Invented stories and triangulating therapists

[Zosima]

Can anyone relate to this? My wife with borderline traits gets severely insecure, and she just claimed, while dysregulated, that several strangers have approached her in public at different times to warn them that her partner (me) has been “checking them out.” She also claims that a friend of hers said something similar over a year and a half ago but won’t name the friend.

She also claimed that all of the stories she had told me about her ex’s behavior (that she has used to justify getting insecure about my behavior) were fabricated—that she didn’t feel confident in just saying that she thought my behavior was unacceptable, so she made up stories about her ex to have a better excuse to be triggered. I don’t know which way to believe.

She also regularly claims that both her individual therapist and our couples therapist have privately validated her narrative and told her that I am problematic. I can’t verify this, and I wasn’t present to represent myself. She had a solo session with our couples therapist and didn’t tell me until the next morning right before our final couples therapy session.

These stories just seem implausible. And it is true that the therapists seem to be in sympathy and alignment with her, and it’s likely because one of them only gets her perspective and when we’re with the couples therapist I can’t be fully honest about the behavior and environment at home because it sets my wife off and then the session becomes about containing and protecting her. I cannot believe how her DBT therapist and the couples therapists look at the system, take her perspective as fact, and seem to expect me to just indefinitely tolerate her coercive, dysregulated demands for me to regulate her on a daily basis.

[ForeverDad]

Can anyone relate to this? My wife with borderline traits gets severely insecure, and she just claimed, while dysregulated, that several strangers have approached her... She also claims that a friend of hers said something similar over a year and a half ago but won’t name the friend.

She also claimed that all of the stories she had told me about her ex’s behavior (that she has used to justify getting insecure about my behavior) were fabricated... so she made up stories about her ex to have a better excuse to be triggered. I don’t know which way to believe.

She also regularly claims that both her individual therapist and our couples therapist have privately validated her narrative and told her that I am problematic. I can’t verify this...

Years ago one of our members reflected that he knew when his ex was lying... when she opened her mouth.  While that surely didn't apply to every single word his ex said, the point is that he couldn't depend on his ex to speak without some level of obfuscation, distraction, deflection or, yes, outright lies.

People with BPD traits (pwBPD) - and this can apply to other acting-out personality disorders - are prone to distort the truth and facts to suit their own self-oriented perceptions, moods and feelings.  We all try to avoid blame for things we've done, it's a natural inclination, one of the traits of BPD is to raise blame shifting to a unhealthy level.

In light of that perspective, it is probably best to first confirm those, shall we say, perceptions and perseptions before believing them.

Isn't it curious how so many of those negative claims can't be easily confirmed?  How do you inquire when sessions are ended?  How do you inquire of an ex-bf?  (Factoid: It seems just about every pwBPD describes ex-relationships as abusive.)

[zachira]

It is possible that you and your wife are not candidates for couples therapy, simply because she cannot participate without becoming dysregulated and is unable to look at her part with the problems in the marriage.

[SuperDaddy]

Hi @Zosima ,

Yes, after 20+ years of living with different BPD/BPDish partners and trying all different kinds of therapy, I can totally relate to that. ForeverDad's reply is great, but I'll be more direct with you here by sharing my rules:

1) Don't try couples therapy. It doesn't work when you have a BPD partner, and it can make things worse. Because the tendency is that the therapist will validate the distorted views of the BPD partner, while you find yourself unable to express your side of the story. So unless the couples therapist is very experienced with BPD, forget it. The best books on BPD usually warn you about this.

2) Your partner should only be treated by someone who is specialized in BPD and experienced, not a novice. The therapist should know well that validation of distorted views is detrimental for the patient.

3) Make your best effort to stay away from her private conversations. Refuse to listen to anything that she has talked about in her sessions, because sooner or later she will use that to provoke you and take you out of balance with phrases like "My therapist said that you <fill<fill_in_the_blank>." Never talk to her therapist directly. If you need to communicate something that is important for her treatment, send a text message to your partner to let them forward it to their therapist if they want to, but make sure the message is not at all related to your relationship.

