SURVEY | Which behaviors are you using, or have you used, in your relationship?

[Skip]

When we are in a relationship with someone who suffers from BPD or presents BPD traits, our lives can feel like they are out of control. We can find ourselves struggling to understand what is happening in our own lives. One of the best things that we can do for ourselves is to look at our own actions.

By looking at our own actions, we can see that which is within our control. We cannot control what our partners are doing, only what we are doing. Which behaviors are you using, or have you used, to try to get a handle on the situation?

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=307516.0

[Insom]

Great survey, Skip!  One of the things that's felt most helpful to me in recovering from relationship with person with BPD is recognizing my own not-so-productive traits.

Thanks for posting. 

[ortac77]

At one stage or another over 13 years together I have probably used all of the above! Having said that as time moves on I learn what does not work and have modified my behaviours accordingly, I think it takes a long time and a lot of work to do this.

Perhaps for me the biggest lesson is in understanding where I am, i.e. taking account of my own feelings and wellbeing. I love the expression they use in AA, HALT - being aware that I am not at my best if I am Hungry/Angry/Lonely/Tired. If any of those my abilities will be poor and my ability to cope degraded.

[BasementDweller]

JADEing and invalidating were my two biggest issues. I was doing this without even realizing it, or what these things even were. Once I realized it, and understood what I was doing and saying that was totally exacerbating the situation, I not only stopped, but I told my BPDbf what I had realized. I said that I knew I had been doing these things, and understood that this must be frustrating for him. He was beyond happy, and said that he knew he was very difficult, but that he really sometimes just wanted to be heard, and he felt like I wasn't listening to him or understanding him. He said he felt like a huge weight had been lifted when I told him that, and I felt the same. Things have drastically improved with us since that discussion. It was a tough pill for me to swallow - realizing that many of our big battles would not have escalated nearly as badly as they did if I had not also been doing my part to twist the knife - without even realizing it. I have this board to thank for opening my eyes to the things that I could do to make a difference and create more harmony between us. The tools for communicating with your partner have been a huge blessing.

[Tattered Heart]

In our early relationship I used to escalate things to the same level as him and I would threaten to leave him. Once during a moment of clarity he told me how badly it hurts him when I say that I want a divorce and I never said it again to him.

Over the last few years, I began to use JADE and invalidation alot. When things get bad I still catch myself doing it and frequently have to tell myself ":)on't JADE". Validating is becoming a lot easier.

[pearlsw]

I thought I was being okay, but I realized from my time on this site how much invalidating I was doing. I could not relate to his emotions... .I am actually a bit more Dr. Spock like than many of you might guess about me... .but I would just try to rush him past or blow over his emotions. Now, thanks to this site, I have better tools to listen to his emotions and make sense of them. How he expresses himself is so painful for me that I was always try to dodge as he'd steamroll over me. Oops!

I also seriously can't believe how much I've begged and pleaded to get back together at times, but I think it is because he causes a serious level of panic in me with breakup threats and I get sucked into his stuff... .because he always makes it so URGENT! It never once was. But I am a bit programmed now... .I want to break that, but his extinction bursts make it massively challenging.

Anyone else? It's always so nice to hear what folks are thinking!

[Mutt]

JADEing and invalidating were my two biggest issues.

Same here. I had heard of the same it takes two to tango and I hated that statement because I felt like I was drawn into a fight and the other person wasn't interested in making peace. I didn't realize at the time that it's not the other person that you have control of it's yourself and it always the same fights over and over nothing got resolved.

Nothing changes without change, today my exuBPDw is still the same person that I met back in 2005, she is still emotionally immature because of the tools on this site it's so much more peaceful. She still baits, she lashes out when there are things that are stressing her out in her life, she's still invalidating, she still tests boundaries from time to time but those long drawn out fights that left me feeling miserable are over   That being said.

I see that I've used 7 of the 11 behaviours in the poll when I was in a r/s with women with BPD traits. I've dated more than one all had different severities and traits my ex-wife was over the top. The behaviours are a benchmark for behaviours that you don't want in a healthy r/s.

