Am I the only one who blows up on this board and yells back

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I mean,  I can't take some of his crap anymore.  So every once in a while I give it back and I can be pretty bad.   And sometimes I don't feel bad about it.  He went nuts over me visiting a sick baby in the hospital cause I didn't call and tell him what time and he came to my house and I was not there.  I am not married to this dude That was it.  About a zillion belittle text to me cause I didn't call him.   I told him I was going. 

I can't even see a sick w month old baby (my sisters grandchild) without him going apesh@t.  He is so mean and so awful and so nasty.   That I shoot it right back.   He has pushed every button, verbally ripped me apart and I did it back.  Of course he remembers what I do an nothing he does.   But dam#it it felt great.   I am tired of worrying about this guys wellfare all the time.   Threatenes suicide.  Shoot.   I came soo close, so close to telling him go ahead.   I did not but I was not nice, I mean really really mean.   I never hear anyone on here getting upset and ticked at these people.   Geez.  You all must be saints.  Cause I ams not.   

[drv3006]

I mean,  I can't take some of his crap anymore.  So every once in a while I give it back and I can be pretty bad.   And sometimes I don't feel bad about it.  He went nuts over me visiting a sick baby in the hospital cause I didn't call and tell him what time and he came to my house and I was not there.  I am not married to this dude That was it.  About a zillion belittle text to me cause I didn't call him.   I told him I was going. 

I can't even see a sick w month old baby (my sisters grandchild) without him going apesh@t.  He is so mean and so awful and so nasty.   That I shoot it right back.   He has pushed every button, verbally ripped me apart and I did it back.  Of course he remembers what I do an nothing he does.   But dam#it it felt great.   I am tired of worrying about this guys wellfare all the time.   Threatenes suicide.  Shoot.   I came soo close, so close to telling him go ahead.   I did not but I was not nice, I mean really really mean.   I never hear anyone on here getting upset and ticked at these people.   Geez.  You all must be saints.  Cause I ams not.   

[usernamed]

I don't think you are, but remember that the people who are on this board are generally. people who have seen both the good and bad side of their partners and want to know if it's possible to help heal them and sustain a healthy relationship. People who just get angry at the behavior they experience generally aren't going to seek out a place like this because they won't try to sustain a relationship with a person if they regularly lose their temper based on their actions.

[drv3006]

Thanks. I am not saying i think we should all deal with this in anger. But geeez. I just couldn't take it anymore. He says he is gonna pass my number out  in sex anonymous groups.   I blew up. I guess i just didn't want to be the only one. Thanks for responding 

[usernamed]

I've gotten pretty angry before, but I typically don't project my anger out at other people (at least not directly emoting). Most of the times I've gotten really angry my pwBPD hasn't even been talking to me at the time, so it's not too surprising I don't react in anger. By the time we start talking again I've already calmed down and I just wonder what it was that happened that set her off.

[MissyM]

Of course I have totally lost it on my dBPDh, at times.  There are just some days that it has been too much.  I try not to but at times of extreme emotion for me, particularly when I am sick, then I can't take anymore of his baloney.  I think recognizing that you were just pushed too far, is o.k.  Well all make mistakes, just try to develop better coping skills so that you don't react that way next time.

[MammaMia]

Hi Dry

We all get where you are coming from.  PwBPD can be extremely hard to live with.

I am not sure how much you know about BPD.  It is a brain disorder affecting the areas that control emotion. Emotional dysregulation is a primary symptom.  PwBPD lack the ability to control their behavior the way normal people do, they are easily triggered, and are terrible at relationships due to self-esteem issues and fear of abandonment.  This is a VERY complex mental illness.

Have you checked out the educational materials here?  There are good suggestions on how to reduce or avoid those volatile moments with special ways to communicate and establish boundaries, to name just two.  

Most of us have found that becoming angry and hurtful towards pwBPD can make matters worse. Once you get defensive and engage them in a war of words, things can go bad very quickly.  This takes training.  We vent here, and it helps to share our thoughts with others who understand.  

It takes deep commitment and a clear understanding of the illness to stay in a BPD relationship.  And it is hard work... . lots of hard work on our part.

