standing my ground

[Petra1115]

I have been using this board a lot lately and it has been helping me stay strong. I am so grateful to everyone here. Yesterday my ubpd partner gave me an ultimatum... move in with him or it's over. I ended up telling him that I cannot do that until he addresses his mental condition. He said I am just making excuses. I have been very consistent over the past year with my message... which is basically I can't moved forward with someone who calls me names and who breaks up with me every two weeks. I feel bad that things have gone on this long in this limbo state. (This is my bad.) My partner is simply sick of the limbo. I told him that there are many reasons why I have felt unsafe with him over the past couple of years and he asked me to list them out. I told him several examples right away. His response was, "I never punched you." Once when I told him I felt unsafe he said I can call the police. It really boggles my mind. He is a more traditional alpha type who I would think would want to protect. That is what I had hoped for. That he would want to want the things that I want -- something peaceful and safe. It all makes me sad but I am at least to a point where I am able to accept him moving on. Yesterday, he dropped off my things and told me he is going to sleep with someone and never wants to see me again. Then shortly thereafter the texts came rolling in. I know he wishes we could have a future with me but he is simply unwilling to address his issues. I hope I did the right thing. I can't imagine things getting better when moving in if he doesn't work on managing his anger. I feel some guilt for the hope I have had and for allowing things to be in limbo.

[try2heal]

I've been thinking a lot about my uBPDxBF over the last week or so, and all of the things I put up with for 3 years. Reading your post brought me right back. Yes, you've done the right thing. "I never hit you" was a big one from him, too. But that itself was a threat. Either that one day it would come, or that he could do anything and everything horrible to me right up to that boundary. Well, I set other boundaries and he hopped right over them; he set boundaries for himself (no more drinking, changing other habits) and failed to keep them, so how was I to trust he wouldn't one day leap over that one.

Now I'm wandering  I'll just post now.

[ForeverDad]

Recently I've returned to speaking about the Obligation aspect of the BPD "FOG" - Fear, Obligation, Guilt.

Right now he wants you to move in.  One would expect the other to be on better of not best behavior.  Yet breaking up every few weeks is not a positive.  So imagine that you did move in.  It would make you even more committed and obligated to the relationship.  Most notably it would then be even harder to separate since there would be more sense of commitment and obligation.  If there are problems now, imagine that scenario where he may relax and vent on you even more.

[Petra1115]

Thanks try2heal and ForeverDad. For me couples move in when things are solid. Or at least moving in that direction. His words imply that he needs a home with me to trust that we are moving forward. I get how it feels that I am keeping us from moving forward (because I am)... but also, my concerns simply aren't being addressed. My fears aren't made up fears, or things based on one action that happened a while back. They are based on a recurring pattern. At least now when things don't go well I have my own place as a sanctuary. So I told him that we want the same things, but need different things to feel safe to move forward. His response was that we need to practice living under the same roof first without a way out so we have to deal with situations without running away. Ironic, right?-- Since does the breaking up.

[Petra1115]

Meant to say since *he* does the breaking up

[Under The Bridge]

it feels that I am keeping us from moving forward (because I am)

No, you're not - and please stop thinking that; the problems are entirely of his own making. BPD's play on making the other person somehow responsible for it all.

If someone has to resort to threats or ultimatums to get you to live with them, and ignores boundaries then it's not going to end well. Be strong.

[ForeverDad]

If someone has to resort to threats or ultimatums to get you to live with them, and ignores boundaries then it's not going to end well. Be strong.

There's a reason these acting-out PD relationships such as ones with BPD traits are compared to push-pull, yo-yo, or on-again-off-again scenarios, an endless dysfunction dance back and forth.

And while no one can predict whether a specific person may at some point realize therapy is the only path forward - if he does then great - the odds are against it.  You have to deal with the Now, what Is, not what you wish or hope.

These analogies might be helpful to illustrate the objective realities we face.

