He's lashed out because something nice has happened in your life - getting a car - but in his mind, he got nothing. The entire universe is obviously totally against him and he's the victim as always. He sees it as simply as that.He's unable to share in a joint pleasure and only sees things as 'what you have and 'what he's got'.  All extreme black and white thinking, which is the classic BPD way of seeing everything.


If you're looking at the sky and paying attention to it, then you're not thinking about him and his needs and are selfish, etc.  Even had you made it about him he'd still have turned it into something negative.

My ex would never accept any compliments and they were immediated treated with suspicion and the 'what have you been up to??' I could understand this a little when we'd just met and she doesnt know me, but even after 4 years she would never accept any compliment as genuine. Another factor among many which contributed to my ending things.

Does your partner accept compliments as easily or does he see them as an indication that you've done something wrong and are trying to cover up?

Thank you wantmorepeace. It hardly feels like progress where putting the boundaries down results in more aggressive escalations and emotional violence that cuts deeper and deeper to try to get the same reaction. In the good moments she gets vulnerable and even owns some of the mistakes, says she just wishes that i would open up more so that she would know when she's hurting me and she'd know to stop, and then when the bad times return I'm actually naive enough to believe this and it gets me sucked in deeper into the arguments to a point where she can hurt me again. It truly feels like all vulnerability right now is ultimately a self destructive action because it will reliably be used against me in the near future. I feel like a fish on a hook, where the good moments are just meant to lure me to relax before string gets tightened again and eventually i run out of power to fight.

In my experience, pwBPD experience situation from victim perspective. It is unsusual that a 5 year old would interpret going to the doctor for a health check as an accusation that she is fat. If a child is gaining a lot of weight, they need to be checked to see if they are OK. You did what any parent would do.

Some examples of how my BPD mother interpreted my behavior is that she would tell stories of what I did as a child. One is that I "threw up on her carpet on purpose" when I was a toddler and also refused to share a cookie when I was 6. These are normal child behaviors- toddlers get stomach aches sometimes. They don't throw up on purpose. 6 year olds want to keep their cookies. Yet somehow to my mother - I did these on purpose?

Parents are human. We aren't perfect. It is possible to be a loving and caring parent and yet, still have moments where we are stressed, or tired, and don't act in ways we usually would. Sometimes we do things we should apologize for, but not all accusations are these times.

I agree with listening to someone if they express feeling hurt by something we said or did, and validating the feeling. It is the first step to repairing a relationship. While we may feel defensive if it's unfounded, or we believe it's unfounded- to be defensive- to JADE-  doesn't help in the moment. Our task in the moment is to hold on to our reality and what the goal is. It's a challenge when being falsely accused as we want to justify our intentions. The other task is to be able to listen and validate the feeling but not the false accusation.

"I didn't realize you felt that way. I am sorry that you felt I was being critical of your weight.Thank you for letting me know. I think you are beautiful just the way you are " is truthful but doesn't change what actually happened.

When you explained (JADE) as an attempt to soothe your D's feelings it didn't come accross to her as you intended.

You have every right to feel misjudged and not wanting to just give in to accepting the accusation but in the moment, your D can't see this from your point of view. It is frustrating to be constantly accused of things you didn't do. Here is where your boundaries come in. You can valiadate the feelings but not what is invalid.

While it's important to listen in a relationship, we also can have boundaries. You can  decide when you aren't emotionally available to hear about how you have "hurt" her. With my elderly BPD mother, I would visit, do things for her the entire time. Somehow, she'd find something I did or didn't do that "upset her". Sometimes I would say "I will call you when I get home but not when I am driving" or have times where I would not be available and it helped to let her know when I could be. Expect that your D will bring up things too, and if you don't feel available to listen, then let her know you will call her back later. It's frustrating to be in this situation but see it as a result of her thinking more than it is about you.

BPD ex no.1 came back once. She was the relatively healthy one. I would describe her "BPD wound" acting up as a bratty teenager. She sometimes went on full-blown tirades on how bad everyone else was but it was always relatively grounded. We tried being friends after dating on two different occasions but I found that she was weird and high maintenance even as a friend and she found me manipulative. She did text me once after a few years of no contact. Not sure if she meant to test me, she sent the text in English which is not our native language. Could have been testing me, could have been trying to contact someone else. The first time she dumped me and the second time I dumped her.

BPD ex no. 2 lives in my neighbourhood and I see her around sometimes but I strongly feel I'm never going to hear a peep from her. Her BPD wound manifests more like the classic emotional toddler with absolutely no control. She monkey-branched with a then-good friend of mine. It's tiresome seeing her around but I haven't mustered the will to move out because I like my current apartment. She dumped me.

