How can I help my partner control his outbursts?

[Depression = 72% of members]

I am so glad that I have come across this forum and I really hope that some people here can help me with my boyfriend, who has BPD as I am really struggling at the moment.

So, in order to explain, I am currently living with my partner kind of by default. I live in Spain and am in the process of moving back to the UK to be with him and we have found a lovely flat that we are going to be moving into. His current place is really small, and I mean small, but for short periods, this is usually fine. However, I came over to see him for 2 weeks for his birthday and we then got put on lockdown with all flights to Spain suspended, so I was unable to return. He also agreed that it was safer for me to stay put with him and that we would cope, even in such a small space. Since then, things have been an absolute nightmare with many things triggering an outburst. He seems to also have quite severe OCD, I am not sure if this is part of the BPD or not, but if something isn't done the exact way that he wants it to be done, he completely flies of the handle and tells me what a horrible and disrespectful person that I am.  If something isn't put back in it's place, regardless of whether I am still using it or about to use it, I am disrespectful of his home.  When I have asked him if he can not speak to me in such a horrible way, I have been told that in his home he can speak to people however he wants to. He has told me that I have no common sense if I do things in a different way to him and has told me that I am stupid and thick for the way in which I do certain things.

At times, he has spent hours shouting and screaming at me to the point where I am crying and begging him to stop. He just laughs at this as if me feeling hurt and upset is funny and he tells me that I can't handle anything and am just a snowflake or over emotional.

Over the last few weeks, he has had issues with his back with a trapped nerve and has been in terrible pain. I have been running around to make sure he has everything he needs. I work full time on my own online business and this can often be very demanding. Then while still working and trying to keep to client deadlines, I am checking in on him, taking him drinks, going to the shops to get food and essentials, cooking dinner, washing up and generally trying to do as much around the house that I possibly can. I am not super women, there are only a certain amount of hours in the day, so sometimes, where I have had a particularly busy work day, I don't get around to doing everything that needs to be done as I am simply exhausted. So, I leave it to the next day in order to have some rest and try to do what I can again the following day.

To my boyfriend, I am lazy and I have no respect for his home. I get shouted at and told that my work isn't important as it doesn't benefit him.  I have tried to explain to him that constantly picking faults with everything that I do is damaging to me, and that I do have to focus on my business because it's my source of income and quite frankly, it's important to me. However, my feelings don't seem to matter to him as they are not things that he is feeling himself, so to him, they are irrelevant and he laughs it off.

Now, when I have explained all of this to other people, they have immediately jumped to the conclusion that he is a narcissist. This is absolutely not the case.  I have been around some very severe narcissists in my life, and his behaviour is very different. The reason I say that is because my partner has this sense of complete self loathing. He pushes me and everyone else away because he believes that he is not worthy to have anything good in his life as he is a horrible and unworthy person, and that we will just get fed up with him and leave him, so he pushes us away even more by constantly moaning and shouting, saying horrible and nasty things that I know deep down he doesn't truly believe.

What I am wanting to try to find out is, how can I get through to him and help him to start noticing the positive things that people do for him, rather than focusing on the negative things that cause him irritation?  I have tried talking to him, but he just goes back to the negative and twists it all back round onto me as if he has convinced himself that I am trying to purposely annoy him or cause him harm, when in actual fact, I am absolutely run off my feet trying to keep on top of everything.  How can I help him to stop getting extremely nasty when he has one of these outbursts and how can I help him to recognise the emotional torment that he is putting me through and that my feelings matter as well? 

I have tried setting boundaries, but he shrugs them off as in his mind, his feelings are being disregarded, which isn't the case at all!  He is having DBT therapy and I have actually started to see the same therapist every 2 weeks to help my own emotional torment from my partner and to help the therapist to understand more about what my boyfriend is doing, so that she can help implement further treatment in his session with her.  This will all take time and I just hope he sticks with it! In the meantime though, while his therapy is starting to take shape, is there anything I can do that will help him to control his outbursts and go a bit easier on me? It really would be wonderful to just have him say something nice to me for once, instead of just tormenting emotionally or trying to find anything he possibly can to have a go at me about?

