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If I do anything nice for her, I’m selfish because I only did it for praise and recognition…. Buy her things she likes at the grocery store?   It’s all because I wanted to get recognized for it.

I might say something like, “Of course I do things like this only to get your praise and recognition, because that’s all that matters to me. Your praise and recognition is what I live for. It’s only an incidental bonus that these things I buy for you make you happy. ”

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend such an approach, but if you’re someone like me with a sardonic sense of humor, you might find it a successful approach to cut this line of inquiry short.

I doubt this would work- as I’m already “diagnosed” (by her, of course) as being a narcissist.   Never mind the fact that I constantly acknowledge her views, validate her feelings and voluntarily admit my responsibilities and flaws when I’m wrong (which is about 50% of the time as would be expected in a normal relationship).   Never mind the fact that I am clearly not perfect or anywhere near knowledgeable in most things let alone in everything- and never mind the fact that I readily admit my lack of expertise and comfort with the reality that I am (like all other humans) flawed and imperfect and that I also make mistakes.  But to her- I’m a narcissist….

What’s wrong with being a narcissist?  lol  If you quit fighting it, you’ll save a lot of energy. Everyone has narcissistic tendencies at times. So what?

Since she falls prey to splitting, she is incapable of recognizing that everyone has narcissistic traits yet most are not malignant narcissists.   She can’t understand that having good ideas or wanting to feel praise or having some sort of pride in your life does not make you a narcissist.

So you cannot change her way of thinking. What I’m asking you to do is to change how you respond to her attacks.

If it no longer gets under you skin that she calls you a narcissist, then over time, she will quit doing so.

I was trained by my mother to worry about being *selfish*. It was a huge trigger for me if someone called me selfish. I did everything I could to prove it wasn’t true. Thus it was a great way to get manipulated by people. What didn’t occur to me was that people who were calling me selfish actually fit the definition more than I.

Once I realized how triggered I was by this word, I started to claim it with pride. “OK, call me selfish. Fine, I’m selfish. In fact I’m probably the most selfish person you’ll ever encounter.”

When I could do this, whether or not I said the above out loud, the trigger ceased to have the same effect upon me and I could see it as a manipulation technique.

I encourage you to do that with *narcissist*. I know that’s a big trigger for you as I’ve seen you mention that in several threads. It’s wonderful to free yourself of triggers and to no longer have to spend emotional energy defending your actions.

Since this seems to really bother you then the first thing you could do is to examine your motives to determine if you do have people pleasing or approval seeking tendencies, and then stop doing nice things for her if and when those are your (unconscious) motives.

But most likely she is projecting. BPs are transactionally oriented and assume that so is everyone else, so she likely believes that you are attempting to manipulate her and ingratiate yourself to her, and this creates in her a feeling of being controlled.

I completely agree with this.  pwBPDs know exactly how to trigger those close to them.  If that thing no longer has an effect on you, they tend to do it less.  And also, sad to say, once you're used to them saying certain things about you, you get triggered less as well.  I believe pwBPDs get a high from pushing your buttons.  When they say something that triggers you and raise you to their emotion level, it adds fuel to their fire.  I know it's really, really hard, but agreeing with them on certain things is actually a way on getting them to do it less.   

Boogie, I'm on board with you and what everyone else is saying here. You know what, you do deserve some praise and and recognition. It's a basic human need that she's making you feel guilty about. If you want it for doing something nice or being generous, that's a good thing. It's nothing to be "accused"  of.
As important as what you say or or don't say to her when she does this is what you say to yourself, because they have a way of chipping at your self esteem even when you think you're being strong.  I suggest reminding yourself that healthy self esteem is not narcissism, whenever she throws that word at you.

Totally agree with lenfan and I’ve noticed that my healthy self esteem can be triggering to my partner. “You’re up on your high horse.” “You are always right.” etc…

Usually I agree heartily about always being right or I say, with a confused facial expression, “My horse is in the barn now. How can I be up on her? And she’s rather a small horse anyways.”

