Borderline splitting destroys relationships when a person accuses their partner

[Buddy Joe]

  “Borderline splitting destroys relationships when a person accuses their partner of things because of how they feel, without examining the evidence.” - MHCA

I often feel as if I am not welcome to be open in this relationship. I’ve learned from my past relationships that when I do not speak up I just end up tolerating them. I used to mistake “understanding” and “giving benefit of the doubt” by choosing to just let go of the issue. Not knowing that I am also to blame because I was just tolerating them all this time to avoid any arguments or misinterpretations of whatever issues I had then.

From the start of my relationship with my girlfriend I’ve practiced and made sure to be as open as possible. First 3 months, we didn’t have much issue. Little did I know that was the idealization phase or the honeymoon phase. I thought things were going great and I found my unicorn partner. Unfortunately one red flag/episode after the other started bulldozing our relationship. She opened up to me a month in when we started dating that she has BPD. I researched about it but definitely wasn’t prepared for the real deal. Whatever you can Google is not enough to help you face the real difficult problems in your relationship when you’re caught right there in the middle of it all.

I find myself deeply upset and agitated after I open up to her about something I didn’t appreciate. My pain then becomes her pain. And whatever I shared with her becomes devalued and insignificant to the issue at hand. It turns 180 degrees, now she makes it about her that I am hurting her feelings. The funny thing is that in this argument she paints me as someone that only cares about myself. Like it is all about me, me, me and me. She doesn’t realize that every time I open up I don’t feel heard. The funniest thing would be that she tells me she doesn’t feel understood and heard by me. Until everything gets misconstrued and we enter this unending cycle every time we have arguments.

I also find difficulty assessing my worth in this relationship. I often times question my sanity if what she’s telling me is actually based on facts or was it just all in her head. I really hate it and I feel sick to my stomach when she is splitting. All the nasty words  she throws at me are based on her feelings. One problem can balloon to multiple issues that were not even part of the original problem.

I told her that I don’t feel appreciated and enough for her. All I needed was validation from her  and she was contented with me. I would give everything to her in all aspects because that’s just how I express my love. Unfortunately there would be indirect comparisons to other people that would make me feel inferior. She would just tell me that she wasn’t comparing me to her exes and friends. She doesn’t understand how sometimes these things affect another person. It wouldn’t be an issue if she wouldn’t rant or complain about her finances and how pampered she was with her exes. All this time I thought I was capable of taking care of her. When I told her most of my salary goes to our dates that’s why I am not able to contribute to other things. When I have extra that’s when I do give for other things in the household or for the kids.

She got so pissed when I mentioned the average figure of how much goes to our dates. The bottom line of all this was me seeking for validation that I was enough. I also opened about starting a business with her to help with our daily expenditures.

The fun starts here. She started spewing nasty things about me. Devaluing me all the more and calling me selfish and that I don’t give from my heart. Also got angry enough to tell me that I was asking for all that money back, which I never did. She apologized for saying that and agreeing I didn’t ask for the money, she was just angry that’s why she said that. She even said that I put a price tag on her for specifying the amount. Made her feel she wasn’t even worth it of that money I spent. So from me feeling down and not being enough for her to IT IS ALL ABOUT HER and how bad of a person I am for making her aware of how much goes to our dates.

What do you do and how do you deal with your BPD partner who is splitting? When there are no evidence of her complaints? When something you’ve shared with her, a lot of fluff gets added and you guys end up fighting about other things. Not to mention, them choosing to believe that however they understood your side is the real deal. Explanations to clear the air are all just stupid reasonings. She would constantly say that I defend myself. I realized that I often do so because however she describes me when she’s angry is not who I am. When she’s not her best self, I am the worst person to walk on this earth.

How do you recover constantly questioning your self-worth and identity when they split on you?

[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.

[thankful person]

Hi buddy Joe and welcome. There is much to learn here and far more knowledgable people than me. But I have been on a serious journey to save my marriage over the past 18 months and it has been very successful so thought I’d share a couple of thoughts.

Your girlfriend will likely never choose or be able to see things from your point of view. It’s like pwbpd believe what they’re saying but they’re not that serious about it because their views and opinions often change. Your reactions are affecting this too. Try not to dwell on something she said which she may no longer believe. I found by not giving such issues any attention my wife stops mentioning them (or much less often). If your girlfriend had bpd then she is emotionally disabled. There is a certain level of understanding that she is not capable of. It can be very lonely as you won’t get the same support and understanding we all know should be present in a relationship. But if you can accept that and still want to stay in the relationship, it will help.

Apologising for everything and losing my own sense of self, walking on egg shells and trying desperately to please my wife… all of this was making my wife more and more controlling and less and less respectful of me. But going on and on about the things she was accusing me of and how to fix them… it’s like it was confirming to my wife that I was a severely faulty person and not good enough. Once I stopped acting that way she pretty much stopped believing it.

Working on my own self-confidence, self-resilience, and self-compassion has really helped my relationship. Along with following advice not to JADE (justify, argue, defend, explain), I found that when I started taking back the power in the relationship, treating myself with more respect and not allowing my wife to insult me, (well she still did but I learnt to walk away..) My wife has become more reasonable and more sane in response to the changes I have made. She doesn’t like me walking away so this was very powerful.

