exhausted and hurt, again

[maxsterling]

I spent a long time on the undecided board because I wasn't sure I had the energy to commit to this relationship anymore.  But lo and behold, I started realizing that I was using the tools, things felt more under control, and I think I had subconsciously committed to working things forward.

I don't expect much.  I don't need much.  I know her limitations, I know she will never be completely happy or non-abusive.  I just feel like I do need a little something from her to work with.  Maybe just a positive day once a week.  Or her to recognize my need for free time a few hours once a week.  I think I could deal with the negativity and the nitpicky criticisms if they were at least balanced by a few moments of peace. 

But here is what I deal with: Last wed-fri were much better after a couples T appointment.  She took initiative to join a gym, make doctor appointments, and work towards getting a job for next fall.  And she was happier, and we had good times.  And I felt better, things felt optimistic, and I was once again shown a picture of how things could function in a married relationship.  Yes, I was actually thinking about marriage.

And then of course the three day weekend, and things slowly started falling apart.  Her edginess, the self hatred comments, the invalidations, the small little digs.  Things still felt pretty well, when we were cuddled on the sofa watching a movie and I heard her say "you don't love me anymore."   Uggh.  Here we go. Those comments hurt soo much.  Of course, I said nothing, but I could sense the downward spiral had begun again.  So here I was, one moment thinking about how things finally feel peaceful, and the next minute feeling unstable and vulnerable as she may turn on me at any moment and leave me.

As you can guess, it got worse, with her starting comments about marriage and having a child again, alongside blame, self hatred, and wanting to kill herself comments.  I tried to salvage things Monday by taking her out so see a movie and dinner, but by dinner time she said she is "really depressed" and started up the twice-a-week "my life is hell because you haven't married me" discussion again.  This is the boundary that gets crossed over, and over, and over.  It's the catch 22.  She wants to get married in hopes it will help her feel more stable, and I want to feel more stable before we get married.  The boundary being (as we have discussed in therapy before) to just put the topic to rest for a few weeks and just enjoy today.  She can't.  She can't put the topic to rest for even a week.  And I feel like I have no room to breathe or even think calmly about such a topic as marriage.

After dinner, she decided to re-join facebook.  And that's when the real dysregulation started.  The self loathing, the jealousy, etc.  She didn't want me to touch her, but didn't want me to go away.  I felt rejected and hurt.  The real issue was she went back on facebook and saw pictures about what all of her friends have been up to in New York the past few months.  And two have lost weight.  And she felt bad about herself, and took it out on me.

This morning she was up early to meet a friend, and was flailing about and again push-pull, for a few moments she wanted me to hold her.  Other moments wanted to push me away.   I was holding her in bed, and she began pounding her fist on the mattress.  At one point she made a fist and began to strike in my direction.  I don't think she knew what she was doing, but I flinched.  She then pulled away, said I should get up and leave her alone.  I did, and went to the kitchen.  She came in a few minutes later complaining about how I "flinched".

She calmed some before leaving, then came to meet me at lunch at work.  She seemed a little better, but now says she wants to stop all meds, claiming that she doesn't even think she is bipolar.  Actually, I think that could be a positive breakthrough - it tells me she is taking ownership of her mental illness, and maybe willing to admit it is the personality disorder and get help for that rather than to just ask for meds to soothe her.

I hate this.  The back and forth.  It just seems so hopeless where my only option is to end the r/s.  I don't want the hurt from her passive aggressive and sarcastic comments anymore.  I need more independence.  I know boundaries are the key, but I feel tired of having them walked over again and again.  It just hurts so bad because the good times are good, and when she smiles, I melt, and feel that things are workable. 

Thursday is couples T, and I think I need to take the gloves off and express as best as I can how hurt I feel.  I need to bring up boundaries, and let her know I will stay with her and work with her, but I can't stay in abusive situations.  It just stinks being in this situation. 

[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.

