BPDFamily.com

Hi again,

I posted recently about my relationship as I had been going through a really rough time with a family member dying, my dad being in hospital & myself having to administer personal care for my dad as he’s become very disabled all the while raising my children & running my business.

Through out this my partner had been constantly telling me that I’m abusive, that my behaviour was awful, that I was treating him badly, that I never validate him & that the relationship has been bad for months. I have been sleeping on the sofa, taking on all of the negative points my partner was making about me & trying to figure out what I have been doing wrong. I had shouted at him & said things I didn’t mean so I started to doubt myself & believe that I am abusive.

I reached out to you guys, to my friends & my family all of whom have been incredible & helped me to see that I am a good person & what he had been saying just doesn’t match up. I then did some research on abuse & became very confident in the fact that I am not abusive but have been reacting to being abused & gaslighted & he has been using that to justify his behaviour.

Every time he wanted to talk he only wanted to tell me what I had done wrong & would walk away when I brought up my emotions, he would take very little situations & make them massive & call me abusive, he wouldn’t comfort me when I would worry about my dad, he would make it about him when I needed to focus on anything else.

For the past 2 days I have really trusted myself & have managed to function well & this has seemingly unsettled my partner to the point that he admitted tonight that he has been abusive. He has said that he is scum, undeserving & selfish.  He has said that he wants to feel special like everyone else around him & when the focus shifts away from himself he then tantrums like a child but he also says he doesn’t trust anything that he thinks. He really believed i was treating him badly so doesn’t feel he can rely on himself to make the right decision.

I’m not sure if this means that we will be ok or even if he will stay in this mind frame because he can chop & change quite quickly & it scares me.

It was my dads last night in hospital tonight & I had arranged for the children to visit him after school but my partner said I was acting so badly he wouldn’t allow our son to join me & our daughter so my dad missed out on seeing both of his grandchildren & our son missed out on being with all of us.

I’m just not sure if this is acceptable. He has emotionally destroyed me this week & left me to pick up the pieces & deal with everything alone whilst getting kicks out of my emotional decline & although I feel empowered with my ability to trust myself & the facts I feel completely betrayed & hurt by all of this.

Right now he hates himself & it just feels in fitting with the cycle of abuse. He’ll show remorse & then he’ll get annoyed at something else in the near future & so the cycle continues.

I’m not sure if it’s his new meds, his BPD or if he is an abusive partner. My head has been messed with so much this week I feel like I’m in a whirlwind.

None of this is new but it hasn’t been this bad for a long time, although, I haven’t needed to rely on him this heavily for a long time. Is this what I should expect when I need emotional support?

I don’t know what to do next.

A pwBPD feels that they are worthless and unworthy of love.  Their feelings don't matter; therefore,  they don't matter. 

What does he mean when he says he's being abusive? Do you agree and how do you think he is if you agree?

Hey, thanks for your reply.

I do agree that he has been abusive. He has been emotionally manipulative, gaslighting me, being an intimate terrorist by goading & pushing me & then threatening to leave. Laughing at my emotions & not caring about how I feel in regards to my difficult situation. He hasn’t allowed me to talk; has shut me up, walked away any time I try to explain how I’m feeling & generally degrading me. He also ripped my necklace from my neck & shook me. So yeah, he’s been abusive.

He tried to make me believe that I was being abusive.

I don’t know where to go from here.

He is upset that he isn’t going to the funeral with me today & is saying I don’t want him there like his emotions are more important than me going to pay my respects to my family member. It just doesn’t feel like he is owning any of this & that although he is saying that he knows he has been abusive, it still feels like he is still emotionally manipulating me.

To be technically correct he kinda is, but probably not in the way that's most obvious.

people with BPD have very strong emotions and a high sensitivity for negative reactions, they see even neutral or passive things as negative and attacks on them.

They also often have fears of being abandoned, that if you are not there for them and their needs whenever they want it means you don't love them and you will leave them. Their pushing you away, the saying nasty things, is a disordered attempt to get your attention back by triggering in you the same abandonment they feel themselves.

This is the "manipulation part", they have a goal and are trying to get you to act differently, they don't state their needs to come to a mutual understanding because they probably don't know how to, or even if they do any perceived negative further increases frustration and they go back to their angry ways. There's a whole book about it called "I hate you don't leave me".


They feel abused, they feel you are disregarding their emotions, disregarding them. They feel the pain caused by not having your total undivided attention to themselves as being directly caused by you. You are not being abusive, but it feels like you are to him.

It feels very real to them, as much (or most likely even more intensely) as you feel it yourself. Their underlying assumption is not correct, you were not being abusive, you needed to focus on something else, and that's ok.

Anyway, I'm saying all this to hopefully give you a glimmer of understanding to help decide how you want to move forward.

What do your feelings tell you? what does your conscious mind, your inner voice say?