Stress building up leading to family visiting for Holidays

[waitingwife]

Hi All,
We have been doing great with uBPDH getting therapy and being on anti-depressant while I’m working hard with my therapist on keeping my codependency in check. Holidays has always been a bitter-sweet time in the past with family get togethers and sickness since it’s that time of the year.
I’d like some of you to reflect my thoughts for a moment. I’ll use a specific issue/example we’re in right now.
UBPDH said to me on Friday that he feels great by meditating and the therapy with meds helps him. He asked me for my feedback on how I find him different. I said to him that I feel the same and that he doesn’t loose control of his emotions as much. Even if he does, he’s able to get the pause and return back to his centered self pretty quickly compared to in the past. So I told him all that honestly and he said please know that even if I’ve been mean to you in the past, I really love you. I responded back saying I know and that you’re only human and this is all a journey we’re on.
Parallely my cousins are visiting for the holidays and dividing their stay between our house & my brother’s family. My brother’s family kinda initiated the invitation for them to come over and my hubby has some problems with how my cousins lead their life. A specific example is they’re coming for 10 days and not renting a car so hubby really judges them for that. He feels they’re okay with inconveniencing us for their mobility need for saving money. So he is starting to paint them black. My cousin called and said to me that my brother is giving them a ride from the airport and while going back they’re renting a 1 day rental car to go to the airport. I said okay but after I hung up, I felt like offering them a ride to the airport. While hubby is not completely wrong in judging them, I personally feel it’s their prerogative whether they want a rental car or depend on us/brother’s family. I explained to hubby that he’s right in his place to feel what he does for them however we don’t have control over their actions. Since they’re our guest, I would like to offer them a ride. He said okay hesitantly and I can feel the tension build, very slowly.
Such situations quickly end on slippery slope where it has always come down to - you care more about them when I do so much for you. Or you pick them over me. I anticipate that happening coz it’s been a pattern for majority of the times.
I was thinking of having a conversation with uBPDH now, before the cousins arrive saying this to him- I know there’ll be times when you & me are going to want to do things differently when we have visitors and I want you to know it’s not because I love you less. I love all of you all and that we’re all human beings with different wiring. He does seem to accept logic to a larger extent now and is receptive. I would never pick one side over the other and I felt I should communicate this with you.
What do you all think? Usually we never talk about these things and end up passive aggressive or resentful. I want to give him the option of being himself and only extending himself to the visitors as much as he is comfortable but I don’t want him to stop me. I’ve grown up where we have really treated our guests with utmost love, respect & care- to an extent it was unhealthy. He has grown up where his family has disrespected and judged all visitors. So we’re at 2 extremes and I want to have our own new way- best of both!

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[waitingwife]

Any insight is welcome!

[Radcliff]

Hi waitingwife,

I think at least two things are likely to be helpful here, and it sounds like you might already be onto them.  Talking to your husband beforehand seems like a good idea, anticipating situations, helping him not to be surprised by his reactions, etc.  Tattered Heart uses and teaches this approach quite a bit.

The second is validation.  Validate, validate, validate.  These are your relatives coming to visit, and his space is being invaded.  Thank him for hosting, perhaps give him a task or two that's easily within his sweet spot to do, and heavily thank him.

Are there aspects of your cousin's visit your husband might enjoy?  Are there activities you can do with him that he might like?  Is it worthwhile to get his input?

Regarding the trip to the airport, in my FOO, everyone took cabs to the airport.  In my wife's FOO, that was a sign of not being cared for -- you always gave your people rides to and from the airport.  I now like my wife's way, and that's what we teach in our family.  Tell him it's what you want to do to care for your family, it's a good thing, not an obligation.  Perhaps he'll understand.

WW

[waitingwife]

Thank you WW for your input. Hubby loves to sing & have karaoke nights with cousins. I didn’t have validation in the front of my mind. I’m finding it hard to think of what to get his input on

[waitingwife]

Thank you WW for your input. Hubby loves to sing & have karaoke nights with cousins. I didn’t have validation in the front of my mind. I’m finding it hard to think of what to get his input on

[Radcliff]

Karaoke it is!  Any snacks and drinks needed for karaoke night?  I think guys are always interested in having input on what goes into their bellies (at least I am!).  Does he want to buy/download any new songs for karaoke?

No rental car needed for karaoke!

Speaking of cars... .how about watching Carpool Karaoke on YouTube with the cousins?

WW

[waitingwife]

I’ll keep the karaoke night discussion in the fron. I also feel the way he starts preparing to judge folks brings about a bad memory of my dad doing this to my mom. And my mom’s favorite role was to play victim and be either passive-aggressive or resentful for a few days. For him it brings about his childhood model of his parents fighting when they had guests. His folks in their late 70s continue to have the same problems.
Sometimes it’s sad to think of how much I have to think/plan/anticipate to have guests and it’s not like we have them often. I know wheb I get into that thought, it’s my emotions leading.
Another thing I can think of discussing in our conversation is how out DD7 will benefit from spending time with my cousin’s 2 girls. Our DD7 is the centre if H’s universe so that’ll go well.

