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I’m so tired of husband’s victim mentality. It’s really wearing me down.
Tonight at dinner I mentioned something I would like him to
help our son with for Thursday afternoon and straight away it was an issue, don’t blame him if it doesn’t work etc and how everyone blames him for everything. A simple conversation has made me feel so deflated.
Why does he have to instantly go on the defence, assume something will go wrong and we will get the blame for it?
So, so, so tired of his victim mentality and turning a simple request into a big deal.

Hi RPR24;

It is exhausting trying to parent with a pwBPD. I really get where you're coming from (my H's kids' mom has many BPD traits). It seems like every interaction for them is a referendum on "who is really the victim here", and that's a higher priority than caring for the kids.

The "victim mentality" is baked in to BPD. It isn't something that will change unless the pwBPD works on it in long-term therapy. We can't change it by using the right words, being more frustrated, pointing it out, arguing, or asking nicely.

For members here who have, for example, broken up with their pwBPD and don't share kids, their challenge is more to process what happened -- they don't have to continue working with the pwBPD.

For us, though, on Coparenting, we do have to keep working with them when there are kids involved. And because we can count on the pwBPD not to make reasonable choices, it's our job -- in order to make sure the kids are taken care of -- to find new ways to get stuff done.

I just want to reiterate to you how much I understand your situation:


This has been our experience with the kids' mom for over a decade. Please know I get it! We have not been able to assume that Mom will do any of the following:

make sure the kids' rooms are heated at her house
make sure she has food at her house that the kids will eat
enroll them in school
pick them up when it is her night to pick them up from our house
not leave suddenly on a months long "journey of self discovery"
make sure they have clean clothes
not wear the kids' clothes
not tell the kids about adult money concerns
save money
tell us about when the kids go to the hospital/ER/UC on her time
not complain about us taking the kids to UC on our time
make sure there are no rats or black mold in the kids' rooms
etc.

So when I propose that we, as the non-BPD parents, have to take the lead in making changes, it's because I've walked that path.

...

My basic assumption is that Mom won't pull her weight and won't cooperate with any requests that we phrase as "could you please do XYZ because otherwise it won't happen", or "I really need you to do ABC for the kids".

In the past, we would beg her to do what was good for the kids, and she'd come back with all kinds of victim-y language that increased conflict between us and left the kids with unmet needs. For example, we might say "Can you please take SD15 to this activity opportunity on your Saturday, she really wants to go and loves it" and she might reply with "SD15 told me that she doesn't want to do it, she'd rather spend time with me".

Now, we phrase texts and emails with the assumption that she won't do anything we'd like her to do. If it's an "optional" thing like an activity (versus a necessary thing like food/heat/hygiene), we have to accept ahead of time that the kids may miss out (which, oddly, Mom seems to sense, and then agrees with us, vs if she felt like we we really wanted something to happen, she'd argue and decline).

I send stuff now like: "Hi Kids' Mom, does it work with your schedule for SD15 to do Activity from 2-4 on your Saturday? I can do pickup and dropoff. If I don't hear back from you by 5pm on Friday, I'll assume we're good to go! Thanks, kells76"

That means that even if she stonewalls/footdrags, no response is still a response allowing me to move forward with my life. And if she does respond to say "How dare you try to schedule something on my time, the kids love me the most, SD15 said she doesn't want to, blah blah blah", then I've already accepted that it might not happen and I don't argue.

For necessities like food at Mom's house or heat at Mom's house, we have had to accept that Mom does not notice or care, and it is up to us as the aware parents/stepparents to meet the kids' needs, even if the other parent should. It won't be fair to the adults, but it's the kids' needs that matter. So we have bought food for them for their mom's house, have let them take space heaters from our place over there, do laundry for them, buy them clothes, help problemsolve how to keep rats out of their rooms there...

It isn't fair or equitable, and it's the kids who are the true victims of these situations.

No matter what your H says about himself, how victim-y he gets, it's important to remember that the kids' needs are paramount, and it's on us to make the changes to make sure the kids are taken care of. This can mean looking outside the home for help -- extended family, church groups, after school or in school groups, neighbors, etc, for rides, activities, socialization and so on. The more we hang our hopes on what the parent wBPD "should" be doing, the more disappointed, exhausted, and resentful we'll be. Instead, we need to flip our mindset to assuming the parent wBPD won't do anything... so it's a nice bonus when they do.

