BPDFamily.com

I need to practice power tools to communicate better and to set limits with love. I'm studying The Essential Family Guide to BPD. After a two months absence we need to start fresh when he comes back home in ten days. I just need the relationship to be bearable, there is no hope he will change.

Hello, arlett *welcome*

You came to the right place. We are all learning here. I'm sorry your relationship has been unbearable so far. It can be really draining when nothing works. But you'll see that a change and having hope is possible. Little by little, earning every step, the most awful things will no longer be there, and the smaller things can be managed. We will listen all the way, and we get it.

You can see more recomended books, and you pick one thing here and there that is really useful. On this site, people have taken the best pearls of wisdom from those books, and experience of hundreds of people, and turned them into lessons. So it is really helpful to check them out. You'll find them on the right of any page.

Please, keep posting and tell us a bit more about your situation.

Best of luck.

Welcome arlett,

Sorry that you are so worried about your H coming home. Learning as much as you can about BPD will help. Where has he been for 2 months? What particular behavior are you most concerned about when he gets home?

Listening to angry accusations is very hard on me. In reading more on how to help the relationship I find that the main thing I was doing wrong was to try to defend myself. He's been gone to another state to help one of our adult children. Now I will try to take my time to respond and acknowledge the feelings he is expressing without having to agree with his opinion. If I can remain calm and not take his words personally, I think I can defuse some of the anger. I hope building a new habit of communication will turn out to be easier than I anticipate. I'm a little scare to be myself around him. He fits all the BPD behaviors and I'm prepared to seek help from my family if needed.

It sounds like you are taking good steps.

Something that will help both of you is to challenge our need to label things into right and wrong. There is nothing wrong in trying to defend yourself, it just doesn't work in this situation. I used to panic thinking "What do I do instead?" but then discovered that while I learn, doing "nothing" works better than doing the same thing I was doing, so that's not that hard (to figure out, to implement, sometimes doing nothing is really hard to do).

In some very basic level, their problem is with themselves. They complain about you, and you defend yourself, so you are talking about you, and they need to talk (and hear) about themselves.

Don't you have days you feel like you don't want to see anybody? It has nothing to do with anyone, but you feel like you don't wanna be nice to anyone. We "nons" can think "this is wrong and immature" and force us to behave civilized. They think the same, and it gives them more shame, and they feel worse than before, and they behave worse. The tool we have to control our emotions, they simply don't have it, it is there (I want to believe) but it is not trained, so it is a very small "muscle".

So, we always see that "they react to small things". When more often than not, they just react against their own emotions, not us , not the outside. Understanding is a great step to improve, but we are not robots either, we control our emotions, but not completely. We get good at controling emotions that make us function socially, that don't get us in trouble. But it is harder to control the emotions that make us feel good or bad with ourselves. So it is perfectly normal that even when you understand it is not about you, it still hurts you to hear horrible things.

In an hour, yesterday I was doing high pitch voices to make the kids laugh, and she told me "you are so gay"... .Minutes later, I showed everyone a funny video, and she laugh, but then told me "where did you get that, your who... res from your Facebook?"... .And then, minutes later I asked if she wanted to use the bathroom or if I could take a shower then, and she told me "Oh Go F yourself!" She quickly said "I'm sorry" but to me it sounded like "I'm sorry, but you are so anoying that I can't help being rude to you". See? What it sounded to me, it is judgement, because my emotions were gradually up, because her comments had hurt me. I tried to think that she is in a bad mood that had nothing to do with me, I tried to value that she said "I'm sorry" quick, but it was hard not to be moody and sad and not to go to my room alone for the rest of the evening. I wanted to go, and wanted her to see how much she had hurt me, even though I know that doesn't lead to anything good for any of us.

Instead I watched tv with the kids and tried to be just neutral with her, polite. I went to bed soon, and I was watching a recorderd football game after saying good night. She came late, and wanted me to taste her dinner (huge deal for her), when I guessed the ingredients, she said "you are a silly saussage", which is something she says when things are good. And the day ended in a good note.

So, I didn't do anything good, I just refrained myself from doing something the I know it doesn't work, and it went well. I must add that I needed some minutes alone in the bathroom to colect my emotions and not react to them, I took a long shower, and that calmed me down enough to do (not do) what it was needed.

I learned one quote in Tai-chi that I love "It is as important the no-action, as the action".

It’s been 5 weeks since Joe replied to my post, and on and off I’ve been trying to thank him, but I couldn’t find the way to do it! I’m pretty computer literate but I have a hard time making sense of this site! It could be my old age  :)

What helped me the most was he giving me a real life situation in his home!

I don’t know anyone who lives with a BPD so I have no way to compare my experiences with other wives or husbands!

We are both retired and spend a lot of time together, which gives me hardly any privacy to go to any sites that talk about his condition. He has no idea he has BPD and I don’t want him asking me any questions about it.

He came home a day ahead of when I expected him to be home. He drove more hours per day to surprise me! One of our sons warned me, and quite unexpectedly I broke down crying and couldn’t stop! I was afraid of relating to him again on a daily basis but hadn’t realized how much! I need to say that there has never been physical abuse, so the fear was not related to that, but you all know how trying a relationship like ours can be. Besides, I was going to try a new behavior that would require a lot of self control on my part before it became habitual!

I’m happy to report that “doing nothing” works! I have learned and practice the riddle sang to the tune of “Row, row your boat” I found in the book by Randi Kreger “Guide for families of BPD’s”

Breathe, breathe, safety first,
Acknowledge what you hear.
Don’t defend, delay instead,
Distract, defuse or DEAR

Hope this post will get some responses and I can share my new found strategies, thanks! Oh boy! The site is giving me an error. It says that my session expired.

hey, arlett, glad to hear from you,

even more so as you say things are starting to work |iiii

It's a pitty that we have to log in here in secret and in hiding. And yeah, it makes things harder. So I appreciate you could and took the time to answer. hope you can do it again and relate your progress to us. We all tend to post only when we are in crisis, so we don't have many happy or positive stories. And those are much needed.

You sound more positive, I hope I got the right impression.

I may over use the ":)o nothing" slogan. I tell it to my kids too, as they get in trouble for many things they could avoid just doing nothing. I tell them ":)on't look for trouble where there is no need to". And the other day my GF quoted me to S6, "As Joe tells you: No-action is as important as action." It was a funny and proud moment.

We're all ears... .

Hi arlett,

Thanks for this discussion and the tip on the little song! :) Happy to see you have some extra peace at home!

Take care, pearlsw.