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Can anyone help with validating this statement that my husband keeps making?

"I'm afraid for my personal safety. You said you wanted to take a knife to the counsellor and stick pins in her eyes."

It keeps getting in the way while w are trying to work things out. Unfortunately I did say those things but only in a heated row about a very incompetent counsellor. Defence simply doesn't work of course... .but I find myself lost for words and unable to defuse things... .

Hi,

I wonder if you could validate the feeling behind this in a "general" way. Something like

" You sound concerned - it must not be a nice feeling to be worried about your own safety. Would you like to explain more how you feel?"

I try to really bypass the thing they are pinning their feelings on (ie here it's your "pins in eyes" statement) and keep it as neutral as possible so as not to get sidetracked. If I can get my guy to open up about the feelings then the tension visably starts to dissapate from him. I can never validate him in a rage though - he just wont hear me.

My validation skills need a bit of brushing up though as I have been slipping using them lately - shame as they do work.

Thanks connect. I'm in despair at the moment. I feel it's my fault I said those horrid things but he decided to take them literally and uses them against me now.

Hello,

As many kind people on here have told me before - don't beat yourself up, you're only human.  

You are already doing great by working through this BPD! It can be hard on us and so we have to forgive ourselves for lashing out sometimes. I remember once (in the early stages) screaming at my bf "You've ruined my life!"

I practised some validation myself last night. A work thing came up which was starting a downward spiral with my bf. I used validation to get to the feelings behind his upset. He didnt get a contract he had been promised and was angry saying he wanted to give up on everything and people were all liars. He started to try to bring our r/s into it too. I said to him:

"I think many people would feel the same way as you. Do you feel dissapointed in the client over this? It must be frustrating when you have worked so hard"

That started him talking instead of raging. Then I gave him some more general validation over his success in his business as a back up. So what could have been a rage was dissipated. I was a bit rusty which shows how we have to keep practising. On here people often say to practise it in everyday life when meeting anyone to keep our hand in.

How long ago did you make the statement that he keeps referring to? I am hoping that someone else will jump on this thread with some ideas too. In some instances I have had to accept that my bf will keep going back to something "bad" I have said over again. When dysregulated he seems to start up from where he left off last time even if we have talked things through. Its as though the dysregulated side of him has no access to the information he has received when he is regulated.

Applying logic to a person who is disregulated doesnt seem to get through - its always about their feelings. Another good bit of advice is to go in with curiousity over what the feelings are behind his statement. Like a scientist  lol

Hi connect

It was all part of a huge blow up a few weeks ago. He told me he'd been seeing a counsellor for five sessions because he'd felt unhappy about a previous session we attended together 5 years go where he'd felt railroaded into accepting personal responsibility for his behaviour and resented being sent of for grief counselling (over his dead sister). This has come hurtling back to haunt him and so he wanted to go and find out for himself what truth there was in this. Goodness knows what he and the new counsellor talked about but he seems to have come away deciding that our relationship was to blame. He therefore didn't love me anymore and wanted to separate.

Instead of reacting calmly I went into fight/flight, directed my anger towards this incompetent counsellor (who I hadn't known anything about) hence the comment about sticking pins etc! Silly I know but any normal person would have recognised it as being a sign of my own grief and frustration. I think he's now latched onto this one statement  and redirected it towards himself to give him an excuse for his own current monster mood and hatred towards me.