Another dysregulation by husband

[townhouse]

I am a longtime member who occasionally posts when thoroughly fed up with BPD husband.

This post is not as serious as some others who have posted here but is an example of an exchange with a BPD person.

Unfortunately where my husband and I live, a 2 story 4 townhouse development behind our place has been built over the last 2 years. We have lived here in peace and quiet for over 20 years… I know Yuck Horrible but I live in hope that the people who move behind us will be quiet and neighbourly. Of course BPD husband can only see the worst of the worst scenarios occurring and  has been gradually dysregulating (again) which,of course, makes his BPD symptoms worse.

There was quite a lot of noise yesterday as one of the building’s new residents moved in. Husband was in full flight running around (literally) saying how terrible it was and of course it was all my fault because I didn’t object to the Council hard enough to stop the development going ahead. ( as if I could!)

Anyway he informed me that he had come up with a plan. He was going to move out of our bedroom and into one of the other quieter bedrooms. Our main bedroom has an ensuite which I appreciate very much so my immediate thought was that I wasn’t going to move as well. He said things like “I know you’re not going to like this with me moving out of our room but I think it’s best for me because you know how I hate noise.”
I said that I thought it was a great idea and that I was all for it.

Well husband was shocked he couldn’t believe what I had said and worked himself into a terrible temper tantrum because I agreed with him. He had expected resistance and had all his arguments prepared… he even started using some of the words he had prepared like ‘I just want to have a discussion about this.’ I of course had shut down the discussion by totally agreeing with his first statement.

Later, He was still going on about this and that being my fault… he claimed I hadn’t got them to build a brick wall between the properties (I did get a 2.4mts / 7 feet 10 inches solid wooden fence and agreement they would plant quick growing hedging plants along our mutual border which they have done.
I snapped, I couldn’t help it. I told him that I was sick of him blaming me for everything little thing that happened that he didn’t like. This happens all the while about small things and even larger things happening in the world he yells at me as if I am somehow to blame. ( We got a flat tyre the other day, picked up a nail somewhere,  but he managed go on and on at me as he said it was my fault because we had to visit a certain place)

Anyway, I left the room to go and have a lie down and later he came in and was angry and was saying that I was wrong to say that he always blamed me and then curiously he started telling me that similar had happened to him with his first wife… that she had accused him of belittling her and that now I had said something similar and that it wasn’t true then and it isn’t true with me. He said he shouldn’t have to think that maybe there was something wrong with him. Wow. Although he is in denial at least the seed has been planted.
He slept in our bedroom last night and all was quiet… 

[townhouse]

Of course things have gotten much worse since my last post.

Husband has been stewing on the things I’ve said and my hopeful idea that he might be seeing how he acts towards me a little, has turned on its head with him completely berating me about everything I do wrong and that he can’t believe that he chose the wrong woman again.

So of course it’s nothing to do with him… it’s that he’s let these dreadful women into his life. I cannot express the horrible things he said.
 As usual when we have a huge blow up, it looks like the end of the relationship but I don’t know if I am willing to go it alone. When he shows me clearly how little I mean to him again, I ask my self again  “Why do I stay.”

[livednlearned]

It's tough to be on the receiving ends of these kinds of rants 

I'm so sorry you had to listen to someone berate you like that.

When he shows me clearly how little I mean to him again, I ask my self again  “Why do I stay.”

There are many reasons to stay, and they are different for everyone. What reasons did you come up with when you asked yourself this question?

[townhouse]

Thank you for responding livednlearnd. Your question has triggered quite an emotional reaction in me and I will be thinking about this earnestly before I respond in a short time.

[townhouse]

I am absolutely kicking myself that I let go and said things I shouldn’t have. It’s taken years to get his trust whereby at times he was talking to me in a relatively normal fashion about his thoughts, about his daughters and what he was going to do about selling a collection he has. As long as I kept to my emotional boundaries and never JADEd, always validated, that I did indeed walk on egg shells etc, we were getting along quite well with a few small blow ups but nothing major.

