Leaving me because of some lies

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

I've realized a pattern in my RS (10 years or so).

Since the beginning i've been told "I'm leaving" or "We are leaving" and the reasons are always wrong. I'm leaving because you thing I'm trash, I'm leaving because I'll never be good enough, I'm leaving because your family hates me...

Then I answer "that's not true" and I make efforts to stay together, and I give up a little more of my space... When it's true that we might not be good for each other sice the beginning.

I guess my reasoning goes like this: If things are going wrong because she thinks A, and A is not true, I just have to make her see that A is not true, and things will change. It never worked. Sometimes I give up, and I try to live as if A was true but we still have other  things to fight for. But I've been feeling all these years that I'm living a lie, not because I lie, but because she thinks and says a lot of things that are not true about me. If she leaves me because she thinks A, it's frustrating, but if she stays thinking I'm A, she's making an effort to forgive A in me, when A wasn't there in the 1st place.

I've gone through the whole abecedary. I get the feeling that she has no idea who I am.

Also, she says she's the reason I'm unhappy. And that might be true, even though I try to manage my own happiness. But the reasons she believes that make me unhappy are not true either.

I'm unhappy because she's been detached from me for years, and because she doesn't trust me, even though I've been living with her and her kids in mind every minute of the last 9 years, giving up almost everyhitng I had in my life before meeting them.

I'm unhappy because:

- there's no affection towards me (scarcely, yes, affection you could show a brother or a cousin),
- I can't talk to her and feel understood and supported, because she misinterprets most of what I say, and believes I'm attacking her, so she attacks back. So no communication or feeling understood.
- I'm 45 and I've led 9 years of near celibacy when I'm not a monk. I think we've had one encounter in the last 5 years. Maybe 4 in the last 7.
- Do I need more reasons?

I try to understand all that as she is neuro-divergent and she's just like that. She doesn't mean to hurt me. Although I can't believe all that, because she is affectionate and understanding with other people.

But when I understand that, I don't feel like a husband or significant other. I feel like "a friend of the family that's helping them in a time of need." Because I'm the only one working and I don't fail in showing up at work everyday and paying the bills, so they have a place to stay. A place that I feel is ruled by her, and I'm not welcome.

I even accept that some of these feelings migh be in my head. That I takes things personally. That I'm pesimist. That I'm depressed...

She says she needs to complain all the time, but it doesn't mean she hates me or doesn't appreciate me. But it doesn't mean that later we are going to have sex, or cuddle or go out in a date either. So she doesn't hate me, I can believe that, but she doesn't love me as a SO either, all I get is confussion.

If I work long hours ... "You don't want to be with us".
If I go with a friend for a beer (I've done if maybe twice a year in average)... "I know you're cheating on me".
If I study, write or paint... You are stealing my thing, I only have in my life my writing, paints, and I used to be the best student.
If I watch TV... I'm furniture, I don't move my ass.
If I exercise... I'm trying to trigger her anorexia by compiting with her. (I'm objectivelly overweight and she is patologically skinny).
If I play the guitar... I'm depresing, please play only when I'm not home.
If I read... She tells the kids I wish I could be reading instead of working my ass off with your laundry/food/groceries...
If I do the groceries... She can't trusts me because once in 9 years I took the wrong milk.
If I wake her up at 7.39 I'm trying to steal her bed time. But if it's 7.41 and I haven't wake her, I'm trying to make them late because I don't care about their lives.
If I insinute I want to touch her, what she says makes me feel like a pervert that would do it with any woman and wouldn't care.

I could go on forever. I'm honestly lost all the time not knowing what to do that won't get a bad comment from her. But acording to her, I should just not mind all that.

I told her "the only thing I don't like about you is what you seem to think about me". But she always says it's the opposite. That I think she's a monster and that's why we have to break up. And you know any attempt to explain just ups the anxiety and conflict.

I needed to get all this out.

[JoeBPD81]

I've realized a pattern in my RS (10 years or so).

Since the beginning i've been told "I'm leaving" or "We are leaving" and the reasons are always wrong. I'm leaving because you thing I'm trash, I'm leaving because I'll never be good enough, I'm leaving because your family hates me...

Then I answer "that's not true" and I make efforts to stay together, and I give up a little more of my space... When it's true that we might not be good for each other sice the beginning.

