DO NOT STAY as she will never change

[ponco]

I will tell you that the advice that was posted by "Tattered Heart" will make you think that if you will be able to improve your relationship with your wife and have a normal life, but that's just delusion and IMO his suggestions should include a huge disclaimer that it won't fix anything, all it will accomplish is to help you behave like a therapist instead of a normal person while your wife will still and forever will be the way she is and she will never change.

Having said that, here's my advice: If you are willing to put up with that behavior for the rest of your life and training yourself to forever be walking on eggshells then by all means learn all the "workshops" and be the better man in every way you can. On the other hand, if you think that you will only stay with her with the hopes that you or a therapist will be able to "fix" her or make her mental disorder a little better, DO NOT STAY as she will never change, she might show (or feign) some signs of improvement but that is all an act and after a few months (or years) the mask will come off again and you will be back at square one.

Good luck and I wish you the best.

[Skip]

Have you left your wife?

[Meili]

What you are claiming is definitely one possibility ponco. I'm curious though, is that the only possibility? I ask because I watched a drastic change in the dynamics of my relationships, including the one with my pwBPD, when I changed my approach and communication styles.

Why do you think that we have to become their therapist or to fix them? I did just the opposite. I allowed her to handle her own problems and to suffer the consequences of her own actions. The truly amazing thing about that was that it made things better between us rather than worse.

When I stopped being her doormat and showed her I was strong, it put us on an even plane. I was able to lead rather than follow when I needed to do so.

How do you explain these things? How do they fit with what you stated as a fact?

[defogging]

Why do you think that we have to become their therapist or to fix them? I did just the opposite. I allowed her to handle her own problems and to suffer the consequences of her own actions. The truly amazing thing about that was that it made things better between us rather than worse.

When I stopped being her doormat and showed her I was strong, it put us on an even plane. I was able to lead rather than follow when I needed to do so.

I'm still in the beginning stages of changing my relationship with my uBPDw, but I agree with this wholeheartedly.  Things are changing for the better, because I am allowing her to deal with her own emergencies.  I get more respect from her, and see more self-sufficiency on her part.  There are still needless guilt trips and complaints thrown my way but I find that ignoring it works better than reacting to it.  We still have a long way to go and I don't know that we'll make it, but I'm happier than I was 4 months ago because I choose to filter her drama and take care of myself.

[Tattered Heart]

Which of the tools and communication skills have you fully committed to using as they are described and taught?

Like Meili and defogging my relationship has taken a full 180 since I began to implement these tools on a consistent basis. Last January my H was beginning to move towards DV with me. Now, he hasn't even yelled at me or called me a name in over 3 months. I'm pretty content with one argument a month. I'd say that's better than most non BPD couples.

How has your current approach and what you've been doing working for you? Are you content? Happy? Comfortable?

[Tired_Dad]

Ponco,

I hear your anger and can understand where it comes from. I often find myself on this board wondering how people once they are "free" from their BPD partner consistently pine for them or attempt to get them back. I personally feel that with my spouse that she will never be the person that I married ever again and that she has pulled so much trauma and drama to her in the course of our marriage that she is unable to find her way out.

I am not a saint, I have lost my temper and found myself acting in ways that I would not in other situations. I have found that using JADE has helped avoid those conflicts as I will not engage in her delusions about my fidelity, or the financial management of our family anymore. I don't see it as walking on eggshells or caving in as I will hold my boundaries, I just simply will not fight anymore.

Now, I recognize that this is a luxury that I have due to the financial situation of our household and her overall health (lack of) and stability (lack of) and that it does not work for everyone.

What I have put an end to is the endless validation of flawed thought. I have found little success with that method in my relationship and I find that it compromises my core beliefs to continue on that path.

[isilme]

ponco - I think you are using some feelings to define facts.  It can certainly FEEL like you are trying to be a therapist at times - if you are focusing on "fixing" your spouse.  Instead, focus on fixing you, how well you manage yourself when she goes off.  How much you allow her dysregulation to affect you. 

You are correct, BPD like pretty much ANY other condition (diabetes, disability, bi polar disorder, substance abuse issue) is always part of that person.  That does not mean it "drives the car" of their life at all times, though. 

Having said that, here's my advice: If you are willing to put up with that behavior for the rest of your life and training yourself to forever be walking on eggshells then by all means learn all the "workshops" and be the better man in every way you can. On the other hand, if you think that you will only stay with her with the hopes that you or a therapist will be able to "fix" her or make her mental disorder a little better, DO NOT STAY as she will never change, she might show (or feign) some signs of improvement but that is all an act and after a few months (or years) the mask will come off again and you will be back at square one.

