Merry Borderline and a Disordered New Year

[2020]

I should have seen this coming. There is no Christmas in this house. It is all Capitalist BS and we just don't do it. No presents, hell no, that would be asking for trouble! I thought I would make some pizzas today; it has been a while. I'm not permitted to cook anything for my kids or she has a complete breakdown. Even shopping for the ingredients yesterday was uncomfortable with her nasty comments about me throwing a party for my paralysis ticks (kids). Even my 'wife' (ex partner, separated in 2004) was going to come... .or so she thinks.

This morning we wake up. I make coffee. She checks her emails. No contact from her son. He is avoiding her because she doesn't like his girlfriend. She called her a bitch a few weeks ago and it might take some time for this stand off to end.

After coffee she is going to do some sewing up at the warehouse we rent up the road. I am going to do some drawing for two hours. It seems we agree on that. I go and see her after two hours and she is still working. So I come back to the house to do some things here. I begin boiling down the tomatoes to make the rich pizza sauce. This can take a couple of hours. An hour later she arrives and is rather irrate. Apparently I have dumped her on Christmas day; amputated her from my life... .on Christmas day... .of all days. I am a mean man! She walks off. She has been drinking.

I wait half an hour and go looking for her at the warehouse. I cannot see her through the blinds but I suspect she is there. I am pounding on the door. She has the soundtrack to The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly blaring. If she is there, she either cannot hear me or she won't answer. I leave.

Then she shows up here. She is drunk and crying. I am a piece of  . She wants nothing to do with me. This has become her regular assessment of me so it is no surprise anymore. I ask her if she wants to tell me what is going on for her but she walks off. I call after her from the balcony but she gives me the finger.

I go up the road. What is the point though? To validate? Yeah, maybe that might be a start. I try to tell her, "Look, I can see why this is a difficult day... ." She yells at me and accuses me of rubbing in the fact her son won't talk to her. She says she hates me. I stink. She can't stand me. I snort every morning. I have a disgusting sinus problem and I am a filthy old man who runs a boarding house. Oh, and I went to the beach with my kids today. I don't remember doing that.

It is likely to only get worse... .

And how is your Christmas? Much dysregulation in your household?

Ho Ho Hopelss!

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[Bnonymous]

Hi 2020,

I'm sorry you've been having such a stressful holiday so far.

At this time of year we are all bombarded with media images of impossibly perfect families having impossibly perfect holidays - it can make the contrast with real life appear very stark and feel very painful.

I imagine her abandonment feelings are at full blast if she hasn't heard from her son (even if that is at least partly down to her having called his girlfriend names).

Be kind to each other. If she isn't kind to you, be kind to her anyway and be extra kind to yourself to make up for it.

I'm slightly concerned about this:

I'm not permitted to cook anything for my kids or she has a complete breakdown. Even shopping for the ingredients yesterday was uncomfortable with her nasty comments about me throwing a party for my paralysis ticks (kids).

Her comments about your kids sound very hurtful. It seems like you're really walking on eggshells there to an extent where you feel you're not "permitted" to enjoy even basic, ordinary, family festivities. That isn't a sustainable way of living and is likely to lead to a lot of hurt and resentment.

How old are your kids? Are they still kid-kids or are they adults?

Can you tell us more about what her issues are with them, any feelings she has expressed about your relationship with them?

[Red5]

Hey 2020!

So Merry Christmas anyways Brother!

It’s day twenty five plus fifteen of uBPDw moving out,

You should see my “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree sitting in the corner of my living room... .which is devoid of furniture ... .

Only a couple of patio chairs from outside to sit by the fireplace.

But hey!... .me and my Son, and his brother and his sister, we had us a good Christmas anyways !

Hang in there my Brother, and blessings to you and your Son!

Hopefully 2019 will be a better year for the both of us, and as well everyone here on these boards... .

Best regards!

Red5

p.s.
I made a crock pot full of chili : )

[2020]

Thanks guys. It was a difficult day to endure but somehow Christmas has ended... .but the BPD goes on and on. She did come back and eat pizza. I tried something different and made a vegan pizza. She said it was ordinary and tasted like McDonalds cheese. We went to bed and watched a movie. She fell asleep pretty quickly. I could smell she had been drinking.

