I really need help, I have massively messed up

[Mizzle]

Hi,

I am genuinely lost.

I have always been a very measured, calm and able to understand everybody's point of view but looking in the mirror I am no longer that man. I met my fiancée almost two years ago and immediately fell for her. She explained to me that she had a child (a beautiful 2 month old girl) and that the ex was both physically and emotionally abusive, terrorised her, refused to support her child and was generally a pretty solid proxy for the devil himself - sick in the head. I have no doubt that all of what I was told was completely true, I saw for myself the black eyes she received at his hands and the controlling and scary cards he would send to her house and (most likely due to my hero complex) I could not believe that any man could be so hateful.

Skip forward a couple years.

I am that same man - I pretty much tried to choke her last night in what has become the most recent of a long list of faults, missteps and f*** ups that I have perpetrated in trying to deal with the machine gun of hate, anger and aggression that I've received in our arguments. And quite rightly, she is now terrified of returning to the house, has left with my daughter (yes, she is my daughter no matter what biology says) and I fear will never want to see me again.

I want to make VERY clear that I do not condone any of my actions and am fully ashamed of my inability to control the anger that I feel is provoked.

When we met I was set up to become a trader at one of the worlds leading investment banks. I had £5k debt on a credit card from a holiday, which I intended to pay off within a month or two and I was relatively healthy in body and mind. I now have debt spiralling into the £100k range trying to finance her lifestyle, I lost my job and am on the brink with my new job, broken off all relations with my family and best friends, been arrested multiple times (only for charges to be dropped due to lack of evidence), I no longer exercise, have changed my religion and become a truly angry and malicious person to most people I encounter. So that's the 'pro-me' side... .I have become unrecognisable from the person I was and I have done it all with the intention of showing my partner how much I love her. (Note, apparently loving our daughter was the wrong thing to do, as we had a multiple months long thing where I apparently loved the child more than her and was going to take the baby away from her). To list everything that's been thrown at me may take up the word limit but I imagine it's the same as most - I've been punched, kicked, scratched and permanently scarred, attacked with a chefs knife, threatened with police for 'attacking her' (this was before I had actually done anything like that), threatened with being accused of molesting our child, threats of sleeping with other men (plus all the other auxiliary acts), actual kissing of other men, persistent belittling and reminding that I ain't s*** and she can have anyone she wants (annoyingly, whilst I am fully confident in myself and know I'm not ugly, fat or whatever mean word of the moment she decides to call me, she is truly stunning beyond compare - if I'm Ryan Reynolds, she is the perfect composite of EVERY single attractive female you have ever set eyes on! - so men do quite literally throw themselves at her, which has increased my propensity for confrontation somewhat too). The frustrating thing above all is that the vast majority of the things said are either completely or 90% untrue.

On the pro-her side I've been pretty crappy (understatement) with a number of things. I've promised a lot more that I've necessarily been able to offer. I lie and have lied a lot. I've cheated, twice (only drunk kissing but I know that doesn't make it better), I've pulled her hair, pushed her down and most recently grabbed her by the neck, smashed windows, doors, jars. All in the heat of battle as it were. I also tipped off police that a drunk person (her) would be driving our car, resulting in her getting banned from driving after one particularly confrontational encounter as we were coming home one night. I see that my fuse is not just shorter but non-existent now and that my reactions closely mirror hers rather than being the calming, reserved response that I used to give and I do not like it!

Can I change? How? Why do I always choose the wrong thing now? (I bought her a holiday today for her and a friend for 4 days in Marrakech, as I'd promised her time away from the baby for months but not delivered but apparently it should have been 2 days and I'd have known that if I'd listened). Is there any way I can save this marriage? How do you reason with someone who is unreasonable? I know that I need professional help - anger management is just for starters - but is it even worth it? I love my fiancée more than anything, I pray for a day when she chooses to get professional help but what can I do until that time? I don't want to lose my family but I fear that I already have because I've not been able to understand in real time that when she is telling me about this guy she's blown or that I'm scum or that she hates me that it is not even remotely true?

