BPD separating you from your family

[Couper]

Why are her wants and needs more important than the wants and needs of three other people?

I love this and added it to the list of favorite quotes that I keep.

[PeteWitsend]

I think it's more about personal growth than to reprogram yourself. Learning relationship skills should not be about changing yourself- rather more about being authentic to yourself rather than bending to appease the partner.

Many books on relationships point out the concept that we tend to choose a person who "matches" us emotionally in some way. Who we are attracted to and who is attracted to us is complicated. Someone else may have felt initially attracted to a person but due to the dynamics, the relationship would not have lasted. How is it that these ones did? I realize that love bombing, or being young, could lead people into these relationships and to stay but then, some people have more than one relationship with a disordered person.

One thing I have read is that it can be a match of boundaries. Someone with emotionally healthier boundaries may not have felt a "fit".

It's also been written that if someone leaves a relationship without doing personal work, they are more likely to repeat the dynamics with someone else. The personal changes have a payoff for you, not the other person.

Each relationship is a unique combination of both people and other circumstances- finances, children, etc. Both leaving and staying are complicated choices.

And we should also know that divorce/separation could also be considered a success.

BPD is on a spectrum with some behaviors being more severe or present than others. Not all pwBPD are abusive, or have addictions.  These can be seen in pwBPD but even on their own, are major issues. It's not a failure if the relationship doesn't last. Each person makes the best decision for their particular situation.

this is a good post.

I'd add that there's also a truly insidious element to BPD relationships, because almost no one enters into them really aware of the implications.  And pwBPD are not forthcoming about their condition and often in denial of it, and even if they were, it's probably not really possible for them to explain what it's going to be like to the non-disordered partner; you really have to live through it.  

Family members obviously don't choose to enter such relationships, but still have the painful path of discovery romantic or friendship partners do.  

From my own experience, I'll say It's not just love-bombing that gets pw-BPD attached... they are simply not honest about their emotions and what's said and done, and for me at least, it was hard to see that dishonesty for what it was.  I believed enough of her excuses that I was mislead into accepting some of the blame for her own behavior, and her own happiness.

Although I always felt a little uneasy and didn't really trust her, it wasn't until a few months after two years into our r/s (at which time our daughter was 1 year old) that the persistence and irrationality of her issues convinced me something was very wrong, and it wasn't going to just get better with time

[Notwendy]

I don't think it's possible to do anything to control the response when saying no to something no matter how much you sugar coat it. Saying no to BPD mother is extremely difficult, because of how she reacts and also how I react to her behavior. It's really tough and if I don't feel I can deal with it, I most of the time say yes to them. However she will also make unreasonable requests - and I have to say no. The response is very hard to deal with.

So to the question: how does one person's need take precedence over others- I think the others are easier to manage saying no to.

[Turkish]

From my own experience, I'll say It's not just love-bombing that gets pw-BPD attached... they are simply not honest about their emotions and what's said and done, and for me at least, it was hard to see that dishonesty for what it was.

What do you think is the dishonesty?

[PeteWitsend]

What do you think is the dishonesty?

so in my experience, I'd see the sudden rage and angry outbursts, and be caught off guard and surprised.

She would later claim all sorts of reasons for them, and I'd think "Okay, I could see that..." and figure she was going through a tough period and if I stuck with her, we'd figure it out and this sort of unsettling behavior would stop.  She was not being honest about her emotions and behavior / though TO BE FAIR, given the nature of BPD, that's just not reasonable to expect..

When we met, she had finished grad school here, but was struggling to stay in the US, extending her student visa by taking dodgy community college courses and borrowing money from friends.  

It wasn't until things changed but the same pattern of behavior continued, and evolved to include conflicts with my extended family and demands that I cut contact with them because of her perceiving them as threats to her and our r/s... it was only THEN that I started to suspect there was something going on mentally with her; some sort of dysfunction or aberrant behavior

I don't know how else she could have explained how she behaved and how it was how she was, not stress, not heat of the moment ... but taking a longer time to evaluate the relationship, and recognizing that her needs for commitment was a red flag in itself.

I thought at the time I could recognize when a person has serious mental issues; I was unfamiliar with BPD though, and the nature of things like that.  Her situation... grad school, some professional achievements, some friends in common, "overrode" my suspicions and concerns.  I assumed she was just going through a rough period... not that her "abandonment" and "separation anxiety" would risk alienating me from my parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, etc.

