I asked him if he would listen to this book I bought on auditable. “How to communicate with someone who had borderline personality disorder” I’ve read many books. But this one was the one that changed everything. I had a way better understanding of him.
Hi Meg and welcome.
Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. He buys a book and asks you to read it because it really means a lot to him. But as you start reading it, you realize that your husband is self-diagnosing you with a mental illness and the book is pointing out ways you need to change.
To you, that may not sound appealing...but maybe you do it anyway to appease him. But to him, he's thinking, "She's calling me crazy and saying everything is my fault." Because that's how someone with BPD is going to frame it, they're going to see the guilt and blame while missing almost everything else.
But healthy communication takes two. I can’t understand why?
Because we all have feelings and unique ways of expressing them. If he's lashing out, then there's something in the communication that makes him feel unsteady...maybe a fear of abandonment or judgement. Or maybe he's just being a jerk that day, who knows. But there's something deeper in there that he doesn't feel confident enough to share out loud.
So what does he do instead? He bickers, judges, rages, etc. He's doing this to avoid just talking about what's going on and upsetting him.
How you speak to him plays a huge role in his temperament. What you ask him is analyzed far more than you'd realize, often through a BPD lens of suspicion. So when you're saying, "why can't he act differently at times," he's thinking, "why can't she act differently at times so I'm not feeling like this."
It's a two way street and you both play parts. It just so happens that his part is usually hidden in outbursts to mask what he's really feeling.
He knows how much time, energy, effort, and love I’ve put into his mental health...Why can’t he put just a little bit of effort in me? Is it that he can’t or doesn’t care?
This goes back to the communication- you're taking it for granted that he sees the work you've put in, that he understands and accepts it correctly. Someone with BPD could easily see that as someone trying to control them while always telling them what they're doing wrong, why they're never enough.
I'm not taking his side here, so please don't take this negatively. I'm simply trying to answer your questions as directly as possible so you can understand how he might feel. Let a doctor or therapist make the diagnosis and work with him directly.
