I gave my bf a gift tonight for his birthday. He was... disappointed.

[Jessica84]

I gave my bf a gift tonight for his birthday. He was... .disappointed. Casually said I should return it and get my money back, or give it away, then tossed it on the table. Then gave me some obligatory "thanks for trying" kiss. I felt so HURT and had to choke back tears. Then he got miffed because I was quiet (stunned, speechless) and said "don't be mad". He realized he hurt my feelings and said sorry, he was just being "honest". It wasn't that he didn't like the gift, it was how ungracious he was about it. His crinkled face, his tone and the dismissive way he tossed it down, like it was trash.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

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[Jessica84]

So I left to go home and get my bearings. I tried to stick it out but his glumness and glares were making my chest tight. I told him I'm sorry I need to go, I'm not mad but fighting a panic attack, I loved him, would call him later, gave him a kiss - calmly and lovingly. He looked sad, but seemed to understand.

Since then, he has deleted our pictures from his facebook and sent me angry breakup threat texts saying I've ruined his birthday and that was the last time I ever "walk out on him".  Sigh... .

I hated to abandon him - on his birthday - but my own reaction was unexpected. I had to get away. May be a terrible boundary, but I leave to protect myself (and our relationship so things don't escalate). I need to reboot! Is there a better way for me to leave? Leaving ALWAYS seems to trigger him. He may seem ok at first, but later, he uses it against me. I really thought I did well this time. I guess not.

[randomuser94]

  During events like birthdays/holidays their anger goes trough the roof. You can bring them the moon and they might still be dissapointed. It will always trigger if you try to leave her. The fear of abandoment comes true so they might go from anger to sadness... whichever they feel it works. They start with anger, blame you and accuse you of wierd things but after the anger fades or they realise that they get no results from it, the reality kicks in and the fear overwhelms them. Then you will see a kid begging you not to leave.
  I don't speak for everyone. This was my personal experience.

[Notwendy]

Jessica- you did do well. Taking care of you is from your perspective. You did well for YOU. Just because he reacted in the way he did doesn't change that.

Setting  boundaries is about you. What you did was - take the steps to take care of yourself when you were feeling upset. This doesn't mean a pwBPD is going to like that self care step. Keep in mind the drama triangle roles. If someone sees something from "victim" perspective- your leaving to take care of you can be seen as " you walked out on me".

Relating to someone in victim perspective can be frustrating because even if the intent has nothing to do with them, they can make it about them.

What you did by leaving was a step to change the patterns between you- and take care of yourself. It wasn't about not caring about him. Before, you may have not done this out of fear of triggering him. You still have that fear, but you were able to not let it keep you from doing self care. For him though- this is a change in your patterns and that can create discomfort. You didn't stick around to take care of his feelings and so he had a difficult time with them.

Seeing him triggered many be upsetting to you, but you didn't "trigger" him. It is his own trigger that got activated when you needed to take care of yourself. It can be upsetting to see him triggered but now he has a chance to learn- that if you need to take care of your feelings, you will do that- and you still care about him. He also has the chance to learn to manage his feelings if he can.

You did good 

[toomanydogs]

I echo notwendy.  You did great.
As for pwBPD having issues around gifts: My STBX had issues giving gifts and receiving.
My STBX gave employees sexually inappropriate gifts, gave my granddaughter way way way too many gifts... .I could go on and on.
When I gave him gifts, if what I gave wasn't to his liking, he did as your SO did. He was very very dismissive. If I gave what he considered a good gift, he'd get jealous of my ability to pick out a gift.
Example: One of our anniversary presents: I gave him a small, beautiful statue made out of wood or bronze, something to commemorate the occasion that tied in with the traditional wedding gift. I don't recall what he gave me, but when he opened my gift he was completely down on himself about how he couldn't pick out good presents and then he went out and bought me a statue.
Lose-lose situation every time. Got so I hated holidays.
TMD

[gotbushels]

Has anyone had a similar experience?

Yes. I put a lot of effort into something and it was linked into the partner negating the value within a dysregulation example. Lasted for hours into the morning.

It wasn't that he didn't like the gift, it was how ungracious he was about it. His crinkled face, his tone and the dismissive way he tossed it down, like it was trash.

Yes, it's upsetting when the SO behaves like that; yes, we feel sad when something we do doesn't get appreciated how we want it to be--but it's not the end of the world when the SO doesn't like something. 

[Tattered Heart]

I'm so sorry that your gift wasn't received well and that you had such an unexpected reaction to the giving. It sounds like your bf did try, but the rejection he felt with your response became too strong for him to overcome.

What specifically did you say before you left?

One thing that might help is to give a supportive and empathetic statement first then letting him know that you need to go.

When my H is feeling rejected about me leaving (whether to work or out with friends or just because I need to walk away from him) I always give him a preface that I will be back and give a timeframe. This helps him understand that my leaving is not permanent.

[Jessica84]

Thank you all so much for the wisdom 

I dread most holidays now. He called to apologize this morning, but within seconds, went into EXPLOSIVE anger. Asked me why I keep feeling the need to leave every few weeks? I can't be around it, but he didn't even wait for me to answer. Hung up on me several times.

Called back to tell me NEVER to buy him a gift again - yelled he will reimburse me for the last 5 years of gifts! I'm this, I'm that, blah blah. He's tired of walking on eggshells, having to be careful what he says so I don't leave. If this is him being "careful"... .I don't know what to say or do at this point. I just hope this blows over soon now that his birthday is over.

[Nwish]

Hi Jessica!

This sounds very much like projection. My ex did this a lot when he didn’t know how to act from the shame. Gift giving was tough because he didn’t feel like he offered enough when he was giving.

I remember a story he told me about his ex wife giving him some gifts and she didn’t know him at all because he didn’t like any of them... .It made him miserable.

