Repair a situation?

[FollowingBliss]

I don't want my marriage to be over. Does anyone have suggestions for how to repair a 'leaving' situation? 

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[waverider]

Need more info on where you are at and what your hopes and expectations are

[Rockylove]

It sounds like something recent occurred to inspire your post.  Can you tell us what has been happening? 

[yeeter]

It's hard to say bliss.  Since nobody can control another persons actions.  But tell us more and you are sure to get some really insightful comments.

(really stressful times for you as well, so be sure to include telling us the ways in which you are taking care of yourself)

[FollowingBliss]

My ex left about a year ago.   He moved to another area, and changed his contact information. He re-engaged in December, calling and sending letters. This continued for a month, at which point he failed to honor a (very important) promise. I called him on it, because I was tired of the lies. He split me black, and said I was not a priority ("not even in the top 5".  I blocked him, and he emailed me insisting he wanted to work things out; two days later he changes his contact information (he moved out a year ago. I have no idea where he lives now) so  email is now the only way we can communicate. Each time I sent one, he would respond by picking out ONE word or phrase that "upset" him, and rip me to shreds for it. The harder I tried to praise or validate, the more he'd insist "You don't like me. Honest to god I think you keep me around to feel better about yourself."  I told him that wasn't true, but refuses to believe anything different.  He also blames me for his infidelity the last time he left ("my hands were tied, I had no choice. You make me feel unworthy to even breathe your air."  Finally I got so fed up, I told him I was done. He emailed back threating to off himself and said my blame keeps him "sicker."  I am not sure how he could even think this, as I have always doted on, and adored him. That said, I do overreact (particularly to silent treatment) and maybe I do make him worse. I have no idea what the future holds: he left again, but said we could keep in touch with emails "every once in a while."  I feel like this is all my fault. How could I have handled this situation better?  I would love a Stayer perspective here.     

[laelle]

I think the tools on the website could really nail this down for you.  


There are better people out there to give you advice on this, but I will give it a shot.

The #1 thing I did to start things changing was to not feed into or play a part in his script without placing blame or wrong doing.

Ex:

You are speaking to him and you can tell he is beginning to get agitated... .  you will want to start JADEing, try validating instead.  Jadeing will only make things worse.  A validating statement is where where you show you are listening to what he is saying and that you get where he is coming from.  (doesnt mean you agree)  (never use words like should of, always, never, but, ) while he is on the onset to a rage. There is a list of validating and invalidating words in the tools section I believe.

If you have made attempts to defuse and he is hell bent on taking out his emotions on you, you must have a plan b.

Set a boundary (for yourself) for what emotional level you will tolerate before detaching... .  When you reach that point,  Validate, Reassure, Detach, Take care of you.

Validate - I do understand what your saying hun.  I am really getting emotional with this conversation and I need to calm down (I try not to use angry or hurt), and if you dont mind im going to take a few minutes to cool off.  I guess I will go take the dog for a walk, do a few groceries... .  or anything to get both of you an emotional break.  I always say if you dont mind, because my boyfriend uses it with me and it feels nice, but if he said he did mind, i would just say again that Im going to take a break and leave it.  Its just showing that you care about his feelings.

Reassure - I will be back in about an hour , I love you

Detach... .  go cool off, and re engage when you feel better.

He may not like this at first, but if he is going to be around you, this is how it will have to be.  In the end, I think they start to like it because they know that the ending doesnt always have to be the same.  Every rage doesnt have to be the end of a relationship.

Keep in mind that the good things a BPD sees in you are also what they fear most.  I mention this because I saw alot in your post about it.

Your a good person - he is bad, you will leave him

You are beautiful - he is ugly, you will leave him

You are kind - he is mean, you will leave him

You are stable - he is not stable, you will leave him

When he says he isnt good enough to breath your air, assure him that there is room for two from where your breathing and drop it.

Dont feed into it.  Its a constant test they want to see if you can win, they dont count on you refusing to even play.  :)ont get angry, just dont play.

[FollowingBliss]

 Those are some great suggestions, thank you! I have been attempting to use SET, but then

after x amount of raging my empathy goes right out the window. I particularly like your comment about "rage not ending a relationship."  If I had one goal, this would be it. The problem is that its usually him leaving (and once he makes up his mind, he's gone - at least for the time being). He is primarily a waif, and will become passive aggressive and distance himself, rather than communicate how he feels. If I attempt to talk things out, he screams I am "throwing the past in his face,"  or communicating he is a "bad" person.  He also appears incapable of compromise, particularly when he is disregulated. Do you see this with your BPD as well ?  Yes, he re-engaged, but there were so many rules and regulations on contact this time. He knew it hurt me too. Was this punishment for calling him on his previous behavior?

Keep in mind that the good things a BPD sees in you are also what they fear most.  I mention this because I saw alot in your post about it.

Your a good person - he is bad, you will leave him

You are beautiful - he is ugly, you will leave him

You are kind - he is mean, you will leave him

You are stable - he is not stable, you will leave him

Then why does he act like i'm beneath him?  Is this projection?  How can he say, "I don't even think you like or want me around"  when i'm literally begging for more contact. When I pointed out this is how he made ME feel also, he flipped out and did a disappearing act.

