Death of pet

[Hawk Ridge]

Any feedback about BPD's respond to the death of a pet they loved dearly?  How does this impact their r/s with their SO? Do is trigger dysregulation?

[Whitebread]

With my BPD ex it did trigger dysregulation, big time.  We were both horribly upset, but the difference was he took his grief out on me via raging for a while, then went into a deep depression for weeks and weeks.

The only time I saw true genuine affection from him to anything, it was his dogs.  I always wished he would be as open and loving with me as he was to them.  That was one of the things that kept me around, always hoping that he would get to the place ( of ease or comfort or stability in the r/s) to show ME that kind of love.  But he could not.  Even though I know he loved me.

I'm happy that he at least had that with them, though.

Even now, if he picks up a photo or something that belonged to them, even ones gone for a decade or more, he will break down.  A very sad thing, he simply cannot move past the loss and into the place where he can share good memories.  He visits their graves on the property at least weekly.  After years and years, and cries.  Every time.  Its so sad :'(

[Tibbles]

For mine his life revolves around his dog. We have had pets together in the past - and they passed away due to old age and it sent him into a tail spin. Lots of crying, saying life has no meaning. Very dramatic outbursts. Became very depressed. We still have their ashes, he wants them buried with him. Dogs are the only living thing he feels he can relate to. Humans he paints black but dogs he doesn't - no matter what they do. When his current dog passes he talks about killing himself. It's all he has in this world and he doesn't want to live without his dog. Sad

[Heldfast]

Mine was very distraught when my dog died, even buying me a stuffed animal replica, which wasn't cheap. Even when she was leaving and picking fights, she asked me when the last time I cried was. I wasn't really thinking and said when I decided to leave my wife and get divorced in 2010. She immediately started bawling and said "you mean you never cried for Chelsea?" Very strange, but then the whole thing has been very strange.

[Leaving]

My husband is very different.  He had two very distinctly different personalities when relating to our dogs but was mostly jealous of them and would sometimes put them in harm's way to hurt me. Don't misunderstand.  I'm not an obsessed pet or dog lover who neglected him or anyone else because of them.  Dogs are dogs and I love them all dearly but I don't see them as humans. I think he was just jealous of the way that the dogs and I could relate to each other and I love their happy energy.  We made each other happy and happiness made my husband very uncomfortable.  When our dogs were alive he never gave a hoot about them on any level unless somehow, they became an accessory to his image like when walking and people would come up to him since he had the dog. He saw them as a burdensome responsibility and he hates anything that requires him to be an adult. He's never been a nurturing person to anyone or anything outside of himself but he's an opportunist who will use other people's tragedy to generate sympathy for himself. When our dog of 18 years came to me one night to pass away in my arms, I whispered to him that it was time and he jumped up screaming at me, angry as hell because I woke him up and screamed, ' What the hell do you want me to do about it'.  That was one of those deal breaker moments in our marriage and I'll never forget or forgive him for that.  Moments after she died, he grabbed the vacuum cleaner ( never had done that before!) and began cleaning the house and removing all her bedding and toys and said, ' Now, we can go to the Bahamas'.  He's generally this cold but last Feb when our other dog died, he seemed sad and grieving.  It was so different.  I didn't pay his emotions much mind because I know he's very good at manufacturing grief when he is looking for attention but this time it did seem to be at least somewhat real.  Since that day, he's been obsessed with death, staying young, looking young and his obsession with his own appearance has become rather pathological and erratic.  He became some what anorectic last summer and refused to eat anything except sugary foods.  People noticed.  He also became obsessed with exercise and taking pictures of himself and growing his hair out. He became extremely arrogant, haughty and down right mean toward me.  The crazy thing about this was that he would yell in anger at me and say, ' Everyone has told me how young I look now except for you.  you are jealous of me because I look so good and so young! You never tell me how good I look"  Listening to this was truly so over the top bizarre that I didn't respond.  I felt as though I was living in a psych ward with super woowoo man.  It was scary actually.  His photos of himself were very mean and evil looking and yet he thought he looked sweet and young.  He has a very distorted self image.

His mother and father are also obsessed with death and they tend to talk about the obits more than anything.  His retired father got a job at a funeral home.  maybe it's just a coincidence but it sure seems to run in the family.  Weird!

We've lost many pets during our marriage and I've always grieved alone without any support or love from my husband.  I was so grief stricken once that I joined the Rainbow Bridge support group and realized that almost everyone on there was there because they too had an unsympathetic spouse or family.  It's really lonely when we have people in our lives who can't or won't comfort us. 

The part that hurt the most and also angered me during my grief was that although I suffered alone, my cold unfeeling husband was getting all sorts of sympathy cards from our customers - written to HIM- while I sat here all alone in my grief and never even got a hug from my own husband.  Even worse, my grief annoyed him to the point of anger.  He would either dismiss it entirely or he would get angry and lecture me about living in the present moment. Everyone thinks he is such a dog lover and a sensitive guy and a good husband.  It made me ill. He would mimic or parrot my words of sorrow and grief to others and it just made me so sick to know how he was using their death to generate his narcissistic supply.