Procrastination

[314rabbit]

What is everyone's experience of their BPD partner's procrastination?

My spouse procrastinates chores when under distress, and to be fair so do I.

The difference is that my spouse creates distressing conditions through their extreme emotionality, which makes it so neither of us are doing our chores around the house.

This week, my spouse destroyed two dates that I planned. I was able to cope with the first one, but now I'm dissolving into a puddle because the can opener doesn't work. My (disordered) thinking is that if my spouse had not manipulated me emotionally, we probably could have kept up with the house cleaning, and would have been more likely to replace the broken can opener. It's likely not true, but I could not cope with being manipulated emotionally, having a filthy house, AND having the can opener not work.

For further context, we had a house cleaner clean our house on TUESDAY and it is now Saturday and the house is filthy. We can't afford to have her come weekly, and my spouse has not helped me with upkeep since she was here. An extra fun fact is that my spouse is a janitor for work, so there is no reason why they cannot help me with the housework. The only reason why the housework isn't getting done is because they are too busy manipulating me to pick up the banana peels off of the couch cushions.

I'm tired.

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[EyesUp]

One thing that came into focus for me on the BPD journey was increasing self awareness re: my own avoidant behavior.

Procrastination may be procrastination, i.e., intentional delay of a given task - or it may be a symptom of a larger issue or set of issues...

Avoidance is a common symptom of depression, and can also be associated with ADHD, for example.  Of course, this can be overwhelming and leads to further procrastination / avoidance / give it a name...

Many of us in BPD relationships find ourselves in a caretaker role.  In this mode, you'd probably pick up the banana yourself to avoid triggering your BPD partner, or to attempt to minimize your partner's stress, or to conceal your BPD partner's guilt/shame/etc. for any possible perceived criticism...   it sounds like that's not what's happening in your situation - which is more like a contest of wills?  Who will pick up the banana?

What's preventing you (or your partner) from simply picking up the banana?

Have you communicated about things like this in the past, or has it generally fallen to one of you to look after cleaning/housework?

In an ideal scenario, how would the banana or the can opener situation play out for you?  Who would take care of it?  Would there be any discussion?  If yes, what would that discussion sound like?

Hang in there!

[thankful person]

Here it seems to be a classic case of demand avoidance, where it often feels like my dbpdw will avoid tasks the more she feels I want her to do them. I guess over time that I have become more accepting of my complete lack of control over her actions… Yes I have become accustomed to the house not always being as clean and tidy as I’d like it, but then again we have 3 small children so I guess I had to come to terms with this at some point. The only advice I can give is to lead by example and try to subtly plant ideas, if I’m cunning enough with this then my wife will sometimes shortly announce one of these things as her own idea and it would be absolutely pointless for me to argue that actually that was my idea, as then she would abandon it and possibly permanently. The worst thing you can do is make her feel she’s not doing well enough or any such thing. I have worked as a domestic cleaner in the past and I still struggle with cleaning my own place to the same standards and that would be due to lack of time and the fact I’m not getting paid.

[CC43]

Hi there,

Feeling overwhelmed with a messy or dirty environment, or broken items, isn’t necessarily a BPD trait; I think it happens to everyone. But sometimes I see clutter as a symptom of a cluttered, overwhelmed mind, which can be associated with BPD. My stepdaughter is diagnosed with BPD, and it seemed that the messiness of her room would directly parallel the severity of her dysfunction.

I also see procrastination, or avoidance generally, as a flight response to « traumatic » stimuli. So if dealing with an issue makes one feel stress or dread, avoidance can be their way to cope.

When if comes to housework, it can indeed be very tedious, under appreciated and never complete. Resentment can build if people aren’t picking up after themselves.   After a full day of work it can feel like drudgery to clean  I was typically exhausted after cooking dinner at the end of a workday, and I could barely handle anything else. So my unspoken pact was that I’d put away food and wash dishes during the work week, but that was about it. I’d only tackle general cleaning on weekends, when I was more rested and fed. So for me, a routine was what worked best—so I could focus on the right things at the right times, and manage my energy levels throughout the week. By Sunday night, the house was in order, and I could wake up Monday with a.clean slate, a full fridge and some lunches packed. Anyway, I’m a big believer in healthy routines, which alleviate some of the mental load.

