BPDFamily.com

This was some advice place.  Not about BPD or anything. 

As I've worked through this concept of radical acceptance of being in a relationship with someone that has BPDish tendencies... .I have to say that the quoted advice is critical.

Once I've "believed" my wife and made adjustments... .life usually get's calmer.

FF

“She gave you valuable information about the kind of person she is. Believe her, and adjust your trust in her accordingly,”... .

It has taken me many years of "hard knox" to understand this, to implement this thinking / thought processes resultant.

*Valuable information given, via history of behavior, observed, over time.
_no longer ignored/
_no longer excused/
_no longer "written off", as a "one off"... .or two or three/
_believed as true (an actuality) over time (after time after time after time)/

*Believe her (or him), when they speak, act.
_there is always "fact" and "truth" at the bottom of crazy, you have to dive deep to find it, but its there/
_she (or he) will show you exactly who they are, don't be fooled, or fall into the "comfort zone"/
_don't think that you can have one good factually based discussion, after a disagreement, to "solve things"... .and things will be alright, no, .they will always show you who they really are, they do not ever disappoint/

*Trust in her (or him) accordingly.
_if and when you come to this eventuality, and you come to understand what you are coupled to, there is a chance you can have (achieve some semblance of) civility, peace, and the inner knowledge (tools) to cope, and to actually "survive" day to day in the relationship/
_yes, trust her (or him), they are quite consistent in their behavior construct, there is always a default line of emotional thinking in there/here, and when you understand that (finally), then you can "adjust" accordingly (come what may)/
_you will have to unlearn, and re-learn, you are going to have to set boundaries, you are going to have to learn a new way of communication, .not easy, but it is possible/
_you are going to have to learn how to handle each and every (BPD) behavior, emotional, verbal, and even physical, ./
_thick skin (emotional) is a must/
_better be able to excuse, to "let go"... .and be "silent" as necessary, but be strong, and as well resilient/
_be mindful that you will see signs of your eroding stamina :caution: to even be present and functional in the relationship via the perceived change from empathy, to apathy/
_your ability to effectively respond to, to control your own emotions, your reactions "in the face of" is key/

Wow ~> !

Red5

I met my wife when we were young so there’s a certain amount of acceptable crazy that goes with the territory. That said, she told me everything I needed to know, right there in the first few months. She laid herself bare showed me her insecurities, her inner demons and her ‘form’. She told me about her infidelity around her long term teenage boyfriend, about the one offs, the holiday romances, the people who forced themselves on her... .but there was a spin and I accepted that spin. I don’t know whether it was my blind love or my belief that things would be different with me as I wasn’t one of those guys. She didn’t need to be body conscious with me as I worshipped her... .she wouldn’t need to self harm because she only did that because she wasn’t happy... .she wouldn’t need to get angry with me because I’m a nice guy and I’d treat her well... .not like all those other guys before me, not like the other guys she told me about. I would call her fat like her sister did, so the eating problems would go away... .she could be herself with me.

Here’s the thing, that was her, those things were intertwined in her, much like her penchant for too many drinks. I used to laugh and joke about the fact that she literally liked to get  :cursing: on booze then  :cursing: on ganga and then  :cursing: by me... .I didn’t know, I couldn’t hear and I certainly couldn’t see what was right in front of me.

In a WhatsApp exchange I had with her a year ago in the summer, she said “you never really loved me, you never really listened to me and you never really understood me”... .and maybe she’s right, I never loved all of her, BPD and all, I did listen to her but I didn’t hear her and I certainly didn’t understand her. I made my sense of what was in front of me, excused the bits I couldn’t fit in my model and rejected some pretty serious bits that didn’t fit at all. Frankly I think a lot of people ‘make sense’ of her seeing her as they want to see her and ignoring the bits they don’t want to make sense of. She mirrors enough to make people comfortable and make them believe they ‘get her’, when actually, without understanding the BPD bit... .well it’s just nonsense.

I have seen conversations between her and OM, by the looks of things she has shown him what she is like worst and all... .yet I have also seen how he has tried to make sense of it within his normal view of the world. How he has trivialised parts of her past as irrelevant, nonsense and just ‘one of those things’. He hasn’t yet found himself in the right place to understand his own STBexW let alone pulled the Eros blindfold down enough to see my W in her true colours.

She showed me... .I just wasn’t equipped to see her.

Enabler

Great comments from Red5 and Enabler.

I too have been a willing victim of wishful thinking, seeing the best in a BPD loved one and imagining that part could supersede the crazy side.

Not anymore. I don’t have the wild hopeful optimism I once had. I feel a bit jaded. But I no longer feel letdown and disappointed when his behavior doesn’t meet my expectations, because that bar is pretty low nowadays. 

