A new interesting behavior

[maxsterling]

Right now her dad and stepmom are both painted black.  She does not want to talk to them at all about anything.  She wants me to be the point of contact between her dad and anything wedding related.  Yet, there are things she wants to say to them regarding the wedding planning (mostly negative stuff).  We have a joint email account as a point of contact for wedding and household stuff. 

So she decided to type up a very long email regarding things she wants her dad and stepmom to do/not do regarding the wedding.  And she wanted to sign it from me.  In other words, it was like she wanted me to say certain things to her parents for her, but she wanted to type it up so that so that exactly what she wanted said was actually said.

I felt weird about this, but eventually decided that was okay as long as she let me review the email first.  Probably a bad idea, but my thinking at the time was 1) her dad and stepmom will obviously know the emails are really from her, 2) she has to learn her own lesson here, so let her do what she wants, then face her own consequences, 3) at least it is some form of communication between her and her father. 

So, she typed up a long-winded email, mostly negative, with some added paragraphs to make it sound more positive.  I did have her cut out a few things, and she sent it.  I do suspect that her dad knows it was really from her.  But then they had a pointless exchange, and I tried to get her to just drop it and let it go.

Anyway - my question here is - why is she doing this?  Why not send the email directly herself from her email account?  Possible explanations:  1) she thinks it would be better received coming from me, 2) she doesn't think I am doing a good job standing up for her and protecting her, 3) she is trying to spare herself some kind of hurt, because any replies would be addressed to me and not her, 4) she is trying to get her dad to quit thinking of me as a good guy.

I will say that after her dad's reply, she does seem to have remorse abut being dishonest here... .

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[MaroonLiquid]

It sounds to me like her wanting you to send the email was about her shame for feeling the way she did and wanted you to be the "bad guy".  Almost like a no-win for you.  You enable her and what she wants to say but can't and her dad and stepmom don't like you.  Thoughts?

[sweetheart]

Sorry max but you're enabling her with this, and yes I agree with you it was a bad idea. The

bottom line here is that by doing this she does not have to face the consequences of her email/behaviour etc.

What I learnt loud and clear from this forum early on was to allow the pwBPD to face the consequences of their actions. It was a massive learning curve for me, I believed that if I protected my h from his actions then this would help him. I dressed it up in all kinds of rationalisations but what it amounted to was not helpful at all. What it did do was allow his behaviours and symptoms to escalate and increased his dependency and disempowered him.


What would be useful for me here if it were me is to not analyse and disssect my SO's behaviour around this but have a good hard look at what is going on for me. Why I am really doing this, not why is she doing this ?

[KateCat]

Good advice from sweetheart.

Definitely don't volunteer to "become her." This is a great learning experience.

[maxsterling]

Yes, a great learning experience for me

My thought at the time was that if I told her "no", that would be preventing her from facing the consequences to an obvious bad idea.  It's not like she as asking me to cheat or break the law.  And really, it's no skin off my back if her dad or stepmom get upset.  My thought was that the plan will backfire, she won't get the response she wanted, and then learn that her choice was a bad idea.  If I simply told her "no", I won't do it", she may never learn why it was a bad idea. 

I guess I was thinking as if I was a third party.  If she asked another friend of hers to do the same thing, I would just let her do it and learn from it.  The end result here, though, it that I learned from it, because all it did was create a complicated mess.   Whether she learns from it or not is really irrelevant to me, because right now I feel uneasy about all this. 

[Notwendy]

It's about making you the bad guy so she doesn't appear to be the bad guy and gets to look good.

She's going to do this, but the main question is are you willing to do this?


My mother does this frequently- asking me to say something to another family member, wanting to talk about another family member, or tells another family member to say something to me. Many times, she has done something that she doesn't want to own up to, so she enlists a family member to call me up to tell me how wonderful she is or what a great thing she did.