[maxsterling]

Good topic.  I'm more of the type who naturally will just walk away from something rather than yell back. I hate yelling.  I can honestly say I've never said anything to her in return just to cut her down and make her feel bad.  I'm just not that type of person.  I've never really been in a fight, either verbal or physical.  And nobody has ever really ever wanted to fight with me - until now.  And what scares me is that the more this goes on, the more I worry that some day I will have had enough, and just snap.  I can almost sense it.  Sometimes I fear that some day I will have to defend myself against this woman.  The stuff she has said to me really hurts, and just waling away doesn't take away the hurt. 

I was having a conversation with my brother a few months ago.  He's more like me, rather quiet, and sensitive.  And he started describing issues he was having with his wife.  My jaw dropped.  I started sharing stuff I was going through.  And he told me that at times he just snapped with his wife, and things got really ugly.  I could not even imagine that out of my brother.  He warned me that is what happens after years of dealing with this.  A few weeks after that conversation, his wife attempted suicide, and was hospitalized and diagnosed BPD.   Yes, I have a dBPD SIL, dBPDgf, a brother in law who seems to be classic NPD, and the more my dad shared about his early years of marriage, it seems my mom has some BPD traits, too.  My dad and my brother and I are all mostly quiet, sensitive peaceful men, who are with women who like to rage to level 10.

[IsItHerOrIsItMe]

I've screamed myself hoarse before finding this board.  I have to admit I've screamed myself semi-hoarse since :'(.  I don't think I'll ever believe I'll make it to the end of our lives without getting angry at the same ol' crap, but it does get easier when you understand where it's coming from.

[drv3006]

Thanks everyone.  And I have read up on this and I go to counseling even before him.  I really didn't introduce myself a year ago on the correct thread.  I am in recovery myself.  Just celebrated 6 years of sobriety.  And I know that I have issues.   See, I was very submissive when I drank and I got hit and verbally abused all the time.  For six years I have been doing great and I meet this guy and he's okay at first.  And I am thinking gee,  give him a chance, people gave me a chance.   

So JADE is in my head all the time along with the serenity prayer.  But he pushes and pushes.  He attacks everything.  And is constanly asking me why I do what I do (which I don't think is wrong) But  Its like if I don't answer have an answer or he don't like the answer it gets  worse.  And the texting and phone calls don't stop.   And not responding to him is awful  And I know, I know doing anything back makes it worse.  How can you not do anything. he tells me to go back to drinking all the time.    He is harmeful to me and my health.  I have battled myself on which thread to be on here.   Leave stay.  But he will never go away.   


And I know for a fact that every lousy thing I said to him yesterday will stay in his mind and come up again.   He scares me sometimes.   he talks suicidal, homicidal.  And I don't type elegantly on here.   I am not an intellectual and he is.  So I don't expres myself well.   

I just don't want to be a doormat anymore.  I am easy to fall into submissive or aggressive behavior.  I have worked six years on that and feel it was all for nothing cause he can come up with some intellecutal (well sorta) reason that I am the mess.  And he's sick and i have not compassion.  Well thats what he says.   I don't know.  I just feel like I felt when I first went into recovery.   I don't fit

[Clearmind]

Drv, I think the best of us crack.

Being undecided about our relationship really sucks. It can cause us to be in limbo land which is not a great place to be.

What's next for you and this relationship? Sounds like you are hitting a low

[raytamtay3]

Hi. I'm typically on the Parenting a Son or Daughter with BPD forum, but I saw your post and wanted to comment. I believe my exh has BPD. Or at least some traits of it. When we were married he was very emotionally and verbally abusive to me. And being as I'm very passive, in the beginning, I use to take it and take it. Then I got to the point where I was tired of being his whipping post and would give it right back to him too.  But really that was just an appetite for destruction. I'm now remarried and my DH and I have NEVER called one another names. With the exception of this past weekend... . I wasn messing around with my DH and said something I shouldn't have said, and he called me an a-hole! I felt like I was hit by a MACK truck and seeing as how I was in such an abusive marriage for over 20 years, it has become a trigger of mine. But instead of retailiating, I went into my room and balled my eyes out. And he caught me. I told him that I never want to be in a relationship like I had with my ex ever again and once that line is crossed (name calling) it can so easily become the point of no return. He agreed and appologized.

I guess what I'm trying to say it the old adage of two wrongs don't make a right and it will become a viscious cycle. To this day I cannot understand how people who are suppose to love each other can resort to name calling.

Sorry for the vent.  

[drv3006]

Drv, I think the best of us crack.

Being undecided about our relationship really sucks. It can cause us to be in limbo land which is not a great place to be.

