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The more I think about everything the more I start to question my own Perception of reality.

I'm now asking myself another question. What if she doesn't have any PD and deep down she just hates me. That answers a lot of questions also. If she is perfectly normal but just to afraid to actually leave. Stay at home mom, no back up college degrees. I guess this could be true of everything also. Spend 20 years with the same person and even if you hate them, it would be difficult to leave.

This is where my head and heart are at today.

I expect we've all had these thoughts, especially earlier on. My considered opinion is : no, they're not just a PO'ed hating person who sometimes pretends to be nice for their own benefit. They really do perceive two distinct versions of reality with two different sets of feelings about things, including you, and two sets of memories. The nice loving one is in many ways the "true" one since the dark side is driven by anxiety, fear of abandonment, emotional pain. Take those things away and they're as nice as can be.

One way to test this is to see if she can even remember saying the hurtful things once she's back to normal. A hating-but-playing-nice person would typically acknowledge the things they've said but say they were speaking in hasty anger, and so on. The BPD person often plain out can't remember saying the things they said or feeling the feelings they had when raging. Note that I'm not talking about recall of events in the distant past -- this is about not remembering what they said last night. Curiously however, they will usually remember perfectly what you said in response to their rants, and will take offence from your words of anger long after they've forgotten what led to your speaking them.

I have been told that she remembers and meant everything she said but not while she was in Sith mode. I don't think I've every really brought it up when she in a good mood. I never wanted to risk cause her to flip back.

I think she has told me before that she said something out of anger. Never any apology for it, usually a justification for why it was said. Other times she will argue that she never said something. Up until this past year, I thought I had early stage Alzheimer's, for real. I could remember what I said but never her version.

 

"Normal" people don't act this way for this long... .

The "PD" aspect means the behavior is resistant to change... .normal personalities will adapt... .people with PD's don't.

Very simplistic explanation... .I'm not a medical guy... .that is my translation.

Thoughts?

FF

That's the one I cling to. If she asked me to clean the bedroom, I'm not got to get mad at her for, let's see, it's been 4 weeks. It's all the second guessing I've adopted over the last 20 years. What was once so clear in my head is now just foggy and a blur.

Hi Hmcbart,  

I can understand how you could feel this way.  I have thought this many times about my bf.  Then I look at the behavior from an objective viewpoint and it makes sense.

I suffer from DPD (dependent personality disorder). My maladaptive behavior has only changed through therapy.  My pattern of behavior was stable and unchanged  and it affected all aspects of my life.  For example, one of the diagnostic criteria for DPD is "feeling uncomfortable being alone because of the fear of an inability to take care of ones self." I still have issues with being alone. I get really bad anxiety when I have to be alone.  The anxiety is still there, but I have learned to cope with it better.  

Many times when you are living with a PD person, you begin to adapt to the behavior, as if is normative.  As FF said, non-disordered people do not act this way.  

What specific behavior are you questioning?

The main behavior I'm questioning is how she now brings up divorce. Or at least makes comments about it. It's usually something like "if you think I'm such a horrible person then why are we still married?" I have started to tell her I don't like when she makes these comments and if she continues I will leave the room.

She won't come out and say the actual words. In her mind as long as she doesn't say the word divorce, she can claim that I misunderstood her. This is not confined to divorce either. If there is anything she wants to say but doesn't want to accept responsibility for it, she does this.

Same goes for body language. I can ask her on a date (Valentine's is a good example) and she will have her arms crossed and using a not to pleasant tone, she says "fine we can go to lunch".

As I found out, that's how she justifies her self when I tell her we never go on date nights. She will say that she always tells me yes but I'm the one who changed my mind and doesn't want to do it. Same goes for sex.

 

What you are describing is classic PD behavior.

Whether or not she is diagnosable... .is a different issue.

She is talking about what you think... .not what she thinks... .she is putting responsibility on the r/s on you... .not her... .etc etc etc.

You are not wrong to investigate this avenue... .I considered this option as well.

Oh by the way... .if she talks divorce... .I recommend you come up with a standard line... .and walk out of room.

If there is a classic way she brings this up... .write that out for us... .as close to word for word as you can... .and we can help... .

