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Author Topic: BPD SO physically restraining me, blames me and wants to breakup  (Read 462 times)
SchrödingerCat

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« on: April 01, 2021, 01:03:17 AM »

My BPD gf and I(M) had an argument today at her place after I asked her whether her project at work, which she has talked to me about before, was released publicly. She had mentioned earlier that there was a delay, so when I asked her this tiume, she got upset that I did not qualify my statement with that I knew her project had been delayed and that I should been more tactful in bringing this topic up with her knowing she spent hours earlier talking to me about it. I initially did not validate her emotions well because I was totally caught off guard, and naturally this escalated. Since we were in bed at the time, I tried to get up because she seemed really agitated and I was afraid of how she was talking to and behaving with me. While getting up, she restrained my hands and body, did not allow me to get up and forced me to stay in bed and answer her questions. I repeatedly told her to let me go and that we can talk in 10-15 min after we are calmer, but she wouldn't budge. Eventually after 5 min or so she let me go of her restrain and I said I needed a break for sometime before addressing and validating her emotions, so that we both could calm down.

Since she then started following me around, I decided to leave her house and told her so. She threw my shoes away and refused to give my socks to me. I kept insisting and asking her to give it back to me. After much insisting, she did give it to me and insisted we talk about her emotions and I understand what she is saying. I gave in then, though I did not want to, and was able to pacify her a bit, and then leave. This is the 2nd time in 2 weeks such an incident (almost identical) involving physical restraint has happened after what I think is a minor/harmless verbal exchange.

Now, she is texting me insisting that we both were at fault and we both need to work on ourselves and if I don't work on myself too, she will breakup up with me though she loves me. She said (and I quote)"Although my behavior was not ok, I would be less likely to react the way I did with some other personalities which is healthier for everyone."
Currently, I am really hurting from multiple instances of this incident, and can't even get a proper apology from her. On top of that, I am being told to work on myself and completely lost as to what that she means and whether she realizes how hurtful her actions have been and IMO how unacceptable they are.

There are so many messages from her that just seem hurtful to me, but am not posting them. And this isn't the first time she has done this.
Would love some perspective on the situation and how I could continue forward.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2021, 01:10:33 AM by SchrödingerCat » Logged
Warriorprincess
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« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2021, 11:26:43 AM »

 SchrödingerCat, hello. Welcome new member (click to insert in post)
Your story resonates with me on so many levels. My xWwBPD often demanded answers from me while we were both escalated, even though I repeatedly told her that I cannot or will not communicate with her when she is yelling at me. She insisted that I was being selfish and not attuning to her need to have answers at that very moment, and she would block my way, restrain me, and be generally unrelenting. There were some mornings that I literally hid in a closet when she would start ranting about something, because otherwise she would confront me about some perceived slight, then blame me for being late to work. After I read extensively about how to live with someone with BPD, I would try to provide some validation at the time of said injury, or listen through her yelling for the real problem, but frankly I found it impossible to do when she was attacking me verbally and sometimes physically. Afterwards, she would do the same thing you described, say it was both our faults and that I needed to work on myself, and that this wouldn't happen if I could just change.

I wish I had some words of wisdom, but what I can do is provide validation for you that her behavior is unacceptable. A healthy person would be able to accept your boundaries, never physically restrain you when you're not being a danger to yourself or others, and be able to wait 10-15 until you both are calm to talk about something.

How motivated are you to make this relationship work? I think many of us get into relationships with SOwBPD because their idealization of us fills a need within us, but that same need (stemming from trauma and past abuse in my case) makes it extremely difficult to prioritize our SOwBPD intense needs for validation when they're disregulated.

Perhaps someone else can jump in with their ideas!

Hang in there,  Virtual hug (click to insert in post)
-WP
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SchrödingerCat

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« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2021, 02:50:00 PM »

Wow, that does resonate so much! Thank you for opening up and sharing!
When did you decide that you could not proceed anymore, if that ever happened?
We have had an on and off relationship for years, and especially recently, she has a history of secretly talking to other men on dating apps and also being threatening (though that has not happened in months now). And now she consistently brings up the idea of seeing other people, and though I ignore it, it sometimes gets to me.

I have been and am currently motivated to make it work. But I guess I seem to have lost the energy, enthusiasm and patience to do it as regularly as I could. And it almost seems like she is doing much worse now than few months ago, which makes the hill to climb even harder.

I have been able to prioritize SOwBPD's intense need for validation when she is dysregulated, but the problem is doing it consistently, for hours, often multiple times a day. And then I am so exhausted that I often feel like I am depressed then. And she is almost reset after those events, but I clearly am not and need some quiet/space, and this feeds more into her anxiety and dysregulation.

Ideas would be helpful.

