Coping with fiance with BPD
Where to begin. My fiance had struggled with BPD for most of her adult life. She's now 44. We have known each other for 14 years but only until the last year did we decide to move forward with a life together. Until now how ever little we spoke or how much we spoke I only saw the good side of her. A loving women whose all in with her feelings, and has a huge heart to a fault. Well then something happened a few weeks back and we started to decline. Rapidly. I couldnt do anything right, I set her off with the littlest things. I'd misspeak and she'd take it an run and not allow me to correct what I meant or explain. I would try and talk it all out and ahe would shotgun issues at me, then ask "why", or what ever. When I try to answer, I'm "focusing on the wrong thing", or " I don't know what she's even mad about". I tend to be able to calm her when she's in her head, but not this time. Now its to the point where she's closed off, stand offish, justifying her actions and attitude and blaming it all on me.
With her I have to take the high road much more often than she does. I have to yield even when I know I'm in the right. Sadly she knows how she gets when she looses it and gets "crazy" ( her term not mine). The emotional swing will cut you in half if ypur not ready for it. And she fights every bit as hard as she loves. She feels nothing is ever good enough, she fears ill just leave her, she feels like indont listen to her. All symptoms of BPD. She's aware of her condition and has worked hard over the years to try and change behaviors but still this is a part of her and im struggling to find a way to redirect her.
I'd love to hear from anyone else that may be dealing with this issue and how they cope and jeep the relationship moving, especially after an instance like this.
@Abydos
Hello there Abydos, sorry to hear about the difficult moment you guys are facing. It's surely important to hear from people that might have experienced the same, to look at coping mechanisms or strategies that could be tried to see if it'd work for your situation as well.
Wish you to find here the support you are looking for.
I really hope you guys can overcome this together.
My wife also struggles with BPD. We have a lot of the same issues that you mentioned and it’s really hard sometimes. It’s good that you realize those things are all symptoms of BPD and not really something you can control. I understand completely about you feeling like you have to be the one to take the high road in your relationship. It gets so easy sometimes for my thoughts to start spiraling out of control into blaming everything wrong in my life on her. I have issues with anxiety and depression though so that definitely doesn’t help. The main thing you can do is try to communicate very openly. A lot of the time I’ll think we’re communicating and then realize later that one of us meant something completely different than the other one thought. Now if we get upset about something that’s been said we try to talk it out and figure out what was actually meant because we both know that neither of us would intentionally hurt the other. Hopefully this is helpful to you. The app helped us a lot with communication.
Thanks for the insight. I really appreciate it. If you have more insight or strategies I'd love to hear about them. It's hard to find someone who understands from the perspective we have. Anything you can offer up is much appreciated.
@abydos Sorry in the first post I was trying to say the Lasting app helped us a lot with communication. I accidentally left out the Lasting part. But it asks you and your partner questions that you both answer that helps you understand better what the other one is feeling and what their thought process was. It really helped us so much with communication. My other suggestion would be don’t try too hard to keep explaining yourself if she is really upset. My wife kind of shuts down when she gets upset and I try to explain my side of things and that I wasn’t trying to hurt her but once she gets like that I kind of have to just wait for her to calm down a little bit before we can keep talking about it. The first few years that was extremely frustrating for me because my feelings were always how dare you take something the wrong way and think that I would possibly have meant it that way to hurt you. Now I realize we have extremely different thought processes and if one of us takes something the wrong way we try to talk about it more before it gets to the point of being really upset.
@Abydos
Well BPD is not a disease
I hear this often, people blaming the BPD for everything. It's very undermining to a person to be treated like "oh thats just your BPD". No, it's real to us (I have BPD). Just because it doesn't make logical sense to you doesn't mean it's not real to her. The more you treat her as someone with BPD issues the more she is going to retract into herself and away from you
So basically, treat her as you would anyone else - that's my advice. We need someone strong, independent, assured, She can learn to change her behaviours but it's not through talking it's through experience. If that's not you then your relationship won't survive because the fear within her has been triggered and it's overwhelming and generally only ends one way - it gets to the point where the fear causes so much anxiety that she would rather be alone
Hmmm....kind of confused about where ypur coming from....
First , I never referred to BPD as a disease. It's a condition or disorder.
Secondly the instance I have described was not only textbook BPD reaction but was also identified by her as being BPD driven because of her insecurities and fear.
I'm quite the opposite actually, I always take her moods , whatever they are, as her and normal. She's gotten twisted before because I tend to see everyone as "normal" and often discount their conditions because they may not ne visible.
I'm seeking out every avenue I can to better my understanding to ultimately be a better man for her.. so again, sorry but you didn't really give any valuable advice except stating the obvious....
However if you are a female dealing with this id be most interested to get your take on it as well as any insights to combating the episodes or ways you need your partner to react.
Thanks!
@Abydos
I'm saying that you altering your behaviour and responses to her in order to try and help her will fail and only serve to expedite the destruction of your relationship
If you are not a solid rock then you will end up hurt and resentful
Solid rocks don't move do they? Let her do the moving. You just remain as a solid rock. Eventually she calms down and realises its safe
If you are not a solid rock then you will fail
It's like a pendulum, the more energy you put towards it, the faster it will swing. If you remain a solid immovable object the pendulum (bpd ambivalence) will eventually stop swinging
@Abydos hello there! I empathize a lot to what you are saying! I have BPD as well and my fiancee is very supporting of me but I am aware it can be too much for her!
We feel everything very intensely and if we start splitting we might really hurt everyone around us, including ourselves.
What my fiancee does is understanding more what I have. I show her videos explaining things, I've also explained her how my brain works and I also try to really work on myself.
Tho this is a strong struggle for me, I am aware it can also be for her.
