Dissociation and BPD: No memories and lost in himself

[AskingWhy]

My uBPD H is a professional with a large responsibility for human safety in his job.   He's good at it and respected by colleagues.

That said, we are cleaning the house of my deceased mother.  Several years before her death, she had dementia.  The house was a mess with piles of magazines and trash, boxes of crackers, etc.

H and I were cleaning and H came across some of my early childhood toys, presenting them to me on an old mattress.  You can well imagine my joy: three cherished stuffed animals and an old doll.  I gushed for a full five minutes, showing H in turn each toy, sharing my utter joy in seeing these toys more than 50 years old.  Then I had to leave to run an errand, secure in the belief H would set those toys aside for me as I clearly placed them in a small pile on the bed.

The house was such a mess that I had forgotten the toys until we had cleaned all my mother's belongings.  I looked around at our house and asked where my toys were.  Crickets.  "I think they may have gone out in last week's trash," H said, not quite sure what he did with them.

In utter horror, I said, "Oh, my God!  Oh, my God..!"  In a rage, H drove across town to check my mother's house and returned some time later to say, "I think they went out in the trash."  He could hardly believe he did that.  You can well imagine my deep pain and utter anger at his carelessness.  He didn't do anything in malice, but he wasn't paying attention...not paying attention to his wife's clear, utter joy and enthusiasm in finding long-lost childhood toys, moreover those given to her by her father who had died while she was a child.

To make matters worse, we're moving across town and packing up our house.  I saw a box labeled, "children's toys," meaning the toys of his now-adult son and two daughters.  I opened it up to find two stuffed animals and a toy train.  I immediately felt a welling of utter indignation to see how carefully he stored his own children's childhood toys while mine were carelessly thrown in the trash, now rotting in the landfill. I was livid.  I still am.

Just wanting to vent.  H clearly dissociated while cleaning, oblivious to the five minutes of gushing I went through.  I can still feel the doll's hair in my fingers, the feel of the stuffed bear's fur as I gushed.  D*mn him.  He made an apology but he had the nerve to say I should have taken the toys with me out of the room.  

[Manic Miner]

I'm really sorry to hear that AW, but totally get you how you felt. Long, thought to be lost childhood artifacts are sacred when found and are precious beyond anything.

It could be a carelessness of his side, but as you said, could be  disassociation.
It is a very familiar ground. If it was the other way around, Earth would be collapsing and cunamis appearing at the every coast of the land. But it is what it is. At least he apologized.

We can't change them. I don't trust my W anything anymore that regards "I hope she will see what that meant to me and will act accordingly." If it's important to me and me only, I will do it myself or supervise it from start to finish. They lack deeper understanding that involves seeing beyond obvious.

[Go3737]

She got drunk again. We had a fight. I went to a hotel.
She threw all my cloths away.

[Notwendy]

I am sorry AW. Your H is self centered. It seems you expected him to connect to your feelings over the childhood toys- you were sharing your feelings about them. On his part, it didn't connect and that feels hurtful.

It's hard to know if what he did was deliberate or not. It seems there was a lot of trash, so he didn't pick just those items to throw out. He was throwing out trash and didn't pay attention to them and yes, he should have if he saw how much they meant to you.

Surely he didn't enjoy cleaning all that stuff up that belonged to your mother and he may have been feeling resentful. This might have been passive aggressive behavior? Hard to know what he was thinking.

Go3737- this is different. Your wife was enraged and picked your clothes to throw out in what was not a clean up project where a lot of things were being thrown out. This was to punish you or project her anger on to you.