6.09 | Has the anger gone too far?

[ennie]

Dunno.  I see venting as a bit like pooping... .not something to spend time on... .but sometimes required.

--Argyle

I like it.  Though this really depends on how much spicy food you eat.  I myself have a little basket full of interesting literature to read during particularly spicy sessions. 

But as for venting, I process things verbally, so it is sort of impossible for me to cut out this behavior entirely... .it is more a matter of how much, and with what content.  I do find that the less of my mind I focus on the destructive stuff BPD ex brings into my life, the better. 

[plaff]

Venting by giving voice to my anger has never been healthy. When I feel angry, it's because there's a problem that I want resolved, but if I'm angry, I can't approach that problem with clear judgement.

With the uBPD spouse, I often have to just give up on the problem altogether because even if it gets addressed, the spouse makes my life miserable until things go back to the way they were. To deal with that without anger, I just tell myself that I'm going through this terrible experience for a reason, and I might never even find out that reason, but I have to accept that.

[GreenMango]

* Does allowing our partners to vent on us increase their aggression?

* Does venting here increase our resentment and the helpless feeling of being stuck?

I would be interested in knowing about an aggression study that included a longer time frame between the actual feelings/expression of anger, any intermediary buffers, and the actual response/reaction (or venting on the target).

It seems like this forum is a healthy place for expression of the feelings or confusion we are having and if given the right kind of feedback can help to deescalate the anger.  I believe that once the overwhelming anger subsides and we can see reason again... .that is the situation in reality, helps to reveal what emotions the anger was masking.  Sometimes we need a nudge, or a place, to dig deep for it.

But, yes anger can be promoted in the wrong context.  Anger isn't a responsive healing emotion... .it seems like a fight or flight reaction to what many of us here felt like a very dangerous environment.  The immediate anger can be a catalyst to move and save yourself, where a person takes it, with whom they share it, and how they handle it can be both good and bad.

I think you have to be careful with anger.

-GM

[argyle]

Dunno.  All emotions exist for a reason.  Love, anger, hate... .I think caution is important - but I believe it is important to respect the full range of emotional expression and the ways humans typically handle their emotions.

People feel anger.  And they complain sometimes.  I'd argue that that is fine, normal, and healthy. Honestly, I could probably use more anger in my life.

That said, being unhealthy is possible.  And here, personality disorders come in handy. Repetitive and reinforcing dysfunctional coping behaviors are a problem - basically anything with a positive feedback loop.

So, venting?

Type 1: Expressing anger towards a S/O.

Pluses: Reminds people you're human. Can help communicate the existence of a problem.*

Minuses: Hurts people, feels good==self-reinforcing. Leads to conflict, abusive behavior.

My opinion: good in extreme moderation, handled carefully, essentially cayenne pepper. Excluding it from your diet completely - probably a mistake.

Type 2: Expressing anger towards a S/O to people other than the S/O.

Pluses: Can help with emotional processing, helps a lot to verbalize stuff/write it down, outside perspectives help.

Minuses: Modestly increases anger each time.  Quite problematic if combined with lack of personal responsibility or if constantly repeated. Also problematic if used to defuse righteous anger below the level of action.

My opinion: useful, perhaps vital if performed in moderation.  The additional perspective from the first time through is really handy for me. However, quickly becomes a net minus if performed more than once on a given issue.  Basically - salt.  Excluding it from your diet completely - fatal. Cutting down - possibly healthy if you use a lot.

Type 3: I'll just call this distracting - working off stress with another activity.

Pluses: Not harmful, no feedback loop

Minuses: Problematic if carried to extremes.  A moderate case would be BPDw - whose distraction activities can occupy most of the day, every day, for weeks... . An extreme case would be an old friend who looks like an anorexic now because she exercises too much.

--Argyle

*As opposed to people being surprised that you're angry.

[momtario]

I'm not big on the rage. In fact, I tend not to allow myself the privilege of feeling any anger at all.

This has gotten me into some pretty sticky situations. I don't like to rage (never even did the temper thing as a small child), but allowing my anger to be felt and giving voice to it, so that it is known  -actually allowing my feelings to exist in the open world- has led me to a more mentally healthy, albeit a more confusing and sad, place.

Yes, I let out steam that built up while my head was buried in the sand, but I haven't allowed it to build up again since. Maybe venting isn't healthy for a lot of people, ie- people who are trying to move away from anger... .but for those of us who may need to move toward anger to be healthier, it may really help.