[laelle]

I am sure there is an official explanation on this that one of the pros here will chime in on.

All I can say is that in every rage email or convo we have, its just full of those types of comments.  In my head im thinking he wants me out of his life and he hates me.  I mean the venom speaks for itself. He would say horrible things to me.  I would never say those things to him. I would get ignored for a day or so and then I would get an email about how he still wants to be with me and loves me.  He would usually kick in he is just fed up with the drama.  Im thinking     I was really confused until I asked him one day.  While your raging at me, do you still love me?  He said, of course I do.  There is no way a person could spit the kind of venom he spit and love me, but yet he does.

In conclusion, most of what he is ranting about isnt even really about me.  Its about his life, his issues, his problems, his illness.  He only needed me to kick start his rage, but the rest is just him unleashing his issues.  I do not stay around for rage anymore.  He will not bounce his venom off me.  Let him go find someone else to bounce it off of or self soothe.  I am not unsympathetic, but I did not sign up for dump your emotional garbage on me day.

Its not that I dont care about the issues in his life, I do.  Its that while he is raging there is really no way of even knowing what is real and what is not. I dont even think he knows.  No matter how much I love and understand him when he gets raging it wont be enough to end it, and I will become more hurt as the moments go by, and it will end in me walking away and him blaming me for it.  

My bf knows I will detach but not abandon him if he starts to rage at me.  He has learned to adapt to that and its made us more healthy.  He knows that one stupid thing he says is not going to pull the house down on himself, but that I also wont be there to hear it in the first place.


I'm not sure if I answered your question there... .  my answer would be... .  when they rage they are pure emotion and dont understand themselves where its coming from.  Dont take it personally.  Work on skills to detach so you wont be there to hear it in the first place.

[TigerEye]

There is no way a person could spit the kind of venom he spit and love me, but yet he does.

Ah, the classic "I hate you, don't leave me" moments, they are so hard to deal with at times. The venom can get deep inside side of you and twists the mind to the point where we forget all the lessons we try to hold on to.

The number of times I've been told to "f*%$ off, get out of my house" screamed like a banshee, but I started challenging her on this, "is that what you REALLY want?" Turns out it wasn't, but it was all she could come up with whilst trying to deal with her over whelming emotions. The problem is they can't communicate their feelings as they are struggling to work out what they are. Mostly they are not what they are raging at us about, we are just the lighting rod to their statically charged cloud of emotions.

Detachment and self soothing is the goal, timeout is the fall back plan. Practice, practice, practice.

[laelle]

Yeah, I think they go into a mode of do as much emotional damage and pain as possible to the other person.  Give as much pain as they feel.

I dont listen to it anymore.  

[tuli]

I just want to say thank you to laelle for such an inspiring beautiful presentation of the mental space we need to be in.  Thanks because that is so helpful.   

In response to the OP, I don't know if I can be helpful except to say the way to figure it out is sometimes to understand what you need.  And Laelle says this so well.  Maybe for me it would be like my list of what I feel I have a right to have in my relationship.  And once I get clear on what I believe is right, the answers may come to me on their own.

I can't say it better than Laelle, but there some things I had to get clear on.

I know that screaming at a partner doesn't have any place in my relationship.  If screaming at a partner is going on, it means there is an emergency problem in the relationship that needs to be addressed by both of us. 

I know that insulting a partner does have a place in my relationship.  We are together for the sole purpose of supporting each other.  If insulting is going on, their is some kind of extreme relationship emergency happening that would immediately need to be addressed by both of us.

I know that threatening divorce or breakup doesn't have a place in my relationship.  If it feels like breakup is that close there would have to be an emergency happening that would need to be addressed by both of us.

I know that hatred doesn't have a place in my relationship.  If there is hatred, it means there is an extreme emergency in the relationship that would need to be addressed by both of us.

I know that violence doesn't have a place in my relationship.  If that is happening then there is no relationship.  It means the contract is broken, null and void and I do not have any relationship responsibilities to my partner.  My responsibility is to myself to move out of the relationship and to safety.

If these things are considered normal by my partner, and my partner expects me to accept this as part of a normal relationship, then me and my partner may not share the same values and may not be compatible for life partners even though we may love each other.   

[yeeter]

A great list Tuli. 

The only one I would add is the carrying around of a feeling of resentment towards our partner (or maybe this falls under your hatred category... .  but hatred is so much stronger).  But resentment erodes a relationship as well.

But I dont think the struggle is in what we 'want' from the relationship - its figuring out what is possible - through our own action but also that of our partners - on exactly what has to happen to remove these things from the relationship. 

And how much of what type of effort we are willing to put into it before we remove the relationship from our lives.  This is where it gets fuzzy. 

How much can we affect the relationship via our own actions (as it turns out, quite a bit!)

How long to give it?

How much of our own dysfunction is contributing to the negative aspects (again often times, quite a bit)

What ratio of good to bad is 'ok' to live with?  (pretty much all relationships have compromise, ups and downs and bumps - its a question of to what degree, and what amount is acceptable).  And also what is done after hurt is caused.

