BPDFamily.com

So it was recently my 40th birthday. The actual day I celebrated with girlfriends who came to visit. MY dBPDh gave me a lovely necklace which I appreciate. He also said that we would go out to a restaurant just him and me to celebrate. It didn t come up again... .A week later I suggestes that we invite his family to celebrate (fyi: mine lives in another country). We did, he got mad for some imagined insult and didn t speak to me the whole dinner nor the next day.

In addition a couple of weeks before my birthday I had sat two huge exams that I had worked very hard for. He invited me to dinner by the sea to celebrate that I had done it, although I didn t have the result yet. When the waitress had taken the orders and left the table he announced that he wanted a divorce... .

I told him just now that it would be nice to go out to dinner for a late birthdaycelebration and he flat out said it s not his thing.

I know,  I know, radical acceptance. Sometimes it feels like crap though. I could worknon me, why I need him to acknowledge and celebrate my special moments. I m trying hard to handle my disappointment in private and feel it and own it. Telling him leads nowhere and at the moment I m focusing on creating a calm environment. But ugh though 

Happy Birthday!

It is a struggle to want to celebrate with them only to have them check out or not follow through.

I don't have any suggestions. Wanted to offer some words of support.   

I'm so sorry he crapped on your birthday and your exam completion celebration.    They seem to really understand and exploit our vulnerabilities when they want to have an effect.

Sorry to hear about your birthday.  Happy birthday from us though  :).  Celebrations with our SO's wBPD seem to suck a lot of the time.  My wife checked out on mine two months ago also when she said she wanted to do something for it to clebrate.  She found a reason to dysregulate a day or two ahead of time and therefore the celebration obviously never happened.  Now, with our anniversary this Friday, I am fully prepared to spend it without her.  I brought it up as to not be an "elephant in the room", offer an alternative considering the circumstance and therefore did only what I can do.  if she doesn't, I will spend it with people who want to be around me.  That sounds like I'm upset, but I'm not, it is just my reality.

Thank you all, you're so sweet!

It's nice to have a place to go to in moments of frustration.

Yeah - I want to wish you a happy 40th, too!   

Truth is - you can't depend on pwBPD to celebrate anything about you.  Actually, not wise to have *any* kind of expectation from a pwBPD because that is only setting yourself up for disappointment.

My feeling is in order to be in a r/s long term with a pwBPD, it takes patience, the ability to have no expectations, and a strong ability to meet your own emotional needs.  And even the strongest of us get fed up at times.

Thak you Maxsterling!

PS

I'm not writing much here at the moment, but I read regularly. And I always read your name as Maxster-ling, though I suppose it's Max Sterling  lol