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Author Topic: What's worked & didn't work for me  (Read 345 times)
Household1

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 7


« on: March 25, 2017, 06:53:55 AM »

This is my 1st post.  My wife has BPD.  We have 2 boys: 5 & 3 years old.  I've decided not to leave her, because I feel I need to be there to protect my kids.  She doesn't harm them physically, but I'm very concerned how her rages and unpredictable emotions impact them.  I am their rock.

Here's a list of things that have worked and didn't work.  If anyone has any questions/comments or things to add, go for it.

Things that don't work for me:
1) Trying to reason with her when she's raging.  It never works, and I always end up feeling more helpless.
2) Cleaning up after her messes.  When she acts impulsively and makes a mess out of a situation, I come in and try to fix things.  However, I'm basically making myself responsible for my wife's actions.  The cycle repeats, and I get more frustrated and she learns that she doesn't need to face the consequences of her actions, because I'm there to fix things.
3) Retaliating back.  This can be yelling back at her, or pretending to be nice but really in my heart I'm being mean.  When I'm under attack, I get angry and frustrated at my wife.  Attacking back is a way to temporarily feel good and release some of the anger, but it always makes things worse in the long run.
4) Giving her ultimatums or boundaries that I have no intention of following through with.  I sometimes do this as a last ditch effort to control the situation and feeling completely out of control.
5) Obsessing with my own self pity and things beyond my control.  It drives me into more frustration and anger.  This is my life, and it's my choice to stay, so I need to accept reality and deal with what's in my control.
6) When she rages, I feel terrible and I desperately want her to snap out of it so I can feel better.  If she rages in the morning, I feel bad all day and call her from work during lunch, hoping that she snapped out of it just so that I can feel better again.  This never works - because I'm making my emotions dependent on hers.  I need to focus on making myself feel better, regardless of how she feels.
7) Ignoring her completely.  Although this is tempting, it just doesn't feel right and I'm concerned that by doing so I'm not being a good role model for my boys - I want them to learn how to be face their problems assertively, not passively or passive-aggressively.

Worked for me:
1) I go to therapy once a month (helps). 
2) I'm living a healthy life (exercising, eating healthy, get full night's sleep, no cursing/yelling/etc.). 
3) I'm keeping my relationships with friends & other family active.
4) I made a soundtrack of my favorite relaxing music, and I listen to it on my drive home from work.
5) I have a room in our house that is MINE: where I can go to be by myself whenever I need it.
6) I've tried deep breathing exercises - there's an App called 'headspace' that is kind of nice.
7) Even when things are 'good', I continue to focus on these items.
8) I talk assertively with my wife and patting myself on the back for doing so, regardless of how she acts.
9) When she rages, I pretend as if she's a toddler throwing a tantrum, and she is acting out by pure emotion and doesn't mean what she's saying.  This helps me depersonalize it and stay level headed (most of the time).
10) I spend a ton of time with my boys, and I ensure my emotions/actions toward them are healthy and consistent.
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Mutt
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Gender: Male
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Ex-romantic partner
Relationship status: Divorced Oct 2015
Posts: 10395



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« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2017, 04:54:54 PM »

Hi Household1, 

Welcome

I'm glad that you decided to join us. I'd like to welcome you to bpdfamily. I can see how frustrating and hopeless it would feel when a pwBPD won't listen to us and will direct disproportionate anger towards you. I thought the same thing as you, we had a young family and I wanted to stay in the marriage so that I could be close to the kids and protect them. What I didn't know at the time is that I can do a better job, more peacefully outside of the marriage. Anyways thats enough about me.

You have a good list of things that you're doing for yourself, for self care and coping too, I do have advise for you and I hope that it helps. Firstly, don't JADE, I got caught in this trap too, so I know how it feels. Don't Justify, Argue , Defend, Explain, say things once or maybe twice. 

There's another member that has quote that I like a lot, it goes something like this Reality is open to debated, emotions and feelings are real I want to break this down and compare it with your story. Reality is open to debate. How we perceive something may be perceived differently by someone else. Let's say that you're a witness to an accident and there are several other witnesses. How one person filters that event is going to be different than another witness. That being said, if my exuBPDw thinks that the sky is red, I know now to not JADE Because she really thinks that the sky is red, that's fine, I know differently and I don't have to explain my reality to her. 

Secondly, emotions and feelings are real. I'd like to continue with the car accident analogy, the common theme with the non disoredered witness would be that feelings would follow after the facts, not before. Now a pwBPD feelings equals facts, so how she feels in that moment is real to her. A pwBPD feel low self worth, low self esteem, self loathe and self hate, how we communicate can smooth out communication glitches. It helps to validate what a pwBPD feels first before we say anything else and package our truth at the end. Now, i'm not saying to validate everything, don't validate the invalide, validate the valid.

Lastly, a pwBPD cannot self sooth like a non disordered person would, BPD is an emotional dysregulation disorder and it takes a pwBPD a lot longer to return to baseline, again i've fallen for this trap with JADE'ing and making things worse with invalidating, but it's perfectly understandable considering a) we didn't know better b) we usually have a lot of resentful feelings because we're fixing things and foregoing our needs in the r/s at our expense, we can't keep holding that in and that resentment comes out. That being said, i'd put the boundary on you when she starts to rage, find some something to do that changes the tempo at home, leave and say that you're going to run some errands and if she needs something, don't subject yourself to her angry tirades or try to reason with her, you're not responsible for her feelings or sooth her.
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