Over the last few months, with the development at the back of our place and certain world and local events he has become very agitated…talking non stop at me, looking for an argument and excessively blaming me wherever something isn’t to his liking.

Also, and I don’t know if this is common to others with BPD but when he gets like this his sense of smell becomes acutely strong and he is forever sniffing the air for something he doesn’t like. But worse he comes into the ensuite,  sniffing while I am brushing my teeth and complaining that my toothpaste is “so strong”. I can only shower in the morning because to do so at night, even with the door shut and the exhaust fan on, my shampoo brings him such intolerable sensitivity that he gets furious with me… so I don’t. It’s so annoying that he will happily cook bacon and eggs in the morning and fry up onions if he’s doing some cooking in the afternoon but any cooking I do and I always use the extractor fan, gets an over the top opening of all outside doors and windows and the closing of internal doors away from the kitchen… complete with moans and sighs “strong smells”. I am not allowed to cook fish in the house at all.

Look I do get it, he is mentally disturbed and I feel bad for him and I broke down and spoke as though you would to a normal person who could take some criticism.
I have been looking through lots of back posts and my heart goes out to all of us going through life like this. One response to a post stood out and spoke to me and I copied and pasted. I think it was Cat Familiar but sorry I didn’t get the name of who was being answered so I hope they forgive me for putting it here without acknowledgment, it just summed up so perfectly how I feel.

“I hate what my life has become, a non-stop tiptoeing, constantly looking over my shoulder, devoting so much time and energy trying to avoid the next typhoon.  I find myself hiding the real me, swallowing my words, my wants.  I keep my opinions to myself and avoid doing things I want to do out of FEAR.  I don't want to do it anymore.”

AND yet I stay, I cling on living in hope against my better judgment, that things will get better and Why… because I love him.

[EyesUp]

Townhouse,

Many of us have been in a similar position - Seemingly aware of our partner's behavior, aware of the abusive aspects, and yet unable to take action or make a change - either in or out of the relationship.

We know a few truisms:
You can't change another person (how many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb? only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change...).
B-Cluster individuals don't self-actualize in an effective way, so change is... unlikely.  Instead, they externalize almost everything - so there's a lot of blaming, projecting...
etc. 

In my case, I had a 14yr marriage within a 25yr relationship - and for the longest time, I was stuck. As you describe, seeking - hoping - for a way to change.  We went through four counselors over the years - in retrospect, predictably not productive.

In the end, there were a couple of things that played out in my situation that finally led to change.  Everyone is unique, so this might not apply to you...

The first thing was:  My (now ex) uBPDw had an affair.  My first response was to try to work through that, too.  I had become adept at rescuing, etc., and putting my needs far out of the way.  In the end, although I was willing to try - and somewhat desperate to keep things together for our kids - this was a breach that was not repaired, which led me to really explore and acknowledge my own feelings.  This last part is where I suggest you focus - don't be afraid to get in touch with your feelings.  Most of us spend way too much time attempting to navigate someone else's feelings instead of maintaining a healthy balance that includes room - and respect - for our own core.

The second thing was:  Radical acceptance.  For the longest time, I thought this meant that I had to accept my partner as she was.  And yet, there were things about her that I could never truly, fully accept (anger, distortion, and later infidelity, etc.).  Fast forward:  I came to understand that the thing I needed to accept was... me.  I could accept that divorce, which I had insisted was not for me (for all the usual reasons - fear of failure, finances, loneliness, etc.) was actually not an insurmountable option.  In fact, the chance to reboot and restart was...  a gift that I didn't know was possible.

I'm not advocating divorce - however I'm here to tell you that you may yet have options that just haven't come into focus yet. 

I was inspired as I read your story about pre-empting an argument with agreement. Instead of viewing that episode as betraying some confidence that you've spent years to develop - consider that the moment may have been an example of being true to yourself.  Or simply true to truth.  A BPD's partner can gain a lot from enforcing boundaries, and boundaries can take many shapes and forms...  declining to accept blame for something that's entirely not your fault seems like a very basic boundary.

