What if she wants to leave me for all the good reasons?

[JoeBPD81]

I 've had a painful weekend.

My Gf (mother of 2 kids who see me as their father) wants to leave me, again. She can't stand how much she hurts me. That's what she says. In fact, she can't stand if I let her see how much she hurts me.

My experience is that in theory, in an abstract notion, she tells me I'm the best father, and the kindest person... .But she can barely stand seeing me, and everyday she has something to criticize. Most of the time I manage to know it is her illness. But some days I can't take it, I don't have a sign that she loves me, or that she adknowledges that I have feelings.

She says "If you don't tell me what is wrong, I can't improve". But if I tell her, then she wants to break up. She says it is all her fault, that she can't do better, and she can't have any relationship. I tell her that the problem is not what she does wrong, it's how much she tells me that she doesn't like about me. And then she tells me that I don't understand anything, and that we are done.

The trigger, this time was: We were texting all day about her depression, I was supportive, and she was thankful. When I said I was coming home from work, she texted "Noo". And I said I could give her more time. But she texted long after saying that she left the house immediatelly after my text about coming. I was making time in the car, for nothing... .I don't have a problem giving her the time she needs, so I don't understand when she complains about it. Like there is no need to be rude.

No biggie. She comes home and she doesn't talk to me. (Oh, so maybe it is a biggie). She orders something to S6, but S6 wants to come to tell me something. I say to S6 "First, do what mum tell you, and then you show me". Then Gf breaks the silence to say "you are being an ashole". The evening goes in silence, but trouble free. Until to say good night, she remembers me I was such an ashole (for not wanting to see what S6 had to show me right away). And next morning, she says she doesn't know if she could have breakfast with me because what an ashole I was yesterday.

So then I'm tired of trying. S6 tells me that I'm the best, and I'm not in my best moment, so I answers very worng: No, Apparently, I'm an ashole. S6 runs to hug me and to tell me I'm not. And Gf comes out, and all hell breaks lose. She screams at me for a long while in front of the kids. I asked her why couldn't she say that S6 didn't have to obbey her order, that it was OK to show me whatever, instead of calling me an ashole, and she said that that was emotional, and she can't say those things, that I want her to be someone she's not. And that calling me names is irreverence, and doesn't mean anything.

Some minutes later, she told me that she will talk to her mother and figure out a way to leave and live somewhere else (they don't have a place to live, they can't move with her mother either). She starts saying it's all her fault, that she is too crazy... .

[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.

[JoeBPD81]

Next day it was pleasant, and I thought she had calmed down and maybe was reconsidering. But yesterday at night she told me again, that she would talk to her mother.

I couldn't sleep, I kept arguing in my head. Then I fell asleep, I woke up and started arguing in my head again. And again and again. She is two people , when she is like that, I don't know what to say to her, I don't even know why I want her to stay. I can't say she is wrong about her reasons to leave. She does make me suffer, this incident was nothing. But you know how it is... .Never knowing when the peace is going to break.

I think I can't keep sugarcoating what she does to me. Making excuses for her, and saying it's OK to be rude to me, to call me names, or to threaten me with a break up every two weeks.  I take it, but it's not OK. I have to make a long term conmmitment to be a father to the kids, but her commitment is from one day to the next. And that's nowhere near to be fair.

I'm really upset about how wrong and unfair things are. But this morning I felt again that I don't want her to leave. I never want them, my family, to go homeless, and the kids to experience another abandonment. But I'm really angry with her for fighting against me in the wellbeing of our family.

Maybe she needs to go to have her head straight, but it would be a really bad and scary experience for the kids. I don't want that. I don't want to apologize por not liking to be called ashole, and bow my head and lie about the state of our RS.

I know she cares about me enough to not want to hurt me. I believe that. And that she does hurt me for other reasons. But I can't know how much is true when It seems she despises me. Or what role what she feels for me plays in her head. I know she's been blocking anything romantical, emotional towards me. I don't know if she did that for so long, that she forgot. I don't know what she feels about me. I don't know why she stays when she stays. And I don't know where to go from here.

[RolandOfEld]

JoeBPD81 I'm sorry I didn't see this sooner. How have things progressed since your last post?

I could have written almost the same post, save for a few small differences in our lives. I very much doubt your gf really wants to or could leave you. I'm guessing she like my wife says these things because she can't stand it when things get to that point either and wants to create a way out for herself in that moment. If she believes she can leave, that its a possibility, then she can get through that moment. A thousand times my wife would tell me she was moving out the next day, and then the next day she'd be talking about where we should retire to. Before I knew about BPD this kind of stuff nearly drove me insane.

And I know all too well about wanting to preserve a whole family for the kids' sake. FAR too well. You are a great dad.