[PeteWitsend]

Notwendy's comment on people entering into relationships with pwBPD because they match us emotionally, or otherwise through love-bombing and what not got me thinking more about it.

And that's why I said there's a more insidious element to it.  Maybe some of us just had weaker boundaries than we should have or other personal issues that made us susceptible to it.

But I think there's also a more basic dishonesty in how pwBPD approach relationships.

Non-disordered people are looking (generally speaking) for a "partner"... maybe only sexual, but someone to meet the needs they can't meet on their own.

pwBPD are looking for partners to meet ALL their needs, including basic emotional needs and self image needs that a healthy person has intact.  And to that end, they're willing to get into relationships and preserve them by any means necessary: lovebombing, lying, bullying, crying, threatening, etc. 

And you can't really know what the reality of a relationship with a pwBPD is going to be like until you're in it... like I said above, I went from seeing some anger issues and excessive emotional reactions to problems that she passed off on the stress in her life b/c of her immigration and financial issues... which were understandable to me.

It's crazy to me that in a year, she had moved on from those issues into pushing me to isolate myself from my family, getting into shouting matches with my mom over silly things like not removing shoes in the house, and demanding to me that I stop seeing my parents because of x, y, and z "reasons" and it was all a sign she could never trust me, and I couldn't love her "enough.

[maxsterling]

Non-disordered people are looking (generally speaking) for a "partner"... maybe only sexual, but someone to meet the needs they can't meet on their own.

pwBPD are looking for partners to meet ALL their needs, including basic emotional needs and self image needs that a healthy person has intact.  And to that end, they're willing to get into relationships and preserve them by any means necessary: lovebombing, lying, bullying, crying, threatening, etc. 

Very insightful here.  A non disordered person enters a relationship assuming that their partner is not disordered, and plays by the same "rules".  It is normal for us to think that other people generally have similar motivations and desires as us.  Sure, things may not align, but between two non disordered people we understand this and move on.  If we get into a r/s with a pwBPD, we have no reason to assume that person is disordered, unless we are trained to spot the disorder.  BPD behaviors on their own are easy to rationalize on a broader context - nons sometimes have those behaviors, too, but the reasons are more rational.  So when a pwBPD exhibits a questionable behavior, we naturally conclude there is a rational explanation.  By the time we see a pattern, we are likely somewhat enmeshed. 

My wife seems to want her partner to replace the role of her parent and depend upon her partner for everything.  Yet at the same time she resents that dependence.  For example, she expects me to be available for her for anything 24/7.  If I fail to answer my phone for 5 minutes because I am in the shower, a work meeting, or sleeping, she is very upset - even if all she wanted was to know if I wanted something from the store.  A non-disordered person might get frustrated at this, but not angry for days.  That's because non disordered people see that their frustration is based on something irrational and unreasonable.  It is not reasonable to expect my partner to be available on the phone 24/7.  It is impossible.  At the beginning of the r/s, I might see her frustration as understandable because it is not that different than what I may feel.  But when the frustration turns to resentment, and it repeats, I slowly learn I am dealing with something different. 

And back to the thread topic - the same happens.  At first W may hesitate about visiting my family because she has social anxiety and finds my mom annoying.  Well, my mom is annoying at times, and I also have social anxieties, so I can relate.  But only when it happens repeatedly, and when her "annoyances" become less and less rational, I start to recognize the disorder.   

[PeteWitsend]

Very insightful here.  A non disordered person enters a relationship assuming that their partner is not disordered, and plays by the same "rules".  It is normal for us to think that other people generally have similar motivations and desires as us.  Sure, things may not align, but between two non disordered people we understand this and move on. 
...   

Yes, that's where I was going with my "insidious" comment.  They take advantage of others' human decency when entering into a relationship, and seeing how much they can get away with.

[maxsterling]

Yes, that's where I was going with my "insidious" comment.  They take advantage of others' human decency when entering into a relationship, and seeing how much they can get away with.

I think this is subconscious for them.  I think there is no intent to "get away" with anything.  Instead, it is a survival mechanism.  Just as nons assume everyone else is not disordered, I think a pwBPD assumes that others are more like them.  That's why when my W goes off the handle about something completely illogical, she turns anger towards me for not showing the same strong emotion.  To her, there is something wrong with me for not being as angry as her.  I don't think a pwBPD is trying to control or take advantage - they think that is how life works and all normal people operate. 

