Husband always thinks I'm selfish and that he's the only selfless one

[BumbleBee83]

What is with the BPD trait (I assume) of believing that they are so hard-working, put-upon and selfless, and that everyone else is lazy, careless, and a "taker"?  My husband gets this way whenever he's had a busy day and feels as though he's had no time to himself (to go to the gym, for example).  He then gets very accusatory and rude pointing out how much he does for everyone and how it's not appreciated and how he didn't have ANY time to do anything for himself.  Yesterday he boiled some pasta for the FIRST time in a  year and a half and acted so put upon!  He'll probably never do it again.  Mind you he is early 50's and retired, so he's home to do all of these "things" for people.  I, however, am still working.  I have two jobs and didn't do a single thing yesterday for myself, either.  Never usually do.  THEN had to do an online course for my work, but he acted as if I was having a spa day.  I always make the dinner after these two jobs, and that seems to be fine.  He also bought some things for the garage for MY car and didn't seem to get enough thanks to satisfy him.  Oh, and he had to be home for the electrician, so that was a problem because he doesn't like being tied down.  This all contributed to his meltdown which he took out on me, as usual.

Just wondering why they seem to be so needy and need to be thanked and stroked continuously for doing regular things.  It never seems to be enough.  And then in times of stress (like now around the holidays), the need is greater.  It seems to help me to understand the reasons WHY behind it, even though it doesn't change it.

Thank you!

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[Ozzie101]

I don't know why but I wish I did! My H is the same way (well, minus the retired part). I'm sure he does stay busy. He was complaining to me last night about how he didn't have time to eat his lunch because he had so much to do. (Never mind that he brought home his lunch containers and they were empty so I kind of doubt he was telling the full truth there.)

Anyway, I wish I had advice to give, but I'm in the same boat. When he's tired, stressed or worked up about something else, he'll go into a rant about how much he has to deal with that I have no clue about and how I don't have to do anything. Except I do the laundry. The grocery shopping. Most of the cooking. Some of the childcare duties (even though he's not my child, he's H's so, yes, a lot of that stuff is in his court).

[Zakade]

BumbleBee83,

The biggest hurdle for people with BPD is that they feel empty all the time.  Here are a couple analogy that could help. 

Think of most people's self-esteem or self-worth like a bucket with a small hole in it.  You can put a bunch of water into it and it will take time for the water to leak out before it needs to be filled again. For people with BPD, their bucket has a big hole in the bottom.  If you fill it up quickly and often enough, you can keep the bucket pretty full.  If you take a break or didn't bring enough water to fill the bucket, it will be empty.  When the bucket is empty, that's when the complaints start.

So why don't they notice when we have been keeping the bucket full?

It's like the fact that we don't think about air that much.  It's all around us and we don't have to worry about the next breath being absent of oxygen.  What would happen if the next breath you took didn't have oxygen?  And the next, and the next?  What if you had to rely on someone else to hold a mask to your face in order to get some oxygen?  You will always need oxygen but will that person always be willing or able to hold the mask up to your face? 

They can't fill the bucket or hold the mask on their own.  They don't understand how to do that.  They desperately need others around them to do it for them.  I hope these analogies helps.

Zakade

[once removed]

It seems to help me to understand the reasons WHY behind it, even though it doesn't change it.

BPD is a personality style, with a world view that has some commonality between those that live with it, across the spectrum.

these are some of the common thoughts and beliefs as part of an overall belief system. any or none of them may actually be a conscious thought process, but a general attitude toward/about others:

To the sufferer, BPD is about deep feelings, feelings often too difficult to express, feelings that are something along the lines of this :

If others really get to know me, they will find me rejectable and will not be able to love me; and they will leave me;

I need to have complete control of my feelings otherwise things go completely wrong;

I have to adapt my needs to other people's wishes, otherwise they will leave me or attack me;

I am an evil person and I need to be punished for it;

Other people are evil and abuse you;

If someone fails to keep a promise, that person can no longer be trusted;

If I trust someone, I run a great risk of getting hurt or disappointed;

If you comply with someone's request, you run the risk of losing yourself;

If you refuse someone's request, you run the risk of losing that person;

I will always be alone;

I can't manage by myself, I need someone I can fall back on;

There is no one who really cares about me, who will be available to help me, and whom I can fall back on;

I don't really know what I want;

I will never get what I want;

I'm powerless and vulnerable and I can't protect myself;.

