"All you do is criticize"

[Cat Familiar]

This morning, when I came into the kitchen, I saw big metal tongs near the toaster and my husband eating a piece of toast.

As the daughter of an electrician, I was taken aback and I asked if he had used the tongs in the toaster. I have repeatedly warned him how unsafe it is to use a knife in the toaster to remove the toast.

He stormed out of the kitchen, saying the above phrase and that everything he does "is wrong."

I tried to repair things and use SET, but it was too late. So I sent the following email, titled Apology:

I’m sorry you felt judged. No one wants to be criticized. I was experiencing my own emotional reaction of fear for your safety; I wasn’t judging you. I love you with all my heart.

What concerns me is that the heating elements do not have protective insulation and they carry house current. The metal tongs will conduct. Since the power is switched on by pushing down the toast holder, there is potential that you could turn the power on while touching a live circuit and thereby get shocked. 

[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.

[maxsterling]

He's thinking in extremes.  If you criticize once that means he feels that is all you do.  I try to not criticize my wife - any hint that I am making judgments about the way she does things and her defenses go through the roof and her voice raises and she unleashes a torrent of criticisms of things I do wrong.  Sure, there are plenty of things that annoy me, but before I comment I have to ask myself if this is something worth commenting on.   For example despite my trying to teach her, she can't seem to load the dishwasher in such a way that the dishes come clean.  She takes the "however I can get it to fit" approach with dishes laying adjacent to each other and sideways so that the water cannot spray on them.  Frustrates the hell out of me.  But big deal?  No.  So some dishes have to be re-washed.  I've learned to let it go. 

But you are dealing with a serious safety issue.  Somehow you have to communicate that to him.  And sometimes there is no way to communicate things like that to him and he not feel criticized.  That's just the way it is. 

The real frustrating thing is that I am sure you feel like he criticizes and nitpicks you all the time.  And the minute you try to point out one safety issue, he flies off the handle.

[Cat Familiar]

He left to do some errands and his response was that I just don't know how I come across sometimes--that I'm so critical.

I felt like he still wasn't understanding my reaction, so I sent yet another email. Sometimes I think he's more receptive to reading something from me than to hear me talk about it.

Here's the second attempt at apology:

I’m really sorry how I come across sometimes. I don’t mean to criticize you. I love you and want you to be safe always.

Toasters are the number one most dangerous household appliance. Every year people die from sticking a metal object into a toaster.

If you look at it from my point of view, I was reacting emotionally to something that I think is extremely dangerous.

To you, who has done this countless times with no negative impact, my reaction undoubtedly seemed extreme. But for me, it felt like a punch to the stomach. I truly was frightened and really distressed that you would think this was merely criticism rather than a response to the person I love doing a life-threatening behavior.

Again I’m sorry for my reaction, but I love you and I don’t know how to suppress that sort of fear so that I could have communicated it better in the moment.

[Cat Familiar]

He's thinking in extremes.  If you criticize once that means he feels that is all you do.  I try to not criticize my wife - any hint that I am making judgments about the way she does things and her defenses go through the roof and her voice raises and she unleashes a torrent of criticisms of things I do wrong.  Sure, there are plenty of things that annoy me, but before I comment I have to ask myself if this is something worth commenting on.   For example despite my trying to teach her, she can't seem to load the dishwasher in such a way that the dishes come clean.  She takes the "however I can get it to fit" approach with dishes laying adjacent to each other and sideways so that the water cannot spray on them.  Frustrates the hell out of me.  But big deal?  No.  So some dishes have to be re-washed.  I've learned to let it go. 

But you are dealing with a serious safety issue.  Somehow you have to communicate that to him.  And sometimes there is no way to communicate things like that to him and he not feel criticized.  That's just the way it is. 

The real frustrating thing is that I am sure you feel like he criticizes and nitpicks you all the time.  And the minute you try to point out one safety issue, he flies off the handle.

Thanks, Max. It's funny but he's also dishwasher-impaired. I don't say anything, but I just try to rearrange stuff before the cycle runs.

I'm wondering if there's a correlation between BPD and lack of patience with the material world--or maybe it's obliviousness. In another thread, there was talk about breaking things. Wasn't your wife one of those people who consistently breaks stuff?

I'm lucky in that he doesn't typically criticize things I do. Perhaps that's because I'm more than a bit OCD, so I try to do everything to the best of my ability. However he does criticize my emotional expression. Either I'm too un-reactive about things he thinks I should be upset about or he doesn't like the look on my face because he thinks I'm being critical--very hard to do anything about that in the moment. Lots of times he accuses me of being upset or angry when I'm in my own private happy space. So weird to try to assure him I'm not. I've started using SET at those times, but he typically doesn't believe me. I keep reminding myself for pwBPD emotions = truth.

The irony is that he allows himself such freedom to express distress on a continual basis, but G-d forbid if I have any emotional expression that isn't perfectly happy and content!

[yeeter]

A quick question:

Why do you care if he fishes toast out of a toaster with metal tongs?  (I do understand that he might get shocked, but likely he understands that as well, yet still chooses to do it).

Same for the dishwasher.  My mother had a saying that she would never criticize anyone that wanted to clean in any way.  Your choice is willingfully do it all yourself, or let others do it in the way they choose.

Falls under the category of focusing on things you can control - YOU (cannot control the actions of others).

[Cat Familiar]

A quick question:

Why do you care if he fishes toast out of a toaster with metal tongs?  (I do understand that he might get shocked, but likely he understands that as well, yet still chooses to do it).

Well, after being trained as an emergency medical technician, I would not want to be put in the position of trying to save his life in the midst of him being electrocuted. I've thought about the strategy--I would have to take one of the wooden dining chairs and knock him away from the circuit in order that I too don't get electrocuted.

Also I would not like to come into the kitchen and find him cold, blue and dead on the floor.

[maxsterling]

A quick question:

Why do you care if he fishes toast out of a toaster with metal tongs?  (I do understand that he might get shocked, but likely he understands that as well, yet still chooses to do it).

Same for the dishwasher.  My mother had a saying that she would never criticize anyone that wanted to clean in any way.  Your choice is willingfully do it all yourself, or let others do it in the way they choose.

Falls under the category of focusing on things you can control - YOU (cannot control the actions of others).

That's where it goes for me.  Yeah, things are frustrating, but I try to focus on the things of her behavior that actually may impact me. If my wife electrocuted herself with a toaster, I would be of course, devastated.  But she knows it is dangerous - she is an adult and needs to make decisions for herself.  Maybe I would tell her once, but after that there really is no point in reminding her.  She tells me things that I do are dangerous, such as that I occasionally go on the roof to fix something - and I hate that.  I know that going on the roof is dangerous - I don't need her reminders.  My philosophy on cleaning is the same - I'd be happy if she would clean at all.  As long as she was not damaging anything, I wouldn't care how she cleaned.  I wish she would take the same attitude.  I am the only one that cleans, yet she criticizes my methods all the time.  

