BPDFamily.com

Hello all!

It's been quite some time since I've posted on this board but I am really searching for help. I have been with my BPD partner for just over eight years. He is an aspiring writer (you'll see why this is important later). I have dealt with his general relationship jealously before, and have a bit of a handle on that.

However recently I crafted a very successful petition/article that blew up all over social media where I have been interviewed by many national and local news outlets. This essentially drove my partner to a nervous breakdown. He sees how "successful" I am even though I "barely tried" and measures that up against himself so now he wants to give up on his dreams because "why bother". However not only is he beating himself up over it, he is treating me like $#%^ over it and resenting me big time. He blocked me on all social media because seeing anything about it "makes him sick". Sure he could have easily just unfollowed me, but no he found it necessary to block me because he's being an a**hole about this whole thing honestly and it somehow upset with me about it.

It all seems to be just really over dramatic. I get him maybe being annoyed by the attention I am getting but he has let it drive him off the deep end to the point hospitalization. The thick of this whole ordeal was about a month ago and things are slowly calming down. However I am still blocked on all his social media, and he will still throw out passive aggressive jabs about the subject although insisting he "doesn't want to talk about it". Example: I will say I am doing something (making a playlist on YouTube), and he we be like "oh for your fans?'. I try to calmly tell him how I do not like it when he says passive aggressive stuff like that and how I wish he would stop so he responds "oh so it is for your fans?". This driving me nuts and makes me want to punch a hole in the wall. He complains I am treating him like a child over the way he is acting, and honestly I may be but only because he is acting like a child. He keeps insisting "I've changed" although newsflash, people don't change like that overnight. The only real dynamic that has changed in our relationship is he can't build a bridge and get over my success and the accolades I am getting.

I didn't do ANYTHING to him, yet he is still mad at me. Honestly he is being completely melodramatic about the entire thing. Point blank, period. I am trying to be empathetic and understanding but he is making it REALLY tough. Where should I go from here? Why is he acting like such a brat about this whole thing? Is there any hope in talking some sense into him? I know you can't rationalize with the irrational but I really can't get over what a terror he is being about this. I know enough about BPD to know it touches on several of his BPD "buttons". Like me getting to be so successful I would leave him/he becomes less important, or the fact others are giving me lots of attention to he sees it as a threat to our relationship (all of which he denies, but I really think I know better). He is slowly making this all a self-fulfilling prophecy because I refuse to deal with him when he is acting like that.

Any advice or input would be appreciated and I thank you for reading this and letting me vent some.

Hi paintingitblack,

*welcome*

I'm sorry to hear that your pwBPD is being a wet blanket about your success. I'd like to say congrats to you  |iiii When I gave your post a thread the first thing that popped into my mind is that he's looking for attention, have you had discussions with him? How do you feel about not giving him attention over this matter to make it die quicker?

Hi paintingitblack,

Congratulations for you! I"m sorry that your parade is being rained on. Makes things bitter sweet.

It's always hard on our pwBPD when they are not the center of our universe. The public attention may have caused him to feel very insecure in your relationship along with the triggers about not having had success. He may be worried that you will forget about him in your fame, that you will meet a fan and leave him, or that your relationship will change because of your new "status".

Have you tried to validate the feelings about fear of loss or rejection? Can you share a way that you might be able to validate his fears?

I definitely do attempt to validate his feelings by saying things like "I very much would like to do something just us together" and I am consistently met with passive aggressive responses like "sure, i bet you do" or something along those lines. Passive aggression is definitely a go-to tactic for him.

He is just very hard to deal with when he acts with such disdain and resentment toward me. I know originally either subconsciously or consciously he was beating around the bush to basically ask me to just drop the whole thing (the article I wrote) so it wouldn't be an issue anymore, but he never would come out and ask because we have dated long enough he knows that type of manipulation would not work on me.

I am just constantly struggling to validate his feelings (even when irrational) because rational or not, they are his true feelings while also standing up for myself when he allows his irrational feelings as an excuse to treat me poorly. Sometimes I will just say "fine whatever" and completely ignore him if he is going to treat me poorly, but he gives me reason to fear for his safety with himself so I can not in good conscious totally blow him off until he starts acting like less of an a**.  The old me would be VERY upset he deleted me off social media, but because I am picking my battles and not engaging over every little thing he also perceives THAT as a threat to our relationship because I am "changing" and that is not how I would have reacted in years past.

Full disclosure: I am not acting like a saint here. When he gets passive aggressive and petty that frustrates me and I often will give him back the same. I do try to be very empathetic usually though but also try not to enable his behaviors so I include some tough love he needs to hear. However I will write two paragraphs worth of empathetic language with one line of something like "I feel you are acting very immature and not allowing for us to dialogue about this in a healthy way" and I will just be met with "Wow, so you think I'm immature. Thanks for that" ignoring and not responding to the 25 other things I mentioned. I feel I end up walking on egg shells and I am expected to handle things 1000% perfectly/am held to a higher standard of discourse.

I know it's tough. Professionals only have to see a pwBPD a few hours a week, your dealing with it 24/7/365. On the topic of validation, validate the valid. Don't validate the invalid.

Have you tried SET for communicating and are you familiar with JADE?

SET and JADE are great concepts. Ones I have fallen away from due to my own tunnel vision when frustrated. It is probably time I go back to basics in dealing with his behaviors. He is truly a great person and has been there for me at my lowest lows. I want to do the same for him, but do so without him dragging him down with me.

Getting back to basics can really help.

The most basic of all of the tools here, and the one that is really the underpinning of everything else because it allows us to fully and effectively utilize the other tools, is remaining Mindful (https://bpdfamily.com/content/triggering-and-mindfulness-and-wise-mind).

As you said, it's hard to remember the other communication techniques and things not to do when you're frustrated. We've all experienced that. Remaining Mindful cuts down on that problem.