Why does his family upset me more than he does...

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

I've been in an on/off relationship with a man who I suspect is borderline for a year and a half. He also used to have problems with psychosis, but fortunately he was put on antipsychotic medication, and after that things improved quite a lot - his psychosis essentially disappeared and his emotional stability improved a bit. I noticed though that he still goes into frightening rages over nothing at least every couple of weeks (sometimes in front of other people or while I'm driving), he's clingy when it suits him but detached when it doesn't, he has a way of subtly sarcastically putting me down, he's often inconsiderate, and I have often told him that a big source of frustration for me is that he can be unreliable.

A few days ago I was supposed to go see him, but just as I was about to leave, he went out, and he gave me a specific time when he'd be home. It was repeatedly stressed to him that I didn't want to be stranded outside his house and wanted him to be there when i got there, especially since a friend had already stood me up that day and I was upset about it. He repeatedly said he would be there and at the very least he would have his phone on him. When I got there, it took him 10-15 minutes to answer his phone, and he was 40 minutes late, leaving me sitting in my car waiting for him. I got really angry and blew up at him, since we had talked numerous times about how important it was to me that he be reliable. He yelled at me that he has more important things to worry about than me, that I only think about myself, and that the fact that I had to wait a bit was not a big deal. He told me to go home, but let me inside his house to retrieve a jacket that I had left there. Inside, he started screaming at me to get out, and I told him to stop and calm down. So, he started physically dragging me out of the house across the floor, while screaming abuse at me. I hurt my wrist in the process. His family witnessed this and stopped him, but then told me to go home and not come back.

After this it was clear that it was over, but I was surprised how little it hurt. I was sad, but not majorly devastated, I felt a bit like "Meh, he wasn't good for me anyway".

What has upset me is his family's reaction. I was reasonably fine, until I got a really rude message from his brother saying that I am the one that makes the guy get angry, that I need to stay away from him, that I'm not welcome back in their home etc, that the mother, stepdad and brother all agree they don't want me there, and I was told not to bother replying. For some reason, ever since I read that I've been devastated.

My ex is mentally ill, but what is his family's excuse? How can they watch him drag a woman across the floor and scream every horrible name under the sun at her, all because she told him off for being repeatedly unreliable? How can they side with him and not with the girl in a situation like this? I understand that they are his family, but really. I wouldn't take my father or brother's side if I saw him doing that to a girl, and then blame the girl and be rude to her... . For some reason the ex's behaviour doesn't devastate me that much, but I'm so appalled that his family can be so insensitive, and I feel that they are actually harming him in supporting this behaviour. I don't know why I'm having this reaction... . Is it not clear that he did the wrong thing and I didn't, or am I just crazy? I can't figure out why they all think it was my fault... .

[Violista]

I've been in an on/off relationship with a man who I suspect is borderline for a year and a half. He also used to have problems with psychosis, but fortunately he was put on antipsychotic medication, and after that things improved quite a lot - his psychosis essentially disappeared and his emotional stability improved a bit. I noticed though that he still goes into frightening rages over nothing at least every couple of weeks (sometimes in front of other people or while I'm driving), he's clingy when it suits him but detached when it doesn't, he has a way of subtly sarcastically putting me down, he's often inconsiderate, and I have often told him that a big source of frustration for me is that he can be unreliable.

A few days ago I was supposed to go see him, but just as I was about to leave, he went out, and he gave me a specific time when he'd be home. It was repeatedly stressed to him that I didn't want to be stranded outside his house and wanted him to be there when i got there, especially since a friend had already stood me up that day and I was upset about it. He repeatedly said he would be there and at the very least he would have his phone on him. When I got there, it took him 10-15 minutes to answer his phone, and he was 40 minutes late, leaving me sitting in my car waiting for him. I got really angry and blew up at him, since we had talked numerous times about how important it was to me that he be reliable. He yelled at me that he has more important things to worry about than me, that I only think about myself, and that the fact that I had to wait a bit was not a big deal. He told me to go home, but let me inside his house to retrieve a jacket that I had left there. Inside, he started screaming at me to get out, and I told him to stop and calm down. So, he started physically dragging me out of the house across the floor, while screaming abuse at me. I hurt my wrist in the process. His family witnessed this and stopped him, but then told me to go home and not come back.

