this post from 2010 speaks so closely to my experiences. i need to comment on a few bits. thanks to anyone who works through this, maybe some of the episodes in here are yours too.
Borderlines often choose people that have very strong opinions about how they should live. This triggers the punitive parent that lives intrapsychically and internally commands them to do things. Since much of the disorder is about fear, there is a tendency to self-defeat, which only creates more need for the partner to control. Failure is not an option to the partner, because this is a mature, responsible thought.
i had more than one instance of this with my stbxw, but the most glaring was the issue of her weight. she was (let's be honest) almost obese before our wedding, but lost some pounds into the start of the marriage. the weight was no impediment to my feelings, but her father had had a heart attack and her grandmother has lost a leg to diabetes and it seemed a good idea for her own sake if she cared about the situation. also, soon after we were married she got sciatica, and the doctors told her they wouldn't operate until she lost some pounds. after a year of not an ounce of weight loss they went ahead anyway. unfortunately, as she continued to not care and not do anything about it, i, ignorant of BPD, became annoyed at what appeared to me to be a lack of responsibility to herself, and frankly to me and to us. i expressed this opinion. i also offered to join her in any attempt she made, as i had a few to lose myself. she chose weight watchers, and lost 60 pounds. then put it back on. which may be the usual weight-loss yo-yo but from living with her it looks now like the tendency to self-defeat and create a situation for someone else to fix.
unfortunately, showing what she considered to be less than total emotional support (which would, i believe, consist in hugging her and telling her that everything was just fine as it was) only triggered what 2010 mentions above about the punitive parent that lives intrapsychically (and in reality too: her mother had been insulting to her sometimes about her weight when she was younger).
Since this is an insecure attachment disorder, they cannot feel good about themselves when their self object feels bad. When the self object feels badly, it withdraws, causing the Borderline to cling and act out. When this immature behavior no longer provides relief, the Borderline must split the self object (that's you) off of them to protect the fragile self. That fragile self is very scared and looks for rescuers (new attachments) to cling to ... .
i have depression; sometimes i would go incommunicado for maybe a day and a half. i thought she was very tolerant of it and i was very grateful for that, but the only sign of trouble before she began her program of deceit and departure was an email that said, "i'm sorry you have depression but ... ." after she left she accused me of thinking that the depression was all about me, when i had often said it must be hard to live with and thanked her for her patience (the no-acknowledgement BPD thing). she hadn't been as patient with it as she appeared.
Borderline is very much an identity disorder- it is a feeling of defectiveness, unworthiness and fear of abandonment. It is also a fear of engulfment which causes hatred of the attachment. This hatred requires an acting out which can be seen in passive aggression and avoidance while still maintaining the need for the attachment (dependency behaviors.)
this is how my w acted out. i've read many stories on here of florid cases of BPD, but my stbxw isn't that way. she is professionally very high functioning (her success was one thing that attracted me; she's also phi beta kappa), gregarious, was only once or twice verbally abusive but that's nothing, we all get upset sometimes. but for such a competent person, the things she simply wouldn't do, and the things she 'forgot'! she 'forgot' to save the links i had accumulated when she took the computer in to be repaired; she 'forgot' to tell me when she had broken a glass in the kitchen, a thing i discovered when i walked barefoot into the kitchen; two months later she 'forgot' again to tell me when she broke another glass in the kitchen; she 'forgot' to check the back windows on my car in addition to the front windows before a rainstorm; etc. she just wouldn't renew a magazine subscription she said she would renew, although the subscription card was right there by her keys when she left the house every morning. when i asked her why she wouldn't do it, no answer. i think this was hostility towards me, but she was also slovenly around the house to an incredible degree, and i think in general she liked to have others (viz me, or the cleaning people, whom i though unnecessary) take care of all physical and situational messes for her. i just couldn't do that enough for her satisfaction. a marriage is a partnership.
You'll need to expect this behavior from now on since you represent a bad person to her. It doesn't matter what you did in the past to champion her- she thinks of it as controlling. She is already reading your face and projecting anger on it. You'll need to ignore these comments if you want to get out of crazy town. The only way that you can become good again is if you relax and let go of the outcome for her. She's on her own. No more roundabout talks about who is right and who is wrong because this appears like scolding behaviors that a parent would do to a child.
from the look on her own face, she has alot of anger to project.
and in bold, excellent advice, if only i had read this thread when it was written. i didn't have the personal strength during the marriage to allow this, which is an issue for me and the T.
This is a disorder, you must accept it. Allow the Borderline to think of you badly.
this is on my mind right now because we're in the divorce process. long messy story short, i filed first. i'm worried sick over how she'll react when she's served, which is bad because she's renting space in my head: will she feel hurt? maybe i should let her soothe her victimhood by letting her feel arrogantly gracious when it comes to the negotiations? during our last face to face meeting, she said in fury, "i haven't filed yet?" (so she didn't know i had) as if it was a sign of her good will that i wasn't appreciating, and it also showed that she thought the entire business of the end of the marriage was up to her, not only how she chose to do it (a campaign of deceit and an exit affair, followed by a turn to emotional sadism, which has all really scarred me), but the legal process too. the T points out that she assumes i'll just be there for her to treat as she thinks fit from the comfort of her new relationship, to return to or divorce; after all she has that right, since the marriage was just such a nightmare!
otoh, by filing i've refused to let her continue to control my life, and there are substantial legal benefits to filing first in my state. but of course, her last statements left the door ajar juuuust enough to keep me wondering about reconciliation. on the legal board i was advised, when you serve, don't look back. i've got about 10 days to decide.
