - so she keeps that distance and we go on living emotioanlly apart. How does that work?

I came back to try to accept her and to try to make small changes to allow us to stay together. I would prefer to stay with her than leave, but I do not want to stay in a marraige where I am constantly made out to be the bad guy, constantly having to defend myself (even just internally) that i am a good person, and constanly having to squash that yearning to have a loving equal partner.

What does radical acceptance look like?

(Interestingly she asked me why I couldn't commit to staying - why couldn't I say I'll be with her until we're 60 - why did i need to leave that option open? I didn't answer her, but did think about it. Unfortunately my answer was: becuase I hate this relationship. I live in hope that it can be different - better - but i need to have an option for when I've had enough - otherwise I'll feel trapped.)

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PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[waverider]

You accept that your validations dont always soothe her, and ultimately thats not your fault, you cant change that,you did your bit. If things escalate to conflict that starts to get to you then you move to boundaries.

Radical acceptance is not an alternative to boundaries. It may create a breather before you need to implements them.

Its like this, you can oil a squeaky wheel, which will reduce the chance of it squeaking (analogy to validation), but ultimately it may be too worn to stop squeaking, but not yet broken so you just accept thats the way it is and leave it be rather than pouring gallons of oil on it (radical acceptance), if the wheel starts wobbling and threatening to cause damage you stop it (thats boundaries).

Radical acceptance stops you wasting your energy and potentially making things worse in an attempt to avoid the inevitable.

[flowerpath]

At first, I thought radical acceptance was a one-time thing.  Then I realized it's an everyday thing.

[ArleighBurke]

So radical acceptance is just acceptance? Accepting that she is the way she is, that I can validate which may make things slightly better, but really life isn't going change. There will always be lots of conflict. It will always be one sided. I will probably always feel alone.

I guess my real question is still: can I accept this life? Can I accept not having the things that I feel are important?

[adventurer]

So radical acceptance is just acceptance? Accepting that she is the way she is, that I can validate which may make things slightly better, but really life isn't going change. There will always be lots of conflict. It will always be one sided. I will probably always feel alone.

Some people have reported using the communication tools and lessons on this site and recommended books will help reduce conflict.  I've found that feeling alone is not a result of a relationship or another person, it is something I have to work on with just myself, just me and my own emotions.  Therapy might help you with this, too.

I guess my real question is still: can I accept this life? Can I accept not having the things that I feel are important?

This is good - once you accept her for how she is and don't try to change her, you can start asking yourself the important questions like these.  Keep thinking about this - either way it's a tough decision and you just have to figure out what's right for you and what you value.

In my thinking, this is what radical acceptance is all about and how it can benefit us.

[waverider]

So radical acceptance is just acceptance? Accepting that she is the way she is, that I can validate which may make things slightly better, but really life isn't going change. There will always be lots of conflict. It will always be one sided. I will probably always feel alone.

I guess my real question is still: can I accept this life? Can I accept not having the things that I feel are important?

Life can change, but YOU cant change everything you dont like about her. Not fighting it can stop fueling it, and your reaction to it, for a start. Changing your reaction can help her to evolve rather than consolidating the same old futile cycles.

I guess my real question is still: can I accept this life? Can I accept not having the things that I feel are important?

That is easier to answer once you have fully reached a place where acceptance along with all the other aspects have been reached. In short when the relationship has evolved as far as it can, rather than assuming it can't. What you are also questioning is your need for validation, again your need for this will depend on how you evolve.

It is a difficult chicken and egg thing, relationships stand the best chance of survival with full commitment, but the decision to fully commit is dependent on a projected sense of worthiness. Does this take a a level of realistic expectations or simple delusion? Who knows, probably a bit of both

[Stalwart]

Hey WK:

Radical acceptance to me was a huge introspective mindset to come to. I suppose for everyone and every situation the actual definition and practice of radical acceptance will differ to some degree.

It’s a real challenge if you consider radical acceptance to be, “the acceptance of your situation or reality for exactly what it is, and that’s OK”. To most of us deep down it isn’t OK. Just like you’ve stated, regardless of your want to accept - you still want better of your life and for your life. That’s also only natural to all of us and that’s were radical acceptance of your ‘lot’ in life is difficult to master and put into place in a positive and actually an affirmative way.

For all the talk of people with BPD being emotionally immature many still have an intuition that is highly developed. They know when someone isn’t being honest, being condescending, being allusive and being so negative about their own self-image and particularly worth, I think sometimes feel it more than others who don’t have this affliction. They look for the dissatisfaction in others simply because “they deserve it.” Hence the need for endless reassurance. When that reassurance isn’t sincere it no longer serves as assurance but as definition to their worst fears of being worthless and undeserving.

I found that radical acceptance of ‘the situation’ at hand wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted more, for myself and for my wife in a relationship than that. I think the real important thing is that it also has to be about wanting better for them. For every bit we’ve suffered as a result of our struggles in our relationships they’ve probably struggled ten-fold in their attempts at regulating a better life for themselves against such harsh odds.

