Triggered over advice to soothe your partner

[Tupla Sport]

So, some times I come upon advice on the internet that says you can soothe your partner's BPD related episodes by countering their emotional, self-sabotaging and self-harming arguments. It triggers me.

I mean I used to do exactly that when we still lived together. Not always because as time went on, she started having more "non-quiet" episodes. When someone is hellishly angry at you, you don't soothe them.

She then moved out when I told her she needed to move out. After moving out, if she had an episode when we spent time together, she would usually freeze, go mute and go home.

The advice on the internet is telling me (well, I am telling myself) that I could have saved the r/s by soothing her when she had those episodes.

There is probably a reason I stopped the soothing routine. Probably because I had compassion fatigue and just could not take her freezing episodes anymore.

Any validation on the idea that I could not have saved anything by letting her use me as a remote soothing mechanism is greatly appreciated.

[BPDEnjoyer]

The soothing behavior no longer work during the devaluation phase because she had paint you black.  At this point, being non-confrontational is just enabling.  It is time to leave.

[kells76]

Hey Tupla Sport;

Good topic and good insight into yourself and noticing your reaction.

Couple of things.

One is about the specific content of what you ran across: internet advice saying "if you just had done XYZ, things would've been totally different. XYZ is THE way to save the relationship." An analogy to that might be seeing parenting advice on the internet saying "Are you having trouble with your toddler's public tantrums? The best way to get your 2 year old back to baseline is to give them what they want in that moment. Instant resolution, the tears stop, you can move on."

There's a sense in which, yeah, giving a toddler what they want during a tantrum does stop the tantrum. But we are able to think big picture and long term. Is doing that helpful to the toddler to develop self soothing skills? Does it create and maintain an appropriate relationship between the parent and child? Not necessarily.

I wonder if that analogy might apply to your situation. Yes, doing the internet advice might have made things better short term. Long term though, you can ask the question -- did that make our relationship healthier? Did that help the other person grow, mature, and develop better skills? Those questions need to be asked.

...

My other thought is about you noticing your reaction to reading that internet advice. You noticed that you felt triggered.

I wonder what that hit in you that was a painful area, that was already sensitive?

For some people, it might hit a "sore spot" around -- I feel unseen. This advice feels like if a loved one died, and someone told me "just smile, that'll make you cheer up and get over it!" You might feel profoundly unseen, not understood, and "talked over".

For other people, it might hit a "sore spot" around -- regret or failure. There might be sadness and grief over "what could have been", and maybe the advice feels like "rubbing it in" -- other people could've saved the relationship, but not you, you failed, you missed the boat.

Or, there could be a completely different painful area for you, that this is hitting.

What do you think?

[Tupla Sport]

I wonder if that analogy might apply to your situation. Yes, doing the internet advice might have made things better short term. Long term though, you can ask the question -- did that make our relationship healthier? Did that help the other person grow, mature, and develop better skills? Those questions need to be asked.

This is a solid point. I also wonder: would they feel more enmeshed at the end of the day? Like suddenly realizing "my well-being is tied to this person to the point that only they can soothe me". And that's a kind of a Christmasland scenario where it reliably works out most every time. I don't think pwBPD on the whole want to be conscious they are being parented by someone. And certainly regularly soothing someone down would ring a bell even in their psyche? On an abstract average of course.

I wonder what that hit in you that was a painful area, that was already sensitive?


I think it's the fear that I failed her. Like it was my part to play, and I failed. Other factors in play are the fact that she was going be taken into some sort of mental health clinic, she was in the queue. And the fact that she monkey-branched with my friend who I think is quite similar to me in many aspects of the personality, just a more... immediately warm type of a version of me. I'm sanguine, he is phlegmatic. The yin to my yang. And even during the r/s I was so insecure and nervous that she enjoyed his passive codependency to my active codependency. Meaning, I was upholding boundaries even in a r/s where it was toxic for me to be in. He on the other hand, is a complete doormat. He fawns at everyone and will bend over backwards to agree with people.

I fear that they will be successful because of his passive antics and him never challenging her in any way. I have a bit of a bite to my personality and once you get to know me, I'm quite the Scorpio. I enjoy teasing people. I know she in my heart she will miss my sanguine lust for life over my friend's more timid and self-denying personality, but I do have a huge fear of having been replaced by a more compatible man.

[PowerChild]

It breaks my heart that you feel like you've failed her. Some people cannot be "saved." They have to want to figure things out and do the work required.
I know this doesn't bring you any joy, but I doubt their relationship will work out, long-term. Being a doormat for someone with BPD doesn't satisfy them; if anything, it makes them lose respect for the other person and view them with even more suspicion. If they're ashamed on some level of how they treat their partner, they won't appreciate their partner rolling over and taking it.
I'm sorry you're mourning the relationship. It sounds like you did what you could, but you reached a point where you felt you couldn't tolerate any more. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging your limits and enforcing consequences for boundaries crossed. You have to take care of yourself as well, or you can't take care of anyone else. You deserve love and respect, and to have your own needs met, and not lose yourself in another person.

