BPDFamily.com

Not even sure where to start… im just loosing it, not literally but you know what i mean right? Loving and living with someone with BPD has been the most horrific experience ive ever been through and im a former addict been through A LOT in my life and this has been sooooooo draining and physically and mentally and emptionally taxing. I cant do it anymore… i cant be told im useless anymore i cant be his “mother” anymore… having to literally do everything for him to make sure he takes his meds and make sure hes the best version of himself just so he can beat me down … weve got three kids together.. im tired… i don’t know im not sure what im looking for here. Just need someone to talk to. Lying to everyone sround me so that he doesnt sound like a COMPLETE piece of crap is so tiring. Its all so tiring….

First off, welcome to the family!  I can relate to so much of what you shared; my marriage to a BPD wife lasted 23 years and we had a BPD daughter in the process.  I was so drained of energy for so long that I had completely forgot how to be myself.

Tell us how we can help- are there certain patterns you keep seeing?  Or circular arguments that keep coming up?  Talk it out a little bit while we wait for the rest of the community to chime in.  You're among friends here that understand, so you don't have to hide anything in order to avoid the judgement.  It's also a great place to just let out a good rant!

Again, welcome!  I'm so glad you found us!

Hi @LovingBPD, and welcome!

It got the perception that you might be trying to argue with him, are you? I mean, if he says something like "the Earth is flat" then you try to prove it's round, but as he adds nonsense arguments to support his flat-earther views and raises the tone, the discussion becomes exhausting for you?

But you must remember this:

"Arguments lead to counter-arguments."

Particularly in BPD, when you talk about anything and it leads to a discussion, that interaction will only strengthen even more his rigid thought patterns.

The first choice is to ignore it. But if that's not enough, you might consider the possibility of pretending to agree with the nonsense, only until they cool off. And then after they cooled off completely and switched to "the pull mode," you might ask them if they really think that, as if you didn't quite know who you are. You might be surprised to notice that they may change their mind.

For instance, my wife has used the term "sexually impotent" to offend me. I find that funny because her real opinion is the exact contrary. So I just ignore it, and I don't want to spend energy on that.

Another thing she says is to call me controlling. Again, I don't care, so I was ignoring it. However, this is a very sensible spot because she is traumatized by controlling parents, so her perception of being controlled is something that creates lots of issues in our lives. Eventually she disagrees with me on something I considered important to her or the baby's health and calls me controlling, but since it's important, I find myself having to "hold up my stance." Unfortunately, she ends up perceiving me as if I were defending against the accusation of being controlling, when I'm not. Instead, I'm arguing about a food or a medication. But yet, since I am arguing with her, her distorted perception of being a victim of someone controlling deepens and feeds her anger at an impressive rate, quickly making it impossible for us to talk. So she is left with her deepened views.

So I tried to resolve this dispute by just agreeing with her. Before she got too aggressive, I just said, "Yes, I am." She took it as "a confession," and, with wide eyes and a dumbfounded facial expression, she began to think and stopped ranting. Later on, when she was calmer, she brought this up again, telling me that it was the first time I had ever "confessed it." I told her that it is pointless to discuss this, because people that are controlling don't change, so she made a bad choice, but she still can divorce and perhaps find a non-controlling husband. For someone else watching the scene from the outside, it might seem like a joke, but for her it did sink in and make her think about it. Maybe it's because she would never get that kind of response from her parents. Definitely not from her father.

Have you ever tried anything similar?  :)

Hi SuperDaddy, Not sure if this will work with all BPDs. With my uBPDw, any such matter of fact utterances by me (even when she is calm and not raging) will be registered and used with maximum effect during future splitting/raging sessions. she would not forget it even after several years as it  would be a reminder of the limits of her control / manipulation.

The way I wrote it here may have seemed unembellished, but I didn't say all of that at once. It was a back-and-forth conversation where the pieces came one at a time. And I was being careful enough to not say anything that would offend her. I know that those statements would not offend her because frequently in her outbursts she says that she made a bad choice, that she is still young, and that she will find another man, so all of what I said is just more of my agreement with her own statements. And I was not saying it out of anger.

What do you think?