When your confidence is shattered...

[globalnomad]

How do folks here deal with major setbacks when things have been improving?

My BPD fiance and I have been getting along pretty well the past several weeks, and yesterday (out of nowhere) we had the kind of fight that would end most relationships.

The day starts off well. We are heading out to an OctoberFest beer festival to spend some time with a bunch of her friends. She forgets her bag of food so we have to drive back by her apartment (not where we live) to pick it up. She sends me in with the keys. I have trouble opening the door. The lock is jammed or something. I try for five minutes and give up. When I walk back to the car, she is fuming about how astonishingly clumsy I am (this is perhaps true, but that is who I am). I bite my tongue. She continues the criticizing as we drive off. If she can't trust me to open a lock, how can she trust me to do big things right? I mostly stay quiet.

We get to Octoberfest. It's a sunny day. Great beer, great company. What could go wrong? She sends me to buy a bratwurst German sausage. They don't have the one she wants so I make another choice among the 3 selections. As soon as I get back it starts again. That's not the one I wanted. Why did you take the smallest one? I won't bother sending you next time because you always get it wrong. I shut up again, because we are in front of her friends and I don't want to make a scene. Inside I am fuming.

Later, we leave. She takes a wrong turn out of the parking lot and we end up going the wrong way on the highway. I am trying to check the route on my phone but have no signal as we are in the middle of nowhere. I let her know this. "Can you make yourself useful for a change?" she says. I have had enough. "You've been rude and disrespectful to me all day long and I'm not going to respond unless you speak to me politely," I say.

Bad move.

This provokes a MAJOR dysregulation. After a short exchange of words she ends up slamming on the brakes and stopping in the emergency lane (this was really dangerous as a car nearly slammed into the back of us). She tells me to get out of the car and walk home. We are 30 miles from home. I say I am not going anywhere. Things go from bad to worse. She tells me to shut the F up, and that she is leaving me by the side of the road if I utter another word.

I tell her she has no right to speak to me like this. And I lose my cool. I tell her I am sick of her walking all over me and that she needs to get over her issues. She tells me we are in a dysfunctional relationship and I am incapable of controling my emotions. She pulls out her cellphone and hits the record  button, saying she wants evidence of my abusive language toward her (really?). She tells me she wants nothing to do with me anymore and that I have no rights at all to our future child (she is six months pregnant). She threatens me that I have no legal rights to the baby.

A day later, she is concedes that "we both have a lot of work to do" but otherwise is acting like it never even happened.

I do not feel safe.

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[CrazyChuck]

She tells me we are in a dysfunctional relationship and I am incapable of controling my emotions. She pulls out her cellphone and hits the record  button, saying she wants evidence of my abusive language toward her (really?).

Dude, I have had this exact conversation. She plays the video of me crying and yelling that I can't take it any more. She says we are in a dysfunctional relationship and it is 100% my fault. Anyway, I know in a day or two she will be telling me she loves me again. So I just wait it out. Then like yesterday when there was no toilet paper on the roll in the guest bathroom. And I can't even be trusted to replace the toilet paper roll. I just wait a couple days again and everything will be great again.

If I go to get the sausage she wants, and they are out, I know the day is over. If I go back and ask her which other sausage she would like, I get "I have to do everything. Why can't you ever listen to me?. If I chose another sausage I get "So I guess my opinion doesn't matter, you eat it. I'm not hungry. I'll get my own sausage.".

[globalnomad]

CrazyChuck - Yeah, that's gotta be one of the toughest things about dealing with this. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. One no-win situation after another... .

[teapay]

Yes, this can be very aggravating.  I have noticed the waiting thing works with my wife.  First, when she is suicidal.  It's like I can't do anything, but it passes like nothing happen.  But then I noticed it worked on other things too.

In the end, did you get to eat the sausage?  I've come out with quite a few extra sausages and other stuff due to dysregulations.  Definitely getting up and strolling around getting the stuff is more peaceful sometimes than sitting there.

[Dragon72]

I am about 4 years into my relationship now and at the beginning I was shocked and surprised by her occasional negative behaviours which are very similar to the ones you describe.

Then followed a period where the bad bits became more frequent and I lived through the good times thinking that another bad patch was probably just around the corner. 

Now it's mostly bad patch and I look forward to the brief and occasional good times. 

This transition happened so gradually I didn't notice it happening, but generally it corresponds to this:

Courtship: great, very occasionally bad

Engagement: Good, occasionally bad

Marriage before children: Equally good patches and bad

Since children: Mostly bad, occasionally good.

