Small victory in setting boundaries

[ClarityNow]

My BPD husband has really been on a kick lately about money and trying to start drama and arguments about it at EVERY opportunity. Today I came home from the store with shopping bags because I had to buy presents for my son, whose birthday is this week. My husband knew I would be buying presents, yet somehow he was outraged just at the sight of the shopping bags (without even asking how much I had spent) and immediately went on a tirade, hurling belittling and demeaning comments at me implying that I’m irresponsible with money, blah blah blah. I had been about to ask his opinion on some optional expenses we have coming up. I said, “I guess this isn’t a good time to talk to you about money.” He said angrily, “NO! Whatever you want to ask me, the answer is NO!”

My response was to immediately get up and leave the room. After a few minutes, I texted him, “I do not appreciate the frequent belittling and insults. They need to stop.” Hours went by with no response from him while I was out running errands. Then finally he texted me out of the blue—he works from home and we were both at home—and, on his own accord, brought up the two upcoming expenses I was going to talk to him about…which, funnily enough, we apparently suddenly have money for (even though he acts like we’re destitute every time I spend money on necessary things like food). I told him those were the two things I had wanted to talk to him about. He said that we can talk about money just fine over text. I said it’s unfortunate that we can’t have a mature discussion about it in person. I added that until he decides to approach me about money in a completely different way, we will only be talking about money over text from now on. He said that we’ll have to talk about it sometimes in person. My response was, “I refuse to discuss it with you when you are being belittling and insulting.”

Granted, he still hasn’t apologized for being a complete jerk earlier, but we were able to have a rational discussion through text after that. And barring a massive improvement in how he talks to me, that is the ONLY way I will talk to him about money from now on.

I’m happy that I managed to stay calm and diffuse what in the past would have become a massive, dramatic blow-up. I’m happy I stood my ground and didn’t play into his drama. I’ve found that talking to him through text is helpful when it’s a topic he’s likely to get ridiculously dramatic about. It seems to be harder for him to give in to his BPD tendencies—and to deny saying something I know he said, which he used to do all the time—when there’s a written record of our conversation. I recommend you all give it a try!

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

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[kells76]

That's great you found a workaround for discussing a high-intensity topic -- as it's not one you can "just not talk about", you found a way to lower the temperature.

In his own low-skill way, too, he communicated that (a) it was not a good time to talk in person about $, (b) texting about it worked, and (c) he recognized the discussion needed to happen.

Seems like a workable path forward for both of you. I hope you guys are able to have more experiences of having a lower-temperature discussion, that gets resolved, about a high intensity topic. Could be a good way to "reset".

I also noticed that it sounded like you were able to have the discussion without resentment about compromising your values.

Nice job