I hope this post was coherent.

[JimNelson89]

I disagree.  While venting may initially increase agitation, it later calms one down.  I vent into a computer diary.  I have a phantom counselor that I write to.  Later I read the old messages and wonder why I felt that way.  If I vented directly onto my spouse it would have ended the r/s long ago.

[ennie]

I think anger itself can be a powerful and important emotion.  PArticularly for someone not comfortable setting boundaries, it can allow that person to make boundaries.  It can also level the playing field in a disempowered situation.  Particularly if anger can be expressed without blame, it can be very powerful and important.  My DH has a tendency to allow himself to be walked all over; he was by his ex, anyway, and carried those habits into our relationship.  Anger allowed him to leave her. In our relationship, sometimes I am just fed up with the circumstances, and I am complaining to him.  I usually takes him getting angry to really set a boundary; sometimes he yells, but always says true things:  "It hurts my feelings when you say those things!  I just need a break!  I do not want to hear about how my life is to much for you!  I love you!"  Sometimes I need to hear that in order to be there for my mate.  It might be nice if he could say this when he is calm, but he has habits of disempowering himself, of feeling like his boundaries are not important, only mine are.  So it takes anger to break through his accommodating habits.  Without this, I would not know how much I am hurting him... .he would probably just get tired of my frustration one day without me knowing. 

I think when we are in disempowered situations, anger can make us give voice to our piece.  This can be so with an unfair boss, with a bureaucracy, and so forth.  It may feel nicer just to smile and nod, but it does not necessarily allow us to be our whole selves.  I think self expression can happen without anger, but often our inhibitions make us comply when someone else has the power.  Without anger, the boss may never hear how hard she is on her workers.  She may NEED to know this.  I think there is huge value in learning how to express anger in a non-destructive way, in a way that is respectful of the others' point of view without giving up any of your own ground.  Conflict can be a great way for people to get better at making the needs of all be met, particularly if conflict can be peaceful.  I remember how liberating it was for me to tell my mom, "When you say I am ruining your life, I feel really hurt and angry at you."  I remember clearly that I did not blame, but was able to express intense anger in a totally peaceful way.  This was hugely helpful for  me in being able to love my mom more, because the stale resentment I had was blocking love. 

Anger is also an emotion that has negative physical impacts on our bodies.  But so does stress, which results from stuffing anger. 

We are talking about venting, and about how it might perpetuate anger and aggression.  To the degree that anger can be what it takes to empower us to take care of ourselves when we are in "one down" situations, venting is a tool for keeping anger strong even when the ill is not happening.  For any of those who have studied abuse and the "cycle of violence" concepts, a real problem for people in abusive relationships is that they get stuck in a cycle where they are either dealing with crisis, and thus do not leave the abuse, or in a peaceful cycle, and not wanting to leave. I think this is true about any time we are being oppressed--when someone has power over us and it is working for us (we are getting what we want), we do not want to rock the boat.  When it is not working, we are too afraid to rock the boat.  It is okay with me for people to have power over me much of the time, but sometimes it is not. 

With the BPD person in my life, she wields giant power, because she is willing to be crazy and violent.  PArticularly when she does this in front of the kids, I have little power to do or say anything.  I am also structurally disempowered as a step-mom, so I have no rights to make her stop (unless she is doing stuff that is prohibited by criminal law).  Most of the time, I am kind and walk away.  But when things get to intense, sometimes I have been able to get her to stop.  With her, my anger is totally managed--i do not yell or be mean.  But it helps me to be willing to set clear boundaries that are not negotiable. 

Here is the problem.  With a BPD person, the truth is that because that person is mentally ill and cannot change easily, my power (using whatever tools I have) is limited.  The reality is that what I want from her is not possible.  The only way I can REALLY level the playing field is to be happy, and to create social boundaries around her to limit her power (boundaries that might include court orders, and also having her friends and the kids teachers know who she is and what is going on, so her stories do not get traction).  But trying to make her care about my feelings, or not hurt her kids emotionally--she cannot do that, and I cannot make her.  It is like yelling at a flat tire to get it to be not flat. 

Anger can be helpful where someone has the capacity to change.  I am not saying it is the best method, but for some people in some situations, it takes anger to be willing to risk. 