Today when I awoke she had gone. Her pillow was cold. I got up, made a coffee and started doing some more drawing on the computer. She arrived at the window and asked why I am doing what her son is to her? I asked her what this was and she said ignoring her, cutting her out of her life, wanting nothing to do with her. I tried to assure her I did want something to do with her; that I was wanting a relationship with her. Unfortunately I tried to use logic with her and spoke about reality, probability and having evidence. JADE on! Oh well. She walked away when I suggested perhaps we should think about therapy if we want to be in a relationship with each other. She wants nothing to do with me. She tells me I am a control freak and insulting.

My kids are 17 and 26, both boys to the same mother. My eldest moved back home about three years ago when things didn't work out with his girlfriend. My youngest was living with his mother until the age of 12 when I had to conduct a UN mercy mission to extract him in the early hours of dawn from the mess his mother was in at the time. Turns out he had been repeatedly sexually abused by somebody next door. He is on the Autism Spectrum too. He is a lot of work. I guess the way he sees it is I am the person who rescued him, only to get involved seriously six months later with my undiagnosed BPD partner 5 years/friend of 10 years. Let's just say BPD and Autism are not bedfellows .

So I am back to doing the drawing. At least I get to escape in my own stuff. I would love this to work out between us but she is not appearing to be willing to stop playing the victim and seek professional help and do the work to bring about change.

I am finding it very difficult to see why any of us are bothering on this forum. I see a lot of patient, kind, salt of the Earth people, all getting treated like   ofter verbally and physically. "No Future!" as my friend Johnny Rotten warned me in '77 when I was 11.

PS: I have to say Red, I was saddened to hear of your recent events, but I was thinking how lucky you are, even jealous in a strange way, of not having this crap going on. When I was turfed out by my previous partner, the mother of my boys, in 2004, we made a table from a piece of plywood and some concrete blocks. We sat on two suitcases on end; one had clothes in it, the other had comics and a Gameboy Advance! Oh, the good old days! Enjoy that chilli! These semingly insignificant moments are gold.

[Red5]

These semingly insignificant moments are gold.

... .yes they are my friend !

Hang in there 2020 !... .your an awesome Dad !

I hope you have an awesome New Years !

Today, my daughter and her bf came by to drop off her bothers gift, they said my now day old chili was good : )

As we all know, chili only gets tasstier as it sits on the crock pot !

She ordered up black eyed peas and collard greens for New Years... .a “tradition” here in the south (the Colonies )... .yes I fancy myself a “soul food” cook 

Yes, sometimes I do follow your line of thinking, seems we here on these boards are all “terminal” to one degree or another... .like we are all sitting in the second class lounge on a Steamer crossing the Atlantic... .and the hour is late... .and as I reach into my coat pocket, I retrieve my ticket... .and knit says... .“White Star Line”... .Second Class... .her Majesty's “Royal Mail Ship, Titanic... .hmmmm,

So as we all sit here at the bar... .admiring the carpenters craftsmanship... .we order up another round of black coffee and bailys cream!

Like we all seem to sense what’s coming, .but the cognitive dissonance keeps us sitting on our velvet covered bar stools watching the brass hands of the ships clock get closer and closer to midnight... .   

Hang in there 2020 ! ... .we are all to survive this one way or the other... .

Kind regards... .Red5

[Q-DawgVFR]

Merry Borderline is right, geez... .

Sounds like you guys like to cook also.  So do I.  The homemade pizza and chili sound delicious!

Sounds like you guys are doing the best you can to get through the day.  Same here.

Christmas for me today consisted of coming home (worked nights) fell asleep for an hour or so, woke up with the kids and wife and opened presents with my boys.  Wife snapped pics of the kids to post on FB and her family chat on Whatsapp.  (She is a FB and Instagram addict, spending hours a day scrolling and avoiding reality, so she can interact with new people)  She smiled a bit, sadly, told me how well I know our children and complimented me on my choices of gifts for them.  No presents for each other anymore: her and I wrap a couple gifts for ourselves.  After years of disappointment with my efforts never living up to expectations, she had declared presents for us didnt matter and we should focus on the kids.  That was later ammunition for her complaints today about how awful Christmas is.

