I need your help to better my listening skills. I found out something ...

[Depression = 72% of members]

So ... my BPD wife had dinner with my cousins wife the other day.  I asked her how it went and if my wife told her anything of our situation or how she felt.

My cousins wife said  "She explained how she'd been unhappy for awhile.  She doesn't think you really heard it when she told you that."

So.  My wife did tell me that almost daily after her mom died 1 year ago.  But she would never tell me how she is unhappy or why.  She didn't start therapy way back then either.  I would always ask.  Do nice things like flowers, clean the house more, anything I could do.  Told her how beautiful she was.  All had no effect.

Then, finally, by about 1 month before she left me, she would start saying "I don't know who I am anymore, for 30 years I have been a wife, mother, cook, maid, but never myself".  And the other think she said that immediately made me break down was "I don't know if I want to be married anymore, but it's not you, its me.  You are a great husband, father".

Then is when we started therapy.  Not sure how I could have listened better?  I want to try to do that now, so that she sees/knows I'm a better listener.  Hopefully that may help us get back together one day.

Gadget

[gadget]

So ... my BPD wife had dinner with my cousins wife the other day.  I asked her how it went and if my wife told her anything of our situation or how she felt.

My cousins wife said  "She explained how she'd been unhappy for awhile.  She doesn't think you really heard it when she told you that."

So.  My wife did tell me that almost daily after her mom died 1 year ago.  But she would never tell me how she is unhappy or why.  She didn't start therapy way back then either.  I would always ask.  Do nice things like flowers, clean the house more, anything I could do.  Told her how beautiful she was.  All had no effect.

Then, finally, by about 1 month before she left me, she would start saying "I don't know who I am anymore, for 30 years I have been a wife, mother, cook, maid, but never myself".  And the other think she said that immediately made me break down was "I don't know if I want to be married anymore, but it's not you, its me.  You are a great husband, father".

Then is when we started therapy.  Not sure how I could have listened better?  I want to try to do that now, so that she sees/knows I'm a better listener.  Hopefully that may help us get back together one day.

Gadget

[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.

[Ozzie101]

Listening -- truly listening and not just hearing -- is a real skill. And it's not always easy.

Have you read this article? I found it helpful and illuminating. Thought I was listening to my H, but then realized I wasn't doing it as well as I could.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/listen-with-empathy

Might also take a look at this workshop if you haven't already:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=69272.0

Are those helpful? Looking back on your interactions, with that information in mind, do you think your wife had a valid point or there were specific ways you could have done better?

[Stillhopeful4]

Hi Gadget,

How long have you been here and using the lessons to learn how to validate your wife?  Try not to beat yourself up to badly.  You can't erase the past, you can just move forward and be a better listener and validate her feelings going forward.

"I don't know who I am anymore, "

I swear they have a script.  My wife said these exact words to me, followed by, I've lost myself in the relationship.  It's hard to hear all the blaming that they do.

((Hugs)

SH4

[Birddog]

Same script
I don’t know who I am any more
I’ve lost myself

Can add, I feel trapped to list

[gadget]

Ozzie101 - Just reading these now.  Thanks SO much!  I think these will help.  Not sure about the past.  She never told me much.  Wouldn't elaborate at all on how she felt.  Kept it all in.  Told her BFF, but not me.  I felt I was in a no win situation when she would tell me she felt I wasn't listening, but gave me zero details.  I will read these well and hopefully it will help my future interactions with her.

SH4 -    I have been here since July 25th, 2019.  I'm slowly, bit by bit, learning all the tools here and how and when to use them.  It is a process that will take me awhile to get the hang of and do well, and to figure out in my interactions with her what applies when.  I want to be a better listener and valid her.  I will do my best.  Wish I knew if that would give any hope for us in the future.

Birddog - Thanks for your reply!

I wish our SO's could explain why they feel any of these things.  Would help us all TONS.  Maybe they don't even know?

All - It sure sounds like everything I share here.  For example this post.  Many of you have been through almost verbatim.  It really helps me to hear I'm not alone in this. 

Thank you all!  I'll keep you all updated

Gadget

[zachira]

I admire that you want to improve your listening skills. "The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Your Relationships" is my favorite book on how to be a better listener.

[gadget]

Thanks Zachria!

