resisting the urge to soothe them - right or wrong?

[PeppermintTea]

Hi all,

Been a while since i posted here and see many different names and still a few old ones I recognize.

Anyway, dBPDh has been making progress in therapy and we are getting along better. However he still has his disregulations and is having one now. His car (4x4) broke down quite badly about 2 weeks ago and he wants to mend it himself which he probably has the skills to do but he could do with taking some advice  (he won't because he has a huge issue with taking advice from anyone).

So this situation is pressing his buttons and he is getting angry, drill seargeant like with me and the girls again. So I spoke with him about it and he acknowledged that his anger isn't about us but is being directed at us and it isn't fair etc. So a few more days pass and I let him carry on sorting out the car and researching what to do etc etc. Today he is trying to get the kids ready for school snapping, barking commands etc. I told him straight in front of the girls (because that validates them)  that a) his behaviour is unacceptable towards me and them, b)their behaviour is not 'bad' as he is trying to make it out to be c) it is his perception and projection that is off the mark and that is not any of our faults but he needs to change it. I then got the kids ready myself with no fuss at all. They were quite happy to do the things that needed doing and we left him to it downstairs. Then we left the house and I shouted goodbye as we left.

I know that he is now sulking at home. A big part of me wants to text him but I haven't yet because a) I don't want to get into it with him while I'm at work (and if he rang me back 'to chat' that would be what happens next) and b) I feel he needs to be able to calm himself down and sort out his feelings without me.

I would have liked him to have had a think about it and send me a text saying 'sorry for being a drill seargeant this morning' or something like that then we could have laughed about it. But I've not heard from him at all... .

Am I being cold or unkind here? I keep reaching for the phone but then my gut tells me to leave it.

Thoughts?

PT

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[Notwendy]

I'm going to side with letting him stew.

This is an issue that has come up for us in T as well as in co-dependency groups. How to be supportive without "managing someone's feelings".

Naturally, we soothe small children, but eventually everyone needs to also learn to soothe themselves. Managing someone's feelings is being co-dependent. I learned to do this at a very young age as we all WOE around our mother with BPD to try to keep peace in the house.

I think this is one reason my H was attracted to me- because I was so good at tuning into people's feelings and soothing them and he liked that I did this for him. It wasn't something I even was aware of- I was raised like this. However, the downside was that it kept my H from the emotional growth he needed to learn to manage his own.

Sometimes it's emotional discomfort that causes us to grow. This doesn't mean that we deliberately hurt someone's feelings, but we need to let them own their own feelings.  

Taking care of someone's feelings can even be invalidating for them in a sense. Since learning this, I have tried to even step back with my own kids now that they are older. If they tell me they are upset about something, (depending on the situation- sometimes kids just need a hug) , instead of comforting them to soothe the feelings, I listen sympathetically and assure them that their feelings are OK, and may be telling them something. I encourage them to listen to their feelings as they are important clues to whether someone is crossing their boundaries.

You won't feel cold or unkind if you consider that you are helping your H learn to manage his own feelings.

[Grey Kitty]

  PT! Been a while... .

Listen to your gut. Don't call him or sooth him. Nothing good will come of that.

What you did was simple boundary enforcement--you protected your kids (and self) from his crappy attitude and bad coping mechanism. Exactly what you should do for your kids (and self).



You don't do boundary enforcement for HIM. You don't need him to agree with it or like it. In fact you can expect him not to like it or agree with it, at least at the time. Otherwise it wouldn't be needed!

You don't need to convince him that you are RIGHT about this kind of thing. You need to convince him (with actions) that you are NOT GOING TO PUT UP WITH IT.


I don't think there is a good path to soothing him over this on your part. Trying to soften your stance on boundary enforcement is a horrible idea. Trying to validate that he feels like a victim because of it is a nearly impossible needle to thread.

Save your energy for good opportunities to validate how he's feeling on other things--I'm sure you can find plenty when you look. It is a lot easier to be sincere when you aren't feeling ornery about how he's behaving.

[PeppermintTea]

Thank you both. I feel validated 

Grey Kitty   it has been a while! I feel a little bad that I been posting replies for a while... .It's nice to be back here (although I wish I didn't have to (iykwim)

I'm in the UK it's 14:30 here and no contact from dBPDh all day (I left the house at 8am). Normally we might have had one or two texts to say hi / hope your day is ok etc.

So ok he's sulking. I'm glad I didn't try to soothe him as he totally needs to learn how to sort these emotions out himself. It's so frustrating because he's been so much better and much nicer to be around but as soon as something happens like the car breaking down he just reverts to standard BPD behaviour. I suppose the next step is to look at alternative ways of coping with stress... .but he isn't open to that just yet... .and not sure whether he ever will be.

I'm really glad the girls saw me enforcing that boundary this morning. I hope they will grow up to know that  they deserve to be treated with respect and that they have healthy boundaries. One of my biggest fears is that they are damaged by this... .I hope that I can be a good role model and help mitigate against this.