The Bridge
The Backyard Black Hole

[once removed]

No, you're not - and please stop thinking that; the problems are entirely of his own making. BPD's play on making the other person somehow responsible for it all.

there is a key difference between "being made (or told) to be responsible for it all" and "taking responsibility for ourselves". if we do the latter, logic dictates we cant make the problems entirely of their own making, either.

i mention that, not to be disagreeable, but because i think that key is why you can ultimately be confident in your decision, and/or the outcome.

not to minimize them, far from it, but if you remove all of the emotionally loaded stuff, the violence, bpd, etc, from the equation, what you both have are major differences in values, a communication breakdown, very different ideas of how a relationship should be, and a fundamental incompatibility.

its ultimately not very different than if one of you wanted to have a baby, and the other didnt, or if you both wanted to have a baby, but had very different, opposing/competing ideas of how to raise a baby. theyre relationship killers, regardless of anything else.

either the conflict is resolved, or the relationship is a zombie (effectively in limbo) until it dies. one or both of you can try to persuade the other to your point of view all day long. you can use ultimatums. you can threaten or cajole. or one of you budges. or you find a compromise. thats pretty much it. you want a relationship you feel safe in - he may profess to want that too (who doesnt?) - but his actions show he has a view of what that looks like that is incompatible with yours. bottom line.

i wanted to marry my ex, but it was never anything i took steps toward doing it, because, in the state wed always been in, i couldnt imagine us having the sort of harmonious marriage (we fought hard, and often) that i want, and place a high value on. there were deep differences, too, for example, i am a christian, and she is an atheist, and things like raising a child together seemed destined for major, relationship rupturing (or obliterating) conflict. deep down, i knew the differences were too great, but i hoped otherwise. the mentally harder, but healthier thing, would have been to make the difficult decision that i wasnt prepared to make, and frankly, didnt realize i should (i was between 21-24, it was my first adult relationship, and being young and dumb is a decent excuse   ). and so the relationship continued, ostensibly on the false promise that wed be married. but it was never going to happen, and, deep down, im sure she felt that.

relationships cannot thrive when that is the case. they deteriorate (and sometimes over long periods of time). they breed resentment and power struggles. they become losing battles of trying to change each other, trying to be heard and seen, and they usually end badly.

there is a part of you that was not "all in" on this relationship, whatever the reasons were. its important to honor that - remind yourself of the reasons, and stare at them starkly. they are all you require to know, confidently, that this was not the relationship you desire. its also important though, to learn lessons from it - both in terms of understanding "how you got here" and "where you want to go". learning to spot, and ultimately walk away from, "dead end relationships" is something we can all benefit from, and that is where taking responsibility comes into play. good mental health is rewarding, but hard, and the price that we pay is suffering today, but not forever.

none of that is to lose sight of the specific behavior, mind you. it is impossible to have a harmonious relationship in which there is violence - and quite frankly, the likelihood of it improving is usually not very good. the level of his immaturity in the aftermath speaks volumes about his character - people can do some very immature and regretable things during a breakup, but "haha im gonna sleep with someone and i never want to see you again and here are a bunch of texts about how so over you i am" runs pretty deep. his approach to getting his needs met is to threaten, and it comes with a total absence of self awareness or the ability to synthesize the information/feedback you gave him. none of those things make for good dating, cohabitating, or marriage material.

but the things you need to know, to feel confident about your decision, are simpler than any of those things: you are manifestly different people, that want different things. in time (and effort), youll not only be free to pursue those things, but even better equipped to give, and receive them.

[Petra1115]

Under The Bridge, ForeverDad, Once Removed:

Thank you. So helpful and a good reality check. Once Removed, I have thought about what you said, too--how regardless of the big dramatic factors, there are obvious incompatibilities in communication and what for us constitutes a sustainable relationship.

ForeverDad--
He must have felt my actual willingness to let this go this time. He said he was open to therapy... I realize this could be a long road even so.... Is it pretty universal that DBT would be the best option? And best that they go on their own or with a partner? Or something else entirely?

Under The Bridge, thank you for the validation. I do feel more confident now. If I got more support for my decisions I think I would have an easier time making them... as in, if he approved of my strength, I think I would be stronger. My fear of disappointing people has got to go. So does my own fear of abandonment. I am learning to express my truth even at the risk of abandonment since the other alternative is abandoning myself.

[try2heal]

Thanks try2heal and ForeverDad. For me couples move in when things are solid. Or at least moving in that direction. His words imply that he needs a home with me to trust that we are moving forward.