I just don’t take it seriously. Lots of times I can make him laugh by agreeing that I am never wrong, have never had any history of being wrong, and am certainly not wrong in this circumstance.

It’s really freeing to detonate those insults and not let them have any impact. And by doing that, it takes the *fun* out of it for your BPD partner. I think what they often are looking for is to level the emotional playing field. They may feel very threatened that they have so little control of their emotions while we (seemingly) are masters of ours. If they can get us to let go and act out, then they don’t feel so ashamed of themselves.

I agree with the first part 100%, but not with the last part. People need recognition for who they are, not for what they do. It is not healthy self-esteem if one requires external validation. It is not really giving if one is unconsciously expecting something in return, and it’s a recipe for resentment over the long term.

External validation is nice, but not dependable coming from a pwBPD. Validating oneself solves this somewhat, but most of us would love a kind word now and then.

I have begun to simply ignore her responses that accuse me of being selfish for doing nice things for her.

We usually order takeout food about every other day.   Today, she wanted a restaurant but their website said “not taking online orders”.  She then mentioned that DoorDash will take the order.  She insisted that she refused to have me simply call and ask to place an order and then stormed off- telling me I’m selfish, a narcissist, a bully, etc.

I texted back that I still want the restaurant she wanted originally and that I called to ask if they will take the order (the answer was yes).   I told her that even if she doesn’t want the food I will order for myself.   I told her that I will place an order in 10 minutes and if she still doesn’t want anything, she doesn’t have to get it.   At 10 minutes, I gave her the option of telling me she needs more time.   The entire time, she told me I was a narcissist, chauvinistic, etc.

I called to place an order and also ordered stuff I know she likes- which somehow made me selfish and a narcissist (again).   I left, picked up the food and put her stuff in the fridge and ate my food by myself.

I basically am done with playing the game and doing as she wants me to under the accusation of being a selfish narcissist for wanting to do nice things for her.

So many women would love to have such a *selfish narcissist* as a husband!  lol

Yeah… the only thing I may have done wrong was ordering stuff for her despite her insistence that she didn’t want me to.   But if I got just for me, she would definitely use that as a claim of doing only for myself- and I’m not gonna give her that ammunition to start a tantrum.

I told her that if she truly decides not to eat it, then I’ll eat it.   Part of me thinks that she’s an adult and should suffer the consequences of her actions (she should) but I also don’t want to be a catalyst to enforce those consequences.   If they are natural consequences, so be it- but I won’t “send her to bed without dinner” just to be a jerk.   I think that acting in a normal way and simply ignore her emotional outbursts is better than helping escalate by rubbing it in “you told me to f myself and therefore I’ll make sure you get nothing” (that’s not in my character)

Your approach stayed true to your values while also not validating the invalid or getting dragged into conflict. Well done!

Will be interesting to see what impact your new approach has over time.

I got home with the food, ate mine and she was in the bedroom- door locked.   At 5ish I got ready for work and I saw that she had taken a Christmas gift I got her several years back ( a wooden plaque with a love statement burnt into it) and she apparently took a hammer to it and broke it into 3 pieces.   She wrote a note about how she broke it like I had “broken us” (in her perspective, I did something independent, enforced a boundary and bought her food anyways) and therefore I “broke a major trust”.

Of course, that is a deeply flawed and dysfunctional perspective and to be honest, I can’t imagine how painful and frustrating it must be to experience the equivalent of a major breakup due to, say, infidelity when the real issue was me ordering food and not bowing to her tantrums.

Either way, true facts be damned- to HER it’s the same thing.

I do have some concerns that her behavior is moving toward physical violence, though- and unfortunately- there are next to zero resources available for men in abusive relationships.   My best options so far are to prepare for her to one day leave and then file a restraining order- yet I have no real ways to put her behavior on record without being likely arrested myself and charged by police for domestic violence (despite the fact that I have NEVER been physically aggressive or even defensive in my life).   My state laws, though require an arrest of at least one party and deference goes to believing the female over the male.