[Tattered Heart]

Thanks Wentworth. I am learning that directly addressing potentially stressful situations is working SO well with my H. Like yours, he is much more open to remaining calmer that what he was in the past.

Try approaching him with an understanding that you do not want things to turn into fights just as much as he doesn't. So maybe just saying something like "I know that in the past we've had disagreements about cousin needing us to drive him around. It's important to me that we agree on how to address this if it comes up while they are visiting. Can we try to figure out a way ahead of time on what to do if cousin needs a ride? How can we be gracious hosts in a way that would not  be inconveniencing to us?"

or something like that. Really make sure the validation for his feelings comes before any attempt at resolution. He needs to know that you are on his side. Once he understands that, he may be more open to giving them rides or even just not letting it bother him. Then be willing to compromise if necessary. Perhaps limit the # of rides, or only plan rides ahead of time, or ask them to get an Uber.

Do you think a conversation like this could help?

[waitingwife]

Hi Tattered Heart,
I definitely think a conversation like this would help. Sometimes it’s hard to think of the right words but luckily I haven’t lost sight of the larger picture due to cloudy emotions. I’ll try asking him for a time tomorrow when he can give me a few minutes so we can have this conversation.
Thanks a lot for the great insight

[waitingwife]

We did have the exact conversation & it went great! UBPDH felt validated and heard my side out. I felt my feelings kinda evaporate by expressing to him that I understand where he’s coming from & honor his feelings and how I’m going to do what feels right to me... .For a change we really are making breakthroughs by having these difficult conversations and I am seeing the benefit of taking a “stand”  which I would misunderstand to be “confrontational” before I seeked therapy. I even told him that sometimes it brings about some level of anxiety in me coz of my past(dad being all preemptive with the anticipation of guests visiting us) and I have in the past extended myself to guess at the cost of inconveniencing my family. I explained to him that I recognize that now and it wasn’t the right thing. I’m more mindful of that and am willing to the # rides/help we can offer. He softened and said he agrees he can be quirky but at the end if this all, he said I feel very happy when you continue to be yourself and do what feels right to you rather than be influenced by him.
So we ended there and it was great. We’ll have to see how it all turns up when they actually visit but I feel much more equipped and won’t be in a turmoil since I’ve been expressed to H that when i do things that he disagrees, it’s not to pick the ither person or from loving him less.
I’m trying to understand the SET method. Can one of you explain to me how we ysed SET here?

[Radcliff]

waitingwife, I am so happy for you that you had a good conversation with your husband! 
Congrats on the breakthrough!  Yes, once they arrive I'm sure there will be challenges.  But if you can have a meeting of the minds with your husband once, you can do it again!  As the visit approaches and once they arrive, keep the validation coming.

I was just reading up on SET the other day.  Check out this link on S.E.T. (Support, Empathy, Truth)

Happy Holidays!   

WW 

[waitingwife]

Thanks and I’ll definitely read the SET again. Havig a therapist’s & this board is surely help me make breakthroughs.
The one thing H said when I asked whether limiting the # of rides or extension of help offered to cousins wil help him? He said let’s only limit spending time with my brother’s family to 3 nights. We have 3 parties(Christmas, New Year’s Eve and nephew’s birthDay party) planned and all this in 1 week. So I couldn’t agree more with H, I am beginning to dread the amount of time we’ll be with family myself and my brother’s wife has many emotional land mines so I would rather spend limited time.

[Tattered Heart]

Yay! I'm so happy for you! I'm grinning ear to ear for how well this went for you and that you could experience what it's like to feel the weight of worry just evaporate as you shared with your H in a language that he could understand.

You asked how your conversation used SET. A little background on how this can help might explain it better. Often times our pwBPD filters the world through rejection. So anything that can even be slightly seen as making him feel unimportant is enough to trigger a dysregulation, i.e. your cousin comes to visit and your attention is focused on the cousin, not on him. It's not that your H does this on purpose, it's just that is the nature of the BPD.

In this conversation you talked to his emotions first. Your words were supportive of him, what he is feeling (empathy), and open. So now that his emotional needs have been met, he is able to focus on being rational. He sees that your intent is to work with him, not against him. He views you as his partner, not his enemy. And that is what allows you to speak a truth to him and since he isn't out of control of his emotions (since you've already addressed that) he is able to stay in Wisemind.

I think another part that adds to it is that when you speak your truth, you stop walking on egg shells too. And I've noticed in my H that when I'm not walking on egg shells he feels more comfortable with me because I'm not tense, scared, or nervous when I talk to him.

Do you think your conversation with him will help you feel better about using this same approach in the future?

