BPDFamily.com

Hello, this is my first post here, so apologies if I use the wrong terminology. I'm (29m) have been dating my partner (22f) for nearly a year now. We had dated before for about 7 months in the past, but the relation eventually broke down due to our respective mental health issues. We spent about a bit over a year apart, both got therapy and treatment, and started dating again back in August. The first 8 months of the relationship were amazing, truly the best romantic experience I've had.

Recently I visited home with my partner. My grandmother complimented her body, which has since sent her into a spiral (she also has an eating disorder). We have strings of good days and strings of bad; we're in the middle of a bad string right now.

I'm a very logic and solution oriented person, which as I'm sure many of you know, is not super helpful in these kinds of relationships. I think I'm getting better at trying to understand and validate (I get caught up on the idea that validation and enabling are the same thing, but I know they don't have to be). One thing that makes it hard to find advice for my relationship is that most of her hostility is directed inward rather than at me. There were some accusations the first time we dated when things were really bad, but that's not happened since then. So much advice seems to be about how to deal with your partner attacking or accusing you of things, but not as much when they do it themselves. And she often tells me she needs opposing things at the same time.

I don't really know if I'm looking for advice or just trying to vent. I really want to help her with thid as everything else about this relationship is wonderful

She is acting as how her mental illness filters the world she sees.  It's a personality disorder and she is reverting back to her true self, mask off version, an authentic version of who she is.  So you are trying to change her from who she is to an unauthentic version?

Perhaps it might help to untease validation and enabling by thinking of validation as *being seen*. In other words, stating something like: so you think X or feel Y. That must be _______ (whatever you imagine it might be like to either think or feel that way).

For example: “My boss wants me to drive into town and bring him coffee when I’m in the middle of a project with a deadline approaching. It’s making me feel like quitting when he doesn’t realize how much stress I’m dealing with, trying to complete this project on time.”

To validate, you might say something like: “When your employer has unreasonable demands and doesn’t see you are already under time pressure, it must feel really frustrating.”

That way you are neither agreeing or disagreeing that this circumstance is a reasonable motive for quitting a job. You are merely showing her that you understand her circumstances and how it’s difficult.