Update: J (as she tends to do) has taken near (metaphorically) mortal injury to my choosing to order food on her behalf when she insisted that I not call the restaurant and get it for myself.   In her world, I should never have even called the restaurant.

Her position is that I “broke us” and I’m an abusive and selfish narcissist.   In her world, only abusive narcissists (besides her) have and express feelings of frustration and/anger.

One thing I noticed about my BPD wife is the more I react to something the more she sees that as “weakness” and continues to just go after it.  If I just blow it off and don’t give her any satisfaction of irking me she eventually moves on.  I think because people with BPD are so fragile inside they like to see others “weak” as it’s a source of comfort for them (at least my
Wife is that way. She loves seeing people suffer and that’s the people she likes to be around)

For some reason this thread reminded me of this scene from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mTNKofYl44o

I think we have to get to the point where we really and truly believe that we deserve better before we will stop tolerating mistreatment. I am making very slow progress in that regard so if someone has any suggestions on how to go about speeding this process up I’m all ears!

I think what you’re experiencing is an *extinction burst*, when a pwBPD’s behavior gets worse in an attempt to force their partner to comply with their wishes.  Extinction Bursts (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=85479.0)

It seems that by your “disobedience” of ordering food for her that this extreme reaction is an attempt to punish you and ensure that you abide by her demands in the future.

Best to ignore this behavior and let it run out of steam. I know it’s awful to experience such a reaction to a kind deed, but you don’t want to *feed the demon*—metaphorically, rather than literally. (Awful pun—didn’t intend it that way.)

shes told you (or youve shared) a little bit about how she felt about this.

can you tell us a bit more about the back and forth, what she has said and what you have said?

Me: “Are you hungry?”
She shrugs or says “yeah”
Me: “what would you like to eat?”  
She completely ghosts the question…
Me: (after 3-4 full minutes of silence) “Do you have anything in mind to eat?”
J: “Stop hounding me!  I said I don’t know!”
Me: “I didn’t hear you respond with anything at all”
J: “Clean out your ears dipsh1t!  I said I don’t know 8 times and now you’re digging and digging!”

I pause the conversation…

5 minutes later

J: I was thinking of XYZ restaurant
(I don’t ever posit my desires on a restaurant choice- it’s not a battle I care about winning and I’m happy eating anything she chooses)
Me:  That sounds really good!  
J:  Their website says they won’t take online orders
Me: Does Uber/DoorDash/Grubhub show them as available online?
J: Forget it!  They won’t let me order the dish I like thru DoorDash.
Me:  Let me call them and place the order and then I’ll go pick it up
J: Just forget it!  You don’t know when to stop- do you!  No means no!  It’s always all about you! You’re a narcissist! I told you I don’t want to order from them now and you just DO WHAT YOU WANT! It’s always what you want!    You’re selfish and can’t just leave things alone!  This is what narcissists do!  They only think about themselves!

(She storms off and locks herself in the bedroom)

I’m still hungry and personally want the restaurant she chose.  

Me:  I’m still hungry.
J: Do whatever you want and leave me alone!

I call the restaurant and ask if they will take orders over the phone- they do.   I hang up after telling them I might call back.

I go to the door and knock gently- advising her gently that they will take the orders on the phone.

Silence.

She starts a texting rant 20-30 texts long about how I never listen and only do what I want to do- and I don’t care about anyone else.  

I tell her that I am going to order for myself and if she wants to order I will include it.  

Silence

I explain that I will wait 10 minutes so she can decide what she wants and if she doesn’t want anything and I dont order for her, then she can eat something in the house but I won’t go out more than once.  

She opens the door violently and screams at me to leave her alone.

I wait 10 minutes and ask if she wants me to wait longer.

Silence

I wait another 5 minutes, call and place my order.   I also add things she likes to the order- mostly because I don’t want her to go hungry and I am not going to “skip to the loo” on her request to go somewhere else after I get home.