After this it was clear that it was over, but I was surprised how little it hurt. I was sad, but not majorly devastated, I felt a bit like "Meh, he wasn't good for me anyway".

What has upset me is his family's reaction. I was reasonably fine, until I got a really rude message from his brother saying that I am the one that makes the guy get angry, that I need to stay away from him, that I'm not welcome back in their home etc, that the mother, stepdad and brother all agree they don't want me there, and I was told not to bother replying. For some reason, ever since I read that I've been devastated.

My ex is mentally ill, but what is his family's excuse? How can they watch him drag a woman across the floor and scream every horrible name under the sun at her, all because she told him off for being repeatedly unreliable? How can they side with him and not with the girl in a situation like this? I understand that they are his family, but really. I wouldn't take my father or brother's side if I saw him doing that to a girl, and then blame the girl and be rude to her... . For some reason the ex's behaviour doesn't devastate me that much, but I'm so appalled that his family can be so insensitive, and I feel that they are actually harming him in supporting this behaviour. I don't know why I'm having this reaction... . Is it not clear that he did the wrong thing and I didn't, or am I just crazy? I can't figure out why they all think it was my fault... .

[AwakenedOne]

I can't figure out why they all think it was my fault... .

My uBPDstbxw's family is just like this. I very much know how it feels. Its like what the heck? ... . are they not seeing what I am? My answer to you is they probably have mental issues also. My ex's family blamed me for everything even though they witnessed much. I was so nice to them also. They know what my ex did to me for years. They supported her behavior.They justified it as I deserved whatever because I made her mad.Warped thinking... . don't let it bother you. Good you got out of the relationship also before he hurts you again. My ex's family should be grateful to me. Na, after smeared they think I'm the devil. Hang in there.

AO

[letmeout]

My ex's family did the same. They know he is mentally ill, but they said that blood is thicker than water and they have to rally around him and take his side. They also know that if they do not do this, he will turn on them like a mad dog and make their lives a living hell. You can't blame them for protecting themselves.

[Violista]

He had a lot of crazy fights with his last ex too, and his family, or at least his mother, blames the ex for that too.

I understand that families care for each other, and if a relative of mine did this I would try to help the relative... . but I would at least be apologetic and compassionate towards people my relative was treating terribly - not rude and blaming

THe mother has also pretty much had no reaction in the past when he physically kicked me out of a bed once because apparently I woke him up, and when he threw my car keys away into a field in the middle of the countryside, when we didn't have a spare, because he was mad that I was "whining" and "borrowing his phone too much" and he "was trying to prove a point". She also took his side once when he stood me up. He was on his way home and he was in a car with her. She said some rude things to me, and calmly stopped to go to a restaurant with him on their way home when she knew I'd been waiting outside his house for him for a long time. It was deeply hurtful because she was always very nice to me before that. In that instance too, her behaviour hurt me more than his.

[AwakenedOne]

He had a lot of crazy fights with his last ex too, and his family, or at least his mother, blames the ex for that too.

I understand that families care for each other, and if a relative of mine did this I would try to help the relative... . but I would at least be apologetic and compassionate towards people my relative was treating terribly - not rude and blaming

THe mother has also pretty much had no reaction in the past when he physically kicked me out of a bed once because apparently I woke him up, and when he threw my car keys away into a field in the middle of the countryside, when we didn't have a spare, because he was mad that I was "whining" and "borrowing his phone too much" and he "was trying to prove a point". She also took his side once when he stood me up. He was on his way home and he was in a car with her. She said some rude things to me, and calmly stopped to go to a restaurant with him on their way home when she knew I'd been waiting outside his house for him for a long time. It was deeply hurtful because she was always very nice to me before that. In that instance too, her behaviour hurt me more than his.

