BPDFamily.com

Good Evening Everyone,
This a continuation from my last few post.  Lately I've been avoiding all conflict that my borderline seems to engage in.  I've picked up that she knows what my hot buttons are, and we communicate via email only.  I usually wait 24 hours to respond, if at all to emails.  Lately I've been completely ignoring emails fights as they are over pointless items.  I only communicate need to know items and skip the pleasantries.  In the past month I have completely ignored those angry emails that have no meaningful content.  How does the BPD view this ignoring, will she stop, or only get more frustrated.  For instance she is still hung up on my testimony in a court battle that ended 6 months ago and is like "during court you said this, I want to know why", etc. 

It sounds like things are kind of stable at the DMZ, yes? It might be tempting to discuss what she wants,  but I can't imagine it would be beneficial,  rather going into JADE.

Don't pick up the gauntlet:  Arguing, Don't Engage  (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=106107.0)

Years later, I told me ex that she lied to her T at the time of our break up.  She responded,  "we need to meet and set things straight." I ignored the message.  She never brought it up.  I realized that I have to parent with this person for the next 13 years legally,  and realistically the rest of my life,  as an older friend of mine who divorced when his kids were 4 and 6 told me.  His kids are post college age now. 

I applaud you on your BIFF and boundaries now when things are still emotionally raw.  Keep playing the long game,  for your kids and for you. 

She probably struggles with consistency in her feelings, like an intense roller coaster of mood states. And people with BPD tend to have a hard time resolving hurts.

Self-soothing is something we take for granted. For the person with BPD, he or she may have a library of hurts that sit there, a big data bank of emotional injuries that don't subside. Whereas nonBPD people tend to process our pain and find ways to alleviate that rawness.

Asking you to clarify what you said is her way of making sense of it, except she likely has, at best, an impaired ability to see her role in what went wrong, so the pursuit to understand always brings back disappointment.

Unfortunately, she may feel the need to take you back to court in order to get behind your wall of silence. If so, you may want to avoid going to hearings that don't absolutely require your presence. If your L feels you have to go, then try to appear as impassive as possible, what my L referred to as "going beige." Not saying this is what your ex is doing, but I think sometimes there is a compulsion to elicit some kind of emotional reaction to relieve the pressure. Either to equalize -- meaning, you feel as intensely as she does, so you validate her mood state in a way. Or, once she sees you dsyregulated, it confirms for her that she means something to you, that she is able to experience her feelings through your expression of them.

from my experience it does go away or subside... .definatley less intense episodes and less frequent occurrences.  It took conistently not engaging though for months.  I also have found it helpful to allow discussions, let my husband's ex express her frustration or hurt as long as she is respectful about it.  If she starts yelling, name calling, degrading us, I do end the conversation.  It seems to be better than it ever has been.  Hope it works for you too!

Bunny