I apologise for rambling (another character trait that doesn't mix well with BPD!) and again want to stress that whilst no violence or aggression has ever been directed towards our child, I know the me now is pretty much scum (who the F hits a woman?) but this is the first time I've said anything to anyone so I figured I'd get it all out to be judged in totality. If anyone could help me restore my engagement to the deliriously happy relationship that we have had intermittently I will be forever in your debt (along with all my credit card providers!)

Thanks

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[adventurer]

Get yourself into some therapy!  I COMPLETELY understand where you are coming from - let me share a couple things about myself that may help your perspective.

I discovered my wife was BPD or BPD characteristics though a long journey of self-discovery.  A journey that began with me seeking counseling for anger management.  I had a terrible, hair-trigger temper.  I never hit her, but did shove her once, I would punch walls, flip over tables.

Her BPD tied into some bad childhood stuff I had never worked through and made a perfect cocktail of crazy.  I had to learn to manage my emotions and emotionally detach.  Read the site and books recommended here.  Helpful to me were 'Stop Caretaking the Borderline' and 'Codependent No More'.  Without playing the victim and owning my behavior - I began to see how my outbursts were brought about by my wife's manipulations, gaslighting and circular reasoning.  We were the classic 'high conflict couple' and I would try to JADE (justify, argue, defend, explain) my point of view to her - but she would twist my logic and keep escalating the conflict.  And I would get more and more emotionally excited until I completely lost my mind.  She had a terrible childhood and my theory is that she equates abuse with love so tries to provoke me to abuse her.  Now that I don't abuse her, she has sunk into depression, that she isn't getting that fed.

It is 100% YOUR responsibility to keep the situation cool - you need to recognize when you are being baited into an argument, set your boundary about how you are willing to be treated and LEAVE the situation if you feel your adrenaline and anger escalating past your control.  She likely pushes your buttons like a master but you need to be strong and refuse to be manipulated into losing your cool.

There is a lot more to talk about, but read up on BPD and Codependency and work on YOU, learn you cannot change her behavior, just try to change your part of the dynamic and see if that improves the relationship - otherwise you may need to consider a separation or divorce.

> anger management is just for starters - but is it even worth it?

Counseling for anger management is TOTALLY WORTH IT.  It can do wonders for your perspective and can serve you for your entire life - increasing emotional intelligence and self-soothing capabilities will be very important for your journey of self-improvement.

> I love my fiancée more than anything, I pray for a day when she chooses to get professional help but what can I do until that time?

All you can do is focus on yourself for now - improve yourself as much as possible and see if that inspires her or pulls her along, or changes your dynamic for the better.

Also, regarding the money - we racked up debt, my wife always wanted 'this' or 'that' - complained like crazy - nagged - whatever - nothing was ever good enough.  I would try to provide (my codependancy) and then when the debt piled up too high, I would cash in retirement money - messed up my whole future.

I realized that instead of blaming her for this - I needed to blame ME.  I'M the one who agreed to whatever furniture purchase, home purchase, vacation, etc.  I needed to learn to say NO and deal with her temper tantrums and take responsibility for my money.  Check out the book 'When I Say No I Feel Guilty' - that helped me.  But, you will need to be strong and say NO, preparing yourself psychologically for the consequences.  Since I took ownership of this problem, things aren't perfect, but we're only in about 1k of debt and no savings instead of thousands in debt, and I will NEVER sell retirement funds to bail us out of stupid purchases we shouldn't have made in the first place.  Let her cry.

[Grey Kitty]

Hello, and welcome, Mizzie

First, I have to commend you for being brave enough to acknowledge what you've done, and how wrong it is. That's hard. It is also the path to move forward and change so you don't do it again.

I want to make VERY clear that I do not condone any of my actions and am fully ashamed of my inability to control the anger that I feel is provoked.

I also understand that you were provoked, horribly provoked by her. If you do see her again, the most important thing for you to do is maintain some self-awareness of how YOU are feeling. And make sure that you get yourself away from her as you start to get upset, long before it is too late.