[314rabbit]

Thanks all for your advice, it's appreciated.

A lot of what's happening is the demand avoidance, but what's tough is that these are my spouse's idea's and then when I say "Yes honey, that's a great idea" it is now a demand, and does not get done.

Right now, my spouse is fixing a washing machine that broke over a week ago. I wanted to hire someone, my spouse insisted that they knew how to fix it. They waited 7-8 days to begin the project, and now I don't have any church or work appropriate pants and cannot do laundry. My spouse does not see the problem because they do not wash their pants more than once a month.

Today, they kept coming to me expecting praise for "making progress" and I'm miffed because this should have been done last week. My spouse has been hand washing our clothes because I'm not considering myself involved in this project. I can't for the life of me figure out why they've chosen to hand wash clothes independently instead of fixing the washer or hiring a professional. It turns out the issue is not what they thought it would be, and they carried on without consulting a manual or a youtube video, which made the project last much longer if they had done a little research before beginning.

I'm thinking that this is more "being married" and less BPD, but the "being married" problems become BPD problems because I can't be allowed to be pissed about rewearing dirty underwear because my spouse won't do the things they say their going to do. I'd like to be glad that they're working on it, but I can't be because I have to wear filthy clothes to church (or choose not to go).

I've decided to call a repairman tomorrow, even though we honestly can't afford it right now. We can't afford it because my spouse keeps writing bad checks, to which they threaten suicide over me making an angry face about overdraft fees. I want to have a grown up relationship with a grown up, but it's just not what I have.

[314rabbit]

Trying something new with this topic today.

My spouse texted me in a crisis because the bank account we use for bills had $1 in it, and our long term savings account had $0 in it. We've been circling the drain for awhile, and have a strict budget system to keep us going as long as possible.

My spouse has failed to enter transactions in the spreadsheet since August. Their job is to input the transactions, my job is to use that data to make the next month's budget and fill the accounts. It was divided this way because the data entry job is very easy and straightforward, with maybe 30-45 minutes worth of work involved a month. My job is a little more complex, and also takes about 30-45 minutes to complete. I have training in the more complex job, and prefer it.

Since we have not had an updated budget in 2.5 months, we've just been doing things by estimation for that long. This month, I felt uncomfortable with the estimation (and also lacked the number for how much money I needed to MAKE this month) so we've both been just "winging it."

I've given my spouse plenty of support for them to do this simple task, and I'm now unwilling to help them with it. I am willing to have $0 in savings for a little while until we can get a budget going and get into a better place financially.

There are a few stressors for us financially, due to my lack of work (improving, albeit slowly), my spouse's refusal to work more than 24 hours a week, my spouse's refusal to do the budget entry, and my spouse's irresponsible use of our financial resources. I've accepted that these things will cause us to be living more frugally than we'd like for a little while. I'm not at risk of losing my home, not paying my bills, or getting my needs met.

Hopeful that natural consequences (needing to skip a pleasant date night with months worth of data entry and possibly doing some time doing doordash) will create more lasting change than other strategies I've tried. Hoping that my spouse might try a new strategy to avoid this from happening again.

[EyesUp]

This all sounds rational.  It may work, at least for a while.

My uBPDxw had a million reasons not to work.

She had a MBA.

She refused to collaborate on a family budget. A million excuses, but one of them was "I don't know how to use excel" (she had an MBA - using excel is more or less necessary to complete most of the coursework in finance and economics).

When we got to the point where you are now, she resented me for skipped date nights and took zero responsibility for contributing to the situation after three years of not working / continued spending.

In couples therapy, she accused me of financial infidelity because I attempted to have a discussion about limits.

My suggestion is:  Tread carefully.

Money is one of the top stressors in any relationship, it can be extra spicy in a BPD relationship. You know your partner best, however I wouldn't necessarily count on a rational response to this situation. 

The BPD response is most likely to avoid shame/guilt/accountability/responsibility, and to project these feelings and dynamics over to you...

Hang in there.