Any ideas? Coming back to impossible questions

[osprey]

Hi all - so I want to pick our collective brains here and see if there's any good way out of this dilemma.

The situation is that - my uBPDw starts going off in BPD dimensions, and start demanding answers to impossible questions - like say, I placed pots in where pans go, and it snowballs into "That's because you don't respect me." and into "That's because you are an asshole who doesn't care." and into "I demand an answer WHY you are such an asshole. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY!' *things fly* * breaks down * and into "you...are gonna pretend nothing happened. If you care you will talk about this."

I can de-escalate the situation, but the thing is, she does hold onto the expectation that I re-visit the subject and explain to her in the way she can understand and accept as to WHY I am an asshole.

Not doing this results in: "See? Here's a proof you don't care about anything. I waited all day long."

Trying to be aplogetic results in: "Well, you've said you are sorry 100 times so I can't believe it. In fact it HURTS when you say I AM SORRY. Don't you ever dare say those words, IT HURTS."

Trying to logically explain why I am an asshole (like, I apologize, I realize that I was a self-centered person.) results in "That's WHAT is going on. I know that. You know that. I want to hear WHY. You are not telling me WHY. WHYWHYWHY!"

How do I get back to her on this? Any community insight?

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[kells76]

One way of looking at that could be that while "non" partners can contribute to making things worse/continuing an escalation, they can't really "make things better" in the moment.

I.e., while there are no "magic words" you could say that would "answer her question of Why" and make her feel better inside, there are things you can do/say (or not do/not say) that can at least not contribute to making things worse.

Perhaps pivoting your focus to "not making things worse" versus "how do I make it better/get her to stop" could be productive.

What I'm thinking is:

has anything you've ever said or did (and meant) really helped her calm down?

Or is it possible that she has to "run her course" and ultimately it's only her "going through her thing" that leads to calm?

Does it really make a difference whether you are there or not when she is activated and going through her emotional activation arc? I kind of get the feeling that if "left alone" or "less interacted with", she'll burn herself out, whether or not you "said the right thing" to try to help.

So the the question would really be -- how can you contribute the minimum to "making it worse", and do the maximum of "letting her go through her process" without sticking around to be a target?

This could look a few different ways:

-leaving the room/leaving the house

-not trying to answer her "why" questions. What she probably doesn't understand is that there is no possible explanation from you that will make her feel better. So it actually escalates the intensity when you try to genuinely answer her question, because to her, it "doesn't feel right" or "doesn't make her feel better" so she is sure that "it didn't answer her question" and then she escalates to try to get you to fix her feelings. But because of the way her brain misattributes causality, she can't put the pieces together that feeling better comes from inside of her, not from outside of her. It's deeply distressing when she thinks that if she could just get an answer from you, then she'd feel better, so you answer the best you can, but because it doesn't make her feel better, she is convinced "you aren't doing it right" and "you hate her" etc.

-declining to stick around to be yelled at/argued with. One way to look at this is: is it really a loving thing to do, to make ourselves available for our partners to abuse? Is that the most loving thing we can do for them? What if it were more loving to -- not contribute to them having opportunities to be hurtful to us?

-not believing that "you must revisit the subject in a few days". Was it reaalllllyyyy a logical subject, a specific problem to solve? Really? If it were, then sure, revisiting it in a few days might make sense. But I suspect it wasn't a real problem to solve. It was her trying to dysfunctionally manage how she felt inside. So I then suspect that "revisiting the subject when she's calm" might actually re-escalate the intensity/argument, vs being a nice way to solve a problem when everyone is at baseline.

...

A possible way to combine all those concepts, and to minimize having "you just don't care about me" as a target, could be:

"Babe, this sounds really important to you. Even though right now I need to get groceries for an hour, I'm open to hearing more of your thoughts about it -- how about tomorrow after dinner, over some wine?" And then you leave the house for an hour.

You aren't arguing that it isn't important -- you validate that it does seem important to her -- and you are explicit that you are open to hearing her thoughts, BUT:

You, through your actions, don't stick around to be a punching bag at a time when nothing you could say or do would get through to her, and

You "give the work back to her" of deciding whether the dishwasher is important enough to talk about in 24 hours. That's her call, not yours. You don't have to take the responsibility of "bringing it up again". Her job.