It is an important lesson we all need to learn, myself included. I never got physically violent, but I sure did shout and say angry things I regretted later. The best thing I could do was notice I was getting too upset to say or do anything good, and get away so I didn't do or say anything bad.

And quite rightly, she is now terrified of returning to the house, has left with my daughter (yes, she is my daughter no matter what biology says) and I fear will never want to see me again.

How long ago did she leave?

Have you heard anything from her since she left?

Has there been any legal action or police involvement since this event?

[Mizzle]

Thank you guys, I really appreciate your input. I perhaps should have initially said that I have spent A LOT of time trying to understand the best way to react and how to behave from many BPD sites and have been aware from day one of the need to remove myself from a situation if it gets too much. This has been what I try to do, however, whereas when we were living separately I could leave, knowing I had a bed at home to stay in if absolutely necessary, now we are living together it is seemingly impossible to get away. The recurrent pattern has been that either as I'm going to bed or in the early hours I'm woken up to face questioning, be asked for explanations or simply by being beaten. My job requires me to be up at 5am, so I need my sleep and so I have repeatedly tried to say that we should talk about it another time. Admittedly because this has become so repetitive, my patience is non-existent and I am probably a lot ruder about not caring for a conversation in the early hours as she is. I have explicitly said time and again "you need to allow me space to go into the other room to calm down" when I've detailed that I'm feeling attacked or hurt yet whenever I leave the room there's an inflammatory comment and if I manage to ignore that I undoubtedly get followed into the bedroom. It's this inability to find sanctuary anywhere that has caused me to snap - my catchphrase now seems to be "ok you want to push me into a reaction, I'll give you a f-ing reaction!" And then before you know it I'm screaming, storming towards her, gesturing and in these more recent occasions grabbing her (quite clearly with some subconscious malicious intent). When there's nowhere to run to where do you go? If I leave the house things get smashed, threats get made and the bombardment of messages to my phone is overwhelming. I've thought that by trying to be sensible and set a boundary of please let me take a second to step away that I would be respected enough to have that time to calm down, without it I feel like a caged animal being constantly poked.

She left yesterday whilst I was out and I still get contact. Asking simple logistical things like what time is this/where is that? But mainly going down the line of 'you're scum, I never want to see you again' yet also quizzing me about the plans for the nice things I had wanted to do for her this month - massages, holidays, shopping etc and then telling me how what I have come up with is rubbish, how she's seen my best and it's not even close to good enough. The police aren't going to be involved - there were so many false accusations in the past where I hadn't done anything (at most I would restrain her and take her to the bedroom so that she could lash out around soft furnishings rather than kitchen knives!) that they have made it very clear next time they have to come I'll get charged and as much as she may hate me in the moment I know that she doesn't want my career any more damaged than it has been. So ironically the one time I probably should be in trouble, I won't be.

I wanted to also ask if anyone has been driven to harm themselves as a result of caring for someone with BPD? I am 100% not sucidal, nor do I want to hurt myself in anyway but in a warped act of trying to show her that I too can feel terrible about things and helpless and like there is no hope, I took a whole pack of her Sertraline meds (there was a full pack because she hasn't taken them for over a year) with no real thought to my own safety, I simply wanted to prove a point. I had to spend a couple of days in hospital whilst they kept an eye on me and ultimately I achieved nothing - I was even chastised for not attempting suicide properly because I had called the ambulance after waking up from passing out. Obviously again that's not a normal reaction so if anyone can suggest how I regulate myself between harming myself or harming her whilst unable to escape at times of tension, I feel that would be of great help.

Note - she has not returned to the house tonight and whilst I hate not having my family here, I have been able to clean the house for the first time in ages and for the first time in a long time do not feel scared or on edge

[Grey Kitty]

Honestly, I hope she stays away a bit longer, as you need to be calm, centered, and strong to cope with her.