I have no control of myself;

I can't discipline myself;

My feelings and opinions are unfounded;

Other people are not willing or helpful.

more here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=67059.msg733973#msg733973

[Zakade]

I am an evil person and I need to be punished for it;

I read this and had to laugh but also wonder... .did Dobby have BPD?  ~Harry Potter reference

Sorry, I couldn't resist.
 
Zakade

[RedArt]

BumbleBee83,

The biggest hurdle for people with BPD is that they feel empty all the time.  Here are a couple analogy that could help. 

Think of most people's self-esteem or self-worth like a bucket with a small hole in it.  You can put a bunch of water into it and it will take time for the water to leak out before it needs to be filled again. For people with BPD, their bucket has a big hole in the bottom.  If you fill it up quickly and often enough, you can keep the bucket pretty full.  If you take a break or didn't bring enough water to fill the bucket, it will be empty.  When the bucket is empty, that's when the complaints start.

So why don't they notice when we have been keeping the bucket full?

It's like the fact that we don't think about air that much.  It's all around us and we don't have to worry about the next breath being absent of oxygen.  What would happen if the next breath you took didn't have oxygen?  And the next, and the next?  What if you had to rely on someone else to hold a mask to your face in order to get some oxygen?  You will always need oxygen but will that person always be willing or able to hold the mask up to your face? 

They can't fill the bucket or hold the mask on their own.  They don't understand how to do that.  They desperately need others around them to do it for them.  I hope these analogies helps.

I hear what you are saying.  My question is, how can I refuel myself?  I'm exhausted trying to make H feel better as a person.  My cup is empty.  He rarely ever supports me.  It's all about what he needs.  I rub his back for hours at night, he doesn't even know I have a back.  I work everyday, come home to clean, cook and listen to his stories for hours on end.  I'm so exhausted.  And to beat it all, he took off for the holidays and I was hoping for some me time.  It's as if he can't stand the thought of me being home alone even though we need him to work and bring home some money.  Ugh, sorry for the interjection. 

Zakade

[Ozzie101]

RedArt, are there things you can do just for you? Can you go out by yourself for a walk? To lunch at a favorite restaurant? Just sit and read a book or watch a movie you love? Sometimes stepping out of things and focusing on you can do a world of good.

And the thing is, you can't make H feel better. It's impossible, though it's tempting to try. It sounds like he's using you as a crutch in a lot of ways. Someone here with more expertise can get more specific (and it's not something I'm good at), but there are ways to set boundaries so his problems don't become your problems and you're not bearing too much of the burden.

[BumbleBee83]

BumbleBee83,

The biggest hurdle for people with BPD is that they feel empty all the time.  Here are a couple analogy that could help. 

Think of most people's self-esteem or self-worth like a bucket with a small hole in it.  You can put a bunch of water into it and it will take time for the water to leak out before it needs to be filled again. For people with BPD, their bucket has a big hole in the bottom.  If you fill it up quickly and often enough, you can keep the bucket pretty full.  If you take a break or didn't bring enough water to fill the bucket, it will be empty.  When the bucket is empty, that's when the complaints start.

So why don't they notice when we have been keeping the bucket full?

It's like the fact that we don't think about air that much.  It's all around us and we don't have to worry about the next breath being absent of oxygen.  What would happen if the next breath you took didn't have oxygen?  And the next, and the next?  What if you had to rely on someone else to hold a mask to your face in order to get some oxygen?  You will always need oxygen but will that person always be willing or able to hold the mask up to your face? 

They can't fill the bucket or hold the mask on their own.  They don't understand how to do that.  They desperately need others around them to do it for them.  I hope these analogies helps.

Zakade

Thank you, SO MUCH, Zakade.  These analogies help so much.  I'm an analogy person, so these will stick with me and I will be able to think of them and refer to them when I'm, once again, shell shocked and blindsided by another rant having to do with my selfishness in the face of his "continual work with no thanks" 

Just to get the ridiculousness off my chest, the latest rant had to do with how hard he's worked this holiday season while I'm lazy and doing nothing (the laziness and "nothing" is me working from when I leave the house at 8am and returning at 6:30 pm and THEN making dinner, and then baking, wrapping, going back out to shop for gifts, pick up our son from his activities at 9pm to return home at 9:45, etc.).  I then go to bed at 10:15 pm because I have to get up at 5:30am.  He is retired so he sleeps until 8:30 or whenever he wants, so he can stay up until midnight or later... .but I am apparently a weakling because I have to go to bed so "early".  Anyway, one of the NECESSARY activities that HAD to get done in this busy holiday season was that he needed to install a USB port in his truck cigarette lighter.  This took several hours.  Best part is that his truck is already equipped with several USB ports.  He just wanted another.  Nothing like filling  your time with unnecessary activities and then whining about how you are so busy and everybody else is so lazy.

