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Things have been pretty good for a while and it’s felt like my uBPDw has made some real progress over the last month or so in terms of owning her emotions a little more and reacting a little less. But she’s been dysregulating all weekend and it’s getting worse each day.

Saturday
I took care of our daughter all morning so my wife could sleep in bc I was going to meet my brother at a concert for the evening (I rarely do anything fun or social so this was a big deal). Wife was supportive of me doing this but when I saw her Saturday morning she was feeling very sensitive and needed a lot of love. I tried to oblige and things held together well enough. We talked on the phone during my drives and things were ok. It felt really healthy getting that time to myself and stepping out of the daily routine.

Sunday
Lotta dysregulation. Intense needs + keeping me somewhat on eggshells telling me I’m not giving enough love all day. First hiccup was in the morning; we went on a walk and talked about kids and chores. I shared my thoughts that young kids are at a good stage to train into chores so they develop the ability to take care of themselves, but that they need more time to themselves as teens and shouldn’t be buried under too many chores. She saw this as me interfering with her plans (to have them do more chores), to which I responded that I was just trying to share my thoughts. This was all interpreted as me being mean to her.

I stayed cool and loving but it was difficult. In the car driving to her dad’s house for dinner at one point she was pulling/poking at my arm/side very rough and aggressive when I was tryna do the GPS bc we missed a turn (she hates our car GPS and was forcefully stopping me from using it); I asked her to stop very seriously but she wouldn’t, then our daughter said “mommy be nice to daddy!” a few times from the back seat. Then my wife cried and said she can never get love from me but it’s so easy for me to get upset with her. I hugged and kissed her, trying to console. She demanded apologies from me for ”yelling” at her and making our daughter yell at her. I declined bc that’s crossing a boundary of mine (giving me ownership/blame of things that are hers to own). I didn’t explain why I wouldn’t apologize bc I didn’t want to argue. She demanded apologies from me again later at night, which I declined again and tried to redirect.

Today
Dysregulating even worse. I sent her loving good morning texts to which she responded coldly. Told me she’s upset that I’m not caring about her emotions and I need to take care of her better rn. I stayed nonreactive, said I’m trying and I love you. She said can you try something different? I said ok bc I don’t want to start an argument when she’s like this, but I know this will get worse today.

By “care about her emotions” she means accept ownership of everything, meet every demand no matter how dysfunctional or how much it makes me suppress my own legitimate feelings. Like the incident in the car yesterday after which she demanded an apology. If it were anyone else, I wouldve focused on my feelings and let myself feel annoyed and go quiet after bc she was being physically aggressive in a way I didn’t like, but I had to suppress that and keep giving love and care bc BPD doesn’t work on the normal rules and my authentic reaction would’ve caused an emotional abandonment earthquake.

Notes to self: it’s hard to have boundaries or authentic reactions when we’re out and together with our daughter bc I have to keep peace. Also hard to maintain a sense of reality bc she’s sucking me into the vortex of her dysregulating emotions and demands, building resentment that I’m not making her difficult emotions go away. And I hafta stay cool and nonreactive the whole time which means suppressing my authentic thoughts/feelings/boundaries somewhat.

I couldn’t interact with her in a healthy, fulfilling, functional way all weekend which was draining, but that’s what happens when she’s dysregulating. It’s a harsh reminder of the “normal” aspects of relationships you lose when you’re with a pwBPD, like just being able to interact freely and honestly without tiptoeing or fearing accusations of not caring/loving enough etc.

Gotta prepare myself for things to get worse today before they get better. If she keeps chasing me for apologies and better care I’ll be unable to totally avoid talking about boundaries and ownership, which will spiral her into deeper dysregulation. Gotta choose my words carefully and not linger.

She bounced back after I wrote that post and things were ok again. But I just got hit with a wall of sleepiness and she asked why and I made the mistake of being honest for a moment and saying I’ve been a little emotionally tense around her for a couple days and I think it made me tired now. This threw her right back into dysregulation and now she’s feeling victimized again. I’m too exhausted to deal. Smh

Would she act like that with somebody else driving?  The fact that she focused on you and treat you worse than her friends is not ok.  It is abuse. She is doing the bpd test on you. If you acquiesce, the goal post will be moved and the next test will be harder.  You can never win.

It all sounds painfully familiar. My wife has been pretty much long term dysregulated since baby 3 arrived 9 months ago. It seems like she’s just starting to come out of it (I’m sure I said that to you a couple of months ago, in which case I was wrong). I’m so suspicious of the recent love bombing, her making TikTok videos about how in love we are. It feels like there’s a massive elephant in the room where I’m like I feel like saying, “You know all those months you accused me constantly of never making any effort and saying our relationship was next to over? You do realise I’m not doing anything differently now…” Of course I won’t say that for fear of her predicted reaction: “I KNOW you’re still not making any effort, but I decided I’D make an effort instead but I’m tired of getting NOTHING back and our relationship WON’T last if you continue like this blah blah blah”. So I say nothing, just go along with this weird love bombing and try and enjoy it but meanwhile try to prepare myself for the next outburst… It’s often over me discussing something simple like kids, chores, or work, when I suddenly get verbally attacked for even speaking of these things when I should be focusing on our relationship… I don’t have any advice really, just wanted to share. All we can do is stay strong but I’ve found this very difficult recently.

I know it’s been really tough for you and I’m nervous for you. Seems like your wife stomps over your boundaries a lot. I hope it gets (and stays) better

Thank you. Always helps to be reminded to look at things from these angles.

I’m glad I at least held my ground to not apologize. We had an incident yesterday; we were out and trying to think of what to get for dinner, my guard was down, then she abruptly got hostile about it (“you’re not being helpful! You didn’t give me suggestions!”).

I got pissed and went quiet, partly because I’ve been suppressing my reactions all weekend and it built up a little, then I felt this was too far. She said why are you being pissy, I said idk why you just bit my head off out of nowhere, we argued and she ofc saw herself as the total victim. This was another case of ME being mean and not having kindness for her. The BPD reality warping is insane. I disengaged and she later tried to make it ok and even apologized at one point, which was a great reassurance that progress has been made. During this we were able to talk about things more lightly and I expressed some exasperation that she was physically aggressive with me the other day and had the nerve to demand an apology from me. She didn’t argue the point, thank goodness.

She’s loving today. Hopefully the storm has passed. Eager to move on and get back to progress.

I feel like you have a lot cooler head than I do ... when my wife is upset with me I have trouble thinking about anything else.  I get so enmeshed trying to diffuse things that it's hard for me to realize what's going on, to think about things such as how a non bpd person would behave in the same situation, and understand that myself am behaving differently because she will lose it if I don't give her special treatment.

Believe me, I go through all that too. I’ve been training myself to anticipate, see the BPD behind the behavior, and stay grounded and I’ve gotten better, but when we were in the car with all this happening it definitely warped my sense of reality.