I saw this all the time! With our relationship it was engagement--he wanted us to be engaged less than 6 months in. I told him I wasn't there. I talked about finding a different way to mark our path--a grown up version of a "promise" ring. He'd adopt it, then days later tell me I was backing out of an engagement and was a liar. I eventually told him I wouldn't be engaged to him until he stopped thinking it was how to fix things.

So I told him that we want the same things, but need different things to feel safe to move forward. His response was that we need to practice living under the same roof first without a way out so we have to deal with situations without running away. Ironic, right?-- Since does the breaking up.

Again... same here. It was financial entanglement for me. He'd break up with me and then tell me he didnt' break up with me. Then we'd take some sort of financial step forward. In the end, I ended up with several thousand dollars of his debt.

Sorry to just "me too" this, but I think it's really important to know this is a pattern for BPD and it probably won't get better. And it's not your fault.

[HurtAndTired]

Just to add my two cents in here too, I wanted to share a little bit about BPD relationship dynamics that are at play here that you may not be aware of. Have you heard of the Karpman drama triangle? It is a framework that helps explain how pwBPD view the world and navigate relationships. There are only three positions in the drama triangle: victim, savior, and persecutor. The pwBPD only feels comfortable being in the victim position. This is why they can never accept responsibility for the bad things that happen in their lives. They may claim to in a bid to try to appease you, but they have an unstable sense of self (one of the diagnostic criteria for the condition) which makes it impossible for their ego to accept blame. This is why they blame shift, project, and accuse...to protect their ill-defined sense of self.

When you first meet the pwBPD, you are placed into the savior position of the triangle. You are perfect, and so unlike the others that came before you that hurt them. You will frequently hear the pwBPD vilify these people (or one person in specific). This person/people are occupying the persecutor position of the triangle. This is the initial "idealization phase" of a BPD relationship cycle. The pwBPD builds a perfect image of you in their mind. You are what they have been waiting for all of their lives and you will fix them. The problem is that this is not the actual real you. You cannot be perfect, no one can. In any case, the idea that they have of you is not based on the real you. It is largely a figment of their imagination. When you inevitably fail to live up to the impossible false image they have you, you will be vilified.

You will then be shifted from the savior to the persecutor position in the triangle by the pwBPD. Eventually the pwBPD will apologize and try to repair the relationship. This is not because they are actually remorseful, but because they need/want you back in the savior position. They will then shift you back and forth between savior and persecutor positions, hence the push and pull. This is where the "splitting" or "black and white thinking" come into play (another of the diagnostic criteria). PwBPD are incapable of seeing people in shades of gray. You are either perfect or awful. There is no in between.

Rinse and repeat. The one thing that never changes is that the pwBPD will never leave the victim position. This is why I said that pwBPD lack empathy and remorse. It is not because they are inherently bad people, but because due to the unstable sense of self they are unable to put themselves in anyone else's shoes. They always must be the victim. It takes years and years of effort in DBT therapy for a pwBPD to relearn how to perceive the world before they can get to the point where they are truly able to feel empathy. An untreated pwBPD can act remorseful, but it is rarely if ever genuine. A victim is not capable of feeling remorse against the persecutor. Instead they will do or say whatever they need to do to get you back into the savior position when THEY want you there. It is about getting their needs fulfilled.

From the push/pull dynamics you describe you are well past the idealization phase and are likely cycling back and forth through the "obsessive neediness, withdrawing and withhold, escalating devaluation, break up, and return and repair" phases. BPD relationships often cycle back through these stages over and over again. While there may be a brief return to the initial idealization phase, it will not be as long or as deep as it was the first time. After 13 years, my wife only cycles back as far as the withdrawing and withholding phase, but spends most of her time in escalating devaluation. This cycle will continue with an untreated pwBPD until one of the partners in the relationship has had enough and exits the relationship, or the non-BPD partner becomes completely enmeshed with the pwBPD's delusions and loses their selfhood as a full-time emotional caretaker.

