BPD partner is using abandonment and I am reinforcing the behaviour

[organicsub]

Hello all,

First, I really want to extend my thanks and appreciation for this community. I have been in a relationship with my BPD SO for just over 3 years and have felt very confused and isolated during that time. Reading through the threads in this forum has felt like a light has been shone on the struggles I have been experiencing - seemingly in the dark, alone.

I'm here hoping to gain some insight or advice from those of you who have more experience or are simply objective enough as strangers to provide a different perspective.

After the first year of our relationship, my SO began using abandonment as a means to escape uncomfortable conversations whenever I strongly advocated for my needs to be met in our relationship, or brought up any kind of discontent. I think from the first moment this began, it clicked as a very quick and effective strategy to extinguish any attempts I made to try to hold her accountable or challenge her. I experienced the abandonment of a parent in my youth and though I have processed and come to terms with much of this emotional damage, I still find the threat of abandonment to be a trigger I have an incredibly difficult time "responding" to, rather than reacting. When this all began, I gave in every time and would desperately pursue her and beg her to stay. Needless to say, this built a lot of resentment and trust issues in our relationship.

For a time this escalated to the point that we began living separately, which only worsened things because she then had a guaranteed place to go and use "silent treatment" to gain the upper hand. Then the ultimatums would come. I tried a variety of things to push past this: waiting it out (the silence stretched into days and weeks; she would still be angry, resentful and feel like the "victim"), pursuing her (which meant the original discussion about my needs being overlooked reliably shifted instead to her needs and how we can support her to prevent this problem behaviour), holding her to her word (i.e., "you said you were leaving - so you need to leave"; I did this after we set and agreed to this as a clear boundary. The behaviour subsided afterwards, but only for a few weeks that felt much more painful for me than for her), ignoring (walking away, not reacting when she makes this threat - she just packs her things and leaves anyway if she cannot provoke me in the heat of the moment), trying to be emotionally supportive and validating (still results in her avoiding attending to my needs and I become more resentful that I am essentially a caretaker).

I feel at a loss. There was a period of "remission" where she seemed to be self-regulating and earnestly working very hard to fight these habits. She at one point even acknowledged that it had become abusive and understood the unhealthy use of control and how this impacted our relationship and my well-being. But now it seems to have escalated again as I have become more boundaried and assertive in expressing my needs, and as the demands of life have increased for us both.

She is now leaving on a weekly basis, and is typically gone between 2-4 days. It is almost always me who repairs the rupture, leads the conversation, tries to give her insight, forgives or ignores the behaviour, etc. The original conversation where I ask for my needs to be met is almost never re-visited, because I am so tired and relieved the crisis has ended that I avoid risking another blow-out.

I can feel the tension "building" in the day or two leading up to it. During those days, I spend most of my energy trying to validate her emotionally and attend to her to her to prevent these
blow-outs... but when they happen (and they always seem to happen no matter how attentive I am), I am still told that I did a horrible job and that she never felt validated, seen, appreciated, or heard. It is seriously demoralizing. She now doesn't seem to have any insight into the behaviour, and won't apologize or acknowledge it as problematic any longer. Often, I will get so worn down in a conversation that I will say one invalidating thing which she will fixate on and turn the conversation on its head so that she is a victim.

Somehow, I often end up feeling like it's me who has been abusive, unreasonable, or that I just need to change something about what I'm doing to help her stop. It's really frustrating and exhausting feeling like I always have to be the one who is objective and responds in a perfect, validating, emotionally regulated manner, while my partner seems to have given up even trying to regulate. The double standards are so difficult to navigate, I am constantly questioning myself; it's dizzying.