What I have found is that for DH and I, anger has lead us to create boundaries at times, and is good in that way.  But the same stuff happens all the time, so if we are always angry, we have to deal with the physiological effects of these feelings on ourselves and our happiness.  Complaining does sometimes propel us into action, but there is too much that is upsetting to really act on it regularly.  It is true that I think my DH learned to vent once he left his wife, and sustaining that anger, rather than living in fear, made him make choices that are better for the kids and him.  He is not a raging or difficult person when angry; he does not get stuck there.  But he just REALLY avoids conflict unless he is angry. 

For me, I set boundaries without anger.  With the kids, some of their more enmeshed lying and intense behavior results in anger in me... .and while I do not always feel great about how I express it, I always do it with love and limited blame, and I think it helps SD11 see when she is being hurtful.  When she is mimicking her mom's worst, I am not sure it is bad for her to have someone respond with appropriate anger.  "I do not like being treated that way.  I feel angry at you right now."  I think me just avoiding dealing with her when she acts that way is easier for me, but is alienating.  Closeness involves knowing when you hurt someone. 

In sum, venting is does perpetuate anger.  When we are powerless, sometimes we need anger to motivate us and lessen inhibition around rocking the boat to get what we need.  Because there is danger when the anger arises, we use venting to keep our feelings strong into peace time, when action may be more useful.  But with a BPD person, if we responded appropriately with anger to each outrageous event, we would be angry all the time. If my DH did once what BPD mom does all the time, I would probably have left him a long time ago.  But with BPD mom, there is not a lot I can do.  Feeling angry does not feel good to my body, so I have to try to inhibit my natural response to her.  Again, my anger is pretty mellow.  I have never been violent with anyone in my anger, and I usually am not even very blaming. 

So venting makes my life unhappy.  It is not that I want not to be angry with her because it does not help; it is because I feel bad when I feel that way a lot.  Anger IS useful, natural, important, but not  necessarily the most effective tool if we can manage and deal with our feelings.  But when someone is not able to change or be influenced by our feelings, that lack of inhibition anger creates does not help.  So to keep up with the anger feels bad to us, with no change to them.  So we have to override the circuit somehow to feel good. 

As a contrast, let me relay an example from my young life.  I was an employee of a grumpy, controlling person.  I took care of her disabled child.  She was gruff and rude every morning.  After a year of working for her, one day she was really mean.  I finally got angry, and told her that I felt angry, and that it really hurt my feelings when she was mean.  She was shocked.  She had no idea that I felt that way, and she told me that a lot of people in her life feel that way.  She told me her husband feels that way, her non-disabled son, and lots of co-workers.  But no-one bothered to tell her how it made them feel.  She cried, I cried, we became great friends.  This is a person who has habits of being rude and controlling, but who is not mentally ill and DOES have the capacity to change her behavior in response to new information .  My anger gave me the push I needed to share my feelings with her, and we were both the better for it.  I am sure I vented many times over the course of being her employee. 

I think the idea that venting (as the term implies) "let's off steam" so we do not blow up CAN be true, when the situation is so extreme that venting is a lesser state of intensity, and when the consequences of speaking our anger to the person it involves are too great.  But in general, venting perpetuates anger. There are times this is useful, and times when it is not.  But whether or not it is useful, it can be destructive to our well being over time; also, our anger tends to make it harder to get allies. 

[PDQuick]

I know this subject is about venting. What causes us to vent? Anger. What is anger?

Anger, to me, which I lived almost my entire adult life in, is a strong emotion. Many papers have been written on the varying degrees and instances of anger. Anger is brought on by many things. What i had the most problem with, during my life, was an anger that I, myself, put myself through, all the while, blaming others for it.

Let me try to explain.

Anger, to me now, is an emotion that is trying to get my attention, to tell me to move, or to change. When I say move, I don't mean it in a literal sense, I mean it in an emotional one. I used to get angry at my job, my relationship, and my life. People would take advantage of me, and I would get angry for the motives of the person that took advantage of me. I would either cast them out of my life, or stay away from them. This didn't solve the problem, because it continued to happen with different people. That continued to anger me. Then I would get frustrated in my anger, because it kept happening, and would build up to a point where I had to have a release.

What my anger was trying to get me to do was to get to the bottom of the dynamic. It was trying to teach me something. I have found that things that used to anger me, now don't if I understand them. I understand now that people were taking advantage of me, because I allowed them, and I now know the reasons that I allowed it to happen. I have since repaired those reasons. Now it doesn't happen, and I don't get angry.