Unfortunately, I still get updates re uBPDx every now and then. It seems they are arrogant, bloviating, blaming and lashing out at others, inconsistent and hypocritical, generally contemptuous of other people.

Their current partner (the person they cheated with, my former friend) is also similarly contemptuous of others, harming people and not avknowledging it, and shifting blame to everyone but themself.

It's so different from the reflective, thoughtful person I thought I knew.

It's very sad.

With BPDs, I believe it's important to apologize for feelings regardless of the situation.

For example, if I came to dinner at your house and said, "I don't know how you don't gain 50 pounds a year with cooking this incredible."  Some might hear that and take it as a compliment.  Others might take it like I'm saying, "No wonder all of you are so fat, you eat super unhealthy food."

My intention was a compliment, of course, even though I probably phrased it terrible.  So if I saw someone was offended, I would absolutely apologize and explain that I didn't mean it that way at all.

Why?  Because feelings are real, even though they're subjective to each person.  You and I can hear the exact same thing and get two completely different things from it.  That's why I always apologize if I unintentionally hurt someone's feelings.

However, we don't apologize for the facts derived from those feelings.  Let's say I say my "don't see how you don't gain 50 pounds" line and someone responds with explosive anger.  They say I've had it out for them for years, I ruined their last three get-togethers, I'm always trying to create problems in their life, etc.

It would be tempting to try going through each of those accusations, defending myself and explaining my intentions, but that comes off to someone mentally ill as narcissistic and cruel.  They see it like you can't understand them at all, you're always mocking them and trying to make them look crazy, etc.

So for the accusations, I don't address them directly.  Instead, I just apologize for feelings in a sincere way.  "I'm so sorry if I made you feel that way, I care about you and I'd never do anything like that to hurt you."

Maybe the argument continues, and maybe I have to walk away before things escalate.  But even then, I stick to my guns and apologize only for feelings...not distorted facts. 

I'll start a sentence with something like; I'm sorry if I upset you, I'm sorry you feel that way, I'm sorry you've felt hurt, I'm sorry we couldn't talk this out earlier. 

Then I reinforce my stance in the second half of the statement with something like- I care about you, I love you, I love spending time with you, I would never intentionally hurt you, I'm always on your side.

I hope that helps!

The problem with apologizing is twofold.

One is that it may not stop her from insisting upon repeated apologies.  It is often reported here that making apologies does not end the pwBPD complaints.

Another is that it may enable even more perceptions of {whatever} for which other apologies will be demanded as well.

I think a legally safe but general response that might work is "I'm sorry you feel hurt in that way."  In the past no court would convict you for hurting someone's "feelings".  (I'm reminded of the old children's rhyme, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me."  However, as a disclaimer, in today's woke world there are some countries starting to move in that direction, where people might be fined or imprisoned for their observations.)

Before I eventually separated and divorced there was a period of several months when I purposely did apologize for anything and everything.  It did not stop the demands, in fact she started insisting I repeat my apologies in the words she wanted to hear.  I finally set a firm Boundary: I would henceforth only apologize when I deemed I ought to apologize.  As you can expect, that didn't go over well.

Despite a perhaps different history of the term "Borderline", I've often felt like Borderline fit well with the concept of... not quite criminal enough to be incarcerated in prison but also not quite insane enough to be committed to a mental health asylum.  That in-between world is a very hard place to navigate and still keep your balance or prosper.

The irrationality of it is scary isn't it! I have been accused of being controlling and stopping him from doing the things he likes to do when I genuinely couldn't be any more laid back about that stuff if I tried. In fact I just said to him "Do you think you will feel relieved now that you will be able to do all those things I've stopped you doing?" (he's in a good headspace today so was feeling brave!) He didn't know what I meant because that was said weeks ago, so in his mind it didn't happen.

At the end, I didn't even know if she would turn up if we'd arranged to meet or if something totally out of my control had upset her, like an argument with her mother or a bad day at work and she decided to take it out on me.

Her first break up with me after a couple of months into the relationship was when she turned up to meet - but just walked right passed me and ignored me. Turns out she'd had a bad day at work but in her disordered thinking she thought I'd be mad at her for 'ruining our night' and I would then break up with her so she decided to break up with me first. How do you cope with wild thinking like that?? You can't.

Looking back, I wish I'd stayed broken up and saved myself 4 years of grief.. but I still liked her so kept chasing.  It wasnt until her final - and worst - meltdown that I eventually did end it. That was day she waved her finger at me and yelled 'You never buy me anything!'..  On her fingers were diamond, sapphire and gold rings, on her wrists were heavy gold bracelets, round her neck was a gold chain and she had other jewelry I'd bought her at home. It was in full view of her while she raged yet in her mind it didn't
exist. That actually scared me; the fact that she was so detached from reality.