I just bought the Kindle version of this book.  I have like 75+ books like this on my Kindle

Gadget

[once removed]

I wish our SO's could explain why they feel any of these things.  Would help us all TONS.  Maybe they don't even know?
...
"She explained how she'd been unhappy for awhile.  She doesn't think you really heard it when she told you that."

people with bpd traits arent the greatest at communicating their feelings/needs, or necessarily being clear on them. generally speaking, people with bpd traits are needy...and also self loathe for having needs.

its not unique to bpd traits, and its understandable if you think of a depressed person, or a socially anxious person. both may withdraw or shut down when what they desire the most is closeness and connection. neither one may see or fully understand this.

to really listen and to hear someone can be challenging when we are caught up in it. often times though, what we really need to read them is there in front of us, but we have, lets say, emotional blinders.

Do nice things like flowers, clean the house more, anything I could do.  Told her how beautiful she was.  All had no effect.

these are nice things. they may not be what a person in her circumstances, feeling what she was feeling, was looking for, or perhaps more importantly, they may not have made her feel heard or acknowledged as a person. for example (just an example), if she had told you "i feel so ugly", to respond with "you arent, youre beautiful" isnt really listening, it would be trying to fix her feelings.

I want to try to do that now, so that she sees/knows I'm a better listener

its hard. not because we dont want to be better listeners, but i think a lot of us overestimate our skills.

have you read this: https://bpdfamily.com/content/listen-with-empathy

[Enabler]

This is my take on things...

When most people listen we have an internal reference encyclopedia, we ask it a bunch of questions which enables us to understand things i.e. we listen and we HEAR...  "How can I relate to that?", "Is this true?", "How can I solve this problem?", "What other information do I have which is relevant to what this person is saying?".

I think it's probably fair to say that 'we nons' didn't actually have a clue what our pwBPD was actually saying. They were using the English language, speaking words we knew and they were saying things that we might be able to faintly draw some reference to in our life experiences BUT, not having their way of cognitively processing information we really had ZERO clue what they were actually saying. Listening or no listening we didn't have the enigma machine with with to decode what that person was trying to communicate. What I find funny is how many years we spent with each other effectively speaking different languages and processing experiences in utterly different ways, and here's the best bit, pwBPD don't get that you process information in a different way. My W said this to me in Jul17

The bottom line is I have never felt heard, understood, cherished, accepted, comfortable, safe, emotionally supported, so never actually felt truly loved. I know you love me, but I cannot reconcile the anger, control and coercion with love, it's confusing and is damaging.

... and you know what, she's right about the heard and understood bit, I listened, but I didn't understand what she was saying.

"I don't know who I am anymore, for 30 years I have been a wife, mother, cook, maid, but never myself"

Non hears - I'm bogged down in life, life is  stressful and I'm too busy dealing with parenting stuff. I've lost all the things that I used to do and things have naturally changed so much. I'm bored with my current existence.

pwBPD might mean - I have never known who I am, I changed myself to fit into a mould that I thought would make me happy, but it hasn't. Since I see myself as being helpless to the world, the world (you and the kids) are making me do things that I don't want to do. Since I am not responsible for my actions and have no control over myself (emotions) I feel like i'm thrown around in the wind.

"I don't know if I want to be married anymore, but it's not you, its me.  You are a great husband, father"

Non hears - ALARM ALARM! But also massive confusion... I am great but you don't love me... how can someone not love something great? CANNOT COMPUTE. Maybe I need to be more great to make you love me more. Great people are lovable right?

pwBPD might mean - I don't love myself. I can't love you if I can't love myself. Your greatness makes me feel worse about myself. I see you being competent, I see you not stressing out over the simplest things, I see the kids behaving themselves for you, I see everything being great around you and YOU make me feel an absolute mess. You're like the perfect neighbours with their perfectly clean cars with their perfectly mowed lawns and perfect victoria sponge at the perfect garden party whilst I haven't mowed my lawn for years, I get a cake out of a box from Walmart and there's a stain on the tablecloth from the last time I had a disaster party. I wish you would go away so I don't have to feel like such a failure.

Question... do you seem to struggle in other relationships with listening? Do you get the sense that others feel you don't listen to what they say?

Enabler

[Stillhopeful4]

pwBPD might mean - I have never known who I am, I changed myself to fit into a mould that I thought would make me happy, but it hasn't. Since I see myself as being helpless to the world, the world (you and the kids) are making me do things that I don't want to do. Since I am not responsible for my actions and have no control over myself (emotions) I feel like i'm thrown around in the wind.

This is one of the best explanation of this I have heard yet!  And OMG yes about us speaking a different language from them all these years.  Enabler, your insight is spot on!

SH4

[Enabler]

It's not just about spending the time and having the patience to hear the words, it's about being able to decode the meaning and source of the words in the context of that persons experience AND the way the cognitise information.

