bpd BF expects me to work for him?

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Sorry, this is so long, but but it’s so nonsensical it might at least give you a chuckle.

So my undiagnosed boyfriend of 4 yrs is very fixated on the idea of me working for him? he is freelancer and an artist and somehow believes that I can like promote his art in some way or like find him work somehow, but I literally do nothing even remotely related to this as my career, not to mention, I am extremely busy and have very limited free time. So I have told him many times that I would be happy to help him to like proofread something or you know maybe if he gives me a specific task to do I can do it but really there’s not a lot that I have to offer. Anyway, this is not good enough for him. And every time we to get into a fight which generally has nothing to do with this, he will bring this up! that I refuse to help him and blah blah blah I don’t really love him because if I really loved him, I would do this, even though I don’t know exactly what this is. its really really infuriating because, a) there’s really nothing I can do. I am not a PR person or a publisher or any of the things that he needs and b) we never actually discuss any of our issues because he always insists that this is the real problem! To the point where he hangs up on me when I try to talk about the thing that actually happened.  Like most recently we were in a restaurant and got into an argument about the prices of things in different neighborhoods. he said one thing I disagreed and then he didn’t talk to me for 10 days.  Finally today I got a hold of him on the phone and I was trying to talk to him about what happened and he starts yelling at me claiming it’s because i won’t help him with his work and that everything I’m saying is fake and that I am trying to manipulate him and that he will only speak to me if I address the “real” issue and hung up on me. Now if this hadnt  happened 10,000 times before I would be much more upset but I am fairly unfazed by his bullPLEASE READ at this point. I’m just curious if anybody else experiences anything like this? Does anybody else have a pwBPD that has like weird unrealistic expectations of them?  Like what is this all about? It doesn’t make any sense to me.  I am questioning myself obviously every time this happens why I’m still doing it. I guess I’m hoping that it will pass. There was a time where he was fixated on me cleaning his house and how according to him my refusal to was like, ruining our relationship,and eventually that passed. But now this obsession with blaming all arguments on me because of working or not working for him, have become the main issue. Is it just always going to be some weird thing like this? some dumb thing to use as an excuse to break up all the time? I cannot even count how many times we have broken up and gotten back together in the last four years. I’m like completely numb to it.

[onthefenceagain]

Sorry, this is so long, but but it’s so nonsensical it might at least give you a chuckle.

So my undiagnosed boyfriend of 4 yrs is very fixated on the idea of me working for him? he is freelancer and an artist and somehow believes that I can like promote his art in some way or like find him work somehow, but I literally do nothing even remotely related to this as my career, not to mention, I am extremely busy and have very limited free time. So I have told him many times that I would be happy to help him to like proofread something or you know maybe if he gives me a specific task to do I can do it but really there’s not a lot that I have to offer. Anyway, this is not good enough for him. And every time we to get into a fight which generally has nothing to do with this, he will bring this up! that I refuse to help him and blah blah blah I don’t really love him because if I really loved him, I would do this, even though I don’t know exactly what this is. its really really infuriating because, a) there’s really nothing I can do. I am not a PR person or a publisher or any of the things that he needs and b) we never actually discuss any of our issues because he always insists that this is the real problem! To the point where he hangs up on me when I try to talk about the thing that actually happened.  Like most recently we were in a restaurant and got into an argument about the prices of things in different neighborhoods. he said one thing I disagreed and then he didn’t talk to me for 10 days.  Finally today I got a hold of him on the phone and I was trying to talk to him about what happened and he starts yelling at me claiming it’s because i won’t help him with his work and that everything I’m saying is fake and that I am trying to manipulate him and that he will only speak to me if I address the “real” issue and hung up on me. Now if this hadnt  happened 10,000 times before I would be much more upset but I am fairly unfazed by his bullPLEASE READ at this point. I’m just curious if anybody else experiences anything like this? Does anybody else have a pwBPD that has like weird unrealistic expectations of them?  Like what is this all about? It doesn’t make any sense to me.  I am questioning myself obviously every time this happens why I’m still doing it. I guess I’m hoping that it will pass. There was a time where he was fixated on me cleaning his house and how according to him my refusal to was like, ruining our relationship,and eventually that passed. But now this obsession with blaming all arguments on me because of working or not working for him, have become the main issue. Is it just always going to be some weird thing like this? some dumb thing to use as an excuse to break up all the time? I cannot even count how many times we have broken up and gotten back together in the last four years. I’m like completely numb to it.

