BPDFamily.com

When my baby and I are together, things are usually pretty great.  Not perfect, we fight, but generally loving and supportive.

However, this isn't the picture she paints to her friends and her therapist.  She will tell half a story, semi-true, but with key details omitted or shifted to create a scewed image.  Her therapist talked to my therapist, and he said she has a completely different idea of who I am than he does.  Her friends think I'm controlling and abusive, and honestly, if I knew only what they do, I would think the same.

I feel like when she's with me, she is with me, but when she is with them, she forgets what our relationship is really like, and allows them to influence her opinion tremendously -and they hear only the bad, spun in the worst possible way. 

I'd say whatever, but it got to the point where she actually moved out guerilla style, a la battered women, under pressure from her friends (and moved back two days later, endlessly apologetic).

We are about to start seeing a DBT specialist:  can object constancy be taught?  Any strategies or advice? 

Thanks all!

I'm sure this is something that she can work on in therapy, but its not really something you can control at all. 

It might help if you got to know her friends a little more, let them see you interact together as a couple.  I know my wife has portrayed me in a pretty negative light to some of her friends, but I trust that they know me, and her, pretty well and can see the reality for themselves. 

Sorry you are going through this though.  It's a tough situation.

Yeah, I've suggested hanging out with her friends, even the ones who seem most amenable, but she won't do it.  First she said it was a good idea, but the dates never materialised, then it "wasn't a good idea".

I think she's afraid of world's colliding now, of each side receiving conflicting information.

Hi DogMan75,


From your non-disordered perspective, *overall* "things are usually pretty great."  It might be helpful for you to keep in mind that from her disordered "splitting" perspective (i.e., painting white/black, idealization/devaluation) she *alternates* between feeling a loving and supportive relationship, and its opposite.


So what she is expressing to her friends and therapist are those devaluating feelings she has towards you which are true (from her perspective) and indeed half the story, but not at the time that she's telling them.  At the time that she's telling them, she is devaluing you and when she devalues you that is all that she can recall/remember.  And I suppose when she's idealizing you, then she would have little reason to complain about you to her therapist and friends; which tells you how she is using her therapist and friends: as a source of validation and support when she is devaluing you.

In a way this is a "distortion campaign."  But make no mistake about it, her perspective is distorted.


When she is with you, she is mostly (except for the fighting) idealizing you (for now) and thus remembering only the good things.  And when she is away from you, she is mostly devaluing you and remembering only the bad things.  I don't think she is "allowing" her therapist and friends to "influence" her opinion; when she devalues you, it is her opinion that you are bad for her.  I think that as her loved one, and as someone not having these "splitting" behaviors, you are inclined to see the idealization as the "real" her and the devaluation as the "sick" her or at least not her.  And I would like to remind you, that both aspects belong to her.


The pressure she feels to leave you is not primarily "under pressure from her friends" but also because of her own disordered feelings and perhaps belief that if she doesn't leave you first, that you will abandon her (i.e., fear of abandonment).


I consider this a red flag if she refuses to allow you to mingle with her friends.


If she's afraid of each side receiving "conflicting information" then she's really afraid that each side will be aware of how distorted her perspective is; and perhaps she herself is unwilling to accept that her perspective is distorted.  

Best wishes, Schwing

Oh my how I can relate to this post... .

Poor you. It sucks. My bf has done very similar things to me. There are one group of friends (have met the other two groups now eventually) that I am still being kept seperate from. I KNOW this is due to the things he has said about me to them. They must have a terrible picture of me as he has gone to them when he is disregulated about our r/s and the picture he paints of me is not a pretty one when in this state. I will be known to them as the controlling, jealous, manipulative g/f - no wonder he doesnt want me to meet them! I agree with the last poster that this meeting would cause him to have to look at himself and his distortions of reality and that would be too hard for him. I too was told I would meet these people, I asked etc, but the dates also never materialised.

I have now "let go" as much as possible with regards to meeting this set of friends. I will see what happens. Its not good I agree. The unfairness of it is what bugged me - now I almost feel like I dont want to meet them anyway. The DBT will really help I am sure. Good luck 

hello, dogman75, and welcome to world.

yet another post that ive lifed. im close friends with alot of her family and she knows she cant lie to them about me so she would go for the old(hes a nice guy i dont want to hurt him) line when she wants to run off.

with her friends and conuslers its always same story you told same with her friends that dont really know me.

she told me at one point (i know what they want to hear and thats what i tell them) thats playing the victom not looking for help.

we would also get alone well took good care of each other had good life for one month at a time then cycle would turn and im the bigest jerk that ever lived.

No, I get it.  I know it's her feeding them bad data, but she seems to not realize the effects of that bad data, and when they then tell her I'm jealous, manipulative and controlling, she agrees.  She is also very much a pleaser in this scenario (to everyone but me), and doesn't want to flatly oppose anyone, at all, and constantly acquiesces to pressure to act (on conclusions drawn from bad data).


I think she even consciously knows. 


Verbatim the terms used to describe me by her friends and therapist.  The first time in my life I've ever been accused of any of them.  It sucks.  I run into them and I see it in their eyes, but I can't say anything.  It's the worst.


But again, I don't know enough about the effects of DBT:  can it actually instill a sense of object constancy?  I know it can help modulate the splitting.

DBT helps them develop a new set of tools to begin to modulate or temper their emotions.

My understanding of why they lack object constancy in the first place is because of interrupted/arrested emotional development.  And the causes of that interrupted/arrested emotional development is an unresolved and possibly repressed early childhood trauma (of an abandonment, betrayal or denigration nature).  

It's like that early trauma (like a PTSD memory) keeps getting in the way of their emotional development.  And they are stuck at never having formed a stable, nurturing parent-child relationship (where they are the child) and internalizing that relationship.  In a sense they need to be re-parented.  But I don't see how it would be realistic or healthy for another adult to fill in the role as the parent to allow for that bonding/internalization.  If anything they need to learn to be their own parent (a healthy kind, and not an abandoning/betraying/denigrating kind).  Moreover, they need to get past that early trauma in the first place.  And that can't even begin to be approached until they get really really good at using their new tools.

Instilling a sense of object constancy is kind of far down the list of recovery.  

I would put developing the emotional wherewithal to look into and not be overwhelmed by looking into your early childhood trauma ahead of that.