A good couples therapist would refuse to talk to one partner in the absence of the other one. And would refuse to go from a single partner's therapist to a couples therapist because of their pre-existing bias.

When I lived with my first wife, we found a competent therapist, but my first wife, who had BPD traits, just ran away crying from the session. That was right after I agreed that when fixing the relationship wasn't possible, then a friendly divorce would be a good alternative outcome.

For the second wife, who has full BPD, I tried it again, but I could not fully express myself, and she made false/distorted claims all of the time. As a result, the validation of her distorted views happened during sessions. So later she kept torturing me at home, stating that the therapist had agreed with her. I got tired of it because it wasn't making progress and was just helping her to ingrain herself more in her rigid thoughts.

For the third wife, who also has a BPD diagnosis, I just refused to try it right away.

And yes, I know what you mean with lies. I have been dealing with them for years, and my current wife is the one that lies with the greatest frequency. Maybe it's because her family also lies a lot for each other. I need to take everything she says as a possibility instead of a fact. Then, whenever I can, I try to verify what she said. And I avoid asking questions that could encourage more lying.

In the beginning she would drive me crazy to the point that I bought a lie detector that is used to interrogate criminals, and I would also use special software to track down her location from her phone's GPS (because she was lying about it). That's because I didn't know the reason for the lies. In reality, the main place she went when hanging out was to McDonald's, due to her food compulsion, and sometimes she isolated herself in some place near our home because of her anxiety problems. I just had to make sure it wasn't anything else. I made a DNA test of our first son, just to make sure.

But over time I figured out the pattern and many of the reasons behind the lying, so I just relax when I hear a lie now.

[Zosima]

Thank you all for that feedback. This episode actually came right after I paused our couples therapy. It was recently brought to my attention that couples therapy is not possible and is often counterproductive if both partners are not able to self-regulate. That made a lot of sense to me. I experienced exactly what SuperDaddy described, where I couldn't speak explicitly about the behavior I was experiencing in sessions without them collapsing, and the therapist failed to see the asymmetry in the system—she often validated my wife's narrative (as opposed to her feelings).

And yes, zachira, it is interesting that all of these claims are things that cannot be verified. As she has calmed she has walked back some of her claims and accusations, but I am left with the fear that she is unintegrated enough to fabricate whole stories to support her narrative and feeling. There is something about that that crosses a line for me, like we are not honestly working together to support one another, but rather manipulating one another when necessary to avoid uncomfortable truths and responsibility.

I don't know what to do about her therapists who don't seem to recognize the severity of the behavior, the asymmetry of the system and my burnout. I have explicitly set a boundary against participating in any kind of emotional regulation for now, but they seem to be only validating her without any accountability or examination of how her behavior is ineffective toward her goals (staying together, being balanced, etc.). They don't communicate with me, so I don't know if the issue is that they don't see it because she doesn't accurately portray her behavior or the dynamic, or if they are using an ineffective strategy that prioritizes containment and avoiding collapse, with the assumption that I will continue to absorb it all and perform the role of regulator at home.

Marsha Linehan explicitly talks about how a pwBPD will not implement new self-regulation tools if there is somebody at home or in the system who regulates for them. So when the therapists tell me to just go into "wise-mind" and witness her behavior without reacting, stay patient, offer some reassurance, be compassionate, it ignores the upper limits of how possible that is when she is extremely dysregulated and coercively demanding that I step into the role of regulator, and it requires that I disappear and continually sacrifice myself. And it does not maintain the incentive for her to develop the new necessary skills. It's very frustrating to be paying for professionals who don't seem to recognize the system. I don't have a solution. Insisting on a change is portrayed as trying to control her treatment. I could just frame it as a boundary ("I cannot stay in this dynamic without different, comprehensive treatment from certified DBT program") but that implies an ultimatum and I have to be ready to actually leave if it is not met.