I guess my reasoning goes like this: If things are going wrong because she thinks A, and A is not true, I just have to make her see that A is not true, and things will change. It never worked. Sometimes I give up, and I try to live as if A was true but we still have other  things to fight for. But I've been feeling all these years that I'm living a lie, not because I lie, but because she thinks and says a lot of things that are not true about me. If she leaves me because she thinks A, it's frustrating, but if she stays thinking I'm A, she's making an effort to forgive A in me, when A wasn't there in the 1st place.

I've gone through the whole abecedary. I get the feeling that she has no idea who I am.

Also, she says she's the reason I'm unhappy. And that might be true, even though I try to manage my own happiness. But the reasons she believes that make me unhappy are not true either.

I'm unhappy because she's been detached from me for years, and because she doesn't trust me, even though I've been living with her and her kids in mind every minute of the last 9 years, giving up almost everyhitng I had in my life before meeting them.

I'm unhappy because:

- there's no affection towards me (scarcely, yes, affection you could show a brother or a cousin),
- I can't talk to her and feel understood and supported, because she misinterprets most of what I say, and believes I'm attacking her, so she attacks back. So no communication or feeling understood.
- I'm 45 and I've led 9 years of near celibacy when I'm not a monk. I think we've had one encounter in the last 5 years. Maybe 4 in the last 7.
- Do I need more reasons?

I try to understand all that as she is neuro-divergent and she's just like that. She doesn't mean to hurt me. Although I can't believe all that, because she is affectionate and understanding with other people.

But when I understand that, I don't feel like a husband or significant other. I feel like "a friend of the family that's helping them in a time of need." Because I'm the only one working and I don't fail in showing up at work everyday and paying the bills, so they have a place to stay. A place that I feel is ruled by her, and I'm not welcome.

I even accept that some of these feelings migh be in my head. That I takes things personally. That I'm pesimist. That I'm depressed...

She says she needs to complain all the time, but it doesn't mean she hates me or doesn't appreciate me. But it doesn't mean that later we are going to have sex, or cuddle or go out in a date either. So she doesn't hate me, I can believe that, but she doesn't love me as a SO either, all I get is confussion.

If I work long hours ... "You don't want to be with us".
If I go with a friend for a beer (I've done if maybe twice a year in average)... "I know you're cheating on me".
If I study, write or paint... You are stealing my thing, I only have in my life my writing, paints, and I used to be the best student.
If I watch TV... I'm furniture, I don't move my ass.
If I exercise... I'm trying to trigger her anorexia by compiting with her. (I'm objectivelly overweight and she is patologically skinny).
If I play the guitar... I'm depresing, please play only when I'm not home.
If I read... She tells the kids I wish I could be reading instead of working my ass off with your laundry/food/groceries...
If I do the groceries... She can't trusts me because once in 9 years I took the wrong milk.
If I wake her up at 7.39 I'm trying to steal her bed time. But if it's 7.41 and I haven't wake her, I'm trying to make them late because I don't care about their lives.
If I insinute I want to touch her, what she says makes me feel like a pervert that would do it with any woman and wouldn't care.

I could go on forever. I'm honestly lost all the time not knowing what to do that won't get a bad comment from her. But acording to her, I should just not mind all that.

I told her "the only thing I don't like about you is what you seem to think about me". But she always says it's the opposite. That I think she's a monster and that's why we have to break up. And you know any attempt to explain just ups the anxiety and conflict.

I needed to get all this out.

[Cat Familiar]

You’ve made a pretty convincing case that your life is falling far short of what you’ve hoped.

I told her "the only thing I don't like about you is what you seem to think about me".

Is this true? If so, you are a far more tolerant person than I could ever imagine.

[JoeBPD81]

Of course there are small things I don't like. But none of them prevents me from liking her as a person. As a person that I love.

For instance, I don't love all the music she loves. But I'm fond of the songs because she likes them.

And what I don't like is that she says pretty despective things about music I like. And she doesn't appreciate that I don't play my own music in the car, or ever, really (unless I'm using headphones) I put what she likes. Still, she complaints when a song comes up that's not tuned to her mood.

She feels strongly about these things, so her opinions are passionate and unpolite. And I know they are not personal against me. But when I put so much effort and I give up what I like... And still hear those complaints all the time, they wear me down.

What I mean by that sentence Is that I don't think she's evil, or a bad person, or out there to hurt me, or devious, or twisted...I just see how she talks to me and what she says I'm thinking most of the time, and I can't believe she loves me.