To what degree of 'unfairness' are we willing to live with?  These relationships are in general, more unfair than others.

Im just observing that for me at least, navigating these grey areas have been the hardest aspect of the whole thing.  No black/white right/wrong answers, and a mix of things you can control with some you cant.

I feel for anyone going through the process... .  

[waverider]

My partner did an exercise in therapy yesterday that may have a bearing on this.

She had to make a list of all the characteristics about me that she admired the most. Once done, she was asked if these were the exact same properties she felt deficient in herself. This is part of the thought processes of idealization.

The problem arises in the fact that the longer the list of my good points grows, then conversely this means the longer her list of "short comings" in herself grows. Eventually this process of growing idealization and increasing self devaluation leads to overload. The response is to trash the idealization in an attempt erase the devaluation. This results in destroying both identities leaving a vacuum, whereby the "rock" (you) has been temporarily removed from their lives leaving no real sense of reference and turmoil.

Hence the need to rebuild the idealization process again. >Endless recycling of building up and knocking down

[Grey Kitty]

 Those are some great suggestions, thank you! I have been attempting to use SET, but then

after x amount of raging my empathy goes right out the window. I particularly like your comment about "rage not ending a relationship." 

I wonder if you are getting ahead of yourself on the tools a bit. If you are still saying invalidating things to him, that will stop all the other communication tools from working with him.

I would first start with a boundary about raging: Don't let him rage AT you until your empathy goes out the window. Get yourself out of the situation where he is raging at you when you first realize it is bothering  you. Or even before that when circular arguments or unfounded accusations start to appear.

If you are all caught up in the unfairness of how he is treating you, you can't validate him.

If you get out of a rage, you are protecting yourself from what he would say to you... .  and protecting him from your invalidating responses to it.

If I had one goal, this would be it. The problem is that its usually him leaving (and once he makes up his mind, he's gone - at least for the time being). He is primarily a waif, and will become passive aggressive and distance himself, rather than communicate how he feels. If I attempt to talk things out, he screams I am "throwing the past in his face,"  or communicating he is a "bad" person. 

"attempting to talk things out" isn't very clear. What I'm afraid you are doing is trying to have a 'normal' conversation with a normal, emotionally healthy person. That just doesn't work well. That is where techniques like SET give you some chance of success.

He also appears incapable of compromise, particularly when he is disregulated. Do you see this with your BPD as well ?  Yes, he re-engaged, but there were so many rules and regulations on contact this time. He knew it hurt me too. Was this punishment for calling him on his previous behavior?

If he is dysregulated, you only have three choices:

1. Try to validate him until he calms down (Difficult, probably not impossible)

2. Engage with him, 99% likely to escalate things

3. Leave and give him (and likely yourself as well) some time to calm down

If you aren't feeling very strong, grounded, and empathic, you can write off choice #1... .  it will rapidly morph into choice #2. That leaves choice #3 as safe, at least.

I hope I'm not being too repetitive here. Just make sure you've stopped making it worse first.

[tuli]

A great list Tuli. 

The only one I would add is the carrying around of a feeling of resentment towards our partner (or maybe this falls under your hatred category... .  but hatred is so much stronger).  But resentment erodes a relationship as well.

But I dont think the struggle is in what we 'want' from the relationship - its figuring out what is possible - through our own action but also that of our partners - on exactly what has to happen to remove these things from the relationship. 

And how much of what type of effort we are willing to put into it before we remove the relationship from our lives.  This is where it gets fuzzy. 

How much can we affect the relationship via our own actions (as it turns out, quite a bit!)

How long to give it?

How much of our own dysfunction is contributing to the negative aspects (again often times, quite a bit)

What ratio of good to bad is 'ok' to live with?  (pretty much all relationships have compromise, ups and downs and bumps - its a question of to what degree, and what amount is acceptable).  And also what is done after hurt is caused.

To what degree of 'unfairness' are we willing to live with?  These relationships are in general, more unfair than others.

Im just observing that for me at least, navigating these grey areas have been the hardest aspect of the whole thing.  No black/white right/wrong answers, and a mix of things you can control with some you cant.

I feel for anyone going through the process... .  

The gray areas are the hardest.  To me it seems like figuring out the gray areas is where I get to do character building for myself.  I have had to have boundaries that he agrees with in order to continue our marriage that anytime he's regulated, I can get him to say that the behavior he was doing while unregulated is not okay in a marriage and that it was a mistake, or just that he got too emotional but didn't mean it in retrospect.

That is hard for him.  But I gave up one of my primary needs, to always have serenity in my home and decided to agree that he could get mad at me (he's never been derogatory or abusive) 100 times a day and it's okay with me as long as at some point afterwards he is willing to admit it's a mistake or not something he would have consciously wanted to do.  I had to decide that emotion itself isn't "bad."

So I feel like we really get to know ourselves when we get into the gray area of what's okay for us in terms of treatment.  Plus it makes you look at your own childhood trauma.  It's always interesting to take all the resentments we feel toward our partner and imagine we are saying those resentments to our own caretakers.  Mine always seem fit exactly... .