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Title: How to deal with so much big emotion Post by: Happiness66 on September 29, 2020, 10:58:24 AM When my wife is triggered, by me, her emotions are overwhelming for both of us. It feels like there is nothing I can do to help. She usually hates me and is extremely angry for hours, sometimes days.
Any thoughts? Title: Re: How to deal with so much big emotion Post by: CountTo108 on September 29, 2020, 05:23:45 PM Personally, I've learned to do The Bobblehead. Listen, acknowledge, repeat back "I hear you saying you feel…" and then let it lie. Walk away, let the anger cool off. You wrote that your wife is triggered "by you." I respectfully suggest thinking about it as her being triggered—end of sentence. Her image of you was more likely the trigger—not you. Trying to help (my experience) only adds fuel to the fire.
Title: Re: How to deal with so much big emotion Post by: Kaufmann on September 29, 2020, 06:48:38 PM Hi Happiness66,
Yes, my friend, I've been there. What has worked in my relationship is validating. Not trying to argue with her, not trying to change her mind. Just acknowledging how she feels, acknowledging in some sense that you understand her emotions or that there's some part of her emotion that you can understand. This is from a very helpful book, Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder: Excerpt Validation authenticates some aspect of the experience of another. It is finding one (sometimes very small) piece of a behavior that is authentically understandable to you and communicating to the other person that it is understandable. You don't even have to agree with them. People with BPD often have self-constructs of being out of control, having a lot of emotional pain, not being able to tolerate emotional pain, not being able to do things that others can do, not having a sense of who they are. So if your loved one has an identity that includes thinking she is worthless and undeserving of love and you are constantly telling her that she is wrong, that she is not worthless, etc., she will become more emotional around you and may well turn to her relationship with the violence drug addict who actually treats her like she's not worth anything and sometimes tells her outright she has no value. If your loved one believes she's worthless, and you say, "You're not worthless," you are arguing against her self-constructs. She will likely get more upset. Using validation, you would say, "Look, I know you see yourself as worthless. the fact is, you have done some things that have made you feel that way, and I know that your mistakes in life have made you feel bad about yourself. This is what I know about you, though..." |