We went downstairs and she invited me to lay down and cuddle for a bit.  She stroked my hair gently and I fell asleep in her lap, briefly forgetting about life's troubles and thankful for her efforts to comfort me and connect.  I woke up after a bit and headed upstairs to sleep for a few hours.  Came downstairs a few hours later and I could see she was struggling emotionally.  She went into a rant about how the kids could give a ___ about anything but themselves and how annoying their fighting is, how disconnected and bored she is on Christmas after the presents are unwrapped.  I asked her what has changed as she used to really look forward to Christmas and family.  She she wanted to do.  Play a card game or something, she said.  She complained about the crib board being left in the RV trailer for the last few years: clearly I should know better.  She suggested dice instead and we played a few games, then shifted to Sequence for a couple more games. 

She got a lot more agitated (teary) and I asked what was up.  She went on about how disconnected she is, how she doesn't feel a thing and was thinking about being a d&*k again (referring to her recent infidelity a couple weeks ago) and how she just wanted to feel SOMETHING.  I gently said it was OK to feel however she was feeling and I was here if I can help somehow.  She talked about how she missed interaction of people from her job (she was a home care nurse before getting chronic fatigue and being on disability) and that she loved hearing from new people and new stories all the time.  By contrast, she cannot stand the lack of interest she feels at home: we are completely boring to her and she finds engaging with family to be a chore, basically.  She cried more and said she was wondering how Christmas would go next year.  I said I didn't know. 

At work now and she is sad, apologetic, running out of faith in herself.

She has a busy schedule with me and the kids and a therapist appointment in a couple days.  Hopefully she can hang in there until then without doing anything impulsive and further destructive to our relationship.

[Cailin]

Well we had the yearly Christmas Rage on Christmas Eve and cold shoulder Christmas Day. He does this almost every holiday, he’s especially fond of raging on my birthday. Then,
after raging, he texts me how he isn’t going to fight or engage in hostility! Utterly confusing and anger provoking but I managed to not take the bait and had a great Christmas in spite of his efforts.

[2020]

Good for you Caillin for getting on with the day regardless. Sounds like you had some success.

I wonder what it is about Christmas in particular which spikes the BPD? My partner isolates people. She won't have me interacting with my kids. She won't accept her son has chosen to have a relationship with the girl he is with. She thinks he is being held captive by her, that she is 'buying' a relationship with him. He can deal with his mother anymore and goes off the radar for months on end at times.

Birthdays can be bad for me as far as the gift being wrong. I bought her an iPad the first year we were officially together. It lasted a few months before she folded it in half over the back of a chair whilst I was picking up my son from his mother's place. I bought her a really nice expensive lamp from the 50's another year. She smashed that recently. I just watched in amazement as she hit it with a broom until the ceramic head of the Hawaiian girl caved in. One year I spent a fortune at a plant nursery so she could have this beautiful herb garden she dreamed of. We had the biggest basil I have ever seen! All smashed up and uprooted. One year she wanted an old metal wash tub to sit in (?). I obliged and found an antique one and other gifts too, all lovingly wrapped up in hand made gift paper. That was all wrong. I continually get reminded how I bought her junk for that birthday.

Maybe they can't face the attention on other people, so they don't do Christmas themselves? This year I could do nothing for anyone. I was under her thumb way before Christmas started.

Today I'm getting the cold shoulder. I have gone looking for her a couple of times but she isn't around. No doubt she'll show up here and start up her war again later. Again, I am finding it difficult to see this ever working out. I am prepared to put in some serious work, but she doesn't even think she has a problem; it is everybody else!

Hard times ahead I think... .

[2020]

Hey Red5! I only just noticed your reply. Had to laugh about the Titanic!  So true. I am wondering who is insane here; us or them?

Pass me the Baileys old chap. There is an unusual icy chill in the sea air tonight. I hope they remembered to pack life jackets! And the band played on... .