[Gemsforeyes]

Ugh!  Do I ever have experience with this!  I’m not sure whether you asked for advice on this issue or not, but here it is anyway - please don’t do it.  No matter what.

My exuBPDbf was a very talented and creative man in many ways… and  very inept in other ways.  Due to my background, he’d want my “help” and expertise in very specific and time-consuming situations.  Important and legal situations and I ALWAYS came through for him.  But it never failed to backfire on me in some way where he used all the time and effort I’d spent to belittle and rage at me later.  And it ended up costing me not only time and heartache, but significant sums of money.

Any perceived “failure” will be yours.  Please take my word for it.

On the other hand, he loved the art I made (my part-time gig).  He’d want pieces for every holiday gift for every woman in his family, but find a way to take pieces without paying or pay me so little my hard costs weren’t covered.  Just demoralizing.  In the end, I came to the realization that if I wasn’t “functional” to him, I was pretty useless.

I was with my BF for 6.5 years and I’ve been out now for, can’t believe it, but 3.5 years… and some of these rages still echo in my head.

I’m really sorry you’re going through this, OTFA.  My suggestion, would perhaps be to tell him that you love him and his work, but you simply do not possess the skills to give the work what it deserves. And leave it at that.

Warmly,
Gemsforeyes

[onthefenceagain]

“Any perceived “failure” will be yours.  Please take my word for it.”

OMG gemsforeyes this is such a good good point! I never really thought of it this way. There were times that I helped him with a few things here and there and oh boy did I get screamed out for not doing it right or not listening. So moving forward I’ve been telling him that I don’t have the skills to help him with what he needs help with (which is actually really true) and I’ve managed to avoid doing it for quite some time now, but he is really fixated on the fact that I won’t do it and uses this as a reason  to fight with me about pretty much anything. 

Also, super interesting what you just said about not feeling “functional”
 to him.  I often feel like all he really wants from me is to do stuff for him. Like a maid/intern/babysitter. And when I refuse to do those things, because I am not a maid or intern, or a babysitter, he says I don’t love him.  I’ve actually offered to pay for a cleaning service when he was obsessed with the idea of me cleaning his house and he refused so that’s how I knew it wasn’t really about cleaning the house or needing help. It was about some thing else. I just wasn’t really sure what. I mean is it control do you think?  I often feel like he wants complete control over me and I have never been a pushover. Like from day one he knew that I was a very dominant personality, so I almost feel like he sees me as more of a challenge. Like some kind of animal, he wants to tame or some thing. 

[Gemsforeyes]

Just out of curiosity, what type of relationship does your BF, or did your BF have with his mother?

Edit:  sorry, that likely seems like a very random question, but in my mind it’s not.  For example, I met my ex when we were both 55 years old.   As our first holiday season approached, I asked him if there were any clothing items he’d like as gifts.  His response: “no thank you, my mother buys all my clothes.”  I said “What??”  And I laughed!  I thought he was joking!  He wasn’t.  I should have thought very deeply about what that meant because it meant a LOT.  In terms of his functionality, and what he would come to rely on ME for… a replacement for his mother.  And how he played up his mother and me against one another without me knowing for years what he was doing.  Until I did.

She neglected him in childhood and his early teens - he frequently expressed that he felt like an “outsider” in his family.  And I witnessed her do something heartless to him.  But he would drop everything if she beckoned him.  In an instant.  He was begging for her approval- the thing he didn’t get in childhood.  My GOD…. I remember the day I asked him if he’d ever actually been angry at me.  And he said “no”.  “I take out on you what I feel against my mother and I don’t know why”.  But he wouldn’t get help.  End of story.

Covert incest.  Mother/son. 

Warmly,
Gems

[onthefenceagain]

Gems- messaging you !

Just out of curiosity, what type of relationship does your BF, or did your BF have with his mother?

Edit:  sorry, that likely seems like a very random question, but in my mind it’s not.  For example, I met my ex when we were both 55 years old.   As our first holiday season approached, I asked him if there were any clothing items he’d like as gifts.  His response: “no thank you, my mother buys all my clothes.”  I said “What??”  And I laughed!  I thought he was joking!  He wasn’t.  I should have thought very deeply about what that meant because it meant a LOT.  In terms of his functionality, and what he would come to rely on ME for… a replacement for his mother.  And how he played up his mother and me against one another without me knowing for years what he was doing.  Until I did.

