I guess this time I triggered him so bad - in need of support?

[Bella2798]

Hi all.
Things have been rough recently. My partner and I went through a splitting episode 2 weeks ago and solved it after 6 days, but things didn't stay calm.

He's been so tense recently with all he's going through (like he might have to seek asylum in the country he is living now) and he would react a lot to things that normally wouldn't trigger him. We had small fights but I could see that he tried his best to stay rational and consider my feelings, and behave healthy.

Two days ago, we had a fight over phone because I brought up a triggering topic about some speak we had some days before, with the intention to solve things. He started to express how he needs to feel loved and I interrupted him because I got triggered too. We managed this after that, but later that night he had a panic attack. I offered him some breathing techniques but he said he might go and sleep to calm down because the moment he concentrates, he feels worse. I told him to do so but he got angry, and told me how is he supposed to sleep with that heartbeat? My only answer was that I only told him because he said that himself, and I don't know what he is really going through right now and I know it's really difficult. He got really mad and blocked me nearly everywhere again, telling me that I just only want to be comfortable and I don't care about him or his needs.

When I came back to read our messages I realized I sound distant and too careless about him. I'm still working on how I get so disconnected sometimes but no success yet.

Today I woke up with 7 messages and 4 missed calls about how I have ruined his life and I want to control him! I texted him to see what has happened and found out that he had thought I'm going to kill myself from a tweet I wrote yesterday. Still blocked and don't know what will happen next.

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[thankful person]

Bella, I don’t know if I can help because as you’ve seen I’m still confused and struggling right now. But I just wanted to share what I think. From what you’ve written on here, you are not distant or careless at all. You are actually one of the most dedicated partners where many of us in here honestly would be out the door by now if we didn’t have kids with our pwbpds.

When you speak of being disconnected… that is self-protection. Our pwbpd’s…to one extent or another, are somewhat insane. They are delusional. They are on the borderline between more “sane” mental illnesses like depression or anxiety, and very severe delusional conditions like schizophrenia. Schizophrenic people have hallucinations which lead them to believe a reality which is incorrect, not factual, they are often paranoid. Our bpd partners are on the cusp of this, I think they don’t exactly have hallucinations usually… but their grasp and memory of reality is poor. I said recently, it’s like there’a a little evil entity inside my wife, which filters everything I do or say in the worst possible light. And tells her that I have selfish, unkind, thoughtless intentions or whatever.

They cannot see the truth. The longer we buy into their delusions, the worse they will get. Their grip on reality slips away because we are joining them in their delusion that we aren’t good enough. The more you believe them, the more you bend over backwards trying to please.. their behaviour gets worse. Their paranoia and delusions get worse. I’ve worked with children for over 30 years, many with special needs. What I’ve learnt is that children will behave as you expect them to and bpd are no different in this respect. When I stand up for myself or show less interest in being treated in this way… eventually my wife stops the accusations. She went through some dbt sessions but seems to have forgotten the part where “You are responsible for your own feelings”. I am trying not to encourage her when she says she doesn’t feel loved, wanted, desired, supported by me and that I’m responsible for these feelings. Encouraging her in this belief has not helped. The baby is nearly 10m and it’s time to stop taking the “easy” way out thinking it will make things easier to join her in her world. It hasn’t.

Whilst you are agreeing that you’re not good enough, must try harder, be better… you are encouraging your bf to believe these things that he is telling you, that you’re not good enough. You are getting sucked further and further into caretaking and will lose more and more of yourself. And btw I know about long distance relationships. My dbpdw “stole” me from right under my ex’s nose, even though I lived on the opposite side of the planet. So great was her immediate hold on me, (needing me to message her all the time after we met online), which met my needs because I never felt needed before so I didn’t have any self worth.

I know I’m a hypocrite because I have been behaving just as you buying into my wife’s verbal attacks on my character. Trying to improve myself, trying to please her. I am now trying to not engage with such accusations and stamp them out. Again. Because I’ve been through all of this before, and the journey was very successful. I learnt to stand up for myself and our relationship was much improved for a long time. It’s hard to believe this when I feel like I’ve failed. But a fail is just another lesson on the road to success, and a relationship is a journey anyway. I hope that makes sense. I learnt most of what I know from “Stop caretaking” but also I’m now reading “codependent no more” which I think you should take a look at if you haven’t because I see a lot of myself in you (though tbh you seem more loving than me). I’ve found it an incredible book so far and it’s helping me to understand myself better.

I am thinking of you.