BPDFamily.com

Question about the pwBPD in your lives -

Has this person ever been happy or content with anything - ever?  Or is there always some complaint about everything?

I can't think of a single thing my W has been happy with and remained happy with.  This includes a person, event, something she bought, ate.   Every meal has something that isn't quite right.   Every person she meets eventually has something she doesn't like.  Everything she buys has something she complains about.  Even when things are well, there is always some little thing she brings up, whether at the time, the next day, or sometime later.

Is this typical for a pwBPD?

We all have our complaints and the things that we don't like.  But I think most of us choose not to vocalize most of them.   Many of the things W is complaining about I can see, agree with and validate.  But for me, most of these things are expected, typical, minor, something that can be easily solved myself, so I don't bother to mention it because it does no good.  Like complaining about the price of popcorn at the movies, or having to wait at the doctor, or the line at the checkout.  I get it - but it sure is tiresome validating all those complaints - and she expects me to.

PwBPD aren't happy and self-loathing at their cores, so surface happiness is fleeting, even desiring to be happy and content as anyone does.

A few years ago I had lunch with my ex and the kids. She talked about conflict with her younger sister, "if you think I'm bad, you don't know my sister." Then she said, "but I'm happy!" In the process of divorcing the young buck she left me for. I didn't comment.

I was always so negative according to her,  yet she's one of the most negative and critical people I've ever known.

How do you deal with such a world-view? We can't change it.

Well, my experience is a tad different, but with similar outcome.

My W is high-functioning so she is torn between being strong and the world hasn't seen the greatest victim.

A few examples.

When she is working towards something, or buying clothes, sports equipment, she is almost blinded to faults. Everything is great. It is me that has to pull her back with - honey, that will be too small/big/unneeded/etc. But, I find it funny or non-issue as she never overspent and is a hardworker (that's another issue by itself). So this is a bit different than experience you had with your wife.

However... she was never fully grounded and I have seen her suffer so many times. When she fought depression 2x, even though it was the mildest case possible, as said by her psychiatrist, she compared herself afterwards to the biggest, life-threatening depression cases that lasted years. She really believed that. Up to this day she uses her own experience as a benchmark to clinical cases that are like night and day.

When my father bought us apartment on a place we chose, W started talking about changing it for the bigger one, on a different place. That was after a year or so. Another idea was that our baby daughter have her own room.
Our apt. was more than enough for 2 adults and a child. It was on a great place, let alone very expensive, so changing for something even better and bigger would be way too expensive for me, even now. Back then I was only starting. But for her it was like a walk in the park. I wasn't against of possibly changing it when D grew older, but that time was so far ahead.

We were going on vacation to Greece every year, on a place that is literal paradise. Every year there was something exciting and new to see and explore. We met and befriended with locals. It felt like home. But after several years she said she would want something different as she 'haven't travelled anywhere in her life'.

And finally, for years, decades, I used to tell her - 'Will there be a time where you could say I'm fully satisfied, I'm at peace'? I used to say that totally clueless about bpd or any condition. There was always something new, exciting, better, different - that she didn't have or had to change.

So yeah, as they say YMMV, but it comes to the point that they are never at peace. I find it quite sad to be honest, even though it was detrimental to our relationship, I'm not condemning her. It must be hard to live like that.

My ex was never satisfied with anything. Ever. There was always something to complain about, something that wasn't to his liking for one reason or another. He could find the flaw in anything.

If the food was really good at a restaurant, he would still say that it could have been better if they had done XYZ.

If the house was clean and spotless, he would point out that the top of the refrigerator had dust.

Once, someone actually gave us a vehicle free of charge, but he had to talk about the particular make of this vehicle and all the flaws that vehicles of this type had (in his opinion).

I also have a sister with PD traits, and she is perpetually in a bad mood, dissatisfied with everything. She's not satisfied with their vacation, the kitchen in their huge house, the almost new vehicle she drove (had to trade it in for a brand new one), the church they attend, etc.

I think it's part of looking for external sources to satisfy internal feelings and also putting responsibility for their feelings on outward sources.

BPD is on a spectrum so there could be different situations. In my situation BPD mother looks to external sources for her own sense of self. She may be temporarily happy if something or someone meets her needs but it doesn't last long. Mostly she finds something wrong with any attempts to make her happy, because the cause of her unhappiness is her own self, not something external.

We wish she could be happy. If we knew it was in our capacity to make her happy we'd have done it. We have tried. At one point we have to understand we can't do that.

Ethically, we should treat people kindly - but this is different from assuming responsibility for someone else's feelings.