I think that is the key to these relationships. pwBPD tend to be chaotic and do unwise things.  We need to focus on ourselves and our boundaries, and avoid trying to control their chaotic behavior.  

[Cat Familiar]

Yeah, things are frustrating, but I try to focus on the things of her behavior that actually may impact me. If my wife electrocuted herself with a toaster, I would be of course, devastated.  But she knows it is dangerous - she is an adult and needs to make decisions for herself.  Maybe I would tell her once, but after that there really is no point in reminding her... .I think that is the key to these relationships. pwBPD tend to be chaotic and do unwise things.  We need to focus on ourselves and our boundaries, and avoid trying to control their chaotic behavior.  

Well, I agree with you in theory, but it really does impact me. I've seen him fish toast out of the toaster with a knife on several occasions, even though we have long wooden chopsticks in the drawer below the toaster.

If he were to get electrocuted in my presence, I would have to rush into action to save him, and thereby put myself at risk too.

It blows my mind how mind numbingly f*#ing stupid he is about common everyday matters and that he doesn't give a flying ___ about changing that. For most things, I can ignore it and repair it myself, but in this case, this is a big time boundary issue for me.

The irony is that he is an Ivy League graduate, graduated as the top student in a prep school with Rockefeller classmates, had a successful career as an attorney, but he's a f*@king moron about stuff for which high school dropouts have mastery.

Rant over. Thanks for listening.            

Oh and today I'm ordering wooden toaster tongs with a magnet that attach to the toaster.

[Cat Familiar]

Well I think my emails made a difference. He returned from his errands and began a conversation with me about an annoyance he was having getting account information in an email where he couldn't open the attachment without a password and none of the passwords he tried would work and they wouldn't send it without a password, but they couldn't look up the password for him.

So now the frustration and anger is directed elsewhere, so he could appreciate me being sympathetic.

Now he's left to go to a movie matinee--nice to get that negative energy out of the house for a few hours.

[Cat Familiar]

All day I've really been upset about this issue and I think it signifies something really deeply important for me: he just doesn't value his health and safety the way I do.

He mixes prescription drugs with alcohol and that really scares me. I'm going to alert his doctor when I see her this month for my yearly physical. I'm not sure how honest he is about his substance abuse with her.

Also I realize that it would be unlikely that he could kill himself by sticking metal tongs into the toaster. We do have ground fault circuit interrupters, but those do fail occasionally. On two occasions, GFCIs have saved my life when I received a shock from an unexpected event. Maybe that's part of my issue because I know exactly how it feels to get an electric shock and how vulnerable one is once that happens.

He conflated a look on my face to criticism. I'm sure it was invalidating, but I was having my own emotional reaction to his behavior. I can't always compose my face in a way so that he doesn't feel criticized. I did not say anything critical; I merely asked if he had used the tongs for toast. I'm sure it all came across terribly, but  it's almost like I'm not allowed to have any emotional responses and that I have to make sure that nothing I say could possibly be construed as criticism. And I think this realization is what has made me so depressed today.

[maxsterling]

All day I've really been upset about this issue and I think it signifies something really deeply important for me: he just doesn't value his health and safety the way I do.

He mixes prescription drugs with alcohol and that really scares me. I'm going to alert his doctor when I see her this month for my yearly physical. I'm not sure how honest he is about his substance abuse with her.

Also I realize that it would be unlikely that he could kill himself by sticking metal tongs into the toaster. We do have ground fault circuit interrupters, but those do fail occasionally. On two occasions, GFCIs have saved my life when I received a shock from an unexpected event. Maybe that's part of my issue because I know exactly how it feels to get an electric shock and how vulnerable one is once that happens.

He conflated a look on my face to criticism. I'm sure it was invalidating, but I was having my own emotional reaction to his behavior. I can't always compose my face in a way so that he doesn't feel criticized. I did not say anything critical; I merely asked if he had used the tongs for toast. I'm sure it all came across terribly, but  it's almost like I'm not allowed to have any emotional responses and that I have to make sure that nothing I say could possibly be construed as criticism. And I think this realization is what has made me so depressed today.

Wow - I can really relate to everything you just wrote.  I'll spend all day biting my tongue not trying to let my frustration out, yet the second I am not smiling, or say something innocent yet have a disagreeable facial expression, she is all over me.  And that is the truth about living with a pwBPD - your emotions are constantly invalidated!  I feel that much of the time she really doesn't care if she dies.  Right now she is not eating very healthy - binge eating.  She has some kind of GI problem, and thinks she has a heart problem, too.  She can complain all day about her weight, how crappy she feels, etc, then a minute later beg me to go out and get her an ice cream cone.  Should she eat ice cream, she will feel crappy and then blame me for it. 

I know how you feel.  You want to express some kind of caring emotion to him, and he rejects you.  And that leaves you feeling like there is no room for you in this r/s.  This feeling makes me depressed, too.  I'm slowly learning to let her stuff be her stuff, and seek my validation elsewhere through friends or family. 

[Cat Familiar]

Wow - I can really relate to everything you just wrote.  I'll spend all day biting my tongue not trying to let my frustration out, yet the second I am not smiling, or say something innocent yet have a disagreeable facial expression, she is all over me.  And that is the truth about living with a pwBPD - your emotions are constantly invalidated!  I feel that much of the time she really doesn't care if she dies.  Right now she is not eating very healthy - binge eating.  She has some kind of GI problem, and thinks she has a heart problem, too.  She can complain all day about her weight, how crappy she feels, etc, then a minute later beg me to go out and get her an ice cream cone.  Should she eat ice cream, she will feel crappy and then blame me for it. 

I know how you feel.  You want to express some kind of caring emotion to him, and he rejects you.  And that leaves you feeling like there is no room for you in this r/s.  This feeling makes me depressed, too.  I'm slowly learning to let her stuff be her stuff, and seek my validation elsewhere through friends or family. 

Thanks, Max, you've really made me feel better, and understood. Regarding expressing care and concern: it's like you're damned if you do and damned if you'd don't. You get her ice cream as she requests, then you get punished.

He just came home and it appears that all he got out of our morning interaction was that I was putting him down for not doing things "correctly." I tried to tell him how concerned I am for his well-being, but that fell on deaf ears. I'm just not up to it today. I feel like going to bed for the evening at 4:30 and waking up tomorrow.

[Grey Kitty]

This is an issue that is the opposite of the normal sort of nagging criticism... .I think.

Normally you want your partner to do something... .or stop doing something... .and you try to explain to them why it is a good, sensible idea, etc. ec. (Remember the "E" in JADE?)

The problem generally is NOT that your partner is stupid. Nor is it even that your partner is ignorant. If they are ignorant, then just giving them knowledge would solve the problem. And you've given the 'knowledge' dozens of times and they still don't do it. And they have been invalidated most of those dozens of times too.

In this case, Cat Familiar's husband probably didn't know that he could potentially kill himself with metal tongs in a toaster, or had at least forgotten. Perhaps he thought that since it wasn't a metal knife it was ok?

So saying something was completely appropriate, and did help.