« Last Edit: April 01, 2021, 02:58:20 PM by SchrödingerCat » Logged
Warriorprincess
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« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2021, 11:03:37 PM »

When did you decide that you could not proceed anymore, if that ever happened?
I have been and am currently motivated to make it work. But I guess I seem to have lost the energy, enthusiasm and patience to do it as regularly as I could. And it almost seems like she is doing much worse now than few months ago, which makes the hill to climb even harder.
I have been able to prioritize SOwBPD's intense need for validation when she is dysregulated, but the problem is doing it consistently, for hours, often multiple times a day. And then I am so exhausted that I often feel like I am depressed then. And she is almost reset after those events, but I clearly am not and need some quiet/space, and this feeds more into her anxiety and dysregulation.
I continue to relate to what you are saying. It takes unbelievable amounts of energy, enthusiasm and patience to respond to disregulation and insistent control with love, discernment and validation. Then, as you said, she’ll be much better / reset and you’ll be exhausted and depressed. I was depressed for years, to the point where on the day I left, my W told me I’d been in a dark hole, and she was so worried about me that she wanted me to drive me to treatment that day. This was a little more than a month ago. She also accused me of taking pills to escape my depression (my stepson’s Valium, which I was not taking), and I became afraid that she would restrain me again to keep from leaving.
You said your SOwBPD is doing much worse now than a few months ago- I’m sorry to hear that. What I’ve read here and witnessed in my life is the more the pwBPD “gets away with” their bad behavior, the more they will do it, and worse. The first and second time my W put her hands on me, I screamed, left for a few hours, wanted to leave for good but didn’t. I think she thought I was just threatening her and never would leave. We were married for 5 1/2 years, together for 6 1/2 years. I was motivated to make it work for us and my stepsons! I packed up and left a year ago after she spit in my face, then threw a bucket that hit me in the head, but she convinced me to return. Last September she slapped me and restrained me and I felt trapped, but the end came suddenly when she accused me of lying about my abusive childhood, then called me an addict. I felt like Neo from the Matrix when he finally saw the computer grid. She had been dictating the narrative for so long that I feel like I got out by the skin of my teeth. I left for good at the end of February 2021.
Everything’s still very fresh for me and I miss her everyday, even though I’d never return after she’s spread those lies to my friends and family. I’m dismayed that I let myself be treated like I did, but I’m not sorry I stayed because I was able to be there for the two boys, who now have no buffer between them and their motherwBPD. I know that wasn’t my job, but it felt like a good reason to stay at the time.
-WP
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« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2021, 02:30:40 AM »

this is tricky, and i want to approach it three fold:

1. we talk about validation a lot here, but it is not the be all end all in a bpd relationship, nor is it a cure all. the first thing i do when someone is upset with me is not think of what i can say that would validate them. i dont mean to suggest that you shouldnt offer your partner validation, or that it isnt important; i say that because a lot of us get the idea that there are magic words we can say that will soothe our partners, and nothing about that is particularly validating. sometimes, for example, just listening, actively listening, is validating.

2. a healthy time out when things go off the rails is as healthy a tool as any. like any tool, how you use it should depend very much upon the context of your relationship. in this case, leaving the bed/situation escalated her feelings, and she, in turn, escalated her actions. to be clear, thats hardly your fault! but there may be a better way, that better fits the dynamic of your relationship. i know in my own relationship, sometimes exiting the situation was for the best,  and we both cooled off, and sometimes it made my partner go nuts, and sometimes there was no helping that either way, and sometimes i did it in a way that was kind of punitive. its something that the two of you ought to discuss in a time of calm, almost like a safe word. the tricky balance is that suddenly exiting a conversation where someone desperately is trying to be heard tends to make them more desperate. and sometimes, sticking around turns into an endless circular argument, or gets a riled up person even more riled up. it takes trial and error to find out what "works", and even if the two of you come to an agreement about it, you will not always have a cooperative partner in that regard.

3. physical restraint is definitely something youre going to want to nip in the bud. like above, its a matter that depends a lot on the context of your relationship, some trial and error, and communication in a time of calm. its something you want to walk both a gentle and firm line on. for example, if you told her "if you ever do that again, i will break up with you" would probably not be constructive. to tell her, in a time of calm, that physical restraint makes you feel unsafe, that you think your relationship is better than that, to put it in a "never" category, and to do all of that in a context where the two of you are discussing what to do when things really get heated and off the rails, can work wonders.

what do you think?
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« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2021, 02:50:17 AM »

Your comment that your relationship has been off and on for years caught my attention.  I get the feeling it has been off an on due to her behaviors and/or your response to them.

In short, this does not sound like a healthy relationship.  I recall the Bible says, "do not go to bed in a provoked state" or similar words.  Having occasional disagreements is normal in life, but when it gets abnormal or extreme then you have to ponder whether the relationship should continue.

