BPDFamily.com

I've been a member for a year now and, to be honest, haven't been as active as I should.  Mainly, this has been because I have been so worried that my wife might happen to find this place and put the proverbial 2 and 2 together.  I have read all the lessons and I understand everything pretty well, but, with this latest blowout, I am having questions pop in my mind continuously.  I also don't really care anymore if she happens to find that I am posting here.  Here are a couple of questions that I really am wondering about:

Q) Why does she constantly make me feel extremely guilty about things, but if I ever try to express my unhappiness, she says I am 'guilting' her.  She is extremely nasty about this.  Is this 'projection', fear of rejection, agression/hostility or a combination?

Q)  I mentioned in another post that my wife recently had weight-loss surgery.  Her only two active impulsivity/self-harming behaviors have been binge spending and binge eating.  Now that one of those has been forcibly taken away, is there a danger that she might add a new one?  I might mention that her binge spending is a clear boundary that I have also established.  She still does it, but not like she used to.  Could her renewed focus on sexuality be a bad omen of things to come?

I know I am posting a lot, and I hope nobody gets upset because I am.  I just have so many emotions, questions, and fears running through my head and heart right now that I keep coming back here.

Don't feel bad about posting a lot. I mean, I sure don't have all the answers for you, but if posting your questions helps you to just get your thoughts out there, then keep going!

Regarding your first question, it does sound like projection to me. I know that feelings of guilt are supposed to be a big part of BPD, and projection is a way of escaping the pain of uncomfortable emotions. If I understand it correctly. I think a large part of it is that pwBPD feel ALL emotions so strongly that the motivation behind a lot of their actions is a need to escape the pain and/or overwhelming nature of those emotions.

As for your second question, well, you could torture yourself a lot about what she might do, but you can't predict the future. All you can do is take it as it comes. If you put too much energy into fretting over all the things that might happen, you'll just wind up exhausted and no better able to handle whatever eventually does happen.

A couple more:

Q)  My 45 year old wife seems to be stuck as a teenager.  She listens to the new music (never anything from our teenage years), plays video games on her phone, texts and Facebooks constantly.  :)o others see this kind of behavior in their middle aged BPD partners?

Q)  One of her worst triggers (and unfortunately one I'm also seeing in my youngest stepson) is when she looks sad, upset, or mad and I ask her 'what's wrong?'  She gets really angry and defensive when I'm only asking because I care.  Why is this?

So nobody has noticed either of these tendencies in their partners?  I was really hoping to hear insight into why she does this.

Hi Downandin,

Sorry to hear you're having a difficult time and going through this.

I think for the first couple questions you're asking others to guess about or predict what your wife may do in the future and I don't think anyone can really answer this.

As far as the FB and video games, my pwBPD doesn't get involved with these.  It's more like emotional immaturity and selfishness in dealing with others feelings and wants relationships.

I don't know how to answer about the guilt, I've seen similar things mentioned here before.  Projection is more like them assigning behaviors to you they are doing themselves in a sense.  If they are lying, accusing you of doing so, or having an affair, etc and accusing you of being the one doing so.  They "project" the bad feelings or guilt they feel about themselves onto another person in order to relieve their own uncomfortable feelings.  

There is a lot of information on the site to read, which helps and it can still be confusing and sometimes it helps to re-read more than once.

Hi downandin

It's okay that you post a lot. It's through posting that I've learned the most

Someone with BPD isn't good with critisism towards themself. With black-and-white-100%-or-nothing-thinking, being criticised means being all bad and that's too much to bear. There's hypersensitivity that comes into play. And when she's lashing out criticizing you, it's a product of needing to project bad feelings onto someone else. Can you try to self validate that what you're doing (that she's making you feel guilty about) is good enough? In the end, she can't make you feel anything. Doesn't mean it's fun to have someone say you're wrong all the time. We need to detach from it and be strong on our own.

I'm not all that familiar with addictions, but from what I've read here, once one outlet is no longer an option, a person with addictions finds another. It may not take the sexual route, though.   I don't think anyone can really say.

As for being like a teenager, my partner don't have teenager interests. Is this new behaviour for your wife?

And the "what's wrong"... .Yeah, that usually goes down like a lead balloon. I think it has to do with being hypersensitive. It doesn't matter that you ask out of concern. She feels attacked. You asking somehow means that she's doing something wrong. And since feeling attacked means (for her) that you are in fact attacking (feelings = facts), she gets mad. I avoid it or the most part and go about my day.