Question isn’t as much about us as it has to be about them. Is that what we would want for someone in our lives we love and care about? I know how that love and that care can become strained, but maybe it’s about having to rethink radical acceptance from a different view-point and going back to that place in the past when we could love and could care.

Taking the time to totally learn how she thinks and particularly why she thinks the way she does was paramount to changing everything. Understanding and developing an empathy for her thinking and accepting that, being able to radically accept her world, her thinking, her way made a world of difference. Empathy isn’t sympathy, sympathy would actually be impossible for most of us to even come near rationalizing. Without the effort to totally immerse yourself into the darkness of their fears and feelings and feel them yourself there is no way of understanding the gravity of their desperation or how to begin to be honest when you talk to a person with BPD about their feelings and meeting their needs.

It’s just been my experience that in meeting her needs in a more meaningful and sincere way its freed her demons to be more focused on meeting our needs of a relationship and trusting in it better.

Without that trust and developing that trust, is there a relationship she can hope to change or thrive in?

[Modron]

My 2 cents: Radical acceptance is an opportunity for you to work on you: to make yourself happy.

Your BPD is never going to know, or care to know, what makes you happy. They can't. The disorder makes it impossible. Besides, no one but you can make you happy. It's just that someone who's not disordered may not be so completely out of tune with your feelings.

The best you can hope for being in a situation controlled by BPD is 1) accept that BPD is really screwed up and 2) there are some tools that help it be better from day to day. Use validation. If it works, great. You've saved hours of emotional disregulation. If it doesn't work step away. Don't JADE. Don't give in to FOG. All great tools.

But, you aren't going to change anything, anyway. Ultimately, it's up to the person, including the person with BPD to make choices to be less disregulated, to contribute something positive. Frankly, in my observation, the disorder is so pervasive and intractable *if* the BPD knows s/he has a disorder and wants to work on it, enormous amounts of their time and energy are going into that: figuring out who they are, figuring out how to cope, learning skills; being in opposition to you, because to some extent knowing who they aren't is the way to figure out who they are. They may even get to the point of doing a really good job of assuming a role, or character, that acts in ways that seem not-BPD, but you begin to sense that there is still no connection. It's all on the surface. It's all a portrayal of what the BPD has gathered is the way someone is supposed to act to be "normal". You still don't really figure in.

To me, you do radical acceptance by working on yourself and learning to be happy because of you. You define your own interests, your own values, your own limits, excesses, fears.You don't let BPD control the situation. Then, when you're better, you decide to stay or leave. We didn't wind up with BPDs by accident. My brother and I were raised by a BPDMom, and I have no idea what our dad's diagnosis was - something - he thought he walked on water. My brother and I both married people with BPD. I waited years before I settled into a long term relationship, certain that being older and farther away in time from my upbringing would help me have a more fulfilling relationship. No so much, as it turns out.

Honestly, I'm tired of validating and not JADEing and staying out of the FOG just to get through the day without turmoil. (Although using the tools does make things better.) But, the most radical thing about me accepting where I am is that I have to do what makes me happy and break my focus on the hard, bad, heavy, BPD stuff. And, in the absence of that stuff, I don't have much more than failed hobbies, because, honestly, I'm looking to someone outside of myself to complete me, and that's never going to happen. I fear the void, that space I have to cross over to get out of the BPD crazy, more than I hate the conflict. So, I have to be brave and carve out my own path, my own interests, and diversions, to find my own gifts and figure out what I have to offer that's not just being supply for my spouse. And then I face a new fear about how far apart we'll grow as I radically change. I don't know if she'll change, too. I know I can't make her. At the end of me being happy with me I don't know if we'll even stay together. In the meantime, there's no better place to be than radical acceptance.

[tryingsome]

I see radical acceptance as a giant metaphor, at least this helps me get grounded.

The idea is a terminally ill patient and their last wish is to have cake everyday.

So you bring them cake. And you make the cake because you want to.

You give them the cake and in turn that cake becomes theirs.

There will be days when the cake does not taste good. Or when you should have bought the cake from the favorite store.

Or it was the wrong flavor.

They even will throw the cake at you in disgust.

And there will be days when they take the cake and share with an ex-lover. Never offering you a slice.

You should not take offense and you should not apologize.

It is their cake, and once you give it to them the control is out of your hands. You made the cake because you wanted to.

If they go p*ssing in their own cake that is not your responsibility.

This is how I view radical acceptance. You give what you want to give without the notion of strings attached.

You don't make apologies on situations that are not your fault. You do things for you and accept how that may look to the pwBPD.

You accept the pwBPD viewpoint without being consumed by it.


Now a normal relationship there is an expectation that goods deeds are returned in kind and appreciated.

That you share life and work together, knowing each person has their best interest.