Losing My Mind

[Icanteven]

Too cruel?

Not too cruel at all, but keep in mind, it will be your actions that demonstrate your resolve, not anything you say or don't say.  He knows he is in the wrong.  He knows cutting off communication with you is not only controlling and emotionally manipulative but also petty.  And yet he does it anyway.

My wife did the same thing she left: took her months to unblock my cell phone and we are a family.  Did horrific, horrible things to manipulate me that she knew would cause me to lose sleep and worry and not be able to heal,  Calls of late only when she needs something.  By all appearances couldn't care less about the damage she did to me and our children.

My T was worried enough about the burden this has placed on my family that he referred me to a psychiatrist to see about getting on an anti-depressant for a few months to help with this adjustment.  The P was fairly young but still had been out of residency for a decade-ish, and she was nearly in tears at the end of our session.  That's not encouraging.

This disease chews people up and spits them out, including the sufferers. I'm not telling you to run and I know intimately and painfully just how badly you want to save your relationship, but as I've gone through therapy, it has dawned on me that if we didn't have children - hell, if we weren't married - I would have already moved on.  It appears that I'm farther down the road in my relationship, but I can tell you that despite years of medication tweaks and increasing visits with the psychiatrist, if anything my wife got worse and worse.  Granted, she had been incredibly under-diagnosed, but I lived it and it just kept getting harder. 

Say your guy decides he wants to reconcile;  Then what?  Is this the life you want to live for the next fifty years?  Maybe the good times make the bad times worth it - I know in my case when we were good we had the best time of my life - but it did get worse.  A lot worse.  Even with treatment. 

You're not being too harsh, but I can tell you that in my case when I put down a shiny boundary around what was and wasn't acceptable, that was when the wheels set in motion for my wife to abandon our family.  Are you ready for that possible outcome?  Either way you're spot on with your expectations, but saying in no uncertain terms how you feel could very well seal the demise of your relationship.

[Black Dog House]

newhere, If I were to reach out and communicate this message to someone, I know I would feel the need to refrain from language that will be received as critical, threatening, shaming or accusatory. To be honest, when I read what you are suggesting, it resounds in places more of your personal need for him to seek out treatment/help than your concern for his well-being.

You may want to keep it very brief, state you concerns and objectives, imply no ultimatums or expectations, and offer support. After that, it is out of your hands.

I imagine if I would ever feel motivated to express these things to my ex, I would do it under the condition that it is for her well-being, not for how it could personally reward me i.e. fixing OUR relationship. There are no guarantees she would seek it, and if she did, no guarantees it would resolve our relationship conflicts any time soon. Perhaps smeone else will offer their observations.

[livednlearned]

It's good to deal with the anger you justly feel. He acted in confusing and hurtful ways and barely provided an explanation. Who would not be hurt by that  :'(

Your issues and dysfunction were pointed out.  You had a supportive partner who offered help and was willing to stand by you during that process, you chose to refuse and run away.  This was your choice.  After years of kindness and love, I have been negatively affected by this choice.  I will recover from this and you will not until you make an effort to get help.

If you decide to get therapy and help you can reach out to me and I will help you.  I did a lot of research on therapists before you ran out of the home and have good people lined up when you decide to move forward. I am no longer comfortable with any of this as you have shown me that you run from people who help you and run to people that are highly dysfunctional and do not care about you which tells me you are in a very bad place.

If you continue as you are and do not get help, I do not want to communicate with you at all. 

I am not getting sucked into this insanity any further because that's exactly what it is and I will not live that way or continue to be affected by your bad decisions.

Too cruel?

This might not bear fruit if the goal is to reunite at some point. If he is BPD, he likely has a self-construct in which he is "wrong," and different, and filled with shame. Shame is an incredibly difficult emotion for anyone. In Shari Manning's book about loving someone with borderline, she describes how people with BPD are like emotional burn victims. The may be biologically predisposed to intense emotions and then experience an invalidating environment (sometimes inadvertently), which turns the heat up constantly. Much of their behavior is about trying to alleviate the pain, and this can be confusing to us, which it often is, especially as people who love them.

Trying to socialize with family may be his way of trying something new to help himself. It may have very little to do with how he was with you and more to do with trying to alleviate intense emotional pain. He had a role when he was with you (boyfriend), and he no longer has that. He may be trying to figure out this other role (son, brother, etc.), especially if he has BPD and an unstable sense of self.

I agree with Black Dog House that you may be more likely to keep the door open if you can find empathy for him, and validate his experience and nothing else. No judgment, no shame. If it's too soon to do that, that's ok too.

[Black Dog House]

Icanteven, very good post.

You're not being too harsh, but I can tell you that in my case when I put down a shiny boundary around what was and wasn't acceptable, that was when the wheels set in motion for my wife to abandon our family.  Are you ready for that possible outcome?  Either way you're spot on with your expectations, but saying in no uncertain terms how you feel could very well seal the demise of your relationship.

This resonated enormously with me. There is a lot of talk about boundaries with this disorder, but in my case, it tended to exacerbate conflict. It sounds wonderful on paper, but stands to reason that if, as is contended, you are dealing with an immature individual, they are not going to respond well to hearing no and not getting what they want (when and how they want). I learned it worked at times, but found myself giving in increasingly often to avoid the exhausting fallout. Another reason was I feared, as you have experienced, that this could well push the relationship into decline, with her leaving me. The fact that I left her is of no small consequence: I would be dealing with this much differently if I waited until she left me. Having someone give up on you when they have been dishing out the abuse is the ultimate degradation, as many here can attest, and why recovery is so difficult.

