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As a codependent recovering from a BPD relationship, I am discovering that I spend alot of my time and effort trying to control people, places and things (including my BPD ex).

Has anyone had success at changing this pattern to focus more on their own life, thoughts and actions?

Hello Moselle

I bought a good book on codependency and stared working with my therapist yesterday, from what I understand this is work and we get what we put into it.

I desperately need to recover from CD and I will commit to it.

The author is  Melody Beattie

It is a lifelong process of healing and I'm looking forward to the freedom, we didn't cause this or choose codependency but we can change it. Good luck on your journey to wellness.

Well i never really cared about controlling things with my uBPDxbf. My mom was really controlling and it was just a major turn off for me. I believed in equal footing when i met my ex. Like a 50-50 partnership I'm responsible 100% for my 50% and so on. That didn't last long bc he made me feel like me wanting communication (as far as checking in if he was going to be late or not going to make it home at all etc) was control. I believed he was where he said he was and was doing what he said he was doing. ... boy was i wrong about that! I wanted him to take care of his responsibilities but he wouldn't it would always fall to me and if i refused to help he'd rage and make me feel guilty. This went on for some years taking care of his responsibilities and mine started to fall to the wayside. That actually became something he would use against me when he would get mad like "stop being my mom i just want a girlfriend! " uh... .well you kinda put me in this position bc you won't do anything for yourself you're always acting oh so freaking helpless! Eventually i backed all the way off (no longer apply for jobs for him, update his resume buy clothes,  make his morning coffee etc) and i think that was one of his abandonment triggers. It's kinda funny bc towards the end of our relationship after all his responsibilities were his and his only he would say "i just want to be my own man and stand on my own feet. I'm tired of living up under a woman i just want to do it all myself. " i agreed plus i already stopped helping him so much. Guess what? He left me shortly after that and moved in with another woman right away (in my other threads i mention he was cheating on me with her for over a month, she's the same age as his mom,  and she was our next door neighbor. So I'm sorry weren't you just saying you didn't want to live under a woman anymore?  Hmmmm?)

So yeah not really a controlling person. I started to feel like that after being put in a position to take care of all his baggage and responsibilities and i didn't like it one bit! I knew he was capable of taking care of his own crap but it's clear he didn't feel capable himself. That's why he had to replace me before dumping me.  So he wouldn't have to stand on his own 2 feet and be his own man. Now she pays for everything and takes care of his baggage/responsibilities. I trusted his every word which made it easy to not control. But as we all know with BPD their actions never match their words

I forgot to mention my exBPDbf was controlling. When i could leave. Who i could talk to and for how long. How i was to speak to him. When to follow him or when to take the lead. Even when i could and couldn't have feelings or opinions. Exhausting!

I did try to control things and felt guilty for a long time after the split that I was too controlling. Even apologized to him for some of it. The problem was that he was so out of control, I think I tried to control anything I could. I am friends with my realtor that sold our home. We have gotten close over the past year. She had a bad relationship too and understands. She told me that when she first met us, I would just sit there and let him talk. She thought I was afraid to say anything. She said it was like I was an abused woman. Well, she knows now that I was... .It is strange that I was in it and it was clear to others, but not to me. He was very controlling and projected that on to me. I always told him I was a reflection of him. I would react to how he behaved... .strange, because he did that to me as well... .jut way more extreme and from a different point of view. He always told everyone I was too controlling. I bet he told his gf that I was as to try to stop her from being that way. It's what abusers do. If you study abuse, it it very much like what we endure with these people. Sure, not all are the same, but the extreme ones... .pretty much project the abuse that they were subjected to onto us- is the theory. Controlling is another form of abuse. I do believe there is a difference in guiding someone to live the best life and do the right things and trying to "control" them though... .Telling someone not to cut themselves, not to lie, not to cheat, not to spend allot of money, not to look at porn, not to drive drunk... .Is that controlling or giving good advice? Sure, live and let live... .but I can't live with that and most people can't.

good question moselle  


sort of. im kind of a perfectionist with regard to my personality, so theres this endless quest for self awareness thats somewhat pathological (kinda like the person always reading self help books) and can even be self sabotaging (and its probably about control too... .). on one hand i work on being more objective and accepting of myself, on the other, i believe self improvement is a lifelong project.

so for example: i liked being the guy my friends came to for advice or a shoulder to cry on (and for the most part, i still do). sometimes i gave too much of myself in those exchanges, exhausted myself, frustrated myself or the other person, etc, and frankly none of that helps anyone. the tools here, the communication tools especially, when put into practice, can be really self revealing (validation is a skill that will last a life time, and learning it and practicing it will tend to reveal just how invalidating we can be). learning about triangulation (healthy and unhealthy), learning to recognize my role, my motives, what drives me, when it comes to relationships (of any kind) or helping others. today, a lot of the time my gut tells me not to engage, for whatever reason, and i heed it. i also ask myself, if i really want to help (as opposed to control, or rescue, or save, or gain self worth, which are kind of the same thing), how can i best do that, and what are good limits? i get better results, and thats vindication and motivation. even my longest closest relationships have improved. im more relaxed, have more time and mental space for me, and a real change is that i instinctively recoil from drama as opposed to instinctively being drawn to it.

i also practice acceptance of others, and of situations. i had a close friend who tended to be highly insensitive and invalidating. id go to him anyway with different expectations (the definition of insanity). then id get mad at him. i might even tell him how he should behave, what he should and shouldnt say. thats controlling to a point that makes me cringe, and its a total waste of time for both parties. people are who they are, theyre not who you want them to be. i learned to stop going to him about that stuff and just enjoy our friendship for what it was. incidentally, he would go onto become a hell of a good shoulder to cry on.  

acceptance, harnessing, limits, drawn lines.

i commend you for recognizing it, and owning it. how does control play out for you moselle?

My life in your words.

I did the same, backed off and made him responsible for him.

His expectations of people were out there. He thought he deserved special treatment, discounts, freebies and on and on and then would get upset when he did not get what he wanted. At times, it was embarrassing.

This is a man once raged over the phone at the dental referral service for not making him an appointment. He didn't want a referral ... .he wanted the rep to make him an appointment because his tooth hurt. 

I'm a perfectionist so yes, I tend to 'need' to control things. It probably has to do a lot with feeling I did not have any control when I grew up. It doesn't go for everything though, some things still feel completely out of my control now even as a perfectionist.

Anyway, the relationship with my ex didn't last very long. Just a few months. The first few weeks I did take on responsibilities: suggest he had had enough to drink, explaining things to him that happened with his manager that he just couldn't grasp (he thought his EQ was really high but it really wasn't apart from being able to pick out the weak) despite being really smart as in high IQ, sorting out an argument he got him self into. And after 2 or 3 weeks I thought "to h*ll with it, you're a grown man. You've probably been getting drunk for years. You're still in one piece, you'll manage now in getting yourself home, you're not a child. You need to want to drink less for you not because I ask you." So I stopped enabling him. It enraged him.