[Cat Familiar]

But do you like how she’s treating you?

I ask this because I often notice a power imbalance in these BPD relationships. It doesn’t start out that way, but over time what often happens is that the *non* partner appeases or ignores unkind behavior, and the BPD partner upps the ante, becoming more discourteous, unkind, and then abusive.

Though it is counterintuitive, many times the dynamic can be altered in a healthier direction when the non partner stands up for themself in a positive, productive way.

You’ve given up many things you enjoy in order to placate her. To make an omelette, we have to break eggs. For example, if you study, write, or paint, how does that take anything away from her? I’d answer something like “It nurtures my soul so that I can be more fully present and loving when I’m with you.”

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It seems that you’ve been stuck in this pattern for quite a while.

[livednlearned]

I try to understand all that as she is neuro-divergent and she's just like that.

Everything that can go with neurotypical can go with neurodivergence.

There are many wonderful ASD partners who are thoughtful and kind. There are also ASD @ssh3les who are selfish or who have comorbid challenges.

In another thread someone commented on the challenge when there is BPD, that you will be both partner and parent. It sounds like you are doing more parenting than partnering, though she may genuinely being doing her best (if you can consider it that). You're a caretaker who is ... friend-zoned.

It is not easy to assert boundaries, and by boundaries that means self-care. There will be tremendous guilt, maybe even crippling levels of it, and you have to know it comes with the territory. Often, that guilt was deposited there in childhood with expectations that we subjugate who we are for someone else, usually but not always a parent.

For those of us who have to assert boundaries and find it difficult, that work is on us. Just like it's hard for your partner to make changes that are rooted deep in her personality, same thing for you, with boundaries and guilt.

She is showing no signs of making changes so you have to decide what changes you feel willing to make, then put in place the parts that help you manage those changes and all the difficult feelings that tend to come along.

It's odd when I look back at my n/BPDx, how mean and abusive, sometimes cruel he was. So why not just be myself? I twisted myself in knots trying to dodge insults and complaints and nothing worked. What if you tried claiming some space in the relationship for you to be you?

Build yourself up, bit by bit. Play some of your music 

[JoeBPD81]

Thanks a million for answering I feel like I'm not real, like I'm just a waste of space.

I don't like how she treats me. But for her it's mostly in my head. Because I can't see when people love me.

But it's not in my head that I go to sleep alone every night, and I wake up alone. I leave the house without having breakfast because I feel I'm not welcome when I'm told I'm in the way and that I distract the kids and they waste time. This feeling might be in my head.

The lack of sex is not in my head. And the lack of things we do together either.

I was married before (11 years) and we didn't sleep in the same bed, we had 2 joined beds. But they were in the same room, and I would go to her bed and she to mine all the time.

I get it that she can have a problem and she can't sleep in the same room. Another about how she feels about sex (even though it was great and all the time the 1st year).

But I believe that if you take the company at night, and the sex out of a RS, and you bring 2 kids to the equation, so there's no time to be a couple... Then you need to find a way to show love to your partner that compensates what we don't have.

I mean, I understand those 2 things, no bed, no sex. But those are 2 big sacrifices that leave a vacum.

I think about my parents... They are very religious and I think they only had sex to have kids. We didn't see many showings of afection. And only from my father towards my mother, never the other way around. I didn't see them very happy. But they had 4 kids. And we, the kids, I think we gave them some happiness. We did things together, we helped each other, each of us did their work (they didn't need to be worried about us all the time).

So I think how come I can't be somwhat happy as they were? Because even though they didn't have much romantic love, they shared their religion, and they shared their respective families (I mean, my mother's brother was considered also a brother by my father) they met with mutual friends, and they shared us (the kids). Even though my father didn't spend a lot of time with us.

I don't have any of that. I like her 2 friends, but she sees them once a year, they are not part of our lives. When she's seen my friends, she always finds something offensive and doesn't want to meet again. She says she's OK that I meet them alone, but she doesn't act like she's OK when it happens. Her family is very unreliable and we don't see them much. My family is very open, but she and the kids are not comfortable with them. After years like this, my family has some distrust towards her, but they welcomed her from the beginning. The end result is that we don't see them much either.