[15years]

Very insightful here.  A non disordered person enters a relationship assuming that their partner is not disordered, and plays by the same "rules".  It is normal for us to think that other people generally have similar motivations and desires as us.  

True...

And after one day (or one hour even) of rational behavior, a part of me once again assume that W is not disordered. The difference recently I think, is that I can separate my logical memory from my emotional memory. I can logically observe how quickly my emotional experience is archived to the past. I know something will happen again but I need a new similar experience to confirm that it is still relevant.

Example:
I remember that my wife has had strong negative feelings about my FOO, but now she seems to appreciate them... Emotionally, I now think that there will be no more problems with this matter... Only when I have a new experience with her expressing strong negative feelings regarding my FOO, I will know right then, that this problem is still relevant... but also this new experience will be archived to the past... and the cycle repeats itself.

[Notwendy]

Just as nons assume everyone else is not disordered, I think a pwBPD assumes that others are more like them.

I think this explains the miscommunication. As PeteWitsend mentioned- a certain deception. Whether it's deliberate or not, we interpret them through our own sense of interpersonal "rules" and they seem to go by different ones.

I tend to agree with Max that it's survival mode, and in survival mode, ethics are suspended. I think everyone knows that causing physical harm to someone is wrong, lying is wrong. I think most of us are raised with some form of those "10 commandments" as basic ethical rules and we assume a common basis in others.

But if we truly felt, in the moment, that our very survival was threatened, we'd suspend those rules in self defense. If someone was attacking us, we'd physically fight back, lie, to defend ourselves.

I think, for the pwBPD- when dysregulated, they can feel as if their very survival is at stake- when it is not -but they feel it is- and react accordingly. It's difficult as we can not control this, but we try- walking on eggshells, appeasing, avoiding upsetting them. It's also difficult because, even if they feel their abusive behavior is justified, it's not, and for the person on the receiving end, potentially harmful.

I think that is one aim of DBT- to learn to manage feelings better. I also think BPD is on a spectrum so this can vary.

Because we don't see others through this survival feeling, their actions are unexpected. Perhaps to them, we can inadvertently and mistakenly be perceived as harming them.

[Couper]

Just as nons assume everyone else is not disordered, I think a pwBPD assumes that others are more like them.

The same thing along a different vein, my uBPDw can question (and thereby insult) anyone that is an expert on topic because of this behavior.  She can be told something as a statement of fact by someone that is absolutely qualified, and then turn around "well maybe it's this instead" but she doesn't have the knowledge to even propose what she's thinking.  She's just throwing excrement at the wall to see what sticks and because she has a need to mark her territory.  If the expert proves their point, she will continue to cast doubt because, in her world, everyone operates on the same parameters as her -- which is that they are guessing without knowing.  I suppose this falls into the category of projection?  I hope all that rambling made sense.

[Notwendy]

Yes, and also my BPD mother will believe the statement of an acquaintance over something we say. When we were looking at colleges for my kids,  we carefully looked at how a college fit the child- did they have their major of interest, cost, location. We visited some that were near BPD mother and so stopped by to see her. We'd mention a school and she'd say "that's a terrible college" based on something someone said- not having ever looked into it herself. Or "I spoke to so and so whose daughter says it's a good school".

At one point I looked into some retirement communities I thought my parents might like but they weren't interested. I went to visit some of them to check them out. Then the neighbor mentioned their mother was living in one and that one became "the best one" but BPD mother had not ever seen it.

It's frustrating as she can't seem to perceive good intentions. I would not have suggested an place my parents might like without checking it out first. I would not send my child to a college that didn't fit their needs. Maybe she assumes I was guessing and not knowing.

[PeteWitsend]

I think this is subconscious for them.  I think there is no intent to "get away" with anything.  Instead, it is a survival mechanism.  Just as nons assume everyone else is not disordered, I think a pwBPD assumes that others are more like them.  That's why when my W goes off the handle about something completely illogical, she turns anger towards me for not showing the same strong emotion.  To her, there is something wrong with me for not being as angry as her.  I don't think a pwBPD is trying to control or take advantage - they think that is how life works and all normal people operate. 

I agree to some extent.  I think they definitely assume the world is a certain way, and works according to their lived experience.