[waitingwife]

Hi TH,
The thing that helps me a LOT is to not walk on eggshells. My codependency in the past has made me nervous, tense and passive aggressive at times coz I had this need to get my TRUTH out and couldn’t in a healthy manner due to my emotions being mixed & enmeshed with his.
It took me 1.5 days to just mindfully separate all this and get the clarity and I feel really good that I didn’t have to give my T an SOS call for an appointment.
Thanks for showing me how SET looked like in ou conversation and now I can see how I didn’t stay enough in the S & E and we’d end up on slippery slope before we knew it for so many years.
I’ve planned a date night on the night before my cousins arrive so we can spend some quality time together before getting into full-on host/holiday mode. Any other  suggestions how I can sprinkle in Validation leading upto thr visit?
I truly had an Ah-ha moment when we “worked through “ this and I got to take a STAND about something that’s important to and wish I seeked all this help before doing so much damage. It’s better late than never☺️
Thanks SOO much to you, TH & WW

[Radcliff]

Hi waitingwife, wow, I'm pretty excited for you.  I am also impressed that you are being so mindful about this -- learning and adapting your approach, and getting your own emotions to a good place so you can be more effective with your husband.  If you hit a bump in the road and there's trouble at some point, don't get discouraged -- just stay calm and centered and use the tools and you can get back to a good place again.

I know life is busy, but I'd encourage you to visit and post/reply regularly.  The community can benefit from you sharing your own experiences as well as posting on others' threads! 

Happy Holidays!   

WW

[waitingwife]

Absolutely, sure thing!. I’m not a regular visitor here but I’ll try to visit & contribute more often.
You all have happy holidays!

[Tattered Heart]

The date night is an excellent idea. IT'll be good for both of you.

We had several sets of visitors over the last month and something my H and I did that helped was if it started to get too loud or overwhelming, I would say that I was going to go take a short nap or just go into my bedroom to do something. He would come in shortly after and we would just spend a little quiet time together, decompress, and talk about parts of the visit that have been overwhelming or stressful for us. It really helped us bond together during a potentially dynamic time and we felt safe with each other against the invasion of our space with visitors. It also allowed us to discuss logistics and plan for activities later in the day.

Hope you have a great holiday weekend.

[waitingwife]

So finally the cousins cane and as I braced myself, it was not smooth all the way but I had better shock absorbers since we talked about it.
We had an explosive passive aggressive episode today & the cousins leave tonight. My brother’s family & we were sharing the stay. Initially the cousins said they’re going to stay with us for 5 days... .then 4 and finally they ended up staying for 3. My brother’s family is very forceful with cousins & go out of the way to accommodate the whims of cousins. My cousins are VERY disrespectful of other people’s time & their own time as well. UBPDH HATES the disrespect to time. They tomd us they’d come at 1pm and came at 8:30pm. So the stay started with a little baggage. But eventually things smoothed out. H drove cousins to shop on 31st December to extra bags to carry Christmas presents and he also took them out to lunch. We partied on 31st with a few friends,my brother’s family & cousins and we hosted them all. Today on 1st morning we had a messy house and 6 kids to cater to and my cousin brother asked my H if he could use one of our car for the day coz he wanted to go meet his friend with his wife(like a date day out). I said I can babysit the kids coz our D7 can bond with cousins but H has a quirk about giving our car to any outsider coz he’s a little possessive. Also we had talked before & decided that we’d do our best. My cousin had stayed at my brother’s where he had the free reigns to my brother’s car so he expected the same from us. When he asked H if he could use our car today, he(H) politely said no, I’m not comfortable with giving our car to others to drive. Cousin asked - is it because of insurance? I had told H that I’m not comfortable making up excuses, NO should be an acceptable answer. H offered him 3 thing- You could call uber or I can take you to a car rental place or we can pick the car you’ve rented from the airport now instead of evening. From that point in, my cousin bro got very passive aggressive towards H and he called Uber and took off. I cared for 6 kids & H said he didn’t want to chauffeur them around on a day when there’s office in the morning & there’s so much cleaning to be done at home. So he rather wanted to stay & help out which he really did a lot.
Cousin returned with his wife at 8pm & was passive aggressive with H. So my H lost it but didn’t say anything. It was very awkward & I didn’t think this is how their stay would end.

[Radcliff]

waitingwife,

Well, it sounds like a mixed success.  Those cousins sound like tough house guests.  Now they are gone, and your husband and you have each other again!  How does he feel?  It sounded like you validated him, and things went about as well as they might have if you look at your cousins like a force of nature that you can't control.  It sounds like you did a great job of working with your husband, so congratulations on that!   

It sounds like your cousins are boundary busters.  It sounds like you backed your husband up about not loaning the car?  Did he feel validated by that?

WW

[waitingwife]

Hi Ww,
Check this new thread I started. It did not go so well