[Notwendy]

Some therapists may go along with the client's story, even if they suspect it's not all true, they need to have rapport with the client and have the client trust them. If they challenge the person's story, that may not be achievable. A savvy therapist may be able to be effective with the person without refuting the person's story.

Keep in mind though that what your wife is telling you about the therapy may be as truthful as what she's telling the therapist about you. IE- not really what is going on.

I agree that marital therapy probably isn't as helpful as individual therapy for both of you- a different therapist for each of you. Why you? So you have some professional support and guidance in this situation and can get feedback on your part in it.

As to boundaries- the boundary is about you and your behaviors and what are your limits of tolerance. You can insist on your wife going to therapy but even if she does go, whether or not she responds to it and how she responds if she does- this is not something you can control. You can not have a deadline for her progress as it's individual and not predictable how long that takes or if it helps at all.

My best guess is that the therapists are not regulating your wife's feelings for her but even if they were, it's only an hour or two a week. The main person who is in the position to regulate her feelings is you. What you do or not do has the bigger effect.

I don't know what she's asking you to do to regulate her but decreasing this will leave her to deal with her own feelings. Linehan is correct that if someone is regulating for them, they won't gain better self regulation skills. Your task is to also improve your own self reguating skills when she's dysregulating as it's a lot of discomfort to be in that situation. One key to this is to focus on your own feelings when you are- if you are feeling on edge, distressed, that is a signal you need some self care, and you may need to excuse yourself, leave the room, and you can say you need some time out and do that. Making it about you, not her, keeps the focus on yourself and is less accusatory to her.

It's also small steps. If she's been leaning on you for her regulation and you stop, she's left with no skills to manage. One idea is to decrease more gradually if that is more manageable for both of you. It's not linear. There will be times when you both go backwards or you appease because you don't want to deal with it, but aim for progress.

How and if she can manage - one doesn't really know yet. BPD is on a spectrum. Your goal I think is to arrive at a situation that is tolerable for you, if that is possible. It's an individual situation for both of you. If it gets better than that, that would be great.

My BPD mother didn't respond to therapy. BPD was not known in her younger years, so perhaps her course may have been different, or not. She was not forthcoming with the therapist. Was it lying, or her perspective as victim, or avoiding shame? Therapy was private- we didn't know what went on.

BPD mother also fabricated stories. We didn't know what to believe. I know she said things that weren't true about me to other people too. What is different with your wife is that she admitted to some of it. I think some of what my mother said were deliberate, but I also think some reflected her own thinking and perspective. They weren't true but perhaps they felt like they were to her. Feelings can seem like facts to pwBPD.

Others have had better success with therapy, so the outcome isn't known. You can manage your part in this, decide on your own boundaries on your own response and tolerance. What goes on between her and the therapist is between them.

[PeteWitsend]

...

She also regularly claims that both her individual therapist and our couples therapist have privately validated her narrative and told her that I am problematic. I can’t verify this, and I wasn’t present to represent myself. She had a solo session with our couples therapist and didn’t tell me until the next morning right before our final couples therapy session.

...

The second marriage counselor/therapist I saw with my now-XW was a situation where she had been seeing him individually, and told me he said she "was fine" and there's nothing wrong with her.  I bet she was fully honest and candid with him... 

She then told me he wanted to see us both, and I told her I was concerned about "bias" here and didn't think it was appropriate for us to see her individual therapist as a counselor.  She disagreed and told me he did too.  So we went to see him a couple times.

These sessions would quickly break down, as she would scream - and I mean scream - once I started talking.  I would come prepared with notes about the things that happened during the week that I felt were making our marriage untenable, and once I started talking she would demand I shut up or "just file for divorce already" and things like that.  The therapist would sit there quietly and didn't see a problem with this.