She often enlisted my father to tell me hurtful things, and he did it so she would stop pestering him. She would also ask him to punish me for whatever she thought I did. Since I was the black child, it really hurt to receive this from dad, even though I knew she put him up to it. Still, I was his daughter, he was my Daddy, my hero, and it left me wishing that he'd have protected me and stood up for me.

My mom also enlisted my father to do this for her with other people. My parents were honest people- in the legal sense- so no, it wasn't as if dad was asked to break the law or do something bad. But dad was asked to violate his own integrity to make her happy.

[sweetheart]

Max, if what you take away from this is that by acquiescing to her request is that it created a complicated mess and left you feeling uneasy (remember that uneasy feeling ) and it stops you doing it the next time then

[maxsterling]

Interesting that you mentioned that, wendy, because it helps me realize this behavior is not new  .  She often will want me to talk/deal with so and so and instruct me what she wants me to say.  It could be my family members, business people, or her family members.  Part of this (as she admits) is because she can't remain calm and will "be abusive".  But I think part of it is also her wanting to "speak for me" - in other words, she has painted someone black, and wants me to speak for her as some kind of validation that I have painted that person black as well.  A perfect example is the conversations about the wedding caterer and the wedding coordinator.  W wants both of them to be blacker than black.  Yet, she wants me to have the conversations with them, and if I don't have the same feelings that these people are pure evil, she is upset.  I will only go as far as to say that these people were unprofessional in their dealings with us, but not that they were "out to ruin us" as W thinks.  I remember one day a few months ago when she wanted me to call the caterer.  I told her I would, but that I would go into the other room to call because I did not want her talking in my other ear as I was speaking to the caterer.  W was mad about this, and barged in while I was talking, thinking I was not being "aggressive" enough.  So here I was trying to communicate politely with the caterer with W screaming and cursing in the background.

I'm thinking I need some kind of boundary here.  Unfortunately, W doesn't understand boundaries. 

[Notwendy]

I think poor boundaries is part of their deal, but if we don't hold on to our boundaries, it errodes our sense of self and self esteem to the point where we don't know what they are. It became a way of life for my parents as my father would get some peace if he gave into her and he expected us to do it to. Visits with her are hard because, we didn't want to have an unpleasant time during a brief visit, but then we had to be making boundary choices the whole time. One result is that I keep visits brief, structured, and then I leave.

And she tests the boundaries. It gives her a sense of power. When we visited, she knew we were just a bunch of sitting ducks ready to take it since we didn't want to upset our father... so she pushed all the time ordering us around all the time, because she could and the requests were constanly making us feel icky- because- as you said- they were not outright illegal or immoral, but they were violating to our boundaries and sense of integrity.

[GaGrl]

It's another form of manipulation.

[123Phoebe]

Yes, a great learning experience for me

My thought at the time was that if I told her "no", that would be preventing her from facing the consequences to an obvious bad idea.  It's not like she as asking me to cheat or break the law.  And really, it's no skin off my back if her dad or stepmom get upset.  My thought was that the plan will backfire, she won't get the response she wanted, and then learn that her choice was a bad idea.  If I simply told her "no", I won't do it", she may never learn why it was a bad idea.  

I guess I was thinking as if I was a third party.  If she asked another friend of hers to do the same thing, I would just let her do it and learn from it.  The end result here, though, it that I learned from it, because all it did was create a complicated mess.   Whether she learns from it or not is really irrelevant to me, because right now I feel uneasy about all this.

Feeling uneasy about all of that sounds like your true self speaking loud and clear to you

I can understand where you're coming from with your thought process, of wanting her to learn, though... . It just doesn't really work like that, as we're not our SO's parents.  I've had to learn to get in touch with what feels right to me and hopefully before the fact, not after, although some of the best lessons learned have been from my mistakes.  There have been plenty!

And really, it's no skin off my back if her dad or stepmom get upset.

I'm a little confused by this statement and hope you can clarify... .

The way I'm taking it is that even if her dad and stepmom thought the email was from you and got upset by it, it's no concern of yours because they'll obviously know the email was really from her.  