What's next for you and this relationship? Sounds like you are hitting a low

Clearmind.  I fell like I have hit a low a million times.   I thought it was over plenty of times.    Then when his mom was dying and he contacted me I went back.   I supported all the way and that wasn't good enough, court, anything.   The only way I can see getting thru this is leaving all together.  But then its the suicide threats.  And I hate that.   its awful.  I've posted on here before that sometimes I like knowing where he is than not.  That's comforting to me.   Fighting seems to make him happy and having the "isms" of alcoholism I can be pretty good at it.   Its just I am trying not to.  I don't know.  I can't wrap my head around how he wants from me exactly what he can't provide.  And he is so da#n smart.   I can't communicate  without him analyizing or intellecualizing it to death for hours, days and weeks.   Someone posted on here what the longest time therie partner was "normal".  Really, I wanted to say "never"   But I seem so negative a I dont' know. 

[HopefulDad]

Blew up for years at my BPDw.  Aside from it not working, it got to the point I didn't like what I had become and decided to change.

[rollercoaster24]

Hi dvr3006

I can really relate to what you wrote on your posts and I feel the exact same way. I cannot handle being around someone who is this unhealthy when I am trying to heal and become a better person myself.

After a break of 4 months, where BP had last assaulted me, threatened my life and damaged my property, then gave me the silent treatment for those 4 months, (after dumping me once again) I was just beginning to start to move on when he decided to drop back into my life.

I was shocked to hear his voice on the phone, and not keen on talking with him. But agreed (in the end) to meet with him and have a catch up as friends.

As it turned out, he had already been to my home in my absence, with some used clothes he had supposedly found in Roadside Recycling. He said after that he knew I would appreciate them, and decided to drop them at my door.

At any rate, as I came to realise over the next week or so, it was merely more of his manipulation, (although I didn't realise it at that time since he seemed so different). There was the admittance that he needed help, and was incredibly sorry for what he had done to me in June last year, (not to mention the rest here) I listened to his stories of what he had been doing the 4 months he had been away from me, and it sounded like he had made some progress in himself. I heard he had been seeking employment, and even driving around all over the state, trying to secure some, sounded like he even had a good chance or sure fire opportunity.

After 4 years of seeing no job applications at all, it all seemed very positive. So in the end, after a few days, I felt perhaps it might work this time, especially if he was employed, and not harassing me all the time. Perhaps he would be happier in himself if he had money and employment.

So very slowly, I agreed to begin seeing each other again.

But within days, he started to show his usual self, and this was an ongoing event from the end of November last year, when he first showed up out of the blue until yesterday, when he blew up at me again, because my phone reminder buzzer went off.

Just the morning before, after helping me a little at my work in the morning, he launched into yet another provocation, and when I refused to participate and hid in my office, he marched around unsuccessfully trying to engage me again. When he failed to find me, he tried to open my office door, and yelled the most disgusting obscenities about me in public. Then he kept following me around trying to provoke another argument, and I kept refusing to engage him, reminding him of what I had said a million times about his behaviour at my work place, (which he ignores by the way).

In the end, he still wouldn't leave, and kept desperately trying to engage me in the relationship, so I just gave up and just went home, where he followed me to again. I didn't want a scene, so he came in, and tried to smooth over his performance. I merely said that he needed to move on himself, and stop sabotaging our relationship chances every day just because something upsets him once again.

At one point, he had a good try at kicking in the side of my van, after I refused to sit there and soak up all his crap. I just told him that I was going home, and didn't want to listen to the way he was talking again. With that, his abuse ramped up and he flew into a rage screaming obscenities and kicking my van.

I am tired of trying to do the right thing, and tired of being manipulated and being around his aggression, verbally abusive style of communications, his hypocrisy, his lying, double standards, and all the other forms of abuse.

I wonder here, how many on these boards have had to tolerate someone who is like this every few days? Not to mention homeless, unemployed 5 years, still homeless, and still blaming everyone else for the state of his life?

Mostly me!

I am also incredibly sad, because he can do all these wonderful things, and can be loving, kind, generous and helpful, in between these horror moments. It breaks my heart to have to tell him to leave this time for good, because he keeps pleading his heartbreaking story about having no one but me, and nowhere else to go.

Unfortunately, being with him is one heartbreaking moment after another, usually a few days apart. This pattern has never changed.

