New Years resolutions for your relationship

[formflier]

I'm encouraging all the stayers to think about how they want to see their r/s change over the next year... .and post here to describe their resolution.  Then we can have some support and accountability over the coming year... .to help keep each other on track.

Below is my entry. 


I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of knowing about BPD.  Ohh... the changes that have taken place in a year.

I feel confident (not cocky)... .and my desire is to seek out... and make healthy choices for me and my r/s... .and my family.

My wife and I agree that we want our family to "speak nicer" to each other... .not  be as exasperated... ."pour out love" on  each other.

There is some disagreement about tactics to make this happen... .and some disagreements about whose "fault" it is that we need to make these changes... .but at least a large part of the conversation is pointing towards a healthy place.


So ... my resolution (hope) is that an outsider... .listening to my family talk when we are private and inside our home... .would hear a family that is much "nicer"... .kinder... .and obvious about loving each other... .after a year of putting some hard work into doing this.

What is your resolution?

[sweetheart]

Happy New Year all,

Just posted mine on another thread, but I started this New Year with some serious FOG shifting over the Christmas holidays.

I emailed a T this morning who got straight back to me and I am seeing her next week. I've always had access to support but it's not something that's set up to work on my specific issues.

I also acted on some great advice from here to seek out legal advice around false accusations from my h, which I have done and am seeing a specialist lawyer who works primarily in mental health on Monday.

To return to swimming again which I started yesterday.

To stop interfering and attempting to control my husbands contact with his mental health team and allow him to succeed or fail on his own terms. ( this will be soo hard )

To have more fun, laugh a bit more, use more glittery nail varnish, wear false eyelashes just because I can! Grow more flowers.

[eyvindr]

Happy New Year, sweetheart -- good list!

To have more fun, laugh a bit more, use more glittery nail varnish, wear false eyelashes just because I can! Grow more flowers.

Especially "grow more flowers"! May Spring hasten it's arrival!

Ev.

[formflier]

wear false eyelashes just because I can! 

You sound like a spunky lady... .with a great personality.  I know a lady (just a friend)... .that on occasion puts on some bright red lipstick... .just because she can... .   

It does match her personality... .and she is usually a bit more feisty when she wears the red lipstick.

[EaglesJuju]

Happy New Year!

Although things have been going really well for awhile now, I still have some resolutions for my relationship with my bf.

I want to continue our openness and communication.  We are off to a great start discussing our feelings, needs, and expectations from each other.  We have a couple of amazing breakthroughs in the last couple of weeks.

I want to gain more patience.  Sometimes I am so impatient with his behavior.  My impatience can really make things worse.

I want to continue setting more boundaries. He seems to fare better with boundaries and clear expectations.

He says that he trusts me completely.  I do trust him but, I would like to be on the same level as he is.

I would like to continue learning to depersonalize some of his behaviors.  I need to truly realize that when he does certain things that does not mean I am not important to him.

I want to ease off the texting and call each other more.  Constantly texting drives me nuts.  

I would like for him to return by summer.

[formflier]

 We have a couple of amazing breakthroughs in the last couple of weeks.

Think you could start a new topic and tell us about some of your breakthroughs... .and how tools and things you learned at BPD family contributed to those breakthroughs?  !

I want to ease off the texting and call each other more.  Constantly texting drives me nuts.  

I almost never text my wife anymore... .much... much... .better.

It's hard to remember the last "text bomb" I got from her... .

[eyvindr]

This was all part of my process, too. In the final year of my r-ship with my udBPDexgf, I blocked her ability to txt msg me. Even she agreed that it helped. Though she did try to get me to rescind a few times, I'm happy with myself that I persisted with that boundary.

About a year ago, I also deactivated my FB account -- for the same reason. She was incapable of using any online SM responsibly, productively or constructively. She used to proudly tell me that she thought all of it was silly; when we first started dating, she had no online presence. In Chapter 2 of our r-ship, she jumped in -- creating accounts on FB, G+ and Twitter, basically to monitor my interactions with people. Which of course (b/c we're talking BPD here) only led to conflict, with every interaction with anyone else causing her to feel slighted. No amount of discussion ever helped -- we'd have a blow-out, I'd re-establish boundaries, we'd have a couple good weeks and then, immediately after one of many wonderful weekends spent together, I'd get a random snippy email on a Monday morning, informing me that my interaction with someone (typically some female who I'd never met who "liked" something I'd posted somewhere) was "inappropriate" and "disrespectful" to her, and I needed to block them immediately. On more than one occasion, she'd send friend requests to people neither of us really knew, then get angry with them, and by association me, when they wouldn't accept her request. On other occasions, she'd actually message people she'd never met to explain how their online behavior was rude, and demand that they unfriend me. So I just quit altogether.

And that, too, helped. But in true BPD fashion, she would manage to find some new Transgression Channel to tune into. Extremely annoying behavior.

I also got much better at ending unproductive phone conversations by conditioning myself against feeling guilty for hanging up on her after I'd tried to civilly and politely indicate that we needed to get off the phone, let ourselves calm down, and talk at another time. Which she always fought (control) and refused to agree to -- very rarely did one of those calls ever end without her telling me, "hanging up on someone is abusive, and everyone agrees with me, and I've had three therapists tell me that and one social worker and if you do this you will do serious damage to our relationship... ."

I DO NOT miss that stuff. At all.

Good luck with maintaining those healthy boundaries -- they're critical to maintaining your own emotional stability and sanity. And, sadly, if your partner has BPD, they will never enforce them. It will always be your responsibility.

[EaglesJuju]

Think you could start a new topic and tell us about some of your breakthroughs... .and how tools and things you learned at BPD family contributed to those breakthroughs?  !

Sure, I can do that    

I almost never text my wife anymore... .much... much... .better.

It's hard to remember the last "text bomb" I got from her... .

His preference for texting is two fold.  He likes to have a "record" of the validating things I say to him.  He likes to reference the texts when he is feeling bad about himself.  Also, he feels more comfortable texting because he has the opportunity to think about what he wants to say, instead of saying things impulsively.

[formflier]

His preference for texting is two fold.  He likes to have a "record" of the validating things I say to him.  He likes to reference the texts when he is feeling bad about himself.  Also, he feels more comfortable texting because he has the opportunity to think about what he wants to say, instead of saying things impulsively.

That actually sounds very healthy... .

My texting situation was not like that.  There was no filter... .

And... heaven forbid I ever refer back to a previous text to "prove" she sent it... .

Now we stick to grocery list items... .

Schedule coordination... .when will you pick up a kid and that kind of thing

[MissyM]

S

o ... my resolution (hope) is that an outsider... .listening to my family talk when we are private and inside our home... .would hear a family that is much "nicer"... .kinder... .and obvious about loving each other... .after a year of putting some hard work into doing this.

I made an almost identical NY resolution.  Funny that is the same and almost at the 1 year anniversary of my dBPDh's diagnosis of BPD.

[ydrys017]

As a goal setting, task oriented person I really like this idea.  I'm continually amazed at what other Non's endure that is so much more difficult than my experience, and yet I have extreme difficulty dealing with my uBPDw.  So, with just 6 mos on the BPD learning curve I'm going to keep my goals simple:

- Learn and practice validation through SET with uBPDw

- Work on eye contact with uBPDw

I know these sound fundamental and simple, but to be honest - that's where I am right now.