negative space

[Margot Az]

Hi every one,
I have many questions and don't know exactly where to start. This one is today's:
How can I prevent my partner judging anything or anyone around him ineffective while I listen to him?  He does so by blaming me for "all the s... .I am responsable for", even though we plan and decide things together, when they concern both of us. It is as if I would be a negative space. I don't take this personally. However, my capacity for feeling adequate is running low, because it needs much time, work and energy to listen wihout arguing back on a rational level.

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[pearlsw]

Hi Margot,

Glad you found us... .there is definitely a lot to learn on these topics. My first reaction is to gently remind that we simply can't prevent our partners (or anyone really) from judging. You might not even be able to model different behavior and hope to have them pick it up. Who knows. What can you control is yourself and what you say. But that is liberating, not limiting in my book.

There is a lesson that can help with accusations and blaming: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=87204.0

I think you will also want to review validation and carefully study about how to do it, but also how to validate invalid statements. Scroll down and you'll see all the skills listed here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=36.0;sort=subject

Take a look and let us know what you think or learn from it please. It can really help others when we take the time to open up topics and take another look.

In terms of how you're feeling you might want to look at How to be an emotional caregiver: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=173897.0

Didn't mean to give you too much "homework" right off the bat!

Would you like to tell us more about what you are being blamed for?

wishing you peace, pearlsw.

[Margot Az]

Thank you Pealsw for your answers,
You are right of course: we cannot prevent anyone from judging.  Forgive me. I mistook myself and didn't mean to "prevent him", but myself from what I hear constantly. On second thought this may be likely a lapsus because the desire to make him quiet is sometime exacerbated.
However I read the links you suggested. I think the topics about the caregiver and accusations describe well how it could possibly work. On this level, frankly, without trying to sanctify myself, I believe I am a caregiver. Also, since two years of sharing a daily life with him, after the effect of surprise and confusion at the beginning, I quickly understood the blaming was projections. Indeed that is important to learn about. Being a caregiver is possible if one can retire in one's own "realm". Fortunately, I have my own.  For the "projections" I use to open a mental umbrella above myself. All this doesn't mean I consider myself perfect.
The system of validation you recommend is hepful in most situations. I listen, value the feeling without necessarily approuving it. I seldom tell my partner that I am not used to let anyone shouting on me, when necessary. The only thing which I am doubting of is that for validating someone's feeling, a person needs to take the time to listen.  But, listening to someone's blaming and outbursts is accepting an untimely impulsion.  Also, from all I read here and from my own experiment, it sounds like the persons suffering of BPD demand an instantaneous response however the way they act. The time we allow someone to be lsitened to is a willingly given time. It means we give the other one a power on our own time, no matters how short or long. That is not a problem if we are accepting to give that time. When my partner is bursting out, I wonder if I encourage him to be out of control at anytime by listening to him.  I sometime have to tell him that I am not available at that moment to listen to him and we can talk later. But then he develops another strategy and scold around or loud enough in his language (we partly live in his hometown in Berlin), pretending it is not meant for me and that I am not supposed to understand German well enough, but continuing blaming me. He wouldn't accept that he cannot maintain me in the permanent position of a receptor. I told him I feel uncomfortable when whoever acts this way, and then he would answer that nothing is really against me (I am aware of this), or that he has only me to empty himself, or that it is healthy to give away what is in his mind... .
But my point is, I would like to prevent myself of having to witness this constantly. I work at home. I would like something as a vacation. It has nothing to do with a break or reconsidering things (I am trully tired of even "considering" actually). On the other hand, I also wonder why I am always the one who has to leave the place. He never goes anywhere alone and he doesn't have any reason to leave home because nothing around is worthy enough.

P.s. The list of blames might broaden out the scope now and here, and I don't believe they are justified - I continuously question myself about this .

[Tattered Heart]

My H gets that way too. He rants on for hours about things and if I don't agree/listen completely he gets angry. Validating what is feeling without agreeing can help.

One thing you might try is to just ask validating questions [/quote] of him. This has helped me quite a bit because my H feels like I am interested and listening. It usually helps him get it out of his system quicker rather than going on for hours. Do you think this could help?

Another thing I do if my H starts to get too animated, talking loudly, yelling, while trying to have a conversation with me, is to say "I want to hear what you are trying to tell me but it is difficult for me to understand when you are yelling. Could you please bring your volume down?" If at that point he does not oblige, then I will tell him "It's important to me that we can talk about this. I don't want to be yelled at though so I'm going to take a break" and then I exit the conversation.

The key here is to let him know that you do care about him and what he is feeling but that you also want him to do so in a way that is constructive. Does that make sense?

[Margot Az]

Thank you Tattered Heart and Pearl for your advice. I couldn't find one of these first posts I made anymore. By now, I understand better how to use this board, so I could read your advice and also get a little retrospective about how things went since two months ago to today. I have read a lot of course, as you suggested, and that helped efficiently. The positive effect so far: the whole situation is less causing distress, from my point of view at least. I cannot distinguish so well what is my partner's thoughts about this. I have stopped taking negative comments or behaviors personally, and more important, I stopped torturing myself with issues I cannot solve on my own.  There is never any fights between us; I don't JADE, never did and don't escalate when he seems to be in an increasing bad temper. Although the rages often occur, in more or less short phases. They take place when I am there, and the only witness. It's often about details of course, becoming subjects for complains, criticisms or disrespect. The problem is this can turn into vehement behaviors and violent sequences. When it doesn't increase too quickly, I can stop it by "validating the feeling" or taking his focus on something else. And yes, it's indeed powerful and so questioning in the sametime to see how such a person has turned into a child suddenly. It works instantly. But I have to wait for a calm spell to do so and when there is none, I cannot interact. When he breaks things and trow them, I just vanish. A few days ago, I had almost finished to prepare dinner as he entered the kitchen and started to rage, obliquely, having vehement movements around me and grumbling. I told him I could sense that something was upseting him and would like to hear what was wrong. He said "nothing" and immediately started to throw the tools I was using across the room. I was trying to show no reaction, remaining calm in appearance. Then he threw a knife over the table where I was standing by.  He immediately sat after and started to eat, alone, before I could even finish preparing the meal. All this was very fast. I left the room after telling him I would spend time with him when he will be calm and respectful.  In the morning, before I had to leave home for an appointment, I told him it wasn't in my range to deal with violent acts. He responded he was not violent. I agreed, saying you are not violent as a person, however some of your acts last evening were.
He was problably trying to tell me about the mess I made in the room. This was not reality. Nevertheless, when I cook, I often feel I "invalidate" him, because he enjoys cooking and does it better than I do, according to him. Although we had agreed that I would cook this evening... . I feel the field where I can stand is shrinking more and more. The same day, in the morning, he had a first rage that I could stop quickly while he was trying to fix something in the kitchen. When I use his words in German, he calms down and is in another mood immediately.

When he cannot controle himself, he ends up in his room for a few days and nights. Meanwhile, I can't help feeling insecure.
I don't know what triggers him at the time being. His daughter of 19 must visit us in a few days. He hasn't seen her since years before we met. It could be any thing else.
Beside, my own children who are currently both studying in a city 1 hour away from us are very reluctant to visit me. They don't understand why I choose to live with  a "psychopath" in their words. They witnessed one scene of raging last summer, after which I asked my partner to go to his place in Berlin.

There is a real difficulty to isolate one matter for trying to acknowledge it, without sinking in so many other. Meanwhile it's all about validating, all long the way and all the time for every single thing.
Don't know how to handle the violent phases, my children's understandable unwillingness... .