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I tell her I love her when I really can't stand her.

I tell her that she distorts things that I said, which is true.  Then, when she gets upset that I said that and accuses me of lying and being nasty to her, I lie, and apologize for saying that she distorts things.  So I end up apologizing for telling the truth (that she distorts things), but I lie when I agree with her that she didn't distort what I said and that I was cruel and hurtful to accuse of her of that.

I lie by agreeing with her that my family treats her horribly and say that she is not at all responsible for them getting angry at her.

I lie by saying I want to be emotionally intimate with her.  Actually, I'm terrified of her out of control emotions.

I have to do these things to keep some semblance of peace in my marriage.

I am learning to lie and withhold information! That seems to be one way that I can simply avoid confrontation and maintain peace.

The more honest I am, the more things get twisted and distorted and the harder it is to enforce my boundaries.

Like you, I tell my husband I love him but I feel like it is a lie because I have a very difficult time loving somebody that is so selfish and seems to have such little regard for me.

I totally understand.  I can enforce my boundaries up to a point.  I find the abuse wears me out and threatens my health and then i break down.  For example, my wife will give me the silent treatment.  So, I don't talk to  her.  She then insists that I should come to her to talk b/c she's the one that's upset and I'm the man so I need to make things right.  Eventually, I do b/c she'll stop cooking, doing my laundry, etc.  I work a long day, so it's hard for me to do these things for myself all the time.  Also, she'll leave the room if I'm in it.  It's so humiliating to me in front of our daughter.  I hate for her to have to see that. 

I know how hard it is to know that your kids are seeing this stuff. My kids will request to go places without dad because he can be so grumpy and nitpick so much.

Mine doesn't do the silent treatment. He just gets really mopey and whiny. If there is something that he wants to know, he will badger me until I tell him. He does not accept no for an answer and he does a lot of little passive aggressive things that drive me absolutely crazy. And he does things so subtly that when I have tried to say something about it he will simply deny it and act like I am making stuff up.

Wow, I understand this.  White lies, withholding information, all to preserve or restore some kind of peace and quiet for today at the while risking more chaos in the future.  Sometimes I feel like future chaos is inevitable and can't be prevented anyway, so take what I can get for today.

I'm doing better at it though, especially since we got engaged.  Letting her deal with her problems.  I told her yesterday during a major dysregulation where she claimed that my mom's poor table manners will ruin our wedding that I can't do anything about my family - they are beyond my control.  If she chooses to let them bother her, that's her business.  Of course, she argued that I can do something...

Facing the reality here - this r/s will eventually end, and there is nothing I can do about it.  If she truly believes my mom's table manners will ruin us, it's hopeless.

I'm so sorry you feel that you have to lie to your wife.  That can't be easy and I would certainly be worn down from the lies.   

Would a better option be to try validating her feelings without agreeing with the "crazies?"  (COMMUNICATION: Validation - tools and techniques in lessons) It has helped me to remain true to myself and also keeps him from going into a rage from something misinterpreted.  I avoided a potentially volatile situation recently by giving him space after his nasty comments.  I told him that I'd like to talk~~which we did a few hours later and I validated his feelings and explained myself in terms that he understood... .told him that I was overwhelmed and depressed and I knew that he could relate to that feeling.  Moments later he was back to his (ab)normal self!

I tried the validation techniques and they're not helping at all.  She's a very high functioning BPD.  She sees right through the validation and knows I'm not agreeing with her.  She demands agreement and doubles back to the same questions repeatedly.

Yeah, I think there are two situations where validation doesn't go over well.  One is the BPD with NPD traits.  They are less likely to take the "all life sucks" attitude, see themselves as something special, and expect everyone around them to be two faced liars.  The other is the BPD that has read too many self help books and had too much therapy, and used that to validate their victim mentality.  My fiance often expects others to validate her, and her agitation is often greater because someone did not validate her than the actual incident.  An example would be if something happened in her class with a child's bad behavior.  The bad behavior rattles her, but when she comes home, her complaint is that she sent the child to the principal and the principal did not validate her (yes, she uses the word "validate".  The original behavior problem is almost irrelevant compared to her principal not validating her.  I ran into the same issue yesterday.  She was stressed out about getting married.  Yet, rather than tell me that was on her mind, she started off with the projection of her feelings onto me asking me if I was sure about marrying her, then onto insults about me and my family, blaming me for not doing this or that, and basically about things well beyond my control.  I did my best amongst my hurt to validate her underlying emotion, but I think she saw through it and expected me to validate her negative feelings toward my family, saying "you won't even validate that you and your family hurt me!".  I refused, and refused to participate in the conversation.  And when she started screaming and yelling, I left the house. 

