BPDFamily.com

What's a monitor?  What would that be like?  Sounds interesting.

Monitor... .accountability partner... .there are various names for it. 

Basically a person that you can "be real" with... .and a person that has "intrusive access" into the life of the person that wants to be held accountable.

This is someone that all parties involved is comfortable with playing that roll. 

If all are comfortable with the spouse doing this then this is something that could possibly improve the marriage r/s.

Ah!  WEll, in this case, sounds like spouse just gets blamed and pushed into the wrong choices.  I wonder who they could choose?  A therapist who sees both?

Picking a spouse as the accountability partner is possible, but... .I have rarely heard of this working out well.  Usually there are other... more high priority things going on in the the r/s to be addressed.

Usually an accountability partner is a trusted friend. 

So... let's say the issue is porn.  Maybe the accountability partner is an older guy that has successfully conquered the addiction.  He would have daily contact with the person being held accountable and... most likely... would have access to all of the online passwords and monitoring systems to independently monitor the online activities of the person being monitored.

This same structure can be applied to many different... persistent problems that people can have... .but are now trying to break free of those problems.

Introducing a pwBPD traits into either side of the equation... .being monitored... .or having a spouse being monitored... .sets the stage for a situation that is potentially more volatile. 

Accountability partner in terms of addictions, is when we we seek a sponsor to help keep us accountable to our goals. reference (https://www.achievesolutions.net/achievesolutions/en/Content.do?contentId=22792)

Accountability partner is also a Christian concept. An accountability partner is able to perceive what we can't see when blind spots and weaknesses block our vision. Such a person serves as a tool in God's hand to promote spiritual growth, and he or she watches out for our best interest. reference (http://www.christianity.com/devotionals/in-touch-charles-stanley/in-touch-sept-21-2012.html)

In the cases above, we are talking about enlisting a third party to help us stay accountable to our goals for personal growth.  


In the case of trust issues in a relationship, as in the case of infidelity, transparency is typically prescribed.

For a breech of trust to heal, the straying spouse generally needs to aim for complete transparency.  Offering full access to mobile telephone records and texts, to computer emails, and more, helps trust to rebuild. Continued hiding behaviors, by contrast, are likely to undermine the spouse's recovery process.  Recovery is as much about recovery from breech of honesty as from breech of sexual and emotional monogamy vows. reference (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201111/recovery-affair)

Some couples adhere to this as a way of life.  I have friends that share a single email address, even.

Awesome to break this out as a separate topic... .



My experience with a spouse that exhibits BPD traits and transparency has not been good.  Granted... .a long history of attempts and failures at transparency happened before I ever heard the term BPD.

The crux of the issue is that if a pwBPD things a partner is cheating... .and that partner is not... .attempts to "prove" that it is not happening through transparency are likely to fail. 

pwBPD traits will mold what they see to match their feelings... .and the accuse the non of something heinous based what they have found in a text log or email. 

Or... .if they are convinced that their spouse is a cheat... .and the emails show them to be "clean"... .it appears that pwBPD find the process of searching the emails invalidating... . 

This usually results in an accusation of being able to hide the activity very well... .even in an environment of openness.

If I could go back in time with the tools that I have learned on bpdfamily... .I could have stopped the bleeding much earlier.  I thought I was winning the battle and the war... .in reality the relationship almost "bled out" over this issue.

My first boundary and my first extinction burst (which I survived due to tools an coaching I received here) was over passwords.  I held... .and my life is much better because of this.

Do I have a goal to someday get back to a posture of openness... .absolutely!

More later... .

We can do this too.


This may have been your experience... .  along the most fundamental things and understand when dealing with a person with traits of a mental illness is that leadership is doing constructive things regardless of immediate payback. I think we can think of many examples where doing a constructive thing is not helpful initially or may even initially create problems.

Inherit in anyone with borderline personality disorder are trust issues.  And the issue goes beyond us  - they often don't trust themselves.

The issue of trust taking time to develop and testing trust was noted in this study:



Trust as a foundation for the therapeutic intervention for patients with borderline personality disorder (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=17&ved=0CI4BEBYwEA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fprofile%2FHester_Klopper%2Fpublication%2F227504324_Trust_as_a_foundation_for_the_therapeutic_intervention_for_patients_with_borderline_personality_disorder%2Flinks%2F0fcfd505832eb47ab2000000.pdf&ei=F6rXVP3lLJGGNpebgkA&usg=AFQjCNFnA2TIfG6vI1qno9xk7OLb1lzxXQ&sig2=w4LQdWIqQtEQZU8uVraRnA)

People who have experienced violence and betrayal as children will be confused as to what or who is trustworthy. Underlying this confusion is overwhelming rage and hurt and an inability to trust one-self.

One of the things a person with borderline personality often seeks a relationship is a trustworthy partner - something they realize they often realize they have a deficit in.  In short, many are looking for leadership here.

So, in any of these relationships, it helps us to always keep an eye on the ball trust.  Transparency is important part of trust building.  But shouldn't necessarily be done as a "proving" trustworthiness. It should be done as part of a creating a trustworthy environment in which there is reciprocity.

I tried to be my spouse's accountability partner early in our relationship. It didn't work out so well because it put me in a position where I ended up stuffing a lot of my feelings and thoughts. An accountability partner needs to be somebody that is non-judgmental and can help the person being held accountable without making them feel judged or unworthy.

