Do you just let them leave?

[Ninetale]

My partner if not given what she wants is prone to making the threat of leaving. Just an assumption but I feel as if this is her way of “testing” me to see if I will stop her, as I have in the past numerous times. Even as I type this while taking a bath, shes in the closet folding her clothes up. I’m trying to “stick to it” and let her self soothe, but when do we draw the line and intervene if we are supposed to intervene at all? 
As suggested in a prior thread I walked away from a “no win” situation where devaluation was heavily in play. In return I was met with a metaphorical kicking and screaming reaction. With the standard “you don’t care about me or my feelings” and “you chose to walk away and ignore me when I was speaking to you”. Albeit I stated prior what I was planning to do but I took her words with a grain of salt. This is a common reaction with my partner, and if not “fixed” as she likes to call it. It’s usually followed by threats of leaving. 

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Ventak]

Hey Ninetail, I can certainly empathize with what you are experiencing.  As I understand the psychology behind this it is a defensive mechanism.. the idea is that the pwBPD will exit the relationship before their partner has the chance to leave them, thus saving them the pain of being abandoned.

My BPDw has packed at least 100 times over the past 10 years.  Her trauma is made worse as this behavior was modeled to her as her mother would pack up and leave after fights with her father (for weeks or months at a time).  As you have discussed about devaluation, there doesn't seem to be a one size fits all solution.  In my experience it is best to let my W take time to pack as a self soothing mechanism, occasionally letting her know that I don't want her to leave but understand that she makes her own choices.  Early on I would try to prevent her from leaving by hiding keys or laying in front of the door.. this always backfired.

In all those moments, she has only ever left once.  This happened when the night before I had made the egregious mistake of saying "fine, just leave then".  In my defense she had attacked me physically and verbally while I was holding our 2 year old twins, then tore my clothes off as I was trying to get to the safety of a neighbors... but those little details have been re-narrated as I had lost my mind and she was trying to protect the kids from my psychotic episode.

Has your partner ever followed through?

[Ninetale]

Hey Ventak, I’ve also found success and was able to “de-escalate” the situation with affirmations of wanting my BPDso to stay and that I do not in fact want her to leave, but she is her own person in the end who can make her own choices.

In the past I’ve done similar things such as sit in front of the door when shes threatened to leave late at night. Which as I’m sure a lot of us have learned, that this technique typically doesn’t make things better and tends to worsen the situation. This is the first time I’ve let it play out by herself (I went to take a bath with the door open, let her know my thoughts about me not wanting her to leave but the choice is hers, etc). When in the past I’ve stayed in the room to try to console her and “talk her out” of leaving. This has resulted  little to no success other than convincing her not to leave, usually at the expense of my mental state.

This time around was interesting because she sat in our walk-in closet for over an hour watching videos on her phone. Eventually she went back to our bed to lie down all on her own. Sure when I came out of the bath, she was still agitated, but much less so than before.

I empathize with your story of the time your BPDw left. Sometimes it’s so hard when we are being pushed so far to keep a cool head after “x” amount of time of being told things that we know aren’t true. I understand that it can result in us feeling angry and as you put it “out of our minds”.

To answer your last question. No, she has yet to follow through and I have yet to invite her to do so (although sometimes I feel as if I’m pushed to the edge of saying something I don’t mean and would regret. Resulting in her actually walking out) I do think that if I didn’t offer reassurance that she would have left at least once by now.

[thankful person]

Hi both, I have found with my wife that when she makes such threats and starts packing, it’s best to just leave her to it and let her get on with it. The situation calms down much quicker if I don’t discuss it, I used to ask questions like, “when are you going? Where are you going?” and plead with her not to go. With my wife, if I don’t ask such questions then she seems to calm down and then after some time acts as though she never even planned such a thing. Or she’ll just casually say, “I would have gone but no one has a spare bed for me and our kids..” etc and I just say, “ok well I’m glad you’re here “ And that’s the end of it. I find it so hard not to act upset but for some reason me being upset makes things a thousand times worse.

[kells76]

More great insights on this thread.

I'm reading lots of successes with allowing the pwBPD to self-soothe and manage their own feelings. VALIDATING.

Why might begging and pleading with the loved one not to go, not be effective? Why might it escalate the situation?

Hint... could it be... invalidating them? What do you think?

[Ninetale]

Hello all, I absolutely think that despite the fact that it’s typically instinct to assist someone we care about who’s in distress. It almost feels like we need to retrain ourselves with the pwBPD our lives to something that feels foreign.

In trying to validate and comfort our loved ones actively,  we tend to make matters worse by over complicating matters in their minds. Making them second guess the things we say, and often “misspeaking”. Furthering their feelings of invalidation in doing so.

To me, pwBPD almost feel as if there’s some sort of “emotional dyslexia” at play. We say things to comfort our loved ones and they are taken as something negative, we do something thoughtful and it’s taken as something it’s not, etc.

Being passively present with the pwBPD in our lives and letting them feel through how they feel in their own way while still being accessible to a degree has thus far been turning out better results than I’ve seen before in my personal relationship. Given the fact that I’ve had to adjust my traditional definition of validation in situations like these.

[thankful person]

Ninetale I absolutely agree. My biggest problem is getting accused of “making it all about me”. This is because I get upset when she’s upset and actually things go down much better if I don’t act upset, even if I am. Sometimes I just need to let her feel how she feels. Like one time we picked up apple turnovers in our click and collect shopping.. I noticed they had cream in which the usual ones don’t… and I thought, “ooh they look nice” (btw my wife does usually like cream) Anyway apparently I ruined the whole weekend and it also meant there was “nothing to eat” despite the rest of the shopping. Eventually she ate it and liked it. I’d love to say the process happened smoothly but of course I couldn’t just let her grieve the usual apple turnovers without interfering. I really hope I’ll get better at all this one day.