Violista,

Maybe they were scared he would turn his anger on them. So that's why they took his side over you. Sounds like you cared about his family a lot. I guess that's why its an extra loss to you. I cared about her family too also. It's sad / terrible in different ways.

Good luck on your new path. I hope you have peace and happiness now.

AO

[Violista]

Violista,

Maybe they were scared he would turn his anger on them. So that's why they took his side over you. Sounds like you cared about his family a lot. I guess that's why its an extra loss to you. I cared about her family too also. It's sad / terrible in different ways.

Good luck on your new path. I hope you have peace and happiness now.

AO

I don't know if I cared very much about them, but I definitely initially thought his mother was a really nice person and liked her. After I saw her reactions to his illness, I lost respect for her, but still respected his brother, who was never in denial about my ex's illness and sometimes seemed like the only rational person in that family. I felt like I had an ally in him because he  and his girlfriend seemed to be the only ones who agreed with me that the situation was dire, and they spoke to me about it a few times. Yet now he is the one who has sent me that nasty message.

[BorisAcusio]

He had a lot of crazy fights with his last ex too, and his family, or at least his mother, blames the ex for that too.

I understand that families care for each other, and if a relative of mine did this I would try to help the relative... . but I would at least be apologetic and compassionate towards people my relative was treating terribly - not rude and blaming

THe mother has also pretty much had no reaction in the past when he physically kicked me out of a bed once because apparently I woke him up, and when he threw my car keys away into a field in the middle of the countryside, when we didn't have a spare, because he was mad that I was "whining" and "borrowing his phone too much" and he "was trying to prove a point". She also took his side once when he stood me up. He was on his way home and he was in a car with her. She said some rude things to me, and calmly stopped to go to a restaurant with him on their way home when she knew I'd been waiting outside his house for him for a long time. It was deeply hurtful because she was always very nice to me before that. In that instance too, her behaviour hurt me more than his.

Violista,

Maybe they were scared he would turn his anger on them. So that's why they took his side over you. Sounds like you cared about his family a lot. I guess that's why its an extra loss to you. I cared about her family too also. It's sad / terrible in different ways.

Good luck on your new path. I hope you have peace and happiness now.

AO

I had to take her side at every single conflict, even if she was utterly wrong. If I just only tried to weight in or help her mentalize other people's perception she would have raged. So you shouldn't judge them for this.

[Mutt]

My ex is mentally ill, but what is his family's excuse? How can they watch him drag a woman across the floor and scream every horrible name under the sun at her, all because she told him off for being repeatedly unreliable? How can they side with him and not with the girl in a situation like this? I understand that they are his family, but really. I wouldn't take my father or brother's side if I saw him doing that to a girl, and then blame the girl and be rude to her... . For some reason the ex's behaviour doesn't devastate me that much, but I'm so appalled that his family can be so insensitive, and I feel that they are actually harming him in supporting this behaviour. I don't know why I'm having this reaction... . Is it not clear that he did the wrong thing and I didn't, or am I just crazy? I can't figure out why they all think it was my fault... .

You probably felt embarrassed, frustrated, anger, anguish over his actions, and unacceptable display in front of his family. They clearly lacked proper acknowledgment, and rallied to his side.

Water finds it's own level. He is mentally ill, his family enables his mental illness. He's not going to seek help for himself if loved ones look the other way or bury their heads in the sand.

You're not crazy, don't justify or defend your position to them. Walk away and hold your head high. Set a boundary. Consider getting the police involved the next time, carry a voice recorder for protection, distance yourself from his family, they will be witnesses for him. Are you concerned that he will escalate DV?