And as you said in the beginning, S.E.T. would have helped. Hindsight says that you might have gotten a better response had you started there, and perhaps not needed the apology later.

[Cat Familiar]

This is an issue that is the opposite of the normal sort of nagging criticism... .I think.

Normally you want your partner to do something... .or stop doing something... .and you try to explain to them why it is a good, sensible idea, etc. ec. (Remember the "E" in JADE?)

The problem generally is NOT that your partner is stupid. Nor is it even that your partner is ignorant. If they are ignorant, then just giving them knowledge would solve the problem. And you've given the 'knowledge' dozens of times and they still don't do it. And they have been invalidated most of those dozens of times too.

In this case, Cat Familiar's husband probably didn't know that he could potentially kill himself with metal tongs in a toaster, or had at least forgotten. Perhaps he thought that since it wasn't a metal knife it was ok?

So saying something was completely appropriate, and did help.

And as you said in the beginning, S.E.T. would have helped. Hindsight says that you might have gotten a better response had you started there, and perhaps not needed the apology later.

Well, we just had a discussion that was kind of looney tunes from both sides. I told him that I felt he was disrespecting our relationship through being careless about his health and safety (after repeated toaster warnings, continuing to do something dangerous and through mixing alcohol and prescription drugs).

He was incensed that I had such "core beliefs" about him. He explained that sometimes people behave irrationally. I do know that, but I told him that if I engaged in potentially self-harming behavior, it would mean that I was disrespecting our relationship.

So he thinks I'm nuts because I have a lot of fear-based beliefs that drive me to worry about his safety and get really concerned. (And there were several times in the past that he had OD'ed on a mix of alcohol and drugs and I had to determine just how "non-responsive" he truly was and wonder if I should call 911 or just wait it out. I chose the latter, but now I regret not exposing him to the embarrassment of waking up in the Emergency Department.)

So he thinks that I will "never forgive him" and I tell him that there's nothing to forgive, but I've just been triggered by my fears for his safety. He interprets that as me thinking he's "completely irresponsible"--black and white thinking. I try to tell him, no, it just feeds into my fears. And around we go. At least we heard each other.

[MissyM]

The irony is that he is an Ivy League graduate, graduated as the top student in a prep school with Rockefeller classmates, had a successful career as an attorney, but he's a f*@king moron about stuff for which high school dropouts have mastery.

LOL, Mine too!  Ivy league educated attorney but can't work the microwave correctly, therefore he refuses to heat anything up himself.  I know my dBPDh feels inadequate and when he can't figure things out he feels so much shame that he overreacts.  All I have to do is ask a question of any kind and it is perceived as an accusation. 

As for the electric shock issue, it sounds like this is a big trigger for you because of your previous experience.  Maybe try sharing that with your pwBPD?  Simply that you were afraid because of your previous experience being shocked.  I would certainly not bring in all the other ways in which you have found your pwBPD to be careless in the same discussion.  The drugs and alcohol are a serious issue and I wouldn't combine it with the toaster conversation.

[Cat Familiar]

The irony is that he is an Ivy League graduate, graduated as the top student in a prep school with Rockefeller classmates, had a successful career as an attorney, but he's a f*@king moron about stuff for which high school dropouts have mastery.

LOL, Mine too!  Ivy league educated attorney but can't work the microwave correctly, therefore he refuses to heat anything up himself.  I know my dBPDh feels inadequate and when he can't figure things out he feels so much shame that he overreacts.  All I have to do is ask a question of any kind and it is perceived as an accusation. 

As for the electric shock issue, it sounds like this is a big trigger for you because of your previous experience.  Maybe try sharing that with your pwBPD?  Simply that you were afraid because of your previous experience being shocked.  I would certainly not bring in all the other ways in which you have found your pwBPD to be careless in the same discussion.  The drugs and alcohol are a serious issue and I wouldn't combine it with the toaster conversation.

The amount of shame he carries around is amazing. And if he just applied that brilliant mind to day to day matters, it wouldn't be an issue. Sometimes I think he thinks these little things are beneath him.

And yes, questions are perceived as accusations.

I did share my experiences of getting shocked (not in detail because of the look on his face said "she's going to lecture me again"--the shame gets in the way of politeness to me). I think that did make a tiny impact.

And your advice about not combining issues is spot on. Unfortunately I already did. I had to do a lot of repair work, but I think he understands that I've got a lot of fear issues that get triggered.

I tried to equate my "irrational" fears with his "irrational" acting out and I think I planted a seed.

He left to get some dinner out. I've been so upset, I haven't wanted to eat. Being away for a couple of hours will give him time to think about this--or so I hope.

[eyvindr]

Cat,

I think your first apology was great. Sweet, even.

This is so familiar to me --

I'm lucky in that he doesn't typically criticize things I do. Perhaps that's because I'm more than a bit OCD, so I try to do everything to the best of my ability. However he does criticize my emotional expression. Either I'm too un-reactive about things he thinks I should be upset about or he doesn't like the look on my face because he thinks I'm being critical--very hard to do anything about that in the moment. Lots of times he accuses me of being upset or angry when I'm in my own private happy space. So weird to try to assure him I'm not. I've started using SET at those times, but he typically doesn't believe me. I keep reminding myself for pwBPD emotions = truth.

The irony is that he allows himself such freedom to express distress on a continual basis, but G-d forbid if I have any emotional expression that isn't perfectly happy and content!

In fact, the only things my ex regularly criticized me for were emotional things -- my inability to behave, according to her, the way "normal" people behave in r-ships, and my failure to achieve the level of emotional empathy with her (tough to do for a normal person when their partner is dysregulated) that she wanted.

And it doesn't help that I suffer from a pretty serious case of BRFS!<sup>1

1</sup>B___y Resting Face Syndrome

[eyvindr]

Incidentally, if my ex were to read this --

Cat,

I think your first apology was great. Sweet, even.

-- she'd scold me for flirting with you. No lie. Something along the lines of, "There was no reason for you to tell that woman that her apology was sweet. You could have simply left it at great. Anyone can see how that would hurt my feelings. Why can't you understand how that would make me feel?"

~sigh~

[Cat Familiar]

Incidentally, if my ex were to read this --

Cat,

I think your first apology was great. Sweet, even.

-- she'd scold me for flirting with you. No lie. Something along the lines of, "There was no reason for you to tell that woman that her apology was sweet. You could have simply left it at great. Anyone can see how that would hurt my feelings. Why can't you understand how that would make me feel?"

~sigh~

Eyvindr, thank you for the sweet validation. It's so nice to be able to post here and be understood. My husband is so high functioning in public that few of my friends would believe how childlike and imbecilic he can be in private.

And this site is my little secret. If he only knew, he'd be really threatened.

[Cat Familiar]

This thread is very similar to the "You are so controlling thread." What is it about having rules and boundaries that makes them so uncomfortable?

[eyvindr]

Let me try to explain my understanding, for what it's worth -- to the best of my ability.

