How do you deal with the hatred

[Sadsue]

Hi not posted for a while but something has triggered husband and life is awful at the moment.  I wanted to ask how you all deal with the hatred.  At the moment has is being very nasty, name calling, critical, telling me what an awful person I am and I really don't know how to deal with it.  So far I have kept out of his way and not responded to the nasty texts but it hurts so so much. 

He really can't see any good in me at all, yet I am a good wife, I feel so unappreciated and misunderstood.  I can't talk to him about it because he just gets angry or puts his fingers in his ears like a 5 year old.  Friends and family haven't got a clue what's going on because all they see is his charm yet behind closed doors he is horrible to me.

I don't want to leave, I want to support him but he won't let me.  I feel so envious of the happy couples I see, all I want is to love and be loved back. 

So do I ignore him and wait for him to get over it or do I try and appease him?  He says he wants to be left alone but when I do he starts the nasty texts or comes in and tries to bait me, please help :'-(   

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[Rockylove]

   I'm so sorry you're having such a rough time right now.  The best advise I can give you is to validate, validate, validate and then validate some more.  Set boundaries and stick to them. 

I have found that when my uBPDbf rages, it's NEVER about what he's spewing at me... . there's always something deeper and it takes a lot of restraint and patience on my part to find out what it is.  Validating his feelings helps to calm things down and enforcing the "no name calling" boundary works wonders. 

A bit of time out is a good thing~~it gives both of you time to self soothe.  I used the time to read everything I could get my hands on about BPD and listen to the recordings from The Self-Acceptance Project which helps me with my own self-esteem issues.  I know that I'm a good person, but sometimes have to have a bit of outside acknowledgement for that ego boost.  I know that my bf admires who I am and when he's feeling really crappy about himself he's most likely to attack me.  Misery does indeed love company~~but we don't have to buy into it.

[byasliver]

Sadsue, that's such a tough place to be in.   Rockylove is right about the time-out. As much as you can, leave when he is raging. You don't have to take that. Spend some time with people who can and will reassure you and help build you up - you need that.

Validation is important, too but how do you validate when there seems to be nothing to validate? When my H was in such a hateful state, often the things he raged about didn't make any sense. And now, he isolates himself so much that he rarely expresses any feeling to me. So I'm asking this for Sadsue, myself and others: what do you do when you can't find anything to validate or anything to "praise"?

[Auspicious]

When someone treats you badly, it's important to find a way to remove yourself from that treatment.

Leave the room. Block texts. Stay a few days with relatives. Look for ways to protect yourself.

You can't control or change what someone else does, thinks, feels, or says. You can only control what you do.

[connect]

Something that I have found useful when valdating is to ask questions such as ":)oes this situation make you feel trapped/smothered/not heard?" etc etc. This calms my bf down quite well and he then starts explaining how he feels as he hears me empathising.

[Chosen]

I'm sorry you are in this situation, Sadsue. 

Your experience mirrors mine, except that now my situation has improved a bit due to setting of certain boundaries (I'm still not good at setting boundaries yet though!).

Whenever things were bad in the past, I would be called horrible, horrible names (c***, f***ing b****, you get the idea), and he insults me using the worse curses possible.  I would absorb them, try to appease him by apologising, agreeing, etc.  It didn't work- it made me so depressed and scared all of the time.  I totally lost myself and I believed in all the horrible things he said.

Like you, I feel unappreciated and misunderstood.  Time and time again I ask myself, "Am I a bad wife?"  By all means I'm not a very good wife or a very good person, but I don't think I'm worse than other wives- you know?  Room for improvement but I do try.  Yet he makes it sound like I’m the worst wife in the entire universe, his entire family is shamed because of me (he actually said that to me before).  He sometimes even tells me things which are blatantly untrue, like how his parents hate me (they don’t). 

I don’t know you but I hope you will believe me when I say you’re not that bad.  Ok, so you’re probably not the best wife ever, but I’m pretty sure you’re kind of in the middle. 

BUT, as other people have mentioned, when he gets to the point of verbal abuse, it’s not a time to talk.  It will only make his verbal diarrhea worse.  If you can, leave the situation.  If you can’t (like a lot of times I can’t without triggering the worst abandonment fears in him), then you can let him know you will not continue the discussion when he is calling you names.  Ok, it may escalate and he may shout even more, but when he knows you won’t give in (and let’s remember that deep inside they want to be able to talk, right?), he will have to change another way to express himself.  I have tried this and this does work.  I cannot say he never rages anymore, but his personal attacks have actually become milder and also sometimes he is able to just be angry without attacking me and calling me names at all. 

[wdone]

so sorry you go through this as well.

i dealt with this yesterday (again) and i had a moment of clarity. 

in the middle of him blaming me and yelling on the phone, i calmly asked him what happened at work that day.  he got quiet and said "nothing," and i asked him again and he got calm and said "the same thing that always happens, it doesnt matter,... . " and went on to talk about how he really felt... . like a loser, like he doesnt know how to do life, he'll never make it, he's no good at it, etc.

it was amazing.  i realized (again) that it is not about me... . there is always something going on underneath. 

you sound a lot like me.

when i asked him what i had done, he got flustered and could not answer... . i had not done anything wrong... . he was mad at himself and hating himself again.

i had also set a boundary earlier telling him it was not ok to hang up on me and not ok to blame me when all i had done is love him and ask him how he was doing. i meant it.  it seemed to help.

[Rockylove]

Validation is important, too but how do you validate when there seems to be nothing to validate? When my H was in such a hateful state, often the things he raged about didn't make any sense. And now, he isolates himself so much that he rarely expresses any feeling to me. So I'm asking this for Sadsue, myself and others: what do you do when you can't find anything to validate or anything to "praise"?

When my bf is raging and spewing nastiness at me, there is always an element of truth to what he is saying and I will validate just that.  When he's totally off the wall and raging about craziness, listening has helped (as long as there's no name calling, I'll listen).  Those times when I've calmly listened and acknowledged his feelings (wow, that must really be difficult for you; I can see why that is upsetting to you, etc.) he has broken down and revealed the true reason for his rage.  It's usually something that I've said that triggered some horribly uncomfortable feelings he's had from his past and each time I'm able to extract a bit more information that is helpful for me in understanding him.  He knows I won't tolerate being cussed at and if it starts I remind him of that if it starts (most often now he'll quit the cussing).  It isn't fun to hear him assault my integrity, but it's he himself that he's loathing at that moment not me.

It truly is an exercise in patience for me, but I'm aware that it is his illness that is causing the behavior.  It isn't fun to hear him assault my integrity, but it's he himself that he's loathing at that moment not me.

[Sadsue]

Hi thank you all so much for your replies and advice.  He actually didn't come home on Tuesday night, stayed in b & b, I don't think he is having an affair because I have no suspicions and also he was posting on Facebook all night and from our film account I can see he watched a film.

He was home last night but now getting the silent treatment, it's much better than the anger so I am just laying low and waiting for him to come round.  The silence is the better option so making the most of it.  Don't know how long he can keep this up, he's been dysregulating since Saturday!