Also on our first visit, he mentioned he was writing a book about marriage relations and asked me to help proofread it for him.  He sent me like a 300 page PDF.  I read a bit of it, and realized it was just the typical "Learn to speak eachother's love language" BS.  I thought he was kind of an idiot.  I also refused to go back to see him after the second blow up there, because it was actually making our relations more contentious, leading to even more conflict during the week. 

A lot of therapists are just bad; either they're incompetent and/or desperate for clients and are happy to let disordered people come in there and rant, so they can take their money. 

In contrast to this, our third therapist was much more professional and started to call my ex-wife out on her subjective takes, inconsistencies, and that sort of thing, which of course enraged BPDxw, and caused her to scream at the therapist on our last visit and refuse to go back. 

So I think there's a bit of a Catch-22 when it comes to marriage counseling with a BPD spouse: Either the therapist is incompetent and allows the pwBPD to dominate the sessions, in which case they become pointless exercises of blame-shifting, or the therapist is competent and zeroes in on the behavioral disorder issue, in which case the pwBPD will panic and refuse to go back, as they realize they will not be able to control the sessions and this may result in them being held accountable for their actions. 

[Pook075]

So I think there's a bit of a Catch-22 when it comes to marriage counseling with a BPD spouse: Either the therapist is incompetent and allows the pwBPD to dominate the sessions, in which case they become pointless exercises of blame-shifting, or the therapist is competent and zeroes in on the behavioral disorder issue, in which case the pwBPD will panic and refuse to go back, as they realize they will not be able to control the sessions and this may result in them being held accountable for their actions. 

It has to be a super difficult job because as others have said, you have to build a rapport with your patient regardless of what they're saying or doing.  And while building that trust, a lot of the "that must have been difficult for you" types of responses could sound like affirmation that everything said is factual.

I can remember being in counseling one time with my BPD daughter under very similar circumstances you described.  My kid went after me, "You're never here, you never support me or show up," and I remained silent through it all. 

Surprisingly though, the therapist cut her off mid-sentence and asked, "So you can't think of a single time recently that your dad showed up for you?"  My kid answered no.  And the therapist replied, "Then why is he sitting in my office in front of me?"  You could have heard a pin drop in the deafening silence.

If my kid didn't really, really think highly of her therapist though, that would have gone really bad.  But it had the opposite effect and made my kid think it out a little bit.  Later, when my kid went back to the "you never do anything for me..." stuff, the therapist cut her off again and pointed to me sitting in the chair.  The point was just as powerful the 2nd time.

[Me88]

It has to be a super difficult job because as others have said, you have to build a rapport with your patient regardless of what they're saying or doing.  And while building that trust, a lot of the "that must have been difficult for you" types of responses could sound like affirmation that everything said is factual.

I can remember being in counseling one time with my BPD daughter under very similar circumstances you described.  My kid went after me, "You're never here, you never support me or show up," and I remained silent through it all. 

Surprisingly though, the therapist cut her off mid-sentence and asked, "So you can't think of a single time recently that your dad showed up for you?"  My kid answered no.  And the therapist replied, "Then why is he sitting in my office in front of me?"  You could have heard a pin drop in the deafening silence.

If my kid didn't really, really think highly of her therapist though, that would have gone really bad.  But it had the opposite effect and made my kid think it out a little bit.  Later, when my kid went back to the "you never do anything for me..." stuff, the therapist cut her off again and pointed to me sitting in the chair.  The point was just as powerful the 2nd time.

why do they all seem to say that? 'you're never there for me when I need you' when there are a million examples of how you are. That always confused me. I could have literally done something very selfless and I'd hear it all the time.

[ForeverDad]

why do they all seem to say that? 'you're never there for me when I need you' when there are a million examples of how you are. That always confused me. I could have literally done something very selfless and I'd hear it all the time.

Their thinking and perceptions are not normal, it's corrupted by, yes, their personality disorder.  Even reasonably normal people want to avoid blame, but their Blame Shifting and Denial is to an extreme.