When you think of someone with BPD, you are thinking about someone whose emotional development was stunted, generally pretty early in life -- often as the result of some kind of childhood trauma, generally connected to abuse or neglect from caretakers. Research seems to show that there's also a physiological component -- their brains don't function the way typical brains function. So, you have that stuff going on.

When a child is traumatized, they aren't equipped to deal with it. They are still too young to have developed coping strategies, including self-soothing. Infants and young children cry when they are in pain, when they need something, when they are frightened, when they want something -- it is their call to be rescued. This call is usually answered by a caring parent or some other caretaker.

When the call for rescue is never answered, or is answered with abuse, these children will be traumatized. If they are traumatized often enough, they will develop some kind of coping mechanism -- it is part of their innate human will to survive. From what I can tell, children who are neglected or abused often use their imaginations to escape their crisis-ridden environment. If they do this long enough, that alternate reality becomes the norm for them. Once that happens, I think it’s tough to come back to “regular” reality – because that would require them to lower their defenses and let reality back in and, remember, their experience has been that reality is frightening, possibly painful or even  dangerous. Even for people with normally functioning brains, the prospect of choosing to endanger one’s self is intimidating. Evolution has wired us to avoid danger and preserve our life.

When you feel like you're running out of compassion, remember this: Everyone is doing exactly what they think they have to do to survive. Their approach may not make sense to you. It may be self-destructive. It may hurt others. It may not be right, but that is what they are doing. You don't have to stick around for it.

I had a strong awareness of my ex’s boundary issues. So much of it revolved around her weak notion of self. She told me a few times that she only loved two people in her life – me and her daughter. Everyone else, she said, felt like a coincidental connection. Including her parents and her sibling. She claimed that she didn’t have a single friend who she could honestly say that she loved. The first time she shared this with me, I felt so sorry for her. It’s got to be a heartbreakingly lonely way to go through life.

Lots has been written on these boards about how prevalent projection is for pwBPD – particularly their use of mirroring. I’m not a mental health professional – everything I write here comes from my own reading in an effort to better understand my ex’s behaviors, and my own personal experiences being in a relationship with someone who often displayed behaviors typical of a pwBPD. To my knowledge, my ex never received a formal Dx of BPD – if she did, she didn’t share it with me. I know she was wary of it, and she was a compulsive researcher herself. So, if a therapist (she’d been in and out of counseling for much of her life) had implied that she might have this, I’m certain that she obsessively researched it to learn all she could about it. She is a very intelligent woman. I loved what her brain did. When she was happy, she was easily the most pleasant, fun person I’ve ever had the opportunity to spend time with. She had a truly lovable, playful, delightful side. But any degree of separation between us – be it physical or time – triggered what felt very much like abandonment issues, and she made trying to be happy while apart from her well-nigh impossible. Like clinginess on steroids. And when in that frame of mind, she was incapable of accepting that the reason we weren’t together was simply a function of each of our lives – we’re both adults, working, single parents – not kids, but mature adults who already had established lives prior to meeting each other. To her, it could only be one thing – I chose not to be with her. And that regularly led to suspicion that I must be interested in other women – or why wouldn’t I choose to be with her? Any man would.

Part of this intense separation anxiety I think was connected to her inability to see herself as being separate from either me or her daughter. We were the only people she loved, according to her. Our r-ship was romantic and intimate – you hear the phrase “we’re connected” – I think to her, it was close to literal. She truly seemed incapable of functioning happily when we were apart. She needed continuous reassurance that I was thinking about her, wanting to be with her, planning our next meeting, texting her, calling her, emailing her – it was completely overwhelming. What I imagine engulfment must feel like to someone with BPD.

I think this also explained why she couldn’t effectively discipline her D8. There was no emotional separation from her daughter -- and she wanted it that way. Perhaps she was overcompensating, consciously or subconsciously, for the closeness that she never had with her own mother. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to discipline her (to the degree that any parent wants to discipline their child) – I really think that she actually felt her daughter’s discomfort in those moments as if it were her own. And, as an abandoned child, when she felt those familiar negative feelings, she immediately retreated – out of a deep fear that she would traumatize her daughter as she was traumatized. There wasn’t a single time that she disciplined her daughter that she didn’t almost immediately become anxious about, afraid that her stern instruction to put her pajamas on had caused some kind of permanent emotional damage. I’m honestly not exaggerating. It was touching and sad to see. (She told a story once about how once she’d picked her daughter up from pre-school after working all day. She’d had a stressful day and was tired and hungry and just wanted to go home. Her daughter wanted to stop and get ice cream, and my ex told her it just wasn’t a good night for it. Her daughter cried, but my ex skipped the ice cream. Now years later, whenever she’d tell this story she’d cry. She expressed huge guilt over it, and felt like it was truly a low point for her as a mother.)

The point there is that, because of her own unresolved childhood trauma, and the effects of BPD (if that’s indeed what she suffered from), and her inability to separate her identity from that of her daughter, her processing function clearly wasn’t working. There’s not a parent alive who doesn’t have regrets – I can talk about hundreds of things I wish I could go back and do differently when I raised my son. But I don’t think telling him he couldn’t have ice cream 10 years ago had any lasting negative effect on his psyche.

All to say, I think they struggle with boundaries and rules because they have none of their own. When they attach to you, they surrender their individuality. And I think much of the conflict we experience with them stems from their need for us to do the same. We don’t because it’s not possible, first of all, but also because we have normally functioning brains, and we know that it’s not healthy to “lose” ourselves completely. That’s my theory, anyway.

[Cat Familiar]

When you think of someone with BPD, you are thinking about someone whose emotional development was stunted, generally pretty early in life -- often as the result of some kind of childhood trauma, generally connected to abuse or neglect from caretakers. Research seems to show that there's also a physiological component -- their brains don't function the way typical brains function. So, you have that stuff going on.

When a child is traumatized, they aren't equipped to deal with it. They are still too young to have developed coping strategies, including self-soothing. Infants and young children cry when they are in pain, when they need something, when they are frightened, when they want something -- it is their call to be rescued. This call is usually answered by a caring parent or some other caretaker.

When the call for rescue is never answered, or is answered with abuse, these children will be traumatized. If they are traumatized often enough, they will develop some kind of coping mechanism -- it is part of their innate human will to survive. From what I can tell, children who are neglected or abused often use their imaginations to escape their crisis-ridden environment. If they do this long enough, that alternate reality becomes the norm for them. Once that happens, I think it’s tough to come back to “regular” reality – because that would require them to lower their defenses and let reality back in and, remember, their experience has been that reality is frightening, possibly painful or even  dangerous. Even for people with normally functioning brains, the prospect of choosing to endanger one’s self is intimidating. Evolution has wired us to avoid danger and preserve our life.

When you feel like you're running out of compassion, remember this: Everyone is doing exactly what they think they have to do to survive. Their approach may not make sense to you. It may be self-destructive. It may hurt others. It may not be right, but that is what they are doing. You don't have to stick around for it.

