How to express my feelings without triggering his shame-response

[bananas2]

Had a huge argument with BPDh last night bc I brought something up that triggered his shame response. I need to talk about this to 1) Get it off my chest and 2) Figure out how to bring up sensitive subjects without triggering him.

As I've mentioned on here several times before, my hub has a history of cheating on me, with the last (and hopefully final) incident being about a year and a half ago. Well, yesterday I had my annual gyne exam and my doc did the standard questions about STD's. I have a very honest and long relationship with my doc, but I was uncomfortable discussing this with her bc I was ashamed to admit hub had cheated on me (I had him get tested very recently & he came up clean, so no worries - other than the HPV he passed along to me a few years ago). I know I'm not the one who should be ashamed by his indiscretions, but I still am.

Well during dinner last night, hub asked me about my appointment and I told him I was upset that I felt so uncomfortable talking with my favorite doc - and all bc of his infidelity. I was calm in stating my feelings, but then wham - he went from zero to rage in 3 secs. Started using intimidation tactics - yelling, slamming his fist on table, etc. As usual, he just wanted me to stop talking about it. I reminded him of my boundary about not letting him bully me into silencing my feelings. I'll spare the rest of the details, but let's just say it went down hill from there with him ending up sleeping on the couch and giving me the silent treatment all day so far today.

I have to be allowed to calmly express my feelings of hurt without him getting shame-triggered and raging. We have our first appointment with our new marriage counselor tonight (had too many scheduling problems with last one), so maybe she can shed some light on this. I'm nervous though, bc I'm afraid he will feel shamed in the session and rage when we get home afterward.

[Tattered Heart]

Well during dinner last night, hub asked me about my appointment and I told him I was upset that I felt so uncomfortable talking with my favorite doc - and all bc of his infidelity. I was calm in stating my feelings, but then wham - he went from zero to rage in 3 secs.

Ouch. This is a touchy subject I'm sure. Although it doesn't seem fair that you have to comfort him before you can share your own discomfort, how did you validate him before sharing your own concerns?

I reminded him of my boundary about not letting him bully me into silencing my feelings.

Could you share a little more about this boundary? What is the boundary? How does it look when you remind him of it? What do you say when you remind him of it?

[Radcliff]

I'm sad to hear that expressing your feelings led to such an angry response.  It's so upsetting to just want to express feelings and not be allowed to do so.

How did the appointment with the marriage counselor go?

Like Tattered Heart, I'd be interested in hearing more about the boundary of not being bullied out of expressing your feelings.  I definitely feel like I'm not allowed to have a voice, like I must always filter my feelings to avoid triggering my uBPDw.  But there's also a practical side of things, that having a relationship where I can express my feelings as openly as I might with a "non" may never be practical for us, and I may have to use a ton of validation and still only be able to express a fraction of what I want to, even on a good day.  I'm working on boundaries as well, and would benefit from hearing how you're approaching yours.   Can you tell us a bit about how you developed this boundary, and what the specific boundaries and consequences are?

[Notwendy]

I did some work on this with a MC- about triggers in general, the concept of managing someone else's feelings ( co-dependency) and how to word things to be the most effective ( note- not to manage).

Do you get triggered? I know I did, and not as much now, but one of my tasks was to manage my own triggered feelings. The first step was to recognize when I was triggered and take the time to step out of a conversation and self soothe rather than react. We may wish our partners could self soothe better but often it is our task to learn to do so as well.

We have to also decide- are we expressing our feelings or dumping them on someone. Do we have an expectation about how they will respond? Are we calm in the moment or not? The term HALT ( hungry, angry, tired, lonely) is a way to try to recognize how we are feeling- and if we are feeling upset- best to self manage in the moment, as conversations don't generally go as well if we are not managing our own feelings ( and a pwBPD has trouble with that too).

Your H has issues with managing his own feelings and shame. You also felt shame at the doctor and I would understand if you felt angry at being cheated on as well as put in the position to bring it up with the doctor. Yes, you have a right to express your feelings- and we should not just suppress them and not do it. But when you bring it up to your H, he hears "this is your fault and it triggers him.