And you're going to marry this person anyway?

Yep.  Sometimes I think I am crazy, but what keeps me in it is that these situations have gotten better and less frequent, and she is working on herself.  I will admit that yesterday morning I was ready to call the whole thing off. 

Hi startrekuser, 'peace' is an interesting word choice.  Do you feel at peace?  What are you most afraid of by speaking your truth?

Max is owning the reality of what it is and making a choice with full knowledge. That is empowering and brave, but it does simplify your own agenda.

All this business of piling one white lie on top of another is like a cancer in our soul. Each time we do it we say to ourselves that it is to "keep the peace" but inside we feel like were are as weak as a stalk of grass blowing the wind. Our soul decays a little more.

The long term goal is to not have to do this at all, but we have slid so far back we can't rebuild this quickly. It will take practice and even preconceived strategies similar to that of deciding boundaries.

A lot of the approach is to try to deflect from discussing this particular "incident' and inquire more about how/why they think/feel this way. By giving them more air time to talk about how they feel, it becomes a little easier to say our little slice of reality. You don't need to say much and don't labor it. The point is each time you say a little of your reality you take a step forward, if you say nothing you go nowhere, if you deny your reality you go backwards.

The poo still hits the fan, but thats life with BPD. In short you are being bullied out of your reality. You dont have to force your reality onto them, that's usually futile and counter productive anyway, but don't allow it to be taken from you. It is yours to hang onto.

I have gone a long way past this stage, but even now my mind still starts following entrenched thoughts of "where should I say I have been, what I want to do, how can I work around this.? etc.". Even over stuff that is not even going to be a problem. The brain washing is so ingrained I still have catch myself to stop being stupid and following old thought patterns.

I lie to mine all the time too.  I hate doing it, but if I don't then I face her rages and tantrums or worse, guilt-tripping.  The rages make me angry so she usually goes for the guilt-trips and manipulation.

I lie about missing her when she's away because truthfully, I really like her not being there.  I can leave dishes in the sink without a lecture and do all the things that drive her crazy.  I don't have to deal with her OCD need for neatness.  Things don't have to be in straight lines or in order or organized by color. 

I lie about loving her because a lot of times I don't.

I lie about believing her because I'm not sure what to believe any more. 

I lie about not being angry with her when she basically threw me under the bus because I took a stand about her self-harming behaviors and suicidal ideations.  She thinks I wanted to kick her out, when I really just wanted her to get help.  She's painted me black to everyone she talks to.

I should be used to it.  I used to do it with my mother, and I found a partner just like her. 

Do you think because this was the established norm for you with your mother it became all too easy to set a precedent with your wife, which bred a sense of entitlement in her to have a "yes" man on hand?

Yes, I do think I had established patterns of dealing with the behaviors from my mom.  I think I just got used to being an enabler and didn't know how to change.

I'm afraid of the utter and complete mental torture (abuse really) that will go on for weeks.  It literally makes me ill and impedes my ability to function.  Either way, I'm miserable.  I can't win.  Believe me, I've tried the "truth" road and the suffering is so high, that it's unbearable.  She can abuse me much longer than I can stick with the truth.

Might be a good topic for a separate thread... .but how does she get to decide how long to abuse you?

Hello,

When something like this happens at our house, I just try to listen, let them vent and not agree or disagree with them. Meanwhile, in my head I know my own opinion and that what my uBPDh is expressing is overblown(to me,not to him) & that I couldn't disagree more. I just don't say it to him. Eventually I try to leave "it" with him & live my best life. De-personalizing takes practice. I read somewhere that these kinds of actions with BPD's supposedly decrease as the BPD's get older, but I'm not so sure. I couldn't imagine going into a marriage like that, I have been with my h since I was 15 yrs old,married him at 27 yrs old,&  that was 19 yrs ago, the bp stuff didn't really surface until about 10 yrs ago, or I was just to young & naive to see it. I hope you go in with your eyes wide open:)

Silent treatment, makes family plans without me, throws out my food, destroys my things, spends large amounts of money on useless therapy (essentially complaining about me), relentlessly emails and/or calls and/or texts me, makes nasty comments to me or about me, threatens to move out or get divorced, threatens our daughter that she's going to move out unless I do something, doesn't cook, doesn't clean for me.

startrekuser

What happens when your BPDw catches you in a lie? 

Why do you rely on HER to stop the abuse?

Is this another case of "Am I better off with or without her"?

YOU have the right to be happy but only YOU can control that.  Do not rely on your mentally disordered spouse to improve your life... it will never happen.

