Do they ever learn to let go of grudges?

[montenell]

So yesterday after dropping the kids at work the wife and I go to the park and take a walk. She goes on to complain about every relationship she has. Her mom, my mom, her friends etc until she finally lands on me. She then brings up ancient issues ( we've been married 10 years wow, this was from when we dated for 7 years again wow). At this point she begins raging but I don't respond until she kept saying "you ain't got nothing to say" then I start taking which makes get angrier and she tells me not to talk to her in a not so nice manner to which I gladly obliged. We go home she calms down gets us food apologised and ended up starting the conversation again eventually asking why does loving me hurt so bad... I explain that it's no walk in the park being in a relationship with her and that I sacrificed myself and most of my adulthood with her. Now she refers to herself as a monster and a succubus and I tell her I'm not playing the blame game etc... She brings up going to therapy to deal with her issues (I know she won't go from previous experience). But my question is do BPDs ever learn to let things go, I'm not going to have this discussion another 5,10,15 years but is it even reasonable they she will learn to let go of not only ways I may have offended her but others as well?

[ArleighBurke]

This pattern is common. There are many similar stories here about past issues being brought up. Your BPD is very emotionally driven - so any emotional memory is strong and there for life.

But is sounds like you don't have a good conversation dynamic with her yet. This comes accross in all your posts. In this example she started complaining, and kept going while you were silent, until she asks for your opinion. NOT responding to her doesn't help! You need to learn to respond - in a good way. And when you did reapond, it sounds like you talked about YOU - not her. I imagine she would have walked away feeling very invalidated.

Living with a BPD is difficult - but there are skills you can learn to make it easier. The first would be Validation. This is a conversation/listening skill. Search this site and read about it - it WILL make a huge difference. It will make conversations easier, make her less likely to escalate, and may help those past grievences be much less talked about.

[montenell]

This pattern is common. There are many similar stories here about past issues being brought up. Your BPD is very emotionally driven - so any emotional memory is strong and there for life.

But is sounds like you don't have a good conversation dynamic with her yet. This comes accross in all your posts. In this example she started complaining, and kept going while you were silent, until she asks for your opinion. NOT responding to her doesn't help! You need to learn to respond - in a good way. And when you did reapond, it sounds like you talked about YOU - not her. I imagine she would have walked away feeling very invalidated.

Living with a BPD is difficult - but there are skills you can learn to make it easier. The first would be Validation. This is a conversation/listening skill. Search this site and read about it - it WILL make a huge difference. It will make conversations easier, make her less likely to escalate, and may help those past grievences be much less talked about.

Thanks for the insight... I will look into validation and see what I can learn. As far as my response,I didn't make it about me at alli just tried to answer the questions levied at me,she just didn't want to hear me. I will admit I struggle with protecting me as I'm only in the last couple years realizing in dealing with a form of abuse vs trying to be compassionate as that is what led me down this path... Its a hard line to walk but maybe as I read more on validation I will learn

[adaw]

They never do I came to the point where I do not discuss any experiences I had because they twist facts to suit them.

[montenell]

They never do I came to the point where I do not discuss any experiences I had because they twist facts to suit them.

So true there are things I wish I never told her because she brings them up all the time although they had nothing to do with her and are not pertinent to anything

[waverider]

They never do I came to the point where I do not discuss any experiences I had because they twist facts to suit them.

My pwBPD tends to turn issues off, rather than working through the emotion, like filing it away intact in the reference library, in the meantime the non is working down from whatever the issue was. So it appears the non is holding the grudge while she is "over it".

However as she never truly worked it through so down the track when a similar issue occurs out pops the old memory , with the same strength of emotion it originally had to back up and validate whatever the current issue is. Just to make it worse a bit of BPD distortion and revisionism occurs to closer match it to the present.

Its a bit like when we grieve, the pwBPD doesn't, they shut off the memory until such time as its relevant again, then the pain comes back just as strong. Grieving is healing by realigning reality.

