We where in love with them. Not trained therapists.
   Let’s give ourselves a break there.

Exactly as I experienced it - I was a "choice" and in my case - two things happened.

1) It went further than she expected because she got caught.

2) She totally under-estimated me.

What a ride.

Rev

Thanks, FF!

I am sorry you have also dealt with similar challenges.

For me right now, the hardest thing is not being able to financially provide for myself and my baby... My husband is struggling with his confidence (BPD devaluation towards himself triggered by aabandonment? he seems to recognize this, but doesn’t want to explore it) and anxiety and feeling hopeless about his job prospects. Our landlord has raised rent in our studio apartment an outrageous amount (and can get away with it—as there’s nowhere else to move any cheaper), so my husband is feeling quite defeated and I wish I could help ease the stress financially...

I am involved in an online community with people who have chronic health issues and disabilities like mine where I try to make supportive contributions (so I have online friends there and a way of making a difference to others), which I imagine you can relate to FF as you are such an important voice on these boards (I don’t spend much time here these days, but I remember reading many of your insightful posts some years ago—thank you for your generosity and compassion).

How did/do you handle the stress of having a partner with BPD when you have been unable to spend as much time with more emotionally balanced individuals out and about?

When I do get to spend “in-person” time with others who are more chill, it can be quite relaxing . But it doesn’t happen too often for me at this point.

I hope you’re doing well today, FF.

Hello Kells! 

I appreciate your caring response, thank you.

I will try my best to answer your questions:

- I don’t have a vehicle and cannot drive. I do live in a city, though, so I can walk to a hotel if necessary.

- Yes, he or she will be my first child. Thank you. I have been excited, but recently started to get mild depression (something I haven’t dealt with in years), which may be hormonal or may be from the stress of this situation. I’m not sure... Normally I am good about keeping space for my own mental health and self-care, but I’m hitting an unusually low point lately and that snowballs into anxiety about postpartum depression, which would be awful.

- I took the MOSAIC assessment as you suggested and scored 6 out of 10. On a website about trauma-informed therapy for abusers, I read there are three main mindsets abusers can have (sadistic, controlling/entitled, and dependent-on-partner-for-emotional-survival). I’m not sure if any of these are more likely to be common in pwBPD, but my husband isn’t at all sadistic, and maybe a ratio of 30% controlling/entitled relative 70% dependent.

I don’t believe he would harm me if I decided we needed to separate. I don’t want to overstate the issue. Mild physical abuse has happened 5 times in our relationship total and it never caused any non-psychological damage.

3 of these 5 incidents did happen in the last few months, however, unfortunately...

I will describe the first, as it is what worries me most.

We were having a great day. We spent a lot of time together. As we were eating supper, my sister called to chat. She talked for maybe two hours.

While I was on the phone, my husband got blackout drunk, which I didn’t realize at the time. I have only ever seen my husband get “happy drunk,” and he is NOT an alcoholic, so when I got off the phone I wasn’t sure what to make of his mood and behavior... He was mad at me for spending time talking to my sister and abandoning him all evening.

It was not at all what I expected, since we’d had such a good day and I was looking forward to continuing our earlier conversation.

I figured out he was drunk as he was saying a lot of mean and accusatory things (“you don’t care about me at all”) somewhat tearfully, whilst I was trying to prevent him from drowning in the bathtub... Not sure why he got the idea to take a bath. Anyway, it was bedtime, and even though I was reassuring and all I did was try to calm him down and get him to go to sleep, he did something (not going to go into detail here) that made me fear for my life and put me into a “freeze” state.

The next morning I did not move or talk. My husband was still mad at me when he woke up. He said: “Why are you acting passive-agressively? I am the one who is hurt.”

I was stunned. Why was HE the hurt one? Huh?! But I could not say anything.

Eventually he tried to help me because he could see I was in an unusual state, and he ended up getting me food at suppertime even though I wasn’t verbalizing.

At night he asked me what happened. I started crying. He gave ma a hug. I asked him if he didn’t remember. He said he was drinking and wasn’t sure. I asked him if he remembered taking a bath, and he looked quite surprised. So I told him everything except the violent bit.

He apologized. He felt quite genuinely bad. He didn’t remember taking a bath, but he did remember some of the other odd things he had done just enough that he believed me about his verbal abuse towards me, even though he didn’t remember he’d done that.

He was so upset. He threatened to harm himself. He was having such a fragile sense of self that I decided I would never tell him what he did that had actually scared me.

The next day he acted as though nothing had happened, but I was still shaken.

To be fair, he hasn’t gotten drunk since, and has always asked me if it is all right for him to have *one* drink.

A few months after this event he grabbed me and threw me onto the bed during an argument, and I cannot remember if this happened at the same time or not, but he also dropped me to the floor, causing me to break my glasses. (Incidents 2 & 3.)

