Right Approach to Being Painted Black?

[HurtinNW]

 I'm curious here how others handle this one.

My BPD/NPD boyfriend has the unfortunate habit of painting me black to others. I realize this is how keeps his place as the victim on the triangle. He has some "friends" whom he goes to and badmouths me. He calls this "venting." Then later he tells me all about how so-and-so sympathized with him, and so forth.

Usually this happens after boyfriend has raged and broken up with me. He hangs out with these friends and paints me black. Then when he recycles me they are not part of our life, because after hearing all this they are convinced I am awful. One of these is an older woman who is very dysfunctional and babies him. Another is a bootie call he treated like garbage for ten years... .basically, most of these friends are women with very low self-esteem. I'm sure they have their own reasons for being his sympathizer. My boyfriend is a handsome man, very charming. He has a little boy act that is like catnip for some women. And he has good qualities too... .don't get me wrong.

When we are dating he sees this friends too... .usually without telling me. I am convinced that his conversations with them only reignite his resentments against me, because afterwards he is all worked up about his grievances against me. He has reacted to me getting upset about this as my efforts to 'control' him. Once he even went to one of these sycophants and told her how I was upset, and then reported back to me she said it was red flag about ME  

This is a sensitive issue for me because my BPD mom did the same. I really, really don't like it. I feel hurt he badmouths me, and hurt he can't see how unhealthy that is for a relationship.

So my question is what tool can or should I use around this? Do I practice radical acceptance? Is there a way to set a boundary around it? How have others handled this one?

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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.

[mylifeisgoodnow]

Stand in your truth. You know your side of the relationship. Have we done things in rw action ti their bs? Absolutely.

Consider who he's telling. Be the bigger one and know that even while being constantly put through the ringer... .that you are the stronger one. On all accounts.

we didn't cause the deep wounds. Only trigger them. With intimacy.

I know mine tells people I'm crazy. Blah blah blah. If that's all they have to talk about then we must be pretty important. Lol

Keep your chin up and stand tall

[waverider]

This is the way he is when you break up you definitely have no say in what he does.  There are two ways to go here.

~Acceptance, he is going to do this and you let it wash. That could be very difficult for you. It would for me

~Boundaries, either by not allowing yourself to listen to his reporting as to what he said / she said. Or by not putting up with the overall situation knowing it is likely happening. To enforce this one you would need to be prepared to let the RS go.

If this is his personality it is unlikely you will stop him, at best you may get him to conceal this behavior. Demands and threats will fall on deaf ears, and most likely fuel it.

[Notwendy]

I don't deal with this in a relationship but my mother does this, and it has come down to accepting the fact that, she can say what she wants to anyone.

The only thing that I think could possibly teach her anything about this is to let the natural consequences occur as they do, and to not jump on to this drama triangle. When the person goes to someone else and badmouths their partner or family member, they are in victim mode and the other person is in rescuer mode.

I had to accept that people will either come to their own conclusions about me, or believe her, and the only thing I could do is behave ethically, and know that I am true to my values. What others think of me- I have no control over.

As to natural consequences- this is harmful to a relationship. Your choice is to decide how much of this you are willing to tolerate. You can set a boundary on how much you wish to listen to him tell you about it. You can choose not to react to it, but in the long run, if this causes harm to your relationship, then this is the consequences of his choices, and your choice will be how much you wish to tolerate it.

He may run to someone else to rescue him, but you know well what those dynamics are, and it would be the same thing with them after the catnip of rescuing him wears off. My mother had painted me black for years to her FOO, to the point where we are estranged, but I think over time, they are seeing more of her behaviors than they did before. I don't know what they think of me, or her, but I think the truth is evident over time, and that is more effective than any attempts to stop her from saying things ( as that's impossible).

Letting this take its course may be very difficult for you, because you do know that this can harm relationships- even yours. But this is the natural consequences of badmouthing people. It's his behavior and only he can choose to stop or continue it.

[babyducks]

Hi HurtinNW,

My partner despises my closest surviving family member. Says she is narrow minded, intolerant, judgmental and over uses my caretaking characteristics.  My family member says my partner is high conflict, overly emotional, childishly impulsive and bound to destroy my life.    For a while I was stuck in the middle of all that conflict.   I allowed my people pleasing side to run away with me and wanted everyone to think good of each other and by extension me.   

Eventually  I turned all that off.   I do not have, or tolerate conversations where one gets to take the inventory of the other.   I do talk normally about every day events,  'Oh Family Member, Partner and I saw the Movie the Martian and liked it'.   End conversation.   I don't engage in conversations that have a whiff of this around them.

He has some "friends" whom he goes to and badmouths me. He calls this "venting." Then later he tells me all about how so-and-so sympathized with him, and so forth

.

With my family member it was a straightforward "I appreciate you have concerns and why.   You can show your love and support me by having respectful conversations or we can stop having them."

With my partner it was a more careful worded "You and I see this quite differently. I respect your right to have a different opinion.   I'm not going to try to change your opinion.  Please don't try and change mine.  We can agree to disagree."      That did come with fall out.   

Your situation is a little different.  What occurs to me is that these women's opinions are none of your business.   They are going to think what they like regardless of what you do.   From what you've posted it sounds like you've expressed your concerns to your BF.   I agree with waverider that after the first conversations demands and threats will likely fuel the behavior.   He may not have the emotional maturity to see this as detrimental to the relationship, he may be sharing details of the relationship conflict to reduce the pressure he feels, he may be cementing his position as the victim.  It may be all of the above.   