Thanks again for replying

PT

[Wrongturn1]

My suggestion is only soothe them as much as you would soothe a mentally healthy person.  This is something I have been thinking about lately and have been making some changes. 

My uBPDw stresses and obsesses about a number of topics - for instance, my uBPDw becomes very agitated/angry/scared if someone does not respond to her email or text message right away.  She begins to imagine that the person is angry with her and is bad-mouthing her to other people for instance. 

In the past, she would mention her anger/fear to me about this type of situation multiple times per day (she would keep coming back to it, say 4, 5, or 6 times throughout the course of a day or evening) and expect me to reassure/soothe her each time.  Eventually it came to a point where I could see that my soothing was not actually helping her and that it was preventing her from developing her own self-soothing skills. 

So eventually I made up my mind that I would only soothe her one time per upset event, and I explained this to her - that when she became agitated/worried about something like this, I would reassure her exactly once and then remind her that we had discussed it already if she brought it up again.  [This is the same way I would treat a mentally healthy person.]  I further explained to her that by this, I would be giving her the gift of learning to reassure herself. 

She did not like this, but I did not back down, and I have seen some real (and quick) improvements in her ability to self-soothe.  Several times, I have even seen her start to look for repeated reassurance from me over a trivial item but then stop herself immediately and not carry it further.  She still does not seem to like it and even launched an extinction burst-type tirade against me over it once (and I did not back down), but I think in time she will appreciate the new emotional skills she is gaining.

[Sadsue]

Hi, I totally understand how you feel, my husband is often angry with me because of other stresses that are nothing to do with me.  In my opinion, and I don't always get it right, but when I try to soothe him before he's ready, it makes him worse, invalidates him somehow!

Now I try and leave him be, to fix his own stresses, then when he comes to me, saying he is stressed or just generally down on himself, that's when I try and soothe him.  This can be a few days or even a couple of weeks later.  Yes I get frustrated, yes I feel angry that he pushes me away, yes I want to tell him he's not being fair to me but experience has shown this has the opposite affect.

If I was you I would keep a low profile, do my own thing, be approachable but not approach him and let him realise his feelings. 

Sometimes after a few days I get a simple text saying "sorry for been me". This is generally the beginning of the end of his episode.

Good luck

Sue

[Cat Familiar]

My suggestion is only soothe them as much as you would soothe a mentally healthy person.  This is something I have been thinking about lately and have been making some changes. 

My uBPDw stresses and obsesses about a number of topics - for instance, my uBPDw becomes very agitated/angry/scared if someone does not respond to her email or text message right away.  She begins to imagine that the person is angry with her and is bad-mouthing her to other people for instance. 

In the past, she would mention her anger/fear to me about this type of situation multiple times per day (she would keep coming back to it, say 4, 5, or 6 times throughout the course of a day or evening) and expect me to reassure/soothe her each time.  Eventually it came to a point where I could see that my soothing was not actually helping her and that it was preventing her from developing her own self-soothing skills. 

So eventually I made up my mind that I would only soothe her one time per upset event, and I explained this to her - that when she became agitated/worried about something like this, I would reassure her exactly once and then remind her that we had discussed it already if she brought it up again.  [This is the same way I would treat a mentally healthy person.]  I further explained to her that by this, I would be giving her the gift of learning to reassure herself. 

She did not like this, but I did not back down, and I have seen some real (and quick) improvements in her ability to self-soothe.  Several times, I have even seen her start to look for repeated reassurance from me over a trivial item but then stop herself immediately and not carry it further.  She still does not seem to like it and even launched an extinction burst-type tirade against me over it once (and I did not back down), but I think in time she will appreciate the new emotional skills she is gaining.

This is really good for me to hear. My H gets really upset if phone calls to professional offices aren't returned almost immediately. (He claims in his professional life that he always returned phone calls promptly. Somehow I don't believe this.) I'm not going to commiserate with him any more about this. Thank you.

[Wrongturn1]

This is really good for me to hear. My H gets really upset if phone calls to professional offices aren't returned almost immediately. (He claims in his professional life that he always returned phone calls promptly. Somehow I don't believe this.) I'm not going to commiserate with him any more about this. Thank you.

Glad you found it helpful!  This approach has made my life easier.

[PeppermintTea]

Quick update... .

He's still v moody but has been much better with the girls. He has been out walking with the dog for a few hours and then he cooked dinner for all of us. So he is trying to find ways to self soothe I think... .

I feel as though he is trying but I'm maintaining my no soothing rule. I'm doing my own stuff eg yoga and reading now the kids are in bed. He is watching TV not really talking... .if he wants to talk I am here but I'm not wading in to fix it all for him... .

Feels good actually.

Thank you all for your input it helped lots.

PT xx

[Grey Kitty]

  Awesome work today!

I'm struggling with some of the same thing you are--breaking a habit like trying to sooth him when he's upset is really HARD and UNCOMFORTABLE for you. It is absolutely the right thing to do. It will get easier as you get used to it. And he will probably get better at self-soothing as you give him more chances to practice it.

And yes, once you get over the hump and do it, it feels really good.

[Olinda]

Needed to read this, thanks