BPDFamily.com

Surviving a Break-up with Someone Suffering with BPD

This article has helped many start the healing process and accept our partners dysfunction more than any other article on the site. I often read on the Crises board, how do we move past this?. Well, let's all take a look at the false thinking that holds us back and share our own thoughts and experiences in this regard.
 

Belief that if you say it louder you will be heard "We often feel that if we explain our point better, put it in writing, say it louder, or find the right words ... .we will be heard. People with BPD hear and read just fine. Everything that we have said has been physically heard. The issue is more about listening and engaging. When the relationship breaks down and emotions are flared, the ability to listen and engage diminishes greatly on all sides. And if we try to compensate by being more insistent it often just drives the interaction further into unhealthy territory. We may be seen as aggressive. We may be seen as weak and clingy. We may be seen as having poor boundaries and inviting selfish treatment. We may be offering ourselves up for punishment. It may be denial, it may be the inability to get past what they feel and want to say, or it may even be payback. This is one of the most difficult aspects of breaking up - there is no closure."

This myth rings so true for me, I recall as the years progressed, the conflict grew, I was frustrated with my ex because I didn’t feel like I was being heard and I honestly didn’t know how to validate her.

I relied on what I knew from childhood which was defensiveness and conflict. If my ex-wife with borderline traits wouldn’t validate my thoughts then I would just fight back harder. The flawed logic was that if I was more aggressive with my message, I'd be heard. I also kept pushing because I thought that eventually she’d give in. What I didn’t realize was that she heard me just fine—she just saw things differently than I did.

Did you believe this, too?

---

More information:

Surviving a Break-up with Someone Suffering with Borderline Personality Disorder (full article) (https://bpdfamily.com/content/surviving-break-when-your-partner-has-borderline-personality)
1) Belief that this person holds the key to your happiness (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=314258)
2) Belief that your BPD partner feels the same way that you feel (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=314522)
3) Belief that the relationship problems are caused by you or some circumstance (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=314791)
4) Belief that love can prevail (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=315189.0)
5) Belief that things will return to "the way they used to be"  (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=315459.0)
6) Clinging to the words that were said  (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=315688.0)
7) Belief that if you say it louder you will be heard (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=315949.0)
8) Belief that absence makes the heart grow fonder (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=316222.msg12908963#msg12908963)
9) Belief that you need to stay to help them.  (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=316531.0)
10) Belief that they have seen the light (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=316754.0)

Sure, I thought louder was better and added a few choice words, just for extra-emphasis!  I doubt that I accomplished anything, however, by raising my voice.  Plus, I felt disappointed with myself for stooping to my Ex's level of aggressive confrontation, which only added to our already high level of conflict.  In a sense, we were on different wavelengths; turning up the volume nob could not change the frequency.  Sometimes I describe my marriage to a pwBPD as a case of mistaken identity, which raising my voice did nothing to alleviate.

LuckyJim

I tried everything that I could think of in the course of our 20 years together. Initially, I retreated and kept quiet and thought that the problems were a result of me. As I got older, I would try to speak up. I would feel heard in the moment but then it would become obvious that he didn't hear a friggin' word I said. I tried sending him e-mails. There were many of nights we stayed up late into the night rehashing things. He would say all of the right things and then go right back to doing what he usually did without any regard for anything that I had said. So, I would explain more. I would send him articles and links. I would ask him to read books. I would raise my voice and get animated. He would act like I was so scary and mean and it would escalate and he would then use it as a reason to go seek other women. He would seek out other women online and tell them that I was a raging b***h and all kinds of stuff. I would get so upset and so flustered and I would talk even louder and get even more upset and I thought that there had to be a way to get him to hear me or understand me. If he could just see or hear the pain that I was experiencing, things would get better.

I would speak to my ex when things were calm and I'd believe that he was engaging with me.  I'd get all the right responses.  The actions were conflicting however.  Saying it again, saying it with more explanation, with different examples, saying it more succinctly, made no difference.  Showing him evidence and proof of things was fruitless.  So I would write him notes to try to get through to him - to the part of him that had understood me.  I too would send him links to information I'd found that applied to our situation, we'd share song lyrics with one another to get our messages across and yes, in the end I shouted back.  Boy did I shout back.  It only happened in a couple of instances during the end of the r/s.  However all of the pent up frustration and pain came pouring out in one go and it was like a volcano erupted inside of me.  I gave it back at him both barrels and he went to pieces.  Even though he was in tears and clearly distraught I didn't stop until I'd gotten it all out.  I became him and met him on his own level.  Did it work?  No.  This was the final nail for us.  He never got over the things I'd said in this way to him.  Whilst I felt huge relief for getting out the feelings I'd been holding back from spilling over in such a way for so long, and guilt of course for losing it, I knew deep down that it was no longer about getting him to understand if I'm honest.  It was almost like my way of releasing that message and accepting it was lost on him.  Of course he'd understood me the first time.  It just hadn't made any difference.  I needed to accept that.  Looking back, purging in this way was a tipping point for me.   

Love and light x

i voted "very much so". it was one of the beliefs that resonated with me the "loudest", and in so many ways.

ill give just one example. i tended to think it was the best strategy, when things got too heated, to exit the conversation until we had both cooled off. sometimes that was true. sometimes me doing that was more about being punitive, punishing, and controlling. stonewalling. and sometimes, either way, she would up the ante. id get text after text pushing my buttons, threatening me, insulting me, whatever. and id read them, and id get a line in my head that i just felt overwhelmed with the compulsion to send, and it never got me anywhere but furthering a circular argument and upping the ante even more.

i think that this belief is strongly wedded to the need to be right, and it is at the heart of most circular arguments.