Has anyone tried this approach before

[Husband2014]

I used to JADE like crazy and made things worse for 4 years until I discovered my wife had BPD (doc confirmed it). I learned about validation and the LEAP method and definitely worked much better but still I found myself getting dragged into the nasty conversation where you absolutely can’t win.

Recently I started just not responding at all. As in total silence when my wife acts out and gets nasty. I would literally not say a word back and it’s kinda working.

Has anyone tried this before or has any insights if it’s productive or am I risking a nuclear explosion down the road?

Only like 5% of women on the planet have BPD and I happened to be married to one. Some luck

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[Husband2014]

I’ll also say that my knees buckle as I’m giving her the silent answer because I have no idea which way things will go.

[thankful person]

Hi husband 2014,
I have found much success with a similar strategy which I think of as low level or lazy validation. So when my wife is shouting, shrieking or just banging on about whatever, then instead of JADEing I will make eye contact and just say repeatedly, “mmm” or “mmm hmm”. To me it feels somewhat defiant because obviously I’m having my own thoughts which contain more choice words and you’d think that would irritate her that I’ve learned to replace it with “mmm”. But by not JADEing and simply acknowledging that my wife has spoken, (she doesn’t exactly allow time for me to repeat things back in my own words etc), it somehow makes her feel “heard”. I started this habit once I knew I wasn’t supposed to JADE but didn’t have a clue what to replace it with, and it’s made a big difference. I certainly wouldn’t totally ignore my wife as I think it would make her worse.

[Couscous]

PwPBP must learn to self-soothe. It does nobody, including the pwBPD, any good to rant and rave and lash out at others. Sure, they will feel better after they have discharged their anger, but it is very destructive to the relationship and is bad habit that should not be reinforced.

The best thing to do is to disengage from the conversation in a calm, sympathetic manner, by saying something like, “Hey babe, I’m sorry that you’re upset but I’m not willing to listen any longer. I’m going to go out for a walk/into the other room for 20 minutes and then I’ll be back.” Then you come back and if they start ranting again, you rinse and repeat. Eventually they will learn that acting out = disconnection and learn to reign in their anger.

As far as why you ended up marrying a pwBPD, perhaps this piece about the repetition compulsion will help answer that question: https://seattlecommunitycare.com/freuds-masterpiece-the-repetition-compulsion/