I struggle with the stress or keeping my cool when my wife has her outbursts

[Kweasel]

Hi everyone! I’m new to this site and I mainly wanted to connect with loved ones of people that have BPD or something similar. I struggle with the stress or keeping my cool when my wife has her outbursts. They are usually irrational thoughts and I have learned that nothing I say will get through to her in that moment. I have done research on how to best handle these outbursts, but it would be nice to hear from others and see how they cope with the stress of loving someone unconditionally that has BPD. It is easy enough( relatively speaking) to deal with or diffuse a situation if it is quick, but sometimes when it lasts all day long and they are fighting with you and won’t stop no matter how much you want the fight to end and you have a stressful day to begin with it starts to eat away at you.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[once removed]

hi Kweasel and

im glad you found us! we definitely understand how hard it can be to keep your cool during outbursts, episodes, dysregulations... .it can be highly anxiety inducing, especially when your buttons are being pushed.

im no longer with my former partner, but it was a struggle for me too. i went on to learn the skills and tools we teach here, and i can see now that i could have given myself a lot more space, not unintentionally escalated the situation, and in general made things a lot easier on myself. my dad had some BPD traits as well, mostly the dysregulation, anger, and button pushing. in my experience you cant just discipline yourself into not losing your cool, it takes a lot of mindfulness, practice, and seeing the results, and over time, youll find your automatic reactions change.

probably the easiest, simplest first tool to implement is to learn not to JADE. it tends to keep circular arguments going, and the less of those you have, the more space and peace you will have, and then it gets easier to implement the other communication tools.

how long have the two of you been together? is your partner diagnosed?

[pearlsw]

Hi Kweasel,

You raise an interesting notion... .In my case how do you unconditionally love someone who constantly terminates the relationship? I don't know what specific symptoms your partner has but that is one I deal with  a lot. Are there certain symptoms that challenge your ability to be unconditional?

I find that I align a lot with ideas from buddhism about love... .but I am also a pretty flexible thinker and am probably drawing on a lot of influences. Have you ever heard of metta practice? That might be something to research and see if it gives you way to give love with no expectations.

I also think that depersonalizing and validating can be good tools to use. Do you have much experience with those yet?

wishing you lots of love, pearl.