And the kids... Are the worst matter of all. There's arguing and screams everyday from start to finish. Everyday we start like they didn't have any learning in their lives. Nothing we have taught them sticks. We get no happiness from that, and no help, no colaboration, and no autonomy whatsoever. They are 12 and 17 now. But it's like having two 3 year olds, that curse and scream and demand, and hit each other like old tenagers. The older one has hit his mom several times, the police has been at home...

So there's no bonding over the kids. And for me it's been difficult to bond with the kids. So this is the biggest issue why I feel I don't deserve her love. I care about the kids and I give them all I have. But I can't say good things about them. SHE loves them to pieces, of course, but even she, the person that loves them more than her own life, says often that she can't stand them anymore, and she feels incapable of raising them, or even surviving with them. She has refered them as psycopaths, sadist, unbelibably selfish, unsuferable and uglier words. She can vent with me about that, but I should be saying nice words about them.

So I've been retiring to a position of: I care about them and I don't understand anything, but I can give them a roof over their heads. And not expect anything in return. The less I think I mean to them, the less I'm hurt by what happens everyday. If I think I'm the driver and act like one, I don't give reason to complain.

That's how I've been feeling less and less a family member.

To her, the story goes the other way around. Acording to her: As I thought about them as a social case (from the beginning), and I wanted to "help". They weren't family to me. I humiliate her and she can't show me love.

So in the end we've put each other in the position we hate to be. I feel it started with her, she feels it started with me. But we made it true.

[15years]

Hi!

I really feel for you, although the situation with my wife isn't better (it's actually very similar).

You can take away all the details from her complaints about you. She might as well say: "I didn't hear or see what you just said or did, but I dislike how I feel about it". She needs to get the pain out of her system regularly.

This is one of the most important things to accept if you want to change your circumstances:

It is not easy to assert boundaries, and by boundaries that means self-care. There will be tremendous guilt, maybe even crippling levels of it, and you have to know it comes with the territory. Often, that guilt was deposited there in childhood with expectations that we subjugate who we are for someone else, usually but not always a parent.

[JoeBPD81]

I'm sorry because I'm in pain my messages are not well organized and I don't answer to all your good advice.

I called to get a psychiatrist to prescrive therapy for myself. It's how it works with my insurance. But it took me a lot of time to take that step.

I've been in this forum since 2017, and it gave me hope, and I started understanding what was going on. I wanted to work on boundaries, and I'm not good at them. I'm a guy that didn't need to get into conflict almost ever. I listen and I can reach an agreement, there was no need to get angry (with me or myself with others) until I met them.

When I finished studying and started working, I didn't know what to do with my life. I had a crisis, I wasn't sure living was worth it. Then I met my first wife. And she was a very energetic person, lots of plans and ambitions, and I piggybacked on her will to live. I felt whole, and I had energy for my own plans without her too. We both had a lot of friends.

What I mean is that I wasn't at peace with myself or shaped as an adult, when I put my focus in life in someone else. I did this almost conciously, or at least I came to that understanding.

I felt that when thinking about our goals and future, not very often. Now it's different. Almost every minute I think about what would bother her, or what would trigger the kids anger. All my values come after that primary focus. I know it's bad.

The thing is I'm mostly so depressed that I don't know what I would do if the boundaries were in place. If I stay away of her anger, and I don't get affection (Companionship, help, interest...). Why would I live with someone I try very hard to keep out?

My 1st boundary was to take a nap when I come from work, 20-30 minutes to restart my brain. Because getting from the stress at work to even more stress at home was killing me. I stablished this nap as unnegociable.

Later I've been exercising also. At home, but it's also time I'm not arguing, and it helps. I also catch up with tv-shows or football while I'm exercising.

So I'm busy and not "contributing" most of the evening. But before this I was available on call like a butler, and all we did was argue about the kid's homework. With no result for them or me, but conflict.

This is good for me but it's not taking me closer to them.

Any change to bring her closer, has to come from her, or she has to agree, at least. And I've lost my hope about that.

If she doesn't realize how big is the issue that almost since we moved together, like you said she friend-zoned me... And want to change that instead of explaining why she does it or saying that's in my head. I don't see a different future.

As there are fires to put down with the kids everyday, and this situation has been going on for so long... I don't know what "being myself" means.

I tried to take back the guitar playing. But seeing her reaction takes all the joy and motivation away. I try, but I end up crying.

Same thing with studying, I need a strong motivation to put my mind to study after work. It would be hard even if I lived alone. But if it's going to add more conflict, it's not worth it.

