BPDFamily.com

Over the past year, uBPDh has threatened to leave the home/ the marriage several times.  This time, he really did... .

He has been dysregulated for a whole day.  Then yesterday, when he woke up, he started arguing again, and me, being not in the best mental state, asked for us to both drop the matter (I don't even know what the matter is anymore) for a little while and then pick it up at a time when we are calmer (i.e. time out), but he just ignored the repeated requests, so I argued a bit more with him (a little bit of JADEing).

Then I went to the hospital to see my dad, and although H claimed that he wanted to talk to my dad, when he called me, he actually just kept on scolding me and blaming me.   I asked him more than once, "Would you like to first speak to dad/ maybe we could talk about this later, you wanted to speak to dad/ so are you speaking to him or not?"  and he still rambled on.  I just said "OK, so you're calling to blame me and not speak to dad.  Right now my focus is him and I'm ending this conversation."  He then (over text) accused me of "blocking his communication with my dad", to which I replied, "You had your chances (a phrase he looves to use).  You chose to use the phone conversation to verbally abuse me when you claim to want to speak to him.  It was your choice and now you're not speaking to him." 

The argument went on via text for a bit more, with him again listing everything he did for me and me retaliating (sigh, I “reacted”, not “responded”, got caught up in his details).  Again repeatedly ask for time out, not respected, and I “scolded” him for not even respecting the request for a time out.  Anyway… in the end, he said he will go to his mum’s place until Sunday.  And that was it.  When I went back home last night no sign of him.  I have 2 very contradictory feelings now:

1.   Feeling of relief, as he finally got to stop (when in the middle of a disagreement), which gives us both some time to calm down.  I suppose it is better than coming home fighting for days on end.

2.   Feeling of sadness and anxiety, that he would do such a dramatic thing just to get his feelings expressed.  And also I fear for Sunday, whether he would come back calmer, or come back even angrier because of all the emotions bottled up.

One thing stands out to me that I've experienced - you were focused on someone else - your dad at this time.  I've noticed that when I have a personal crisis or I'm helping someone else with their crisis, my BPDbf acts out more.

I had this while my father was dying and a few days after he passed.  Two days before my dad's death (he had cancer, it was very sudden and we didn't know what was going on, he passed within a week of the diagnosis) my ex had a meltdown because his meds hadn't arrived yet and he was texting me constantly FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT.  I mailed him a check for $200 to buy the meds.  They arrived the next day.  (I had been supporting him for four full years.)  Four days after my dad's death, I was AIMing with my ex, we had been discussing his moving out (he had been violent toward me twice).  He flipped--screamed at me at 1:00 phone call, hung up on me. I called his therapist who calmed him down, found out my ex had been cutting himself. 

There had been many things leading up to that, but I don't think I ever really was able to get past how he behaved when I was dealing with the most painful epsiode in my life.  He knew how close I was to my Dad.  It took me another year and a half to leave, but I think that was the final real straw.  I couldn't stay with someone who would attack me while I was in emotional torment.  He just couldn't stand to have my attention elsewhere.