This has happened to me on so many different levels over the years. Mindfulness, compassion and understanding are the antidote to anger. None of which I practiced in my earlier adult life. I just reacted, with no understanding of my own emotions, or the circumstances that brought others to their own meeting point with me.

[HardDaysNight]

Have to read the thread but to respond to the title. 

I think it is healthy to vent as long as it does not serve as a substitute for action or working on yourself to make things better for you, and your children if you have them.

Venting can help release frustration and anger thereby helping you focus on the dayd to day work of living with a pwBPD.

[flatspin]

Excerpt from the movie Pathfinder :

- A : There are two wolves fighting in each man's heart. One is Love, the other is Hate.

- B : Which one wins?

- A : The one you feed the most.

-------------------------------------

I think that venting is good but at the condition that we don't vent just for the sake of it or because anger/sadness has turned into bitterness and hate.

To vent is to be mainly descriptive. I've been venting here and it made me feel good. Others vent too and when I read their stories, I came to understand that some of my wife's behaviours and ways were caused by her illness. It placated me and reinforced my love for her, despite the temporary anger. Reading other's stories is like being in front of a mirror in which we see ourselves and that may help us to realize that feeling angry/guilty/sad is a normal reaction and that we can overcome those negative feelings and turn them into positive ones.

[Weird Fishes]

I am the queen of resentment.

The weird thing is, I feel like the anger stage was healthy when/as I process my feelings toward my mother and grandmother.  It came, I experienced it, and now I don't have it as much, I feel much more in control in our relationship, and positive about things going forward.

But toward my abusive uncle and my bf's ex, I am full of resentment, as well as toward my first relationship. 

And I realize as I write this, maybe it has to do with control.  I've taken action about my mother and grandmother and family situation, and that makes me feel safe.  But I have nothing to do with uncle, or bf's ex, who are much more... .outwardly destructive, and it drives me nuts that I can't do anything about it.  Maybe resentment and rumination is my obsessive and anxious brain's way of trying to make me feel in control? 

Heck, dude from my first relationship is no longer with us, and I STILL sit around going coulda woulda shoulda.

This is probs all codependency stuff that I've been over a thousand times and forgotten... .

[Kate4queen]

Having only recently put all the pieces together and finally been forced to open my eyes and start to create safe boundaries for myself and the other members of my family, yes, I'm angry. I'm angry with myself for not seeing what was going on, for enabling this person to dictate my family life, I'm angry for my other children and I'm angry because I almost lost my husband over this because he figured this out a few years ago and I didn't want to hear him.

But I've also been here before. When my son was diagnosed as having cerebral palsy I had to go through all the stages of grief to find acceptance of who he was and love the person he was, rather than the diagnosis. So, seeing as this is the same kid, it feels to me like it will be the same process. Eventually, I'll work my way to acceptance. But the anger has its place to galvanize me into making decisions and standing my ground. The secret is not to let it spill out onto my son.

[Awakecj]

"So, is this helping us or hurting us?  Does this sound more like healthy anger or unbridled resentment and dysfunctional coping?  How do we know when has the anger gone so far as to become detrimental to our healing?"

In the first phase of my leaving my SO with BPD, I had to hang onto the anger so I could move away from the relationship that was basically killing me. Denial played a big role in justifying my husband's behaviors throughout our marriage and the anger sort of jolted me out of that place so I could see reality. In that case, it served me well. I chose to hang onto the anger because when I didn't, all the hurtful feelings snowballed and became overwhelming. When this happened I would feel so much the victim and honestly cried and experienced deep-deep sorrow for days upon days. Those days have been (and sometimes continue to be) the most painful days of my life.

It hasn't been easy staying in anger because the pain and hurt was so strong it overrode the anger. I actually had to force myself into anger because at the time, I felt it helped me. When I could get to the anger, I felt relief! Oh yeah, I'm here again and I can stop crying and hurting for awhile so this is progress! I have a friend who is a healer and she suggested I should begin to focus on letting go of the anger and re-start my life in a new direction. Although I knew I must do that sometime, I was appalled at the suggestion then because anger had served me well in letting go of the denial and breaking away from the unhealthy relationship with my husband. I wasn't ready.

Since finding this website, I actually have started to feel a slight shift in my thinking and reactions. One of the ambassadors mentioned it would be helpful to read and read about BPD and someday, understanding the disorder would click. I have followed her advice and although it is far from clicking, I am starting to feel SOME relief from my extreme emotions and with that I'm able to slowly start letting go of the anger (my armor). This FEELS like progress to me and I find myself being more mindful with my responses/reactions. Is this emotional maturity I wonder?