[globalnomad]

Teapay - Yes at least I got to enjoy the sausage myself! Small consolation though.

Dragon72 - We have only been together a year but the transition you describe is exactly what seems to be playing out with us too. Have you tried marriage therapy -- or is that even an option in Mexico? We did a couple of months ago and it initially helped a lot. Unfortunately she soon decided the therapist was incompetent (he started gently pointing out some inconvenient truths) and since then things have gotten worse.

[Dragon72]

Thanks globalnomad,

I have considered marriage counselling, however, once we sat down with a friend of ours who is also a priest and nothing useful came out of it.  My wife refused to concede anything to me, and I ended up apologising for my behaviour.  Hence my reluctance to revisit that sort of situation. 

BPDs are masters at arguing (I really think my wife would make a great courtroom lawyer) and I really am not good at fast self-defences and counter-attacks - especially not in a language other than my native one.

Also, although we live fairly simply we still don't have much disposable income. The spending of the family budget is controlled (surprise, surprise!) by my wife, who wouldn't consider therapy to be a legitimate expense.  For her, that would be like me stealing milk/diapers from her baby, so that I could feel better.

In her eyes the problems we have in our relationship lie squarely with me, so I should just shut up and treat her better. What would be the point of marriage therapy? she would wonder.

[CrazyChuck]

This transition happened so gradually I didn't notice it happening, but generally it corresponds to this:

Courtship: great, very occasionally bad

Engagement: Good, occasionally bad

Marriage before children: Equally good patches and bad

Since children: Mostly bad, occasionally good.

So true

My uBPD went to marriage therapy twice with ex-husbands and she says they didn't learn anything, and it was a total waste of time.

[globalnomad]

BPDs are masters at arguing (I really think my wife would make a great courtroom lawyer) and I really am not good at fast self-defences and counter-attacks - especially not in a language other than my native one.

Indeed. This is what happened when we were in couple's therapy. I would have an issue to discuss, but inexplicably I would end up spending 90% of the time on my back foot. She was a master at manipulating the agenda. When the counselor finally figured out what was happening and tried to get us back on track, she decided a) he was incompetent; b) we can't afford it.

I am doing individual therapy though and find that is helpful. The least we can do is take care of ourselves.

[Dragon72]

I think you're doing a great thing getting individual therapy.  Your own self is the one thing you do have some power and influence over in this situation. 

[teapay]

Done the MC a few times and got the same poor results.  Pretty much a bust everytime for the same reasons mentioned.  I kind of feel like its destined to fail.  Its almost like doing MC with someone who has severe alzheimers or mentally handicapped.  You are not really  working with a typical rational being, but are going up against biology.  Individual therapy has been alittle better.  Helps to have some to talk too, but in the end therapists can't really do any of the heavy lifting.  Eventually I'm left with try to find out what works for me in the context of my life at this moment.

[Determined1]

These kind of situations are extremely frustrating.  It's like everywhere you turn,  there is a wall blocking where you want to go. You just feel absolutely powerless.  And of course,  if you say anything about it, it will get flipped around to go against you.  I think that in their minds,  they have this idealized version of you that can never be reached and when you go against that image (and you will according to then), they end up being disappointed and you get blamed for it.

[gotbushels]

Dragon72 this is globalnomad's thread but there are some important points here.

[... .]

This transition happened so gradually I didn't notice it happening, but generally it corresponds to this:

Courtship: great, very occasionally bad

Engagement: Good, occasionally bad

Marriage before children: Equally good patches and bad

Since children: Mostly bad, occasionally good.

[... .]

BPDs are masters at arguing (I really think my wife would make a great courtroom lawyer) and I really am not good at fast self-defences and counter-attacks - especially not in a language other than my native one.

[... .]

Communicating with BPs are tough. It seems to be that way for you.

Arguments where you feel you can't defend yourself are also difficult to handle.

They can make us feel helpless.

After quite a lot of arguing, it wears us down. That's normal.

You mentioned your wife is a master at arguing. What is the duration of an argument?

Biting off chunks of the condition is difficult.

Is there some a specific criteria that you would like to focus on?

Is rekindling the interest between the two of you interesting to you?

[Dragon72]

The arguments don't last long and she tends to close them down pretty quickly and "hide" for the rest of the day and then night in our son's bedroom which she has made into her room now too.