Does her sensitivity to you seem to coincide with her seeking other relationships?  Or asked another way, are you periodically pushed away or "put on the back burner to simmer and wait" while she seeks other men until she gets upset with them and seeks you out again?  Is this a cycle of behaviors?
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SchrödingerCat

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« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2021, 04:47:45 AM »

@WarriorPrincess, thank you for sharing your story. It was very insightful and gave me perspective.  Virtual hug (click to insert in post)

@once removed, your thoughts resonated a lot. I had the following thoughts:
1. In line with what WarriorPrincess suggested, how does one handle validation and/or active listening when it is a dominant feature? Definitely takes a toll and I am not sure how to manage it from my end.

2. Absolutely, tuning it specifically for the situation is important. And as you said, agreements are only as useful as both parties enforce it. From what I see, once the situation reaches a certain threshold, all bets seem off and it gets tricky again. Additionally, there might be times I cannot stick around because I do not have the energy or patience for it, and then that becomes a sticking point.

3. The physical restraint worries me a lot. There has been a history of violence and threats, which has fortunately not happened in many months, but I worry it might return given the current trajectory. We did discuss in a time of calm that physical restraint makes me feel unsafe, but it again happened a few weeks later. So not sure how to process it.
Based on history, it takes extreme measures (like a breakup for sometime) to get a 2 steps forward change, which with time goes 1 step back (as it has now).

Your thoughts would be really appreciated and helpful!

@ForeverDad : Yes, it does seem her sensitivity towards me coincides with her wanting other relationships. It might be something more persistent too, once she gets more invested in the relationship, so not sure. The cycle you describe has not happened (yet). It is more of me breaking things off because certain actions, like her being on dating apps multiple times or threatening me or being physically restraining, that led to breakups. But then we got back together when we eventually come around to agreeing that the action done previously was not acceptable. So you are right, it might definitely have to do a lot with how I respond. Do you have any thoughts?
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« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2021, 07:44:26 AM »

here are my thoughts SchrodingerCat.


how does one handle validation and/or active listening when it is a dominant feature?

my experience was, I never could validate my way out of an argument and it made the argument worse to try.   OnceRemoved raises some very good points.  knowing what to validate, when to validate and when not to validate is a high level emotional maturity skill set.  it comes with practice.

what was true for me was my partner did better in a highly validating environment that preceded any emotional dysregulation.   or in other words, things were better if I validated small simple things that were not related to a dysregulation.    Picking the right 'target' of what to validate created vastly different results.  if I validated during an argument I got ... more argument.

there was an old time member here who used to say, validate the valid, DON'T invalidate the valid,  DON'T validate the invalid.  and gently and carefully invalidate the invalid.

yep.   that's a mouthful.   to use an example, when my partner started with "you treat everyone else as more important than me",  well that was invalid.  I didn't do that.    and I didn't want to heavily validate that.   So I wanted to finely calibrate my response.   something like "I can hear you have strong emotions about this,  still my perspective is much much different, can we talk about this tomorrow when ... things are calmer...we both have thought it through... when I have gotten a good nights sleep.

when my partner crossed the line from expressing her emotions to acting out inappropriately, it was time for a little invalidation.     "I won't participate in a conversation with swearing and cursing."    "I am not going to continue a conversation that includes threats."   "I will only stay if we can take a 15 minute time out to calm things down."

Additionally, there might be times I cannot stick around because I do not have the energy or patience for it, and then that becomes a sticking point.

Boundaries are the other half of this picture.     They work hand in hand with validation.    And Boundaries... identifying them, sticking with them, enforcing them is all internal work that we do for ourselves.    Boundaries are our limits, our values, our respect for ourselves.    And if we don't respect our own boundaries how will our partners ever respect them?    if we allow our partners to come crashing across our boundaries, they lose respect for them, and it become easier and easier for the boundary to be crossed again.

3. The physical restraint worries me a lot. There has been a history of violence and threats, which has fortunately not happened in many months, but I worry it might return given the current trajectory. We did discuss in a time of calm that physical restraint makes me feel unsafe, but it again happened a few weeks later. So not sure how to process it.

this is a reasonable fear, and completely normal to worry about considering the history.   what you want to do is have a plan.    you hear this kicked around a lot under various names but basically you want a plan that exists in your head, something you feel comfortable with, something you feel you can carry off while under stress, something that you have an expectation of being able to enact when pressed to do something.    you don't necessarily have to share this plan with your partner but you can...

you might have the expectation that after being physically restrained from leaving an uncomfortable situation that it might take you several weeks to feel comfortable and secure again.   that seems reasonable but whatever works best for you.    you might want to draw some boundaries around that.    here is a good place to deepen/broaden the understanding of boundaries.   boundaries aren't intended to just prevent bad or undesirable behavior,  well drawn boundaries can encourage, promote, foster better behavior.

pwBPD have trouble with enmeshed behavior.   the feeling that a relationship means merging into an amoeba like oneness with their partner.  truthfully many of us here have similar issues, where we try to match our emotions to our partner.   we can differentiate ourselves by saying 'hey when I think about what happened the other day I feel really unsettled so what I am going to do is...

the When I... I Feel ...  So I Will...  is a formula.    its a deliberately created pattern to say when X happens I am Y so I will Z.    It helps create and share boundaries.

if you were to play around with that formula how would it look for you?

well that's a lot to process... hope this helps.

