Manipulation and regulation

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hello everyone,

I am working through the patterns I participated in with my partner wBpD. Things are going well enough, outbursts are cyclical which I tell myself I won’t stay through another one, and yet I seem to always stay. What has me ruminating is the consistency of my own reaction. I see the signs. I feel the anger coming on. I try to manage it. And inevitably the situation explodes and I say I won’t be part of this any more, but the calm returns as if they are a savior and I stay when everything in my bones tells me to go.

The last time this happened was two weeks ago. I had an important leadership talk to a group of women coming up. My partner was in the email thread confirming the date and time. While we were discussing it about 5 days prior to the event, I mixed up the date in our discussion. I figured it out and apologized profusely for getting it wrong, but that wasn’t enough. She exploded. Sent text after text to me while I was working. Kept yelling at me saying I was Chao’s and didn’t know how to respect her time. Compared my mix up with her calling me a F-ing c over and over again. Said she wasn’t coming to the talk and hoped I would be embarrassed because of it. That I would have to explain my stupidity to the organizers.

I said ok and agreed that her not going was for the best because it was my error. That I would handle everything. I also said that the way she was speaking to me - calling me names, and sending repeated messages to my office and yelling at me for three days was wrong. That she couldn’t speak to me that way.

Here’s the kicker - she shows up to the talk and says I should be grateful. Says someone had to save this relationship and it had to be her. I was angry with her. Had to pull myself together and give this talk. And then per my usual pattern, I apologize. I thank her for coming. But every time I do this, I feel like I am losing more and more of myself. I feel weak and I retreat from her. I am present but not at the same time. I don’t share my feelings for fear of her using them against me, and I don’t love the way I want to knowing this will all happen again.

I don’t want to keep doing this. I also don’t want to see her hurting. I think this is a me problem.

[cats4justice]

Hello everyone,

I am working through the patterns I participated in with my partner wBpD. Things are going well enough, outbursts are cyclical which I tell myself I won’t stay through another one, and yet I seem to always stay. What has me ruminating is the consistency of my own reaction. I see the signs. I feel the anger coming on. I try to manage it. And inevitably the situation explodes and I say I won’t be part of this any more, but the calm returns as if they are a savior and I stay when everything in my bones tells me to go.

The last time this happened was two weeks ago. I had an important leadership talk to a group of women coming up. My partner was in the email thread confirming the date and time. While we were discussing it about 5 days prior to the event, I mixed up the date in our discussion. I figured it out and apologized profusely for getting it wrong, but that wasn’t enough. She exploded. Sent text after text to me while I was working. Kept yelling at me saying I was Chao’s and didn’t know how to respect her time. Compared my mix up with her calling me a F-ing c over and over again. Said she wasn’t coming to the talk and hoped I would be embarrassed because of it. That I would have to explain my stupidity to the organizers.

I said ok and agreed that her not going was for the best because it was my error. That I would handle everything. I also said that the way she was speaking to me - calling me names, and sending repeated messages to my office and yelling at me for three days was wrong. That she couldn’t speak to me that way.

Here’s the kicker - she shows up to the talk and says I should be grateful. Says someone had to save this relationship and it had to be her. I was angry with her. Had to pull myself together and give this talk. And then per my usual pattern, I apologize. I thank her for coming. But every time I do this, I feel like I am losing more and more of myself. I feel weak and I retreat from her. I am present but not at the same time. I don’t share my feelings for fear of her using them against me, and I don’t love the way I want to knowing this will all happen again.

I don’t want to keep doing this. I also don’t want to see her hurting. I think this is a me problem.

[PeteWitsend]

...
I don’t want to keep doing this. I also don’t want to see her hurting. I think this is a me problem.

It is a "you" problem insofar as you are making yourself responsible for this person's feelings, and allowing them to repeatedly torment you.  

The last time this happened was two weeks ago. I had an important leadership talk to a group of women coming up. My partner was in the email thread confirming the date and time. While we were discussing it about 5 days prior to the event, I mixed up the date in our discussion. I figured it out and apologized profusely for getting it wrong, but that wasn’t enough. She exploded. Sent text after text to me while I was working. Kept yelling at me saying I was Chao’s and didn’t know how to respect her time. Compared my mix up with her calling me a F-ing c over and over again. Said she wasn’t coming to the talk and hoped I would be embarrassed because of it. That I would have to explain my stupidity to the organizers.