She neglected him in childhood and his early teens - he frequently expressed that he felt like an “outsider” in his family.  And I witnessed her do something heartless to him.  But he would drop everything if she beckoned him.  In an instant.  He was begging for her approval- the thing he didn’t get in childhood.  My GOD…. I remember the day I asked him if he’d ever actually been angry at me.  And he said “no”.  “I take out on you what I feel against my mother and I don’t know why”.  But he wouldn’t get help.  End of story.

Covert incest.  Mother/son. 

Warmly,
Gems

[Tangled mangled]

Just out of curiosity, what type of relationship does your BF, or did your BF have with his mother?

Edit:  sorry, that likely seems like a very random question, but in my mind it’s not.  For example, I met my ex when we were both 55 years old.   As our first holiday season approached, I asked him if there were any clothing items he’d like as gifts.  His response: “no thank you, my mother buys all my clothes.”  I said “What??”  And I laughed!  I thought he was joking!  He wasn’t.  I should have thought very deeply about what that meant because it meant a LOT.  In terms of his functionality, and what he would come to rely on ME for… a replacement for his mother.  And how he played up his mother and me against one another without me knowing for years what he was doing.  Until I did.

She neglected him in childhood and his early teens - he frequently expressed that he felt like an “outsider” in his family.  And I witnessed her do something heartless to him.  But he would drop everything if she beckoned him.  In an instant.  He was begging for her approval- the thing he didn’t get in childhood.  My GOD…. I remember the day I asked him if he’d ever actually been angry at me.  And he said “no”.  “I take out on you what I feel against my mother and I don’t know why”.  But he wouldn’t get help.  End of story.

Covert incest.  Mother/son. 

Warmly,
Gems

This right here!

Mine too compared me to his mother and it wasn’t long before he was competing with my newborn baby for affection and split the baby black . I didn’t realise at the time, I thought my baby was just very difficult but babies can sense the stress in their mothers and boy o boy was I under stress.

I won’t wish a male bpd on my worse enemy. You end up being their mothers and they regress to preteen years and you will always be a bad mother to them no matter what you do.

Mine once watched a tv program where a man who was married to lady from a wealthy/ successful family - they added him to the family construction business and the man changed his surname to his wife’s family name. My husband said to me, you see, this is what I need , you need to give me ideas on how to mine my life forward. This was after years of him ‘trying’ and failing at different ideas I had given him.
It will never be enough, get out.

[onthefenceagain]

Gems and tangled- I most certainly get the sense that he wants me to be his mother and/or compares me to her. And I also think he resents me in a similar way to the way he resents his father. I think he takes out all his family baggage on me to be honest. But any time I have even tried to express the tiniest psychological insight to him, he wants nothing to do with it. He doesn’t wanna hear a thing about it. He thinks psychology is fake and would rather study astrology because he thinks that’s real. *sigh*

[onthefenceagain]

“Mine once watched a tv program where a man who was married to lady from a wealthy/ successful family - they added him to the family construction business and the man changed his surname to his wife’s family name. My husband said to me, you see, this is what I need , you need to give me ideas on how to mine my life forward. This was after years of him ‘trying’ and failing at different ideas I had given him.
It will never be enough, get out.”

Tangles- This sounds like something he would say, and has said similar things many times! and he has come to this conclusion on his own. no TV shows required. He also is always coming up with new ideas and schemes for things and starting them and never finishing them. He also frequently is trying to sort of glom onto my career. Currently I work for a company, but I could easily start my own business doing the thing that I currently do if I wanted to(I do not) and he is constantly trying to push me into doing it and telling me how he and I could take over this industry if I just do what he says and blah blah blah. I frequently feel like his idea of making money is to find people who have money and exploit them rather than just like doing a service or just doing your job if that makes sense.?  

[ForeverDad]

Is it just always going to be some weird thing like this? some dumb thing to use as an excuse to break up all the time? I cannot even count how many times we have broken up and gotten back together in the last four years.

(1) Yes, this is dysfunctional and unrealistic.  But you've enabled it for four years. So why shouldn't he expect you to keep coming back?

(2) I suspect that if/when you do finally leave for good he will keep trying to lure you back (after all it has worked every time thus far, right?) but eventually when you stay gone he would just find himself another woman willing to do his bidding.

The typical pattern for real improvement would be for him to get into meaningful therapy and diligently apply it in all this life. Unless that happens this relationship has no satisfactory future (for you).

The benefit of peer support here is that you can educate yourself, benefit from our accumulated collective wisdom and can soon make better and informed decisions. When the relationship ends, do not expect meaningful closure from him, you will have to Gift Yourself your own closure.  Sad to say, Let Go of your dashed hopes with him and Move On.