Writing and painting also require motivation. Not hard work, but feeling like doing them. Most of the time I feel like falling to the floor and never getting up.

I'm thinking the RS is over. The other hundred times I couldn't take what would happen to them. Without my income, or other support. Now I'm feeling I don't have the energy to do another moving, or to care where I live or how. She's talking about calling social services and confessing she can't manage the kids anymore. And I don't even know what to say.

[livednlearned]

Joe, friend. 

The degree of autism in the kids alone is tough. That you are in a step parent role adds to the challenge. Your partner has ASD and BPD combined.

Whew.

In a country with good social support you two would have people helping so you aren't putting out fires just getting through the day.

Underneath it all, you are struggling to know who you are and be that guy, and the circumstances aren't friendly to making that work easier.

Sometimes motivation is more about emotional capacity. Your home life would be challenging for anyone. It's meaningful that you reached out to get therapy. At a minimum have a person who can receive what you're saying with empathy and care, for a full hour to focus on you.

My BPD grandmother became quite paranoid toward the end of her life. She was a hoarder, lived alone, and called the police so often that they contacted my father to say they would no longer be responding to her calls. She was accusing neighbors of stealing her good lettuce and putting bad lettuce in its place and that wasn't a priority crime...

What they recommended was getting social services involved because she was living in squalor and didn't appear to be bathing. That led to a formal assessment and a path to support services no one knew existed. She ended up in a memory care unit with 24/7 support all subsidized by the government.

My family runs like a narcissistic family system so no one would think to ask for help but when it came wrapped up in a bow they took it and made the decision to put my grandmother somewhere she was less likely to set herself on fire.

Sometimes we just don't have the numbers needed to care for people the way they need to be cared for. Or we don't have the skills. Or both.

There may be a similar version in your story where your presence is presenting sunlight shining on the extent of dysfunction. It might not be where it's at if she let you help more, but she's preventing that from happening and you are perhaps a shell of yourself and can't override her in any genuinely effective way.

If banging our heads against a brick wall does not help, then we have to find a different way. Either stop banging or find a door. Doing the same thing over and over rarely works and often just makes things worse for everyone, most of all us.

 

[JoeBPD81]

Update:

I threw all my reasoning down the toilet, and I bumped into her and hugged her and told her I love her.

She cried and hugged me back several times during the evening. She even asked me to kiss her. She smiled...

The thing is I feel like she has multiple personalities, and I love at least one of them without reserves.

I must be crazy, but at least for today I don't feel like dying.

I'll write back to answer  @livednlearned kind post. Thanks a lot.

[JoeBPD81]

Whew indeed!

Most autistic kids I had met before are sweet. But s17 is very sweet outside his comfort zone, with the social mask on.
No one would believe that he can push his mom to the floor because he's angry he lost at a videogame, and show no remorse.
S12 is too hyperactive to keep the mask on, so he has a reputation of naughty. But he's never so agressive as he is at home.

Their autism makes it harder for them (and us), but they have more problems.
They both have a genetic dissorder that can manifest in different ways, but what's common in every person with that is aggressiveness. Their bio-father had it, and he was an abuser, their half-brother has it and his behavior was very similar.

We've come to believe they both have a variant of ASD that's called PDA (Pathological demand avoidance). Any task we ask of them or they know they have to do, becomes a source of unbearable anxiety. And they avoid even thinking about it with different technics. It's very dissorienting to see. No matter how small the task is.

Example: S12 asks for videgames, I tell him that he just needs to take his dish to the kitchen, and then he can play. It would take 10 seconds to do it. But instead he does 20 other things and asks for the videogame 30 times, while the dish still sits on the table. And 2 hours go by. He's angrier and angrier and more anxious. He can change whay he's asking "then at least let me watch tv!". Threat: "If you don't let me I'm going to misbehave all day!" or cloapse in the couch/bed and do nothing for 3 hours. Anything but spending the 10 seconds needed to take the dish to the kitchen. And this happens with every demand. Unless he does it without thinking before this kicks in.

s17 just turns himself off. Goes to sleep all day. And comes at intervals to ask again, very angry, but if he knows he's not getting what he wants without doing the task, he says something very hurtful (or hits somebody) and leaves to sleep.

I can't describe what is to live with 3 people, 2 are like that and one is ASD+BPD. No one percieves reallity as I do at home.