I think they learn - either through surviving early childhood trauma, or simply a genetic predisposition to emotional disorder - certain "survival" techniques to get what they want or feel they need.  Trial and error.  It's interesting in my case, BPDxw would sometimes tell me if I didn't take care of her, she'd leave and find a rich guy who would.  Now... aside from her delusional thinking here - what rich guy wants to tie himself down with a 30-something basket case who has a young child? - I figured she would try to do this. 

In the event, she ended up with a guy who was younger than her (I am a few years older), who was an unemployed construction worker at the time, and she had to buy him a car, and help him get established (according to things I've learned).  It's almost like her takeaway from our divorce was not that she needed to treat her partner(s) better, but that she needed to find a guy who was dependent on her, not independent of her and established, so he wouldn't be able to leave her. 

They may not consciously think of it as deception, or try to "take advantage" of others, and they may believe everyone else acts that way, and so they either dismiss concerns from others about their behavior, or ignore them altogether.  But they are deceiving others and taking advantage of them nevertheless.

But they absolutely do seek to control their partners' or family members' behavior, mainly to keep them dependent on them, for fear of abandonment. 

Indeed, BPDxw occasionally broke down and admitted to me her goal was to keep me from seeing my family members because she could see how close we were, and she felt that meant I could leave her for them (which is insane b/c she was my wife, and they were family).  But the irrationality of her emotional thoughts was just an insurmountable barrier to resolving this in any way. 

[PeteWitsend]

Yes, and also my BPD mother will believe the statement of an acquaintance over something we say. When we were looking at colleges for my kids,  we carefully looked at how a college fit the child- did they have their major of interest, cost, location. We visited some that were near BPD mother and so stopped by to see her. We'd mention a school and she'd say "that's a terrible college" based on something someone said- not having ever looked into it herself. Or "I spoke to so and so whose daughter says it's a good school".

At one point I looked into some retirement communities I thought my parents might like but they weren't interested. I went to visit some of them to check them out. Then the neighbor mentioned their mother was living in one and that one became "the best one" but BPD mother had not ever seen it.

It's frustrating as she can't seem to perceive good intentions. I would not have suggested an place my parents might like without checking it out first. I would not send my child to a college that didn't fit their needs. Maybe she assumes I was guessing and not knowing.

Along these lines, I think facebook is even more toxic for pwBPD.  They are so hollow inside and have such poor self images, they're constantly comparing themselves to their friends and others, and facebook is like heroin for that.  I had lots of bad nights when BPDxw saw someone took a long trip, or got a nanny, or some new shiny thing... we might have discussed the night before our budget and what we were saving for, but all that would go out the window when she saw something someone else had. 

I would also notice BPDxw would get upset or annoyed if I or someone else brought up something she didn't know about.  It could be anything - a movie, music, band, TV show, book, concept, etc.  If she wasn't familiar with it, she'd have some hostile response to it being discussed in her presence... it was stupid, you were immature, the people who did that were shallow or fake, you think you're so smart reading books, but you can't even let her take a month vacation alone, etc. etc. 

[maxsterling]

Along these lines, I think facebook is even more toxic for pwBPD.  They are so hollow inside and have such poor self images, they're constantly comparing themselves to their friends and others, and facebook is like heroin for that.  I had lots of bad nights when BPDxw saw someone took a long trip, or got a nanny, or some new shiny thing... we might have discussed the night before our budget and what we were saving for, but all that would go out the window when she saw something someone else had. 

Well, my W recognized this and quit FB for that reason.  The feelings are still there, but at least there is no longer the constant source of triggers.  She will sometimes call a family member or friend, and then she wants to spend an hour talking/arguing about something in that conversation.  For example, a friend is moving, and next she wants to spend 2 hours talking about how we should move, too.  So much time and so many conversations were spent on W venting about something someone else did/didn't do.

[ForeverDad]

If you're seriously considering parting ways, don't buy anything.  You'll never recover the transactional expenses in the way of market appreciation in just a couple of years.  This is especially true with the looming downturn that is on its way.

I married in my mid-30s, had a child in my late-40s, refinanced my house to pay out her equity in my mid-50's, my mortgage gets paid off in my early 80's, if I live that long.

Just like having children, jointly owning a house is a huge complication when contemplating a divorce.  Children can't be undone, but buying a house now (before a divorce) can be avoided.