I feel like I did a decent job of being his accountability partner for years but it took its toll on me because I was not dealing with my own stuff. I was stuffing my pain and my hurts in order to support him. Now, my partner has a sponsor through his sex addiction program and it is much better for me. He can hear things from his sponsor that he can't hear from me. Plus, him and his sponsor don't have a long history together and there isn't the baggage that exists between me and my husband. One of the pitfalls of an accountability partner is that the person being held accountable has to be perfectly honest.

There were some things that my husband withheld from his sponsor but told me. I was able to tell him, "I think you need to talk to your sponsor about these things." He admitted that he was hesitant to talk to his sponsor and I reassured him that it would be okay and that is why he has a sponsor. That is a huge load off me because I know that somebody is holding him accountable and it gives me the space to work on my stuff.

Makes a lot of sense.

The reason this thread was split is that we were confusing "trust building" and transparency in a relationship with sex addiction accountability partner.

They are not at all the same dynamics.

I didn't see the other thread about trust.

If a person in a relationship is trying to be an accountability partner (not just SA) then it makes it almost impossible to work on other parts of the relationship such as trust building. When I was trying to be his wife and accountability partner, other parts of our relationship were kept at a stand still because like you say, building trust and having transparency are totally different than the dynamics between somebody and their accountability partner.

Agreed  I think you describe the problem well. :)




It is here.  

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=271086.msg12573184#msg12573184

It is talking about whether it is wrong for spouses to have access to each others computer. In this relationship, there is a long history of this level of transparency.

One thing to make clear to all... .is that if I even had an "average" amount of knowledge about pwBPD traits from BPD family when I started having issues with trust an accountability in my r/s... .I could have probably used this as a learning point or a point of growth in my r/s.

Since I didn't have a clue about how to properly "deal with" the traits that were appearing... .(accusations & distortions) I inadvertently "invalidated" her and (my phrase) "fed the monster".  Also got me in the habit of JADE.

Example of how this would play out.

She had access to passwords... .which gave her my email, texts, calendars (google products)

She would see a text... .let's say it was from a female employee of mine.  Maybe it came in slightly after hours.  My wife would claim that it was not an important enough matter for her to be texting about and should have waited until next time I was at work (note:  wife has no idea how my work... .works... I'm an executive type) therefore... .it's not about work and it's personal and she's "known" for a long time that there was something going on between me and this employee... .and now she has proof... .she will be divorcing me tomorrow.

Me:  Realizing how ridiculous this is... .I figured my wife is just misinformed and if I explained things... it would all get better.  So... .I would try to explain.  She would interrupt.

I would complain about interrupt... .might get back to trying to explain my wife's "error in analysis"

All the while she is furiously poking at her phone or computer... .to gather more "evidence" ... .

So... .before I get any decent amount of explaining done about the text... .she realizes that the thing the text was about is not listed in my calendar (that she has the password to)... .this triggers stomping about and name calling... .slamming some doors... .venting about "boy oh boy... .wait until I tell everyone what I have caught you doing... ." (all the time I have not clue about the calendar)... .after this dies down... .we have some talking where she explains how she caught me with the calendar too.

These things would end up 1 of 2 ways.  Either something would be discovered in the searching that completely invalidated her entire premise... .and she would instantly change the subject... .like nothing ever happened.  Me asking about it would get me painted black.

or... .the investigation would continue until we fell asleep... .and then upon waking up the next day... .should would act like nothing happened the day before or claim "she was just asking... ." (and not accusing).

Let this roll on for several years and this was my experience with "openness".  

My analysis is that my problem wasn't the openness... .it was my lack of tools and knowledge about what I was really facing and how to properly deal with it.

BPD family "armed" me with that knowledge... .

I've currently made a choice to keep passwords "boundary protected" in my r/s to help keep the temp down.  I do have a long term goal to get back to more openness... .but there is lots of careful work to get there.  Lots of hurt feelings on both sides of this.

That sounds very familiar to what I experienced before I found some helpful tools. It was madness because I would try to explain why him interrupting me all of the time would make it difficult to have a conversation. Then, he would turn around and use that against me. He would then turn around and yell at me for interrupting HIM even though I felt like I was simply trying to have a conversation. That led to a period where I felt like all I could do was shut up and listen.


I would get raged at for something that I didn't even know about. He would get into my email and FB and would then be a total jerk. It sometimes took several days to figure out that he was mad about something that he found while snooping. If he had asked me about it like an adult, I would have been happy to address his concerns. Like you, I didn't have the tools to deal with what he was doing because it made absolutely no sense. I will admit that I turned it around on him and started snooping in his stuff and calling him on his BS. It got rather ugly. We had to shut down any and all openness to keep from fueling the fires.


There are a lot of hurt feelings in my relationship regarding openness. Currently, we don't share passwords but we do tend to leave our accounts logged in. He has offered to let me look because of his history with porn, secret email accounts, and dating sites. I don't want to look because I know that he is only going to let me see what he wants me to see. It is just a symptom of a bigger problem, which is the fact that I don't trust him. Looking at each others email accounts or being "transparent" isn't going to make an ounce of difference. Early in our marriage, we had shared email accounts and I thought that we were both pretty transparent about everything. My transparency was real whereas his was feigned. After he lost his job, he came clean that he had several secret email accounts that he used to access porn and get on pornographic mailing lists. He gave me the information to log in, change the passwords, and shut down the accounts.

From that whole experience, I learned that transparency and all that isn't as important as whether or not there is trust and a feeling of emotional/personal safety.