Mine too LOL. Sees straight through it. She calls it "fairy talk" LOL. Mine is diagnosed BPD/NPD, and I learned that boundary enforcement was much more effective.

If she's the same combination BP NP, she'll be very clever at circumventing and quite aggressive. I've paid the price in terms of rage, but after 6 months of it she gave up. In some way I think she respects me for standing up to her, and she knows I am willing to leave permanently if she continues her poor behaviour. I don't think she would have made any changes if she wasn't sure that I would leave if she didn't. And I don't let her get away with anything. If she behaves poorly I call her on it very directly if in private, or later if we are in public (so as not to embarrass her)

She has seemed to adapt over time in a positive way. She has also been doing CBT with her T, where she challenges the assumption that I'm trying to hurt her. So I think that has helped.

All the best startrekuser. Hang in there.


Maxsterling, you have just helped me understand why strong boundary defense has worked for me. It's the highly functioning NPD responding positively to it.

If you are finding validation hard and not helping much, concentrate on not saying anything invalidating instead. You have less to think about and less chance to dig a hole for yourself as your default is to keep it shut. You dont end up sounding like you are parrot reading stuff which is obviously not you. It's the principle of not making things worse before you can start making them better.

I rarely use forced validation anymore, a lot of it is either self conscious or I let her just deal with whatever it is as her stuff, and I just dont say anything to make it worse than it need be.


Thats why I don't go into too much detail about what I know about the disorder or it becomes a role to play to validate whatever the need to.

Oh, yes.  I have to be very careful with validating, mainly because he further spins into a dark hole of victimhood.  If I keep it short and sweet, give a little hug and walk away it seems to go better.  Then I also try to leave him to work out what is his to deal with.

Yes, thank you.  That's my problem.  I want to threaten to leave, but I don't know what that entails.  Suppose I walked out the door tomorrow, what legal rights have I forfeited?  I don't know, so I have to find out.  I'm making an appointment with an attorney so I will know my rights and the law and then I can use the "I'm leaving you" card without fear.  It's like having a gun that you don't know how to use.  Knowing my rights ande the law will empower me.  Thanks again.

Hi Startrekuser,

It is good to find out your rights. It is responsible given the uncertainty and unpredictability of being in a relationship with a mentally ill person.

Sorry if it came across that I have threatened her with leaving. I haven't actually. Not once.

What I have done is told her what I have decided I want in life, and let her decide if she wants to come along or not. Over the 7 months she has come to know (I think, because I have been consistent) that I'm dead serious about what I want, and she has chosen to take therapy seriously, of her own accord.

Why would you want to play leaving as a card?

If I knew I had that possibility, then I would have confidence to be assertive about what I want.  If my assertiveness led to constant abuse, then I would want to use that threat as a way to enforce my boundaries if nothing else worked to stop the abuse.  Currently, nothing is working to stop the abuse except me always giving in to her.

I like that you want to take an assertive stance. But think about it, once the card is played, it loses it's power. My W has found that out after 19 divorce threats. It loses it's power somewhere, because the burden is ours to execute once we've set the ultimatum. And if we don't it just looks like manipulation, and maybe it is lol.

BTW I'm drafting my settlement agreement tomorrow with my lawyer, so I can really empathise with you on this. I've decided not to play the card, as tempting as it is, but its ready if she is ever gets violent with me again. That's my line. If she crosses it, she'll be served.

Does walking away (removing yourself) work?

|iiii

Ok, here is my take. Stop lying. You wouldn't like it if they lied to you. Think about this, you are no better than them if that's what your doing. And if you feel the need to lie just to keep peace then you're the one that needs help not them. When it gets to the point where you actually have to be dishonest then I think it's time to leave.

This is the goal you aim to get to. Problem is we have often dug ourselves a hole so deep that we have to work our way of it one small step at a time.


This is why it all starts with us.

I may omit a fair but, but any "white lies" would not be any more than in a normal RS now. Even then I try to avoid those, mainly because I am diplomatically better overall that I ever was before I had to deal with BPD.

I can't say I lied to mine. She lied to me and it hurt. But I'm glad it's over.

It's been that way for years.

I'll give you an example of my situation.  Right now she is denying intimacy from me.   She wants me to empathize with her that my family hurt her so much and they were horrible to her and I was horrible to her, etc.  If I don't do that, no touching whatsoever.  It's not as if there's much touching from her anyway.  I don't agree with her at all.  I think that what my family has done and what I've done wrong is minimal at best and that she bears a lot (all of it, essentially) for our poor relationship and her poor relationship with my family.  So what I do?  No amount of validation or diplomacy will help the situation.