And if she wants to reconcile with you, I'd suggest you tell her that the two of you need to fix the fighting before you can live together. Don't let her move back, or move out if she does.

the need to remove myself from a situation if it gets too much. This has been what I try to do, however, whereas when we were living separately I could leave, knowing I had a bed at home to stay in if absolutely necessary, now we are living together it is seemingly impossible to get away.

No, it isn't impossible, but it is harder. You will have to make hard choices to make it work.

She may trash the house if you leave it. That's a better risk to take than risking a physical fight where one of you could get injured or killed, or one of you will get arrested.

If she won't let you sleep, go away immediately. Anybody gets stupid and reactive when sleep deprived. You can't afford to be that way around her. It is just too large a risk.

Sleep on somebody's couch. Get a hotel room. Even sleep in your car if you have to, just get out.

You also have to prepare NOW that she will fight you every step of the way--she will attack you, provoke you, follow you, try to block you from leaving, etc., etc.

She will barrage your phone. Turn it off or just block her number 'till morning.


I know I'm writing this like it is easy... .and I know it isn't easy... .but it is possible. And you really can't afford to go back to the way things were.

[livednlearned]

Hi Mizzle,

Welcome and hello 

I agree with GK that it's a good idea to maintain distance between the two of you right now, if you can. It sounds like drama and conflict are par for the course for her, and it may feel normal for love + conflict to go together in her mind. You have to be the one that stabilizes things, and that means (at a minimum) that you create a safe zone if she cannot. And you're compromised right now so best to take a break.

In the meantime, if you haven't already, how about taking a look at the High-Conflict Couple? There are some excellent skills in there that can be easy to practice and apply. I think the distress tolerance skills might be helpful (i.e. dealing with conflict before it happens.

Members comment on the book here.

It sounds like you might also have a stressful job. That, plus being tired, plus dealing with a high-conflict relationship, sounds like a perfect storm.

Are you answering her text messages? How are you communicating with her?

And are you getting sleep?

[waverider]

I think you got trapped in the appeasement cycle. You can't appease a pwBPD, if you try they will respect you even less. You need strong values and boundaries. They have non and so are looking for them in you.

Eventually you fall into victim mindset as they seem ungrateful for all your "appeasing", you get backed into a corner with nothing left to offer and so come out fighting with a sense of one upping them.

As the others have pointed out you need space on a regular basis otherwise the inevitable frustrations don't work their out way, but just compound until you are already primed for the next "showdown" which you react to excessively and preemptively, you then becoming the aggressor and they the victim. This infuriates your sense of unfairness even more.

Its probably been a while since you even argued about any real issues, and they have all been sideshows designed purely to express anger and frustration, as opposed to resolving anything.

You have to break that reactionary cycle.

[JQ]

hello Mizzle,

I'm glad you found this site and I and others here can certainly understand the wide range of emotion you are experiencing because we've been there. YOU will find NO ONE here that will judge you, it's not how it works. We won't tell you what to do, but will suggest like others have already done to give you some guidance on what to do or better yet what NOT to do.

Read the references to the top and to the right as others have suggested as well. It's a good place to start your journey -------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You have been to other websites and you seem to know about BPD and how VERY SERIOUS Cluster B Mental Illness  it is and that there really isn't ANYTHING you can do to change her. I was arrogantly uneducated not only about what BPD was but who and what I was. Through a lot of counseling, this website, reading and deep soul searching I learned that I was codependent like most everyone here is. I read a book called, "The Human Magnet Syndrome" and it explained a lot and opened my eyes to a few things. That and a great counselor who was very experienced in BPD, Codependency and attempted relationships between them.

DO NOT try to apply logic to anything regarding BPD! Nothing has and nothing WILL make sense in regards to logical behavior with regards to your BPD. Many Ph.d's, Clinical Physiologist, Clinical Therapist have tried and NOT succeeded. In fact there are numerous accounts where those professional mental health experts have referred their patients to others in their field or have refused to treat anyone with this Cluster B Mental Illness. So you are in good company, don't be hard on yourself.