So to answer the question I dont think it is a grudge as such, just an extensive reference library from which to draw evidence from to use as justification for the current emotion. That is when it is brought up it is piggybacked onto a trigger, rather than just simmering away like grudges usually do. It is brought up with the sole purpose of expressing pain

[adaw]

I have stopped sharing experiences because of the same point. They use painful and traumatic to show you how weak you are. Some here will claim that it is because of flaws in your self image, but this continuous attacks do  make wounds and leave scars whether you admit it or not.

[formflier]

They bring up grudges to ruminate and self soothe (in a dysfunctional way) and because when they bring them up with you, they get some kind of "reaction".

The key for you would be to learn to "respond" vice "react" and make sure the response is healthy for both of you.  Note:  She likely won't like it.

My first impression is validation followed by a pivot to solutions.

Or

Validation, pivot to solutions (and when she complains)... .let her know that you are there for her but you are not sure how to best support her.  Basically put the ball in her court.

You are minimizing the amount of blather that you listen to and eventually drawing a boundary (best left unsaid... .for now) that you will listen to only so much... .and if validation isn't working.  You are going to go do something pleasant and leave her to sort through her pile of broken relationships.

They belong to her... .not you.

The last question.  How would YOUR life be different if you listened to only 10% of the complaints that you currently have decided to listen to?

FF

[lovenature]

PWBPD feel core shame, they typically will remember things they can use to hurt you; gives them validation to be the better person, also useful for pushing you away when their fear of engulfment becomes too strong.

Up to you to decide how much you will accept, how much effort you will put into trying to manage the relationship, and how much of your needs you will sacrifice.

[SheAskedForaBreak]

My understanding is that past hurts are one of the things a BPDSO will use to justify their behavior.  That being the case it's unlikely they'll learn to let go of things as they need those hurts as ammunition.  Counseling is likely the ONLY way someone who is severely on the spectrum will ever be able to manage their feeling about past hurts.

[PFCI]

They never do I came to the point where I do not discuss any experiences I had because they twist facts to suit them.

So true there are things I wish I never told her because she brings them up all the time although they had nothing to do with her and are not pertinent to anything

My wife also repeatedly brings up things from many, many years ago, she'll never let them drop.

I also learned never to talk to her about anything unless it's absolutely necessary, as it just becomes ammunition for the future. 

[adaw]

She always comments how abusive I were towards my kids and ex wives. I haven't shared a thing about my life with them. So she made her own reality. I dealt with my demons and she is trying to resurrect them.

[formflier]

 
A strong boundary would be to say

"It's important that we understand each others experiences.  If you are interested in discussing how I was with my ex, I am open to scheduling a time to discuss this with you"

if she persists

"I don't discuss emotions, motivations and thoughts I don't have... ."

Walk away.

You aren't directly telling her she is wrong, but you are saying that you have a "truth", that you are willing to share it at the right time, and that you are NOT going to argue about it.

FF

[waverider]

She always comments how abusive I were towards my kids and ex wives. I haven't shared a thing about my life with them. So she made her own reality. I dealt with my demons and she is trying to resurrect them.

Perhaps this is a projection of her own demons and has to raise yours to match them?

How do you deal with these statements to keep the demons at bay?

[zachira]

What I am about to say is probably not going to be well received. Women, myself included, often have incredible recalls of events that took place a long time ago, not that all those recalls are completely accurate as memories get distorted and changed as time passes. I often wish I did not remember so vividly how I felt in certain situations. Most men tend to remember things that happened recently, struggle in remembering past events, and are very frustrated when their female partner gives them a history of past transgressions, sometimes going back many years. Out of curiosity, I once asked my male neighbor with whom I frequently have long reciprocal conversations how much he remembered of conversations we have had in the past, and he said he remembers the topics and that is about it. That being said, disordered people tend to hold grudges and distort events, blaming others and making themselves the victims.

[ForeverDad]

There are some general difference between the sexes, though not ironclad.  I recall an observation years ago about people's sense of direction.

Many women - but not all - may describe the landmarks along the way... "turn left at the gas station then turn right at the water tower".  Men are more likely to state distance and points on a compass... "go 2 miles on route 66 then turn north on route 89 for 10 miles until it splits off to 89A".  It's not a strict pattern but often true.