He never offered to replace them or apologized.

When we talked about it a few days later, he basically said he couldn’t control himself and that it is up to me to stay away from him when he is angry.

This triggers a trauma from my childhood. It was the same scenario with one of my parents, who would lock themselves in a room to prevent themself from harming me when they were raging.

But I am bad at determining when he is in a rage or just walking off sulking... I guess I need to assume the worst.

Anyway, he doesn’t see himself as abusive. And when he is in a good mood, he is not.

But I don’t understand if I need to be more concerned about what happened when he was blackout drunk? Does it count if he doesn’t remember? Or does it reveal some deep, subconscious rage he has towards me that he normally hides which I ought to appreciate and fear? It was a traumatic thing for me.

I am going to edit this post to delete that part later because I don’t want him to accidentally find it. He has actual depression and I am concerned it would crush him to know this... His negative self-talk towards himself is already excessive and I don’t want to add to that problem.

I just want him to get help for his mental health so he can be kinder to himself and understand where his anger is coming from.

They pick us.
pursue us.
   At least that’s my experience.
Then use and discard us when we push back.
    And i end up missing the craziness of it all.
(Getting over that more everyday).
 

Hi Peddler, and welcome!

You'll find lots of good support here.

Can you say a little more about the kind of support you are looking for?  What kinds of things are you finding challenging?  Is there something in the resources here that resonates with you and your situation?

Let us know.

Rev

Hi Orchid,

The only thing that I can suggest is to put down your bottom line - what are you available for (as opposed to what you are not available for). From there, you just keep reinforcing what you are available for.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about - "I'm available to helping you choose and doctor, and taking your there when you decide that you are going to follow through".

Beyond that, there's the non-verbal communication. Your words "help him get help when he's not here" belies a bit of over functioning from a nurturing p.o.v. He's an adult and needs to commit to adult decisions. So - have you investigated what hurdles are preventing you from laying down firm(er) boundaries. People with mood dysregulation are experts at exploiting soft boundaries.

There is nothing more difficult that watching a loved one shoot themselves in the foot and cause there own suffering.   So hang in there, hold your ground.

Write any time,

Rev

Ditto - Thanks for sharing.

Rev

Welcome Jon,

You've come to a good place ... can you say a little more about what it is exactly that you are struggling with?

In the meantime, have you surfed this site and looked at some of the resources? Is there something that jumps out at you and being similar to your situation?

Rev

No need to apologise for posting. We're all here to talk  

Your post is very relatable. Like you, I had a good childhood during the formative years (0-6). The following years were rough but I got through everything without lasting trauma.

Like you, I was drawn to my BPDex for his beauty. And what's more – the fact that he found me beautiful, too. I simply couldn't believe it. I'd always felt unattractive, ugly even by today's standards of beauty – women always seemed to agree, though there were always men with what I can only deem a peculiar taste.

Then my ex came along – a kouros incarnate. An ideally chiselled physique, a luscious head of hair, the most magnificent face I'd ever seen, with a kind of old-fashioned, raw masculine beauty. All that, coupled not with bravado and arrogance, but with a shy and tender demeanour. It would have been almost impossible not to fall in love.

After we got together, I opened up to him about my insecurities about my appearance. He jumped up and exclaimed: "What! How do I say this without exaggerating... when I first met you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in person." (Oh, the allure of the idealisation phase.)

The strange thing was... after a short while, it was as if his beauty had rubbed off on me. I looked into the mirror and suddenly saw the beautiful woman he was seeing. It was most striking when we were standing next to one another. We just fit and seemed to make each other better.

After he left me for the second time, I felt like a complete failure as a woman. The beauty he had brought out in me left with him.

Here's the curious part though – actually one of the things his acquaintance inadvertently taught me and which I am forever grateful for:

I once lauded his nose and chin, and joked that I'd even written about these features in my diary a long time ago because I'd found them so remarkably beautiful.

And you know what? He couldn't believe it. "My nose? My chin? I've always hated those about myself! My nose is too big, and I've always felt that my chin disfigured my entire face." Of course, this couldn't have been further from the truth. It turned out he had a myriad of insecurities, too, and couldn't believe he had "landed" me. Neither of us had originally thought we'd have a chance with the other.

He, too, started to look at himself differently when we were together.

Alas, it wasn't enough.

The point I'm trying to make here is: Whatever feature you're struggling with, be it personality- or lookswise, or something else – there's probably someone out there who thinks it's exquisitely beautiful. Other people often don't see us the way we see ourselves. Most of the time, they are a lot less strict. Sometimes, they even love our flaws.

It is my hope that I will one day meet someone who'll feel the same way about me as I feel about him – just someone without a personality disorder. And I hope you can, too.