Ouch - Coping with Constant Criticism

[Numbers321]

I have slowly come to the realisation  my other half  very probably has BPD.

This realisation grew after I googled 'constant criticism' in desperation in 2014. This brought up material on emotionally abusive relationships. We've been together for over 10 years though. I was working away and we split up at that point but got back together when I thought I could handle it. She'd always wanted a child and I agreed at that point because I did too at heart but also wanted to realise her ambition.

The number of similarities to BPD symptoms is just uncanny. I had never even heard of it before.

Splitting like anything. E.g. don't want to go to town? Why don't we call off the relationship. Disagree with one thing she said (often about/implying how bad I am)? I'm dismissing her whole lived experience.
Constant, constant criticism. Why breathe so loud, why leave this there, why do this like that, wow how could you do this, wow how couldn't you do that. Road raging, pedestrian raging etc.
Inability to see others needs. No matter what I have on, if she wants something I am a terrible selfish person if I don't ditch plans for her. This really had me for a long time until I stepped back and looked at the big picture, I'd always tended to move 50% the way towards her (rarely reciprocated).
Control freakery. All plans must be vetted by her. Noncompliance results in such hostility it just ruins whatever the thing is. But then I'm lazy for never making plans: no win. Also in other areas of life I've definitely got get up and go. Sometimes I feel like there's a field around her which makes me indecisive and nervous.
Personal background. Lets just say it ticks all the boxes with a thick marker.

I started journaling in 2014 so I know now that my perception of how things unfold is generally correct. It's also made me increasingly impervious to her behaviour. Now because the emotional manipulation doesn't get the results, she wants to kick me out. Also our little boy means she has one of the main things she wanted. I'm no angel but I feel my issues are reactive (I am now very defensive), and have developed in response to her.

If it was just the two of us I'd be gone tomorrow. I'm pretty worried though that as our boy grows older she'll transfer the rage on to him. She really does love him now, but what happens when he gets a personality of his own etc?

I don't know how much fighting her on the issue will make her more fearful and angry and thus the inevtiable split worse. However if we split i don't want to live a shadow life still controlled by her. I love him and do most of the day childcare now, and just don't know if she's thought about how all those practicalities will pan out.

[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.

[ForeverDad]

You do most of the child care now... .Document your time and activities.  (You may think it doesn't mean much but the more specifics you can cite reduces your statements from being seen as "who knows" he-said, she-said claims that just go in circles.)  Do others around you know that?  Who takes the child to the doctor for illnesses, wellness check-ups and inoculations?  Do you know the doctors, dentists and caregivers by name?

Another factor is that you can't hide all the conflict from the kids.  In other words, walls have ears.  If your child grows up in the midst of dysfunction, blaming and appeasing, what life skills will he have when he grows up and chooses his own relationships?  What well will his Normalcy Detector work if all he knows are the extremes one way or the other.  The risks are higher for him to choose someone like you (peacekeeper and appeaser) or like your spouse (accuser, blamer, reality-transformer).

Living in a calm and stable home, even if only for part of their lives, will give the children a better example of normalcy for their own future relationships.  Staying together would mean that's the only example of home life they would have known — discord, conflict, invalidation, alienation attempts, overall craziness, etc.  Over 30 years ago the book Solomon's Children - Exploding the Myths of Divorce had an interesting observation on page 195 by one participant, As the saying goes, "I'd rather come from a broken home than live in one."  Ponder that.  Taking action will enable your lives, or at least a part of your lives going forward, to be spent be in a calm, stable environment — your home, wherever that is — away from the blaming, emotional distortions, pressuring demands and manipulations, unpredictable ever-looming rages and outright chaos.  And some of the flying monkeys too.

Of course, you know your situation best.  You decide if or when to take action to change the dynamic.  But beware of thinking you have to keep the family together no matter what.  With more normal types of conflict, the sort reasonably normal people have in their day-to-day lives, the family is best together.  It's when the dynamic gets extreme into the unhealthy dysfunction range that thoughts of setting up your own calm, stable, validating home change from nice-to-have to a necessity.

Sadly, by the time many of our members find their way here, it's already heading into the "unhealthy dysfunction" range.

[MrRight]

I have slowly come to the realisation  my other half  very probably has BPD.

This realisation grew after I googled 'constant criticism' in desperation in 2014. This brought up material on emotionally abusive relationships. We've been together for over 10 years though. I was working away and we split up at that point but got back together when I thought I could handle it. She'd always wanted a child and I agreed at that point because I did too at heart but also wanted to realise her ambition.

The number of similarities to BPD symptoms is just uncanny. I had never even heard of it before.

Splitting like anything. E.g. don't want to go to town? Why don't we call off the relationship. Disagree with one thing she said (often about/implying how bad I am)? I'm dismissing her whole lived experience.
Constant, constant criticism. Why breathe so loud, why leave this there, why do this like that, wow how could you do this, wow how couldn't you do that. Road raging, pedestrian raging etc.
Inability to see others needs. No matter what I have on, if she wants something I am a terrible selfish person if I don't ditch plans for her. This really had me for a long time until I stepped back and looked at the big picture, I'd always tended to move 50% the way towards her (rarely reciprocated).
Control freakery. All plans must be vetted by her. Noncompliance results in such hostility it just ruins whatever the thing is. But then I'm lazy for never making plans: no win. Also in other areas of life I've definitely got get up and go. Sometimes I feel like there's a field around her which makes me indecisive and nervous.
Personal background. Lets just say it ticks all the boxes with a thick marker.

