what to do with the "what are you mad at NOW?" feeling

[crazymade]

We all know that BPD people constantly and consistently find something, anything to be mad about. It gives me the "what are you mad about NOW?" feeling. My husband is absolutely spoiled, as he does not work, drinks beer all day long, and his mother and I support him. Yet, like other BPD people, he is constantly whining and complaining about something. How do y'all cope? Advice would be much appreciated and helpful.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[losingconfidence]

It's easiest to cope when the pwBPD is able to step back and acknowledge that s/he is experiencing inappropriate or misdirected anger. The current pwBPD in my life is beginning to be able to do this, and I completely understand how hard it is. The other day, she became enraged because I said that I was feeling bad about needing to lose weight. She became angry at my excess body fat for upsetting me. I try to cope with it by remembering that she has psychological difficulties and that I am not the problem/doing something wrong. I also try to cope by asking for more information about what she's angry about. Oftentimes the way she articulates the anger initially makes a lot less sense than what I get from her if I ask her to think it over more.

[briefcase]

In addition, it also helps when we step back and realize that our pwBPD is experiencing inappropriate anger.  We have to detach a little bit emotionally from them.  

Why does he get to drink beer all day and not work?

[united for now]

Reframe how you view his complaints... .  

They aren't really attacks on you - they are glimpses into his own tortured soul. They are cries of pain and confusion.

We don't have to solve their pain or make it all go away.

Just understand how "he" could feel as he does.

If resentment is strong, then empathy won't happen.

This is a tough one to practice if you are struggling to have empathy

So brief case had a good question - why does he get to stay home and drink?

[crazymade]

honestly, because his mother and i enable him to. he refuses to work, you see. "he get's paid to stay home, play video game, and drink beer." , that's his point of view. i go to work and pay bills and his mother helps us out. and for me to make matters worse, every now and again he receives money. since i've been with him, he received money from an accident we had (since he got hurt, better now), then later that year he got money from his dad when  he died, and this week he's getting  money from and accident or something that happened years ago. hopefully i've illustrated where my resentment comes from. i'm working really hard to practice empathy, but it's hard when you see someone who you spoil rotten and you feel (compared to you) has everything gripe and whine and complain and get mad at the littlest of things.

thank y'all for the support.

[briefcase]

So, what are some things you can start to do differently? Looking through our Lessons is a helpful place to begin, have you had a chance to go through them?

[Cloudy Days]

Hey Crazymade, I've been trying to send you a message all day. Not sure what else to do. You need to delete some of your mail.

[iluminati]

Crazymade, I see why you're ticked.  After all, he is sitting home all day drinking beer.  Also, from what I gather, he's in a situation where he can drink all day not only because you're taking care of home, but because his mother is supporting him and he has money from a number of settlements and inheritances.

On one hand, I know he isn't taking care of the house.  On the other hand, since I can suspect that he can drink all day with or without your money, there isn't a whole heck of a lot you can do.  After all, he has a right to be dumb with his own money.  Also, his mother is clearly enabling him.  It seems like there isn't a huge incentive for him to change.  The question is what are you going to do about it.?  After all, your situation seems stable from my perspective.

In terms of the immediate anger, why bother?  They recommend dealing with the substance issues before the BPD, and until he sees his drinking as a problem, this is your life now.

[angelica_evil]

I am pretty much in the exact same situation as you with my BPDbf, except swap 'drink beer' with 'smoke pot', and you pretty much have it to a T. He has had issues since the day he was born, he was a 'problem child' diagnosed with severe ADHD, on several medications for that, that did nothing. He was kicked out of 4 schools by the time he was 10. He eventually ended up at a school for 'troubled kids' where he was abused by the staff horribly, despite his size and strength, and then when he dropped out, he only held temporary, menial labor jobs here and there to pay for his own entertainment and obviously, his drug habit. He lived with an older woman he met over the internet at age 17, and moved across the country to be with her, where he was pretty much taken care of by her, until he got tired of the situation and moved back. Since then, it's been a string of failed relationships and quit jobs, until he left his longest relationship (8 years) back in 2009, after being repeatedly lied to and cheated on, according to him. The ensuing depression over the loss of that one led to him not working, and he hasn't worked since. He has lived with his dad and had all of his bills taken care of by him, his vehicle paid for and fixed, and basically, his only responsibility has been to pay for his personal items and of course, drugs. His mother left his father around the time he left his relationship (that was recycled at least 12 times that I know of in 8 years) with the serial 'cheater', which only added to his poor attitude and cemented the belief that 'all women are evil whores'. He uses his mother leaving her three decade long marriage for another man as further proof that 'no matter how well you treat someone, you will always get screwed over'. Controlling a person and clocking their every move, and demanding that they forsake all others aside from him is not 'treating someone well', but I digress...