Actually your story isn't that much different then anyone of us here. My exBPDgf is 10's of thousands of dollars in depth and has been for awhile and there is no reason to believe she will ever recover from it. To think I almost paid off her debt before the FOG cleared for me.  She has seen Ph.d's, Clinical therapist and physiologist for over 25 years and still has some major issues with it comes to behavioral issues. I now know that the best anyone can hope for is for some limited success in "MANAGING" the behavior to some degree.

I see a positive thing and that is that you recognized that you have some issues and behavioral things you need to address.  I too was going to become a trader, but life chose another path for me. I bet you're a perfectionist at your core.  If you made things perfect with your exBPDgf that there would be no reason for her to rage and become the crazy woman you experienced. With the money you would make as a trader you could provide for her the lifestyle she told you she wanted.  But it was never enough was it?

This caused extreme stress in yourself and you were falling down a bottomless pit deeper and deeper in debt and you found yourself spiraling out of control and the stressed built up. You didn't know where or who to turn to for help since she cut you off from your family and friends. This is "typical" behavior of those who suffer from this Cluster B Mental Illness.  They cut you from your family and friends like a cowboy would cut a calf from the heard to be branded. "This metaphor" isn't to far from reality.  This only increased the emotional, mental and physical stress on you. Like you and like a lot of people here my exBPDgf & other BPD's forced their s/o to change religion ... .which I find an odd coincidence.  Like me, you fell off the wagon of exercise and gained weight, not unlike a lot of stories here. I told you that you weren't alone, we've all experienced similar things.

You've learned that those who suffer from this Cluster B mental illness have impulse control issues, i.e. spending, sexual in nature, drugs, alcohol, etc. They are and WILL be FOREVER the 3 year old toddler who will test the boundaries that their parents constantly put in place. YOU would have to be that parent and constantly not only put in those boundaries but more importantly ENFORCE the boundaries with limited success.

You'll have to learn a whole new language of BPD like triangulation, gas lighting, painted black, painted white, deregulating, projection and the list goes on. You'll have to learn how to validate her behavior or her fears regardless how extreme they might be. You know that those with BPD have an EXTREME fear of ENGULFMENT & ABANDONMENT regardless if it is true or not and you'll have to constantly battle that as well.

The good news is that yours is a learned behavior of a codependent or a NON and to answer YOUR question is YES you can change.  With a very good therapist, learning, reading, homework you can change your behavior and lead a better life and explore it once again. I know the person you've become isn't who you were, but you want to get back to that person. YOU can do it, it's going to be a difficult path to journey but one you must walk alone. No one here can do it for you, but if you look over your shoulder when you stumble, and you will stumble, hold you your hand, someone here will be there to help you up, dust you off and then it's up to you what you do next. You can continue down the path your on or you can take the path to the right to see where that leads you in life or you can sit back down where you're at and do nothing. The choice has been & will ALWAYS be yours to make.

You've received some great guidance here Mizzle, remove yourself from the situation to break the cycle. You need the space to take care of you and this won't happen over night, this won't happen over a month. BUT one thing is clear is that YOU have to take an ACTIVE ROLE in YOUR own education and recovery.  In fact one person who's been on these forums realized just this last weekend that he had finally accepted the fact that things were never going to get better and he reached the acceptance phase of the 5 stages of Acceptance. Others take longer, others are shorter but everyone has to be proactive in their own recovery of codependency.

You have a challenging path ahead of you, but everyone here knows you can succeed. There is so much to learn about yourself and to get to a better place. 