I am incredibly sure that the person your W had an affair with seemed like they TOTALLY understood what she was trying to express, and for a while I'm sure that your W thought that person TOTALLY understood what she was saying... but likely the other person really didn't.

I sense sometimes this is where words like coercive control come from. Imagine the statement of "Enabler makes me feel so bad about my cooking and cleaning"... to a listener this might interpret like I tell my W that her cooking is rubbish, tastes like sick and that the cleaning that she'd spent so long doing was a disgrace... "get on your knees and clean the floor with a toothbrush wench!". When the reality could be that she didn't like the dinner so decided I didn't like the dinner, or maybe that I asked for her not to mix the pasta with the sauce and keep it warm because it goes all yucky (in the nicest way possible), or that she hadn't actually bothered to clean the house and went out to the pub instead or for a bike ride or for a run, and maybe I just cleaned the house myself, which made her feel like a failure.

Enabler

[gadget]

Non hears - ALARM ALARM! But also massive confusion... I am great but you don't love me... how can someone not love something great? CANNOT COMPUTE. Maybe I need to be more great to make you love me more. Great people are lovable right?

pwBPD might mean - I don't love myself. I can't love you if I can't love myself. Your greatness makes me feel worse about myself. I see you being competent, I see you not stressing out over the simplest things, I see the kids behaving themselves for you, I see everything being great around you and YOU make me feel an absolute mess. You're like the perfect neighbours with their perfectly clean cars with their perfectly mowed lawns and perfect victoria sponge at the perfect garden party whilst I haven't mowed my lawn for years, I get a cake out of a box from Walmart and there's a stain on the tablecloth from the last time I had a disaster party. I wish you would go away so I don't have to feel like such a failure.

Question... do you seem to struggle in other relationships with listening? Do you get the sense that others feel you don't listen to what they say?

Enabler,

This is exactly what our shared Therapist said!  You are amazing!  Our Therapist said, how do you think your wife feels standing next to you, gold medalist super dad that can do all the things, handle my special needs son, don't get stressed.  Answer = She can't stand next to you because she is not on that level.

As to your question.  I don't struggle at all in other relationships with listening.  I feel other do feel I listen to what they are saying.

My wife would never elaborate on anything.  Expected me to read her mind 24/7.  So of course I'm a bad listener to her
I had zero info to go on.

So sad that I have to suffer for being a good dad and husband.

Gadget

[Enabler]

What's the answer? Be a slob?

[gadget]

No slob for me

I will work on becoming a better listener for my wife.  I will work on using all the tools here.  I will work on me.  I will work on becoming more patient so my wife has the time she needs and therapy to work through this if she can.

Thanks Enabler!  I really appreciate all of your very insightful input.  Means SO much to me.  You get it.  Helps a lot to talk you and the others here that get it.

Gadget

[Stillhopeful4]

I am incredibly sure that the person your W had an affair with seemed like they TOTALLY understood what she was trying to express, and for a while I'm sure that your W thought that person TOTALLY understood what she was saying... but likely the other person really didn't.

Yes, she is very attracted to "NEW" people that don't know her and people that give her a lot of attention.  So yes, this other person probably "got her" in the beginning...until reality set in.  I think my thing is, she's always...and I do mean always, looking for something new...I'm just afraid this behavior will never end if we reconcile.

SH4

[Enabler]

I will work on becoming a better listener for my wife.  I will work on using all the tools here.  I will work on me.  I will work on becoming more patient so my wife has the time she needs and therapy to work through this if she can.

Sounds like you're already a good listener. Maybe you need to work on how you can ask her to show you what things look like in her world. You may well be able to listen till the cows come home but you're unlikely to be able to understand what diners they eat on Venus unless she describes them to you. Continually starting from the point of having no assumptions and no judgement might be the way forwards... that includes judging yourself.

W - "Gadget, you make me feel so terrible"
Gadgets Head - she's obviously feeling something, pretty sure I haven't done anything intentional but I know my just breathing can make her feel bad, hear her out.
Gadgets mouth - "Owwww how's that hon?"
W - "You just get up and do the charming, I was going to do that later"
Gadgets Head - she's feeling bad because I've been proactive... Gadgets not done anything bad here, this is her problem
Gadgets Mouth - "Sorry babes, I just can't help myself. Are there any other jobs you were going to do so I can avoid them?"

You are keeping the emotional ball in her court whilst allowing her the opportunity to commit to things that she is going to do, preventing you from crowding her out.

