I am still puzzled as to why I am always the bad guy...

[Mr. Solo]

My dBPDw (separated) has several friends who only use her as they need her. She will bend over backwards to keep them happy. It has been this way ever since she "flipped" four years ago. It doesn't matter how ridiculous their demands are. If they want it, she gives it. But, me, the person who has put up with so much crap from her, stayed with her, tried to help her, continues to try and help her, supports her, loves her, etc., is eseentially the lowest of her priorities. Her friends can lie, steal, treat her like crap, use her, abuse her, etc., but they can do no wrong. It is so freaking confusing. And as I said in another thread, I can be god one day and the devil the next and I don't even have to do or say anything for that to happen. She is quick to forgive her friends but holds on to every little thing I ever did or said, whether real or imagined. It seems like she would realize I am the one person who actually freaking loves her. Why be this way to the one person who loves you? She is nicer to strangers sometimes than she is to me. Is it because she has responsibilities with me? Heck, she even uses good things in the past against me. A long love letter I wrote to her right before we were married was her pride and joy for fourteen years but as soon as she "flipped," it was just a tool I used to manipulate her. I am just totally puzzled by so much. I just want to shake her and scream, "WAKE UP! It's me! I'm still here! WAKE UP BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!"

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[waverider]

You are a constant, so she can paint you whichever way she feels like and you are still there. A safe outlet for her emotions if you like, without the threat of abandonment, that is in her control. So she can flip at will safely.

With outsiders the fear of abandonment stops her from dumping on them, as they dont need her and will leave as a result. This usually persist until one day she flips and they become the bad guys and everything she once held as good about them becomes bad.

[Mr. Solo]

You are a constant, so she can paint you whichever way she feels like and you are still there. A safe outlet for her emotions if you like, without the threat of abandonment, that is in her control. So she can flip at will safely.

With outsiders the fear of abandonment stops her from dumping on them, as they dont need her and will leave as a result. This usually persist until one day she flips and they become the bad guys and everything she once held as good about them becomes bad.

Thank you for the reply. I wouldn't mind the flipping so much, to be honest, but the difference between now and our first 14 years together is, she used to apologize fairly quickly and we would make up. We never really went to bed mad at each other. Now it is like she cannot apologize for something big unless there is a long time period (several months?). By then, she has let it cause some sort of friction between us for however long she waited. And now she will not accept my apologies as easily either.

She has always cycled through friends. She has 4-5 friends that she will be best friends with for a few months and then she will move on to the next and then the next. It isn't that they get in a fight or anything. She just seems to get bored with them. She also does that with jobs/ interests. She will be a photographer a few months and then a hair bow and dress maker and then running a food cart downtown then making cloth diapers. It is AMAZING because when she is focused on those things she is good at it. She is very good at what she sets her mind to do. She really was an overall INCREDIBLE wife and mother the first fourteen years. Then something happened and she hasn't been the same, nor close to the same, since.

[waverider]

It is an obsessive search to find that something, or someone, to fill the void in them, hence they go overboard. The void however is never fulfilled so they go looking elsewhere. they dont learn by past mistakes and so cant see the futility in it, and so naively believe the next big thing/person will be the answer. Their conviction often even fools us, as we want them to find their place in the world which we think will provide the stability that is missing.

Apologies dont mean as much to a pwBPD as they will say them to get out of immediate trouble, for effect, or even if meant in any depth it is how they feel in that moment, not the last moment nor the next. ie it is not a long thought out committed considered thought.

As this is the way they think they will treat your apologies with the same weight, as they simply dont experience the same depth of regret that you do, so they cant see it the same. So hence you have to keep reassuring and repeating. The message doesn't seem to stick long. You are sorry today, you love them today, doesn't mean you will tomorrow, so you have to repeat again or the message has gone.