We wish logic and reason would prevail, and sometime it might do so briefly, but this is a long, difficult path and many refuse to start and even those to start may quit and fail to recover.

When there are insights, great, but long term one can't even predict whether a successful outcome, or even a reasonable "two steps forward and one step back".

[Zosima]

Yes, what PeteWitsend and Pook075 said sounds very familiar. I've seen my wife explode in a session when confronted, and after a few months the dynamic now is mostly the therapist validating what tremendous progress my wife has made as I sit quietly, unable to articulate the behavior that I'm seeing without derailing the session. This is why I paused couples therapy. Two DBT program directors here in LA confirmed that couples therapy is unproductive when both parties can't self-regulate, as they have to be able to hold space for the other person's thoughts and feelings. The fears that my honest feelings and limits trigger in my wife make those conversations impossible. And like Pete said, the therapists often unconsciously align with the more distressed partner and start to validate not just their feelings, but their behavior and narrative, especially if the other partner is not able to speak honestly. Or, if the therapist does challenge the dysregulated partner and that person is not able or willing to hear and integrate that, they often rage and refuse to participate.

It's tempting for me to start to obsessing a bit over finding the "right" therapist, or to try to make the current therapists see the system clearly, but I am always trying to ground myself and accept that I can't control her recovery. I've just been in the no man's land of knowing that I cannot accept this behavior but I also can't control changing it. I can't accept the relationship as it is, and I can't accept letting it go. So I keep hoping for a miracle, or that more understanding will help me see another option or make it less painful for both of us, or that the right professional will be the one to trigger change for her, or that I can somehow find the right arrangement of things so that I can stay without harming myself while I wait for her to change. I think it all comes down to acceptance, and I'm not there.

[Pook075]

why do they all seem to say that? 'you're never there for me when I need you' when there are a million examples of how you are. That always confused me. I could have literally done something very selfless and I'd hear it all the time.

It's a continual victim mentality that the world is against them and causing them harm.  The same disordered thinking also leads to thinking the worst people in the world will always be there for them no matter what.

[Me88]

It's a continual victim mentality that the world is against them and causing them harm.  The same disordered thinking also leads to thinking the worst people in the world will always be there for them no matter what.

This all makes me wonder how much is 'real' or not. They triangulate by making things up, exaggerating omitting facts and from what I've experienced they're usually pretty smart too. Plus they can act normal as well. Part of me feels like their actions, at least a lot of them are on purpose to serve their victim mentality, and other times when they split maybe those actions aren't as controlled, until after where they have to rewrite the narrative. For instance my ex screaming insults at me for hours, then I finally start crying or say something rude and she magically pulls out her phone to record me, break into instant tears and say she's scared. She knows what happened and how she's trying to frame things. I guess my example is more manipulation.

[kells76]

Agreed that couples therapy, while it can be immensely helpful, is not always the right path at certain places in a BPD relationship.

If you both are just hitting a wall in couples T then that isn't helping you, isn't helping her, and isn't helping your relationship.

Another approach is that each spouse has their own individual T, and you both sign consent forms so the individual T's  can talk with each other. That can turn down the hot dynamic where you both are competing for one T's belief.

Whether your W agrees to that setup or not, getting an individual T for yourself sounds helpful right now.

I think you may be in a "validation deficit" as I suspect your W struggles to validate your experience and feelings. We all need validation, BPD or no, and I hear you deeply desiring someone to see what you're seeing and "get it" about your pain. Your W's disorder is so impairing that she can't provide it well, and it's not appropriate for you to seek validation from her individual T (any more than she should be trying to convince your T that she is right), so my hope for you is that you can find someone you really mesh with who can be there for you.

For a season, I wonder if it could actually help your relationship if you both stop trying to get validation from each other. She gets some from her T and you get support from your T. Might take some pressure off of the needs you have of each other, if that makes sense.

Any of that landing?

