Looking for feedback from members with partners with less severe BPD behaviors

[Radcliff]

BPD is a spectrum disorder, with nine diagnosis criteria listed in the DSM-5 definition of borderline personality disorder.  If someone has five or more of these nine criteria, they can be diagnosed with BPD.  What if they only have four?  Or three?  And a partner's expression of these traits is not a "yes" or "no" thing.

Many of us are dealing with partners on the more extreme end of the spectrum.  Yet members who have partners with fewer and less severe traits are a very important part of this community.  In fact, their relationships are ones that may see the greatest benefit from the use of tools by the member.

How about you?  Do you have a partner with less severe expression of BPD traits?  Why do you think they may be expressing less of the disorder's behaviors?  What are the chief problems that you are seeing?  Have you any experiences with applying the tools that you'd like to share to help others?

RC

[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.

[FaithfulInLove]

I can only stress that for me the tools are really helpful!

Since I stopped JADEing - he still gets upset about things - but we never got into a real fight.

If I am reaching out with empathy, don't judge him or defend myself although I feel I have a reason to - he takes his time to calm down, but finds his way back to me again more easily.

It takes time to really learn how to communicate in a non violent way but I believe the more you can do it, the easier things will get with your s.o. and also everyone else in your life. That's what I've experienced, although this was hard to believe when I first joined this forum.
These tools do have an impact!

[isilme]

I think the severity fluctuates for most people.  Day to day for large blocks of time, H might go alone and be relatively okay.  A bit moody, and bit easier to perturb, but he can be okay for him.  Maybe never okay for a non-BPD person, but okay for him.  He will take offense to any perceived shame.  He will take simple things like "I could not hear you please repeat that" as a challenge.  And I guess it can build up as he perceives he is "tolerating" all manner of slights (many seem imagined) and then he blows up.  If it's a "normal" blow up, it will last an hour or two and be diffused in just a day. 

Then, there are times like right now - he is not eating when he should, he is diabetic, this screws up his moods terribly.  A blow up that might last 1 day, say 5PM to 5PM, will now last for what looks like a full week and going.  The holidays are coming - trigger as his family depresses him on many fronts.  A vacation we take once a year just passed, and he is always depressed/disappointed afterwards, it's worse right now.  He is convinved he is dying.  he is convinced he is going to lose his job so he's not going as often as he should.  He is a huge mess, and has gone from low-symptoms to high recently.

So, it's not static.  Some people are more affected than others, but even those who can function pretty well 75% of the time will ahve those high symptom days.

[once removed]

my ex was on the less severe side of the spectrum. no eating disorders or self harm, no suicide attempts to my knowledge. could be impulsive in ways, but not regarding reckless driving, substance abuse, spending (for the most part), and not in a way that would likely earn her a diagnosis. i never witnessed severe dissociative symptoms.

she did struggle in some key areas of her life (like maintaining a job, following through with goals), as do a lot of twenty somethings.

most people can spot a person higher on the spectrum a mile away, and wont get too close. a person with a bit more severity in 3, or even 1 area, can be a very difficult (or worse) person, especially as a family member or in a romantic relationship.

[Chosen]

I think the severity fluctuates for most people.  Day to day for large blocks of time, H might go alone and be relatively okay.  A bit moody, and bit easier to perturb, but he can be okay for him.  Maybe never okay for a non-BPD person, but okay for him.  He will take offense to any perceived shame.  He will take simple things like "I could not hear you please repeat that" as a challenge.  And I guess it can build up as he perceives he is "tolerating" all manner of slights (many seem imagined) and then he blows up.  If it's a "normal" blow up, it will last an hour or two and be diffused in just a day. 

My situation with uBPDh is very similar.  When everything is going fine (i.e. I'm not "doing/ saying anything wrong"), he seems completely normal.  But he will suddenly go from 0 to 100 when he is triggered, and he can be triggered by anything (sometimes just me sighing will cause him to blow up).  And like isilme, my H seems to be "tolerating" me from the moment he wakes up, so when he blows up on me depends on when his toleration meter has been filled.  And how terrible my offense to him is.

He is very high-functioning so nobody sees this side of him.  If other people offend him, he will just come to me to talk crap about that person.  And he can say some really, really stuff (if that other person were to hear what is said about them, they would never speak to him again).  He would, on occasion, blow up on other members of his family when they trigger him, but less so that me, because he doesn't see them so often (and also because it's easier for them to shut up, because if there's any problem, the problem won't be there when they part ways. whereas I live with him and the problem doesn't go away).  He also doesn't blow up on others as seriously as he does with me. 

In a way, his behaviour is just like any other "normal" non-BPD person, only 1000000 times more dramatic... .you get it.

[Radcliff]

FIL, great to hear that the tools are working for you!

isilme and Chosen bring up a good point about fluctating strength of the behaviors.  I wonder if you've found that the tools are more effective when your pwBPD's symptoms are not severe?

In my experience, the level of severity of BPD and the level of functioning are different things.  In my estimation, my pwBPD was very high functioning (outside of our relationship) but has very strong BPD traits.  I found the tools useful sometimes (avoiding JADE really helped keep me from making things worse) but past a certain point her behaviors exceeded my ability to keep up with tools and things got farther out of control.

RC

[creampuff]

First time poster here.

