I made a mistake

[bryanskipp1]

Hi,

So my problem begins about two weeks ago. I went to a party with my wife and I began drinking a little (I had promised her I would never get drunk). I was sober one minute and incredibly drunk the next the brought back memories of her childhood and she ran away for three days. I found out where she was going to be and went to talk to her after a long night she eventually came home with me. Now she is home she is always telling me she thinks I dont love her that she never wants to be happy again she loves "who I used to be". When she is calmer (has not been for a few days now) she will go on about how she wants to forgive but doesn't know how. My dad and Step mum have been helping us both through this , my step mum is on the phone to my wife almost every day they are telling me not to keep apologizing and when she goes off and wont talk to me just to let her go as me chasing her is not helping. Is this correct should i just let go and let her come around? Is me chasing after just making this all worse? I really don't know what to do here I love my wife dearly and she right now just cant see that!

[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.

[elemental]

Stop chasing her. It is feeding into her drama and she is ramping it up. Stop apologzing. You already apologized. You can't control what she does. Control you and get on with regular life. When she realizes you are not feeding into her emoraging, she will calm down and want to talk.

Don't make promises that allow her to use you as a crutch to avoid her own issues.

Maybe someone else will come along with some more advice, atm, that is the limit of what I can tell you.

[bryanskipp1]

we actually had a long talk today during one of her calm periods she actually has a good grip of her BPD a lot of the time and i took the opertunity to talk to her about regressing and progressing and how her BPD can really hang her up on an emotion i think we made some good progress today we shall see how it goes tomorrow *fingers crossed*

[waverider]

What you did is not the crime of the century, providing that you weren't abusive. The real issue is her BPD causing an over reaction. You have apologised for your bit. Dont take on the guilt because of the reaction BPD causes. That just validates to her that it is a big issue, adding fuel to it.

She needs to self soothe to come back to reality. Do not get immersed in the drama.

You will always do/say something at sooner or later that i sgoing to trigger a BPD over reaction. Dont guilt it.

You are not obliged to never have too much to drink, you simply choose to try not too, but it happens sometimes. There is no contract

[bryanskipp1]

thanks guys makes me feel better that more and more people are saying to not get guilted into to chasing her or feeding her emotions when i was drunk i said somethings about being pissed off with her because she wouldnt trust i wasnt abusive i maby said things i wouldnt have sober she isnt so much bothered by what i said more the fact i broke a promise and as for the long talk and thinking we have made some progress she is currently sitting 15 feet away refusing to talk to me how this works i just dont know she is fine one minute then just wants nothing to do with me the next i feel like an ass right now ignoring her but i know im doing the right thing i just want her to smile and be ok 

[SleepsOnSofa]

What you did is not the crime of the century, providing that you weren't abusive. The real issue is her BPD causing an over reaction. You have apologised for your bit. Dont take on the guilt because of the reaction BPD causes. That just validates to her that it is a big issue, adding fuel to it.

Wow, this is good advice. I can't tell you how often I've over-apologized for things that wouldn't have bothered a non-BPD at all, or apologized when any rational person would have recognized that no apology was owed. By offering too much apology, I can see how I've just validated my uBPDw's over-reaction, and made myself sullen and resentful for having been bullied or manipulated into an apology I didn't feel was appropriate.

The takeaway here is, whatever I've done that bothers her, I need to apologize for what I did (if I really did something), and be done with it. My apology needs to match the magnitude of the error, not the magnitude of her reaction to the error. Scaling my apology up in an attempt to match her outrage just makes things worse both of us in the long run.

Thanks, Waverider!

[bryanskipp1]

What you did is not the crime of the century, providing that you weren't abusive. The real issue is her BPD causing an over reaction. You have apologised for your bit. Dont take on the guilt because of the reaction BPD causes. That just validates to her that it is a big issue, adding fuel to it.