Yeah... .I knew my wife had an interesting FOO.  I started dating her when we were both in college.  She was training to be a vet (she was in pre-vet) and wasn't doing well with the science part of it (yeah... big part of it).  She expressed a lot of fear she would fail and her family would reject her... .the thinking seemed to be that if she was a vet and making good money she would be "worth" something... .earn her place.

No other people in her had ever finished college.  Many started and flamed out... with massive debt.

I wish I could recall exactly what I said to her... .I had switched majors after seeing that "real" engineering wasn't what I thought it  would be.  I just needed a degree to go fly for the Navy.

Well... .it was something along the lines of "if your field of study doesn't turn out to be what you thought... .isn't now the time to change it.  Tons of people do that... .totally normal." 

Well she basically asked me if I would still like her if she switched.  I remember thinking that was the oddest thing. 

Somehow in there she took some early childhood education classes and loved them.  I encouraged her to follow what she liked.  She did really well with grades and got her degree.  Near as I can tell she is a "top flight" teacher.  Last year the "gains" her students made were double the district average. 

She attended many meetings asking her what the heck she was doing.  Lots of people took notes.  Yet... .she worries they will can her at any moment.

She seems to have a knack for understanding how to motivate a "troubled kid". 

Anyway... .encouraging someone to follow their dreams was second nature to me.  My family (and extended family) raised "go for it" kinda kids.

An interesting factoid about my paternal grandparents.  I'm one of three grandkids.  All of us are pilots and skydivers... .all college graduates.  I hadn't realized that until a friend of the family pointed it out to me. 

My grandfather was a farmer and banker (local bank all the farmers used) and my grandmother taught school and then was a homemaker. 

Boy... my post is going all over the place.  I guess what I was trying to say is all of us got to a starting point with our pwBPD and then we matured (or in their cases maybe didn't mature more).  Trying to build off Enabler's point.

We didn't know what we didn't know.  Now I know a lot more (trying to stay open minded that there is lots more to learn... .even about my relationship with my wife).

FF

Picking on a wee point you eluded to. My W is typically the best at everything she wants to do. She got a commendation for her dissertation at university (yet took sleeping pills and had numerous melt downs in the process of doing it, which I helped her through). She's been excellent at all of her jobs and always commended for the way she conducts herself professionally (despite pulling her hair out at home with stress and worry about how things were going to go). She's had some great achievements in organising the local church and schools yet the preparations for it are stressed filled and typically bearish on her work... .she's like a swan, on the surface it's a picture of grace beauty and perfection, underneath she's paddling like mad kicking me in the head and constantly doubting her capability.

There's an acute difference in her ability to accept a compliment from me vs others. I could say "that looks great" and I'd get some snide pessimistic response, someone else could say "that looks great" and she'd accept the response. It's as though she thinks I lie constantly to her... .about everything.

Interesting as I can identify with FF wife in a way ( and I don't have BPD) but growing up with a family not feeling unconditionally loved makes you feel you have to do and be a certain way in order to be loved.  I chose a major that interested me, but also there was the unconscious message that some majors or fields of study would have been unacceptable because they would not be admired by my mother or her FOO. I think we all want our kids to study areas that would lead to employment but if a child found their heart in teaching, then that is where their heart is. I think I would have also shared your wife's fear of not being loved if I changed majors.

If love is contingent on pleasing your family, it can be taken away when they aren't pleased - and it didn't take much to make BPD mother displeased. I can understand your wife's feeling as if the other shoe might drop when she is praised for her work, because with a BPD mom, being painted white can be followed with being painted black.

I don't blame aspects of my H as much as I see how my own co-dependency and low self esteem influenced who I dated and the patterns in my relationships. I was already hiding parts of myself and people pleasing out of fear of not being liked. I was also young when we met and completely unaware of these aspects of myself. Overall, I think I did pretty well avoiding the big red flags my mother displayed but still was naive to the less obvious dysfunctional patterns in relationships.

FF I am very impressed with your wife. I think high functioning BPD can cause intimacy issues, but the fact that she is so competent is a plus. My BPD mother is very intelligent. In her era women went to college to find husbands.She got both a college degree and a husband. She did go back to school later for an additional degree. We all cheered her on. She had an A average. But someone she can't translate the book skills to real life skills. When she tries to do something, she is so afraid to mess up and it won't be perfect so she doesn't try. I think she too must have grown up with a similar situation that I did.

Having a college degree and advanced degrees is a sign of success but it may not translate into emotional  security.