[kells76]

And in terms of the invented stories, if you weren't there personally, or of the T did not tell you directly, then we just don't know what was actually communicated.

It is important to remember what Notwendy brought up: in order for a therapist to have any chance of working effectively with a client, the client needs to buy in to the process and feel heard. This will likely entail some skilled validation by the T ("wow, it would be so painful for something like that to happen") without agreement. A pwBPD may experience or interpret that as "My T said she believed me that it happened". This doesn't mean that every T out there is a doormat in front of a pwBPD: "oh, if you feel like it happened then it did". It does mean that we need to slow our roll and our reactions when the pwBPD in our lives say extreme things.

While we can't control what happens in someone else's therapy session, we can get support for ourselves. A good T of your own can help you keep your head on straight in the middle of the swirl of BPD.

FWIW, the pwBPD in my life (my H's kids' mom) likely believes and/or has told others that I am an emotional child, I don't really matter to the kids in the family system, and I am out to get her when she is an amazing mom trying her best. There are people out there who believe I am unimportant, ineffectual, don't really get it about the kids, and am part of the problem. Finding a way to let go of the drive to convince others if "how it really is" has been freeing. Not fast by any means though.

...

Anyway, if you and your W both sign disclosures for your T's to talk with each other, I'd be VERY interested to hear updates of if that structure is helpful for you guys

[Rowdy]

This all makes me wonder how much is 'real' or not. They triangulate by making things up, exaggerating omitting facts and from what I've experienced they're usually pretty smart too. Plus they can act normal as well. Part of me feels like their actions, at least a lot of them are on purpose to serve their victim mentality, and other times when they split maybe those actions aren't as controlled, until after where they have to rewrite the narrative. For instance my ex screaming insults at me for hours, then I finally start crying or say something rude and she magically pulls out her phone to record me, break into instant tears and say she's scared. She knows what happened and how she's trying to frame things. I guess my example is more manipulation.

Oh I think they are quite capable of knowing what they are doing. My ex is very smart. She is very calculating, our son has mentioned that in the past. I think they are well capable of putting on an act. In fact, she owns a salon and I’ve seen it for myself. The amount of times I had been in the staff room and a client walked through the door, and I would hear “oh here comes Mrs c***t or [insert expletive] and then would go out and greet them with smiles and bullsh!t. And due to covid her business is in quite substantial debt, yet the stories she has clearly spun her wealthiest of clients has led to four or five of them offering her money. And then her new best friend splitting up with her husband who is fairly well off, then led to my wife running off with him after triangulating them. All manipulation. Throw in gaslighting and lack of accountability for her actions and quite sure she knows exactly what she is doing.

[Zosima]

Thanks for the suggestion, kells76. I really love the idea of our therapists speaking with each other. I do have my own therapist. It's cost prohibitive to talk to him regularly, but he is always available when I reach out. I tried another therapist through my insurance but it wasn't a good fit. I'm in the process of finding another. I actually asked my wife what she thought about our therapists talking with one another tonight. She was skeptical. She kept asking why I wanted that, why now, why I'm so enthusiastic. When I said I was considering emailing her and her therapist about the idea earlier in the day (but decided to bring it up with her first) she said she was uncomfortable with me emailing her therapist, even if she was copied. She has vacillated over the last 10 months between wanting me to join her sessions briefly (maybe 3 times for 5-10min of the session) and telling me she didn't want us to communicate at all even with her present or she would feel like she can't trust her therapist. It was odd tonight that she said she might not be comfortable with our therapists talking because there might be something that she has shared with me that she didn't want to share with her therapist that would get back to her through my therapist. I know that might be hard to follow, but the point is that she *implied* there are things she does not want to share with her therapist. My intuition says that she is trying to control the narrative, but it's possible that she is just reacting defensively out of anxiety and uncertainty right now. But thank you for the great recommendation! I hope it happens and leads to more clarity and better communication.