[Chosen]

BumbleBee83,

I feel the same way too.  My uBPDh is hardworking, but he makes it seem like everybody else isn't, and that everybody is trying to render his efforts futile by not cooperating/ not helping/ doing things with a good intention but failing him.  Nobody is good enough.  Everybody (including me) is useless and bringing him down.  He believes that only his way of doing things are ok, and if you try to "help" in your own way... .well, be prepared for the rage.  He will never see "good intention" as a thing, yet say, when he tries to help me do something and failed, he would say I don't appreciate his intention. 

And yes, he uses the word selfish a lot too.  If I have any attempt to do anything for myself, I'm selfish.  A little more than a year ago, I tried to start a very tiny online business selling one handmade cream.  I probably use 10 minutes to update the Facebook page every week.  He says I'm selfish and if I have so much free time why am I not helping him out more (I use the time on a train during work commute to update the page!  It's not like I could be doing anything else then!).  I was proud of the small business, but in the end I didn't keep it up because it's just not worth hearing all his insults. 

[once removed]

the latest rant had to do with how hard he's worked this holiday season while I'm lazy and doing nothing

how did you respond?

[BumbleBee83]

Hmmm... .sorry it's been so long.  Lots of drama here.  But to respond to the question about how I responded to his rants about how I'm selfish and "lazy"... .I can't honestly remember this time.  I'll be honest in that I vacillate between forgetting and trying to defend myself and listing all the reasons that what he is saying isn't true, and just letting him go on and on and then walking away.  This usually leads to a few to several days of us being very quiet (or even not speaking at all) to each other. I am learning not to respond with defending myself, but it's a really hard thing!  I've always been the type of person that has a hard time with others seeing me in a way that is untrue.  It's hard for me, especially with someone that's close to me and that I love.  It hurts that this person would actually say and possibly believe rude and terrible things about me.  Not about things on the surface, like about my clothes or my hair, but about myself as a person.  My personality traits.  Especially when I KNOW it's not true and I have a dozen good examples off the top of my head.  So... .I sometimes try to explain to him why what he's saying isn't true.  This, of course, never works.  Because he seems to WANT and NEED to see me as bad, so he weeds out all of the good and clings on to all of the bad.  I could literally remind him a hundred times of a dozen ways that I've been supportive of him in, lets say, his job, and EVERY SINGLE TIME it comes up, he will say I'm completely unsupportive, have never shown that I care, have never done anything to help him, etc. etc.  Then I go back into my list, and round and round it goes.  Some of these particular instances have cycled around for YEARS.  I think he LIKES to see me as a terrible person.  I think it may be because if I'm terrible, it makes him comparatively more wonderful.  In the same way that when he feels particularly bad about himself he can't seem to stop his rants and rages until he's completely decimated me.  He can't make himself feel better, so if he is able to make me feel as low as humanly possible, he is comparatively more fabulous and wonderful.  It's amazing that when I've hit bottom (because of his verbal assaults), that's when he usually gets happy and begins the turn-around to his "nice self".

[once removed]

I've always been the type of person that has a hard time with others seeing me in a way that is untrue.

i can certainly understand and appreciate that. i have three thoughts:

1. people with BPD, especially in times of dysregulation, are prone to distorted thoughts, and black and white thinking. i dont mean to dismiss it entirely. i do mean to say it helps to find the truth in it, and the untruth in it... .the gray. and to understand that our partners express themselves in over the top manners.

2. change is hard. some of the hardest changes will be the best for you in terms of emotional growth, and for your relationship.

3. okay. but then i have to ask, do you want to be seen as a defensive person whos self worth depends on what others think and changing their minds? i know its not that simple. just think about it  

lastly, as you can see, its really counterproductive and fuels a circular argument. much easier in a time of calm to revisit it. "do you really think im a terrible person?" (example only). just listen and let him answer. a lot of the time youll get something like "no. i was just mad.". sometimes youll get "no, but... .". listen to the but. say youd like to take some time to reflect on it. do it. revisit it later.

make sense?