She's going to feel whatever she's going to feel, and she's going to express it intensely, hurtfully, and poorly in the moment.

She may just have to "burn through it", as it sure sounds like nothing you have ever said has made it better for her.

I would just really lean away from the idea that you have to get back to her on it. You can let her know about a time that you have open, where you want to hear her thoughts... after that, don't overfunction for her. Get out the wine after dinner tomorrow and then it's her job. If she wants to revisit, that's her thing. Not your job to keep "trying to fix it" for her.

Thoughts?

[WBoase]

Apologizing under such situations is the same as admitting guilt.

I refuse to apologize to my wife for *her* problem. Doing so only encourages additional episodes.

[thankful person]

One of the things that really helped me build my own self confidence was to check in with myself and seriously limit any apologies to when I actually agreed I was at fault (hardly ever). Apologising does indeed seem to fuel the fire and confirm to the pwbpd that you are unworthy and need to make it up to them and that they could do better etc.

Usually the main times I am at fault is because I am so forgetful. But I still question whether I need to apologise, I mean, I do apologise but I don’t feel I should be blamed because it’s not my fault. Example for reference, bpdw was showing me things in her Etsy basket on her phone. She then asked me to let dog out and sort the kids a snack after which I started doing child’s hair and totally forgot about the Etsy basket. When she reminded me I finished doing child’s hair and didn’t beg her to show me, and desperately want things to continue as though that didn’t just happen (that’s what I used to do). I let her have her moment of annoyance and said, “I’m ready when you want to show me”. She was over it very quickly compared to the past when issues would go on and on (and it was often me going on and on: “it’s not my fault I forgot.. you know I always write things down.. I hardly had time to do that.. I hate that I’m so forgetful” and on and on..)

Anyway, the advice on here is to not JADE (justify, argue, defend, explain). It sounds like you do a lot of that which is the natural reaction. But bpd just don’t get it so it’s better to just let them feel whatever they need to feel as we can’t control it. There is also a principle called SET (support, empathy, truth), look it up in the tools as I still struggle with it. You can validate without agreeing with her. So a supportive validating statement might be, “that must be frustrating for you to find the pots in the wrong place” and “it must be upsetting to feel you’re married to an a$$hole”. I like these kind of statements because I feel that under the surface it does give the message that you don’t agree. But with my wife it “throws” her to be finally heard and when she doesn’t get her argument she calms down eventually.

Honestly reflecting on all these things actually had the effect of keeping me quiet for some time during my wife’s rants while trying to remember what to say. Even that helped, not to jump in and defend or disagree.  My favourite part is the truth statement though (I feel like you get to make one JADE statement). “I decided to put the pots there” I choose to speak from a place of inner strength and avoid something like, “I thought the pots were supposed to go there” as that is almost an apology. (Why does she get to choose where they go anyway? But don’t say that ) If she continues to shout or whine then I tell her I am going to do something else like go for a walk for a short time. She really doesn’t like this. And over time she has learnt to treat me better.

[thankful person]

Reflecting on what I wrote, I don’t like “that must be frustrating for you to find the pots in the wrong place”. because, as I said, why does she get to choose the “right place”? It is admitting you’re in the wrong. Which imho you are not. In fact she should be grateful you’re putting pots away. #justsayin But anyway in retrospect I’d like to change my suggestion to “I can see that’s frustrating for you finding the pots there.”

[waverider]

Trying to explain yourself to a dysregulated person is like throwing rocks at an avalanche you are simply adding more material to be turned  around and rained on your head.

It is not a solution she wants, it is a process she wants to go through. Trying
to fix it denies her this process

[osprey]

Trying to explain yourself to a dysregulated person is like throwing rocks at an avalanche you are simply adding more material to be turned  around and rained on your head.

It is not a solution she wants, it is a process she wants to go through. Trying
to fix it denies her this process

Thank you for your thoughts, there's something to this. Now the thing is, she is cohesive/thinking enough that her question is not answered, and she hyper-focuses on that now - so avalanche if I throw the rock, avalanche if I don't throw the rock...so I guess it comes down to facing the reality of living with a pwBPD.