So I'm feeling quite wonderful about my ability to be a little more mindful because usually, I'm immediately reactive with my responses. However, just yesterday I shamed myself by EXPLODING angry emotions about my BPD husband onto texts to my kids (adults), brother (traitor), and BPD husband. To date, I have been pretty good about not getting our adult children involved in our "war" but yesterday my husband's smearing campaign against me to my father (who recently had a stroke) put me over the edge with emotions that I had trouble coping with. At first, I felt a little detached when I learned about the call to my dad but the unbridled resentment and anger welled up in me like a tidal wave and the texting began. After the dysfunctional response my way of coping, I felt drained, the regrets set in and I am not proud of myself.

How did this dysfunctional, angry response serve me and our kids, not well I think. I feel ashamed at losing control of my emotions and engaging at all with my husband. I got back into the dysfunctional cycle and took everyone with me. I have given thought to why I did this (outside of being emotionally immature), what purpose did it serve? Did I feel self-righteous, justified because I am the victim, he the perpetrator and everyone should know? Did it feel comfortable and familiar to re-engage? What, why, what?

Ok so I realize for one that I need to continue to take a moment before responding in an angry rage, develop an alternate way of coping when I feel overwhelmed with emotions (perhaps write the text but don't send). I also need to take more responsibility for my role in our dysfunctional relationship because it was not ALL his fault as much as I've proclaimed it to be. My reaction yesterday was proof of my role in the dysfunctional cycle. Even though I think I'm a genuinely kind, loving person, I have engaged in a really unhealthy relationship. I have "said" to others that I contributed but really, did I mean it? How can I REALLY become accountable for my role in this 32 year relationship? I think it starts with letting go of the anger and resentment and I think I'm ready.

Anger has served me well in getting out, now emotional growth needs to occur so I can move on and that, to me, means letting go of the unhealthy anger and resentment. I have felt justified in blaming everything on him because his actions seemed cruel and calculated and mine weren't but at this point, does it matter? I want to continue to learn and accept BPD as an illness because it will only serve me in letting go of the resentment, anger, and pain. I also want to continue to learn and accept who I was, who I am, and acknowledge my role. I am in need of emotional growth so I can have an emotionally healthy life. Because I am co-dependent, it has helped in the past to focus on improving myself for my kids but really, the biggest and most challenging lesson for me is to focus on doing this for MYSELF.

[PaGuy]

For me, the anger serves a purpose.  As I have been exploring the emotional incest I went through, I was very angry... .and even though my uBPDm wasn't there, I cursed her out.  It was an outlet and an expression of my determination to never let that happen again.  However, I kept going.  I could feel some of the hurt leaving and the emotion changed.  I was then angry from a different place... .more of a punitive place than a protective place.  That is when I went too far.

I was discussing an old psychology experiment with a professor (he has many advanced degrees and understands behaviors unlike anyone else I have met) and the experiment was about monkeys.  The monkeys would be exposed to negative circumstances.  In one set, the monkeys could do something to stop the circumstances and in the other set the monkeys couldn't.  The monkeys that could do something about the behaviors became angry and acted whereas the monkeys that couldn't do anything didn't get angry.

The point I took from that conversation is that anger is good if it drives us to stop a bad action.  I draw the line when the anger moves from fueling protective actions to a fueling vindictive/punishing actions.

[myboneshurt]

After going through the Family Connections program, I realized that anger is always the secondary emotion.  The analogy was if you kid was out at 3AM with your car, and you were worried sick about her, the primary emotion is fear.  When she walks in the door, you yell "Where have you been!", and that response, anger, is the secondary emotion.

6 months ago, I found out that my exBPD had done something devastating to me.  She posed on Twitter as a porn star, got one as a roommate to take over the lease (which ended in shambles in 3 days), and worst of all, friended a girl I had briefly dated for a month that had gotten into porn after me.  It hurt me to the core.  After struggling with my own destructive hypersexuality, to see the pwBPD publish pornographic images of herself sickened me.  I responded with anger.  And after not being able to cope with this event, the anger persisted and became an effective coping tactic. 

