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I feel very numb tonight. The past 36 hours have been excruciating. my SO wBPD is not trusting of me- rightly so- because she is very strict with time especially when I come home from work. In the past I have lied to her or given excuses. She recently learned that I lied and we had a difficult conversation about doing things differently. That she knows I sometimes lie to escape her rage. The past month I promised myself to re pattern and respect her request more. Yesterday I slipped and got off work late and wasn't able to let her know until I was on the road. I did not lie though. She immediately got angry and concluded that I haven't changed. I did not do a good job of validating because I honestly was thinking -I've done well 99% of the time give me a break. The thing with BPD I learned is that there are no breaks.she accused me of disrespecting her by bringing out "trophies" of when I've done well but that it doesn't matter one bit. We weng into the evening in the usual cycle- rage then silence then breakthrough.

I was so sad this morning about my invalidating behavior as well as her inappropriate words. We talked it out in the morning and she was so calm and she apologized and we need to discuss our communication in conflict more. I proceeded to have a calmer day.

I am a musician on the side and we had plans for the evening to go to a place where I would perform. I had mentioned a few weeks earlier that some coworkers of mine were interested in coming. We got to the venue and my colleagues are there. My SO spends about 45 mins laughing and joking. She then steps outside for a long time I go find her and she has her rage eyes. Saying she had no idea my coworkers were coming that I did not communicate and completely disrespected her by not telling her what the evening plans were. I admit that I could have said something about them on the drive over but it didn't occur to me and it wasn't intentional. I basically ruined the night and she was polite to everyone but the drive home began the rage words. I didn't know what else to say except admit where I went wrong and genuinely apologized. She kept going on and on... .how I could possibly do this to her. She proceeded use bullying language and mocking me. She also had a lot to drink too now that I think about it. She is now passed out on the couch with her dinner uneaten and I am alone in bed. I don't know what tomorrow will bring... .I'm bone tired of how these past 2 days have been going.

I recently took my BPD wife on vacation to an area with warm weather.   She spent 3 days mocking and belittling me with sarcasm because I am unwilling to move there permanently.   On day 4 I packed my bag and told her to do the same unless she could make other travel plans - I told her I had had enough sarcasm.   She knew I was serious.   She dropped it quickly.

I don't know if it will work every time, but I will call BS on her when she acts up in this manner again.   

Its not clinical advice, but in my opinion, tell your SO to drop it - your issue was resolved in the past.    She doesn't have a license to kill because of an event from the past.    Essentially, don't tolerate her behavior.

Oh my rise_up, this is so many shades of wrong.

You have sold yourself out completely in a futile attempt to appease your wife.

Bullying and abuse is wrong, and it needs a boundary. It is not for you to look for reasons to believe it was your fault. It will get worse if she is given the room to act like this.

Would you like to share what lies you where originally guilty of that causes such a strong guilt feeling. This needs to be dealt with before you will be able to move on and gain the self respect that you seem to be struggling with.

Fibs and avoidance out of fear of the reactions of a pwBPD are extremely common and understandable. You will need to be  along way down the path of handling this before you get this right, and even then there is likely to be some "omissions'

You have rights regardless of anything you may have done in the past. Until you can assert your rights you will get no respect from your wife. Despite the bullying tendencies of many pwBPD, they do not respect anyone who caves to their bullying.

Take a look at this article Emotional Blackmail: Fear, Obligation and Guilt (FOG) (https://bpdfamily.com/content/emotional-blackmail-fear-obligation-and-guilt-fog)

Rise_up: Thanks for taking the time to write that out.


Trophies. Yeah. Sounds like JADEing on your part, from what I've learned about it so far. But it's so wildly difficult not to say "But... .but... .I've done this, and this, and this, and this... ." Trying to say something rational to the irrational; adding logic to an illogical moment.

One more thing: This, and every other thread from every other member sounds like what I'm going through personally. It's like you all know me and are adding some anecdotes on purpose, just so I'll think "Wow, they're going through the same thing as me."

This is true, but be careful about taking generalizations as true in all cases everyone is different. It can be too easy to read stereotype behavior as guaranteed to happen in your case... We can subconsciously reinforce the "bad' and over look the the better aspects.

eg we feel like iour partner is doing somewthging, then read someone else say they had this too and hence ascribe it as a fact, when it may not be. Up the degree of difficulty if you like.

Thanks Waverider. I try to keep that perspective. Right now, it's just such a relief knowing all this is real, that we're not flying solo, and this isn't just some bad dream.

(I won't hijack any more threads today.)

Rise: I suggest you don't beat yourself up too much over some BPD-induced lies (lots of us have been there, myself included); also, don't buy into her narrative that you are a terrible person. 

Your SO's rages sound abusive, and you are not required to accept abuse - you can choose to implement a boundary of "I will not accept abuse", and then you enforce the boundary by leaving the situation when she becomes abusive.  You do not need her permission to do that. 

Finally, even if you had never lied, I doubt your BPD SO would actually trust you.  They do not seem to be capable of trust - so keep in mind that her trust level is not necessarily correlated to either 1) your behavior, or 2) reality.

Rise, It's horrible when your spouse is verbally abusive and mocks and bullys you.    I've experienced this with all the pwBPDs I've known: mother, first husband, current husband. Fortunately my current spouse is mostly kind, but when he dysregulates, he can say awful things. So my current strategy has been to head off the dysregulations by using the tools or absent myself if they're occurring. Something I've become aware of lately is noticing when the dysregulations are starting, thanks to participating in these boards. Previously before I was aware of the subtle cues, he could often be winding up for a big blowup and I didn't even notice until it was too late.

You definitely don't want to become a punching bag. PwBPD really lose respect for people they can abuse and will do it with more frequency, just because they can. That was the case with my first husband; he would even yell at me in front of his own mother, who was terribly embarrassed and completely sympathetic to me.

I had the same issue with my first husband about him strictly monitoring my time. I was required to call him when I was leaving work and if I had a conversation with a co-worker that delayed me, I had to check in again. This is not adult/adult behavior--it's child/parent. Not cool.

I used to be there, afraid to admit I stopped for a coffee whilst I was out doing the shopping... fast forward 2 years to now, where my hobby is kayak fishing, I look at the forecast for tomorrow, it looks good so I will be off before dawn and back in the evening. I don't have any commitments so this is what I want to do, and so it is what I will do. No amount of " I don't want to be alone all day" statements will change that. This has now become the new precedent and so causes little drama... Though there were a lot of dramas getting to this stage.

You life is yours don't waste it by association.

Point being you can't create an omelette without cracking a few eggs...

I had a similar problem but reversed. Years back, we made a deal to sit down with the kids for dinner.  Kids wanted to eat at 5, H naturally wants to eat at 8, but since the kids couldn't make it that long without eating (can we say meltdown?) compromise dinner was at 6:30. H started arriving late randomly without notice. We just went ahead and ate without him. When he'd get home, I might say "Busy day?" and he'd get upset and say I was trying to control him (nope, just making conversation). There was always food for him, and I'd always sit with him (though I had already eaten, because I can't sleep if I eat too late), but he continually complained I was trying to control him and keep him from eating with the kids because I wouldn't change the schedule that we had previously agreed on. (nope just feeding the kids).

Sometimes, you just have to know that you did nothing wrong and can't change how your pwBPD is going to react.

This is good advice. I'm finding the more I give in to bullying, the worse it gets.

X3 on this!  I too have learned the hard way that until you set some boundaries, and act on them, the bullying and abuse will only get worse.  Sad, but so very true.