My ex also HATED when I left, especially when it wasn’t planned. One time I took some of my clothes with me when I left and he lost it. Up until the end he would tell me he couldn’t handle that again and please don’t up and leave and take stuff. It’s really hard for them. I understand how hard it is for us too, with all the contradictions and lack of support for our emotions.

I’m sorry you have to go through this.

[Jessica84]

Nwish - Yes, you are so right. I realized that about leaving so I started another thread to handle that boundary better. I think things have stabilized now, and I have some direction.

I also realized another thing about gifts - pwBPD don't feel worthy, deserving. They generally have low self-esteem so receiving a gift makes them uncomfortable. I don't give him a too much to unwrap to avoid overwhelming him. I just hadn't expected such a sour reaction.

I also noticed no one in his family exchanges gifts. They didn't even call him. That's so sad and weird to me. My family isn't like that. My mom got more excited about the cat treats in the bottom of her Christmas stocking than my BF got about a very nice, elegant gift. My brother was teasing me over this ordeal (now that I can laugh about it). We discussed our mom's bday. He said if she doesn't like it, she can throw it across the room and then get mad when we leave. Bc that's how "normal" people act... .hah! (Our mom would never do that.)

I think the solution is to stop buying him anything. I'm 0-4 on the last gifts. Too large, too small, wrong kind... ."Just right" doesn't exist.

[HouseDad3]

Years ago when I was dating my wife, I bought her a really nice pot/pan set and a mixer. I thought she'd love it for a few reasons: She is a fantastic cook, cooked often, and her roommate at the time suggested it.  Well, she went ballistic. She said the gifts were my not-so-subtle way of telling her to cook more for me. She said I completely lacked imagination because I didn't come up with something she wanted but went with advice from her roommate.

As the years went by, it was a regular occurrence to have some melt down about the gifts I'd give her. On and on and on.

She is willing to tell me what she wants but the fact is I don't have the tens of thousands of dollars needed for the majority of her requests. Like huge home improvement projects.

[Nwish]

Yes - I remember last Valentines Day I left a card in his room with a small gift card inside and some chocolate... .and left his favorite calzone in the fridge for him. I barely heard from him that night. A combination of shame for not going out of his way for me and not feeling deserving of gifts/thought/ love.

I didn’t need anything in return but he still felt uncomfortable if I did more than he did. Better just not to think too much at all. It’s like a shame competition. I was just happy making him happy, but the problem was the happier I tried to make him, the unhappier he was.

[snowmonkey]

I had huge problems with gifts with my BPDxgf. In fact, EVERYTHING about our gift giving was totally wrong.

Her rules went something like this;

I should spend as much as possible on expensive gifts that were solely about her pleasure and her collection of assets of value. With the exception of her daughter, I should spend as little as possible on all other persons in my life.

This applied not only to birthdays, Christmas, valentines and various anniversaries but also to random gifts that I would buy her throughout the year. Some things that spring to mind; because she was feeling down, I randomly paid for us to spend a night at a very expensive hotel with couples treatment at the day spa, beautiful lunch at a French restaurant, room service etc... .Probably cost about $1000 in total. It had no value in her eyes, as I was there, it was not a gift purely for her. If I had sent her with a friend (or another guy) and paid for it, then that might have been a different story.

For our 3 year anniversary I purchased her some Tiffany jewellery (she of course bought me nothing). Because it was only silver and not gold, she told me that she didn't want it and unless I was going to spend a lot more than that I shouldn't have bothered. The really weird thing was that she already had half a dozen or more pieces of silver jewellery from Tiffanys that I and her ex husband had bought her and which she always wore. The even more odd thing about this story is that she forced me to take it away but just before the final discard a year later, she forced me to give it back to her and then always wore it!

On many occasions throughout our time together I bought things for us. I would just come home from work, or go out on the weekend to the shops and say to her, look what I bought us! New furniture, new appliances, new bedding, new art work... .But... .her reply would always be the same; is this a gift for me or do you get to use it also? She was obsessed by knowing who owned what in the relationship, so at time of breakup she could exit with as many assets as possible and this behaviour started from the very beginning.

As a side note; it was good to recall these things, to remember some of the terrible emotions I experienced over the 4 years we were together. Sometimes I feel I miss her but recounting all of the awful experiences with her remind me of how much better life is without her.

[Jessica84]

This is crazy stuff. Geez, hidden motives, not expensive enough, you somehow benefit from it too, it's more than they bought you... .they look for reasons, don't they?

I don't lie and say I like something if I don't. But I certainly don't look at a gift with disgust, toss it aside, explain at length why I don't like it, make someone feel bad, then look at them like they're over-sensitive!

We don't have to like every gift we get, but we should be kind and gracious about it. Someone spent time, effort, and money on it. BPD or not, it is just plain civilized to appreciate the gesture. They're mentally ill, not animals! That's not even fair to animals. A dog is more grateful for a scrap that falls on the floor. 

[ortac77]

In a perfect world I think I would like to suspend 'gift giving' and receiving. I recall a Christmas a few years ago when the gifts were thrown out into the  garden in the rain!

We can all be disappointed by gifts but good grace is what we practice, I don't think you can apply this when the person has BPD - I rather doubt the  gift has anything to with the behaviour anyway - it just represents something that we 'nons' cant even comprehend. I don't know if they look for reasons - just the gift becomes another representation of the bottomless pit of need that we can never fill!

[gotbushels]

It had no value in her eyes, as I was there, it was not a gift purely for her. If I had sent her with a friend (or another guy) and paid for it, then that might have been a different story.

Sometimes people don't really recognise the value a gesture or gift has to them unless it's made obvious and explicit to them. Perhaps this type of thinking doesn't allow for any grey areas--"It's all for me or it's all not for me."