Difficulty with mutual friendships of my pwBPD

[QBert]

I have a hard time keeping friends who are also friends with my undiagnosed partner with BPD.  Her relationships with others are often unstable.  This makes it difficult for me to be friends with people she is also friends with.  For example, we have a mutual friend who she is presently upset with.  She is working tonight and our friend and I had plans to hang out.  She's currently upset with him.  This makes it difficult for me to be a supportive partner that has her back and a friend at the same time.

It seems my friendships that are most secure are with those people she does not know and has no interest in knowing.

Am I alone in this problem?  Does anyone else have thoughts related to this topic?

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[waitingwife]

Hi QBert,
I’m sorry that you feel like you have to pick between a good friend and your spouse. With pwBPD, this is always a challenge and they’ll continue to have the instability based on their emotions at the time.
I had similar problems with my uBPDH so I have started having a set of friends who are just my friends on an individual level. So I derive my fulfillment or fun or friend-time from them when I need it. Having said that, there are a few friends or family who are common to us... .There is always the push n pull it when we have visitors... .It’s coz pwBPD feel insecure and less loved or seek attention to convince themselves of their “perceived truth”. One of the things that I’ve tried in the last few months is a) invnest in self-care and b) have a calm talk when h is receptive about how there are going to be disagreements and kinks when for example somebody visits us... .And my action is not in any way going to mean I picked one person over the other... .I tell him beforehand that I love him no matter what and he has every right to his feelings... .It kinda helps set the stage and the dysregulation evaporates much faster.
What donyou think you can do and be happy at the same time? After all this, sometimes pwBPD might continue to dysregulate but that’s notnin your control. Is there anything you could say or do with your spouse beforehand that’ll send her a message of- I care about you & love you... .And I beed to go hang out with my friend coz I’m in need of some friend-time.

[QBert]

It's not that I feel like I can't hang out with my friends.  But then again, people that are exclusively my friends are mostly at work -- and I have lunch with them several times a week.  The problem tends to be more with mutual friends.  For example, tonight she is working and I had made plans to hang out with one of our friends while she was working tonight.  Well, in the past two days this friend has (rightly or wrongly) ended up on her bad side.  Now I find myself watching HBO and chilling by myself (a perfectly acceptable way to spend an evening, IMHO) rather than hanging with our friend.

It's hard for us to have friends in common because anytime I talk to any of her friends she sees it as me trying to "take over her friendships" and so then she'll disconnect from them.

[pearlsw]

Hi QBert,

Would you say it is hard for her because you are basically able to get along with the mutual friends but she is not able to do so? Have you validated her feelings about how hard it is for her to get along with others? Do you think it would be better to just keep a separate set of friends of your own or do you think there is any possibility to have mutual friends?

What does she mean by "you taking over" the friendships? Do you have an example?

take care, pearl.

[QBert]

Hi QBert,

Would you say it is hard for her because you are basically able to get along with the mutual friends but she is not able to do so? Have you validated her feelings about how hard it is for her to get along with others? Do you think it would be better to just keep a separate set of friends of your own or do you think there is any possibility to have mutual friends?

What does she mean by "you taking over" the friendships? Do you have an example?

take care, pearl.

Thank you for the response, pearl.

In this particular example we have a mutual friend who was pushing many of her boundaries.  It wasn't until just two days ago that I understood the extent of the boundary pushing problem!

Once I understood the problem I validated it and we've agreed to create space between us and this friend.  It sucks because he's a really nice guy otherwise and we both enjoy hanging with him, but because of issues of him not respecting her boundaries -- repeatedly, we both made the decision that space from him was needed.