Splitting Episode Finished Again

[Amina]

My partner of 3.5 years recently is ending a splitting me black or mostly black episode that last for 2 months, though we mostly were communicating via text and calls during this time, and it has happened in different durations since I met him.  We are meeting again this evening, and he was texting me last night that he suddenly bought a keyboard and wants to learn to play it.  While I am a creative person myself that loves to play the piano and I wrote a song for his dead dog a few years ago, and would love to even collaborate with him if he actually learns a bit, and of course I want to encourage healthy hobbies. Something is just bothering me a bit about the keyboard--when he returns from splitting sometimes he astonishes me with his capacity for healthy connection, but I'm overwhelmed this time, perhaps because how deeply I feel for him, and how growth happens, and then he relapses.  Does anyone have any thoughts or similar experiences. 

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[thankful person]

Hi Alina,
My dbpd wife used to love listening to me play the piano… before we were together. Since we’ve been together she hates me playing the piano. She very soon told me she was jealous of me using it to calm down and express my emotions “because I don’t have anything like that…” She is also jealous that I can play the piano and she can’t. At one point I actually stopped playing for several years because she demanded it, although I was still playing professionally (Not at my best you can imagine). I am a piano teacher and she could have had a lesson every day for 9 years. But no. She’s had about 8 lessons in total all ending in disaster and some only lasting a few minutes. She is definitely my most challenging student ever, and I take students with all manner of challenging behaviours. So just be careful with that. I don’t write songs anymore since the last song I wrote for her she has refused to ever listen to it. My wife also has very long term splitting episodes lasting several months and I’m never sure if it’s permanent each time. Have you read stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist? It’s very good. I hope you are looking after yourself. I also hope if you do help your partner learn to play the piano it goes better than it did here (couldn’t be any worse…)

[Amina]

I appreciate your thoughts, and sharing a similar experience.  I think the biggest struggle for me with my partner is exactly as you said--the splitting that lasts for months and you don't know if they will ever stop--again.  I read a book once that friends and families and partners that love someone with BPD are constantly put through the cycles of grieving.  

I think he hides his jealousy of me, and it comes out oddly at unexpected times--such as after not seeing him in person for a month, accusing me of cheating. I truly think he is underdeveloped and has a real creative side, but yes--I wonder if he would feel competitive with me for playing his keyboard, or being very challenged learning how to play it for the first time.

I don't know if they mean things when they say "I'm never listening to that song" or "I never want to see your dog again," etc.  I hear the pain underneath, but also realize that even in hearing the pain, there is frustration in getting them to experience (perceived) pain of loss and abandonment instead of pushing away with cruel words.

[thankful person]

I don't know if they mean things when they say "I'm never listening to that song" or "I never want to see your dog again," etc.  I hear the pain underneath, but also realize that even in hearing the pain, there is frustration in getting them to experience (perceived) pain of loss and abandonment instead of pushing away with cruel words.

I have learnt so much about bpd recently. There is a manifestation in children (and I guess adults) with autism, called pathological demand avoidance. You have to work very carefully with them to give them choices, to lead, steer and encourage them towards the outcome you want and hopefully they feel they are making their own decisions. I’ve learnt my wife is a lot like this. I gave an example yesterday of her refusing to get out of bed even though our eldest was about to get an award on tv. A few years ago (thankfully we didn’t have kids then) this is how it would have gone down: me getting upset, angry, probably shouting and becoming more demanding the more she refused. Me knowing she was not getting up because she’d made such a drama over saying she wasn’t getting up. And I would have felt strong pressure to miss the moment myself and there may have been actual physical violence had I watched the moment with my daughter and celebrated. Here’s what actually happened: I said, ok, stay in bed. I thought to myself: I will enjoy this wonderful special moment with D3, whether my wife is there or not. Lo and behold and she got up all on her own. It’s a bit like the story about the wind and the sun trying to get the man’s coat off. The wind tries to blow it off and the man does his coat up tighter. The sun makes him hot and he takes it off.

With the song, story was I put the lyrics on fb and wife loved it. It was about her carrying our first child. Then when I wrote the music I put up a photo of part of my keyboard and part of the sheet music I was writing. Wife “loves” it. But then when it comes to me offering to play it for her, turns out she’s very angry I shared the picture on fb because all my musician friends would know the song before her. Totally irrational but bpd ya know. So then I kept begging her to listen to it over many months. In the end she told me to destroy it. I said no, I’m putting it in this folder and you can destroy it when I’m dead. We don’t talk about it anymore. But I think if I’d not made a big deal out of her upset over it on the first place then she would have asked me to play it at some point. But who knows.

[Amina]

What you said about pathological demand avoidance is interesting.  My partner is definitely avoidant, and making sure he has choices is super important, although sometimes he backs himself into a corner so that it is objectively absurdity of choice, if it was not so maddening. I've also been reading about psychosis being just as prominent in BPD as it is in schizophrenia, even though it has been ruled out as being in the class of schizophrenia.  I would say the psychosis or quasi-psychosis is generally "more mundane" in detail than a schizophrenic.

I completely understand about suddenly destroying things.  Such as giving me a train ticket to visit me at his parents, and then cancelling the trip and telling me to destroy the ticket, etc.  He also once destroyed a pair of my heels, or he will say he threw something out but then later bring it over in his bag and give the item back to me.  He seems to constantly be moving in and out of grounded empathic connected states, and utterly avoidant/defiant ones.  He also has admitted to sexual abuse on several occasions, and I can see how splitting in a young child would be so protective in such an incomprehensible violation from an adult caretaker.