All to say, I think they struggle with boundaries and rules because they have none of their own. When they attach to you, they surrender their individuality. And I think much of the conflict we experience with them stems from their need for us to do the same. We don’t because it’s not possible, first of all, but also because we have normally functioning brains, and we know that it’s not healthy to “lose” ourselves completely. That’s my theory, anyway.

Very interesting--so any diverse opinion that we "nons" might have or some everyday complaint that wouldn't bother a normal person such as "please take your laundry out of the dryer so I can use it" --somehow that triggers a very deep wound and reminds them that we are separate, dangerous, wounding and unkind.  

[eyvindr]

Cat --

Not sure if the dryer incident would do it, really. Actually, I just read a post in a different thread -- I think it's a much better explanation than mine. See if that helps more.

Ev.

[Cat Familiar]

I guess what I was trying to say was that anything that diverges from him and his opinions is a potential trigger. So if I don't agree with his politics, it can get really uncomfortable.

It was funny watching Downton Abbey last night and he said that it seemed like propaganda to get people believing that there should rightly be two classes--the elite and the servant class and that our media is focused upon programming people to believe this.

He'd had a few drinks and so I just let this slide, rather than see the huge contradiction in his life. He is definitely in the elite class (I'm more of the servant class). And while he was pontificating, he went to his "camera closet"--literally a whole closet of expensive cameras--probably over $150 thousand dollars of camera stuff--and started playing with one of his cameras.

Recently he's talked about how difficult it is to keep his studio clean--the only part of the house that I don't clean. And that he wants to hire people to clean it for him. The guy is retired. All he does is watch movies and sports and play with cameras--and buy more camera stuff online.

The irony is painful.

[yeeter]

detachment is critical to self survival in these relationships.

The phrase that stuck out for me, posted by someone here was:

"I refuse to care about xyz more than you do"

This had to do with taking responsibility for their own behavior/outcomes.  In that case it was a child.  But the same applies to an adult.  If the other person doesnt care about their own well being, why do you care about it more than they do?  (again you cant 'make' someone care and cant control other people - all you can do is decide your own behavior knowing they dont care - again focus on self).

If your partner truly forgot they could get shocked, then fine remind them.  My bet is that he knows dang well he can get shocked, but chooses to do it anyway.  Either not believing it can be fatal (I have been shocked by 110 more than once), or being willing to take the risk.

Then at some point, other people trying to control is going to cause backlash.  That is, a person might choose to do something they wouldnt normally do, just to make the point that they are not going to let other people control them.  Sounds childish, but in a way is pretty healthy (because its healthy to be able to make your own decisions).

The detachment helps ease all this.  If you quit caring so much, it doesnt become as big a battle of wills and control.  Detaching with love is the key.

Boundaries are for you.  Not him.  Putting boundaries on someone else is just another form of threat/control.  A boundary is a statement of your own action (again the only thing within your control).  Then its up to the other party to decide how they choose to behave but knowing what your behavior will be.  Indeed, it does transmit a certain amount of power to the other individual (they may still not do what you like - then you have to act on your own boundary statements with your own actions).

[Cat Familiar]

detachment is critical to self survival in these relationships.

The phrase that stuck out for me, posted by someone here was:

"I refuse to care about xyz more than you do"

This had to do with taking responsibility for their own behavior/outcomes.  In that case it was a child.  But the same applies to an adult.  If the other person doesnt care about their own well being, why do you care about it more than they do?  (again you cant 'make' someone care and cant control other people - all you can do is decide your own behavior knowing they dont care - again focus on self).

If your partner truly forgot they could get shocked, then fine remind them.  My bet is that he knows dang well he can get shocked, but chooses to do it anyway.  Either not believing it can be fatal (I have been shocked by 110 more than once), or being willing to take the risk.

Then at some point, other people trying to control is going to cause backlash.  That is, a person might choose to do something they wouldnt normally do, just to make the point that they are not going to let other people control them.  Sounds childish, but in a way is pretty healthy (because its healthy to be able to make your own decisions).

The detachment helps ease all this.  If you quit caring so much, it doesnt become as big a battle of wills and control.  Detaching with love is the key.

Boundaries are for you.  Not him.  Putting boundaries on someone else is just another form of threat/control.  A boundary is a statement of your own action (again the only thing within your control).  Then its up to the other party to decide how they choose to behave but knowing what your behavior will be.  Indeed, it does transmit a certain amount of power to the other individual (they may still not do what you like - then you have to act on your own boundary statements with your own actions).

I solved the toaster issue by purchasing wooden tongs. They came in the mail the other day and the look on his face when I opened the package was interesting: a big frown. I think he thought I was treating him like a child.

On that particular issue, I felt I needed to intervene for two reasons: 1. if he were to get shocked in my presence, I would have to intervene, possibly putting myself at risk

2. I would feel remiss if I found him dead on the floor and I hadn't nagged him about not using metal utensils inside the toaster.

Now I know electrocution by toaster is unlikely, but people die every year doing this. So, being a bit OCD, I just want to eliminate possibilities of danger in the house.

Now I have totally backed off bugging him about his excess drinking, but I did mention to his doctor when I saw her for my yearly physical, that he probably had not been honest in describing his alcohol use. She prescribes pain pills, sleeping pills and muscle relaxants for him and was very appreciative of my candor.

I no longer say anything about his alcohol and drug use, but I felt a moral responsibility to let his doctor know that she might need to monitor his medications somewhat.

[yeeter]

I solved the toaster issue by purchasing wooden tongs. They came in the mail the other day and the look on his face when I opened the package was interesting: a big frown. I think he thought I was treating him like a child.

This does still sound like you trying to get another person to do something a particular way that YOU want, due to your motivations (concerns over how it would impact you should he electrocute himself).

I think these type of things are going to continue to be an issue for you, since as you will read over and over on this site you cannot control other peoples actions/behaviors.  Only your own.

[Cat Familiar]

This does still sound like you trying to get another person to do something a particular way that YOU want, due to your motivations (concerns over how it would impact you should he electrocute himself).

I think these type of things are going to continue to be an issue for you, since as you will read over and over on this site you cannot control other peoples actions/behaviors.  Only your own.

You're undoubtedly right. With most things I'm able to let it slide, although with things that are inherently dangerous, I give my OCD full rein.

But I no longer ask that dishes be put in the dishwasher in a way that they'll actually get cleaned. I just rearrange them myself later and appreciate that they're actually inside the dishwasher, instead of on the counter.

[maxsterling]

But I no longer ask that dishes be put in the dishwasher in a way that they'll actually get cleaned. I just rearrange them myself later and appreciate that they're actually inside the dishwasher, instead of on the counter.

Interesting that you mention this, because I have the same issue.  My wife cannot understand how to load the dishwasher in such a way that the dishes clean.  I've tried teaching her to leave spaces between dishes, shown her where the water sprays out, and mentioned that placing large objects near the door causes the soap to not come out.  And she keeps trying to pack as much in as possible, placing multiple plates in the same slot and placing large objects in the pathway of the sprayers so that other dishes don't get clean. 

I started doing as you do, re-arrange stuff. She took notice, and says I am making her feel incompetent when I do that.  So, I've tried to quit.  Let her load how she wants, and let her suffer the frustration when things don't get clean. 