One option is to try to learn as much as you can about BPD and try to step out of the drama triangle by learning to validate their emotions without agreeing to their delusional view of reality. This means accepting that their feelings equal facts for them and that this can cause them to remember things in a way that does not match your memories or perception of reality. This is exhausting and a hard skill to master. Even then, it does not fix the relationship, but can be helpful in diffusing conflict before it gets out of hand. Strong boundaries (e.g. if you call me names, I am leaving the room/house, etc.) are also key to helping keep conflicts from escalating once they reach the point where validation is no longer an option. I tried this for years, and it has managed to reduce the amount of conflict I allow myself to be subjected to. However, my wife has had very little personal growth over the roughly two years I have been doing this. Nothing is ever her fault. She can and will not change unless she A) admits to herself that she has a mental condition and B)  wants to go to treatment to get better of her own accord. After knowing her for 13 years, I know this will not happen.

Ultimately, what most of us come to realize is that untreated BPD is just too difficult to handle in the long run. It is not impossible. My paternal grandmother (I realize this in hindsight) was very likely uBPD. My grandfather deferred to her in everything. They were married for 66 years (until his death at the age of 87). Looking back on my childhood, all of the things that I thought were cute about them, like Grandma telling Grandpa what to order at a restaurant, picking out his clothes everyday, etc. were actually symptomatic of a profoundly dysfunctional relationship. My grandfather gave up his personhood to caretake my grandmother for the entirety of his adult life. This is likely why I am prone to falling into the caretaker role myself.

However, I do not want to end up like Grandpa. Just before he died from heart failure, Grandma was falsely/delusionally accusing him of having an affair with a neighbor lady at the assisted living home they were in. In one of his last conversations with my Dad he said "I don't know what I did wrong and she won't speak to me anymore" with tears streaming down his face. He died shortly after and I don't know if Grandma ever reversed her split on him or if he was still "split black" when he passed.

Another option is that the pwBPD decides to get treatment on their own and sticks with it. They cannot be forced into treatment by an ultimatum or it will fail. It is just another gesture to keep their Favorite Person (FP) from leaving and will be abandoned as soon as they feel like you are back in the triangle where they are comfortable. Even if the treatment is sought voluntarily, it will likely be years of hard work before they can be able to be in a truly reciprocal relationship. I mention this because I know that time is an important factor for you.

I recommend that you read the book "Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On with Life" by Margalis Fjelstad. It was a lifechanging book for me. It gives you concrete, actionable steps you can take to end the drama in your relationship. It also explains a lot about how pwBPD perceive the world and relationships. It is a quick read and I have read it at least 3 times. Whatever you end up deciding to do, this book will help you see clearly and give you the tools that you need to navigate that path.

Finally, I want to leave you with yet another acronym that is frequently mentioned on these boards. It's FOG (Fear, Obligation, and Guilt). Because of the FOG we are in with these relationships, we cannot see clearly. Our perceptions of ourselves and the world start to become as warped as those of the pwBPD who actually suffers from delusions. By projecting their delusions onto us long enough, we start to believe some of them. If you call someone something long enough, or accuse someone of something long enough, they will start to believe there is some truth to it.

I know that after years of being told that I was at fault for everything wrong in my marriage, I started to believe that maybe I was a bad husband. Now I can see that I have been as supportive and loving as she has let me. Sure I yelled back at her a few times when she pushed me too far and I finally snapped, but the ratio of her yelling to me yelling has to be around 95%/5% over many years. After nearly two years of therapy and a diagnosis of C-PTSD due to the abusive nature of my marriage, I have finally cleared the FOG and can clearly see that almost all of our marital problems were either due to, or exacerbated by, my wife's mental illness. It has been freeing, but I still have a long road to travel to recover from years of awful treatment.

I am sorry that there are no quick fixes. There are no medications. There is no treatment that will work in the short term. In the long term, success is slow and hard-won with regular DBT sessions. Even then, the person being treated has to passionately want to get better and be dedicated to their recovery, with lots of steps backwards and regressing into bad behaviors to be expected. Ask yourself if the partner you know is likely to make a commitment to this type of treatment for himself and stick to it..for his own sake, not yours, for years and years and potentially the rest of his life? Past is prelude. You know this person. There is not a good version and a bad version of this person. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are one integrated person. The switching back and forth, splitting/black and white thinking, is an integral part of his psyche. It is the only way he can perceive the world and he has been doing it all of his life. DBT would require that he relearn how to process everything. Relearn how to think about everything. Rewire his brain. Is he capable of that type of commitment, fight, and struggle indefinitely?

HurtAndTired