Thank you in advance for any advice that you can give, it really is very appreciated and I really hope to find something that could help this situation before I completely break.

[Cjais]

I am so glad that I have come across this forum and I really hope that some people here can help me with my boyfriend, who has BPD as I am really struggling at the moment.

So, in order to explain, I am currently living with my partner kind of by default. I live in Spain and am in the process of moving back to the UK to be with him and we have found a lovely flat that we are going to be moving into. His current place is really small, and I mean small, but for short periods, this is usually fine. However, I came over to see him for 2 weeks for his birthday and we then got put on lockdown with all flights to Spain suspended, so I was unable to return. He also agreed that it was safer for me to stay put with him and that we would cope, even in such a small space. Since then, things have been an absolute nightmare with many things triggering an outburst. He seems to also have quite severe OCD, I am not sure if this is part of the BPD or not, but if something isn't done the exact way that he wants it to be done, he completely flies of the handle and tells me what a horrible and disrespectful person that I am.  If something isn't put back in it's place, regardless of whether I am still using it or about to use it, I am disrespectful of his home.  When I have asked him if he can not speak to me in such a horrible way, I have been told that in his home he can speak to people however he wants to. He has told me that I have no common sense if I do things in a different way to him and has told me that I am stupid and thick for the way in which I do certain things.

At times, he has spent hours shouting and screaming at me to the point where I am crying and begging him to stop. He just laughs at this as if me feeling hurt and upset is funny and he tells me that I can't handle anything and am just a snowflake or over emotional.

Over the last few weeks, he has had issues with his back with a trapped nerve and has been in terrible pain. I have been running around to make sure he has everything he needs. I work full time on my own online business and this can often be very demanding. Then while still working and trying to keep to client deadlines, I am checking in on him, taking him drinks, going to the shops to get food and essentials, cooking dinner, washing up and generally trying to do as much around the house that I possibly can. I am not super women, there are only a certain amount of hours in the day, so sometimes, where I have had a particularly busy work day, I don't get around to doing everything that needs to be done as I am simply exhausted. So, I leave it to the next day in order to have some rest and try to do what I can again the following day.

To my boyfriend, I am lazy and I have no respect for his home. I get shouted at and told that my work isn't important as it doesn't benefit him.  I have tried to explain to him that constantly picking faults with everything that I do is damaging to me, and that I do have to focus on my business because it's my source of income and quite frankly, it's important to me. However, my feelings don't seem to matter to him as they are not things that he is feeling himself, so to him, they are irrelevant and he laughs it off.

Now, when I have explained all of this to other people, they have immediately jumped to the conclusion that he is a narcissist. This is absolutely not the case.  I have been around some very severe narcissists in my life, and his behaviour is very different. The reason I say that is because my partner has this sense of complete self loathing. He pushes me and everyone else away because he believes that he is not worthy to have anything good in his life as he is a horrible and unworthy person, and that we will just get fed up with him and leave him, so he pushes us away even more by constantly moaning and shouting, saying horrible and nasty things that I know deep down he doesn't truly believe.

What I am wanting to try to find out is, how can I get through to him and help him to start noticing the positive things that people do for him, rather than focusing on the negative things that cause him irritation?  I have tried talking to him, but he just goes back to the negative and twists it all back round onto me as if he has convinced himself that I am trying to purposely annoy him or cause him harm, when in actual fact, I am absolutely run off my feet trying to keep on top of everything.  How can I help him to stop getting extremely nasty when he has one of these outbursts and how can I help him to recognise the emotional torment that he is putting me through and that my feelings matter as well? 

I have tried setting boundaries, but he shrugs them off as in his mind, his feelings are being disregarded, which isn't the case at all!  He is having DBT therapy and I have actually started to see the same therapist every 2 weeks to help my own emotional torment from my partner and to help the therapist to understand more about what my boyfriend is doing, so that she can help implement further treatment in his session with her.  This will all take time and I just hope he sticks with it! In the meantime though, while his therapy is starting to take shape, is there anything I can do that will help him to control his outbursts and go a bit easier on me? It really would be wonderful to just have him say something nice to me for once, instead of just tormenting emotionally or trying to find anything he possibly can to have a go at me about?

