Used SET ... now what?

[coasterhusband]

Last night was one of the roughest in a long time. Here's the quick overview:

• Came home at 5p, talked about my uBPDw day of activism at our state capitol



• 530p: Took work call



• 630p: Talked about her day of activism again



• 730p: After she had been WOUND UP, I made a joke about how it was time to talk about something less intense. We moved on to a few travel arrangement details I needed to discuss with her. All was good.



• 745p: We had to continue talking about a custody change for my daughter, and I used SET like mad to attempt to ensure we were talking like two adults. It was not easy, but I was basically calm and cool throughout. It was a tough conversation and she was being a BPD about "her positions".



• 845p: I took a break, telling her I was getting frustrated and I needed a few minutes to collect my thoughts. She tried to school me on how "breaks aren't for when you don't want to respond to your inappropriate behavior", but I didn't take the bait.



• 930p: After a break and some more mostly reasonable, incredibly stressed conversation, she told me I didn't even ask about the call she got from her doctor with the test results. Now the conversation turned to how I'd failed her and didn't support her all day because when she got the call at 230p and texted me (acknowledging I was offline and that I didn't get it) she wanted to talk to me about it, but was scared to do so. (Not sure why, exactly) And that she'd had a horrible, stressful day, and I just cut her off when she was talking about it. (To recap, I a) didnt' "cut her off", and b) we weren't even talking about that topic)



• 1000p: After me saying flat out for at least 20 minutes that I didn't want to continue to discuss my behavior in hours prior, but that the only thing of importance right now was her diagnosis and talking through that, she finally told me what the doc shared. Things pretty quickly calmed down, she and I were talking normally, all was good.



• 1030p: She comes to bed and says "in order to fight this problem, I'm going to have to really de-stress my life, that means... . " and lays out several things that, honestly, scared me to death about what she was saying about the future of our relationship and the future of my custody with my daughter. I calmly stated, while sitting up in bed, that these were significant proclamations that may have bold impact on our relationship and I needed to better understand what she was saying. In retrospect, I should have just said "Yes, dear" And gone to sleep. Instead, she grabbed her pillow and slept in the guest room.

Fast forward to this morning, she's off on a tear again about how I "never" support her, spew hatred at her, and on the worst day of her life (which to be fair, this probably is, the diagnosis wasn't good), I wasn't there for her.

I let her go on for at least 5 minutes on this path and then tried to break in and got called out for interrupting her. I tried to tell her that I was happy to have discussions about her feelings, but that had to be a limit to the amount of times she tells me about my personal failings and that I understood her feelings and needed this to stop. After a few minutes of escalation, she used the word "abuse", which is a new boundary for me (if you use the word abuse about my behavior, conversation over) and I told her I wouldn't participate.

So here are my questions:

• I used SET a lot last night and this morning. It worked, to an extent, but it's clear that has to be something *after* SET, because in my case SET alone doesn't do much. Yes, it helps me to stay calm and helps her to stay calm a tiny bit. But she just responded after a while with comments about how I needed to apologize FOR the thing, not just understand how she was feeling ABOUT the thing. What do I do?



• How do I set a boundary about if you're telling me I'm doing something wrong, tell me once, maybe reiterate a second time, then it's my right to stop hearing it over and over and over, just because you think that I don't understand you? As we know, no matter what, I'll never logically get through an emotional feeling in a BPD, no matter what I say. So how do you set a boundary to them that is clear that it's not just about me not wanting to "respect your ability to talk to me about important things"?



• What do I say when she says things like: "I hope you're able at some point to reflect on the difference between 'I'm sorry you feel hurt' and 'I'm sorry I hurt you' and what that means in relation to personal responsibility, caring, and indication of future treatment"... . ?

Despite the disaster the night/next morning turned into, I'm fairly proud of my ability to get (too) triggered, to stick with SET, and to dial back my defensiveness significantly. Sadly, none of that matters, of course. If I'm not perfect, I'm evil.

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[briefcase]

It sounds like you guys have a lot going on - custody issues and bad diagnosis, etc.  It sounds like a whirlwind of issues. 

These conversations do get bumpy and SET isn't magic.  It does pretty much what you describe here:

Yes, it helps me to stay calm and helps her to stay calm a tiny bit.

It doesn't make the pwBPD like what you have to say any more, the message is just delivered in the most caring, supporting way possible.

I try not to use the "I'm sorry you feel . . . " format of validation for the reasons you raise in you your post.  It comes across as a half-assed apology, which isn't really the intent.  It's better to say things like "you look really upset" or "you sound hurt" - just stating your observations.  Asking questions is also a good validation techinique.  We have some really good validation workshops in the Lessons, have you had a chance to check them out?