Sick of him wanting me to change...

[Ceruleanblue]

BPDh is in a bad stint right now of being dysregulated, often. Today was just awful. He said so many hateful things, and when I'd try to clarify things he was twisting that I said, I got nowhere. I gave up, and did my own thing. I actually told him I needed space, and that due to the hurtful things he said, I didn't even want to be around him. I'm sort of done sugar coating things for someone who shows zero respect for me, and actually seems to enjoy hurting me.

He was hugely blaming today, and also judging. Of course yesterday he talked to his daughter, and today he's threatening divorce. I only asked him if he'd talked to her after the divorce threats started because I've noticed a correlation in the past. She hates me, and BPDh is super enmeshed with his kids, so he starts painting me black.

He also kept saying "you haven't changed at all". Uhm, I wasn't the one diagnosed with anything, and I'm not verbally abusive and disrespectful. I'm not narcissistic, or cruel. I've kept MY kids in line, and not let them disrespect him. I've lost respect for him as a man, but I still show him respect, as I would anyone. I have great empathy for him and his feelings, but I don't respect or think how he treats me is okay.

How should I have responded to the whole "you need to change" crap? I told him I've been working on ME, and have been prior to meeting him, and I've learned a lot since him(I had to just to stay in this difficult situation). He knows I read books, and watch videos, and I've been in personal therapy too. He sort of mocks reading books.

I'm done changing to suit him. I like who I am, and I know how hard I try, and I've done so much to accommodate him, and try to make peace with his totally angry and dysfunctional daughters, that now I'm just done doing that. It just feels and seems very co dependent to try to change ME to make him happy. He's never happy anyway, even if I do work on something.

I'm hoping tomorrow is better because today was truly awful. I'm beginning to see why people just have no choice but to leave... .

[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.

[LivingWBPDWife]

Why are you trying to stay? Or accommodating him so much? Whatever this reason is... .IS it more important than your life, sanity, etc. AND is feeling like this and staying together better for you for some reason?

Sounds to me that like many people you have invested so much time and energy, you can't let go and give up. Its like the stock market and why so many people loose their shirt. They made a bad investment, then they should just SELL, but refuse to, they double down, loose more money, then they simply won't walk away -- now its even harder since they put even MORE money in ... .

This is a common dynamic with relationship, normal ones too, but with a BPD relationship, WE spend so much energy bending over backwards, its a horrible feeling to think all this was for NOTHING --

But, you know what, its not for nothing, its all for one purpose -- and that's to make you understand and that you are 100% clear, there is no reason to stay with a BPD unless there "is" a reason to stay with them that is life and death, you know?

You comment here:

"Uhm, I wasn't the one diagnosed with anything, and I'm not verbally abusive and disrespectful. I'm not narcissistic, or cruel. I've kept MY kids in line, and not let them disrespect him. I'"

Is exactly how we all feel, our BPDs disrespect us, they are SO cruel, mean, cold, manic, etc. and we put up will all of it -- they should kiss our butts, but they can't understand this, and have no idea what they put us thru.

I am on this forum because I have to stay with my BPD for my daughter, until at least she does a single thing to harm or treat her bad, then my BPD will get the shock of her life and we will both be gone. But, until then, I will let my BPD be abusive to me, and since I have to allow this, my goal is to minimize it to have some modicum of a "life" which has been really hard so far... .its like trying to figure out a rubiks cube in the dark --

[sweetheart]

Remember CB the likelihood is this is the behaviour you will be contending with indefinitely. So staying means accepting this is what your h does when dysregulated. It's about your interaction with him when he dysregulates. Waiting and hoping for things to be different isn't going to work. The aim of Staying is not to change ourselves to make someone else happy, it is to free ourselves from that cycle.

If you are trying to change your h to make him happy, then yes this is codependent behaviour.

It sounds like his family were the emotional trigger for his curent dysregulation, you know they trigger him, so what can you change to help you manage things better after a visit ?

LivingWBPDWife, asks some interesting questions, especially 'Why are you trying to stay?' what does this mean? What will you do if things don't change?

[Ceruleanblue]

There are a myriad number of reasons I stay. First is compassion for him. I think he'll end up alone forever if I leave him. Or, he'll do what he did to me with some other poor woman, he'll dupe her just like he did me. I'm sort of a survivor, and feel I can withstand large amounts of crap without breaking. Do I think I deserve it(or even knew this about him prior to marriage)? Heck NO! I don't think anyone deserves the way he treats me.

Also, I stay because my vows meant a lot to me, and I don't believe when the going gets tough, the tough get going, as in working on ME or US. I can only control me, and how I interact with him. I'm trying so hard to do that, but it's like he'll learn a tactic(actually the tools I learned here), and he'll modify his behaviors accordingly.

I think what gives me hope, not for true change, as I know he'll always be THIS, is the good times we've had, and the few months where things were so much better. He was using his newly acquired DBT skills, and things felt nearly normal. I've remained the same, it's him that changes.

