Dealing with dysregulation outside of the home

[WitzEndWife]

So, uBPDh has been starting his real estate career, and working in an office for the first time in his entire life. Overall, he feels much better about himself, and hasn't been laying into me as much, nor has he had much time to do online "trolling," which was a source of extreme conflict in our relationship.

However, he has been dysregulating over stuff outside of our relationship, and I'm not sure how to deal with it. For example, over the past couple of days, he started getting angry because he remembered something a guy in his office did that made him angry. A younger guy (who I suspect my H is jealous of, to some degree - which makes him an easy target of rage), allegedly "disrespected" him by leaving without him to go on a house tour, after H had expressed interest in going. Apparently the guy and the group he was going with agreed to leave at 11:15, and when H tried to find them at 11:15, they had left. H did not bring this up the evening of the incident, nor the next day, but two days later, while we were discussing something completely unrelated. He claimed he was going to confront the guy in front of everyone. His tone was scary and rage-filled while he was talking about this. He also talked about assaulting the guy, which I told him was illegal, and that it might get him deported. I didn't argue with him about confronting the guy, because it would only spur him on. He tends to want to do the exact opposite of what I say to do, out of defiance.

This morning, he left early to go confront the guy. I'm not sure if he actually raged at him. I guess I'll find out later.

In another instance, he rages against our neighborhood association, because they banned him from the Facebook page for threatening someone.

I don't think he'd actually hit someone, but I feel helpless when he's confronting others, because, of course, I feel embarrassed for myself. Lately, he's been more and more defiant towards me. I can't tell him he's being rude or mean to someone in the moment, because he won't listen to me, and it usually has the opposite effect.

How do you deal with this behavior toward others? Cower in shame?

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[pearlsw]

Hi WitzEndWife,

It's interesting. My h has had some variation on this. He has had issues with one former friend/co-worker in particular that comes to mind. They used to commute together, but my h cut that off. It's been years now and things are much better, but from time to time my h will come with some story about a co-worker. I notice he tends to idealize or devalue others - not just me. His emotional sensitivity comes out in how he sees and relates to others. I dunno. Well, a lot of this was all happening before I realized he had BPD traits this year.

I think if he came home from work now with a story about a co-worker upsetting him in some way I'd try to find a way to validate his feelings. I think in the past because I didn't at all get how he saw the world, I would inadvertently be somewhat invalidating. So, perhaps if you can't relate to his stuff you can at least help him talk out his feelings a bit. Perhaps saying things "I understand how you might feel that way" could help him without expressing that you necessarily agree with what he is saying. I know when my h tells me certain stories about how co-workers upset him I think, "So what? That means nothing. Get over it." But he can't and he wants to devise ways to say stuff to them later. I dunno. I figure what he does out there in the world is his and he otherwise seems to thrive in his job so I leave it alone. I just want to be better at validating - that's the piece I can do.

Does anyone else have ideas on this topic? I would sure like to hear more thoughts on this!

[isilme]

I notice he tends to idealize or devalue others - not just me

yes.  It's something they do to everyone, we just see the most of it and get the brunt of the worst behavior.

H has stopped publicly confronting people, for the most part, after years of burning bridges and FB rants.  Usually, I can now validate when he's upset and agree with the sentiment.  He used to be very volatile and felt he "needed" to call someone out in public, in front of others, and could not understand at the time how this failed him.  He could be perfectly right, but in public, the person yelling is always seen as wrong.  This is the biggest lesson I guess he has mostly learned.  He stays off social media for the most part as he knows it often will just serve to upset him. 

In the last year, he PM'ed one person with a pointed letter about how they were being rude and how their behavior was inappropriate.  I actually was given a  draft and asked for input, as I agreed that for his closure it needed to be sent, and I agreed that the person needed to be told something - it was a bad issue where "friends" felt we were their bank and they could expect us to set up and pay for an event for them, and then slandered us to the business owner catering the event so we could not delete items from an order to prevent the bill from being too high  Long story, but we did not attend and our absence meant that they got stuck with the bill they created.

H regrets how he told off people in the past, knows it was never the best way to deal with things.  I feel he has shifted a little from extreme projection of shame to a sad amount of internalization of it.  Since he can't process it well, it eats at him.  He can't be like, "messed, won't do it again."  He's more like "I am a terrible person, ugly, no one can love me."