Let us know if you need some guidance with something or you need to vent your frustrations because we've all experienced it.  In the mean time you NEED to start taking care of yourself.  Be sure you're getting enough sleep because we know your not. Getting the proper REM sleep helps the mind & body recover at the end of the day to help you manage the stress for the next day. Be sure you're eating right because chances are you haven't been. If you're eating badly then nothing good comes can come from that. Be sure you're trying to exercise by riding a bike, walking a couple of miles go to the gym whatever it was you were doing before you met your BPD. The exercise help you get all the good hormones in your body moving around improving your mind body and spirit. Stay away from the beer & alcohol, it's a depressant and you don't need any of that. Call an old buddy / mate of yours that you haven't talked to and get caught up on life. Go see a movie, go out with a buddy / mate to get a good burger or fish & chips, a salad & a glass of water but get out and experience life again. Enjoy the sun on your face, the wind on your face, the laughter of kids playing in the park, in other words, enjoy the small things in life.

Come back here as often as you need to and as often as you WANT to let us know how you're doing Mizzle and know that no one here will judge you, we're hear to listen and give some guidance.  Take a deep breath, and know that things get better, they always get better!   

JQ

[livednlearned]

Hi Mizzle,

Just checking in to see how you're doing.

Everything ok?

Let us know if things have settled down for you.

We're here to listen. Many of us understand what you're going through.

LnL

[Mizzle]

Ok, so firstly apologies for dropping off the map.

Things took a somewhat unexpected turn. The Thursday following my last post I woke to the same same animosity and uncertainty of whether I was ever going to see my fiancée or daughter again. So when I received a message saying "I think I want to see you tonight" I jumped at the opportunity. And despite starting off with the same coldness towards me, we were able to have a pretty irresponsible (but very fun) romp around central London which ended with us both very drunk but more importantly for me, home together. From there things have unilaterally been better - no fights, no explosions (and even times when historically WW3 would start being glossed over) and most surprising of all actual, genuine compliments started coming my way. I wasn't exactly sure what to make of it at first and was pretty cautious that it was some sort of trap, however, there was a much simpler explanation. For the first time in over 18 months (the Wednesday before messaging me in fact) she had started taking her medication again! I'm not entirely how it has worked but it has brought us peace and allowed us to celebrate our daughters 2nd birthday together this weekend as an actually happy family.

An interesting quirk that does worry me, however, after coming to bed after what had been a very successful but exhausting birthday party I was woken up around 2am and started to be quizzed as to how much debt I'm in, how am I managing to continue to get credit? And was told that 'I need to stop getting loans out' along with some other points from before that she was saying I had ignored and not actioned... .Now I tactfully managed to avoid blurting out that it might perhaps be for the best that she for instance didn't spend £500+ on sweets for a 2 year olds birthday and perhaps put it towards paying off the £7500 loan that she got out in her name but that I am having to pay offer that I had perhaps not concentrated on sorting out a massage for her (or similar) because I'd been busy with her working on the party prep or because I'm pretty broke after booking a holiday for her and her friend but I'm worried that now without the party and excitement of our daughters birthday to distract and worry and consume her thoughts, she's going to slip back into the cycle of feeling crap so others taken out on me.

How do I stop that? It has been so nice to have my fiancée back (my real fiancée), I don't want my mistakes to negatively impact things

[livednlearned]

Good to hear that things took a turn for the better! And that she is back on medication. You must be relieved.

How do I stop that? It has been so nice to have my fiancée back (my real fiancée), I don't want my mistakes to negatively impact things

What do you think of waverider's advice about appeasement? This is a hard lesson to learn. You want to appease her to avoid the blow out, and yet appeasing is a long, slow walk over a cliff.

You can't appease a pwBPD, if you try they will respect you even less. You need strong values and boundaries. They have non and so are looking for them in you.

Eventually you fall into victim mindset as they seem ungrateful for all your "appeasing", you get backed into a corner with nothing left to offer and so come out fighting with a sense of one upping them.

As the others have pointed out you need space on a regular basis otherwise the inevitable frustrations don't work their out way, but just compound until you are already primed for the next "showdown" which you react to excessively and preemptively, you then becoming the aggressor and they the victim. This infuriates your sense of unfairness even more.

Its probably been a while since you even argued about any real issues, and they have all been sideshows designed purely to express anger and frustration, as opposed to resolving anything.

You have to break that reactionary cycle.