Thank you in advance for any advice that you can give, it really is very appreciated and I really hope to find something that could help this situation before I completely break.

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[Cjais]

I ended up having an emergency appointment with mine and my partners' therapist last night as I was just in a complete emotional mess, and still am.  She clearly said to me that basically, what he is doing is deflecting how he feels about himself onto me, so he's emotionally torturing me because he wants to blame someone for the way that he feels about himself, when it not me that's caused any of it. She said that one thing that she's been trying to teach him is that actions have consequences, and this is something that he doesn't get. I am an absolute emotional wreck at the moment after enduring months of being told that I don't do anything right, being shouted and screamed at if I don't do something when he expects it to be done, that I only think of myself and my work and show him no respect and being told that I am stupid and have no common sense if I do something in a different way to what he does.  All of these are his actions and he consequence is that I am at the point of having an emotional breakdown. What can I do to help him release what he is doing?  BPD really is evil and he's basically unable to see reality and is consumed with thoughts, assumptions and paranoia in his own head.

I'm now scared that he is going to cancel his appointment with his therapist which is set for tomorrow. This is something that he so desperately needs and I fear that she is the only person who will able to get through to him and help him to see things a bit more rationally. 

Do you find that many people with BPD are very intelligent, so they think they really do know everything there is to know about everything, when in actually fact, they have high intelligence, but absolutely no emotional intelligence?

[Melissinde]

Hello Cjais,

It sounds like you've been going through a few very tough months with your boyfriend... I can imagine how nerve wrecking it must be for you, I've been going through something similar with my own boyfriend a few months ago, when he would have regular outbursts.
You have done so much to try and make his life easier, that's very impressive... You must be feeling emotionally exhausted at the moment, don't you? It's good that you went to reach out, you're not alone having to go through this 

I feel you when you say you're scared your bf won't show up at his appointment: mine also has a tendency to skip the appointment if he is having an episode and the day he has an appointment I always feel pressured not to do anything that could trigger him.

Do you find that many people with BPD are very intelligent, so they think they really do know everything there is to know about everything, when in actually fact, they have high intelligence, but absolutely no emotional intelligence?

My bf can have high emotional intelligence but ONLY when he is in a good place in his mind. When he is calm he can be full of empathy and understanding and that's great. But indeed, when he starts feeling emotionally overwhelmed (and he doesn't need a lot to get to that point), he suddenly have the emotional maturity of a child, he is going to be focus on his own needs only and be very demanding about them, and all of a sudden he will be completely closed to my reality and what I am going through because only his suffering matter. He can't handle mine.

Thank you in advance for any advice that you can give, it really is very appreciated and I really hope to find something that could help this situation before I completely break.

What helps me when my bf has an outburst and criticizes me, makes me responsible for his problems and say everything is my fault, is to remind myself that his words are just the tragic expression of his own personal turmoil and have nothing to do with you. For your own emotional safety, I think it's important that you learn not to take personally all the things he says during a crisis... It's easier said than done, I don't always succeed myself but over the months I have made great progress.
Once, when he was calm, my bf told me not to believe anything he says during a crisis. I'm trying to apply that.
It doesn't mean I believe I'm perfect and can't do anything wrong, but if something I do doesn't suit him there is always an opportunity to talk about it with calm and respect outside of crisis. Nothing you do could justify verbal abuse. Nothing whatsoever.

Do you feel like you have set boundaries with him when he has those outburst? How do you react, what do you say and he screams at you or criticizes you? Does he have moments when he calms down and it's possible to have a healthy talk?

[HappyKJ]

Wow, I can relate to your words all too well. You hit the nail on the head when you said it is his low self-worth that causes him to act this way. My uBPD boyfriend frequently puts himself down and asks me when I am going to leave him. Thankfully this behavior has greatly decreased over the years, though it still flares up in stressful situations.

As Melissinde says, it's easier said than done, but absolutely don't take things personally. Take time to recalibrate and engage in plenty of self-care. It is good that both of you are seeing therapists. Mine refuses. Have you had any resolution since you posted this?