I hope there's some helpful perspective in there. What do you think?

kells76

I completely agree with Kells; the kids create a whole different set of standards. 

My ex wife was BPD and so was our oldest daughter, so daily arguments were the norm in our house.  My wife would detach and look at it as my kid and I were arguing siblings and yell at both of us for arguing so much.  On the other hand, I'd say we were arguing because she let the kid do anything she wanted...even if she was completely against it...because she wanted to avoid conflict or to be seen as the "bad parent".

I often felt like the only adult in the room.

There is no set answer here other than focusing on your relationship with your husband and getting on the same page.  In the scenario you shared, I've found it's better to take their negativity and flip it...you should help our kid on Thursday because you'd be so much better at it than anyone else here.  Feed the ego through healthy manipulation.

My husband is like that too. When I was first with him, I actually bought into it too. I'd feel sorry for him all the time and be his shoulder to cry on about how his life is soooo hard.

Except over the years I've finally figured out that he just likes people to feel sorry for him. He's never going to do much to really try to improve his happiness or anything. And he ALWAYS thinks he has it sooo much harder than everyone else, no matter what.

About a year and a half ago I broke my ankle and was unable to walk for a few weeks. I had to have surgery and screws put in and stuff like that. And my husband was the biggest crybaby about how hard HIS life was during that time because he had to take care of both me and our then 2 year old daughter all by himself. He even complained about how nice it must be for me to be able to lay around in bed all day while he's slaving away having to do dishes and laundry and all that stuff. This was when the doctor had ordered me to stay in bed to recover from my surgery.

He also complained so much when his dad was dying of dementia. I distinctly remember us coming home from visiting his parents one evening, and him saying, "When is he going to just die already? He's a burden on everybody!" And he wasn't even the one who did the vast majority of the caretaking (that was his mom and older sister). Of course when his dad did die, I guess the BPD abandonment issues kicked in, and he horribly grieved him and acted like he didn't even remember ever saying anything like that before.

And even just this past week I've had a cold or something, so I've been trying to take it easy, and he's having to really rub it in that he's still doing chores and watching our daughter and stuff while I'm just laying around doing nothing.

So yes, even when someone else is sick, or recovering for surgery, or dying, he really thinks that it's actually HIM who's having a really hard time here and everyone really needs to feel sorry for HIM.

Same here, it must be a pretty common trait.  ick

Thank you all for your replies and support.

So today I had to message him about the computer request I mentioned the other day.

This was his response:

‘I do not know. We should have done this yesterday not today.’

So I messaged back and said I had mentioned it to him and our son a few days ago at dinner. His reply:

‘And I told you there is no use telling me a week in advance and that I would not remember’

I’m so tired of it!!! I wasn’t even accusing him in my message, just asked if he knew the name of something.

Funny you say that because this is what he does to me ALL the time.

I really sympathize. My bpd son takes victim mentality to a whole new level. I'm really tired of it, I mean am I supposed to support him despite all this stuff he throws at me? And the black and white thinking drives me nuts. I'm retired and supposed to be enjoying myself but I can't.

the flip side of this is also exhausting.  when you don't do something the pwBPD wants, their reaction is over-the-top absurd.

Like you missed the deadline to register your kid for some daycare (which of course the pwBPD could have done anytime in the last month themselves but asked you to do because they didn't want to)... now you might as well have killed their dog, because you are the most unreliable person ever, basically a child, and the pwBPD is cursed to be with someone like you.

I can totally empathize with you because my pwBPD wife is the exact same way. Total victim mentality. About three years ago she was in a car accident. Someone ran a red light at low speed and hit her car. It was a low speed accident, less than 20mph, and there was only $1500 of damage to her car. Yet, she has claimed to have a traumatic brain injury from this accident despite the fact that no neurological tests confirm it and she doesn't regularly see a neurologist. Yet she retains an attorney to continue to litigate this minor accident almost three years after the fact and her entire identity is wrapped up in being an alleged victim of traumatic brain injury. Anytime I have tried to encourage her to back to work, take on more household duties, or otherwise take responsibility for her life, she waves "traumatic brain injury" in my face. It's a total victim mentality to avoid taking responsibility and it's very frustrating to see. Quite frankly it's childish.