My wife's FOO did her a favor by ignoring her.  (true... but sad to say)

Wife's older sister was "the one"... .she would be the most beautiful... the best... at everything.  No expense would be spared... .she was the complete focus of success (trophy kid).  She did NOTHING  wrong in her childhood... .nothing.  Anything bad was redefined as good or blamed on someone else (and she was the victim)

Multiple marriages, multiple BKs... .1 ruined kid, 1 player (18 years old... no drivers license and has several girls that take him around where he needs to go) and the youngest saw the light and moved in with her Dad and is working hard in T as a teenager.

Her brother was the focus of (I say "henpecked by") his Mom.  She was going to create the perfect man... .again... .no mistakes.  

He has lived 13 hours away from anyone in his family for a long time now.  He got within 2 credit hours of a bachelors degree... that his Mom was "making" him get when he refused to take the last class.  The most ultimate passive aggressive move ever.  Of course... .massive debt that he hasn't repaid and can't be BK'd away.

My wife's parents had the daughter they wanted and son they wanted.  My wife was a twin with her brother.  She came out last.  They didn't know they were having twins.

They were quite open about telling her she wasn't needed... .that she was "extra" (but not extra special).

Her brother and sister were given cars... she wasn't.  Many other things were obviously given to them and obviously not given to her... or told she had to work for it.   Which she did.

So... .in high school she told her counselor that she wanted to go to college.  So they put her on that track.  She is only one that ever finished.

She is "BPD lite" compared to her sister.  Her brother is really a recluse.

A couple years back I "voluntarily estranged" myself from her family.  My life is so much simpler.  

FF

Once upon a time she was a victim, a victim of people whom should have known better, been kinder, been fairer, given unconditional love.

She's not a victim anymore but still lives in a fantasy where she acts as one, fighting with shadows and wrestling with invisible perpetrators.

That's a huge "insight" there FF, imho !

Wow !... .that one sentence tells us a whole lot about your W... .do you get my "drift" ?

Yeah, ."insight" !

Red5

Your W is a "high functioning" pw/BPD Enabler... .my W is the same way, she was always very successful in her professional life, but at home, she was (still is) a hot mess most of the time... .she resigned her career billet (job) when she was diagnosed with r-c-c two years ago.

Red5

Wow!, .that rings with me Wendy, .as I have come to understand, and know more about my own pbd wife's foo, .the more and more things are starting to "make sense" to me.

When my wife was working (career)... .she was always the one (she told me) that did the most, put up with the most, endured the most... .she would often tell me that her "boss/supervisor/VP" was "using her"... .and that she always thought that when "they" were done with her, that they would not renew her contract (state community college system)... .and get rid of her... .she often told me that she was "not in the boss's click"... with the other women who worked in her section (finance)... .over the years, I spent many hours with her in the evenings, on the back porch, with the merlot, listening to her, and trying to "get her down out of that tree" she had climbed up into (metaphorically)... .and I was soon, and too;... .targeted as well resultant... .oh well eh'... .live and learn, .that is now an emergency procedures "tab" on one of my many checklists I have written in my brain housing group... .

... .yeah, wow !

hmmm... ."hindsight"... .they say, .I have come to understand something, I may be wrong... but this is what I think, .if your sig other is a high functioning BPD, .then on the other end of that "yard stick", you are going to have a very "grumpy" sig other when they are alone with you at home... .as in, running the whole show in their career, highly respected, and successful, but at home, after hours, they beat the poor galley slave, ie' us-we-you-me... ."the Non"; half to death (me#2 metaphorically)... .does this make sense?

Red5

This was dinnertime conversation... .nearly word. for. word. every. single. night. during my childhood. My mother was always the one in her office that worked the hardest, put up with the most cr@p, did other people's work and everyone else was a slacker.

When I first met my husband, he had moved to the city where we met from his parents' home about 1000 miles away. The story was that the company where he was working was closing and his girlfriend had broken up with him again and he had just bought a new car. So obviously, he "left home". At the time, I thought it was an odd thing to do in the middle of all that was happening. Wouldn't someone want to stay in the same community where they had connections for a job search and social support?

H feels like the "black sheep" of the family and his brother is the "golden" one. His dad has a lot in common with brother. But at the same time, brother was divorced from his first wife because of an affair - they met at AA and married the ow. For a while, brother didn't have much communication with his parents even when they were living closer.

As the years passed, I realized that he doesn't have a long term relationship with employers and not many long time friends. The longest period of time that he has stayed anywhere has been about 4 years - that was while he was taking AD. He left one of his recent jobs because some students were given permission to not attend his class in person.

When he was in the process of getting ordained, people asked him why he had had so many jobs. He said that it was the industry. Right... . They said he was "successful"... . I sat there listening and thinking "he's going to quit in a couple years or so... .because that's what he does".

Believe them, adjust trust.