Seems to incessantly add tasks before bed

[Boogie74]

While I cannot say for sure what the motivation is, I have noticed from early on a consistent attempt to add tasks and requests prior to my going to sleep.   It is akin to a small child that plays the “one more thing:  I’m thirsty” game or “My back itches- I need you to scratch it” or “I can’t find my stuffed doll” (and it’s literally next to them).

She pushes these boundaries more often than not- waking me up to tell me she’s cold or can’t sleep.

But she’s not 6- she’s 38.   How does one react appropriately so that the behavior isn’t enabled but at the same time preventing an all out rage of anger?

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[Dad.Co-Parenting]

Understood. Same situation happens here. I am going to speak from my person experience. Someone with more object training please call out any bad advice I may be giving.

This ‘one more thing’ episode from what I can tell in my situation, is a triggered stress response. She is in a slightly dissociated state. The logic and reason are useless to focus on. Reason never worked for me. The facts that are expressing may not even be true facts. Don’t argue the details. She is stressing and looking to warn you and or some part of herself. She needs support to bounce validating reassurance back to her. She might need to hear one or two times for each stressor. Near end of validation suggest ‘we will solve this together, now it time for to go to sleep.” I do this gently and with empathy sometime three times before she might echo back, “no more good will come from this tonight,  its time for bed, we can solve this challenge tomorrow.”

When this babbling starts happening it is because of some other event or series of stressors from earlier in the day. There is some unfinished business or impending doom she is trying to warn me or herself about.

The trick and its hard, is validation of her feelings of distress. The sooner in the day the better in my case. You have to look past the irrationality and recognize its true for her in her head.

Its better if you can get to it earlier in the day than bed time. Best for me is to start validating anything unsettling around 6 PM. It might take an hour or two to flush out the root of any angst but its worth it.

We try to keep the news off at the end of day. The news can really trigger this. Problems that we cant solve but will keep her up all night. Its impossible for me to get in front of this one. Best no news at night.
We try to keep things smooth from 6 PM on. No challenging conversations about future plans etc. If we are going on a trip we try to cover all this stuff earlier in the day so we can flush out any scary hotspots. We plan way ahead so that she doesn’t have to wake me to remind me of something that she forgot to tell me.
This quiet time is best for games or watching a movie or something low key. No thrillers.


On the boundary side: (Wiser members: I might be off here so don’t let me lead anyone astray)
Personally we sleep separately. We wind down and don’t talk about any hot topics after 6:30 7:00. We together or independently read or watch entertainment generally 7-9. Lights out in my room means no more conversations. She hated this at first but learned at some point that even she was having better days if we went to bed early. She will come in an wake me if she is really on tilt. At that point the cleanest way out of the situation is to validate validate validate.
Empathy is the key.
Meditation really helped me learn how to empathize. I meditate a lot.

She will have 2 days a week that she will keep coming in at 9:30 for one more thing. I have learned that this is not the boundary setting time, this is the validation time. Once I have heard all the scary stuff and I have validated how that makes her feel I look for confidence builders.

‘Now that you have shared with me XYZ we are going to be able to face this together when it comes. This isn’t going to come for a week or two. We have all day tomorrow and (a list of mitigations beyond tomorrow) to take care of this scary XYZ problem.
No more good will come from us being aware right now. Its time to go to sleep. I might have to say this 2 or three times. Then “Its time to double check the house is safe and go to bed. We are safe. Thank you for sharing with me.”

If it was a small matter she might just close down the house and go to bed.

I have set a standard that during the day if we had a bad night the night before where she had to wake me that I comment on how I didn’t get enough sleep and my cognitive ability is not enough for work. I let he know that last night she woke me because of ‘a stressor’. We have to solve for the root of the problem during the day so that it doesn’t come back the next night.

She sometimes only comes in once to remind me of something she forgot and will apologize and she tells me. I validate and thank her for sharing then she goes off and I go to sleep.

At night you can only validate.

During the day you try to reduce the stressor or root out the insecurity. Even if its irrational to you this stressor is causing insecurity. The sooner you acknowledge it and help secure her the sooner you’ll be getting a good night sleep.

She hates it when I remind her about waking me the night before. There is a lot of resistance to the feedback. In my case she may even deny it happed or might not remember. It doesn’t matter if she verbally acknowledges or she pushes back. Some part of her is listening to the feedback and will try to do the right thing in the future. I have to be firm and communicate that at 9:00 PM its no talk time or I will loose my job. This makes her part of the solution of me not loosing my job. She fights herself when she comes and and really tries not to.

Hope this helps.

[Dad.Co-Parenting]

Relating to the 6 years old:

I know its frustrating when your partner is ‘learning’.

When this happens it’s almost as if (in my case) she is a child looking for re-assurance. So in my case when she is in this state I try to reassure and not expect her to be adult. The full rational skill set are not available to her in this state.