Children cannot leave their parents, or I imagine many would when they become petulant. Adults can, and if they are feeling frustrated at not having their way while possessing an extreme intolerance of compromise, what is keeping them around? My ex is defiant in the extreme. Boundaries just pissed her off.

[Zinnia21]

Yes, all the behaviour you described him to have sound very BPD. I couldn't understand it either when my bf stopped wanting to go out, and just wanted to stay in, avoid travel, avoid, parties, and the rest. Also, the way they do a little thing for you and then resent you for it afterwards. They see a little thing they did for you, but don't really see the huge things we do for them (all the sacrifices of not going out anymore, not travelling, paying for extra things to cheer things up and make things fun, waiting by their side while their moods fluctuate, trying to understand them and show endless compassion and so on).

Yet, as the others mention, the guilt and shame element of the disorder is strong. Even a whiff of being made to feel bad results in them not dealing, and then running the other way, or worse, going on an illogical defence / attack rant about our shortcomings as partners... .and then running. We are left sort of seeking their approval, even though we know we didn't wrong them, we want them to come back to earth and see reality again. But that can never be rushed or pushed, it will only happen when they're ready to come back.

It's almost impossible though to hide that you are hurt, how can one win? In any other circumstance, you could express that hurt and get a logical response. But in this case, if you express your hurt, they find a way to be hurt about your hurt!

So in terms of BPD, expressing your pain will get you no where. But in terms of being human, expressing your pain is fairly essential. Playing into someone's warped psychology is a slippery slope, as in, "how should I react to get the result I want... ?"

I admit, I've done it a lot through my own trials and tribulations with a BPD partner, when I didn't know it was BPD. It can work temporarily in terms of gaining their attention, but then they throw another spanner in the works and you never know what to do next.

the only thing that helps sometimes is stripping it back another layer and seeing it for what it is. Be factual in your mind: they have a disorder, these behaviours are coping techniques for an emotionally imbalanced person who knows no other way. Which then prompts you to remember, yes there are ways of communication which will be more successful, such as mentioned in the 'tools' section of this website.

But these are very hard to enact when a pwBPD is in crisis, as he is.

If you're worried about not knowing the right course of action right now, I'd suggest just leaving the bills out for him and not being around for a face to face just yet. You can leave a note there too so it's not totally cold, if you want. Though if you have decided that you need to assert yourself as a person and say what you feel, then do that by all means. Especially if you are laying down the law with yourself that you don't want to be treated like this, and that you are willing to walk away from the situation. It's up to you.

How you're feeling now is completely normal, considering the situation. Although you may not get the reaction you want, you are human and allowed to express yourself.

[newhere2016]

Well, that didn't go as planned... . He called me today and I LOST IT.  I asked him if his brain has at any given time (yet) told him to seriously analyze the choice he made... .no response.  I told him that he needs help and that I am concerned that he is making VERY bad choices and I don't want to see anything bad happen to him.  That he cannot BLOCK out everything and that I know he hasn't. That he is NOT WELL.  His family is not well and not in a position to give him ANY advice and that as the one person who is outside the equation and has demonstrated that I care about him, this whole thing makes me sick.

I expressed that I didn't like to be firm with him but that he needs to hear it.  That a lot of women in my situation wouldn't be speaking to him after what happened and that it is coming from a place of genuine concern since I don't want to see him make bad choices, be used by his family and end up in a mental hospital.  That I am not judging him because his past is not his fault.   That he doesn't speak to anyone and I don't know why - shame?  feeling like you're a burden?  not knowing how?  I told him that he has nothing to be ashamed of, he is a good person and his past is his past.  Him speaking to anyone or seeking help is not a burden at all and if he doesn't know how he can ask me and I will gladly help him.  That no man is an island and we all need a helping hand... .but that if he cannot accept that he needs it that neither I or anyone else can do anything to help him.

I told him that I do not benefit from anything here except the satisfaction of seeing him happy and not in constant pain and distress.  I cannot keep up with any of this and that if he refuses to listen to the advice I am giving him I am going to set up SERIOUS boundaries and that the door will only be open if he decides to GET HELP.  He said nothing most of the time and I told him that I have said all I can and have to go - and hung up on him.

After having this experience and reading the heart-wrenching things on this board, I couldn't care less about reuniting.  He is not well and no one is telling him so.  There are actually family members benefiting from his illness/decisions, and using him now.  Others taking satisfaction that he messed his life up.  They are a bunch of vulchers, feeding off him and the waste behind him.  The abuse that they endured has left almost all of them, save the ones who have had therapy, a mess.  He was never the type to yell or go into a rage, on the contrary, he was always quiet - very quiet.   He was always kind and the type who can never say no to anyones request no matter the cost to him for fear people wouldn't like him.  I feel that one of his family members helped push him to this decision.  Since she moved here he has been more distant, irrational and eventually he jumped ship.  I told him point blank that she is a very disturbed person and does not care about anyone but herself.  That when he seeks clarity to look at everyone and their advice and ask himself - do they really care?  is there opinion of this situation skewed? and do they have anything to gain?  Don't take advice from anyone that has anything to gain.

Maybe my approach was wrong but I did it and it's done.