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Well, the good news is that the lessons and tools do work, with practice, practice, and then a bit more practice.  My uBPDw's rages tend to be much shorter, and I tend to get much less worked up over them than I used to.

To everyone working on improving your situation with your pwBPD: keep at it, it can get better.  And huge thanks to many of you who have helped me through this.

Last night my wife blew up at me over a suggestion I made.  I detached, and it blew over.

Tonight she blew up again over something I had not done by the time she expected me to.  I gave a very short response that included "sorry, I'll do it now, which of these do you need first."  She said it doesn't matter because she can't start at all until I'm done.  That wasn't true, but I ignored her response.  A few minutes later I was done, and I offered her some help.  She said she didn't need any.  I said ok.

Then she started to dole out her nasty rhetoric.  I walked away.  She kept yelling accusations, statements, and questions that I knew I shouldn't answer.  Then she kept begging for an answer to one of them.  All this about half a room away from our D3.  Despite my better judgement, I asked her if she really wants an answer, is open to listening to my answer, and wants to discuss this, because otherwise we should just talk later.  She said yes, please.  I answered.  She blew up even further.  As if I hadn't known it before, I had now gone too far.

I do give her credit though.  Soon after this she said "I need to get out of here!"  I really thought that was going to be the beginning of another one of her cycles of threatening to leave, possibly taking our D3 with her.  I chose to completely ignore her.  In past cycles it never helped to try to do anything at that point, and I finally learned my lesson (again!) for the evening.  But instead of following her full-on "leaving" script, she put on her shoes and jacket, and went out for a walk.  Without her cell phone, with no car, and I don't think she had her purse with her.  Just house keys.  All sorts of possibilities went through my head.  All I asked her was if she wanted her cell phone and if she would be back for dinner.  She said no and "I don't know", and left.

She came back about 15-20 minutes later and barely talked with me for the rest of the night.  We'll see what happens tomorrow.  So far this is a first.

Although I am still tired of not being able to discuss lots of topics with my wife and of so many things blowing up so easily, I just wanted to offer this as an example of how the lessons really do help.  They have been helping me, which I have felt for a while now.  What caught me entirely by surprise tonight was to see my wife give herself a time-out.  She just tried a new, healthier behavior.

Yay! |iiii

It so rewarding isn't it, even if the behavior is still there it is manageable. If this becomes her normal response you will becomes less apprehensive and it will barely register. It may still be dysfunctional but it is quite tenable.

The line between communicating and JADE is not set in concrete, and is determined more by the reaction you receive.

It is a little discussed benefit of consistent behavior on our side that it tends to rub off.

Well done  |iiii

This is what I'm going to have to learn through a lot of trial and error.  My BPDw and I can have difficult conversations without them going to hell, so getting a read on where exactly a conversation is about to spiral out of control is something I expect to struggle with.

The degree of defensiveness and reactive frame of mind you are both in plays a big part in it. As you learn to lesson conflict then the line starts to become less essential.

Its almost a gut feeling when you know its turning bad.