BPDFamily.com

I'm finding it very difficult to keep from reacting when most of what she says to me are little sniping comments.  I'm not sure if they are to assert control, to provoke a reaction or what.

For example, I have to spend an hour or two at work on Sunday to prepare for my first day back after a long holiday break and as I go, she says ":)o some actual work while you're there."  Who does she think she is? My boss? My Mom? Doesn't she trust me? (She's BPD, of course she doesn't trust me)

I wash the dishes after lunch but leave a pot that has burnt milk on the bottom to soak in the sink.  I see she goes in there and comes out again. Two minutes later she says, "I hope you left the kitchen nice and clean".  She clearly saw how I left the kitchen before she made the comment which was a thinly-veiled commentary on the pot left unwashed.

After I mop the floors she sees that something has fallen off a table when I moved the furniture back.  "Why did you throw that on the floor?".  What sort of question is that? What answer is she expecting?

I could quote a lot more (PER DAY!) but those are simply the ones that sprung first to mind.  They're nothing big, just little snipes that make me feel like I'm not trusted to be an adult, or like I'm not doing well enough all the things that I'm doing to help the family.

I'm beginning to recognise my co-dependent role in this dysfunctional relationship and can see that I have a compulsion to try to "appease" her or keep her happy with acts of service (particularly housework and childcare) and so these little criticisms really get to me as they effectively invalidate my efforts for the family.

I'm not sure what's better to do: stick up for myself and fight back and demand an end to the snide remarks, or just pretend I don't hear them.  But they do get under my skin, like a death from a thousand cuts. 

Been there, done that. My wife does the same thing, all the time. I've started to think of her as a child, saying childish things. Yes, they hurt once you picture a scared, broken child saying these hurtful things it seems to lessen the impact on your emotions. At least it does for me.

I am very interested in hearing how others deal with this.  My wife does the same thing.  Little digs about any little thing.  She also assigns an ulterior motive to most of what I do.  She does this most often when my adult children are present which leaves me with no good option.  Do I call her on it and start a scene or ignore it?  My children have asked me, in private, why I put up with it.   When I ask her about it later, she denies that it happened and seizes the opportunity to point out my many other faults, in some cases correctly.  I am in the process of reading the swoes book and am trying to understand setting up limits but am not good at it yet.

It is a way of being critical (so that you are not better/more capable than them). The obtuse way it is done is a way of not taking responsibility for the criticism, so that if you react/defend yourself then you are the one who is getting uppity as they never said anything...

So yes you are being set up and the best way is not to reply in a specific way. Either ignore it or respond in a generic way. Dont justify why the pan is in the sink, rather along the lines of "would you prefer it if i did things differently?" ignoring the specific issue.

"do some actual work while you are there">"Would you like to come and see for yourself"
"Why did you throw that on the floor?">" could you be a dear and give me a hand and pick it for me".

Do not directly answer the question, as it is not a real question.

My husband does that quite often. I know that when this begins he is starting to enter into the devalue stage. We actually began entering the stage this morning. I "threw" his shoes when I was looking for my shoes in our shoe box. Actually I just pushed his shoes out of the way of mine.

When he makes sniping comments at me, I simply say, "That was mean" or "What are you really trying to say? or "That seems a little passive aggressive." I don't address what it is that he actually said because I know he is being nit picky. Sometimes he will answer me with what he is really saying. When he responds favorably, I then say, "Thank you for explaining it better." If he continues to be snippy I tell him I don't understand what he is saying and ask him to explain more. If he starts to get worked up, then I begin to validate.

If I am not insulted by those comments and can catch myself, I try to ask her what is really the problem.

For example, she was fussing about my house being a mess a couple months ago. I mean just going off. I said, ok, what is really the matter? She ranted about something else. I repeated what I asked. After about the 4th time she said it bothers me that your sons make such a mess and don't contribute to cleaning up very much. She said, you are to busy and have to full a plate as a single dad with primary custody.

I have discovered, often to late, that her grouchy, critical comments are really because she feels I am being used and abused.

Or she sees my sons doing something I missed, because I am busy taking care of something else for them.

  Hey Dragon,

 Yeah, my husband does this when he gets in his "dark side" mood (that is what I call his BPD episodes). Nothing WE do is good enough when they are like that, and after a year of marriage I DO NOT think it ever will be when they get in their "funk". When he gets in his "dark side" he can find ANYTHING in a perfectly spotless house to criticize me with. A few days ago I was screamed at for a dark spot on the moulding of the shower... .Like you, I can give numerous examples but I am sure you know what I am saying... .

Hang in there, I just pray my way through his episodes and lean on my faith in God and Jesus Christ (Im Christian and VERY spiritual and that gets me though) and know that it doesnt last forever, but it will happen again. 