He's likely to just pull up stakes, so it may not be up to me if we stay together anyway. He gets in such a dark place, and starts putting all blame on me, and that is exactly what he did last time he left. It's just so comical that he's still angry at me though for filing for divorce: he left, refused to come back, and started dating right away(sleeping with someone else). To me, this was a pretty clear "I'm done", and I was done begging. I'd been getting the short end of the stick anyway, why would I sit around and wait for more? He seems to think I should have though, and he's totally forgotten that he slept with someone mere days after he left me.

I don't know. I'm seriously thinking I'm spinning my wheels with him, due to his extreme case. If his dysregs were not so bad, or if he took any real responsibility after, or if he were actively using his DBT(he goes, gets the handouts, barely reads them), maybe I wouldn't be having these huge doubts.

That's it. I'm suddenly thinking maybe I am staying for reasons that aren't in my own best interest. This is the first time I've really, really questioned that. I start individual therapy, yet again, on Wednesday.

[OffRoad]

BPDh is in a bad stint right now of being dysregulated, often. Today was just awful. He said so many hateful things, and when I'd try to clarify things he was twisting that I said, I got nowhere. I gave up, and did my own thing. I actually told him I needed space, and that due to the hurtful things he said, I didn't even want to be around him. I'm sort of done sugar coating things for someone who shows zero respect for me, and actually seems to enjoy hurting me.

BBM: That sounds like  great idea to me. Do it every time he dysregulates. Protect yourself.

He also kept saying "you haven't changed at all".

Why WOULD you change at all? Do YOU think you need to change? What was he looking for? You told him you are working on you, so to me that means you do think you need to change. Maybe asking "What makes you say I haven't changed?" would get you an answer to what HE thinks you aren't doing that he wants you to do. If you don't think you need to change "I'm sorry you feel that way." or some variation is your go to phrase.

I'm done changing to suit him. I like who I am, and I know how hard I try, and I've done so much to accommodate him, and try to make peace with his totally angry and dysfunctional daughters, that now I'm just done doing that. It just feels and seems very co dependent to try to change ME to make him happy. He's never happy anyway, even if I do work on something.

This is my opinion only, and take it with a grain of salt because my H has been in the spare room for 6 months, but I have found that the more I try to do "what he wants" with my H, the more he zeros in for the attack. The stronger I am in knowing myself, who I am and what I want, the better my H reacts. He can't hurt me if I don't take it personally. It's hard, but doable. I did it for 19 years and didn't even know I was doing it. The last three has gotten rough, though.

[Ceruleanblue]

I don't think I need to change per se. I am just trying to work on my part of the dance we all play when we live with someone with a PD. Some of the dance is done just to try to avoid, or make our lives easier, but it then allows more of the same. I'm trying to change my part of that dance. In the past, I've worked on my OCD issues, and I've worked a lot on trying to not be codependent(am still working on that).

The things HE wants me to change is something I can't change, I've tried, and I actually feel HE'S partially responsible for why I feel this way. Not that I tell him that, of course. His ex was physically abusive to him, and has caused all sorts of issues for us with his grown kids(they've allowed this, so I also see this as their dysfunction), and he way, way overshared, and lie to me about a lot of things to do with her after we'd just met. Therefore, I have an aversion going places they often went to(although we do, lots, as in he'll plan a special night out and it'll be "their place"!), and I just want to make our own memories. We have enough things we do, and places we go that he has strong memories with her, and he just fails to empathize or understand that I HATE sitting at dinner knowing in all likelihood he's remembering "good times" with her. He's weird, weird, weird in regards to her, and I can't stand it. I've always gotten along with other ex's, so this isn't me, it's the fact that she's CRAZY, and that BPDh deceived me in regards to their interactions(he'd told me she'd been moved out of the house for 11 months after she cheated, but I found out way later that he'd gone back and slept with her for a month, and this was one month prior to MY meeting him). Had he been honest, I'd have dated someone else. When I found out, it explained a lot of her hostility, and his zero boundaries in regards to her.

He still to this day, wants to play the victim about his ex, but he get super mad if anyone else dislikes her. It's super weird. It's been about five years now, but he got upset when he found out she'd finally marrying the guy she cheated with. He says he wasn't upset, but his body language, indignation and shock sure looked otherwise.

He'd like me to just forgot all the crap he told me about them, when in fact that is very hard to do when he keeps feeling tied to his past. It feels to me like he just put me in her shoes, only he doesn't treat me as well, and he wants me to dress and be like her. It sickens me.

I'm my own person, I don't wear mini skirts, I don't dress slutty, all things he knew about me when we dated, but now he wants to change.