And to your question, I have considered that balance that the therapists need to keep very often. I just don't know whether it is the case that they are validating her feelings but my wife hears that they believe her narrative, or if they actually have a distorted idea of what is happening and are inadvertently enabling her emotional dependency and avoidance.

It was interesting to hear you bring attention to our need to slow down our reaction to dysregulated comments. That's been hard for me because I feel compelled to make a good-faith effort at responding and compromising, but then I find myself going in circles with someone who is completely irrational and incoherent. And the alternative (acknowledging that she does not currently have the capacity to stay regulated and have fair, productive conversations) has the effect of diminishing her in my eyes, which has weighed heavily on the attraction I feel and the sense that I actually have a partner as opposed to a dependent. I haven't been able to resolve those feelings yet.

My professional support (long-time individual therapist and one DBT therapist I saw for about 3 months to inform myself on what my wife was getting into) eventually land at telling me it just comes down to my limits — that I have no idea whether or when she may recover, and it's ultimately a decision about what cost I am willing to accept waiting for that to happen. My therapist has been concerned that, given my childhood dynamics and temperament, I may lose myself in this relationship, and I see those concerns. I am just not at the point of acceptance that I can't somehow make it work.

Thank you for sharing the relief you got from letting go of trying to control/influence others' opinions. I agree that a lot of this comes down to letting go of control. They focus on that a lot in CodA, Al Anon and other 12 step support groups.

[CC43]

Hi there,

I think that "invented stories" are an important part of BPD, which is reflected in the name "Borderline," as in the borderline between neurosis (excessive/irrational anxiety or obsession) and psychosis (loss of touch of reality).  The way I see it, pwBPD feel traumatized almost all the time, through some combination of physical discomfort and emotional distress.  And when under stress or feeling anxiety, the pwBPD's "rational" brain will be overtaken by the emotional brain.  Their thinking patterns tend to be extremely negative and obsessive, not very logical or oriented towards problem-solving.  Moreover, they embrace a victim attitude and seek to blame others for any perceived distress.  That's where the invented stories come in, because if fact patterns don't align, it doesn't matter--they will re-arrange the "facts" to convince themselves that somebody else caused the distress.  They spend so much time ruminating and replaying perceived slights in their mind that upon every successive mental re-enactment, the story gets a little more twisted, sort of like the game Telephone.

I've found that there's another layer to the invented stories as well, which is projection.  Let's say your pwBPD feels inferior and insecure.  She's so obsessed with this feeling that she actively seeks any sort of external confirmation that others treat her with condescension, disrespect or questioning.  A "Good morning" might be remembered as a dismissive remark.  A "How's your partner?" might be remembered as someone doubting her romantic relationship.  She can ruminate about these interactions in her mind so much that she develops a negative thinking rut, which she can't get herself out of.  It's not much of a leap for her to conclude that her partner is cheating.  She might feel so insecure and unworthy that she tries to beat you to the punch and exit the relationship.

I bet your partner says all her prior relationships were abusive.  If she's been in the workforce, I bet she claims all her prior bosses and most of her co-workers bullied her.  Let me guess, she's estranged from some, if not all, members of her family, because she thinks they are toxic.  I'm really sorry if your partner was actually abused in the past, that would be terrible.  But in my experience with BPD, her telling of the past can be twisted beyond recognition.  More often than not, it's the pwBPD who is abusive, the bully and toxic.  I think many of the stories are projections of her own negative thinking and behaviors.

What I've tried to do with the pwBPD in my life is not to take all her stories as literal fact, but rather read between the lines, and try to understand her feelings.  By the way, the pwBPD in my life has tested out some stories of abuse, sort of "trying them on," like a new identity or outfit.  However, when challenged on the "facts" (aka lies), she quickly retreated.  Subsequently she'd keep the stories and timelines vague, to increase plausibility and keep people guessing.