My thoughts and prayers for you and all of us!

WifeInOz

I think this is just "normal" for BPD.  I try to use my version of the Serenity Prayer -

Grant me the Serenity to ignore the comments I can ignore, the Courage to correct comments in a validating way when I can, and the wisdom to know the difference :)

Long ago I realized that H will poke at me when he needs a fight, from being tired, cranky, ill, or just plain moody.  There was an epiphany moment when he actually admitted that he NEEDS to yell at a person when he's made, even if what makes him mad is totally happenstance and the fault of no one.  He can't process his emotions without a human "target".  In any relationship, the easiest target is your spouse or if you have kids, the children.  So, when I am not tired out of my mind, and when I am not sick and cranky myself, it's easier, not perfect but easier, to gauge when he's just in a mood and looking to irritate ME into being the bad guy - if he's rude but I respond back in kind, it was my fault originally.  So I try to just not respond.  It's how I've modified my own behavior from super externally co-dependent, jumping to please in all ways, to medium chill when I need to be.  If I was not with a person with BPD, it would probably be a  terrible coping mechanism, but it seems to work for me with H, much of the time.

I had to accept that (and I actually tell myself this silently when it starts) that he is allowed to feel bad, angry, whatever, and I do not have to "fix" it, or feel the same way.  If I am relatively okay, and he's not, he is free to his feelings and I am free to mine.  This does not mean I don't make attempts to cheer him up and make him laugh... .it means that my whole range of feeling is not limited to his current emotions.  Does that make sense?  I have tried to be less enmeshed. 

He might make snide comments about anything from how I choose to dress to a speck of food still on a fork I washed.  A lot of the time it's "WE really need to do X!" meaning YOU really need to do X - whatever X may be at the time, from fixing the back porch to cleaning out the store room.  I usually agree that X needs to be done, and then move on if X is beyond my abilities at the moment.  One thing I decided over time about housekeeping and maintenance.  Since I am the person doing about 95% of it, unless his input really makes sense or doesn't really affect me either way, I can try it his way for the sake of compromise, or it's done my way, in my time since it won't get done at all otherwise.  He can gripe, and if it's a small thing, I try to accommodate him.  But I try to not jump each time, because it doesn't "work".  It does not make him "happy".  It just gives him a new stepping point for criticism, since his internal need to criticize is not really based on errors, but his uncontrollable emotions, I think keeping things relatively even is better than an escalating game of "do this, now do it better, now improve more!"

Most times, ignoring it works just fine, or a bland, "ok."  Sometimes I can't get away with that, when he REALLY wants a fight, but in that case there's little I can do anyway other than find an excuse to leave the room or house. 

I dunno.  I just have to accept that my actions alone can't "make" him happy.  He has to choose that for himself.  I can work to give us a comfortable environment, where dishes are readily availble, and towels put away, where we don't need to be horribly embarassed by drop in guests and our pets have clean food and water and litter.  A lot of it is on him, though as far as him choosing to be ahppy about it.

This is NOT a one-size-fits-all solution, but it worked for me, often quite well.

I would get some sort of critical, belittling statement from my wife. A bit more personal than the examples given, if I remember correctly. Or at least I took them a bit more personally than I'd take the examples here 

I had prior experience trying the honest, vulnerable thing--telling my wife that what she said was cruel or hurtful. And the result of that would be further criticism/invalidation, ratcheting us up toward a full dysregulation, rather than what I was hoping for, a quick "sorry" and calming us down. (Lesson learned--that doesn't work with a pwBPD!)

I would respond in a neutral, almost flat tone of voice "f*** you." and drop it. I'm really saying it without anger behind it, at least in this context. [That word has a place in my vocabulary; I wasn't adding it out of the blue]

I was communicating three things: 1. I saw what she just did. 2. I didn't like what she just did. 3. I wasn't discussing it any further.

You may need to find different words to communicate that message than I did.  

There is something called the Nicola Method.   Works for some people and not for others I guess.

When getting sniped at the sentence they recommend you come back with is:  “When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something wrong.”

There are variants of "when you said that it seemed like you thought I didn't care".

It has the effect of turning the problem back on the person who is doing the sniping.

Snide, snippy, sarcastic comments were the norm with my uBPDw to the point I tried to ignore them mostly. Yet eventually it would get to me and I would blow up.

She also used to say something benign and then follow it up with a dig.

She was sometimes downright cruel. And the look on her face matched. The way her lip would snarl up and her eyes would go dark. She-devil.

Gosh, just thinking about it now gives me anxiety!

Oh geez Michel LOL I KNOW about that LOOK! His eyes get so evil... he has the bluest eyes and I swear they look black when he gets in his "dark mood"... .

That's funny because my H loves it when I respond to him in an aggressive but not emotional way. He says he understands that better.