Its challenging but validation can help defuse situations before they are situations.

[60av8tor]

Understood. Same situation happens here.

 She is stressing and looking to warn you and or some part of herself. She needs support to bounce validating reassurance back to her.

The trick and its hard, is validation of her feelings of distress.  

She will come in an wake me if she is really on tilt. At that point the cleanest way out of the situation is to validate validate validate.
Empathy is the key.

At night you can only validate.

So many good points and SO similar to my situation. I wish to God I had known about BPD and had any of this knowledge before she split and we were in divorce mode...

In my situation, I have (I now know) about the worst job in the world for my BPDw. I travel for about 3-4 days every 3 or 4 days, sometimes go to nice, fun locations, etc. I used to joke with my wife (long before even hearing of BPD) that I could set my watch to her spinning the night prior to me leaving on a trip.

She would be laying in bed next me and I could just feel the tension; the anxiety. I could feel it and I could sense it in her body language and movements. Finally, when she couldn't take it any more, she would blurt out something random about way earlier in the day, like, "earlier today you said xxxx. What did you mean by that?" I'm trying to wind down, really have no idea what she's talking about. Most times it was some random statement in casual conversation that I didn't even remember mentioning. It's like she just wanted to fight. Again, long before my awareness of BPD, so how did I respond? In the worst possible ways mostly! I would quickly get frustrated, imply (sometimes fairly directly) that she's being ridiculous - the antithesis of the validation she was looking for. In fact, she was looking at my leaving as abandonment and looking to lash out and cause me pain to prevent the pain that, in her mind, was headed her way. Many times, when I'd have to get up at 0500, we'd still be circling at 0300 - exhausting and totally made way worse by me and my total lack of understanding or ability to cope with, what to me, was total made up nonsense. Now I know better.

I now know the absolute fear and anxiety she felt every time I left and while I was gone - we would argue over the phone often while I was gone as well. And then I'd get home, things would mostly be great, and then the cycle would repeat in another 3 or 4 days most of the time. Sometimes she would skip a cycle; maybe we'd go 7-10 days, but never more than about 10 days without a blow up.

Having said all that - and really believing I have THE worst career for a BPD spouse - I can get really depressed that I didn't have a chance to adjust my behavior before the split and protective order (good God...), so I can't even talk to her... However - and it's a big however - I really believe the end result would be the same, because with her huge insecurity issues, neediness, anxiety, me being gone all the time, and BPD having a propensity for infidelity, I really believe problems would have developed regardless.

I hate to even think it as I have never cheated in my life, never would, and loved my BPDw with all my heart and soul, looking back now, I wouldn't be surprised if she had - and it crushes me inside thinking about it. At the very least, I'm almost 100% certain she emotionally cheated on me - talking to other guys that I did not know, etc.

[Every day]

This might sound cold, but I established early on, long before I realized that my husband had BPD, that I need sleep and that I don’t respond to anything in bed once I’m almost asleep unless it would be an issue of personal safety/real crisis. 

He would try to talk nonstop, which he does in general anyway, and I would just ignore it.  I’ve developed a reputation of being a really deep sleeper.  Every now and then he tries to start it up but primarily he gave up on it knowing it wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

I also regularly use earbuds as I am falling asleep - this is part of what helps me sleep in general, not something I do solely to block him out, but it does serve a benefit there as well since he knows I won’t likely hear him.

[Boogie74]

One of the hardest parts for me is that the “one more thing” requests aren’t help dealing with a non-descript issue that causes anxiety- but small defined tasks… Often these are tasks she can complete herself.   We sleep in separate rooms- so she calls me in to ask me to turn on her television- or plug her phone in to be charged.  

Add insult to injury, she regresses to a non-verbal emotional age- often attempting to communicate with grunts and whines.  I am stuck between a rock and a hard place- as I can only guess what she’s needing (sometimes she resorts to sign language- which I a TERRIBLE at reading- especially hand letters which she spells things out with).   I COULD address her like she’s a 4 year old and say, “Use your words” but that is infantilizing and I feel that she would feel like I am being a condescending “parental figure” rather than treating her with the respect she deserves as an adult.

[PearlsBefore]

"Yeah, welcome to life as a Dad to your freakin' spouse - if you're really unlucky she'll have panic attacks when she claims she's not able to remember whether it was you or her father yelling at her on phone last week and the children must call you 'father' not 'Dad' because otherwise she'll forget you're not HER Dad".

//one of my less helpful comments in my five years here, but one of the more therapeutic, haha

[FirstSteps]

I am so struggling with this parenting your spouse deal. Wouldn’t it just kill whatever real adult relationship is left. Maybe I need to get better at compartmentalizing. Right now I am also caught in a wave of little favors - especially after a split. Haven’t figured out when I should say no.