We have several ways opened go get help. But it's hard as S17 is just a shy perfect kid in the presence of strangers. He denies everything that happens at home, and agrees with doctors and makes promises... Just to stay the same. He's lost 2 school years in a row because he was absent and didn't open a book at home.

People get the feeling that he's just slow, poor kid. But he got good grades all his life just before he stopped attending. His psychiatrist says there's nothing that should prevent him to get and succeed in the education he wants. He just needs to open the books.

I know 1/3 (one third) of me is not enough to support each of them, and myself.

[M604V]

First off: “abecedary”.  Nice word! I had to look it up.

Secondly it sounds like you’re having a pretty typical BPD experience, as far as I can tell as a layperson anyway. And I can sympathize with your plight.

The goalposts are constantly moving, right? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Your story seems to perfectly illustrate the emotional tornado that is BPD. She probably knows she’s unhealthy, but she doesn’t know why or the reasons for her unhealthiness are too much to bear. Next best thing? Take them out on you. Keep you spinning, always on the defensive. Never let you get comfortable. At least then you’ll look like her. When she looks at you she sees herself, and then she doesn’t feel so alone in her misery.

I’ve tried for years and years to save my BPD wife. If I just set a good enough example, if I showed her that I was real, that I meant it, how much I love her and our kids then eventually she’d come around. It’s what I felt like she wanted. The first 1/3 of our relationship was: “Someone else broke this but YOU need to fix it!” so that’s what I tried to do.

Next 5 years changed to: “stop trying to fix this! You think I need you to save me??” so I stopped.

The last five years have been: “YOU broke this and I can’t believe you’re not fixing it!” and around and around we go.

Point is it will never be good enough. I don’t love AJ Mahari but sometimes she resonates, like when she says: “What does the pwBPD need from you? Everything you’ve got, and then some.”

Unfortunately you may have to get to a point where you just dislike her. It may be the only way to separate your own unhappiness from hers, and stop feeling so responsible for her lot in life. The simple truth is that she is the way she is. If you could have changed it you would have already. The only other option is to jump in the water and save her, and she will hold you facedown while she rides you to safety.

Best of luck. Please check back in.

[livednlearned]

I'm hearing in your posts that you feel you can't do _______ because of __________.

Maybe it would be helpful to focus on what JoeBPD81 feels he can do for JoeBPD81.

Therapy is a great start. What are other ways you are taking care of this terrific guy 

He sure sounds like he needs some TLC.

[JoeBPD81]

@M604V

Don't mark my words, English is not my 1st Language and I surely make up words as I go.

Even as your post is not very hopeful, it helped as I see someone with shared experience. Your stages sound very familiar.

@livednlearned

What's TLC?

I've been told countless times that I have to look out for myself, be a bit selfish, even a priest told me: "you're problem is that you are too good of a person" (I can't imagine Jesus saying that). I don't think I am. A good person would be happy to sacrifice his life, and have a smile on his face, and be kind all day long. I'm exhausted and beaten, and I dream about living alone in the woods.

As I told before, I'm not sure what I can do for myself. I try to remember what I wanted before having a partner. But I went with the flow, I was at school, and I did what I had to. My parents enrolled me in some activities, and I did them. I was like those kids in "Stranger things" minus the monsters. I never knew what job I'd be happy doing.

When I'm hooked on a videogame, I'm eager to play, but when I finish one game, I'm not interested on finding the next. I'm a difficult guy to motivate. I'll do my work without motivation nontheless, but it's not the same. I've been feeling for some time that if I had a terminal illness, I would secretly celebrate it.

I'm feeling beter though. I hope you all have a great weekend.

[JoeBPD81]

Today it's been 9 years since I asked her to be my GF. I feel really empty.

I've been alone.

She doesn't have time for me. When she does, it is time to talk to me about the kids and to ask me for more responsibility, or to talk to me about why this week/month/year hasn't got closer to me either, or complain. 

She tells me I can do things to be happier. But all those things are things that I could do (better) if I lived alone.

I don't know how to lift my mood today and giver her a present, and act happy.

Please, help...

[livednlearned]

JoeBPD1,

How do you want to feel?

Work toward that feeling.

Some people try to get there in the relationship.

Some of us can't. We were too tired, too beaten down, too scared, too weakened.

If the thing holding you back from feeling the way you want to feel is deep, it might be a Fantasy Bond.

You'll need a guide to sort through those core feelings since they shaped thoughts that might be keeping you stuck.

What do you feel you deserve to feel?