No, you can't sugercoat it. I recently tried to end or postpone conversations when she used that stuff, but I've found (and she's told, alluding to her BPD), that it just triggers and makes things a million times worse. Do you think saying "I can't talk to you right now when you are this way. Let's please try again later" would work with your GF? Now I just look for her pain point that caused the dysregulation and try to validate it without accepting her accusations about me, or at least how black and white they are. "I can see how you would feel hurt about that. I would feel that way, too." Acknowledging their pain without attributing it to ourselves.   

It's unfair, yes. Oh God it's unfair.

[JoeBPD81]

Thanks a lot for answering.

I'm not sure where I stand. At least I'm not angry anymore.

It does work for us to postpone the conversations. Sometimes she would tell me that she is mad when I do it, but I see that it works nontheless. Nothing I say helps regulating her, and when I leave her alone, she ends up regulating herself. She even comes and tells me she loves me, or that she is sorry.

It is scary to live like this, without a safety net. This weeked she's told me that I'm a great friend, but that she doesn't want to be my GF, because I'm "a cheating ass".

She never called her mother, to my knowledge. She has done it in the past, and the mother told her something on the line of "how can you do that to Joe?" And something about not being a good idea to move in with her at all. Before moving in with me, they 3 spent 2 years there, sleeping on the floor. What grandmother has her only grandkids 2 years sleeping on the floor? (She has the means to do much better, but not the heart).

Anyway... .I guess they are not moving out soon. But they might surprise me. I have to keep working, studying and being a dad, and ... .I guess a friend.

She came early one morning to my bed and slept there for an hour or so. When she woke up she asked me : Have we had sex?. She's experiencing blackouts at home and outside, and many days she doesn't remember the day before. So that adds confussion to everything else. She sends me a text, and asks for my opinion, and when I give her my opinion, she doesn't remember asking.

She had a disturbing conversation with her abusive ex yesterday, and she is shaken up. She had it on speaker, so it's not that she is talking to him behind my back. The ass demands some objects from the divorce, while he owes a ton of moneyand refuses to pay, and he kept the car, the house and everything inside. He doesn't bother to call his kids, not even in brithdays or Xmas, but he calls angry about an object. He tells my GF that she is worthless, and many other things, and old wounds open and she bleeds. There is a lot of pain there without any closure for her.

So I worry about her, and I support her and I forget that I don't even know if we are a couple anymore. I'm gonna end up losing my sanity, if it's still there.

Thanks again.

 

[RolandOfEld]

Hi JoeBPD81, it is scary, the duality, the lack of safety net. That's the only way I can describe it: scary. Never knowing whats going to happen. Normal families worry about making the rent, saving for retirement, where to send the kids to school, etc. We have to worry about that as well as running outside with the kids when mama suddenly flares a knife. 

All I can say is it seems like your GF wants to be with you and the talk of moving out is just dysregulation. It's just a guess, but I think it would have happened by now. These days my action plan during these times is to 1) try to address the real feeling beneath the overreactions (their feelings are real and need to be validated) and steer the dialogue away from moving out, divorcing, etc. When that's not effective, 2) make it clear that she is free to do as she chooses but has to take the responsibility for arranging everything. This usually ends with the assertion she will and then nothing happening the next day.

But oh the duality, a perfect family evening one day, the next I'm locked outside with both children begging her to let us in. Sometimes I would prefer it was a total nightmare all the time, at least I'd know what I was coming home to. We want love that doesn't suddenly turn into hate. I used to just think my wife was bad tempered, or that women from her culture (she's from an Asian country) behaved this way due to repressive upbringings, or that I really was just a nightmare to live with. But now I know I'm living with someone with a real mental illness and it scares the hell out of me sometimes.     

Joe by all means support her but make sure you're supporting yourself first, otherwise you'll break and everyone will collapse. We need our sanity, for us a for the kids, and we need to do / pay whatever it takes to maintain it.

[JoeBPD81]

Hi,

my dynamic is different. She is very high functioning towards the kids, she is a really good mother, and she can scream at them, but after they pushed her limits for a long time. So I hear her saying good morning with a very sweet voice, and I come out optimistic and she says to me "I'm not talking to you!" (When she had told me the night before that she loved me very much and that she was very grateful about everything. Nothing in between love and hate.)

She always does her duty as a mother. She always puts them first. I am grateful for that. But I also wish she could fake sweetness with me too, once in a while.

The downside is that we don't have perfect evenings. The kids don't have good days, they can have good minutes, but they go from excitement, to apathy, from histerical laugh, to hopeless cry, and total rage, all in half hour. It is mostly the older, S11 who has zero intest in anything that is not the immediate reward for himself, he doesn't understand the concept of "the other" or ethics. Things are "good for me" or "bad for me", not good/bad. This lack of empathy is scary. So he is a bully to his little brother, constantly. So S6 cries, tries to get revenge, acts out to get attention... .S6 seems more mature, but we don't know how much is his personality, and how much is a defense mechanism put in place because of his brother.

