BPDFamily.com

For months now my wife and I have been in a really tough dynamic with her spiraling and collapsing into desperate pleas for reassurance and validation daily. I was completely burned out from 7 months of codependent placating and beginning to implement boundaries. This website seems to place a lot of responsibility on the partner as emotional caretaker to provide a lot of validation and soothing. I'm just wondering if there is an upper limit to that validation and soothing in theory, and in practice where people find they burn out. With daily spirals it's really tough to stay patient and even see the positive reasons to continue. 

I think you're very right to question this, and it's positive to see you are setting boundaries. That's something I didn't do well. I thought I was being a good partner, didn't look after myself, lost myself, and we ended anyway. What I’ve learned is that supporting someone you love matters, but you can’t do it well if you’re depleted. You matter too and you need to look after yourself.

dont think of it as us telling you what to do  lol

all the literature will tell you "validate, validate, validate".

it will tell you bpd makes for a special needs relationship. that it requires a great deal of skill to manage this kind of relationship. its right.

with that said, i think its usually easier to think in terms of "dont be invalidating" than "validate".

the idea being, if youre not being invalidating, you are most likely being validating. you have the presence of mind to know when to actively validate.

its more important to grasp validation as a life skill, as a tool in your tool belt with the rest of them, than to try to use it to resolve every conflict. members get called out by their partners for this more often than not, because we tend, at first, to try to use it more as magic words to get someone to calm down, than to actually hear what is valid behind what theyre saying. that has its own way of being invalidating. people with bpd traits tend to communicate their needs, they just tend to pick maladaptive, destructive, and/or hurtful ways to get them across, because they generally dont have the skills, and are apprehensive about neediness, to communicate them. that is why empathy is so important. its why building a validating environment for your relationship is important. you validate whats valid between all the extremes.

so, youre burned out. it sounds like youve practiced a lot of patience in this relationship, yet things are still out of control.

whats going on? you say this is happening daily: whats behind it?

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Everyone's tolerance level is different but I'm sure we've all gone way past the acceptable levels in the effort to save our relationship. There was definitely an upper limit in my case.. it was when she suddenly seemed capable of getting physical, a step up from just being verbal abuse. This time she had the black dilated pupils in her eyes which, if you look it up, indicate rage and extremely heightened emotions. Not pleasant to see.

I'd never heard of BPD then so just put it all down to her having a 'bad streak' - which I could have accepted to some extent but it was just getting out of hand so the next time she broke up I made sure it stayed that way.

I could have accepted her outbursts once in a blue moon, but they were increasing more and more and for even more trivial reasons. That made all the difference.

Knowing what I know now, I'd have set clear boundaries though what effect they would have had I'll never know.

I appreciate your thoughtful response. I can see how partners might codependently validate to try to get the other to calm down. I’m pretty good about not trying to fix her mood—rather just validate how she’s feeling and trust her to work it out, maybe gently suggest trying a DBT tool if she’s really stuck or really pushing my boundaries.

As for the issue, it all revolves around her fear of abandonment. She’s really smart and knows this situation is brutal, but seems to be struggling to accept responsibility to try new skills. She seems to fall back into a victim narrative a lot, believing it’s other people’s (mostly mine) job to comfort her and solve whatever she’s anxious about. Very sad to see, exhausting and kind of disorienting to be around because it clashes so much with most of my values and what I had hoped for in a partner. I’m definitely future-tripping, and it feels like a dilemma between compassion and self-preservation; supporting her vs. protecting my own peace. The constant somatic health crises, poor organizational skills, messiness, extremely low resilience and distress tolerance, defensiveness and spirals... It’s caretaking, not partnership, and I’m struggling to decide if I can commit to being that guy who can sacrifice so much to support someone who can’t yet support themself.

Hi Once Removed,

I really like your response. Especially this part:

So so so true in my experience.

Hi Zosima,
I'd also like to say you seem like an extremely supportive partner who is trying really hard, and she's lucky to have you. It's also good you can see what is going on and the effect it's having on you.