[Grey Kitty]

Feeling the way you do is a warning Your car has a handful of red lights that tell you you need to attend to something. Your emotions do the same thing, except that they don't tell you directly whether you need to check the alternator or the cooling system!

In this case, I think they are telling you that you need to enforce better boundaries with your gf.

Letting abusive no-win conversations like "You don't love me anymore" continue is a mistake.

When I hear something like that, my heart sinks too. I know I've got two courses of action then:

1. I'm really feeling good and grounded, and realize this isn't about me, and don't need to take it personally. In this case, I say something to validate how she's feeling.

2. I just don't have it in me. I'm feeling hurt and upset, or maybe am just to tired to really be "ON" enough to validate in a tough situation like that. In this case, I know it is time to cut my losses and disengage. Time for boundary enforcement.

She probably doesn't want you to leave. In your shoes I'd know that I will feel better if I get away, and then be better able to validate her at another time when I'm in a better mental/emotional state. There's no good reason to stick around and become miserable myself without making her feel any better.

One other boundary thing jumped out at me:

Or her to recognize my need for free time a few hours once a week.

I feel like I'm being harsh here, and I apologize for it, but it isn't gonna work that way.

YOU can choose to assert your right to spend a few hours of free time away from her once a week.

Her needs are so loud that they are all she can hear--she will never "recognize" that you need this when she needs you around all the time.

You can make her realize that you WILL spend a few hours a week away from her. She won't like it but she will get used to it.

Good luck... . and congratulations for realizing that you are working on improving your r/s and on learning the tools.

[sweetheart]

Hello maxsterling,

What I read in your post left me feeling confused, because it seems as though you are creating a double bind for your gf .

On the one hand you want to be with her, but on the other hand you don't, because you don't want to marry her unless her emotional stability improves.

Her response within the constraints of a BPD diagnosis is to be with you knowing that she has to meet a certain criteria for you to stay with her long term, for you to marry her. The expectation placed upon her to have to be 'ok' enough for you to marry her is almost certainly contributing to her emotional instability, by it's very definition it invalidates everything she does within the context of your relationship because it places her in a no-win situation, almost certainly contributing to continuous bouts of dysregulation, again within the context of this disorder.  This then puts you in a position to question the basis of your relationship which leaves you moving between the undecided and the staying boards, and yet ' the marriage paradox ' remains.

I am not in any way criticising you, we all move around the boards, carried by aspects of our relationships. However, invalidation is at the centre of this disorder, you mention the marriage dilemma in pretty much every post because clearly it is what you want. From what I have read though it seems clear to me that at the moment your gf is not capable of giving you the emotional stability that you want in order for you to move forward within your relationship.

I also have a sense that some of her emotional distress is her trying to let you know that she cannot be who you want her to be in order to marry her, and sorry if this is harsh, but I'm not sure you are listening yet.

[sweetheart]

maxsterling I felt compelled to post again to give you some information about my marriage.  I put my dBPDh in a double bind situation for many years, and it is only in the last three months that I have started to accept and understand how this impacted on our relationship.This insight has enabled me to change my behaviour and in doing so there has been a significant reduction in my dBPDhs dysregulations.

We have been together since 2007 but it wasn't until 2010 that my dBPDh had his first major dysregulation. Once things had calmed down I suggested I look after all his medication, he agreed.

Over the last four years I have made this a condition of our relationship. I never said it out loud, but what my actions communicated is unless you relinquish this control to me I won't stay with you. I argued and argued that I was not controlling whilst my husband was forced  to negotiate with me about his own medication. He would ask for extra to self soothe, I would play devils advocate thus invalidating his distress, he would start to escalate his distress, I would call him out on past addictions saying I knew best ( all the while arguing I was the least controlling person I knew ) - he would start to dysregulate, I would then give him his medication, at this point he would be too dysregulated to manage it safely. He would usually then take an overdose or misuse it to regulate his distress, end up in hospital, come home, I would immediately ask to look after his medication again - and so the dysfunctional dance continued.

