I really don’t think this is a good idea. If your partner has bpd and you can convince them of something like this, you open yourself up to all sorts of situations that will run through their heads and they will convince themselves that everything that is going on in their head is fact. You then are faced with the consequence of trying to convince them it was all an elaborate plan to try and get them to change their own view point and they just simply won’t believe you. And it will get dragged up in every argument from that moment until eternity.

We spend our lives treading on eggshells trying not to make one wrong move to stop them becoming dysregulated, why on earth would you manufacture a situation that could, or probably would, be unrecoverable from.

I doubt it would make much difference to the disordered person anyway. For example, I asked my ex how she would feel if the shoe was on the other foot and I was a drug addict that ran off with my drug dealer, would she not fight for the relationship and try and show me how my decision was a bad one. She did agree to some extent but made no difference. In one heated exchange I commented that maybe I should go and f*** a few of her friends before running off with one, which is exactly what she has done, only for her to call me a sick twisted b*stard.

I’m afraid with a pwBPD you will never get them to see the double standards at play.

Your wife may be seeking something different in this relationship.

We tend to form relationships with people we meet in our own circle, so it would make sense that my BPD mother would marry someone who was similar to her family members who had stable jobs.

Also, if we want a family, we'd want to be married to someone with similar goals, and capacity to provide and care for them- whether that is by traditional roles or shared ones. Your wife isn't seeking a husband and father- she has you.

In terms of having a poor self image, BPD mother would look to others for her own self image. Having a husband who provided for her helped her to feel valued. She, herself didn't have a lot of accomplishments but being married to someone who had a good job contributed to her self esteem.

BPD mother did not work outside the home. Yet, when a sibling had difficulty with employment and worked a lower paying job, she was very critical of that. I think this could be a reason why your wife is critical of your income, the house. She doesn't think she's enough, so from her own thinking, you aren't either. But this is a reflection of her thinking, not you.

With other people, like female friends, BPD mother tended to seek out people who had less than her. It didn't start out that way. Prior to the "women's movemement" she was similar to her peers who didn't work outside the home, but after that, as women entered the workplace and she didn't- maybe it was harder for her to feel good about herself around women who had careers. Perhaps she chose people who she didn't feel would be challenging to her own self image.

This may be why your wife has chosen someone whose circumstances are less than hers. It's hard to know what is going on. I assume this person put "working in medicine" on the dating website, but not all medical related jobs are high paying. It's also possible she fell on hard times with the divorce. Why she's in this situation is anyone's guess.

Hi SuperDaddy!

Thank you very much for the great exchange!

I can well understand that after this response from your wife, you felt the need to explain yourself very clearly again. I probably would have had the same impulse.

Unfortunately, I also know that even follow-up explanations—even when given after some time to cool down—don’t get through.

You say you’re giving up. Does that mean you actually want to end the relationship with your wife?

As for my partner’s grandiose fantasies, the unfortunate thing is that they fuel his alcohol binges. He always goes through these cycles. And it starts with a kind of mania, including grandiosity. The more frustrated he gets that the grandiose ideas don’t work out, the closer he gets to alcohol. That’s why I started telling him that I see that only small steps are possible—in the hope of grounding him. But, as mentioned, that doesn’t work.

I'm not sure if I understood the context. Why do you need to use the "but" part? Do you expect him to take small steps so that he actually succeeds in something so that both of you can have a life together?

Two parents of my family had severe hallucinations from schizophrenia. When dealing with them, I figured out it was completely useless to object to their statements. As a result, I had an excellent relationship with them. I think we can do a "reality check" with them, but I don't know how to do it.

In your case, I'm not sure about the context, but probably I would not worry about the grandiose thoughts. I would see them as a good thing, as they are motivating him. Like a kid that says they will be a doctor. Instead of cutting them off and saying that they need to finish their homework first, you can show that you're happy that they know what they want.

Hi hiiumaa ,

Congratulations for always being empathetic. I have been failing to keep a healthy, non-triggering dialog with my wife. And I think that I'm giving up because I don't have the energy anymore to endure her mood swings and keep guiding her in the best direction.

Anyway, the idea of being cold was something the AI came up with. I think the goal is to filter out the emotions from the text so that there are no negative expressions while you are not in a good mood. I think it is ok if they notice it, because they should understand that we also have emotions, as long as it doesn't slip into anything triggering in your text.

By the way, here is the translation of her response from yesterday, which I don't want to counter:

I'm done with you. As you yourself said, "I make no effort." You're shameless! You really don't, and you never have! Do you think I'm going to keep flirting with a guy who sends me an audio message like that??