What would happen if you asked your partner how he'd like to manage to the transition with the neighborhood?  Does he have any requests or suggestions for what's next?  Instead of railing against the new townhouses and the inevitable future, maybe he's got some ideas about what he'd like to see when people actually start to move in?

Good luck.

[townhouse]

Thanks for your kind and thoughtful response EyesUp. I’m sorry that on top of dealing with BPD symptoms you had to go through infidelity as well. I know how soul destroying rejection in that way can be. This my second marriage and there were infidelities in the first which led to the breakdown of the marriage after 23 years. I am relieved to say that there has been nothing of that nature in this relationship with my husband. If there had I would have been long gone.

Way back when I first started seeing my husband I asked mutual friends about him and his first marriage, they said he had been entirely faithful the whole of the time even though in a very unhappy marriage. Waited until his daughters were older before ending it.

Like others, I wasn’t aware of mental instability until we were well into the relationship, I thought he was charmingly eccentric until the real nasty, belittling, berating ways showed themselves.

Regarding this home and the possibility of noise, he already started ranting about how we could move. We moved at his insistence 8 times in the first 14 years of being together. He moved for different work places (always leaving because he fell out with someone, usually the boss) and also moved just because he thought the grass was going to be greener, it wasn’t.

Thank goodness I managed to hold onto this home where we are now as it was my home before we met. It is new(ish) in a good area, in a nice city with great facilities including hospitals which we will both further need. He had a triple bypass pass 2 years ago.

He does have options if he can’t stand the noise. We have a country holiday home which is pretty basic. He’s up there now, I have no idea when he’ll be back. He does try to do renovations but leaves them half done. Still it is nice to visit for the bird life and the trees. I used to go there more often as I love gardening. He got mad one time that a couple of plants had died due to me not being there to water them (Covid lockdown and when he had his operation) and has now actually forbidden me ( turned the water off) to water anything because it is wasting water resources as we don’t go there enough. I was very upset about this at the time. He also disparages my gardening efforts at our townhome, which hurts a lot.

Thanks to all here for listening to my rants and whinges, I really don’t have anyone to talk to about him. We don’t see anyone except my sons and their partners, whom he barely tolerates and his daughter who has BPD traits as well.  I don’t like to mention what he’s like to my sons because they barely get on now and if they were to say anything he didn’t like he would blow up. One son was here the other day and I kid you not, husband said he didn’t like the way he looked sideways at him… there was nothing wrong.

I do have some old girl friends whom I see occasionally but I wouldn’t go into the details of my life with my husband with them because I’m sure they would try to be helpful but it would actually be being quite hurtful for me to hear.

I have, however after reading other posts here, decided to get some personal counselling next year. Someone to talk to. I even rang up and they said ring again mid January for an appointment. This has cheered me up.

[townhouse]

I found this study online and while they are hesitant in their conclusions they believe they have indeed found a correlation between heightened sense of smell  (odour sensitivity impairment) and factors such as increased anxiety, depression, life stress and psychological distress.

It would seem that these factors could be seen as descriptive of BPD. but of course acknowledging that a lot more work would need to be done before a direct correlation could be found.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6437019/

[townhouse]

I have finally heard from husband on the phone this morning. He is still slightly dysregulating but not as much as before with me. While not exactly white I am perhaps beige. I apologised for the “argument” and mentioned the bad things both of us said. He replied that he can’t even remember that now.

I don’t know if that’s true but could be because something else is setting him off at the moment. He had a visit from his younger brother whom he hadn’t seen for about 5 years. Husband called his brother a monster. Said he’s crazy. He talked about all the crazy things brother did and said. He told him he had to go.  Prior to leaving brother rang their other older brother who is in a retirement home. Husband said this brother just whined and bleated how bad his life was in the home and he (husband) couldn’t stand to listen to him. Husband is just going on and on about terrible brothers etc.