My dBPDh tried everything he could to communicate to me that he felt controlled and unhappy and most of all powerless. Trying to kill yourself is about as loud a shout as you can make, but I would not listen, I could not hear him, I knew best. I absolutely was not controlling!  He was in a no-win situation, put there by me taking the moral high-ground because I was the person without BPD.

Posting here, reading others stories helped something shift inside me, but it took four long years and a lot of heartache. Of course there are still lots of issues, and we are far from perfect, but we are better than we were. I am considering a move back to the staying board.

Currently my husband manages his own medication, with some controls placed upon it by his P, and ironically after some initial difficulties he has started to find his own way. I now have absolutely nothing to do with his medication, and yes I was controlling, with the best of intentions, but so much so neither of us could move without it feeling like Groundhog Day.

Sorry for the lengthy posts but your posts have a huge resonance for me, what I said in my initial response was heartfelt for both you and your gf.

[maxsterling]

Thanks for the replies.

I understand the double bind.  I see it as it cutting both ways, as I feel myself in a similar double bind.   That's why I feel helpless, that the only way out is "out".  I don't think I can commit to the future unless I see some changes in the present.  Changes that make *me* feel stable in that she won't get up and leave like she sometimes says she will do, and in ways she has done to others in the past.  And she wants the commitment from me as a reason to not just leave.  I need to feel more stable with her in order to get married, and she needs to get married in order to feel more stable.  But I know marriage will not make her feel more stable - her life has been spent searching for new places, people, or things to "fix" her, and marriage is just the latest "thing".  And thus, the helpless and exhausted feeling.  It just feels like an incompatibility and I wonder how anyone manages to pull the trigger and actually feel comfortable enough to marry a pwBPD.

My goal thus far has been to give her stability and space and freedom to make her own decisions.  I never give her commands on how to present herself, take care of herself, take care of the house, etc.  I have never told her "you need to get a job" or "you need to take your medicine."  I don't want her doing things just for me.  She seems to want that from me, but I see it as part of a game.  She wants me to be angry or upset with her, to think of her as lazy or crazy.   All I want is for her to be happy and respect my desire to be happy, too. 

But regarding the medicine - she wants to quit all of it.  And I don't press her on it.  I agree with her 100%, it is her decision as to what medicine she takes and what she doesn't.  If not taking the medicine results in more abuse, it's the abuse I have the problem with, not the medicine.  It would be up to her to decide to keep up the medication as a means to be less abusive.  But the reality is, she has been on tons of medicine her whole life, and nothing has made her feel better, so I can understand her desire to want a different route.

Soo, she went to the doctor yesterday, and told the doctor her desire to stop her medications because they haven't shown an improvement.  She told the doctor she doesn't think she is bipolar because she has never, ever, felt manic.  The doctor listened, and then agreed, went over some checklists, and said that she thinks she is just BPD.  GF was glad to hear that, and me too, because hopefully they will try a different treatment strategy (such as DBT). GF said she has been diagnosed BPD over and over again throughout her life, and said that it's clear she still has many symptoms, but thinks much less than when she was younger.  (I think she meets all criteria many times over - by "less"  I take that to mean she has not attempted suicide in 10 years, has not cut herself or used drugs in that time, either.)

The new BPD diagnosis has me feeling a little hopeful again.

 

[KateCat]

maxsterling,

When I first read some of your posts, I thought your girlfriend might be in her early twenties. But she's actually 38, if I'm not mistaken. So I'm wondering if you're strong enough emotionally to be--in her mind--that one guy who dashed all of her hopes and dreams of marriage and children. Because it sounds as though, in this musical chair game of her life and times, you're going to be the one left holding the bag at this most critical time, unless you go against your instincts and become a husband and father with her.

(I think I am trying to say that sweetheart has important things to say above. Is this situation fair to either of you?)