But the primary emotion was hurt.  She dumped me on Christmas Eve for another man she met a week ago.  She spent Christmas with the new guy and posted pictures to lash out.  She's once again engaged in similar, overtly pornographic behavior with a new set of friends that she has found online.  After the breakup, I am no longer angry.  But the pain is there.

The biggest problem is, as a man, it seems as if expressing anger is a far more acceptable emotion than expressing vulnerability.  I struggle with that a lot - so people think I'm constantly angry.  But the reality is that the superficial emotion is masking the true feelings of pain.

[snowwhite]

I am sorry, but I have to disagree with some of what has been posted. I entered my marriage to my uBPDh as a young naive person. He did not have a history of abusive behavior to other wives. I was the first of several. When I found out about his dishonest and abusive behavior and he refused to change, I filed for divorce. What I became angry about and stayed angry about is how he continued to tell lies about me to people we both knew - people we went to school with, worked with, attended church with. This continued for over 20 years. I am sure it would still be happening if he had not died. To say that an emotionally healthy person would leave and move on is to assume that the abuse ends. It does not even if you live thousands of miles from the pwBPD and never see them again. I once went six months without a phone just so he could not contact me. As soon as I put in a new line, he called. I can only think he must have been trying the whole six months. Decades later, DECADES, he was still trying to contact me. When I told him to stop, he did something unspeakable to hurt his then wife and children because he needed to act out the rejection from me. Of course, anger has to end, but I cannot imagine it ending while the damage was continuing. Perhaps I should have had him jailed for harassement. I do not know, but I resent someone trying to tell me this was my problem. It was not.

[cal644]

This is one of the issues that has been bothering me.  I am not an angry or resentful person - never have been.  I've never been angry at my stbBPDexw when we were married - dissappointed yes - but never angry.  But now for the first time in my life I actually have hated someone - HER!. Here I'm out 6 months now and on most days I do better but then she will do something or say something that just causes my anger and resentment to rise again. I'm to the point of I can't stand being around her at our daughters events, I can't stand to look at her, I can't stand to talk to her.  I wonder if kids are involved if it is harder to let go of some of this anger/resentment - because not only did they damage our hopes, dreams, and lives, but also those of our children.

[hergestridge]

Sometimes I'm angry but anger is not a dominant feeling towards my BPD wife. My wife sometimes say "Do you hate me for what I've done? But I don't hate her, and I'm not angry. I'm just sad the way things have turned out. The more I learn about BPD the more I realize how little I can do and how little I could have done to change things, so that makes me less frustrated. Perhaps the sadness and resignation goes too far at times, but that's another story.

In my work I meet to many mentally ill people who have obsessed SOs who seem to suffer more than the mentally ill people themselves. You learn something from that.

[roxanne]

Wow! that is powerful stuff. I have to be honest and say that I came in this relationship with anger and/or the inability to communicate my frustration without getting angry or coming off angry.

I do agree that my cognitive and emotional abilities are not on the same level. However, I make conscious steps to introspect and change to a more emotionally mature individual. This is a process and it does not  help that that I m not on supportive training grounds but in the actual battle field. Meaning I am not with someone who is insightful and calm and gives me the opportunity to look at myself instead I am with someone who is even more ill-equipped in this particular area than I am. So I don't just look at him, I see me too.

One thing that really gets under my skin is the fact he will discuss me/us with nearly everyone he comes in contact with that day we have a disagreement ( I refer to them as such because he refers to all disagreements as arguments) The thing is he has his own business and knows quite a few people. One friend last week described how he lashed out at him because he would not take sides.  He knows both of us and he doesn't see the things my fiancee tell him. He invites these people in our home and I feel so ashamed and awkward to be around them because I don't know what and if he has told them. He told people at our church, people he brings me around. It's so overwhelming sometimes. I wonder what they think about us because one minute he is painting this gruesome horror story but then he is back in the home and I am his world. ?  The question I ask myself Am I ill for staying in a relationship with some one does this or am I being empathetic to him? (He is also the father of my son to be 2 year old)

I try to to look beyond and realize that this is part of his illness but it doesn't help that my personality is being very private and would rather handling things in a constructive healthy way whether picking one or two married couple or our pastor who we can go to for help. However once we agree on this he doesn't abide by it. In a nut shell there are many triggers in this relationship that sets me off.