[Violista]

You probably felt embarrassed, frustrated, anger, anguish over his actions, and unacceptable display in front of his family. They clearly lacked proper acknowledgment, and rallied to his side.

Water finds it's own level. He is mentally ill, his family enables his mental illness. He's not going to seek help for himself if loved ones look the other way or bury their heads in the sand.

You're not crazy, don't justify or defend your position to them. Walk away and hold your head high. Set a boundary. Consider getting the police involved the next time, carry a voice recorder for protection, distance yourself from his family, they will be witnesses for him. Are you concerned that he will escalate DV?

Hm I don't know. I told him I might report to police the fact that he physically dragged me and hurt my wrist. He said "Bring it on, I have witnesses, I will report you as being criminally insane"

... . what?

Anyway I can't really involve police this time at least, I'm sure his family will tell the police some kind of version that supports him... . lie for him or something... . And he will probably say that he tried to remove me from the house because I wouldn't leave, since he told me to leave and I tried to calm him down instead of walking out. And the wrist hurt for a day and then stopped, so I don't really have proof of injury or anything.

[Mutt]

Hm I don't know. I told him I might report to police the fact that he physically dragged me and hurt my wrist. He said "Bring it on, I have witnesses, I will report you as being criminally insane"

... . what?

Emotional blackmail.

I have Voice Recorder Pro + app installed on my smartphone. I use it around ex for protection, in case it comes down to he said / she said. I'm not sure about the law in your State.

[hergestridge]

pwBPD are good at pitting people against eachother. My wife has made me think that her realtives are way worse people than they actually are, and made them belive a lot of crap about me. A lot of "bagage" can come up in a situation like this.

[Violista]

I think he HAS made me sound like some kind of horrible person to them. As I walked out I heard him talking to his family about me and just heard him say "Who does that?" like he was describing me doing something awfully wrong

They were also aware of messages that I'd sent him when they messaged me, so he must have talked about them or read them out loud.

He recently told me that his family "don't think I'm good enough for him"... . lord knows what he's been telling them.

They may be scared of him to some extent... . Some time ago, his brother and the brother's girlfriend came to me and said they wanted to tell me that he was really riddled with problems and that they think it would be better for me if I leave, but the girlfriend made me promise fifty times that I would not tell him they said anything because she said they didn't want him getting angry at them. Another time his brother started telling me how serious the problems were, but said he didn't want him to hear that we were talking about him.

At one point I told him that some of his family agreed with me that he had anger issues (his brother had mentioned it) but I refused to tell him which family member had said it. He got extremely angry and really offended and said that nobody in his family would insult him like that, and didn't want to speak to me for two days. So I guess they were right to be worried how he'd react.

His brother's last message to me had a very different tone though, it was very rude and cold and angry at me... . it was no longer trying to protect me, it was "you're bad for my brother and you make him angry so don't come back coz you aren't welcome in his home" etc.

[letmeout]

Violista, his family is obviously afraid of their mad-man relative; trying to keep him calm so they will all be safe is the priority there.

You are currently mad-man's trigger through no fault of your own, and when they tell you to get out, they are trying to protect themselves and you.

Take their word for it.

[dontknow2]

Violista,

I used to be SO ANGRY with my ex's family. After 20 years, I found with his family that it goes very deep as to why they supported/PROMOTED his behavior. In essence, it was a way to hide from their own faults. My ex was a visible extreme representation of what was going inside of them and their lives. As long as my ex was OK, they were basically just saying that they were OK.

This included my ex's mother not wanting to face her mistakes in how she raised him and treats him to this day. As long as she denied there was anything wrong with him, then she could feel OK about herself as a mother. In her case, it also went even deeper... . she did not want him to get better because then he might realize who she really was and LEAVE her. (She was left by her parents)

It's a horribly viscous cycle that I imagine takes an immense amount of strength and love (between a couple) to bust or if not, disengage from in a family deep rooted like this. I find it very sad because it was a major contributor to the break of my family.  :'(

[Violista]

He has now sent me a message and said that I don't love him because "love tolerates being late".