I leave and pick it up- she texts me 20-30 texts of angry rant about how I don’t leave things alone and how I’m a narcissist, a chauvinist who orders on her behalf despite her not wanting any of it, etc.   Goes on and on about how I’m all sweet on the phone but abusive and dismissive of her needs off the phone and how that’s how narcissists and abusers act…

Ugh! No good deed goes unpunished.

I'm curious to see what others think, but to me it looks to me like a couple of things could be going on here. 1. It looks like any hint of intrusiveness on your part is highly triggering for her and results in her becoming dysregulated. 2. She might have blood sugar issues. If she is the type to get "hangry" due to low blood sugar then this in and of itself could put her into foul mood and make her extremely irritable.  

I’m not an expert in how the mind works- I honestly doubt anyone can say for certain what another person experiences in her own thoughts and psyche beyond “this is what we think people feel or experience based on studies and polling of patients over time”

However, I posit that when I ask a question and she completely ignores it- only to exclaim angrily that she DID respond and I’m just not paying enough attention- I believe that she DOES respond- by experiencing emotions or thoughts that are obvious to HER as a valid and verbal response (even though she was actually completely non verbal in responding)

In other words, I ask, “Want me to make you some dinner?” (Pick your benign question) is met with absolutely NO response whatsoever- but for her perspective, she felt or thought the response- and to her, her feeling or thoughts to the question were just as real to everyone else and my “refusal” to detect her feelings as an answer to my question… That’s me ignoring her response altogether- and that’s a sign of coming abandonment.  

You may be right on her blood sugar…

As to the former suggestion… Unfortunately, even if that’s completely true, there is no way for any rational adult to handle simply LIVING by attempting to avoid “hinting” being intrusive to her personal boundaries and completely ignoring and abandoning her existence.

this is a good theory.

i dont know how much, if any of this applies to your loved one. the line of questioning would drive me batty. my dad used to do it to me all the time; he was always hungry. i frequently tend to eat the same things for most meals, for a stretch of time, and always around the same time. i dont like that to be interrupted. i dont like someone doing my thinking for me. if it were me, lets say im driving with someone. id say you know, im hungry, im gonna stop at ______. and i would. politely, id ask if they wanted anything when we got there.

i once asked my dad to stop doing this, and he seemed to be incapable, and it drove me even battier.

now, im mindful enough to know that all of what im describing is pretty sensitive and not very reasonable. you love someone who is, at the very least pretty sensitive, and not very reasonable.

whether or not any of that applies...

why force the issue?

if she ignores a question, dont push.

if she tells you to forget it, forget it.

this is clearly more about that - and about the fact that she says you dont listen to her - than the fact that you wound up ordering food for yourself.

The reason I don’t just forget it is that if I do nothing, she regresses emotionally to the communication level of a 3 to 5 year old.  She whines about how hungry she is and that I’m “ignoring” this need.   As she falls into the rabbit hole of emotional regression, she often falls out of language capabilities altogether and resorts to literal grunts and whining noises (which is impossible to care for an adult without having to resort to infantilism towards her- which I refuse to do). I loathe the idea of saying “Use your words…” as though she’s a small child throwing a non verbal tantrum (even though she’s an ADULT throwing a non verbal tantrum)

babyducks had great advice when it comes to this sort of situation:

Long quote pull, I know.

Boogie74, I've been thinking about your interaction a bit. I've also been thinking about your comment (paraphrased) that it isn't healthy for you to completely shut down just to "make things work". That's fair.

Here is an analogy:

Imagine a person with a unique visual impairment. They are effectively blind when the light is on, but after a while, after lights go off/sun goes down, they can get around and see OK enough in the dark. But, there is a settling period after the light gets turned off, where it takes them a bit to go back to their functional vision baseline. It's not like "OK just turned the light off, now I can see fine again". It takes more like 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, something like that. Of course, while we can all relate to this at some level, for people with "generally normal" vision, we get back to night vision/baseline/ability to see within seconds to minutes. This visually impaired person takes orders of magnitude longer.