Just sounds like a lot of unnecessary drama with possible hurt feelings, rather than saying, "No, I will have no part of this", to begin with.  Much less complicated.

[Grey Kitty]

Max, one of my favorite sayings about situations like this is the following:

"Nothing good will come of this."

If you speak on her behalf to somebody she's painted black... .debating with her about how nasty the words need to be... .then finding some compromise half-way between full-blown abusive (her inclination) and reasonable communications about the issue at hand (your inclination)... .what good outcome is there?

I don't see one.

I see this behavior as 100% enabling on your part.

I'd recommend that the next time she asks you to "deal with somebody" or "speak to someone" etc... .suggest that it would be better if she did it herself.

And if you *are* willing to get involved... .say that you will be communicating as yourself, not a proxy for her, and she doesn't get to review, suggest wording, write for you, or even hear anything from you about what you said or what response you got.

[Sunfl0wer]

Sounds a bit like the classic boundary issue of: not knowing where she and you begin and end.  She sees you as an extension of herself. Or rather she needs continuous confirmation that you are willing to just be an extension of her.  It makes her feel whole.  You get to perform tasks that are scary to her, she gets to hide behind you as you incur the consequences.

[maxsterling]

Sounds a bit like the classic boundary issue of: not knowing where she and you begin and end.  She sees you as an extension of herself. Or rather she needs continuous confirmation that you are willing to just be an extension of her.  It makes her feel whole.  You get to perform tasks that are scary to her, she gets to hide behind you as you incur the consequences.

Yes.  Common issue in my r/s that goes well beyond this.  Her thought is that we are married, two become one, we should do everything together, share everything, etc.  **Correction, her thoughts are that I should do everything with her, and I should share everything with her.  That because I feel she doesn't always want the opposite in sharing everything with me.  My feelings about healthy relationships are two individuals coming together for a common interest.  She is not whole without me, yet I am whole without her.  She does not understand that.  In her mind, before I met her, I was miserable, lonely, and had a poor relationship with my family. That wasn't true at all, but it was true for her. 

[MaroonLiquid]

**Correction, her thoughts are that I should do everything with her, and I should share everything with her. 

The classic case of what's hers is hers and what's mine is hers!     My wife is the same way.  When we first got married, I took over the finances for our family.  My wife called me the "finance Nazi" as i was on top of them and would ask about receipts and such.  I started to walk on eggshells with her about them when I got backlash at the very beginning because I was "nagging her".     She wanted to have nightly conversations about where we stood, and at first, I was good about it.  I started to get backlash when asking for a receipts (she said I "beraded" her as soon as she walked in the door, yet I told her to just text me what she was spending... .She wouldn't), would say we don't have the funds for that right now, she began to spend money we didn't have without talking to me (and then blamed me  ), I then quit and just tried to "make the finances work".  She would get pissed when I would say we didn't have the money for something then she would "remind" me how much she made, as if my money didn't count, and say how could I not keep better track.  I would show her what was spent, 70-80% of it by her (not necessarily frivolous) and then all hell would break loose.  A perfect example was the beginning of school last year when it cost us $3500 for the kids to start school (school laptop insurance for 3 kids, clothes, supplies, class fees, etc)  I mean, how dare I show her that she spends money and have proof to back it up.     Then she woud dysregulate and go spend more money on the kids to appease them and "pull them to her side", and then that was more that I had to account for that we didn't have.  Wow, just typing that brings back memories... .

 

My feelings about healthy relationships are two individuals coming together for a common interest.  She is not whole without me, yet I am whole without her.  She does not understand that.  In her mind, before I met her, I was miserable, lonely, and had a poor relationship with my family. That wasn't true at all, but it was true for her. 

My wife is the same way.  She eventually thought I needed her to survive and told me so multiple times, and yet, she is the hot mess right now without me.  She thought I was like her ex husband who "needed her", couldn't make it without her and used her to get what I wanted.  She now sees that she has trouble making it without me and I think that terrifies her.  Another reason I have stepped back.  It eventually shows my wife the reality of our situation.