It seems to me you feed into this dynamic by allowing her to frame issues like this.  Mixing up a date is no big deal, and certainly not on the same level as calling someone awful names like that, yet you apologized to her over it?  

I can see the dynamic between you as she basically telling you "run on this hamster wheel" and you do it, and hope that she won't ask you to again, but of course she will, because you keep doing it.  Why would she expect the next time to be any different?  

Consider why she would be "hurting" if you left her (I assume that's what you meant in the first quote I posted above, that you would hurt her by leaving her to end this dynamic).  Why?  Would she really be hurting if you left?   Does she love you?  If she does, why does she treat you like this?  If you have a discussion about this, explaining to her that the way she treats you is unacceptable, and in no way is mixing up a date the same thing as calling someone the names she used, what do you think would happen?  

[Pook075]

I don’t want to keep doing this. I also don’t want to see her hurting. I think this is a me problem.

This may or may not help, but when my BPD ex suddenly broke up with me, I felt like the world had ended.  I couldn't imagine a life outside that relationship since we had been together for so long, raised kids together, etc.  So I went through similar patterns, not as bad as what you describe, but the same things over and over.  The same arguments and accusations.  The same whispers behind my back with sideways glances.

Maybe 6-9 months after the relationship ended, I realized that what I clung onto so tightly was the comfort of our relationship.  Sure, it was bad sometimes, but she knew how I liked my coffee, we had the same hobbies, we could finish each other's sentences, etc.  Even though the stuff that really mattered wasn't there, I stuck around because it's what I did for 20+ years and it now felt entirely normal.

I'm not trying to say for you to stay or leave here, so please don't take my story as inspiration on what to do.  Instead, I just wanted to show that what I thought was a normal relationship in the moment was actually a disaster once I had some distance from it and enough time to process.  You can't truly evaluate your own relationship because it feels so darn normal.

If you're unsure, some time apart would do you wonders.  I'm not saying to end things or even separate, nothing that drastic.  But stepping back even for a short period of time can really open your eyes to what you have and how it completes you as a person.  Maybe her occasional rants are normal, maybe they're completely abnormal.  I can't say as an outsider looking in.  But you can find that answer on your own by putting some distance from the fighting and anger.

One more thing- nobody wins an argument when BPD is involved...absolutely everyone loses 100% of the time.  So if you can hold back from exploding or find a different way to avoid the fight, then it goes a really long way to stabilizing the relationship.  Likewise, finding different communication patterns is massive since it allows you to discuss sensitive topics without declaring war. 

I'll admit, I was lousy at it most of the time, and I got so much better after we separated.  Why?  For the reasons I just discussed...I saw things from a fresh perspective and recognized the mental illness patterns.  I realized that the fighting had nothing at all to do with me and was 100% about disordered thinking with my ex feeling horrible inside.  That changed my anger into compassion and the arguing completely stopped naturally.

I hope that helped, I tried to hit "both sides of the fence" there.

[ForeverDad]

I just wanted to show that what I thought was a normal relationship in the moment was actually a disaster once I had some distance from it and enough time to process.  You can't truly evaluate your own relationship because it feels so darn normal.

One more thing- nobody wins an argument when BPD is involved...absolutely everyone loses 100% of the time.

Normal.  What is normal?  Too many of us felt we had to normalize our relationships, even when they became increasingly abnormal.  What we initially would not have tolerated in our lives - whether conflict or even abuse -  eventually was tolerated when repeated over and over.  This is an aspect of how we humans adjust to our environment.  It is strange how our reaction to our experiences tends toward it being a "normalizing" factor.

As an example, many readers would be shocked and stunned to experience a hurricane or earthquake.  Yet for those who live in hurricane or earthquake zones they would be accustomed to such possibilities.  More than that, they would also make preparations and use strategies to minimize the impact on their lives and welfare.