So 99% of our time is trying to keep S6 from harm, and trying that they do the minimum: dress, eat, go to school... .They need surveillance every waking minute. You go to the restroom, and one of them is hurt or they have broken something. She loves them to pieces, and she blames herself for their behavior, so she loses her patience, but when they go to sleep, she cries and feels a crushing guilt for not doing better. I think that any parent would be much more strict and punishing to them. She's not the classic enabler, but she is not constant with consecuences. They would drive a sane person nuts, so... .

I think it is a problem that she doesn't adknowledge that they are a source so big for her stress. She coments in the moment, but then she blocks it, and she has no idea why she is so stressed. It feels like it is a big relieve to find something to blame me for, and focus her anger on me, because she doesn't want to be angry with the kids.

Does that make sense?

[pearlsw]

HI JoeBPD81,

Sorry you are having such a hard time. Your situation with her ex, the father of her kids I'm assuming, reminds me of what I deal with. My h has an ex-wife and she contacts him a lot and it stresses him out. Sometimes I know they have spoken, sometimes not, so there are sometimes things in the background stressing him out that I have no awareness of or way to help with.  I think a lot of what happens is our partners can't manage stress well since that relates to emotions and extra stress can spark these dysregulation cycles.

I can relate to your pain. These breakups seem totally convincing. It is hard not to believe them and react to them out of panic. Every time I wonder is this a real one, is this the final one? Is she at least taking some medication for her depression to help that not be so severe perhaps?

Also, I wonder about this conversation where she said it was okay for you to tell her what she is doing in the relationship that was causing problems, but then when you told her it was too much for her. I know how hard that can be too! What I try to do when I get those openings with my h is to only give him a very small piece to work on, a lot of encouragement that he can do well (praise!) and keep the conversation as short as possible.

What is hard for me is I feel like I am never allowed a temporarily sour mood or a down day. Ya know? I feel like I don't have anyone to talk with about my feelings, but it is like "feelings" are a catching a cold... .If I express any bit of sadness he catches and it can really fall apart. It's like he is not solid enough on his own to hold himself up and support me when I need him.

    I think there is still a lot of room for us to study the skills and practice them. Do you ever go and read Tattered Heart's posts and see how she models some of the speaking tools? Like Validation and SET? I think those are great and in fact, now that I think about it, I wish someone could update that kind of practice the tools post. I mean, geez, I taught college and I have to study this stuff a lot to get it! And then I forget it and I have to study it again! It is not instant. It takes effort. But hold on man, you have a lot to offer this relationship and she is still there so there is still reason to try and have hope as I know you are hoping to make this work. Stay centered.

Grieve the stuff about having a "normal" family and let it go. We have the families we have. Attaching to some idea of what one "should" be can only bring us pain. Let those idealized images go. Embrace what you do have - you are already doing this. You love this family. I know the family brings you a lot of pain along with the brighter moments, but it is what is here and now and it is what it is.

It is very worrying how much your partner is blocking out and not forgetting. (I notice my husband has a terrible memory too. He has always said that about himself.) I think their brains must somehow be blocking out pain for them. I don't know.

You might look really hard for the things you do agree on and put extra emphasis. Perhaps stuff about the kids you can agree on? Or anything about your life that you see the same way? And focus on shared feelings and experiences and build yourself a space where you are on the same side of life - as a way to counter the differences and things pulling you apart? My h actually says to me quite often "We are a great team!" So I always say "Yes, yes we are!" I may not feel that every day, but when there is a reason to say it, or he says it I agree and keep a positive spin. A lot of life is about our attitude towards it.

I am suddenly reminded of an old film from the 90's called Life is Beautiful. It was popular at the time but seems a bit... .well, I don't know if it would be made today, but it is about an Italian father during the Holocaust and he has a small son he tries to cheer up so he is not fear of the changes going on in the world around them. There is still something sweet in my memory about this father who is incessantly trying to show his son the beauty of the world in a decidedly extreme situation. I try to use my imagination a lot to make life... .livable too. Maybe at times you could picture yourself like this sweet dad who manages to always find a way to keep seeing something in life that makes it beautiful despite these terrible storms we experience with our partners? I wish I had better suggestions for you! But I do have hugs!    

[pearlsw]

And to your question: "What if she wants to leave me for all the good reasons?" I often wonder, since he dysregulates, if I would ever know if he really did want to break up? What would that look like? But I just make it a policy - no breakups while dysregulating. We'll see how that holds! RolandofEid offered you some good insights on that - it is unlikely she wants to leave, but if she really does than she has to make the arrangements. I usually just make it clear I want him to stay and then see.