I have been away from this forum for a long time...

[MissTajo]

... .After pouring my heart out about my relationship so many times I felt I was being pressed to leave him. To move on with my live. And I thought: "What about the love? What about fighting for the person we love trough thick and thin?" Took me a while to realize the person I need to love the most, first, is me. And yes, you were right. I should have left him when I found out in the beginning. And no I didn't and I still haven't. And I am back here. In the limbo between leaving and staying... .seeing the red flags everywhere in my future and trying to color them pink.

What made me come back was something rather "simple". I paint. I love painting. And I have finally found my style, what I love. And last week, alone I did one of the most meaningful painting I have ever done and I have stared at it for a long time. What it might seem bits and pieces of paint for me it has a meaning. Every drop. When he came back from his mother home to visit me... .he was all anxious to see it. But before that and I haven't even arrived home yet we had a discussion on the phone: I made a HUGE mistake: I DID NOT fold his pajamas I had washed and put them in his drawer. With his OCD kicking in he was not able to take a bath before I came home... .And that was the beginning of a fight all my way home. I was accused of not thinking about him. Not loving him enough. Not caring. He deserved better. He wanted to go back to his mom house.

Finally I got home. I went straight to his washed pajamas in the stretch and folded it and put it away in his drawer. He thanked (cold voice) and continued with his ramblings... .Until finally he said " Are you going to show me the painting or is it a secret only for your million Instagram friends?" I went for it and hung it over my bed where we agree to put it. He looked at it pointed out things he liked and didn't liked ... .continued with his "wise evaluation" and finally said laughing : You know when you go to a museum and see something and say: a child could have done that? This is one of those."

I am so disappointing at him... .i didn't need him to like it... .its just... .the lack of moral... .


And there's more... .After all this: HE WANTED TO MAKE LOVE! For goodness sake! Are you freaking kidding me?

[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.

[MiserableMostly]

The more I read about this stuff the more I realize how much of a parent/child dynamic is involved in these relationships. Clearly, the BPD is a child and you are the parent. "He wants to go back to his mothers" because you're not doing a very good job of being his mother when he's not with her. A good mother would have folded his pajamas. It's not healthy. It's stupid to think your SO can be your mother. But you /  we are the caretaker personality so somehow we put it up with it. I mean, getting mad over not folding HIS pajamas? We would not accept that from anyone else in our lives. But since he is your child that you love unconditionally... .we put it up with it.

What took me a longer time to realize was that's not the end of the dynamic. Yes the BPD is the child and you are the parent. But also, YOU are the child and the BPD is the parent. This is just my uneducated opinion based on my own personal experiences... .but you wanted approval from your SO about your painting. You wanted him to be proud of you. But its not him you truly want approval from, its your parents. The reason the love bombing worked in the first place is because you weren't loved enough or were ignored in some way as a child. When he provided that for you he healed a deep core wound that you didn't even know you had. When it was taken away all you wanted was to get it back. It's not really about him, it's about you, your wound, and your childhood.

So you are his parent and he is yours. And you want approval and attention from him. When in reality you should not care what he thinks of your painting. He is a disordered individual who is basically a child. You shouldn't care what he thinks about anything. He doesn't even care what he thinks about things because he changes his mind every five seconds based on nothing at all. A BPDs word is meaningless. Their opinions are meaningless. Even words like love and hate mean nothing to them. I think you know this logically. So if you do know this then why does his opinion still matter so much to you?

Well, because its not his opinion you're fighting for. It's your parent's opinion of your inner child. Your inner child is screaming for approval. Your inner child needs to be needed just so it can validate its own existence. Your inner child needs your SO otherwise it becomes invisible and ignored.

So what's the solution? Look within, and become your own parent to your inner child. Provide that inner child with care and validation yourself. If you can 'love bomb' yourself so to speak you won't need it from him. Give yourself all the validation your inner child demands and you will cease seeking it out in others. If you can heal that core wound on your own your SOs opinions will become worthless to you. Only the ones that make you feel good are acceptable. Ones that make you feel bad will be rejected.

