Learning how to express hurt without "blaming" the other person

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

During our marriage I know I made many a blunder in communicating. There were also many times I was successful at the things I said. Either way I usually paid the price for expressing my needs, how I felt etc.

A major part of me feels that I can never get any closure on this failed marriage. At some point my stbxw and I will end up having to talk. Not sure if we will ever end up talking about the failures in the marriage. If we do I don't want to blame her but I want to express my point of view

I can't say that she never validated my feelings but is was very rare. If she did then it was a quick turnaround to painting me black again.

I need some help here.

How should we best use "I" statements instead of "you" statements. I need to be able to express myself to people in the best way possible. When they are causing me the pain my first instinct is to say "you" did this or you did that.

I want to try and steer away from that tendency

Thanks
BF  

[byfaith]

During our marriage I know I made many a blunder in communicating. There were also many times I was successful at the things I said. Either way I usually paid the price for expressing my needs, how I felt etc.

A major part of me feels that I can never get any closure on this failed marriage. At some point my stbxw and I will end up having to talk. Not sure if we will ever end up talking about the failures in the marriage. If we do I don't want to blame her but I want to express my point of view

I can't say that she never validated my feelings but is was very rare. If she did then it was a quick turnaround to painting me black again.

I need some help here.

How should we best use "I" statements instead of "you" statements. I need to be able to express myself to people in the best way possible. When they are causing me the pain my first instinct is to say "you" did this or you did that.

I want to try and steer away from that tendency

Thanks
BF  

[vanx]

I've had similar questions and struggled with similar issues. I am curious to see the responses you get. I wanted to hopefully validate what you bring up by sharing some of my experience.
I do think "I" statements are a great rule to live by. No one's perfect and it is I think a natural first reaction to want to tell someone what they did that hurt you. I think it's still ok to mention specific words or behavior that affect you, but to keep the focus on your feelings. Theoretically no one can argue about what you feel.
I know even when I used I statements with my ex, I did not generally get much validation from her. Often she would say I was inventing things.
I don't want to get preachy, but as someone in the same boat, I would say that the closure and validation we will probably have to give to ourselves. People can change, but I bet if you weren't getting validation in the relationship you may not get it now. I don't want to be negative, but just don't want you to get hurt if you can't get what you want from her.
Outside of particularly difficult relationships, I think I statements are super rewarding. You get to express yourself, keep power and ownership of your feelings, and maintain a connection--perhaps even make it stronger! I'm right there with you working on it. Kudos to you!

[vanx]

I wanted to add that I really do believe though that you will find the closure you seek.

[Hisaccount]

Spent a lot of time reading on here and using the tools that we learn here but I found that there has to be some changes made based on the person you are talking to.

Sometimes is was like my ex had a different vocabulary. When in reality it was the black and white thinking.

To me a normal person who would say a chair for example is ruined, then that means we throw it away. Otherwise we would use the word damaged or broken. To her, ruined meant just damaged or broken, not hopeless.

To her, by starting any statement with "I feel like" was a get out of jail free card for anything else that came out of her mouth.

So for me I was able to take that and communicate more clearly with her but always had an out while expressing my feelings.

I feel like.
Or I am really hurt by
or I don't think
or it seems like.

For me, in my situation, those openers allowed me to express my concerns without placing blame directly on her. It was more about, this is how I am feeling any ideas how we can fix this?

Examples, I am really hurt by having the door slammed in my face and being told to die.
It seems like maybe I should not have followed you into the garage? Or how can we prevent this in the future?

I had the best luck with an approach like that. It gave her an out. (not like she is ever going to apologize anyway) She already knows that was not okay. But I didn't blame her I focused on finding a solution.

If you are talking to non BPD people, then talk normal. Like you should not have slammed the door in my face you dirty ***ch.  LOL
But you get the idea.

Married to a BPD has helped me communicate in life a lot. Just be nice, be considerate, and never place blame. A good person will apologize and work it out with you. A bad person won't and you don't want them in your life anyway.

Hope that helps.