You wait it out, you can't make her do anything, and you cant validate the invalid. I assume you have done the reasonable attempts at supporting  and validating how she feels without agreeing that you are of the same opinion. Your reality is your reality and you shouldn't be coerced from it. She is entitled to sulk if she wants, that is her choice.

I agree 100% with waverider, if you can nullify this one by not playing the trading game, it removes a big arrow in the manipulation quiver.

I agree with you, but if I don't agree with her opinion, she will make me suffer and I then I give in.  I can't handle the suffering.

I know it's tough, but surprise her and don't give in, or leave for a while until she behaves, but whatever you do hold your ground. Let her know she doesn't control you. Life will go better for you because she'll actually start respecting you. She'll likely go through an extinction burst " the phenomena of behavior temporarily getting worse, not better, when the reinforcement stops", but it is the beginning of her realising that things have changed.

Thanks.  I have so many questions about this.  I've been living in a fantasy world.  I think that if I lie about what I believe and appease her, then everything will be alright, but there's always something else that comes up.  So if I tell the truth, then she'll say that I'm a liar, which is true.  Then she'll ask me why I lied and I'll say "to keep peace" or something like that.  Then she'll say that I lied just to get her off my back.  I've been through this before, so I know.  She made me pay for telling the truth.  When she says stuff like "you just said <x> to get me off your back!", how do I respond to that? I could say, yes I did and I regret it and I should always tell the truth.  And I could apologize.  The problem is, she brings these things up over and over again.  Nothing is ever resolved with her, no matter how much I apologize or validate her feelings.   How di I deal with that?  My instinct is to say that we've addressed this already and I've apologized and I'm not going to discuss it anymore.  Then she gets angry and accuses me of ignoring her feelings and on and on and on and it escalates.  How do I end this type of conversation?  I'm telling you that she is an absolute master at manipulating me.  I don't know yet how to not be manipulated by her accusations and anger.

What do you mean by "drafting my settlement agreement tomorrow with my lawyer"?  Also, does she know you are doing this?

What do you mean by "drafting my settlement agreement tomorrow with my lawyer"? 



I'M happy to have a private message chat about this if you need advice. Pls drop me a note. I don't want it in the public domain.

Start. You are aware now which is good. Yes she is exercising control over you. But the killer thing is that you are making a choice to allow her. Do you realise  that?

I am having a BPD free day today. Check out my post on the staying board. Someone said "Get off their back, get out of their way and get on with your life"

She has tried to get under my skin already today. I refused and said put it in an email. I'll read it tomorrow. She hit the roof and started the usual hookwhich keep me in the conversation. FOG. But I refused, just kept repeating that until she angrily said "fine I'm going home to send that email right now"

Yeah but you know at the end of the day  we are so stressed by them we start acting like them. I yelled at my ex, I threaten to evict her several times. It's not my fault she just couldn't grow up.

Healed man, I can empathise with that stress. And also recognise the fleas  my-issues that I have taken on as well.

My relationship is not a pretty thing by any stretch of the imagination. But I am realising that my stress is not caused by her or by her behaviour.  It's caused by my perception of her behaviour, and it it is absolutely my choice to put up with it, tell her to stop it or just leave. I've noticed the more I exercise the second two options, the more empowered and less stressed I feel.

All I wanted was for her to stop backstabbing me, lying to me and get a job. Is that really so hard? Did she really have to take the baby she didn't take care of and disappear? Then stalk melol... it's crazy at it's best.

Yeah it is crazy. Super crazy. I hear you.

See... that's BPD. Disordered thinking.

This sounds just like my situation... .I withhold information just to keep the peace.

It's never anything bad that I'm withholding my true feelings or opinions much of the time out of fear of his reaction or worse... .the silent treatment.

I feel like I can't fully express myself and just keeping my feelings pushed down because he just doesn't react well to a difference of opinion (normally he just says: "we're not talking about this now".

I won't lie about important things but I sometimes leave things out like my ex husband calling me to discuss our daughter.  We are only having a conversation about school, Dr. appts, birthday parties, etc. but he tends to think it's romantic or something.  I just got tired of defending the conversations about my daughter so I just don't even bring it up.

Hi Sylvia76, What do you mean by this? When you discuss details about your daughter, he gets the wrong idea, and thinks you want intimacy?

Exactly.

He has a fear that I'm going to out of the blue decide I want to get back together with my ex-husband while we're talking about the details of co-parenting in two different households.

Meanwhile, if any of his ex girlfriends FB message or text him he "forgets" to tell me about it because "it's not a big deal".

It seems there are two sets of rules... .