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September 30 - October 28, 2017
Although BP/NPs can function pretty well in some situations, they often do especially poorly at home in their personal relationships, and they often have very contradictory behaviors that may not make sense to you.
BP/NPs typically feel that it is just too much to ask of them to be responsible for anything they haven’t decided to do.
Often they believe they are too busy, too stressed, too upset, too angry, or too depressed to deal with all that sort of thing. Anyone who asks them for more than they feel they can do is likely to get verbally abused or made to feel horrible for even considering burdening them with such a request. Therefore, the Caretaker takes on more and more responsibility and family obligations because the BP/NP just won’t do them, and it is way too much work to even ask the BP/NP to do his or her share.
To them, their feelings are the actual truth of reality despite any facts to the contrary. If they feel a certain way, BP/NPs will assume that someone or something outside of themselves made them feel that way.
BP/NPs often hold an extremely perfectionist standard for the behavior of others while expecting very few or no consequences for their own behaviors. This unfair yet rigid application of rules and roles by the BP/NP is treated as normal by everyone in the family.
If you hadn’t said it that way, I wouldn’t have . . .
You did it too.
When you try to make BP/NPs see that their thinking doesn’t make sense, they can talk in circles until you are totally confused about what is going on. This can leave you feeling that you are crazy.
Love and affection are intermittent at best, and this can leave you feeling desperately needy for love.
At any rate, your needs will never be appropriately or sufficiently responded to in this relationship.
Your need for intimacy, however, is a deep human craving and is part of your life purpose. People in BP/NP relationships have both a great longing for intimacy because it is missing
The relationship with a BP/NP is not about being emotionally close, nor is it about having your innermost feelings and needs responded to. Primarily, it is the hope or fantasy of being seen, heard, and responded to that keeps Caretakers in the relationship.
You forgive the BP/NP over and over, take on more and more responsibility for the relationship, and, when nothing gets any better, end up feeling used, exhausted, angry, and confused.
Whenever the borderline acts normally, you become immensely elated, believing time and time again that now “everything will be better,” only to be let down when he or she returns to dysfunctional thinking and behaving again.
When the narcissist does something especially thoughtful, you think that he or she has “turned a corner” and matured and will now be the loving partner you want. It seems so logical.
The results of persistent pathological altruism are depression and feeling inadequate and disappointed in others and in life. You may develop a significant number of physical aches and pains because holding in what you really think and feel causes a lot of tension to build up in your body. You may especially feel pain in your head, neck, shoulders, and back. Chronic low-level depression is common when you ignore your own needs and feelings for long periods of time.
Protesting colluders are the most likely Caretakers to complain about the behaviors of the BP/NP. You try to make demands that the BP/NP treat you better, and you may spend a huge amount of time and energy trying to prove to the BP/NP that you deserve better treatment. You especially try to use logic with the BP/NP to convince him or her that you are right and the BP/NP should just “do it your way.” However, nothing in the relationship ever does change because you are not willing to take the difficult step of enforcing consequences on the BP/NP for his or her neglectful, selfish, and uncaring
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Feelings can’t go forever being shut down. Feelings that are invalidated, denied, and ignored can cause a physical tension that can explode with little or no warning.
he or she demonstrates neediness in a continuous fashion.
Everyone has these needs, and you have a right to ask for these needs to be met by your partner.
Unacknowledged feelings and needs can overwhelm you with a tidal wave of intensity if they are ignored for too long. When this happens, you are very likely to lash out with anger at the BP/NP for taking you for granted, for being selfish, and for lacking in human compassion for your needs.
In fact, most Caretakers who are not in a relationship function extremely well. You are emotionally healthier, take better care of your own needs, and enjoy friendships and social activities that you don’t have time for when with the BP/NP.
You have the right to have a variety of feelings about things, and you have the right to change your mind.
Keep in mind that the BP/NP is always the one in control of what goes on in the relationship as long as you remain the Caretaker.
You, however, take on the Caretaker task of trying to “teach” the BP/NP to think logically. Caretakers spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to come up with ways of saying and explaining things to the BP/NP that are more clear, that are more understandable, or that make more sense.
Many Caretakers describe life with a BP/NP as having another kid in an adult body to take care of.
Their insecurities can take so much energy to manage that it can become not worth it to fight for two hours about a 10-minute call to a friend.
You may even feel embarrassed to discuss what is going on in your relationship even on a casual basis with friends. If you do try to describe the truth of your relationship to a friend or relative, the gravity and level of dysfunction is rarely understood by the listener.
withdraws, pouts,
It is very likely you see the BP/NP as a master manipulator.
The difference between caring for others and being caring of others is that when you care for others, you are doing for them what they should be doing for themselves.
Being caring of the BP/NP would mean staying emotionally detached from his or her mental and emotional distortions. Of course, the only way to make that work would be for you to be truly who you are and then see what this relationship is really about.
You may find it hard to imagine how taking care of yourself and letting the BP/NP take care of him- or herself will make life better.
Some of the most prominent distortions that Caretakers have about the relationship with the BP/NP include the beliefs that the BP/NP is the problem so that you shouldn’t have to change,
You probably, rightly, believe that you have already made a monumental number of changes to accommodate your relationship with the BP/NP.
unable to make changes. That is part of the difficulty with personality disorders: people who have them cannot perceive the changes needed, they feel threatened by change, and they often don’t follow through with the changes needed.
Get over wanting to change the BP/NP, quit trying to change the BP/NP, and start focusing on what you actually have the power to change, that is, yourself.
Are you actually in danger when the BP/NP is angry?
Not only are you hiding the truth about your relationship from the rest of the world, but you may also be hiding this truth from yourself.
Keeping your relationship workings a secret allows the BP/NP to keep the status quo and keep control of you.
If you want things to change and you want more support in your life, you will need to stop keeping secrets from yourself and others, be more honest, and reach out to get that support.
The children get confused and angry when they see the BP/NP constantly breaking these family rules and expectations with no comment by you.
As long as you keep hoping, believing, and needing the BP/NP to be different rather than taking the steps that you could take to make things different, you are in the stage of denial.
It may be surprising to find out that whenever you push for the BP/NP to make the changes needed to create a life for you as the Caretaker to feel better, you are keeping yourself in denial.
You have probably changed how you say things, the words you use, or your inflection,
Those changes have simply made it possible for you to accommodate the BP/NP but have not made a better relationship for you or for the BP/NP.
Those changes may actually have reinforced the dysfunctional behaviors of the BP/NP, and they have probably worn you to a frazzle.
Anger comes up most often when the BP/NP is acting “crazy,” hostile, hurtful, selfish, illogical, and so on, alternating with denial when the BP/NP is behaving more normally.
Acting out your anger in this relationship is forbidden, so the BP/NP reacts with more rage and you feel ashamed and hurt.
You are starting to feel that the relationship with the BP/NP is unfair to you and that it really doesn’t fit what you want in an intimate relationship.
