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My uBPDbf and I work in similar fields and serve on a board together. I've been thinking about a goal for weeks, patiently waiting for the right time to pitch it. Decided today was the day to send a well-thought out email to our colleagues. So I (foolishly) shared my thoughts with him.

Enter BPD impulsivity---> before I get the chance, he sends them a sloppy unprepared one, missing all the main points I wanted to make. I had a strategic plan in mind. After he blurted it out, I had to re-think my approach. They mostly see him as a loose cannon - so any idea coming from him is not usually received well. All I could do is piggyback on his email, adding in my points, while also being careful not to invalidate him on a reply-all situation. 

Frustrating. Weeks of planning undone in seconds. Naturally, he didn't take my disappointment too well... .minor blowout. Don't know the solution other than to stop trusting him with anything important. Keep my trap shut and forge ahead. Is that healthy? I don't know how else to deal with his impulsive, sometimes reckless behaviors.

Some filtering is often needed, gauging the best times to share, what to share, and what is totally unshareable.

Reckless behavior can come from many angles, from drinking too much, to overspending, and even engaging in physically unsafe behaviors like aggressive driving.  So, hopefully, you are mostly dealing with him jumping the gun on things instead of following your lead. 

One thing I think bot we "nons" and our pwBPD are both guilty of - assuming we were clear about our intentions and plans. 

I have learned the very hard way if I want H to KNOW something, ACCEPT something, and then (hopefully) react in a timely manner in the way I need him to react/act/show up/do something, I have to start slow and be very direct in an empathetic manner, at an appropriate times . 

This counts sharing things from an obligation, coming up to how I want to handle something (or how it needs to be done), I have to have a campaign of sorts planned to say it early.  Let him get adjusted to it.  Let him internalize it a bit.

In this case, did you TELL him the idea still needed some tweaking to be "just right" and YOU wanted to be the one to share it?  NOt assume he understood it was supposed to be YOU - BPD makes them see us and them as one person half the time anyway, so you have to be VERY clear when there is a need to be distinct and separate in a way that does not trigger abandonment feelings. 

Direct - YOU are sending it:

"I am going to send an email to the board today - look for it and tell me what you think once I lay out the plans for our new line of sprockets.  I need to write it out to get my ideas good and clear for everyone."

It's very clear from this that you are writing it and sending it, and you haven't even shared the gist of it so he can try to send out something confusing.

Sadly not as direct and possible for an enmeshed person to feel HE can send a message if really excited:

"I have a great idea about 3D printing sprockets with Acme vending and shipping them via Amazon and want to make sure its shared with the board today!"

In the mind of a pwBPD, this can sound like HE, also being part of you, can send it.  And, he might even see it as "we're married, so everything is joint anyway."

And, he may have wanted a little of the applause for it if well received.

So after all of that writing - yes, you need to filter what you say, and plan how to say what you DO share.  Discussions about what to have for dinner, not such a big deal (usually - BPD can make it "fun".  Discussions over business plans when you both serve on a board, yeah, filter that.  It's not mean - you are dealing with a person with limited executive control who has (I am guessing) a history of impulsive decisions. 
is mind

Thanks, that is very good advice. I guess I didn't make it clear. 1) This was important to me. 2) I wanted to present it, just wanted to talk it out first. Didn't think this was even necessary.

My brother told me to treat him like a cat . Expect him to run right in front of you, trip you, sit on your laptop, push your stuff off the table with his paws... .then remind yourself, this is what cats do. As long as the cat isn't clawing out your eyeballs, walk around it, and go about your merry way! Easier said than done, but I'll give it a try!

Unfortunately... .your pretty much already have your answer.

Perhaps "flip it" and ask yourself... ."What's the worst he could do with this information... ?"  If you can stand that, then share.

Not my thought, but a thought I appreciate.  Someone said "We trust people as much as we can recover from the damage they can do if the trust is broken."  (or something like that).

So... .if you entrust him with 100 bucks and he blows it and you can easily make another hundred, there wasn't much trust and he did blow it.

If you knew that was the last 100 you could ever earn and you entrusted it to him, that's a lot of trust.

Make sense?

Thoughts?

FF

FF - That makes sense as well. My proposal wasn't going to benefit me personally, nor the outcome cause me any harm. So I felt safe confiding in him. I didn't expect him to do anything other than listen. I don't like him speaking for me, esp when he does it poorly.

When you give a pwBPD a bunch of information, usually there is the important part/structure of it and a methodology to the way it is presented. They don't see this as you do and they interpret it differently. In this instance how it was to be presented was the frame on which this needed to be sold to the client. He did not see this and so stitched up his own presentation priorities.

You have to present the priorities and make sure these are clear and agreed before giving the information for him to be able to use. Selective release if you like so He cant put the cart before the horse.

Thank you waverider, more food for thought... .and good to see you

I've learned to handle his self-destructive impulses better - I see his gambling/overspending, over-eating, road raging as ultimately HIS problems. He suffers the consequences... .so I let him.

Today's plan would've helped many other people who DON'T engage in reckless behavior. It was important to me without getting any direct benefit. Turns out, the plan wasn't completely foiled. There was positive feedback, in spite of him.