[Tupla Sport]

It breaks my heart that you feel like you've failed her. Some people cannot be "saved." They have to want to figure things out and do the work required.
I know this doesn't bring you any joy, but I doubt their relationship will work out, long-term. Being a doormat for someone with BPD doesn't satisfy them; if anything, it makes them lose respect for the other person and view them with even more suspicion. If they're ashamed on some level of how they treat their partner, they won't appreciate their partner rolling over and taking it.
I'm sorry you're mourning the relationship. It sounds like you did what you could, but you reached a point where you felt you couldn't tolerate any more. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging your limits and enforcing consequences for boundaries crossed. You have to take care of yourself as well, or you can't take care of anyone else. You deserve love and respect, and to have your own needs met, and not lose yourself in another person.

Thank you. I feel better every time some one, often me, reminds me that they are not exactly healthy relationship material. It is difficult to process because I still have vivid images of them interacting and fawning each other. The memories cut like a knife. Not having BPD, you just see two people excited together. The mechanics there are toxic but to your mind they seem like two people smitten by the excitement of bonding. I swear our biological needs are often so hardwired that it takes a lot of conscious thought to reverse the feeling and thought process.

[Couscous]

I think it's the fear that I failed her. Like it was my part to play, and I failed.

I have experienced something similar myself even in friendships when I “fail” to help them in some way. I have linked this to my childhood, when I was raised to be a “Rescuer” and was shamed if I did not play this role. being unable to “Rescue” people triggers anxiety and shame in me, and it’s related to codependency.

[Tupla Sport]

I have experienced something similar myself even in friendships when I “fail” to help them in some way. I have linked this to my childhood, when I was raised to be a “Rescuer” and was shamed if I did not play this role. being unable to “Rescue” people triggers anxiety and shame in me, and it’s related to codependency.

That's a very very good point.

I had a traumatic childhood and I relate with the "rescuer" mindset in the sense that I probably was not raised to be a rescuer but I have guilt over not being able to take care of my alcoholic mother as a child.

There was this article that talked about rescuing, resentment and regret. I definitely had resentments for the BPD girl I was trying to rescue. I figured, "now that she's living with me, she ought to feel good enough to take care of me in return". And then later "now that I asked her to move to a place of her own and there's a healthy distance between us, she ought to feel good enough to take care of me in return".

As soon I was able to monitor her, her living either with me or in my neighbourhood as she heart-shatteringly does, I started building resentment because my rescuing was not giving me the returns I wanted. This is not to be critical of myself in an out-of-context manner but to acknowledge that's how the cycle operates. You give them everything and more, they give you a little, intermittent love back and as the returns remain meagre, you get angry.

I was basically asking for her to snap out of it and of course she could not. No-one in her situation could. And that's a source of guilt for me. I feel guilty for building up that resentment and having those unrealistic expectations. Now that it seems I got replaced, I picture the situation as someone with fresh resources taking over and perhaps succeeding in the rescue. Because the r/s in my eyes could only ever be about rescue. Me being somewhat succesful in the rescue in some areas makes it all the more difficult.

The intermittent love and attention she showered me with when the times were good were so powerful that I fixate on the two of them probably living the absolute dream-like honeymoon phase right now. She's playing the rescuee again and I feel empty because rescuing was my job.

[Notwendy]

Tupla- I don't know where you saw that resource or how you interpreted it. People can write anything on the internet, but doesn't mean it is valid.

Soothing and appeasing is enabling. It reinforces the dynamics where they lean on you and expect you to soothe them. Sure, they may stick around for a while because of this, but disordered dynamics remain. A partner may choose to do this, after all, they may fear if they don't - the relationship would end if they don't, and choose to tolerate behaviors, but- the pwBPD still has the choice to stay or leave.

You didn't fail at meeting her needs because of some inability of yours. Her feelings are due to her disorder and we can not change or fix another person. You didn't fail at anything. In fact, you did the opposite. You found your own boundaries. You paid attention to your own feelings of resentment for being expected to be the source of emotional soothing for an adult.

[PowerChild]

Soothing and appeasing is enabling. It reinforces the dynamics where they lean on you and expect you to soothe them.

You didn't fail at meeting her needs because of some inability of yours. Her feelings are due to her disorder and we can not change or fix another person. You didn't fail at anything. In fact, you did the opposite. You found your own boundaries. You paid attention to your own feelings of resentment for being expected to be the source of emotional soothing for an adult.

^^^ This. 100%

[I Am Redeemed]

Often, childhood trauma survivor's will try to resolve dynamics from their dysfunctional parent with a partner. Sometimes we choose "project partners" and place our value and worth on our ability to get the partner to change, heal, get better through our efforts.

When our attempts to rescue don't work, we assume we are at fault because we aren't good enough.

It's easy to think a new partner may be doing a better job because they are more suitable for rescuing. Make no mistake, rescuing behavior in a relationship is not healthy. Initial love bombing phases may look like "the dream" but sooner or later, rescuers fail to satisfy the expectations of the BPD because no one is a superhuman source of constant validation and emotional caretaking.

[Notwendy]

Yes, for those of us who have had a childhood with a disordered parent, we may recreate the situation of trying to rescue or fix someone else, with a hope of somehow that this would make us "ok".

We always were OK. It's the parent who has disordered thinking and a disordered impression of us.