[jhkbuzz]

There are a myriad number of reasons I stay. First is compassion for him. I think he'll end up alone forever if I leave him. Or, he'll do what he did to me with some other poor woman, he'll dupe her just like he did me. I'm sort of a survivor, and feel I can withstand large amounts of crap without breaking. Do I think I deserve it(or even knew this about him prior to marriage)? Heck NO! I don't think anyone deserves the way he treats me.

So it looks like his needs come first, then strangers you don't know (the other women he may "dupe", then yours.

Wonder why you're on the bottom of that list?

My vows meant the world to me, too. I don't easily break promises. But it takes two to make and keep vows... .I slowly became aware in my own r/s that I was the only one upholding those vows. Relationships don't work under those circumstances.

[Fian]

I have a hard time with the "you must change or I will leave you."  If you became a worse person after marriage, I can understand it.  But if you are the same or better than you were when you first got married, why the expectation of change in the first place?  You were good enough to marry then, why not stay married now?  I am not saying that asking for changes from your spouse is bad, but tying it to leaving just seems wrong to me.

P.S.  I am saying this, because this is what I am currently dealing with.

[Daniell85]

Maybe you could reconsider the co dependent thing to him in terms of staying with someone who is abusing you and random other ladies he may get involved with.

Compassion can be extended without subjecting yourself to enabling someone to abuse you. I think there is a boundary in there somewhere about protecting yourself and what you will accept for yourself.

I am only learning about boundaries myself, so it's hard for me to pinpoint what it should be for you. Do you have a boundary about this?

[Ceruleanblue]

I've actually enacted a few boundaries lately, which is hard to do because he's so very dysregulated. Just tonight, he told me, for about the tenth time, that I would go out to dinner with his angry daughter, and we WOULD BE putting all this behind us! I said to him that he does not get to tell me what I will do, that I am no longer going to tolerate that. He can ask, but whether I go or not is MY choice. He's so used to making demands and just having me go along.

I'm scared of his daughter. She lured me into a therapy session with her, and it was just about the most awful hour of my life. The therapist should have called a stop to it. It was all bashing on me, getting me to agree to HER terms, and her being hateful and hostile. BPDh sat there, did nothing, and I wish I'd never subjected myself to it. We were supposed to have a session where BPDh and I got to talk, but of course this angry girl refused to do that. She'd gotten her licks in, and she was done.

I'm afraid to go to dinner with her because if she acted like that in front of a therapist, and another time in my own home, no telling what she'll do. I told BPDh that if she calls and invites me, it's a show of good faith that she'd likely over being angry, and I'll go. He got super mad, told me he WOULD NOT ask her to call me, and that I'm causing trouble to even ask that. Nevermind that he insisted for three years that I apologize to these mean girls, but he won't even ask them to have basic manners. He acts like if he asks her to call to set up dinner plans, she'll explode, and likely she would. How sad is that? I'm so sick of all this mess.

I should never have to be afraid of BPDh's daughter, or his ex! HE should protect me, stand up for me, or allow me to do so myself. He's always let me know if I say anything, or stand up for myself, we'll be "done".

He's really dysregulated now, so maybe it wasn't the best time to set a boundary, but I felt I had to. I need to protect me, and my emotional well being.

[Daniell85]

Set the boundary. So what if he has an existential burst. You don't have to do anything you are uncomfortable with. He can go to dinner with her himself and have a nice time or whatever.

My boyfriend does the same thing. WE are moving forward and Danielle is to STOP THIS S**T.

Um. No.

This is on the surface the main reason we are in conflict and I have terrible problems with panic and anxiety attacks. I can't put anything in the past while it is still happening.

[Cloudy Days]

I wanted to say something about how hooked he is on his ex. Some of what he told you about how terrible she is could have been complete fabrication. My husband swears up and down that his ex's all cheated on him. One of them he actually got knocked up and denied that it was his child. Now we are unsure if there is a baby out there that is actually his. She would be 18 now and would have been given up for adoption. My point being, After I put all the puzzle pieces together, I realized all the demonizing he told me about this girl, was probably just him painting her black. She's probably a sweet person who was really hurt by how he treated her towards the end.

I'm not saying that your husband's ex isn't crazy. I think you have to be a little crazy to be in love with someone who has BPD anyways. But I would experience some of the same things with my husband about him seeming like he is almost stuck on this girl, but he had talked so terrible about her it didn't make sense. I think he truly regrets what happened between them, and did care for her, but she will have nothing to do with him now. But he won't admit to that. He most likely isn't telling the whole story. She could have some very good reasons to act psycho towards him, just keep that in mind.

As for going to dinner with his daughter. This is the perfect time to set a boundary, you have already made your wishes known. You made it clear what it would take for you to go to dinner with her. It is not up to you to play make up when you have been treated so disrespectfully by her. It sounds to me like he is setting up the dinner and expecting the two of you to get along because he wants it. If she wants to talk things out, she needs to be the one to ask calmly and respectfully. Other wise don't have any contact with her.