I guess I'll wrap up with some thoughts about validation.  On these boards you'll find tips about validating feelings, not lies.  That's good advice.  But in practice, I've found that talking endlessly about negative feelings and purported slights/abuse/grievances is counter-productive.  You see, the pwBPD doesn't seek context, perspective, understanding or closure.  She's not looking for resolution, or to move on.  My opinion is that the more she rehashes the negative feelings and accusations out loud, the worse she gets.  I think if you "validate" her too much, what's happening is that you're essentially rewarding her negative thinking patterns with attention, and she's incentivized to continue!  So in my experience, I think that a time out might work better.  I guess that's why the recommended treatment for BPD isn't talk therapy (i.e. to explore thoughts and feelings for greater understanding and self-knowledge), but DBT.

[PeteWitsend]

why do they all seem to say that? 'you're never there for me when I need you' when there are a million examples of how you are. That always confused me. I could have literally done something very selfless and I'd hear it all the time.

I still often have to remind myself that in addition to recognizing that the things a pwBPD says are filtered through their own "lens"... they may not even be true to begin with, and is entirely misleading or served up with an ulterior motive.

I've considered BPDxw's view of "the truth" to have two parts to it: 1) whatever served her interests in that moment, and 2) whatever she could convince others was true.

she seemed to have no concern for appearing to be inconsistent or losing credibility - with me or anyone else.  I guess that's where the whole "emotional and mental abuse" factor comes into play: if you don't go along with the lies, then you screamed at, blamed, undermined, insulted, etc. until you do.

I also noticed she acted this way in her professional life.  She'd lie on her resume and invent skills and work experience she did not have, and defend this by alleging "everyone does that."

she also seemed to think everything was a lie around her, and hence the lack of any concern for appearing dishonest or ridiculous.  Nobody knew anything, not doctors, lawyers, etc. it was all just make believe and whatever you could get away with was fair.

[PeteWitsend]

...

I guess I'll wrap up with some thoughts about validation.  On these boards you'll find tips about validating feelings, not lies.  That's good advice.  But in practice, I've found that talking endlessly about negative feelings and purported slights/abuse/grievances is counter-productive.  You see, the pwBPD doesn't seek context, perspective, understanding or closure.  She's not looking for resolution, or to move on.  My opinion is that the more she rehashes the negative feelings and accusations out loud, the worse she gets.  I think if you "validate" her too much, what's happening is that you're essentially rewarding her negative thinking patterns with attention, and she's incentivized to continue!  So in my experience, I think that a time out might work better.  I guess that's why the recommended treatment for BPD isn't talk therapy (i.e. to explore thoughts and feelings for greater understanding and self-knowledge), but DBT.

I don't think you should look at validation as an end in an of itself; it's a technique to prevent conversations from blowing up into larger fights or blame games.  But you still have to find a way to end the conversation. 

All this is easier said than done, I know, but maybe you can try using their own language against them.  The "I don't feel" and "You don't seem to be" etc. kind of statements.

I've also considered that validation might be the first step, but then repeating & rephrasing their attacks and unhinged statements back at them can take some of the wind out of their sails, and force them to retract things or otherwise calm down to try to parse out what's happening. 

"I'm sorry, I understand you're upset, but you think because I looked at my phone, I'm intentionally ignoring you?"

"When you said XYZ, it sounds like you feel bla bla bla.  I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from here."

I tried this sort of thing; I also tried the "leave the room to defuse the fight, but do it kindly," technique, which is really hard to do when someone is screaming at you for no reason, or insulting you.  I'd find that sometimes validating and repeating that I loved her and she didn't need to worry or feel anxious about it would temporarily defuse things.  Sometimes (I can count the number on one hand), it would be the last I'd hear about that one concern.  More often (I do not have enough hands to count the number) the next day, or a few days later, I'd hear "I was thinking about our discussion from yesterday/last week, and I still think that bla bla bla..." and the hair on the back of my neck would stand up as I knew she was going to keep hacking away at this until she was able to provoke a fight - over it or whatever other perceived slight she could come up with in the moment.