Usefull lessons for living with a BPD GF

[surfsupap1]

For you out there living with and trying desperately to love and hang on to a BPD GF/BF. Here are some of my recent take always after two and a half brutal years.

First, don't try and defend, rationalize, or as much as possible "process" with your BPD. When they are hot, all of this will only inflame the situation. Also, I'v tried setting limits and these always fail when they are in a hot emotional event. Listen, empathize their emotion, but don't get sucked into any details about what may or may not have happened to trigger them. They tell them this is all very important and you need time to process everything and ask that you talk about all this tomorrow. By then they will be cooler and have forgotten everything. They are only concerned with and remember their emotions at that exact moment, they will not remember past lessons.

My best advice is try and remember the just as someone may have a physical disability (broken leg), your BPD has a mental injury, they are like a 5 year old and when they are in a tantrum, you just have to be the loving firm parent.

Say what you are going to do and just do it. No discussions. As a pleaser caregiver I always thought we should discuss things and find agreement. This does not work. Reassure them of your love, stand tall and never back down on your needs. The moment you give in you have to start the whole process all over again. They want to know you love them, won't leave them, accept their injury but also to be the stable rock in their lives that can give them some relief.

All this is very very hard and I would work very hard to practice these skills and read about BPD as much as you can. However, ultimately, it is never about what they can do to change, but what you can do to change yourself. They have to learn their own skills with the help of their own therapist. They will never respond and you will always beat your head against a wall if you use "you need to" statements. Just a total waste of time. Be very strong, take very good care of your self physically and mentally, get a way from them so you can recharge and love them and accept them. If you try anything else, you will only get sucked into their emotional whirlpool and will cause your self endless pain and suffering.

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[Skip]

Really sound, emotionally mature advice. 

How is your relationship going. I know you were struggling back in November.

[surfsupap1]

Skip, you asked how is it going. Not well. I think we broke up this morning. I have two kids age 14 and 16 from a prior marriage (im not married to BP yet), yesterday my BP got into a emotional whirlpool because one of my kids touched something personal to her (on orange on an alter) not realizing it was an important are to the BP. My GF tried to fight me around the kids, at one point poked me in the face and verbally abused me from 3 pm until past 2:00 am in the morning demanding I talk to her about how awful and disrespectful my kids are. She was in a rage and wanted to talk to the kids herself, I told her no and I wanted to talk with her first, before hand and needed a day to think (to get her to calm down).  I told her this was all very important to me and I needed time to really understand and consider what she was saying and if we could talk about it tomorrow. The more I held the line the more she pushed against it. In the morning she was very mean and I simply packed up my kids stuff and we left.   I texted her the relationship was over, until she could get control of her emotions. We had seen a counselor on Thursday and have been going to counseling for over 6 months with very little help. I am so scared she will try and hurt herself, which she has threatened before if I left. Every tool I tried failed and with my kids in the near by room, and her on the verge of a ragging war, all I could do was empathize with her emotions tell her I was sorry and if we could please talk about this tomorrow. From 10 pm until 2:00 am he woke me up every couple of minutes to rage at me and I just responded the same way, over and over until she had a total breakdown on the bed and I simply held her close until she calmed down and went to sleep. Sadly, in the morning, she was ragging again and I had no choice but to leave with the kids. So very very sad. I am really worried about her. But also, need to protect myself.