I've got a reason for this.  When I was young and doing the dishes, my mom would look over my shoulder like that, and I would find it very annoying.  I remember waking up the next day to find her scratching at dishes with her fingernail, re-washing stuff, or just plain criticizing.  I hated it.  I hated doing the dishes because of it.  It took nearly two decades before I actually didn't dread doing the dishes on my own.  I can see where my wife is coming from on this.  If she is going to do the dishes, I have to let her do them her way, just like I would want her to let me do the dishes my way.

[eyvindr]

With all due respect, sometimes I think we make too much of this kind of stuff. Really, there are certain things where there's a fundamentally right way to accomplish them, and a bunch of incorrect ways. If you know the "right way" -- read here "most effective/practical/productive/efficacious/your-fave-ISO2015-word-here" -- it's perfectly natural to want to share that approach -- both because you want to improve the process, and because the person you're sharing it with may simply not understand how to do something.

My ex was pretty close to inept at doing most run-of-the-mill household tasks. Not because she was in any way incapable of it, but because she permitted her OCD and anxiety issues to dictate how she did almost everything. This took the form of devising her own unique approaches -- and corresponding "researched" justifications for these things, such as:

• She never used a toothbrush more than once time. Ever.



• She refused to drink tap water. And most often, took no more than 2-3 sips from a bottle of water -- after which point, she had to dispose of it, because it had been exposed to bacteria.



• She would not touch raw meat. As a result, her cooking repertoire was severely limited.



• She discarded all leftovers, no matter the quantity.



• Anything edible had to be refrigerated, regardless of whether it required refrigeration. And any refrigerated food item that was removed from the fridge had to be immediately returned to it, or discarded. Go forbid a stick of butter sit out on the table for the duration of a meal -- throw it away!



• She never took a single napkin -- always a handful, then used one or two, and threw the rest away.



• She used at least an entire roll of bathroom tissue every day, b/c she wouldn't touch faucet handles or doorknobs with her bare hands.



• She washed vegetables with soap and water.



• She would stuff the washing machine beyond capacity, rather than sort clothes into sensible, manageable loads, and she would pour 2-3 CUPS of detergent into each load.



• She continually used hand sanitizers -- relentlessly. To the extent that the labels on the control dials and knobs in her car had all been erased from constant exposure to the alcohol in the sanitizers.

I could go on. She would always accuse me of sweating the small stuff -- seemed to have no appreciation at all that, in the end, life is a cumulative collection of small stuff, and when every single facet has to be customized and overcompensated for, it's a drag. Not to mention all of the waste! -- paper products, water, food, money! Drove me up a wall.

[JohnLove]

Let me try to explain my understanding, for what it's worth -- to the best of my ability.

When you think of someone with BPD, you are thinking about someone whose emotional development was stunted, generally pretty early in life -- often as the result of some kind of childhood trauma, generally connected to abuse or neglect from caretakers. Research seems to show that there's also a physiological component -- their brains don't function the way typical brains function. So, you have that stuff going on.

When a child is traumatized, they aren't equipped to deal with it. They are still too young to have developed coping strategies, including self-soothing. Infants and young children cry when they are in pain, when they need something, when they are frightened, when they want something -- it is their call to be rescued. This call is usually answered by a caring parent or some other caretaker.

When the call for rescue is never answered, or is answered with abuse, these children will be traumatized. If they are traumatized often enough, they will develop some kind of coping mechanism -- it is part of their innate human will to survive. From what I can tell, children who are neglected or abused often use their imaginations to escape their crisis-ridden environment. If they do this long enough, that alternate reality becomes the norm for them. Once that happens, I think it’s tough to come back to “regular” reality – because that would require them to lower their defenses and let reality back in and, remember, their experience has been that reality is frightening, possibly painful or even  dangerous. Even for people with normally functioning brains, the prospect of choosing to endanger one’s self is intimidating. Evolution has wired us to avoid danger and preserve our life.

When you feel like you're running out of compassion, remember this: Everyone is doing exactly what they think they have to do to survive. Their approach may not make sense to you. It may be self-destructive. It may hurt others. It may not be right, but that is what they are doing. You don't have to stick around for it.

I had a strong awareness of my ex’s boundary issues. So much of it revolved around her weak notion of self. She told me a few times that she only loved two people in her life – me and her daughter. Everyone else, she said, felt like a coincidental connection. Including her parents and her sibling. She claimed that she didn’t have a single friend who she could honestly say that she loved. The first time she shared this with me, I felt so sorry for her. It’s got to be a heartbreakingly lonely way to go through life.

Lots has been written on these boards about how prevalent projection is for pwBPD – particularly their use of mirroring. I’m not a mental health professional – everything I write here comes from my own reading in an effort to better understand my ex’s behaviors, and my own personal experiences being in a relationship with someone who often displayed behaviors typical of a pwBPD. To my knowledge, my ex never received a formal Dx of BPD – if she did, she didn’t share it with me. I know she was wary of it, and she was a compulsive researcher herself. So, if a therapist (she’d been in and out of counseling for much of her life) had implied that she might have this, I’m certain that she obsessively researched it to learn all she could about it. She is a very intelligent woman. I loved what her brain did. When she was happy, she was easily the most pleasant, fun person I’ve ever had the opportunity to spend time with. She had a truly lovable, playful, delightful side. But any degree of separation between us – be it physical or time – triggered what felt very much like abandonment issues, and she made trying to be happy while apart from her well-nigh impossible. Like clinginess on steroids. And when in that frame of mind, she was incapable of accepting that the reason we weren’t together was simply a function of each of our lives – we’re both adults, working, single parents – not kids, but mature adults who already had established lives prior to meeting each other. To her, it could only be one thing – I chose not to be with her. And that regularly led to suspicion that I must be interested in other women – or why wouldn’t I choose to be with her? Any man would.

Part of this intense separation anxiety I think was connected to her inability to see herself as being separate from either me or her daughter. We were the only people she loved, according to her. Our r-ship was romantic and intimate – you hear the phrase “we’re connected” – I think to her, it was close to literal. She truly seemed incapable of functioning happily when we were apart. She needed continuous reassurance that I was thinking about her, wanting to be with her, planning our next meeting, texting her, calling her, emailing her – it was completely overwhelming. What I imagine engulfment must feel like to someone with BPD.

I think this also explained why she couldn’t effectively discipline her D8. There was no emotional separation from her daughter -- and she wanted it that way. Perhaps she was overcompensating, consciously or subconsciously, for the closeness that she never had with her own mother. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to discipline her (to the degree that any parent wants to discipline their child) – I really think that she actually felt her daughter’s discomfort in those moments as if it were her own. And, as an abandoned child, when she felt those familiar negative feelings, she immediately retreated – out of a deep fear that she would traumatize her daughter as she was traumatized. There wasn’t a single time that she disciplined her daughter that she didn’t almost immediately become anxious about, afraid that her stern instruction to put her pajamas on had caused some kind of permanent emotional damage. I’m honestly not exaggerating. It was touching and sad to see. (She told a story once about how once she’d picked her daughter up from pre-school after working all day. She’d had a stressful day and was tired and hungry and just wanted to go home. Her daughter wanted to stop and get ice cream, and my ex told her it just wasn’t a good night for it. Her daughter cried, but my ex skipped the ice cream. Now years later, whenever she’d tell this story she’d cry. She expressed huge guilt over it, and felt like it was truly a low point for her as a mother.)

