BPDFamily.com

I can't complain about her behavior without her having a meltdown and her going into dysregulation, possibly for weeks.  Then she complains that I abuse her and she  can't take the abuse anymore.  This is why it is SO difficult to treat BPD.  They just can't handle any criticism or complains against them.   Not only that, but she reads into things I say and sees messages completely unrelated to what I actually said.  I feel like I'm in an alternative universe when communicating with her.  When she complains about the things I said, I want to laugh b/c it's so far from the truth.  I think  of the original Star Wars movie when Luke Skywalker sends that tiny little shot into the hole on the surface of the death star.  That little shot blows up the whole death star!  My wife is full of little holes that accept little shots and then she allows herself to completely blow up.  By the way, now she wants me to move out b/c she doesn't feel safe around me.

Hi starkrekuser,

I know it is so hard to communicate with our BPD partners and I see it is causing you a lot of frustration.  I notice you have a lot of posts here on Conflicted/Tolerating.  I just wanna drop by to invite you to also take a look at the Improving Board. Perhaps by focusing on things you can do to improve the communication, if you are up for it, could help you see some different results?

I try not to just make blanket complaints towards my husband. Instead, I try to identify problems we have and work on win-win solutions. This keeps things more positive and helps avoid us being adversaries.  There is some good stuff in here on How to Avoid Accusations and Blaming and How to Avoid Circular Arguments: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=36.0 Maybe it's time for a total rethink on how you are interacting with her?

My husband still has meltdowns but since I have started to work on myself and totally change my approach towards his behavior I have noticed he does a bit better, and every bit counts!  At the least, using some of the tools and ideas on the site can make you feel better no matter what she does or doesn't do. Help you be more at peace, ya know? Just a quick thought! :)

How did you respond when she asked you to move out?

I know this doesn't help you other than knowing there is someone out there that has shared your experience... .but I identified with everything you wrote there startrekuser.

Think about outcomes... .always about outcomes... .

If you take the outcome of your complaint to the nth degree, what is the point of your criticism? I recently ran through a situation with a village friend, he was complaining to me that his wife doesn't prepare their kids healthy food as he would like. He got angry with his wife for continually cooking them fries for dinner. Her reaction was defensive to the point where their marriage was at risk and divorce had been spoken about. I asked this man, "if you get divorced, who will look after the kids?", "Wife" "What will she feed them?" "Chips"... .I recommended that he focus on achieving his blueprint for life when he was cooking dinner and ignore it when his wife was in control. I suggested he radically accept that his very depressed and emotionally volatile wife was not capable of compromise at the moment and his incessant obsession with healthy eating and blaming and shaming her were just making things worse not better. I suggested he radically accept that "fair", "what's right" and his opinion were not important at THIS TIME when he was not in control of the situation and his primary focus was on positive outcomes and that positive outcome was to keep his family together and reduce the emotional volatility to the point where his wife could be less dysregulated. Then and only then could he address other less important issues.

I know how frustrating it is to try and address problems with a pwBPD. I'm a straight shooter and though I try to be very sensitive and uncritical, things I say and do get twisted around all the time.

And when you live with another person, or even interact with them, it's inevitable that conflicts will arise. We have to have a way to deal with disagreements without it leading to hostility. It's difficult to phrase things sometimes without it appearing as complaints or criticism. Though it's necessary to address problems, it becomes even more challenging not to trigger a pwBPD's shame when we have those inevitable conversations.

Then too, they often sense criticism or condemnation where it doesn't even exist in our minds.

This morning my husband was angry because I had moved a disassembled cardboard box from the kitchen counter to his place at the breakfast table after he had left for an errand. He stormed into my space, while I was online here--fortunately lots of windows open, and asked if I was being critical of him leaving the box in the kitchen.

I calmly told him that I was cleaning the counter and I wasn't sure if he was saving it so I didn't want to put it in the recycle bin without asking since it was raining and it would get ruined.

"OK, that makes sense," he said. (A rare time where JADEing actually worked.)

In the past, this would have resulted in a major blowup. But now I'm not emotionally triggered by his angry emotional state, so I don't add fuel to his fire.

The truth was that I was irritated that he left it on the counter, though I would say my irritation was now about a 1 on a 1 to 10 scale. But he needn't know that and I didn't need to express that either.

It seems the reality of living with a person with BPD is that it's like having a cut on your finger--for both parties. Everything you touch hurts. They're not likely to use a metaphorical bandaid to protect the wounded skin, so we need to do that for ourselves. When we're not hurting, we don't add to the conflict. And when they don't hurt as much, they don't lash out against us quite as often.

But it still remains that weird things trigger them. Like the box. In his mind, I was criticizing him for leaving it there and he created a whole internal drama for that thought.

I refused to play my part in the drama playing out in his head, so he had to let it go.