FF

The PD behavior is constant inconsistencey which swings around the same median. In the longer term it doesn't go anywhere. Hate is an extension of resentment, is consistent, and is not situational based. PD is often triggered by issues that have nothing to do with you and not always about you.

Yes... .the only consistent thing in my life is inconsistency.  :)

Isn't it good to have things you can count on in your life... .?   

FF

I think it was Mother Teresa who said, "God only give you things he knows you can handle. Some days I just wish he had a little less faith in me."

And Mother Teresa I am not.  /

This seems like it has to do with low self-esteem.  Does she have problems with low self-esteem?

She definitely has problems with low self esteem. Of course she blames me for all of it.

I can see that being one of the underlying problems of her constantly bringing up divorce.

Her blaming you for her self-esteem is projection. 

Do you think that she uses the threat of divorce as a way for you to validate her or prove to her that she is worthy?

Not sure I follow your question EaglesJuju.

Other than me telling her that it's not what I want and I don't like it when she talks like that. I'm not sure what I'm validating at that point. Does she want me to validate that she's a horrible person or that I think she's a horrible person? I don't know.

It's usually after she has gotten me triggered and my brain to mouth filter gets stuck wide open. Sometimes I can go for hours without being triggered and other times I've gone days and weeks. Eventually she wears me down. I say something mean and at that point I have validated that I think she is a horrible person. That's usually when she hits me with the divorce talk.

I was meaning that through the threat that she wants you to tell her that she is not a horrible person etc, similar to fishing for compliments. My bf has done this quite a few times. He has threatened breaking up for the sole purpose of me telling him that he is wonderful, amazing, etc.


I understand how you can get worn down. When I feel like this I preemptively take a bit of needed space. Have you tried something like this before?

Unfortunately fishing for compliments during this phase is a waste of time. Anything I say that's positive is flipped around to bring the point home. Usually something like, "how can you say that you love me and you think I'm a great mother after you just said that I was a horrible person".

So yah, compliments only invalidate her feelings that she is a horrible person. That's the trap that she sets. If I give her a compliment, I'm just springing the trap. It's a fun game, kind of like monopoly, the game is over when everyone is mad.


I have started to try and preemptivly take some space but it's not as easy as it sounds. That conversation ends with her complaining that I don't want to spend any time with "m"y two boys. Or how she never gets any time to herself because she has to make sure that "my" two boys get to school and back, have clean clothes, etc. of course they are her boys when she threatens to leave.

I try to escape the situation when possible and when not, I try to maintain composure as long as I can.

pwBPD say they want a divorce all the time. The first couple of times it happened I was devastated -- of course, but also highly confused as to how we got from "you're so wonderful" to "it's not working I want a divorce" in 30 minutes. uBPDw sometimes goes all out and selects the place she's going to rent when she moves out, the new school for the kids, and so on. The key thing to watch though is : does she involve any other person in this divorce shenanigans? A person really contemplating divorce will talk to their best friend, a lawyer, social worker, they'll consider MC, and so on. The BPD person in my life does not do those things -- the divorce talk is all in a bubble between me and her.

As far as how to deal with these situations. I've found the best approach is to mentally translate what they are saying into something like "I'm angry and upset right now but I'll calm down in a while". Respond to that statement, not the divorce talk. Then state clearly that you want to be with her and do not want a divorce (if you make the mistake of not doing that then sometime later the whole episode will be remembered as the time YOU wanted a divorce!).

Good luck.

Sadly she did talk to her friend about it back in December. But that was when I was the one who brought up divorce. I told her that if she wasn't going to try to meet my emotional needs the way I have been doing for her for year then we may need to get a divorce.

Translation to her friends, he wants to divorce me because I won't have sex with him twice a month.

Reality is, she agreed to that in MC and couldn't keep her promis that it was important to her as well. It ended up at 4 times total for a 4 month period. Which was also 4 times for the year.

I was a bit frustrated at that point. I had also not found this site and started piecing together the realty of what had been going on with her since we met. I'm a slow learner.

I've got a lot of things I've said that get brought up during her anger. I can't change the past. I've apologized and tried to move on but it never really goes away.