It's not about putting up with it.  You stop engaging when it starts.  Leave the room/house.  It's not supposed ot be walking on eggshells.  It will happen at times (this happens in ALL relationships, by the way - not just BPD ones).  There will always be times that come and go with high stress that trigger an event.

But in the 10 years I've been on this site, those events are fewer.  They last less time.  And the repercussions and hurt from them is far less than it once was. 

You are correct that there is no "fix".  It's an emotional disability, and yes, it will strike time to time all your life - just like asthma.  But YOU have some power in working to get to a place where it no longer controls YOU, or many aspects of YOUR life. 

Leaving is certainly one solution for removing the drama from your life - but if you don't see what inside you made this relationship attractive in the first place, I suspect you'd simply find another person with a PD os some sort, rinse and repeat.  WE are also somewhat, well, broken, else a BPD person would not have been attractive in the first place.  We come here to work on us, to have a place to vent feelings and see if we may have another way to react or respond that we have not yet tried.  We have to break our parts of the cycle before change can happen - this is not controlling your pwBPD, but controlling the cycle by getting off it yourself. 

[ponco]

Ponco,

I hear your anger and can understand where it comes from. I often find myself on this board wondering how people once they are "free" from their BPD partner consistently pine for them or attempt to get them back. I personally feel that with my spouse that she will never be the person that I married ever again and that she has pulled so much trauma and drama to her in the course of our marriage that she is unable to find her way out.

I am not a saint, I have lost my temper and found myself acting in ways that I would not in other situations. I have found that using JADE has helped avoid those conflicts as I will not engage in her delusions about my fidelity, or the financial management of our family anymore. I don't see it as walking on eggshells or caving in as I will hold my boundaries, I just simply will not fight anymore.

Now, I recognize that this is a luxury that I have due to the financial situation of our household and her overall health (lack of) and stability (lack of) and that it does not work for everyone.

What I have put an end to is the endless validation of flawed thought. I have found little success with that method in my relationship and I find that it compromises my core beliefs to continue on that path.

How happy are you with your current situation? would you say that you're happy or just going through the motions the best you can.

[I_Am_The_Fire]

ponco, why is it important to you whether other people choose to stay with their BPD partner or to leave? I'm trying to understand.

[formflier]

How happy are you with your current situation? would you say that you're happy or just going through the motions the best you can.

Hey Ponco.  Can you catch us up a bit about what's been going on in your life?  I'd like to get to know you a bit more. 

FF

[Tired_Dad]

How happy are you with your current situation? would you say that you're happy or just going through the motions the best you can.

For me it is about defining for myself what my boundaries are. I also make deliberate efforts to not pick or sustain a fight as I find it futile and when she is disregulated and I get angry over something nothing good comes of it.

I recognize of the 3 people in my home that I have the best control over my emotional reactions followed by my 10yo son then closely behind that my wife and since I am not ready to undergo the legal, financial and family impacts of a divorce this is how I handle it.

My advantage in this is that my wife often isolates herself in the bedroom or is sleeping on the couch or if she is energized/feeling trapped she "needs" to be somewhere else (library, store, driving, her mother's etc.) so essentially my interactions with her are limited by the time that she is present in the same area as my son and me.

I have found that the path to peace is by just not giving in to their anger. She does not control my emotions, I do, and I refuse to let my emotions get out of hand no matter how ridiculous and outrageous her behavior or accusations are.

[Red5]

I have found that the path to peace is by just not giving in to their anger. She does not control my emotions, I do, and I refuse to let my emotions get out of hand no matter how ridiculous and outrageous her behavior or accusations are.

Bingo !

It has taken me many years to understand this, to "master" this.

It was said here before on another post, "don't allow a disordered person to have control (responsibility) of your own emotions/happiness"... .continuing, "your own happiness, emotional foundation is your own responsibility, ensure that you take very good care of it, as its your responsibility, NOT someone else's".

Yes, it has taken a while, and I am not 100% yet, maybe never will be, but now I have that most important life knowledge, as in, .Its my own emotion, and I can control it, I can be there for her, I can protect her, and I know how far that goes now, and I know when to back off, and not engage her when she is in one of her modes of dysregulation, .like the oxygen mask thing, .put yours on first, .before you attempt to help anyone else.

When I came here a year ago, I was defeated, I was done, .no more steam, .but now, all these months later, things are a bit better, I have the decoder ring now, and I can finally read her a little better, which is a God send !