My favourite book is “stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist” The audio book is amazing. Neither myself or my wife has had therapy (well she did but it was before we met). She doesn’t know about all the learning I’ve been doing on here. But life is so much calmer and happier.

Good luck with everything. I was posting on here all the time last year and it really helped getting so much advice from the amazing people here.

[Buddy Joe]

Hi, thankful person! I am deeply moved that you took the time to reply to my first post. Thank you for extending yourself to me and my current situation. 

"Try not to dwell on something she said which she may no longer believe."
--- Thank you for pointing this out because I just realized this just now. It was confusing for me for so long that there would come a point that it makes me question my truth. When in reality I'm pretty sure she said those things before. Did you also experience your partner claiming something happened in the past but you had no memory of it at all? She told me before that I hit her when I was asleep already and wasted that night. I couldn't come into terms with what she told me. She was very firm about it. I've had nights when I was wasted and barely could lift a finger let alone beat up someone. I just bawled my eyes out and was in disbelief. I apologized to her for that. Up until today, it's been more than a year, I still question if that really happened or not.

I honestly felt lonely every time we would have a fight. I always felt stupid and misunderstood. While feeling all these things, she tells me that I am just tolerating her and understanding her is another thing. She would always complain that she is not heard. What do you do when the thing she is complaining about you are not true? And that her feelings are valid regardless of the scenario or reason behind the fight.

Do you just let the moment pass and don't discuss anymore the things she accused you of? Does your wife forget the things she said? This is our current predicament as of the moment. Our issues with finances, she would bring it up every day since last week. I didn't see her for almost a week and stayed at my place. We would just message each other, no calls. She would reject it. Now I'm back at her place and the issue would rise again at different times of the day.

 "Working on my own self-confidence, self-resilience, and self-compassion has really helped my relationship."
--- I will also work on this. Thank you so much for your advice. I need to not lose myself if I want our relationship to work out.

“stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist”
--- I will look for this and listen to the audio book. 

[once removed]

we choose romantic relationships (and relationships of all kinds, really) in part, to meet our various needs.

obviously, no one partner can meet all of our needs.

for example, maybe you love to laugh and joke around. maybe your loved one just isnt very funny, so you meet that need to laugh and joke around with your various friends.

in a bpd relationship, it can be very difficult to count on consistent, strong, emotional support. your loved one has a limited ability in that regard. to a certain extent, trying to get out of her something she may not be able to give, will only cause resentment for you both, and make you both feel inferior.

the complicated thing is, just as you would meet your needs through multiple relationships, a bpd relationship can be emotionally trying, and you will need a strong support system.

as it applies to going off on you, and the hurtful things she says, generally speaking:

1. it feels personal because it is personal. this is your loved one saying these things to you. its okay to feel hurt by them, and you dont want to just dismiss them.

2. at the same time, our loved ones are highly sensitive, highly emotional, and tend to over emote, both in good ways and bad. the key is not to get too caught up or emotionally invested in either the good or the bad. to hold a balanced, stable idea of yourself that doesnt hinge on her. one that has thick skin, but isnt dismissive.

3. with a bpd loved one, its often not so much what they say, but how they say it. often times, there is something valid there, some kernel of truth, or something they are getting at, buried under an avalanche of hurtful stuff, past resentments, exaggerations, etc. the trick is for that balanced sense of yourself to learn to read between the lines, and carefully listen for what they are expressing underneath it all.

4. every individual, and every relationship, should have limits. you have to be prepared to put up with a certain amount of difficulty if you want this relationship to work, but you also need to know what your limits are and protect yourself when theyre crossed, and you need to be able to remove yourself from the situation when its gotten abusive, and is only getting worse, or when youre feeling particularly triggered or riled up. one good way to start is, in a time of calm, to have talks about the relationship, as couples do, and each talk about your limits, and the things that are in your "never" category.

[thankful person]

Buddy Joe,

I’m glad to be of help. Bpd family has saved me from a life of hell and I just want to help others.

They say pwbpd feel empty and they will take everything from you to fill the hole they feel inside. It has been likened to a sink hole, where you end up giving up everything and yet they still feel empty and aren’t satisfied and don’t even appreciate your efforts.. They will never feel they have enough love, enough attention, enough money… many of them find it hard to hold down a job which puts more financial pressure on a partner.. In my case I earn well self-employed. But covid has hit my business and we have also moved away so times have been hard. A factor of this has been balancing the amount of attention my wife wants with the amount of money she wants. Then there’s the amount of control she wants. Impossible. We also have 2 babies and another on the way so my wife has a good excuse to not work at the moment!