I was friends with him for the ten years before we got involved, and I think what made me even get involved in the first place, aside from our physical attraction, was that he always held me in such high esteem (idealized me, though I had no clue at the time) compared to every other woman, and I never once suspected that I would end up like all the other girls that i sat there and gave him advice with and watched him first enmesh, then utterly destroy them emotionally. We always think we are 'different' somehow, and that we can 'save' or 'change them', don't we? isn't that why most of us ended up here? ;-) At any rate, over the course of my two years with him so far, in addition to all of his living expenses being paid for by his father, who is such a sweet man, but a terrible enabler, I have watched his mother shower him with large lump sums of cash, any electronic items or gadgets that he wants, over this past summer, a brand new car that his dad makes payments on and pays the insurance on, she takes him (and me too... he insists that I accompany him with almost every thing he does that doesn't involve video games and pot with his only two friends aside from me, both males) casino gambling and hands him large amounts of cash to gamble away. His grandmother who is in ailing health, also gave him 5k when she got an annuity payment, and he used it to finance a trip to disneyland and las vegas instead of on something worthwhile. Yet when I began our relationship, I knew all of these things, and somehow still fell for the whole, 'i have nothing, I am destitute' act, because he had to pay for his own smoking habit.

Since we have been together, I have shelled out thousands of dollars of my fixed income due to my spine being destroyed, to finance his personal wants and desires, because I love him, and I only want to see him happy. When he is bought something he is super appreciative and happy, he is always very childlike and when he gets happy like that, will bear hug me and pick me up and swing me around, and these things are the moments I live for, his smile, and him not being angry. His parents spoil him so rotten, I think, as a means of making up for 'failing him' as a child when he has these issues. He finally ended up in therapy and diagnosed with BPD as well as Intermittent Explosive Disorder after an incident where for about the twentieth time, he destroyed property (a door) at his father's lovely home, after waking up in a blind rage. They, as well as I, have continued the enabling and the spoiling since this diagnosis, because we now have a name for the way he behaves. This man can always think of something he needs or wants, meanwhile, I will eat potato flakes and cereal for weeks because I am so broke (when I am not at his house and he is an excellent cook and loves to make things for me), yet i will always find a way to come up with money to get him whatever it is that he wants that particular day... produce to use in his juicer, razors, sweets, gas/gambling money, personal items, video games, etc. I don't even know why getting him everything he needs is so important to me, he just is. So I ended up at first disdainful of his parents for enabling/spoiling, and then ended up being just as bad as him.

Anyway, i do have a point to this rambling (just wanted to give some background). I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why he is so angry all the time, seemingly every single day, at such minor, minor things. In times where everyone I know is struggling just to keep utilities on and not starve, he has everything handed to him, and is always entertained and comfortable, and high. Yet he is the one in the foul mood all of the time. He wakes up angry, sees black, and ends up turning his father's bathroom door into sawdust... over a smell that woke him up, one of the cats meowing, someone doing laundry, etc. We all walk on eggshells around him, especially while he is sleeping, to ensure that not a sound happens in the house that could disturb him. I tried to take the , 'if you wake up crabby and break things, I will no longer spend the night with you, I will sleep at home' stance... which lasted, oh, for one day. Yet no matter how much we treat him and everything around him with kid gloves, he finds anything, real or imagined, to get explosively angry over, and it's mind boggling, hurtful, and frustrating to the core.

An example: I opted to get my cell phone shut off for non payment in order to have enough money to put gas in my truck to come stay with him, bring him pizza, and then massage his feet while he ate it and played video games. The next morning, he woke up crabby and mean, and sat there yelling at me about how he said he wanted his pizza a particular way, that I don't listen to him or care about him at all, that I have to be the "stupidest person he ever met in his entire life for someone with such a high iq (I skipped a few grades in grammar school, and he jokes about me being his own personal genius all the time)", proceeded to mock me for my spine/back injury and not being able to do simple chores around my house because of it, and threw out every hurtful word he could think of. I never tell him that my getting my phone, utilities, and cable shut off, or going without is because I am spending that money on him, because that is my choice to do so, I am not being 'forced to', and also, because his answer would be , 'I never told you to do that." Even though I know for a fact that if I didn't get him the things he wanted, someone would have hell to pay for it.

[momtara]

I walked on eggshells for years because of the complaints.  He used to get me to make all sorts of agreements and then he'd back off.  He'd complain I drank too much of our spring water.  I made promises about that.  It was constant complaints when he was cycling into a dark mood.  I made more and more promises until I couldn't live like that.  I used to selectively bring some of the issues up in counseling.  He would usually back off when I did that, but I couldn't do all of them.  I also pointed out that he tended to put the responsibility on me for certain things and he needed to do some too.  DOn't know if that helps though.  I just wanted to say that I sympathize.

[rosannadanna]

In my opinion, your dude (and Angelica's) is projecting blame onto you so that they can avoid their deep feelings of shame related to the fact that they are men totally dependent on the women in their lives.  If mommy and daddy don't teach and expect their little boy to be a grown up, he will forever be a little boy and be royally pissed at his caregivers (that means intimate partners, too b/c you guys are surragates) for emotionally crippling him.

[rosannadanna]

She became angry at my excess body fat for upsetting me.

LMAO