I believe my husband has a mild to moderate form of BPD. His symptoms include: raging, intense fear of abandonment, low empathy, intense & unstable relationships with others (I am his 3rd wife!), distorted self-image (he has terrible feelings of shame and self-loathing), self-harming (his punches himself in the head when he's really frustrated), splitting, and difficulty trusting other people. He has not tried committing suicide, but when he feels intensely about a situation he will say things like, "I wish I was dead" and "I just don't want to live in this world anymore." He frequently talks about having a heart attack and dying. He is 57.

For the most part, his behavior is very mild with me. He can be very irritable and lets even the smallest things make him angry. I have learned to depersonalize most of his anger, but his main complaints with me are that I don't listen to him, I dismiss him, and frequently, that I am not on his side. (I tell him that disagreeing with him is not the same as disloyalty!)

One of his frequent complaints is that I don't listen to him and he has to repeat himself. Now,  our hearing is not what it used to me. I cannot hear him when he speaks to me from another room. I frequently cannot even hear him when he is turned away from me in the same room! It is very frustrating to hear him say, "You aren't listening." Sometimes accompanied by, "you don't care."

There are, indeed, times that I don't listen to him and I do dismiss him--because he is so irrational. He blames me for every little thing. One of his common complaints is that I take his stuff or move it so that he cannot find it. For example--the nail clipper. Whenever he cannot find his nail clippers he blames me for taking it. I even purchased my own pair so that I wouldn't have to listen to the blame, but he STILL blames me when he cannot find it! It is a catch-22. And the weird part is that he blames me in these very nonchalant ways, in passing. He will blithely say something like, "I guess you must have moved the papers on the table because I cannot find them." He says these things in a very neutral, matter-of-fact way. It is not said in anger, and I honestly believe that he is not even aware how accusatory his statements are. When I try to point it out, he disagrees with me, telling me that he is not blaming me.

He has rages. I am usually not the target of his anger. His anger is mostly directly outward toward "the world." For example, he will complain about how he hates living in a cluttered house. "I hate this f*cking house! It's so cluttered and messy!" (I do not take this as a testament to my housekeeping, because I do not accept full responsibility for the housekeeping, and I believe that if he wanted a more orderly life and house, he has the power to do something about it.)

He has, in the past, thrown things, destroyed things, and kicked things (chairs, garbage bins, etc.) He has stopped doing this because I told him I would not tolerate it anymore.

For the most part, I have learned to accept and adapt to his behavior. When he is not angry or irritable he is an incredibly funny, warm, and engaging person. He is very giving. He adores me. I recently started reading about DBT and BPD, and I have been using some of the DBT tools without realizing it. (This has mostly to do with my job... .I supervise 150 employees and a lot of my supervisory skills come into play with my personal relationships).

When he is really irritable--usually caused by some other problem, he will spend 3-4 hours saying nasty, passive aggressive things to me. After 2-3 hours of this I will tell him that he is being nasty, and that I have done nothing wrong, and I do not deserve to be treated that way. He will sulk for an hour or two and then apologize to me. We can go for months and months without any big huge fights, mostly just petty squabbles. However, I recently learned that to him, any argument we have triggers his fear of abandonment. I said something to him like, "but that's just bickering. That's normal. After nine years together do you still think I am going to leave you every time we argue"? He said yes, for him, it's the end of the world every time we argue, even over stupid petty things like where to park the car. Where I park the car, how I park the car, how I drive and how we get places... .these are things we used to argue about. We don't argue so about this anymore because I have learned to get our route sorted before we leave, and I always ask him where he wants me to park. However, when he starts getting really crazy with telling me how to drive, I have been known to park the car, hand him the keys, and tell him to go without me and I will catch up with him later. This happened a few weeks ago, and within 5 minutes he had apologized to me.

What brings me here is his situation with his children. They are teens now and things are intense. We had 50/50 custody with his ex-wife until about 6 months ago, when the children decided to live with their mother full-time. It has been a difficult time for us. I see their decision as justifiable--he has yelled and screamed at them and belittled them. We tried family therapy, but the therapist would not let him do co-joint therapy until he got treatment first, but the truth is he is still in deep denial. He recognizes that he is not a perfect father but does not seem willing or able to accept that they are genuinely afraid of him. Afraid enough not to live with us anymore. His way of coping with this is splitting. He thinks they are horrible children who only want to live with their mother because life with her is easier. It *is* easier. They have less responsibility there but they also get love and validation from their mother. He loves them, but he doesn't always act like it. He mostly feels alienated from them, and feels little to no connection with them. He says he will go to therapy, but he has tried before and he always finds some reason why the therapist sucks. He thinks they are clowns and morons. The kids are in therapy, and he and I were in DBT group therapy until he got mad at the therapist for not letting him do co-joint therapy with the kids. So we stopped going, because he thinks the group leader is a moron and he will never trust her enough to open up about his difficulties with the kids.

Currently we see them every other weekend. They stay Friday and Saturday night. He sometimes takes them to lunch or breakfast during the week. This arrangement has been worked out with his ex, although we have not legally changed the custody agreement. He is able to control his anger during these weekends, with an occasional passive-aggressive comment, mostly directed to his son, whom he blames for breaking up the family.

My husband is somewhat resigned to the situation, and I have decided to be like Candide and tend my own garden. I hope he will go to therapy, and I hope he will get help, but to be honest, I do not expect him to change. I am here to find out what I can do to improve myself and how I interact with him.

[Radcliff]

creampuff, welcome!  Thanks for sharing so much about your situation!  Let me encourage you to take as much of your post as you like and cut and paste it into a new topic of your own.  We'll join you there and can work through things with you.  We're glad you've joined us.

RC