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This is such a tricky hard area for me.

My boyfriend constantly minimizes, obscures, changes his story, etc. I realize this is not the same as when he is raging or abusive but in many ways I find this harder. At least when he is raging I know he is being inappropriate. It is the water torture of his minimizing that makes me feel I am going crazy. I start really questioning my own reality.

An example of this is the other day we went to the new couples therapist. The counselor does EFT but turns out he knows DBT, so I was feeling it might be okay. We've burned through other counselors because my boyfriend uses them as an audience to paint me black. I had set a boundary on this that was very clear, telling my boyfriend the point of therapy is to get help, and if I felt one of us was using the therapist as an audience I would warn him, and if it continued, end the session.

So we get into therapy and the counselor is eliciting our narratives. Right away my boyfriend launches into his woe is me story. I stop him, warn him. He acts all surprised. He did stop the narrative but after that... .how do I describe it? It is like every single word he uses minimizes. So while he wasn't openly painting me black, later I looked back and felt that was exactly what he had done. But he did in a way where I would have looked insane to call him on it. At the time I just felt something was wrong. Later I thought about it. Instead of admitting he had been abusive, he said he was "rude." Instead of saying he had stormed out repeatedly, he "left." His rages are "frustrations." When it was my turn to talk he acted all solicitious, which felt smothering and fake. By the end of the session I felt my head was on backwards. I couldn't tell up from down.

It's like there is a constant narrative running in his head in which he is reframing all of his actions as virtuous, innocuous, even heroic. It is extremely subtle and hard to even recognize when it is happening, because he sounds so completely sane. He especially does this when there is an audience.

I have no idea how to handle this. I tried to talk to him about it and it didn't go well. The weird thing is when we are alone, talking, at times, he readily admits his wrongs. But then the next time he reframes them as justified. I guess I am wondering, is he just conning me when he admits the wrong? What is this all about and how can I set boundaries around a behavior that might repeat 40 times in an hour?

I never did more than one joint session with my Ex (and over 30 years ago with my BPD mother). Do you sense the ciunselors not intervening when you are being accused of things? I felt that the disordered person was being given a free platform and I was left there with no defense. Where were your counselers in all of this?

It sounds like your bf is engaging in Minimization. It can be a form of manipulation in abusers to downolay their actions. As a cognitive distortion, it can be a way of not dealing with feelings of guilt. My Ex referred to her extreme anger as she being "frustrated." Her cheating was "my mistake" as if it happened one time, despite continuing the relationship, all but throwing it in my face while we lived together. A tiny admission of guilt allowed her enough emotional stability to continue. She introducing the kids to her bf right after she moved out as, "I know I made a mistake," only when then S4's anger and rebellion started to become more than she could deal with.

My T called this a "dis-integrated" personality.

Your bf's moments of clarity may feel hopeful, but the return to the exibitions of cognitive distortions are confusing and hurtful. I got those, too. As a co-parent with contact, I still get them on occasion.

I don't think he is conning you, any more than my Ex was (though lying certainly seems like that). This is how he copes with his disordered and probably uncintrollable emotions.

I know what you mean about starting to question your own reality. This happened to me this morning:

BPD fiance: Can you get the keys to my apartment from the hook by the door?

Me: There are a few sets of keys here. Which one is it?

Her: The one with the green tag.

Me: There's no keys with a green tag. Do you mean the blue one?

Her: I SAID BLUE!

Me: I think you said green, but it doesn't matter, I found them.

Her (raising her voice in a nasty tone): I absolutely know I said BLUE! Why are you arguing with me?

This type of thing happens quite often. We quite literally cannot even agree on the reality of something that happened just 30 seconds ago because she has changed her story.

Regardless, sorry to hear about your troubles with couple's therapy. Sadly my experiences are similar. My own view is that couple's therapy with a pwBPD only makes things worse -- unless you happen to find a very skilled therapist experienced in dealing with BPD.

In our case, the sessions became very unbalanced, with most of the time taken up by her listing all of my perceived problems. She can be very convincing in this mode. The problem is that traditional MC seems to assume the problem is basically 50/50, and if couples would only learn to communicate better, everything would be fine. This does not work when one of the parties is incapable or unwilling to admit they are part of the problem.