I think I got into my relationship because I had low self esteem and that idealization phase was like crack cocaine.   When the r/s flipped to being devaluation my self esteem was wounded like I never felt before.   Since coming here and working on my own stuff in therapy I have really struggled to rebuild my damaged self esteem.   So when criticism, unfair or warranted comes my way I don't flip out.   

Stepping back and away from the situation you describe, you hold these women in no particular regard.   Their opinion of you is, essentially worthless to you.   That your BF acts on their encouragement is more problematic.   What I see as an option is rather than try and convince him to see things from your point of view, validate what you can.  He has a right to see who ever he wants and discuss what ever he wants with them.  Don't validate the invalid.   You are not an awful person and your thoughts and emotions are your 'property' not to be shared indiscriminately, if he can't use discretion well than you can.   Hold back anything that you think might be shared with the sycophants.   Do want makes you feel more comfortable.

and like NotWendy said let the natural consequences of badmouthing some one play out in a subtle way for him.

'ducks

[HurtinNW]

Thank you all, for the wise and kind comments.

When we met I did have really low self-esteem. You wouldn't have guessed it from the outside, since I am high functioning, successful, attractive, and so forth. But inside I was a mess. His idealization phase put me over the moon. I felt like I had found my soul mate. And then when he switched to start to devalue me I was crushed. I can vividly remember one of the first times, too, and it was with him enlisting one of these sycophants on his "side." This happened because I had asked him politely to stop saying that was hurtful to me. It was a small thing but he blew it into epic tantrum. This was about six months into the relationship. That's when the devaluing started.

I know for me this is triggering because my mom did the same. In my family of origin my mom played the victim, sometimes the rescuer. I was always cast as the persecutor. I was the persecutor for telling the truth about her pedophile boyfriends. She was either the victim (I was being "mean" to her) or the rescuer (rescuing my siblings from my truth-telling, which she painted as lies). As you can imagine, this was an immensely hurtful history for me, and my boyfriend's behavior has been like deja vu.

I am working on repairing my damaged self esteem, and coming to a healthier place about myself. If nothing else this relationship is sure teaching me a lot about myself.

I think for now I am going to refuse to listen to him report back what these friends say about me... .or what he says they say, . That's a boundary I can enforce. I can validate he does have the right to talk to whomever he wants. I can't change him wanting to play the victim role and be rescued by these women. I can refuse to get sucked into the drama.

The hard part for me is letting go of wanting to control this... .letting the natural consequences play out, especially because one of the natural consequences is damage to our relationship.

Thank you.

[Notwendy]

Hurtin, Real self esteem isn't based on anything external. One could be the best looking most successful person and yet, if one's self esteem is based on anything external, then it is external forces that determine our self esteem. These can waver. My mother based a lot of her sense of self on the achievements of us kids. So, if we did something wonderful, she felt great, if not she didn't. We could see the color drain from her face if she didn't like the idea of saying "my kid did this" to others.

I also have a lot of achievements, but even achieving didn't get me the unconditional approval that I craved from my parents. Achieving was a temporary gain in approval, only lasting as long as the next thing. When kids who make a mistake hear " you are a mistake " or their approval is conditional, they don't have strong inner self esteem.

One thing you can do, and I did, was work on gaining inner self esteem. This is not contingent on me pleasing anyone. It's that I am worth being treated kindly, and I don't need to prove why. I did this through counseling, 12 step groups, a sponsor, and also living according to my ethics and values.


I think I have some good qualities. If someone thinks poorly of me, I can't control that. I have self esteem from being true to myself, not trying to gain approval from others. That's worth working at 

[formflier]

 I do not have, or tolerate conversations where one gets to take the inventory of the other.   

This is where it is at.

The implementation of this may take a bit of trial and error.

For instance, you may find out that when he starts talking about his "bootie call" friend that you may be able to gently remind him that you don't talk about xyz and be able to move on to another subject.

Or

You may get to the place where you know that the mention of "bootie call" friend is a signal to end the conversation at which point you say something like "I"m not able to continue this conversation." and you walk away.

There is a lot of ground in between.

Focus on what you control (hint: your ears).  From that point the advice of letting natural consequences flow is excellent.

FF

[Scarlet Phoenix]

I think for now I am going to refuse to listen to him report back what these friends say about me... .or what he says they say, .

No point in believing what has most likely gone through a dysregulated BPD-filter 

[waverider]

The important thing about having these boundaries is learning to pull away before the barb on the hook has got under your skin or you will not get away damage free.

[HurtinNW]

Yes, I've allowed this to hurt me in the past. Listening to him relate this crap left marks.

I like what ff says about controlling what I can control: my ears!

He has no idea how much it has already damaged the relationship. He is completely oblivious how this behavior has caused many of his more mature friends to pull away from him. The other day he was telling me about a male friend he hasn't seen for over a year. He said he keeps calling him, no answer. Well, I can remember the last time he saw this guy. He told me he went out to dinner with the friend and his wife and told them all about how "difficult" I am. No wonder the guy ran the opposite direction!

He has no clue that mature people don't throw their partners under the bus this way. It's alienating and uncomfortable for people to listen to, and yet he keeps doing it.

My new boundary will be ending the conversation/redirecting the conversation when he wants to relate this behavior. I'm also no longer discussing anything about the women who are his core sycophants, especially the bootie call. If he brings them up I will gently redirect the conversation. Luckily he is easy to redirect. I just ask him about himself.   Sorry, NPD humor! 

[formflier]

  Luckily he is easy to redirect.

This is wonderful!  Focus on this.  Redirect and let the comments slide.

FF