Wow, this is good advice. I can't tell you how often I've over-apologized for things that wouldn't have bothered a non-BPD at all, or apologized when any rational person would have recognized that no apology was owed. By offering too much apology, I can see how I've just validated my uBPDw's over-reaction, and made myself sullen and resentful for having been bullied or manipulated into an apology I didn't feel was appropriate.

The takeaway here is, whatever I've done that bothers her, I need to apologize for what I did (if I really did something), and be done with it. My apology needs to match the magnitude of the error, not the magnitude of her reaction to the error. Scaling my apology up in an attempt to match her outrage just makes things worse both of us in the long run.

Thanks, Waverider!

Yeah since comming onto this board i have noticed a change in her reaction if she gets all moody wont let me touch walks away from me I will let her I wont chase after her I will check her once every so often if I get no response I will once again walk away her and leave her be the other night I did this until she was away to leave I said (not begged) for her not to leave she was all mad and said " I don't like the way you are behaving you just don't care" I'm beginning to realize that all I was doing was feeding her emotions making a situation worse once she has calmed down I will hug her and tell her how much she means to me and everything will be OK. Yesterday was the first day where she didnt refuse to talk to me or not let me touch her as we was going to bed she said " I just want the nightmares to stop I just want to stop hating you" I'm learning to not react to what she says as if It's a personal attack on me the less I react the less she emotional she is becoming she didn't have any nightmares last so we shall see I will keep updating this post letting people know how this progresses

[elemental]

um, yeh. she hates you because you are not allowing her to control you. sucks to be her. leave her to it and don't validate it. that is, ignore the comment. And get on with life.

[Tayto]

one mistake one apology,

I get triggered at times by my family but I had to learn that its not a fact what they are saying is a trigger as I,m one out of eight and it only triggers me which suggests to me that its not a fact but my issue with being hyper sensitive.

talk about things that you can or not say around each other that may cause a row between you both. if  uou knew a certain topic would trigger her off will, maybe next time have her emotions in mind as you are her partner.

everybody has triggers be it BPD or non BPD people. I know every trigger in every person that would cause them to get upset and not talk to me for days. its not because they have BPD its because its a highly sensitive topic to them and they would trust me in not coming out with it as they would have no guard up against me.

I would sit down and go through things that trigger her the most and you can go through things that upset you when she gets triggered and becomes abusive.

[bryanskipp1]

I feel really bad as this was one of the worst things I could have done I didn't mean to but the fact is I did she says this is beyond a trigger 

[Tayto]

Mistakes are life's learning curves, no married couple sales through without mistakes.

its what you do after a mistake that counts.when im chatting to older couples and ask them if they had hard times, they always look back with a sense of pride on how they overcame the hard times together.

[bryanskipp1]

That's what I try to tell her when we talk about it. She thinks that we can never be the same again and I try and tell her there will be some issues sure but as long as we love it each other and I am sorry for what I did then we can be good again she is dealing with a lot right now one of her friends just doesn't understand her BPD and cut all ties with her (personally I think that's a good thing) but the hurt of that on top of this is making it worse

[Tayto]

Like a dance its in and out, nows the time for you to show her how much you care and what you will do to not make the same mistake again.next month it will be her saying sorry for something she has done. Welcome to being married !

[waverider]

That's what I try to tell her when we talk about it.

She will struggle to see things as objectively as you, you need to walk the steady line without expectations that you can convince her of what you are doing is right. State what you are doing clearly and why if you think it appropriate but dont try to convince her of your truth. Her truth will be related to what is happening at this moment without realistic long term (big picture) projections.

[bryanskipp1]

well we have not had any major issues for a couple of days now although last night she kept telling me not to say I loved her and I refused to follow that and kept telling her that I did by the time we went to sleep she was calm and happy when she left for work this morning she was feeling sad again and wouldn't give me a kiss goodbye then when I told her to remember what we talked about last night she smiled gave me a kiss and went to work. As  much as i shouldn't keep telling her im sorry there is nothing wrong with telling her and reassuring her I love her right?