[once removed]

i ticked most of them off.

i think the two biggest that hurt my relationship were Escalating fights with fire or emotionally lashing out in anger and Blaming the problems in the relationship on her.

if my attitude around just those two had changed, i could have done a great deal to stop making matters worse.

[Jessica84]

i ticked most of them off.

i think the two biggest that hurt my relationship were Escalating fights with fire or emotionally lashing out in anger and Blaming the problems in the relationship on her.

if my attitude around just those two had changed, i could have done a great deal to stop making matters worse.

Same here... .but then I went to the other extreme of invalidating and withdrawing. Or more like, my withdrawing is invalidating to him. Finding the center isn't so hard. Staying there is the challenge. 

[once removed]

but then I went to the other extreme of invalidating and withdrawing.

i did both of those as well. after the big rows, id need a little space, and withdraw. that makes sense on paper, but looking back, i often used it as a form of punishment, and all it did was make her push for more, so its not as if it was productive. eventually, it led to the breakup.

[SunandMoon]

Escalating fights with fire or emotionally lashing out in anger

Before I understood BPD, this was my biggest mistake. Yelling and name calling really disgusted me and I would return fire with all the scorn I could muster.

Now, thanks to this site, I refuse to engage in childish behaviour that does so much damage to who we really are. 

At the first sign of dysregulation, I "take my ears elsewhere", as Formflier would say. We can talk later when things calm down and I'll validate where I can but any time it starts to escalate, I call a halt.

This has made so much difference to our relationship and how we communicate   

[SaltyDawg]

This appears to be a duplicate post of the same survey that can be found at https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=307516 originally posted by Meili.

I have duplicated my response and posted here as well.

Snooping through phones, computers, purses, wallets, cars, social media account(s), etc.
  Withdrawing, giving the silent treatment, or threatening to break up
  Other (please explain)

For this question, I am only responding in the present BPD relationship, as the previous BPD was a whole different situation.  My current BPD relationship is with my wife whom I believe is uBPD and uOCPD.

Based on my wife's false narratives in the past, where she has done projection and transference on me, whenever she accused me of having an affair (emotional or sexual), I perceived her accusation as an admission of guilt, so I actively looked for evidence of her having an affair on me - to date, I have found no solid evidence of an affair.  While my uBPD/uNPD/u+exgf had two emotional affairs and attempted to have physical ones; however, she backed out on one, and the other rejected her physical advances, so it was something I was painfully aware of potentially happening, and when my wife stopped her love bombing and later accused me of having affairs, this came to my mind frequently, an ANT (automatic negative thought) which I kept suppressed most of the time as there was no physical evidence to back up my own paranoia to explain her behaviors.

In order to do this, I would look at phone records, location records, her texts, browser history, other communications, credit card records, and I would also check for any unexplained bodily fluids in her laundry, as I was tasked to do the laundry as her primary love language in 'acts of service' and I had the advantage of looking at this from an investigative perspective.

My wife wanted me to JADE when we have arguments; however, this would upset her more.  I wouldn't JADE, and if she was dysregulated, I would shut down the conversation and invite it to be resumed the following morning, when I knew more often than not she would have an emotional reset, and would either forget the argument (if unimportant majority of the time) or could bring it up, and if I felt it was important, I would bring it up at that time when she has reverted to baseline.

In addition to the checking of the bodily fluids, under the 'other' category, I would also use a modified version of the DBT Radical Acceptance tool that I personally call Radical Forgiveness, as I know she is dysregulated, and not fully aware of her behaviors while she is dysregulated, so I have already pre-forgiven her for these bad behaviors.  However, I do hold her accountable for these behaviors by calling them out during the following couple's therapy session, so they can be addressed by a neutral 3rd party referee.  We are currently in a transition phase, where we are going to be addressing this without the 'referee' when dealing with 'relationship conflict'.