BPDFamily.com

I'm trying to pretty much ONLY communicate with validation  when my wife speaks to me about her issues or anything negative she says.

Trouble is that I feel she is ignoring my feelings and nowe it's ME who doesn't feel validated. I know I'm probably ridiculous to expect someone with BPD to be able to empathise and validate me.

Whenever I point out that she has done something wrong by me (even though I always qualify it with an "I know why you have done that... ." she just tells me she is a horrible person, she will think about what I've said, I should leave her, says I'm horrible for trying to make her feel bad, makes excuses as to why she can't listen or change. Yet nothing ever changes. I tell her she has overstepped my boundaries and she just brushes it off.

I understand that she is in a bad place and can't help herself nevermind me at the moment. But my feelings are being hurt and I feel at times like I am supporting someone who allows other people to make comments about me and that she is precipitating that situation. I've asked her to put things right but she won't.  I stick up for her all the time but I'm not getting the same back.

I'm the one who has supported her all this time with no help from anyone. When I point out that it is not acceptable to me for her to bad mouth me and to allow others to disrespect me in public and to her, she just says it's not her fault and that she can't control what other people say. To me that's not taking responsibility for the part she plays in it.

Oh and she belittles my feelings. I struggle with anxiety and if I don't feel up to doing an activity and decide not to go to my yoga class for instance, she has a big go at me. She KNOWS I struggle but still she just picks at my failings and says i SHOULD be doing x y and z which makes me feel rubbish. Or she says I'm not doing them in order to control her!

I feel like I am allowing that to happen but how can I change it without just walking away? I don't see what consequence I can put in place for this kind of behaviour? How can I get her to understand how I am feeling?

Oh also when I'm talking about my feelings I'm quite often met with silence, or she thinks I've finished and puts music on, she changes the subject, tries to distract us by pointing out something completely random in the room, or she just reverts to shouting or putting me down.