The point there is that, because of her own unresolved childhood trauma, and the effects of BPD (if that’s indeed what she suffered from), and her inability to separate her identity from that of her daughter, her processing function clearly wasn’t working. There’s not a parent alive who doesn’t have regrets – I can talk about hundreds of things I wish I could go back and do differently when I raised my son. But I don’t think telling him he couldn’t have ice cream 10 years ago had any lasting negative effect on his psyche.

All to say, I think they struggle with boundaries and rules because they have none of their own. When they attach to you, they surrender their individuality. And I think much of the conflict we experience with them stems from their need for us to do the same. We don’t because it’s not possible, first of all, but also because we have normally functioning brains, and we know that it’s not healthy to “lose” ourselves completely. That’s my theory, anyway.

Thanks so much for posting this eyvindr. It has greatly helped my understanding of my own situation. 

[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.

[Lunira]

This thread is very similar to the "You are so controlling thread." What is it about having rules and boundaries that makes them so uncomfortable?

Normally, I wouldn't point this out, but... .

Maybe a grown man taking issue with being criticized for how he uses a toaster is his attempt at drawing a boundary on you?

Maybe you blowing the infinitesimally small chance that he would suffer any serious damage (let alone death) even if he did get a second or two's worth of jolt from house current completely and totally out of proportion is evidence of your own black and white thinking? 

Why do you feel that he has to allow his choices to be determined by your feelings, in order to validate your feelings?

[Cat Familiar]

Normally, I wouldn't point this out, but... .

Maybe a grown man taking issue with being criticized for how he uses a toaster is his attempt at drawing a boundary on you?

Maybe you blowing the infinitesimally small chance that he would suffer any serious damage (let alone death) even if he did get a second or two's worth of jolt from house current completely and totally out of proportion is evidence of your own black and white thinking?  

Why do you feel that he has to allow his choices to be determined by your feelings, in order to validate your feelings?

You are absolutely right. If I were in his shoes (with his way of thinking--and there's a bit of NPD along with the BPD), I would not want to be criticized for my toaster methods.

Yes, I'm "blowing the infinitesimally small chance" that he could get hurt out of proportion.

Why I feel the need to control him--there's two reasons that both involve protocol: 1. as the child of an electrician, I learned early that there are things you never do

2. having trained in emergency medicine, you don't needlessly allow yourself or others to put themselves in dangerous situations that are avoidable

The third reason is my OCD. I can let slide (though it still bugs me) the times he lets his wet laundry sit molding in the washing machine for a couple of days. But there are some things that are black and white for me--a line in the sand, no compromise, NFW. This is one of them.

We didn't have the proper tool--although chopsticks worked fine for me for years. Now we have wooden toaster tongs. Problem solved.

I put up with his personality disorder. I have a personality disorder too. I'm willing to look at mine and let go of most things. Not this one. He's got to deal with it.

[Grey Kitty]

Yes, I'm "blowing the infinitesimally small chance" that he could get hurt out of proportion.

Why I feel the need to control him--there's two reasons that both involve protocol: 1. as the child of an electrician, I learned early that there are things you never do

2. having trained in emergency medicine, you don't needlessly allow yourself or others to put themselves in dangerous situations that are avoidable

Cat, I'd suggest that you accept your motivations as good motivations. Because they are. Both are very valid, completely true, worthwhile, all good. Excellent REASONS for you to act.

Examine the next conclusion you jumped to from those REASONS

Your actions were as if you could change your H's behavior in this regard by nagging him, or treating him like a child. Surprise, Surprise, it didn't turn out very well!

Yes the reasons are important. They matter to you. That means that they are worth doing it the hard way, the right way.

That's the lesson for you--try not to get swept up in your fears and habits... .stop and think, and decide what you can do that will work better. When you found the toaster with the metal knife next to it, you had time to think about what you would say and what you would do.

I think buying the wooden tongs was a great solution. It would have worked better without the confrontation.

What communication tools would you use next time?

[Cat Familiar]

Cat, I'd suggest that you accept your motivations as good motivations. Because they are. Both are very valid, completely true, worthwhile, all good. Excellent REASONS for you to act.

Examine the next conclusion you jumped to from those REASONS

Your actions were as if you could change your H's behavior in this regard by nagging him, or treating him like a child. Surprise, Surprise, it didn't turn out very well!

Yes the reasons are important. They matter to you. That means that they are worth doing it the hard way, the right way.

That's the lesson for you--try not to get swept up in your fears and habits... .stop and think, and decide what you can do that will work better. When you found the toaster with the metal knife next to it, you had time to think about what you would say and what you would do.

I think buying the wooden tongs was a great solution. It would have worked better without the confrontation.

What communication tools would you use next time?

The difficult piece in the beginning of this interaction was this:

I saw the metal tongs sitting next to the toaster.

I probably blanched with fear as I asked, ":)id you use the tongs in the toaster?"

That was all I said at first and just the horror on my face, along with the question, caused the initial emotional explosion in him.

Where I went wrong was trying to justify and explain my response. (I'm learning that he's ultra sensitive to JADEing and I've gotten pretty good at catching myself doing that.) But with this incident, I was in the middle of an extreme fear reaction, so I certainly wasn't thinking clearly.

I guess next time I'm caught in such a powerful emotional response myself (which is exceedingly rare because I'm such a rational thinker, rather than a feeler), I'll just take a deep breath and try not to say anything until I can think through my reply.

[Grey Kitty]

I guess next time I'm caught in such a powerful emotional response myself (which is exceedingly rare because I'm such a rational thinker, rather than a feeler), I'll just take a deep breath and try not to say anything until I can think through my reply.

YES! There are times when nothing coming out of my mouth will do anything good. Knowing myself and knowing that if I want a good result, I need to wait until I'm ready to do my part to get it.

Also remember--if you see him by the toaster, with metal tongs in his hands, bread lost inside it, there is immediate urgency there, and speaking in that moment is a different situation.

When you saw the tongs on the counter, his breakfast was done--he wasn't likely to operate the toaster until tomorrow morning, so the need to say something immediate wasn't rational.

The immediate need to be dealt with at that time was your feeling of fear/anxiety. (And invalidating your husband proved not to be a productive way of coping with your feelings.)

Yes, I'm very aware that this is hard work to process, and 1000% harder to get right at the moment when you are gripped by that feeling! Be patient and gentle with yourself over it. 

