Help in communicating

[50andwastedlife]

I have been trying to use the tools on here for a week or so now - mainly not JADEing and validating - to avoid the ongoing arguments - and it has been effective.

I've also realised that up till recently, I have hoped that my dBPDh would get better and my life would improve, without me having to change. For 20 years, I tried to apply logic, I got frustrated and angry, I veered between enabling and undermining. I'm trying not to do any of that.

But I've hit a wall. My dBPDh was sexually abused by his mother from the earliest age, and meeting me triggered a complete return to an infant state, I realise now. When his mother stopped treating him as a spouse and went and worked with his father in the business, he developed coping mechanisms. Me getting a job because our business was struggling post-Covid has replicated that. He feels jealous rage towards my coworkers, sexual jealousy towards my boss, and generally excluded. Worse than that, being alone in an isolated village and unable to drive (he didn't learn so he could remain dependent on me) means that he has a terrible breakdown every time I go to work (3 days a week). (Before I worked, it was the same if I went anywhere, but it was sporadic and easier for me to avoid.) He has returned to drinking after 17 years sober, and self harms when I'm not there. He can't cope with the emptiness, the loneliness. It makes him angry that I don't feel the same. He has a delusion that we were perfectly happy, in Eden, until I selfishly changed things by getting a job, and up till now I have wanted him to see that it was not Eden, and has been like this for me for 22 years. But I realise that shattering his delusion is also...shattering.

I don't have words for someone in that much pain, actively hurting and degrading himself when I'm not there, threatening suicide daily. I don't know where to start with validating. Giving up work to care for him doesn't fit his idea of perfect happiness...at some level he knows we can't manage without the money. But it's also spoilt for him - his recreation of his infancy. He's had therapy almost non stop since he was 22, and he was diagnosed with BPD 20 years ago, so has had a good deal targetted at that. Nothing touches the void.

I don't know what the right way to be with him is. Am I just enabling? I don't know how to respond, so alot of the time when he is expressing his feelings, I say nothing, which then seems like I don't care. Help!!!

[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.

[kells76]

Hi 50AWL, good to hear an update.

I have been trying to use the tools on here for a week or so now - mainly not JADEing and validating - to avoid the ongoing arguments - and it has been effective.

Great to hear  it sounds like you are having success with "stopping the bleeding".

I've also realised that up till recently, I have hoped that my dBPDh would get better and my life would improve, without me having to change. For 20 years, I tried to apply logic, I got frustrated and angry, I veered between enabling and undermining. I'm trying not to do any of that.

I think all of us here have shared that feeling at one time or another. It takes a lot to own up to that.

It seems positive that you recognize that your previous efforts, however well intentioned, may have contributed to the conflict. Stopping ineffective approaches ("get him to see logic", anger, enabling, undermining, etc) and substituting more effective approaches (stop the bleeding, decrease unnecessary conflict, avoid JADE-ing, etc) is a huge step forward.

But I've hit a wall. My dBPDh was sexually abused by his mother from the earliest age, and meeting me triggered a complete return to an infant state, I realise now. When his mother stopped treating him as a spouse and went and worked with his father in the business, he developed coping mechanisms. Me getting a job because our business was struggling post-Covid has replicated that. He feels jealous rage towards my coworkers, sexual jealousy towards my boss, and generally excluded. Worse than that, being alone in an isolated village and unable to drive (he didn't learn so he could remain dependent on me) means that he has a terrible breakdown every time I go to work (3 days a week). (Before I worked, it was the same if I went anywhere, but it was sporadic and easier for me to avoid.) He has returned to drinking after 17 years sober, and self harms when I'm not there. He can't cope with the emptiness, the loneliness. It makes him angry that I don't feel the same. He has a delusion that we were perfectly happy, in Eden, until I selfishly changed things by getting a job, and up till now I have wanted him to see that it was not Eden, and has been like this for me for 22 years. But I realise that shattering his delusion is also...shattering.

How long has he been having breakdowns when you go to work (a couple of months, a few years, some other time frame)?

Do you think he feels angry that you don't feel generally empty and lonely in the same way he does? Or do you think he feels angry that you [in his interpretation] don't miss him when you go to work? Trying to get a better sense of if he's angry that you don't feel identically to him, or angry that you don't feel what he wants you to feel -- a subtle difference.

I don't have words for someone in that much pain, actively hurting and degrading himself when I'm not there, threatening suicide daily. I don't know where to start with validating. Giving up work to care for him doesn't fit his idea of perfect happiness...at some level he knows we can't manage without the money. But it's also spoilt for him - his recreation of his infancy. He's had therapy almost non stop since he was 22, and he was diagnosed with BPD 20 years ago, so has had a good deal targetted at that. Nothing touches the void.

Do you know if he has ever called a suicide hotline?

I don't know what the right way to be with him is. Am I just enabling? I don't know how to respond, so alot of the time when he is expressing his feelings, I say nothing, which then seems like I don't care. Help!!!

Does he say stuff like "you didn't say anything so that proves you don't care"?

Or is that your own worry -- "what if he thinks I don't care when I don't say anything?"

[50andwastedlife]

Thank you for your thoughtful and considered response Kells76.

I'm not very adept at the excerpting, so will just answer your questions one point at a time.

I started working outside the home in the summer of 2020, just an afternoon a week. He would have the abandonment issues and would phone for ages in anger. In 2021, as our finances suffered, i did another day a week, just in the summer, and that was the same. He blames the Polymyalgia Rheumatica he developed to me working there. In 2022 I got a different job, more office based and again, he phoned angrily and broke down whenever I wasn't there. I've had pressure to work more from my bosses, and we need the money, so have increased my hours. His breaking down has been consistent, but it's more because I'm working more.

He feels angry that I don't feel the way he does. And the fact that I don't feel it makes him feel humiliated, which is his biggest trigger. In order to accept the way he feels, he needs to construct a reality in which other people are lesser, our love is greater...he needed to believe that we were together all the time because we were better than other people, not because he couldn't be left on his own. That triggers a massive sense of humiliation.

I know he calls the Samaritans (do you have that in the States?). But mainly he calls me. But he has realised that it is humiliating for him to have my coworkers know he phones in distress all the time, so that has made it worse in many ways.

Feeling like he is not cared for enough is a big part of his trauma. He has said that I clearly don't care for him at all, and have done nothing to support him, frequently, and yes, if I don't reply.

I actually don't know what I feel any more. I just feel wholly reactive.

Thank you again for listening.