So apparently if I come to visit him, and just as I'm leaving to see him he says he's going out for 2 hours but repeatedly says will be home at 4:30 and will at least have his phone on him, then isn't home at 4:30, doesn't reply to phone calls for 10 minutes and doesn't turn up for 40 minutes, leaving me sitting in the car waiting, when he knows I'm upset because a friend stood me up a few hours earlier... . And he's done this sort of stuff a number of times. Apparently I don't love him if I have a problem with this.

[letmeout]

It is really sad that they can not think the same way that we think.

[hergestridge]

Ever heard this; "If my parents would really would have loved me, they would have... . "

Only the pwBPD knows what constitutes real love. Everyone else has got it wrong and has been incapable of giving it. It's not unusual that they even manage to convince a therapist or two to belive this twisted view they have.

[Violista]

OK so he just came over, yelled at me and stormed out. THen came back, then stormed out again.

I'm finding out that apparently the reason both he and his family now hate me so much is that when he was 40 minutes late, i lost my cool and told him i had been asked out on a date by someone else that day and I had said no, but that now i see that my time could have been better spent going on this date than sitting around waiting outside the ex's house for 40 minutes.

The ex and i were not officially dating when i said this, we were seeing each other again after a breakup and I had expressed numerous times that i was not ready to be in a relationship with him again. So i had every right to have other dates. Also, i was not actually saying that i was dating anyone else, i just said that someone had asked me out but that i had chosen to go see the ex instead.

But... . he still treated what i said as if i was cheating. He had a massive reaction to it and i can only imagine what he told his family. I'm sure he would have omitted to tell them that we werent actually together and made it sound like i was cheating. Soo i can only imagine what they think of me now.

[letmeout]

BPD's rant & rave and make up outrageous lies about people. It never ceased to amaze me about the crazy things my ex had told people about me before and after I divorced him.

He always demanded that people believe his lies; he even believed his own lies. Its  sick and sad. Nothing you can say or do will ever change that part of his disorder.

Don't let it bother you what his family thinks about you. You will learn that its not important what they think, and its not even important what he thinks.

[BorisAcusio]

BPD's rant & rave and make up outrageous lies about people. It never ceased to amaze me about the crazy things my ex had told people about me before and after I divorced him.

He always demanded that people believe his lies; he even believed his own lies. Its  sick and sad. Nothing you can say or do will ever change that part of his disorder.

Don't let it bother you what his family thinks about you. You will learn that its not important what they think, and its not even important what he thinks.

Or, any other part of the disorder... .

[letmeout]

Or, any other part of the disorder... .

OK, you have a point there. Mine continued to get worse as he aged, and after he turned 50 all hell broke loose. I had no ability to deal with that amount of crazy.

[Violista]

Or, any other part of the disorder... .

OK, you have a point there. Mine continued to get worse as he aged, and after he turned 50 all hell broke loose. I had no ability to deal with that amount of crazy.

Mine has actually improved, he used to also have weird tendencies towards paranoia and psychosis. He denied that he had a problem for ages, then finally went to the doctor, was put on antipsychotics and the whole problem just STOPPED. It was like magic, it was amazing and he became so much more manageable. Unfortunately, the mood swings, emotional instability and tendency towards irrational anger that make me think he has BPD have remained. Since the meds he no longer gets paranoid or thinks everyone is looking at him or says weird things, pretty much ever, and he used to do it often... . but he still rages over small things and blames me for everything... . so while he has improved, he hasn't improved enough for me to stay

[letmeout]

he used to also have weird tendencies towards paranoia and psychosis.

Wow, mine would have bouts of that too, which was the straw that broke the camels back for me. He refused to get on meds, I doubt it would have improved his BPD though and then I realized that I deserve to be treated so much better than he was able to treat me. We all deserve better than that!