I recall my ex remembering a long list of grudges and perceived slights going way back in time that perplexed me.  How much of this was due to disordered traits - childhood or environmental versus genetic tendencies - I leave to others to ponder.  All I can say for sure is that I begged her to let them go, but she never did.

[PeteWitsend]

What I am about to say is probably not going to be well received. Women, myself included, often have incredible recalls of events that took place a long time ago, not that all those recalls are completely accurate as memories get distorted and changed as time passes. I often wish I did not remember so vividly how I felt in certain situations. Most men tend to remember things that happened recently, struggle in remembering past events, and are very frustrated when their female partner gives them a history of past transgressions, sometimes going back many years. Out of curiosity, I once asked my male neighbor with whom I frequently have long reciprocal conversations how much he remembered of conversations we have had in the past, and he said he remembers the topics and that is about it. That being said, disordered people tend to hold grudges and distort events, blaming others and making themselves the victims.

I don't know if there's a meaningful gender difference here.  At least I'm curious if there have ever been studies about how gender impacts memory.  A quick internet search produced this article from 2018 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6028920/), which found women generally did better than men in the memory-based tasks the study used, but this difference declined after age 60, and women with dementia suffered worse than men with dementia, for reasons it goes into.  But note that the study itself states that further work needs to be done. 

I recall reading a thread here that women with BPD had a lot of difficulty providing accurate narratives of things that happened.  I found it here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8183034/

People suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) seem to have incoherent autobiographical narratives. Tentative evidence suggests that reduced narrative coherence of autobiographical memories is associated with insecure attachment. However, it remains unknown whether incoherent autobiographical narratives in people with BPD are coupled to experiences of childhood trauma, which is highly prevalent in BPD.
.
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We examined if written autobiographical memories in 26 female participants with BPD had reduced narrative coherence relative to 28 healthy female controls and whether more incoherent narratives were associated with childhood trauma.

In my own experience, I think a big difference would be not that BPDxw remembered things better than I did, just that she was willing to bring them up in a malicious way, or in ways I would never consider doing. 

I would wager if pressed, I could come up with a list of things I could have held grudges over that was at least as long as hers.  Furthermore, mine would've been legit, unlike most of hers.  In a lot of her examples I can think of, they didn't even involve anything I actually did, but her complaints about other people that I failed to see the same way she did.  And other complaints of things I said that happened within the heat of the moment.  For example, yeah, I said she couldn't look at my phone anymore.  But I wasn't trying to hide anything or holding a double standard... I made that "rule" after she kept going on my phone and picking fights over the most absurd things: I didn't send any pictures of her to my mom, or I DID send pictures of her to my mom, but not "good ones." (And these weren't just like catty arguments... I'm talking full-blown screaming because she went on my phone, scrolled through text messages, and didn't see any pictures of her come up soon enough.)

I've read some accounts of women in BPD relationships here that recalled the same issues with their partners; to say it again: they (the male partner with BPD) had long lists of grudges, but their grudges often ignored the context surrounding the event and their own part in causing it.  So I don't know if the issue is really memory recall here.  And going back to the OP, I don't think it's a matter of them being able to move past grudges, because holding grudges is their M.O. and how they "control" their relationship with their partner.  It would be like trying to teach a dog not to bark at a stranger approaching the house.   

[zachira]

Men and women are wired very differently. In healthy relationships, the partners have empathy for their significant other and make allowances for their differences, whether the differences are due to in born gender differences or other factors. The more dysfunctional the relationship, the more one or both partners demand that the significant other do exactly what they want with little or no regard for their needs and wants. It seems in this day and age, it is somehow considered to be sexist to point out the differences between men and women that cannot be changed. Many parents have observed that their young children have very much the behaviors of their biological sex, no matter how much they try to provide them with opportunities to be more like the opposite sex. I have several men friends. I believe that one of the reasons they like me, as I do not expect them to be like my girlfriends, and let them be men as long as they respect me as a woman.