Enabler

[gadget]

Thanks Enabler!

That helps.  I will try to work some of that in to see if it does anything for our situation.

Gadget

[once removed]

 

reverse engineering our partners criticisms of us into criticisms of themselves is not really listening.

if your partner says "i hate you", they probably dont mean "i hate myself".

they may be speaking in hyperbole or exaggeration as we all do under stress (and people with bpd traits take to extremes).

ill give you a personal example.

my ex and i got in a big fight over sex. she exclaimed "you NEVER initiate sex". i proceeded to argue about the word "never", listing times i had initiated sex, me trying to get her to admit i had.

it wasnt about the word "never", nor was my partner secretly saying she never initiates sex. she was frustrated and speaking in terms of all or nothing, and i was more interested in being right and arguing on technicalities.

she was saying she was sexually frustrated and that shed like it if i initiated sex more often. she might have been saying she felt rejected or unloved. she had a point. i wasnt listening to it. we had mismatched sex drives (lots of couples do) and the proactive thing to do would have been, in a time of calm, to work to get on the same page so that both of our needs could be met.

"I don't know if I want to be married anymore, but it's not you, its me.  You are a great husband, father".
...
So sad that I have to suffer for being a good dad and husband.

your wife wasnt saying that youre such a good person that she cant be with you. these are words that people say when they are detaching from a relationship, but there is still love or good will and amicability. she was trying to avoid blame.

to really listen requires that we set aside our beliefs, our agendas, that we not justify (J in JADE) our actions defensively, and that we really see things through the eyes of another person, even when its hard, or it hurts. it doesnt mean we agree necessarily. but we cant get there if we dismiss our partners perspective outright.

Empathy Skills

    Set Aside Personal Beliefs, Concerns and Agenda - Just for now, at least. Go into the conversation empty handed—with no personal expectations or goal of fixing anyone. Be willing to have your mind and perspective changed. Your only agenda is listening and trying to understand the other’s point of view.

    Remove Ourselves / Gain Perspective - When you take things personally, you cannot separate yourself enough to feel the other person’s pain. Detach enough so that you are not in a emotionally heightened state— do not allow the other person’s behavior to upset you or trigger you.

    Be Present/ Be an Active Listener - Listen to the person in the moment, truly utilizing the skills of actively listening. Don't jump ahead, re-frame what they are saying and compare it to a personal experience you had, don't rush to project ahead, or to frame a response. When we do this we completely lose sight of the reason of our conversation in the first place, sharing information as a means to build, maintain and sustain the relationship.

    Getting Beyond the Facts / Relate - When the other person begins to share, focus on their feelings. Think of situations that you’ve experienced in the past that are similar. Just think about this - connect with it - don't share it. This will deepen your emotional insight into the other person’s plight.

    Talk to the Person's Inner-Child - When we visualize our child as their vulnerable inner-child we can lower and lessen our defenses, that will then allow us to want to preserve the relationship and communicate in an effective way.

    See Empathy as a Lifestyle, Not an Event - Make an effort to heal the past hurts, to remember to accentuate the positive, and to nurture the relationship on a daily basis. Most importantly, be mindful that when we are angry we can do a lot of damage and set things way back.

[gadget]

Thanks once removed!

I appreciate your wisdom.  I am trying to listen better, and to make as much sense of this all as I can.  To help me understand, cope, become a better me.  I want to nurture what we have and improve upon it any way I can.

Gadget

[gadget]

So ... along the lines of listening better, having empathy, and responding better, hows this?

My wife since moving out pay most all her own bills.  Her portion of car insurance is $100/Month.  So I just now nicely reminded her it is due tomorrow because she wants to pay all her own bills.

Wife - gadget I don’t have the money for therapy, how will I have the insurance money?

Gadget - That is ok.  I will continue to pay the car insurance and therapy when you can not.  I still care about you and want to help.

Thoughts?  Too much?  Just right?

Gadget

[once removed]

i dont think that its bad in and of itself.

your gesture builds good will.

is it too much?

well, its volunteering something she didnt directly ask for.

was it just out of the kindness of your heart? was it a means of getting her back? was she asking a rhetorical question, or for your help directly?

these are rhetorical questions. there arent necessarily right or wrong answers, just things to consider.

rather than volunteering or rescuing, it might be good to get a feel for what shes really saying. is she just venting? is she directly asking for help?

how did she respond?

[gadget]

Hi once removed,

She didn't respond after that.  Which is typical for her and it seems many BPD.

Gadget