So dvr3006, sorry for my long drawn out response to your question, but no you certainly are not alone. And I wonder how many on here could be so judgemental if their situations/circumstances were exactly the same.

Whilst we all have much in common with our BP's antics, the patterns of trouble may differ very greatly between us, as would the financial/social/circumstantial effects.

Don't beat yourself up, although whilst telling you that, I am doing that to myself anyway!

[MissyM]

DRV - Have you thought of going to an Al-Anon meeting?  I go to Al-anon and it is amazing how much it helps with my codependency.  Just a thought, the meeting I attend is both AA and Al-anon.  It is interesting how many people need both, many say that several years into sobriety for alcohol that it was the codependency recovery that changed their lives.  My spouse is a recovering addict, although he is focusing on sex addiction at the moment.  I find really good info in Al-annon and there are a few people at my meeting with BPD addicts. 

[drv3006]

Rollercoaster - Yeah, I feel your pain

Missy - I have thought a lot about going to Alanon.  I do some conventions and stuff that we combine them so I will ask around since I have one coming up.   I need to work on that.

I appreciate everyone's response.  So far its been quiet and here is were the guilt comes in for me - I like it!

See I have one that says he is working on it.  Reads all these books but what he does is reads them to point everyone else's flaws.   He tries but he thinks he tries.  He has done DBT and stuff.  I don't know.  Its just too much and he can be scary to me sometimes.   That his trying doesn't matter to me anymore.  I never thought I'd feel that way.  I sponsor people for goodness sakes.   My motto is don't try but work on it.  The word try sets you up to fail.  Anyway,  I don't get tired of anyone really but him and then I know this sounds bad, but he's so needy, I don't have the energy for others.   

[MyGreatEscape]

Ah, yes... . as Clearmind stated... . the best of us crack. I am a prettily mellow person... . rational and logical (I am getting my degree in Psych) and can withstand a LOT. But with these people... . all the best advice in the world sometimes gets you NOWHERE... .

Recognizing the man I love had SERIOUS mental issues, I have tried everything... . the whole "I love you, don't ever question that I will be here to help you" thing, to negotiating getting him help, crying, pleading, walking away, not responding... . which only got me being called SPOCK. That, I think is hilarious because, though I do love me some Spock and agree I am logical... . I am definitely full of emotion... . quite a bit of an empath, to be precise.

SO... . sometimes, verrrrrry rarely, like yesterday, I SCREAMED back. It actually calmed him down. When he would ask me a question then talk over me when I tried answering... . I screamed over him until he shut the eff up.

We will ALL crack when we are worn down, sleep deprived and desperate for some flippin' PEACE. You are not less-than, or less mature, or anything other than human when you "snap" being pushed to the limits you are when dealing with a pwBPD.

Of course, I know that when I scream back it takes its toll and I feel bad... . because I am not that kind of person... . but damn, sometimes ya gotta just let loose on these people, seriously. With all their wild tantrums... . if we don't just leave and never look back... . sorry, but they need a taste of their own medicine once in a while, so to speak... .

[MyGreatEscape]

Ah, yes... . as Clearmind stated... . the best of us crack. I am a pretty mellow person... . rational and logical (I am getting my degree in Psych) and can withstand a LOT. But with these people... . all the best advice in the world sometimes gets you NOWHERE... .

Recognizing the man I love had SERIOUS mental issues, I have tried everything... . the whole "I love you, don't ever question that I will be here to help you" thing, to negotiating getting him help, crying, pleading, walking away, not responding... . which only got me being called SPOCK. That, I think is hilarious because, though I do love me some Spock and agree I am logical... . I am definitely full of emotion... . quite a bit of an empath, to be precise.

SO... . sometimes, verrrrrry rarely, like yesterday, I SCREAMED back. It actually calmed him down. When he would ask me a question then talk over me when I tried answering... . I screamed over him until he shut the eff up.

We will ALL crack when we are worn down, sleep deprived and desperate for some flippin' PEACE. You are not less-than, or less mature, or anything other than human when you "snap" being pushed to the limits you are when dealing with a pwBPD.

Of course, I know that when I scream back it takes its toll and I feel bad... . because I am not that kind of person... . but damn, sometimes ya gotta just let loose on these people, seriously. With all their wild tantrums... . if we don't just leave and never look back... . sorry, but they need a taste of their own medicine once in a while, so to speak... .