BPDFamily.com

I am less than a week out of a on/off 5 year "boomerang" relationship with a classically BPD guy, thought repeated brain trauma may also be a factor. I'm hoping it will stick this time because I am genuinely loosing my mind at this point and I need to do a better job modeling healthy relationships for my young girls (from my previous relationship).

I have done my reading and worked hard to set boundaries and remain supportive. But I always struggled with the validation part. I never understood how to validate his feelings without it being some kind of admission of guilt that something I did unavoidably made them happen.

Like a lot of BPD partners, I always felt responsible for managing his emotions. I did PLEASE READ (https://bpdfamily.com/safe-site.htm) up on occasion- I'm not innocent. And whenever he would fly off the handle over absolut nothing, he would throw my screw ups in my face because he knew it would trigger guilt and remorse.

So it makes it really complicated to escape the blame game. I've tried to attone and repent for PLEASE READ (https://bpdfamily.com/safe-site.htm) I hid from him out of fear of reprisal. I've tried to validate the emotions he's experiencing separately from his behavior or whatever I did to trigger them. But I really don't understand how to validate emotions based on completely imaginary injuries or stuff that happened 3 years ago that I thought we had resolved. It feels like an admission of guilt.

I said things like "I can understand why you feel that way, but that's not what actually happened", or tried to figure out what was really bothering him. It always blew up in my face. And always felt like I was capitulating to his delusional reality (he's an alcoholic too so can convince himself of anything).

Just feel like I need to regain some sense of self and confidence in my own reality if I'm going to make this break up stick. I have this awful emotional hangover that I should have done better somehow. And I don't know how to let go of that until I understand what it really means to validate someone's emotions without taking responsibility for them, especially when they are based on things that literally never happened. I tried soo hard to figure that out and it never produced any better results.

Any thoughts?

Don’t take responsibility for their feelings, just say it’s okay to feel that way, because feelings can’t be right or wrong. Doesn’t mean you need to convince them of the truth, you can try, but you’re gonna hit walls with that and need to walk away.

I try to focus on accountability for actions more. As you can 100% see people’s actions, and actions can be harmful or not, and if their actions are harmful, you can hold them accountable for that.

Trying to force the mental patient to be sane probably won’t work.

I struggled with this notion too... so easy and exhausting to get caught up in it.  Good advice, Narcs.