BPDFamily.com

we thought she had BPD, but could we be wrong and could the problem be me

i have really bad co dependency, and she has BPD traits. could the problem be me?

A healthy r/s involves reciprocity. We play our parts. I have a dBPD mom. I fell into a dynamic repeating to do what I survived growing up. I didn't know... .but now I do. What is your biggest struggle right now? I could have done better, but it drained me to emotonally care take. Do you feel stuck in this cycle?

oh yes defiantly

thanks turkish

If you dont have issues that drew you to a pwBPD then extended exposure will create a dysfunction in you.

Learning to deal with this is partly about sorting out our own stuff too.

oh i do years of abuse as a child

Hello married21years,

Like Turkish, I came to realise I was repeating the dysfunctional patterns of my parents relationship dynamic. I grew up in a dysfunctional family, my father was an alcoholic, and I now realise my mother has some strong narcissistic traits that massively influenced our family dynamic. My mum enabled my fathers drinking because it allowed her control over him in so many ways.

After spending time here amidst ongoing horrendous dysregulations I came to accept my part in my marriage was triggering my husband.

This realisation in and of itself wasn't  a magic cure, but it created enough awareness and a window of opportunity to change the dysfunctional interplay between me and my husband.

Our relationship did change for the better, but a diagnosis of BPD still exists.

It's worth saying I had spent many years in therapy before meeting my dBPDh and my career was working as a nurse therapist in a forensic setting and I still married my father *)

The question you ask is a positive way to reframe the conflict, taking the focus off the pwBPD which is often the only focal point, or it was for me.

i am just a bit week at present

I understand feeling weak, but can you expand how what feeling weak means for you and within your relationship ?

Exploring it a bit more might help identify areas that will help you feel stronger.

I don't think it really matters who has BPD or not. I have issues and so does my husband. Both of us came from homes that were dysfunctional in different ways.

I can see where I have contributed stuff to the messed up dynamic with my husband. Really, the only thing that I can change in myself. I find that reading the lessons and rebuilding myself without worrying about any kind of diagnosis is very helpful. I have read so many things that lead me to believe that I could just as easily have some kind of disordered thinking too.

i was so fixated on her i allowed myself to suffer. i put my own pain and suffering on the back burner for her.

this is a trait i learned in childhood.

i realize focusing on helping her was wrong, as i didn't give a ___ about me.

i got lost in trying to help her with her pain i didn't protect myself or defend myself.

my only reason for living was to make her happy.

it almost destroyed me, my childhood was horrific. i am in therapy and dealing with it. but i may have lost her forever i just hope it is not to late.

Maybe having grown up abused, perhaps being put into the place of taking care of a parent either emotionally (covert inscest), physically  (parentification), we can fall into care taking our significant others. In the end, it doesnt help us, or them (Not to excuse their behaviors). What are you doing to take care of yourself?

thanks Turkish i am in therapy for myself weekly, i have a good job so i can afford it.

but i finally realized i have to stop taking care of her be a partner and not a parent. this dynamic in our relationship has to change.

finally thinking about me, tried to do that before by moving on but i still worried and loved her.

i love her so much 

I've spent... .I don't want to say how much, in T over the past 1.5 years.

I'm further out, and I think I don't love her, but sometimes I miss her. It's hard. You're posting on Staying. Is this it, or do you think it's done?

she wanted to end it Tuesday.

she blew up i calmed her down and we sorted it but our relationship status is very shakey.

we are talking and she is scared of getting back together and i know she loves me but denies it. i can hear the pain in her voice as she is hold back the tears but she wants me back.

How are you doing in validating her feelings (using the tools)?

i was doing really well but i got upset and hurt and stopped the relationship suffered.

i got scared

I was upset too, but withdrawing emotionally only triggered her fears of abandonment. How can you reengage? You seem to want to, but how can you do it healthily, aligning with what you really want? Can you be honest in a validating way?

we are starting to talk again

Hi married21years,


it is really a feedback system. See the graph here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=221022.msg12411502#msg12411502

When it comes to the question of system stability the determining factor is the gain in the system, phase shift, delays. A system with high gain, where things are out of phase and possibly a major delay is unstable.

Gain in the system could be any partners over sensitivity or over reaction. It is in some sense pointless to put blame on any specific contributing factor as they all add up. When the system becomes unstable emotions on both sides ramp up. Most people become irrational once a certain emotional threshold is reached. So it is e.g. entirely possible that one side drives the drama and the other side goes into overload and acts crazy. Usually in relationships with pwBPD the pwBPD is over-sensitive, over-reacting and has a low threshold for loosing control. But then it is also possible that the pwBPD is over-sensitive and transfers the emotions to the co-dependent partner who over-reacts and destabilizes that way the relationship.

BPD can take very different forms. So can co-dependency. To improve we need to see beyond the labels and identify our specific contribution and work on it.

You are on the right path  |iiii Don't judge yourself too harshly. When caught in a dysfunctional system it is hard to get a perspective on yourself. The distance you have right now - which we hope will get smaller again - helps you to see clearer and that was not possible before. What matters is what you do going forward.