'ducks

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« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2021, 01:57:57 PM »

Excerpt
there was an old time member here who used to say, validate the valid, DON'T invalidate the valid,  DON'T validate the invalid.  and gently and carefully invalidate the invalid
.

I have been doing that only recently, and it definitely seems hard to do in the moment, but hopefully I get better. Thank you!

Excerpt
... what you want to do is have a plan. ...
Excerpt
you might have the expectation that after being physically restrained from leaving an uncomfortable situation that it might take you several weeks to feel comfortable and secure again

A few questions on this: If this continues, despite communication, what can I do? Right now, I could say I need say a week to get myself together, but from my experience that does not help prevent it happening next time. Is there something I am missing?

I think people in this forum have been so helpful in helping me to communicate boundaries and help validating better. The specific thing about boundaries is that the there is a discussion and negotiation on the boundary itself and it often is how inappropriate or unnecessary the boundary is, and that the solution to the problem is *not* to deepen or broaden the understanding of the boundary, as you suggested. After hearing this, I end up feeling I dont know what reality is and makes me feel helpless. I

Just wanted to understand your points some more. Thank you so much for being so insightful!
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Cat Familiar
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« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2021, 02:56:43 PM »

Boundaries are for you, and you only. There’s no need for discussion. It is none of her business.

I’m sure you likely have opinions should she suggest the following and would not appreciate having your viewpoints invalidated:

“Let’s rob a liquor store!”

“I want to do a threesome with another guy.”

“Let’s go downtown and take our clothes off and run through the mall.”

There’s no necessity to prenegotiate boundaries. And you aren’t asking for her agreement that you have a right to your opinion. Boundaries just are, because that’s who you are.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/setting-boundaries
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« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2021, 05:21:22 PM »

It seems like you were swept into the river and got a bit tumbled around then managed to get yourself to shore.  Doing the right thing (click to insert in post)

Since we were in bed at the time, I tried to get up because she seemed really agitated and I was afraid of how she was talking to and behaving with me.

Do you notice a pattern with your GF where bedtime  Bullet: important point (click to insert in post) anxiety?

If so, maybe create a parking lot for topics that tend to animate her.

You may have an intuitive sense of which topics wind her up, which ones are best to bring up the next day.

This is the 2nd time in 2 weeks such an incident (almost identical) involving physical restraint

Like once removed mentioned, every relationship has a context, and you have a threshold. What works in some contexts might not work in others.

How do you think she would respond if you stated with a degree of confidence "remove your hands" and repeating this firmly until she relented. No negotiating away from the one item in play.

Thoughts?
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« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2021, 08:30:27 AM »

The specific thing about boundaries is that the there is a discussion and negotiation on the boundary itself and it often is how inappropriate or unnecessary the boundary is, and that the solution to the problem is *not* to deepen or broaden the understanding of the boundary, as you suggested. After hearing this, I end up feeling I dont know what reality is and makes me feel helpless.

I understand what you mean SchrondingerCat.    and I think Warriorprincess expressed it well when she said her wife:

. She had been dictating the narrative for so long ...

some of the traits of BPD/NPD manifest themselves like this:
- Intense belief in their own perceptions despite facts to the contrary
- Their interpretation of events is the only truth
- Cannot be persuaded by fact or logic
- Do not see the impact of their own behavior on others
- Deny the perceptions of others

In healthy relationships each individual is allowed to experience his or her own reality. Even when people disagree, it does not mean that anyone is going to be punished for having an independent thought. Individuals learn to trust their intuition.

I think Cat Familiar is right.   Boundaries aren't something that should always be negotiated or agreed on.       One of my rock solid boundaries?   I am never riding a horse.   that will never change.  don't even ask me.    that might sound frivolous but it is really rock solid.   its not up for discussion.

you've experienced several episodes of violence in your relationship if I am reading your posts correctly.    I am suggesting you need a boundary around the potential for violence or restraining behavior.   something that makes sense for you.   something that fits with what you need and want.    something that provides you with a safe solid place to stand.   it might be something like livednlearned suggested.    while she is restraining you - you will not say anything other than remove your hands.   it might be more.     it will take a little while to tailor something to fit your needs.

what do you think?
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