So if it's possible, try to make her feel wanted and comfortable and perhaps if she's able to, ask her how it is to deal with this disorder and create a safe space.
I can see you have been doing a lot to work things out and that is appreciated. Make sure to take care of yourself as well.
Tha ks for everyone's input, much appreciated! So after our blow out and a rough Auguat. For the first time, for a few days, we were back to normal. Things were great all day and night.
Until yesterday. I normally will message her throughout the mornings before lunch from work. Not alot just a quick, hope your morning is good, something funny happened, whatever. But yesterday I was doing some practical testing for my training manager, that tied me up all morning and I couldn't message her. When I went to lunch I called her, like I do every day, and she was feeling some kind of way. I immediately recognized it, so I tried to let her know how my morning went and all I had to do. I told her literally everything that took up my time. And I said "I was in the office all morning with my training manager ". That's where the spiral began. Later that night I asked how she was feeling and she told me I lied about what I was doing. I was so confused. Because I told her the night prior, I would be busy and might not message because I had an hour and a half test to take and a few other things. But because it took 5 hours to complete all the tasks, being observed by a training manager the whole time, I couldn't just say, wait a sec ma'am I need to shoot a message to someone. She thought I was being shady and lied.
Sorry I felt the context was needed to pose the dilemma I have. I asked her to tell me what had been on her mind and she said ok ill give you a chance to not be defensive. She expressed I "lied" to her, and I new she was insecure about my work and she was upset because she couldn't understand what took 5 hours when I said an hour and a half. How do I explain myself and make her see that her getting twisted up was unnecessary and not fair? It was work.....I apologized for not messaging her, tried to to explain it all again, but she just kept stacking it on me. No matter what I said it didn't matter, she was stuck on me lying and being shady.... I asked her how I could explain what happened truthfully without her taking as me being defensive. And she wouldn't budge, got obstinate and shut down.
I feel when I'm in the right, or innocent I still can never win, per say. Its like her insecurities try to always identify something she can "catch me on". Then it doesn't matter what I say I'm wrong for trying to explain and she closes.
@Abydos
It sounds like you really care about your fiance, that is very sweet to see. It must be so difficult to try to untangle this sort of behavior and hear such things from her. My mother has BPD and I will try to describe what I have seen and felt:
I find that often, BPD episodes are triggered by PTSD or some form of trauma. And I've found that most overreactions by people who are generally loving tend to have some sort of reason behind their "crazy" actions (although this definitely does not excuse their actions). You mentioned that something happened a few weeks back and that's when it all started. You also mentioned that when you didn't message her from work at a time when she was expecting it, she started to spiral once again.
It sounds like your partner may have had incidents in her past that caused her to feel an extreme fear of abandonment (either by others or abandoning herself through giving in to her insecurities), which is causing her to lash out at you and insist that she is in the right. It sounds like she starts spiraling when she feels unsafe and becomes emotionally aggressive. A state of aggression does temporarily feel good for the one being the aggressor, but it ignores the existence of the emotional pain they are feeling and the cycle of aggression repeats over and over again.
For her, instead of sitting with her emotions of sadness and waiting for you to come home so you can comfort/spend time with her, it was probably easier to turn to anger and blame you. It is difficult because the more you tried to defend yourself, she probably got angrier and more irrational. You mentioned that your fiance shuts down when faced with irrefutable logic and relentlessly tries to "catch you". It sounds like she is trying to make herself feel better instead of being honest with you and just saying "Please acknowledge I was hurt and felt lonely when you did not message me". When people are feeling triggered, they don't really respond well to logic. They just want that pain to go away (which is why anger is so often present).
But, I understand that it is hard not to defend oneself when you're being attacked instead of being told that someone is lonely and sad. I deeply relate to your position in all of this.
I wish I had a manual to give you to sort through this and get her to stop behaving in this way, but all I will say is that I hope you don't abandon yourself and continuously give in to her. This has the possibility to create a new trauma for you (best to avoid that if possible...) I hope you can behave the way you want to and stand your ground without having to doubt your reality. And perhaps when she is calmer and cools off, you can gently ask her about what hurt her and then address how *you* feel when she behaves like this with you. I have often found that in situations when someone is reacting in an angry and irrational manner- if I care enough- I will try to stop being defensive and try my best to make them feel safe in the moment. Prioritizing their *emotional safety* over rationality and logic. And after they calm down, I try to explain my stance. I can only really say what works for me, but I wish you the best of luck!!
And thank you for sharing. I hope my insights can be of some help.
@Abydos
I appreciate your difficulty. While I haven't been in a romantic relationship with someone with BPD, I was very close friends for years with someone struggling with such challenges. I can relate to what you're saying about your experiences and frustrations. I did empathize with how her past traumas and emotional issues scarred her life and made her deeply miserable. But it didn’t really make it easier in the moment when suddenly her anger was pointed at me and I was being blamed for something that didn’t make any logical sense. Sometimes what she said even seemed to change from one sentence to the next.
One of the difficult things for me with all of it was that she was reluctant to consistently acknowledge her difficulties. Some days she knew that she needed help and support and sought it out. Other days she insisted that she was just fine and that the problem was with the rest of the world. It sounds like a positive thing that your fiancé has put (and continues to) so much effort into awareness, healing, and management of her BPD. I know that takes a lot and I hope that it will be helpful to you both. If you’re open to it, couples therapy might be something to explore as well.
Another difficult thing for me in the friendship was trying to maintain boundaries. I was trying to manage situations myself rather than having her manage herself. I was appeasing her and tiptoeing around her triggers rather than maintaining space for my own thoughts and emotions. That was not healthy for me, and I’m guessing ultimately would not help her either. There is a book I read that was helpful at the time called “Stop walking on Eggshells”. I’d recommend it.
I wish you and your fiancé the best.
JustSophia