Red5

[happendtome]

"The Emperors new clothes" written by Hans Christian Andersen.

In this fairy tale Emperor was unable to see (admit) that he was actually naked, because he believed his weavers, who told that his new clothes are invisible for all those who are unfit for their jobs or otherway incompetent.
Only little kid had this courage to say out the truth.

Now, i dont say what someone should do. I got my lesson already then when i was trying to save my ex. Whenever i told her that shes wrong she just got more convinced that she was right.

People see what they want to see.

[formflier]

 I got my lesson already then when i was trying to save my ex. Whenever i told her that shes wrong she just got more convinced that she was right.
 

Happendtome,

Your experience is illustrative of the need to understand and "use properly" the concept of "validation" and "invalidation"

I would invite everyone to take a few minutes and read the link below, watch videos and then reflect on "why" Happendtome's ex became more convinced that she was right?
https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-dont-be-invalidating

"Plain English explanations or "technical" psychological explanations are welcome.  

FF

[Skip]

People see what they want to see.

The essay is a great modern day idiom for pluralistic ignorance... .

I like this one from Henny Youngman, too.

My wife is crazy and I'm smart enough to not put up with it anymore. How did you end it? She left me.

[Red5]

Whenever i told her that shes wrong she just got more convinced that she was right.

People see what they want to see.

... .hmmm, "feigned capitulation" works well for me most times, as in she is playing checkers, and I am playing chess ?

Sometimes when she is really "ridding me", .I use the blank stare, like "I can't believe you even asks me that sweetie, really".

Sometimes saying absolutely nothing says a whole lot,

Fragility, .being "right" is extremely important to my beautiful wife, .I think it must be extremely scary, and fearful for her to think that she is ever wrong, .so I do enable her a whole lot.

Get along to get along, .give her; her quarter, much easier to just "agree", as most times it will amount to nothing anyways in the long run.

What did Forest's Mother say... ."just a little ole' white lie, ain't going to hurt nobody."

Yes, a well placed "sure Babe, you are absolutely right, and correct, so anything you say" works wonders, and disarms a potentially explosive and extreme dysregulative episode.

Red5

[Meili]

It's never a good plan to validate the invalid. When you cannot find anything to validate, it's best to just not invalidate. I think that is what Red5 was getting at here:

Sometimes when she is really "ridding me", ... .I use the blank stare, like "I can't believe you even asks me that sweetie, really".

Sometimes saying absolutely nothing says a whole lot,

Asking validating questions is a great way to handle times when you cannot find anything to validate.

Also, for many of us, our pwBPD are terrified about being wrong. It is a path to rejection and thus abandonment.

And, we cannot forget that another person's emotions are never wrong, even when we cannot understand or agree with why they feel as they do. These things apply to everyone, not just pwBPD.

[SamwizeGamgee]

My marriage went through a dramatic change when I began to self-educate and self-help my way out the abyss formed by my wife's UBPD behaviors and persona.  So much so, that I think I overly blamed myself for all the history.  I falsely thought that "if I could change myself, and that changes the relationship, then I must have the ability to do it all."  And then, "if I keep at it, I can keep improving it," and "it must have been my fault in the first place."  

These beliefs were not completely true, but, it did give me tools to stop the bleeding, as they say around here. It also helps me work all the way down to embracing the realities of BPD.

However, in spite of my own work, and making things better, the reality finally hit that there is only so much I can do.  It is fair to say - or rather plan as though - your partner may never change, or get better.  You can only change your half of the formula.  That does not mean that both of you are stuck forever in the status quo.  My final solution may be to separate and divorce, though along the way me helping myself has been life-saving, and made home life much better for everyone there.  

One of my adaptations is to become essentially comatose inside - which is not healthy or permanent - but, it cuts out conflict if I find that I am willing to let go of any source of anger or her triggers.  I think that many times now she wants an engagement, but, she ends up punching at a smoke cloud - because I'm not really there.

[Meili]

SamwizeGamgee is spot on here.

You can only change your half of the formula.

In fact, it only takes one person to change the relationship dynamics. By default, if one person changes what happens, the dynamic is changed. This means that there is only status quo if both parties decide that things should stay as they are.

That does not mean that it only takes one person to make the relationship a utopia. What it means is that you if you want the fighting to stop, you don't pick up the fight. If you don't want to want the insults to wear you down, you accept that the other person is entitled to his/her opinion and you don't accept that opinion as your own. You control what you can control and you decide what is right for your life and how you want to live it.