[eyvindr]

I was visiting my mom (doesn't have BPD, btw -- just an example) recently. After dinner, she offered tea, and I noticed that she was boiling the water in a sauce pan, instead of using a tea kettle. I asked her where her kettle was, and she said she'd used it recently, but walked away from it and got caught up in doing something else. She has impaired hearing, so hadn't heard the whistle -- she caught the pot before it started to melt, but it was too damaged to keep using.

I plan to buy her a new electrical teapot -- they boil water faster, and if you do happen to forget that you have water on, they just turn off.

All to say, if I were you, I'd buy a new toaster with a design that eliminates the need to fish out the toast.

[Cat Familiar]

I was visiting my mom (doesn't have BPD, btw -- just an example) recently. After dinner, she offered tea, and I noticed that she was boiling the water in a sauce pan, instead of using a tea kettle. I asked her where her kettle was, and she said she'd used it recently, but walked away from it and got caught up in doing something else. She has impaired hearing, so hadn't heard the whistle -- she caught the pot before it started to melt, but it was too damaged to keep using.

I plan to buy her a new electrical teapot -- they boil water faster, and if you do happen to forget that you have water on, they just turn off.

All to say, if I were you, I'd buy a new toaster with a design that eliminates the need to fish out the toast.

Yep, my mom almost started a fire by leaving the teapot on the stove. It melted and started burning the plastic handle. Fortunately she noticed just as the upper cabinet was starting to get hot. Good idea about the electric teapot.

It's my darn homemade bread that sometimes doesn't rise enough when I bake it so that it barely emerges from the toaster. He's fine with using the toaster tongs now, so I'm relieved.

I've been very aware of not JADEing lately, so I haven't heard the "all you do is criticize" sentence recently. 

[eyvindr]

Good to hear, Cat -- that takes genuine commitment.

I've been very aware of not JADEing lately, so I haven't heard the "all you do is criticize" sentence recently. 

That's got to feel better, right?

It's my darn homemade bread that sometimes doesn't rise enough when I bake it so that it barely emerges from the toaster. He's fine with using the toaster tongs now, so I'm relieved.

Make bigger loaves! 

[Cat Familiar]

Good to hear, Cat -- that takes genuine commitment.

I've been very aware of not JADEing lately, so I haven't heard the "all you do is criticize" sentence recently. 

That's got to feel better, right?

It's my darn homemade bread that sometimes doesn't rise enough when I bake it so that it barely emerges from the toaster. He's fine with using the toaster tongs now, so I'm relieved.

Make bigger loaves! 

Learning the tools has made a huge difference, and I'm just a beginner at this.

After I cooked dinner last night, I was cleaning up and my husband brought over his plate. I thought he was done, but instead, he took a third helping of a potato dish that I had made two days ago--which he didn't like previously. I told him that I was saving the food scraps for the goats in a plastic bag and he got angry and said that he doesn't waste food.

He had said nothing about the salmon and broccoli I had prepared and now he was bent out of shape for me pointing out the bag for the goats.

I told him, "It would be nice if you cut me some slack when I make a mistake."

He said, "And you could cut me some slack."

I looked him in the eye and said, "I do." Then I walked out the door.

He came into the laundry room several minutes later as I was folding clothes and said in a meek voice, "Thanks for dinner."

Progress!

[hergestridge]

Cat, I'd suggest that you accept your motivations as good motivations. Because they are. Both are very valid, completely true, worthwhile, all good. Excellent REASONS for you to act.

Examine the next conclusion you jumped to from those REASONS

Your actions were as if you could change your H's behavior in this regard by nagging him, or treating him like a child. Surprise, Surprise, it didn't turn out very well!

Yes the reasons are important. They matter to you. That means that they are worth doing it the hard way, the right way.

That's the lesson for you--try not to get swept up in your fears and habits... .stop and think, and decide what you can do that will work better. When you found the toaster with the metal knife next to it, you had time to think about what you would say and what you would do.

I think buying the wooden tongs was a great solution. It would have worked better without the confrontation.

What communication tools would you use next time?

The difficult piece in the beginning of this interaction was this:

I saw the metal tongs sitting next to the toaster.

I probably blanched with fear as I asked, ":)id you use the tongs in the toaster?"

That was all I said at first and just the horror on my face, along with the question, caused the initial emotional explosion in him.

Technically, one might wonder why you're asking. He did not get killed this time. Why, really did you need you need to know if he *had* used the tongs in the toaster? I think you will find the key to his reaction there.

[Cat Familiar]

Technically, one might wonder why you're asking. He did not get killed this time. Why, really did you need you need to know if he *had* used the tongs in the toaster? I think you will find the key to his reaction there.

It makes perfect sense why my response upset him. I wasn't in control of my emotional reaction at the time I asked. In a perfect world, I would have been, but it didn't happen. I'm pretty good at being in control about 95% of the time--being a thinker, rather than a feeler, but I was way into "feeling" and it was one of those panicky, stomach-turning feelings.

Like I said to my therapist, I put up with his personality disorder. He needs to put up with mine. (OCD)

[hergestridge]

Technically, one might wonder why you're asking. He did not get killed this time. Why, really did you need you need to know if he *had* used the tongs in the toaster? I think you will find the key to his reaction there.

It makes perfect sense why my response upset him. I wasn't in control of my emotional reaction at the time I asked. In a perfect world, I would have been, but it didn't happen. I'm pretty good at being in control about 95% of the time--being a thinker, rather than a feeler, but I was way into "feeling" and it was one of those panicky, stomach-turning feelings.

Like I said to my therapist, I put up with his personality disorder. He needs to put up with mine. (OCD)

No, what I'm saying is that you were really not trying to prevent him from putting the tongs in the toaster. He had already done that. You needed to know because you were going to tell him off and give him another lesson, that was the genesis of that emotional reaction wasn' it?

There is the problem and the reason to the reaction.

I am not super up do date about OCD, but is the telling him off and giving lessons also part of the OCD? I'm not so sure.

[Cat Familiar]

No, what I'm saying is that you were really not trying to prevent him from putting the tongs in the toaster. He had already done that. You needed to know because you were going to tell him off and give him another lesson, that was the genesis of that emotional reaction wasn' it?

There is the problem and the reason to the reaction.

I am not super up do date about OCD, but is the telling him off and giving lessons also part of the OCD? I'm not so sure.

No, I wasn't going to "tell him off" but I was going to remind him about the potential danger, which in his mind was the same thing.

When I sent him the email about why it's dangerous to put metal where it can touch uninsulated wire, I think he finally understood, but he was still p!ssed off that I wanted to "correct him". He's unbelievably intelligent, but has little common sense about everyday things--it's hard to imagine how inept he truly is. (When we first got together, he told me his ex-wife told him he wasn't holding a screwdriver properly, and of course he was really insulted. I thought that was really weird at the time, but now I totally understand her.)

The OCD comes into play with protocol. There is a proper way of doing things and everybody should do them that way--is how my OCD manifests itself. I'm not terribly rigid, but little things bug me disproportionately--like leaving crumbs on the counter. I keep my mouth shut about everything but a few very important issues--like if he's going to hurt himself or break something I'll have to fix.