Listen to that damn audio before you demand anything from me. You two-faced liar! "Sweetie" this, "sweetie" that, and then you say you make no effort at all, you shameless bastard!

I'm not a woman to be messing around like that! Have some shame!

I'm serious: I'm going to pick up my son tomorrow at the main gate.

I want you out of my life.

How could I have been messing around with a guy who says something like that to me?

Shortly after my audio, as I noticed she misunderstood me, I sent another one explaining myself correctly, but she preferred sticking to the worst interpretation anyway. The text above came hours after, so I figured out that this is how she wants to see things. She seems to have the unconscious need to see herself as a victim and feel rejected. That would make sense; it stimulates the EOS. 

P.S. If you say you can be completely cold and still do a good job... that's interesting.

Can you elaborate on that? Do you mean 'cold' like 'distant'? Show no emotions? Be absolutely objective? Can your wife handle that?

Hi SuperDaddy,

Ah, now I understand what you meant.
Yes, I've already tried that, feeding the AI the exact wording of our chats afterwards and let it analyize.

I even tried both variants: telling it the history of the relationship and my partner's diagnoses, and without any prior information.

It was always clear that he was the one who provoked the conflict. The AI always portrayed me as ‘empathetic’.
Except for the time shortly after my partner received the diagnosis of bpd/npd and absolutely refused to accept it. Although I knew it wasn't a good idea to harp on about it, I kept reminding him. That really wasn't a good idea, and Chat GPT kept pointing that out to me.

Do you know what I find difficult? My partner often accused me of being ‘negative’ and emphasised that he only needed someone who was always positive.

I am not always positive, and my body lets me know immediately when I am pretending to be positive even though I don't feel that way.

And I don't want to play role-playing games for my partner.

When I feel that it's completely absurd for him to talk about a great career, a big house, lots of travel and a baby, for example, even though he can't even manage his everyday life without a job and needs alcohol to self-medicate for every little thing, then I can't say euphorically: „Oh yes, darling! That sounds like a great plan!" because I can physically feel that I am betraying myself with this statement.
So I say: ‘I can see that you want big changes. But I can also see that small steps are all that is possible right now.’ That's enough to cause another clash.

In the early days of our relationship, I always agreed with him, no matter how absurd his statements and grandios fantasies were, because I knew that any kind of ‘different opinion’ would lead to conflict. But at some point, that was no longer possible because I physically felt that I was betraying myself if I always just swallowed my feelings about his behaviour.

So how can I get to the point where I'm not being ‘negative’ but also not betraying myself?

How do you handle that in your relationship?

P.S. I tested the AI to see if it would just agree with me that I can't do anything.

Yes, that's a hard situation. Do you live in a rented place? I do, and this is an advantage. With that I could convince my wife to leave. She agreed because I was about to leave and end the renting contract, so she would have to leave anyway. But she has her mom's house and a few other close parents.

I was here thinking, what would I do if she didn't have any place to go and I wanted to part ways? I'd probably rent the cheapest possible place for her, and from there I'd let her figure it out. And I mean real cheap, such as just a bed in a shared girls' hostel room or a small place in the slums.

It's hard to understand how your W would really not have anyone to count on. I mean, in a live-or-death situation, I'm imagining some parent would help her out, or an old friend?

Anyway, in your particular case, if your place is rented, then you can just leave and end the contract, leaving her to move into the RV with her other woman. Remember, she is an adult.

Sorry if this sounds too harsh, but it's important to know your options.

Frankly, I didn't think, "This is my exit strategy."  While I didn't blunder into it, I'd describe it was all the other options were taken away from me.

Yes, I did record myself so I could try to make a defense, "I recorded to document I wasn't the one making aggressive threats.  If the other was recorded behaving aggressively, that's not my fault."  Strangely, the system didn't care much about that.  My conclusion was that we were seen as bickering and the court assumed that it would decrease after the divorce.  Well, it didn't.  But at least I was able to unwind the marriage and financial connections, leaving only the parenting to continue.

Foreverdad - 

I get the feeling one of these days I will be asking you for exit strategies.  If I had an easy exit strategy, I would have taken it by now.  I’m well aware that W’s dysfunction is at the core of everything, and the best I can hope for is to manage what I can.

A not so small part of me hoped W would cheat with someone who actually has a place she could stay at.  Right now she is 100% dependent on me, incapable of holding a job or managing basic life tasks such as eating.  I’ve thought about just renting another place somewhere and agreeing to pay the rent for a period of time.  Really hard to make a change without her having some other place to go.  She has no friends or family to stay with.