Not sure if you've read The Four Agreements but its an amazing book. Just remember this... .Don't Take Anything Personally. Your SOs line about the painting is poison. He's trying to poison you. But it isn't about you. It is about him. The poison can only effect you if you take it. If you believe the poison then it will take hold of you. But you shouldn't believe it. Because it is not about you. If you don't take the poison the poisoner will ingest it himself. Because he will say these things to you and you will hate him for it. And that hurts him.

Be the parent to your own inner child. Soothe those needs from within. Once you do that you will be able to reject poison because it doesn't line up with what you truly believe. You will not need his opinion because you will have your own. And that is fulfilling. You only need his opinion now because you want him to change your opinion of yourself. Your inner child wants validation from your parent. Give that to yourself. Reject the poison. Be your own parent.

[isilme]

Three things just stood out from you post to me:

And that was the beginning of a fight all my way home. I was accused of not thinking about him. Not loving him enough. Not caring. He deserved better.

I packed breakfast wrong today.  This is the accusation that comes with ever getting something wrong.

Until finally he said " Are you going to show me the painting or is it a secret only for your million Instagram friends?"

He gets mad if I ever am in contact online with friends while at home.  He seems to feel I abandon him to talk to them, even if I am sharing the whole conversation about cats or whatever with him.  He bought me my iPad, but gets mad if I am using it for anything.  Facebook, Pinterest, reading, looking up answers to questions he just asked (he blew up one time when I grabbed my phone to be able to answer a question). 

After all this: HE WANTED TO MAKE LOVE! For goodness sake! Are you freaking kidding me?

  And then there is this.  He has taken to actively complaining at times DURING sex, then gets mad if I seem less interested. 

  I hate today.  I am sorry about the reaction to the paiting.  H and I are both artists, and I know he looks down on my work, but I console myself with the fact I actually finish things, and more of my work has sold or been done on commission.  I know it's his ego deflecting at times. 

[MissTajo]

@MiserableMostly I have lost my parents before I was 30. My mom to cancer and my father to stroke. They were amazing parents to me and they always encoraged me to do what I loved and be kind to people. They were peaceful and full of love for me and eachother. He was educated by an absent father and a cruel mother. I am thankfull for my parents I have made my peace with their parting and I love that paiting I did. I didnt need him to love it. He did not understood it. He was clearly jealous of it because he cant paint or draw or do anything because of his OCD no matter how many times I try to help him.

[MissTajo]

@isilme its always the small things and the fact that he has OCD is an excuse for him to act like a baby... .and I am so afraid to be stepping on his real OCD ( I have it too) that I just dont know what is the theater and what is the truth.

[isilme]

Same here.  H has some legitimate physical ailments, but I know the BPD makes them either more pronounced or more exaggerated.  I hate having to gauge if he's "really" feeling bad or if his emotions are just in a bad place making him "think" his body is feeling worse. 

[MissTajo]

Same here.  H has some legitimate physical ailments, but I know the BPD makes them either more pronounced or more exaggerated.  I hate having to gauge if he's "really" feeling bad or if his emotions are just in a bad place making him "think" his body is feeling worse. 

Do you feel weaker for taking it?

[allienoah]

@miserablemostly-that is the clearest hitting the nail on the head that I have read in a long time. I especially relate to the poison analogy. It is a tall order I find, to try to fill the void of my inner child. But it is something I want to work on to get me to a more mentally healthful place. I just need the strength to say "enough already!"
I am sure once I have done that, and have stuck with NC and my own principles, things will gradually get better. This is a toxic relationship I am in and I have to stop ignoring the red flags, and fluffing over the fights. I need to learn ways to self-soothe when I go into anxiety over ending this crazy thing I call my love life. It's so sad to me as I know he really doesn't even know what he's doing to my psyche

[isilme]

Do I feel weaker?  Metaphysically - no.  I know mentally that it takes a big effort from me to do my job, care for the house, and then take over things I know cannot fail, let his stuff fail if it can without hurting us, and still try to be a supportive wife.  So I feel that overall, I have to be a pretty strong person to have made it in the life I've been given, and not thrown in the towel.

