|
Title: How do you deal with their accusations? Post by: sabas on October 28, 2019, 04:56:24 PM My wife accuses me of a lot of things but mainly:
1. Not showing her that she makes me happy 2. Not "trying" in our relationship. 3. Being boring. I am an introverted, low-key person (part of the reason I think I've been able to put up with the fighting and criticizing for so long), so the accusations f**k with my reality. I always feel like I'm kind, attentive, and loving to her. But she interprets anything other than overt cheerfulness and undivided attention as being "dead". We have a fun weekend together, filled with tons of time together and then on Monday it's, "you're never happy around me, it's obvious I make you miserable, you have no passion, you don't try with me at all, etc." From my point of view it comes so far out of left field. I'm always utterly baffled. But, like I said, part of the weekend is me quietly getting our son ready for the day, or reading on my phone at night, so I always wonder if she's right and other people would see it like her. That's my specific case, but I'm wondering how do you deal with accusations the pwBPD feels in the bottom of their soul but that you don't think are true? If I'm being honest it seems to me that a lot of these, at least in regard to my wife, come from insecurity or low self-esteem, or an inability to be alone with her thoughts and needing me to be experiencing her emotions and thoughts simultaneously to her. Is there a way to validate but not take responsibility for things that aren't true? I don't want to tell her she's crazy but I don't want to say that yes, I have a problem and I'll work on it. Title: Re: How do you deal with their accusations? Post by: Radcliff on October 30, 2019, 01:42:21 AM I'm sorry you're dealing with this. It sounds familiar, and yes, it does totally mess with your reality. I agree with you that it comes from insecurity, among other things. The thing I tried really hard to do was to self-validate, to acknowledge to myself that I was generally doing a good job of looking out for her needs, while also looking for any kernels of truth amongst the off-base accusations. What do her accusations tell me about her feelings? You can do "partial validation," by validating her feelings.
After self-validation, you want to see if you can tease out any actionable information from her that can help you make her feel more supported. When you have a happy fun-filled weekend with her, is she giving you clear signals that she's happy? When you're happy do you voice it out loud to her, or assume she'll pick it up from your demeanor or other cues? RC |