A note, too, about her middle of the night question about finances. What is she feeling in that moment? Focus on that, and not on defending, explaining, soothing. She is anxious about ___________. Usually something very primal, very basic. Security?

To me, it sounds like she is worried that you don't have good boundaries when it comes to money. Set aside the fact that she pushes you to spend money    and assume that she is impulsive and struggles to control these impulses. She has no boundaries about money, so you will need to have them. If you appease her and give her things to make her happy, then she has more to be anxious about because neither of you are being careful. Hope that makes sense -- she won't necessarily be making this connection, so it's up to you to. No need to explain it to her, just understand that she has a feeling, and it's best to validate that feeling.

Her: "How much debt are you in?"

You: "You worried? Did something happen to make you feel this way?"

Her: "No, I just want to know if you are in debt and how much money you have."

You: "I'm listening. What can I do to help you feel secure about our finances?"

You can combine validation with strong boundaries. A powerful communication skill is SET: support, empathy, truth.

Some discussion about validation and SET here:

COMMUNICATION: Validation - tools and techniques

Validations isn't just agreeing with someone. Validation is a key concept that has the power to really transform and improve relationships.  It does this by adding in a few missing ingredients - acceptance, understanding, and empathy. When a relationship is dysfunctional, typically there is a lack of validation (understanding) going on and lots of invalidation (misunderstanding) happening. These misunderstanding make it difficult, if not impossible for communication to happen. It is pretty easy to validate someone who is not upset. Validating a person who is emotionally upset (dysregulated) is a skill.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-validation

TOOLS: Communication tools (SET, PUVAS, DEARMAN)

The idea behind all these tools is that a BPD has to have trust reinforced and fears of inadequancy soothed before they can listen or hear.  The non-BP validates that the feeling are real feelings (not that they justified).  The non-BP then shifts the discussion on what the real issue is and what can be done about it. These tools put a lot of responsibility of the non-BP to bridge the communication/emotional inadequacy. The assumption is that that non-BP is the emotional caretaker in these situations.   Learn these important skills.   

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=69272.0

[Grey Kitty]

I'm glad to hear the good news. And let me encourage you to spend MORE time here posting what is going on--now is the time you need better tools to manage your situation, and more support in dealing with these challenging issues before they get worse.

An interesting quirk that does worry me, however, after coming to bed after what had been a very successful but exhausting birthday party I was woken up around 2am and started to be quizzed as to how much debt I'm in, how am I managing to continue to get credit? And was told that 'I need to stop getting loans out' along with some other points from before that she was saying I had ignored and not actioned... .

[... .]

How do I stop that? It has been so nice to have my fiancée back (my real fiancée), I don't want my mistakes to negatively impact things

This is actually two issues wrapped up together:

1. She woke you up at 2am to "quiz" you about stressful relationship issues. (Money is often a stressful thing in relationships, I'm assuming it is for her with you)

How you deal with that: Disengage, and set a firm boundary of not dealing with this when you need to be sleeping. You need to be firm that you won't be having 2am interrogations with her about anything. You don't need to tell her WHY this is a bad idea or convince her she "shouldn't" do it. You need to convince her that you will be sleeping at night instead of doing this.

(For your benefit, one very good reason is that anybody is at a disadvantage when groggy either due to being awakened at 2am ... .or if you are generally sleep deprived because you spend hours of the night you should have been sleeping fighting with her. If you are well rested, you can deal with the issues in a way that will resolve them instead of making them worse)

You could say "I'm not at my best in the middle of the night. I love you too much to talk about it I'm too groggy to say what I mean in the kind and caring way I want to say it. Can I hold you and drift back off to sleep, and we'll talk about it tomorrow?"

2. She's got insecurities/concerns/issues about money. LnL addressed it already; I won't repeat what she wrote.

I'm going to suggest you file this thought away for later: As you proceed toward marriage, the question of joint finances will probably come up. This will be a complicated and triggering thing to talk about. Be careful... .and ask for some advice here before you jump in or make commitments.