Physically?  I am tired.  I have a form of insomnia that means I fall sleep, but I wake up a lot.  I don't get to deep sleep or REM sleep as much as I think I should.  I succeed at making myself feel good when I have kept the house to my specifications of order (I have my own touch of OC - military father, strict stepmother, worry about how guests see our house) while not getting too bummed if I am too tired or busy to complete certain tasks.  So I feel accomplished about what I can do, and try to let myself off the hook knowing it's not possible for me to do it all without letting anything slide.  H has been going to a form of PT since December, and his body won't always respond when he gets out so I drive him.  That takes away from my "me" time, and it drains me, and it interferes with me being able to go exercise, which would make me feel better overall, help my sleep, and help me lose some weight.  So I need to better take care of me on that front, but all I want to do much of the time is crawl into bed.  We got a new mattress to see if it would help H's back and legs.  It's helped me a lot, him, hard to tell.

My inner child hurts a lot, because I grew up with 2 BPD parents as an only child.  That was a horrible dynamic.  Little me was very scared, lonely, and felt the weight of the world of responsibility for keeping both her parents happy and failing because it was impossible.  

I don't feel I need to keep H happy - I know it's impossible.  But I feel tired when he is more irrational that what I feel is "normal".  I'm very tired today.  

[allienoah]

yes EXACTLY!
Now the question for me is how do I go about "love bombing" myself? I do things I enjoy now, except for those things with people that my pwBPD deems unworthy, not trustful, or aid in bringing out the worst(read-the extrovert) in me.

[MiserableMostly]

yes EXACTLY!
Now the question for me is how do I go about "love bombing" myself? I do things I enjoy now, except for those things with people that my pwBPD deems unworthy, not trustful, or aid in bringing out the worst(read-the extrovert) in me.

Some of the things I'm trying:

- Practice Loving Kindness Meditation

- Become aware of how you talk to yourself and how mean and invalidating you can be at times. Police every thought you have and replace those negative thoughts with ones of kindness and understanding

- Imagine that emotional you is your child and conscious / logical you is your parent. When your child is feeling sad or lonely or depressed, what can you do to cheer them up? What would the perfect, loving parent be able to say or do to make you feel better? Say that. Do that. Every time.

- Another way to look at it... .imagine that emotional you is your BPD SO and conscious logical you is YOU right now. If your BPD SO was feeling sad or lonely or depressed what would you do to cheer them up? You'd probably move mountains, change the fabric of space and time, cut off your own arm to make them happy. So do that for yourself instead.

I think BPDs are all inner-child. Every single thing they do is in service to that child. The problem is they don't have the other half. The parent part. So they use others to fill that role. As codependents or caretakers we seem to have all parent and neglect our inner child. The difference between us and them is that we can fix ourselves, we can reach out to our inner child right now. It's easy for a parent to reach out to a child. BPDs cannot do this. It is impossible to ask a child to become a parent.

[MiserableMostly]

Just to add to that list:

- Journal every night... .(you'll have to hide this from your SO) But it really helps to have a conversation with yourself and put everything down on paper. It also will help you stay sane when the facts on the ground are unclear or you're being gaslighted.

- Some reading: Codependent No More, The Four Agreements, Healing The Shame That Binds You, The No Contact Rule

- Reignite your social life

[allienoah]

I really can't thank you enough, all of your suggestions sound very reasonable. You have given me a great deal of hope and the feeling that I CAN do this. I have read Codependent No More, and I have The Four Agreements at home. I will get No Contact as well. Another book I am finding helpful is Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist. Knowledge is power so I will keep reading, absorbing and reaching out. I love my bf dearly but I have to develop more self-love to remove myself from the abuse. It is really very sad that he will never be able to change as he is such a great guy when he is good.

[Olinda]

How? You give yourself permission. Permission to be the you that you are meant to be, not the you that, for a lifetime, has learned to accommodate others and put others first and neglect your own needs and wants.

Step outside of your passion play and see the players, and yourself from a dispassionate vantage point. If someone behaves childishly, is unkind and uncooperative, why on earth should we bend over backwards to accommodate that behavior? Cultivate the DGAF attitude (Don't Give a F*) and remain an objective observer. You can always step in to rescue or soothe again anytime you wish, but the more you remain objective, over time you might discover less of a need to be a rescuer.

Oh how I need this.  DGAF attitude.  Remember it's not me that's causing this. 

Thank you.  I'm indulging in time alone,  while eating pie,  before I go home and try to be my best self!