You will learn about tools like SET, which means you give one statement of Support then one of Empathy then one of Truth. I was totally overwhelmed at first, thinking ok don’t JADE but what should I say? I was astonished to find that by keeping quiet for a few moments while I tried to figure it out… really helped. Most of my responses though well intentioned, were what they call “invalidating”. Watch how often you are defending yourself or disagreeing or being reassuring. All of this just fuels the fire. I like the Truth statement most tbh. Because that is when you get to JADE. I can’t seem to give that up entirely. So you can validate a statement which you disagree with. “It must be upsetting for you to feel that I’m asking for the money back that I spent on our dates…” You are kind of pointing out that you don’t agree but whilst still being understanding that it’s upsetting her. With my wife this threw her and she found it hard to continue to rant when she was expecting the usual arguing and defending which I was so good at.

Once you have said the Truth statement, the argument or string of accusations does not have to continue. I learnt to say, “if you continue to shout at me about this I am going to leave and do x for a specified amount of time…” I had tried this in the past and it hadn’t helped. But looking back, that is because I had always come back into the room and it was me who then started up again defending my position in the attack she had launched previously! My wife is so proud that it is so so rare that she would ever apologise or admit she was wrong. I was always chasing that apology, needing to hear that she knew she was wrong for once.

Bizarrely, it is only now that I can see when she knows she was wrong. That’s because she now will drop an issue and not bring it up again, or not for a while… if I don’t give it the attention I used to.

It seems really complicated. But hopefully when you listen to the book and read more of the website, you will get more ideas of what to try and you will start to see improvements. My wife did become more angry before she got calmer but it’s well worth it.

I didn’t think I’d ever be at this stage where I actually feel happy with my life and I have a better understanding of bpd and what’s worked for me so I’m able to try and help others on here. I really found it helped to recount specific situations and conversations that I hadn’t handled well and people here were able to help me see what I could have done differently.

[waverider]

Keep in mind you cannot negotiate your way into a mutually agreed normality with BPD relationships. There will always be severe points of differences that you will never fully wrap your head around. Logic, or whatever passes for it, will constantly shift. Agreements will become points of difference. Reasons will be delusional. It is a constant ebb and flow.

Unfortunately you will just have to let things go with no sense of closure. The important thing is to know when to let it go before you get dragged down the rabbit hole. pwBPD  get most of their validation from your engagement in their issues, not from your resolving them. Its the process, not the end result. So you need to not make "getting a result" the end game, but simply know when enough engagement is enough.

This is not to say don't engage, just limit it.

You will also need to maintain external contacts to keep you grounded, otherwise you will get slow boiled into dysfunction without knowing it.

How do people cope with all this? Truth is most don't all to well, and thats what brings us here. There are no quick answers or easy fixes. Even if you study it like your life depends on it then that aspect can take over your life. So you also have to be careful about over obsessing about it, and leave plenty room in your life for filling it with normality for you, not just simply pandering to BPD needs

[Notwendy]

One model of dysfunctional relationships that has helped me is the Karpman triangle. There is information on this site and on the internet.

Using this model - you can see why your communications follow a pattern.

PwBPD have a poor sense of self and also have difficulty managing their own uncomfortable emotions. From my own observations, they perceive themselves as victim on the Karpman triangle. The payoff for victim position is that, we don't blame victims. Victims are not responsible for their actions. This is important because avoiding blame avoids shame and shame is a difficult feeling to manage. There can only be one victim. Other people either take rescuer role ( helping them feel better, enabling ) or persecutor ( being the cause of their discomfort ).

I think you can then see the difficulty with seeking emotional comfort and validation from a victim. Their needs, to them, are greater. When you approach your girlfriend with a need, or an issue that she did that bothered you, the resulting response is likely to be rage and anger. How dare you.

Ironically, in these romantic matches, both partners don't feel good enough. You want validation that you are good enough. When you seek it from her, she feels she's not good enough. From her viewpoint, you are in persecutor mode. She feels attacked and will fight back to defend herself- and verbally insult and accuse you. It feels cruel to you but she may feel justified in self defense.

The victim position is perception, not reality. It's disordered thinking. In actuality, there are few victims in relationships- most adults have choices. Children and the elderly, or someone who is completely dependent is a possible victim, but for most adults, they aren't really victims but feel like one. However, we can't change how someone else thinks.

If someone has a poor sense of self, they need a lot of validation. This can be in spoken reassurance, doing things for them, spending money on them. I have a mother with BPD and she has all these needs. If you don't do something she wants you to do, she perceives this as deliberately hurting her. Maybe you are busy or can't do it at the moment, but she doesn't see it that way. She also buys expensive items- I think it affirms her self worth.

So when you said this to your GF, she probably heard that you don't think she's worth it:

She got so pissed when I mentioned the average figure of how much goes to our dates.



BPD). Just like an expensive date may feel validating to someone with BPD, bringing up the cost probably felt like telling her she's not worth it.

Such conversations reflect that you feel you have done too much and didn't get something in return. This feeling of lack of reciprocity is common, I think. PwBPD seem to have a skewed sense of fairness- probably due to them feeling emotionally empty. But doing too much- that's on you. If you are feeling resentful, you are doing too much.

As WW said, how do people cope in such relationships? Some do better than others. BPD is on a spectrum. Some relationships last, and others do not. I think the advice to normalize your life in other ways can help. Ultimately you can decide how well the relationship works for you or not.