Sadly husband won’t be coming back from country holiday home for Christmas. I have 2 sons and their partners coming for a Christmas lunch on the Monday. He says he’s not in a good space to be making small talk with my family. He’s canceled the next days visit to his daughter  after Christmas as well. We were supposed to go to her place for a couple of days and quite frankly I’m glad I don’t have to go. She has BPD traits and can turn on us at anytime. She can change from being pleasant to giving me glaring looks at a moments notice.

It’s not unusual for husband to not be present for Christmas. I’d say in the 23 years we’ve been together, I’d say he’s spent half of them alone. It still hurts though.

[livednlearned]

townhouse, it's a relief to hear things are less bad and that (maybe?) he's getting back to baseline.

Reading your post, I'm wondering if you've heard of The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans?

Some of the skills I learned in that book were effective with my ex (uBPD). Even when he was drinking I had some success getting him to wind down. One of the things I was able to do was to hold up my hand and repeat "stop" in a firm tone until he did just that.

Instead of trying to appease him or avoid him, when I spoke to him like I was parenting him, he would go from abusive man to petulant child. It wasn't exactly the relationship I had dreamed of but at last he was no longer raging.

[townhouse]

Thanks livednlearned, I will see if that book is available on Kindle.

Another phone call. I’m trying to be validating but I seem to have lost how to do it or he is still too dysreg to be able to talk about anything.

He is now going to his daughter’s place on the Tuesday what we call Boxing day. I was all “Oh that’s nice for you both” but inside I was hurt again because he will spend time with her over this holiday time but not with me. We were both supposed to be going to visit her but I’ve been cut out. So hurtful and annoying.

However, I do truly understand that he has to see his daughter because as I mentioned in another post that she has BPD traits and while now 48 I understand she has had depression in the past (in her 20’s)  with suicide idealisation. She has recently broken up with yet another man she was going out with for 18 months after an outburst from her which she now regrets. Husband is aware she might slip into depression and so he would be wanting to look after her. When she turns on father with hurtful words which she always does, I guess he’ll then come back home to me.

Thanks to all who read/listen. It is really nice to know we are actually one big family united by our loved ones mental attributes.

[townhouse]

I seem to need to keep family here updated with what is going on with my BPD husband.
His daughter decided to do other things over Christmas so husband didn’t go to her place after all.
Instead he has returned to me and our house in the city because according to him it’s very noisy at our holiday home because the neighbours have put two little male calves in the field next door and they keep lowing (mooing) and he’s now mad at them (both the neighbours and the cattle) Honestly if you didn’t laugh you’d cry or vice versa.

[townhouse]

All going quite well atm

When husband gets highly dysyregulated and leaves me to go to either holiday home or his daughters place, I go into an altered state whereby I think this is the time when he really leaves and takes up the Hermit stage of this disorder. Even though I constantly read both here and in books that people with BPD do not want to be abandoned, I continue to think that he has this hermit desire and this is the time won’t come back to me.

I then try to process how I am feeling and unconsciously try to convince myself that being without him would be better for me. However, the relief I feel and the feelings of love for him as soon as he says he’s coming home cannot be denied by me. I understand that it is part of the push pull but I just like being with him when he is his reasonable self.

This is all not to say that he doesn’t drive me mad with the things he says and does but I do believe he is trying to understand himself.

[livednlearned]

Do you think the "pull" phast is him trying to regulate intense emotions?

Not that he does it in a skilled way, but maybe for you it's tolerable -- maybe it would be ideal for him to say, Look I need some time to myself. My emotions are raging and I don't want to hurt you or me. See you on the other side." But he's not that guy, so you have to kind of fill in those words/intentions for him.

I mean, he left the holiday house because the calves were mooing. So his irritations are not focused solely on you, they are distributed.

[ForeverDad]

Even though I constantly read both here and in books that people with BPD do not want to be abandoned, I continue to think that he has this hermit desire and this is the time won’t come back to me.

That abandonment fear, it's dysfunctional because their behaviors and overreactions essentially make it so difficult that they are abandoned.  Yes, sometimes they exit (abandon) before they can be abandoned, but also proper boundary enforcement does it too.