I started journaling in 2014 so I know now that my perception of how things unfold is generally correct. It's also made me increasingly impervious to her behaviour. Now because the emotional manipulation doesn't get the results, she wants to kick me out. Also our little boy means she has one of the main things she wanted. I'm no angel but I feel my issues are reactive (I am now very defensive), and have developed in response to her.

If it was just the two of us I'd be gone tomorrow. I'm pretty worried though that as our boy grows older she'll transfer the rage on to him. She really does love him now, but what happens when he gets a personality of his own etc?

I don't know how much fighting her on the issue will make her more fearful and angry and thus the inevtiable split worse. However if we split i don't want to live a shadow life still controlled by her. I love him and do most of the day childcare now, and just don't know if she's thought about how all those practicalities will pan out.

So sorry you are going through this.

If it was just the two of us I'd be gone tomorrow.

many of us are in the exact same situation.

If you have decided to endure the relationship for the sake of staying together - you will need strategies to cope with the behaviour.

hang in there. Next post coming up.

[Tattered Heart]

Hi Numbers123,

I'm sorry to hear that things have been so difficult for you lately. You've found a great place for support and help in working on new ways of communicating with your pwBPD. We have a saying that "we can't make it better until we stop making it worse." You mentioned that you often react defensively to your pwBPD. Sometimes just taking away the fuel that escalates our pwBPD can make a huge difference. One way we can do that is to Stop JADEing . JADEing is Justifying, Apologizing, Defending, or Explaining ourselves.

How do you think you would feel if you were able to stop running in circles trying to answer her criticisms?

[Numbers321]

Thanks for the responses folks. The jade stuff is an object lesson for me. I'd figured a bit of it out but not most. I can't believe how ineffective I've been for so long... .

I've been pretty busy since my OP. Also been reading up more.

The thing that eats me up so much is that my wife is high functioning in other respects and I get caught in the reality distortion field. When she gets up to speed I almost start buying into the theory that it's all my fault until I remember some clearly egregious thing she did. That and reflecting over years of behaviour. I can just see now that in the past I always got sucked back in to it.

I've just come off a 3 day hell weekend, because it looks like there's a chance I'll get a (good) job offer. Day 1 Suggested moving closer to reduce both our commutes, like a proper traitor. Was also sick as a parrot. Day 2 involved a complete meltdown telling me to get out. By day 3 she couldn't see why I was feeling like Id been told to get out and it was clearly all my idea.

[MrRight]

Thanks for the responses folks. The jade stuff is an object lesson for me. I'd figured a bit of it out but not most. I can't believe how ineffective I've been for so long... .

I've been pretty busy since my OP. Also been reading up more.

The thing that eats me up so much is that my wife is high functioning in other respects and I get caught in the reality distortion field. When she gets up to speed I almost start buying into the theory that it's all my fault until I remember some clearly egregious thing she did. That and reflecting over years of behaviour. I can just see now that in the past I always got sucked back in to it.

I've just come off a 3 day hell weekend, because it looks like there's a chance I'll get a (good) job offer. Day 1 Suggested moving closer to reduce both our commutes, like a proper traitor. Was also sick as a parrot. Day 2 involved a complete meltdown telling me to get out. By day 3 she couldn't see why I was feeling like Id been told to get out and it was clearly all my idea.

It's so important not to react - this constant criticism wears you down - but reacting back just makes it worse.

Yesterday we were in the supermarket and my wife suddenly decided this shop is no good and we are going to another - 20 miles away - and left me in the shop to pay for a bag of manadrins. The queues were huge and I thought - well if we're going to the other shop we will buy them there (which we did). So I abandoned the fruit.

later that day she is reading harvard research about queue behaviour - people who abandon queues are losers it seems - so I'm a loser and this research proves it.

You just cant win - but you can survive.

[Meili]

MrRight was correct when he suggested that it is important to learn to respond rather than react. The lesson on Surviving confrontation and disrespect has some great information on learning to balance your responses to minimize conflict and help to keep things from escalating.

One of the things that I learned to do was just accept that my x was entitled to her opinion. I didn't have to accept her opinion of me as true, just that she had an opinion. The counterpart to this that I had to learn was to not make her opinion of me more important than my own.

[Numbers321]

MrRight, seems like a classic no-win - I'm sure if you'd waited it would have been evidence of being a sucker.

Meili, wow that thread has a lot of material on it! Jackpot.

[Meili]

One thing that each of us must decide for ourselves is what the definition of 'win' is in any particular situation.

The only 'loss' that I can seem from Mr. Right's story is his allowing her emotions to affect his own. She thinks that he's a loser based on something that she read. That's fine. She's entitled to her opinion. What really matters is what he thinks.

A lot of us, if not all, have fallen into this trap. We get so worried about how our SO may or may not view us that we put more emphasis on their opinions than our own. We are all good people in our own right and need to remember that. Something else that we tend to forget is that our partners probably would not be in a relationship with us if they truly believed the things that they say.

[MrRight]

One thing that each of us must decide for ourselves is what the definition of 'win' is in any particular situation.

The only 'loss' that I can seem from Mr. Right's story is his allowing her emotions to affect his own. She thinks that he's a loser based on something that she read. That's fine. She's entitled to her opinion. What really matters is what he thinks.

A lot of us, if not all, have fallen into this trap. We get so worried about how our SO may or may not view us that we put more emphasis on their opinions than our own. We are all good people in our own right and need to remember that. Something else that we tend to forget is that our partners probably would not be in a relationship with us if they truly believed the things that they say.

Dont worry - I never believe one word of the nonsense she talks. what she says to me and the content is tied up with her internal world, I understand that - I am also indifferent to her opinion of me. All I want to do is survive and get through this.

[Meili]

All I want to do is survive and get through this.

Why not shoot for thriving rather than just surviving?