However, I know I fall short at times in communicating in a neutral way, which a big problem with us. My mother was a yeller and sometimes without noticing I go into yelling mode and he has to tell me, which is when I become conscious of it and tone down. But its like second nature to me. I know I am getting more emotionally mature. I  feel more and more detached from him even though I still care for him deeply. I have never went after him, he has  come back. Sometimes I wish he would just leave which would make it easier for me. A part of me is taking responsibility for the communication department however I don't want to take on the "codependent responsibility". It gets so murky. Here comes that FOG again. Help... .

[eternalbloom]

I am so angry and resentful. I've held on to so many text messages and emails because he made me feel like I was one who was crazy when he said one thing and did another. When I re-read the stuff is hurts but it reminds me that he was the liar and I wasn't the problem. Last night I thought about deleting everything, but I having a hard time doing that. We are embarking on the next phase, co=parenting and living separate lives and I do not want to be his friend, if he says anything all that comes to mind is the latest batch of lies he told and my discovery of the truth for the umpteenth time.

[maxen]

I cannot imagine it ending while the damage was continuing.

and the damage can continue for quite a while. we, some of us, live with children alienated, friends poisoned, financial security damaged, reputations slandered. it would take a severe deficit of self-regard not to be angry.

but I resent someone trying to tell me this was my problem. It was not.

the sentiment that "we were equally responsible, if we were honest with ourselves" is demeaning to those who have had their lives wrecked by the BPD partners.

(ps - this topic has been read almost 19,000 times. must be an issue for lots of people!)

[growing_wings]

good article... .

for me, the realization that i wanted to be superior to my exBP in a common field of work was a good wake up call to highlight i was perhaps not behaving in the most mature manner.

I realized that after the b/u, she went with full force to win over my contacts, work, credibility, etc... and at first, wihtout realizing, i kind of was doing the same! digging in i found that i wanted to feel superior to her and show her that i am better (!) I started to feel resentment for her and her potential success, and thinking, oh, she wont be able to sustain this and that, as i know her, etc.etc... i was there again, trying to put her down myself. I realize that tHis behavior is not conducive to my healing.

I needed to take a step back to a neutral approach, where i wish her well, and i understand clearly that we are all trying to survive (or feed our egos!) and everyone has the right & the freedom to do so.

As the time pases, i come to realize is ok not wanting to feel superior to her... . actually if i focus on my goals and my life, and to heal from this, this is already a great advancement for me... .

i see the point of this article, is clear for me. thx

[Lion Fire]

Anger served a purpose for me to a point.

Anger energised me... .I was able to cut her off, ignore her recycle attempts and stay away from her by riding on the back of what I believe was healthy anger at the time. I was beaten up and the anger helped me to stand up and say NO MORE. I left her and never went back.

I have managed to string together 106 days NC and that has allowed me space and time to heal in many ways.

That said, the resentments have started to get in the way now. the rapidly cycling thoughts of my ex and how she debased and humiliated me, are holding me back. I spend way too much time in my head, replaying events, re-feeling traumatic moments etc...

For the first time in my life I feel hatred towards someone. I also have had moments where I wish terrible things on her. These are frightening emotions for me as I am a temperate and gentle person by nature.

As long as I carry this bitterness, resentment and hatred I will not be fully detached and therefore not be free. Most of all I want to be free.

Lately, the anger has subsided somewhat and I'm slowly starting to feel a sense of peace and closure...

I've had enough of these feelings, I'm willing to let them go right now 

[Lucky One]

Yes, I also have experienced tremendous anger. Coupled with the frustration.

This because of the non stop failure to resolve the issues.

But I'm now learning from this website how to do things, respond in a better manner and more positive way.

Takes time, I suppose. We'll see. The proof is in the eating.

[christin5433]

Good topic it's definitely a reality for all of us here. If I didn't stumble on this forum I think I would have lost my mind and my anger would have been more external and I would have reacted to my ex. So I want to say thank you to BPD family forum. As for resentment becoming non productive because of being consumed in the problem is debilitating.  Just 3 weeks ago I was at a crucial place where I thought my anger and resentment was my every thought and it was making me have homicidal dreams. Well I don't know how but I'm at 2 months b/u and the past 8 days I'm finding myself in a healthier type of anger more towards myself and also towards my ex in the sense of she treated me so bad gas lighting , circular arguing, raging, lies, and no respect,this is more for me to keep myself out of the bargaining process.

Praying for my ex and for her smearing friends has helped my resentment. It gives me a way to forgive. Myself and her. I need that to internally heal because if I just vent an stay in the negative I will demonized my ex which actually gives her lots of power.