If someone is triggered- whose issue is it? The person who feels triggered. Our triggers are our issue. It is our task to manage them. If your H gets triggered, it is his trigger to deal with and his task to manage it. If you WOE or try to manage his triggers then you are overstepping - he needs to manage it.

Now, before our MC proposed this to me, she had assessed the situation and was certain I was not in danger. That would be a different situation. Do not put yourself in danger. However ,I was afraid of the yelling and anger. Her response was - well that's his issue to manage. So long as I was afraid and WOE, and soothing him, he would not learn to manage his own triggers. I also had some of my own to manage. Each time I felt a trigger- was an opportunity to work on that for myself.

Look for the victim triangle dynamics. Each time you say " you did this" "you hurt me" it takes victim position. Even if that is true ( he did cheat) that position is not as effective as taking a different perspective- knowing your choices. So wording is key here. In general it is more effective to use "I " statements rather than you. So " I felt embarrassed at the doctor" is more effective than "you made me feel embarrassed at the doctor".

What can you learn about this incident? One is that, you do have some feelings about his infidelity to work on- and that is understandable.  This is a tough thing to deal with. However, looking towards someone who also has difficulty managing his own feelings may not be the kind of help you need. I found that working out my feelings with a counselor or 12 step sponsor helped me to sort them out. Yes, I do have the right to share how I feel with my H, but I found that if I had better emotion control, I was better able to let him deal with his. My counselor put it like this " Can you stand calm in the storm?" I wasn't sure I could but with practice ( lots of trial and error- it is a learning curve), I did and the storms got less stormy.

One I got some control over these episodes, I noticed that my H is very sensitive to any hint of anger, anxiety, or distress in my voice. He even sometimes misinterprets it- like if I say something and he doesn't hear me the first time and I say it louder he gets angry " don't raise your voice at me".  I am also this way. What is our connection? I grew up with a BPD mother and feared her anger. His father had anger issues. We have some similar emotional triggers. Knowing this made me less fearful of his response and more empathetic. However, I will emphasize that I am not in danger of harm or violence if my H is triggered, and this is important in considering staying calm in a storm. We must not put ourselves in harmful situations- that is a whole different situation to deal with.

[Grey Kitty]

Had a huge argument with BPDh last night bc I brought something up that triggered his shame response. I need to talk about this to 1) Get it off my chest and

You do need to get those things off your chest--that is 100% true.

2) Figure out how to bring up sensitive subjects without triggering him.

He may not ever have the emotional capacity to hear your feelings (especially about his cheating, or other things he's ashamed of) without getting triggered.

Part of accepting a relationship with him is accepting that he does have emotional limitations, and this (at least for now) appears to be one of them.

I reminded him of my boundary about not letting him bully me into silencing my feelings.

There is a fine point about this boundary and what you can do to enforce it.

You have a right to have your own feelings; they are yours; he has no right or ability to change them. (He similarly has the right to his own feelings)

That said, you do not have the right to make him listen to you talk about your feelings. (Just like he doesn't have the right to make you listen to his feelings, and especially no right to make you listen to him raging at you as a result of them.)

When something similar happens again, or if you could re-wind and re-play it, I'd recommend a different path for you... .when he asked you about the doc appointment, I'd suggest avoiding your feelings and that aspect of the appointment with him.

Not because you don't need to get it off your chest--you do.

Not because your feelings aren't valid--they are.

Because I'm a pragmatist, and knowing he has BPD, I can predict that nothing good will come of this--as you said here:

I'll spare the rest of the details, but let's just say it went down hill from there

So instead, find a safe place to express your feelings--not with somebody who will rage at you.

Posting here... .talking to a therapist... .talking to a trusted friend or family member if you have one.

[Radcliff]

Not Wendy and Grey Kitty, the is a topic that is interesting to me as well, so I really appreciate those great posts!

I definitely find that I'm very sensitive to my wife's tone, and all of the times she has criticized me before make me more sensitive.  So I find if I'm not careful, a slight tone, or even a neutral tone if I'm feeling vulnerable, can lead to an overreaction from me.  I'm fairly decent about it, but definitely stumble sometimes.  For a pwBPD, I imagine it could be worse.

It's unfortunate, but I definitely find that sometimes I'm never going to get my wife to acknowledge the validity of my feelings and that's one of the reasons this board is so helpful.