So the visually impaired person (VIP?  :) ) is in a room with the light off, doing their thing pretty OK. I go in and turn on the light because I need to find something. I also ask them, Hey, can you help me find this thing? They are a little frustrated because now it's going to take time to get back to baseline, but sure, they will help look as best they can, when they can see again. I can't find the thing and I turn the light off and leave and look elsewhere, but the VIP knows where this thing is, and it's probably in the room, and I need it within a given time frame -- soon.

I go back in 10 minutes later, turn the light on, look again, and ask them to help. Frustration grows -- they were barely getting back to baseline, and now the whole process has to repeat. AND, I'm asking them to engage in the search again? I leave, also getting frustrated that they KNOW what the thing looks like, they're in the room with it, it's in there somewhere, and they're not helping. I leave and turn the light off.

I return 15 minutes later and-- "VIP, we HAVE to find this, and it's not anywhere else in the house, so it has to be in here. Haven't you been looking?"

That's when things blow up. VIP has not been able to return to baseline, even though a "normal" person would probably have been able to in that time frame.

My repeated attempts to engage with the VIP have hampered their ability to return to a functional level, again, even though many people would have been able to return to a functional baseline in that time.

The more I go back in and turn the light on (engage in a "normal" way), the more I contribute to the impaired person's inability to baseline.

That being said, it is not acceptable for me to live in a house without ever turning the lights on. My needs are not less important than the VIP's needs. I cannot live in the dark all the time; that's going too far in the other direction. We need to find a balance of how often to turn the lights on, and how long to leave them off before turning them on again.

Can we "get more done" with ONE or maybe TWO instances of turning the light on, with a longer break in between, versus multiple (I think I read nine) "engaging by turning the light on" interactions?

Can we do more of a specific (yes, perhaps longer) statement in ONE go, then "leave the light off"?

I wonder if you'd also like to spend less time in your life checking in with your partner, and more time doing more, uh, enjoyable things. Honestly, you guys may have some common ground there. Neither of you seems to enjoy this checking in process.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Hi Boogie,

I came across an article today that reminded me of your situation, although in your case I don't think your ordering the food was an act of selfishness, (sounds like you were damned if you did and damned if you didn't) but that is the spin that she has put on your daring to not comply with her "wishes" (aka orders) and so she feels betrayed.

The Nice-Guy/Borderline Connection   
The woman with traits of BPD has a problem. She has an overriding fear of relationship betrayal. Most people imagine that this kind of fear centers around the more obvious forms of betrayal such as infidelity or relationship abandonment. What they tend to overlook is the fact that betrayal happens on a much more subtle level every day in all of our relationships.

Humans are naturally a little bit selfish, and we fade in and out of this slightly narcissistic mode as we go through life. Because of this tendency, our relationships pose a difficult challenge for us. When we enter a relationship, we are expected to be able to give up our self-centered ways and treat our partner’s interests as equally important as our own. When we don’t, our relationship partners experience our selfish actions as a mild form of betrayal of our relationship agreement.

These minor betrayals over agreements to make each other feel safe in the relationship and to keep things fair for both people are at the heart of most of our everyday arguments. Minor betrayals are by no means deal-breakers, but they can definitely ruffle our feathers and hurt our feelings. But people with traits of BPD experience the minor betrayals in the same way we experience the major ones.



www.nicolamethodforhighconflict.com/women-traits-bpd-men-stay/

This example about dinner has happened to me 100000 times until I finally learned that my wife just doesn’t know what she wants and trying to make a decision as simple as what she wants to eat causes a huge amount of anxiety.  What I do now and it works a lot better is the following:

ME: you hungry
Wife: no answer or yes
ME: I’m going to get X and will get you Y. Getting it on Uber eats now
Wife: ok or no I’m good or get me this instead

I feel like people with BPD are so helpless in their own mind and they want people to help them all the time so when she’s dysregulared I just pick for her and that works 90% of the time without much fireworks.

In the book “stop walking on eggshells” they give the example of how people with BPD sometimes can’t even decide if they want vanilla or chocolate ice cream and that hit home for me