I have put off having children for three years, hoping that we will reach a period of stability where I can feel it is a responsible and fair thing to do to bring children into this dynamic - but am now losing hope, and wondering if I need to choose between having children/a family and being with her. The abandonment and uncertainty has left me financially unstable; our home and bills are all in my singular name because it's never clear how long she will be around for - I never know if I will have someone helping with the mortgage payments, or if I will be left alone to handle things while she spends her money on hotels and air bnbs during these blow-ups... Asking her to pay me back or help out leaves me feeling guilty, or like I am taking advantage of her, because she has no stake or claim in this home, and has spent all of her money on temporary accommodation and eating out.

Has anyone faced a similar situation? Does anyone have advice, insight, or perspective? I feel embarrassed speaking to my friends and family about this because they can't understand why I tolerate this behaviour; they just want me to leave. Any thoughts would be welcomed. Thank you.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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[once removed]

i think that the long and short of it (and perhaps to over simplify) is that there is a great deal about the way the two of you deal with and resolve conflict that doesnt click with each other. recognizing that, recognizing our role in it, their role in it, how the two are competing, how they can meet in the middle, whether or not they can meet in the middle, is, very generally speaking, the path to a healthier trajectory.

After the first year of our relationship, my SO began using abandonment as a means to escape uncomfortable conversations whenever I strongly advocated for my needs to be met in our relationship, or brought up any kind of discontent.

tell us more. what are your needs? how do these situations usually play out?

[organicsub]

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I think that your insight is correct; there is a problem with conflict resolution.

The more I dig into these forums and the resources here, the more I question if I am at a place in my life where I am be strong enough to be in this relationship with responsible and realistic expectations.

I needed to take a couple of days to consider your questions. In terms of what I need, I think it is just to be recognized. I feel that our lives revolve so tightly around my SO's needs, and that many of my own dreams and goals have been put on hold indefinitely. Often this is where conflict arises - when I am trying to express what I need from her and why. Usually it begins with a very gentle conversation where it seems she understands and can be sympathetic, but then nothing changes (even when concrete steps are identified). The next step is, admittedly, when I become more curt about it. Usually several weeks pass and there is still no change or action. And then, it becomes a confrontation. I assume my SO then feels ashamed and backed into a corner and runs. I rarely expect or need her to provide a solution or act immediately, but really would just like some acknowledgement and validation myself. It feels that my SO always finds a way to become a victim and twist the conversation to make it about her. It often feels like it's somehow the first time we are having the conversation, like it has either been completely forgotten about or never happened. It makes me feel crazy that my SO can be so flippant and disregarding about things that I have expressed impact me so deeply.

For example, I have been in a highly stressful job for the last two years. It has deteriorated my quality of life and my boss is quite derogatory towards me and our team (3/5 of our team members have quit in the last three months). I am also the primary income earner in our home, and we cannot afford for me to leave my job. My SO often assumes I will pay for the more expensive things on life and often does not even offer to help. She has talked about getting another job or switching fields to help financially, but has now turned down a couple of job offers that pay substantially more. Each time, she tells me she will come up with another solution - generally always something much farther in the future that is abstract and unrealistic. She will comment on how miserable my job is making me and tell me to "just quit", but does not seem to understand that we would struggle to make our mortgage payments and would be jeopardizing all of our future plans. Our last argument was about her turning down yet another job offer. She tells me I am "using her for money" and don't care about how the potential jobs would impact her mental health; she feels that she is incredibly supportive of me "quitting" and "following my dreams" and that I just want her to take whatever job she can, even if it "ruins her life". My SO tells me she values "people not money" - all the while, being the one to pressure me to overbid 10k on our home because it's the one she wants. I didn't ever need her to accept the job offer, I really just needed her to acknowledge the situation we're in and sympathize with how it impacts me and our life for her to turn down another job. Because of the nature of my role, I'm now locked in to another year in this job. She ended up leaving again after calling me an assortment of names, belittling me, chasing me around the house, and verbally abusing me.

Reading about the necessity of being an "emotional caretaker", part of this makes sense to me and I can begin to release some resentment... However, I feel with that I am also releasing hope, because I am deeply unhappy in that role.