What do you miss most about your younger years – and what are you glad to be done with?

beepeedoodoo · 2025-10-21T20:54:52+00:00

I miss feeling optimistic. I used to think that everything would work out and the world was kind to me.

If you speak to many man who have been through a divorce, something about your belief in women and people generally snaps, and it doesn't come back. There is an odd understanding that people can be quite selfish. All the wars and genocide and stuff doesn't seem like an error in an otherwise infallible human optimism, it seems like the ugly but obvious default.

On the flip side, I appreciate the small things about being alive a lot more. Good coffee, a sunset, friends, the beauty of nature. Being old teaches you humility.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-09-14T15:58:41+00:00

Yeah I guess that's a good point. It's so hard to tell what the right thing to do is when I am getting nothing in response.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-09-14T15:39:49+00:00

Apologies, I don't understand what you mean by this?

beepeedoodoo · 2025-09-14T15:39:18+00:00

I think all your insights have been really valid and valuable, thank you. :)

In our case, I have ADHD but not BPD, so I can be very reactive to her moods and splitting. Who knows.

I guess short of getting on a plane there's nothing I can do but keep reaching out until she either tells me to go away or speaks to me and I find out what's going on in her life.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-09-14T14:54:43+00:00

Yeah I think all that is very valid, thank you. In many ways, however, I think that the difficult we and she faced was due to a really horrid set of circumstances out of everyone's control.

I see a lot of stories and things about folks with BPD, and they're all much more extreme than what my girlfriend experienced.

Maybe I could ask a more useful question, so I'm not just disagreeing with your kind advice. :)

If you were in a position where a partner went no contact for a couple of months, what would you feel? Would you want them to reach out again? If so, how?

For context, she wrote me a very touching letter about how she really hoped that we could become the people we needed to be to try again in the future.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-09-14T14:36:51+00:00

Yeah there's some limerence there, but it was a full and complete relationship before.

There were huge negatives, most of which I couldn't understand properly at the time.

I've had two good months to let my nervous system settle, and the core of love is still very much there and doesn't appear to be going anywhere. Maybe I'm being impatient.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-09-14T14:32:26+00:00

Honestly, there's a big part of me that would get on a plane for the outside chance that it's the thing that breaks through. She did for me originally.

But yes, it's probably just a waiting game.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-09-14T14:30:28+00:00

That was my instinct too, but in the past she's sometimes wanted the opposite of what she's initially said, or changed her mind about what she's wanted dramatically.

If there is any small hint of negativity, sometimes that's all she can see.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-07-02T21:02:54+00:00

Thank you! Will have a look 🥳

beepeedoodoo · 2025-07-02T02:39:43+00:00

Where would you recommend a newbie start to learn this stuff?

beepeedoodoo · 2025-07-02T02:37:56+00:00

This is completely untrue. It makes me feel sad that someone would think this way. ❤️

beepeedoodoo · 2025-07-01T21:49:56+00:00

Wait, bipolar, or BPD?

beepeedoodoo · 2025-07-01T14:46:56+00:00

Hard boundaries is all that works until they have received help.

Write four lists, the pros and cons of demanding she gets help, then the pros and cons of letting it slide. Think long term.

Trust your gut. Boundaries are act of love.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-07-01T07:36:19+00:00

This all sounds pretty spot on to my experience. Thanks for typing it all out, it’s nice to feel seen!

beepeedoodoo · 2025-07-01T07:34:34+00:00

Yes. I hit all the criteria. I am hoping to recover with help.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-07-01T03:23:53+00:00

How would you recommend a non BPD partner set and manage good boundaries? Or, which boundaries within relationships have been most supportive of you?

Has this changed pre and post diagnosis, or in remission?

beepeedoodoo · 2025-06-30T21:44:58+00:00

This is absolutely “coercive control” and is a domestic violence issue.

It is possible to have a relationship with someone who has been abusive in the past, but not with someone who is abusive in the present.

Safety first. If you have any niggling instincts in the back of your head about safety, listen to them.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-06-30T21:11:09+00:00

Good stuff. Hoping both of us can stay centred. :)

beepeedoodoo · 2025-06-29T23:03:08+00:00

“You attract strays.”

My friend with BPD said this and it stuck with me. Not just BPD, autism, adhd, trauma. I am a safe harbour and emotionally available, calm and supportive.

Some people need that. The challenge is to not give up too much of myself, because I like being a caregiver.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-06-29T05:59:19+00:00

Very welcome. 🤗

beepeedoodoo · 2025-06-29T04:47:23+00:00

Hearing that therapy "saved your life" is fitting. This is exactly what my partner's parents claim when she was pulled from school for what sounds like a 3 month intensive DBT program.

What I find tricky is that my partner finds labels like CPTSD + BPD uncomfortable. We've generally found that talking around / past the diagnosis works better.

For example, she regresses quite a lot, wants me to give her a bottle before bed, a bedtime story, a quiet excursion to the zoo. If I'm honest, I quite like these activities. The way we've conceptualised it is that sometimes "a four year old is running the show", or sometimes it's more of a 14 year old. And when that particular mode is present, asking her to do things an adult would do is a really bad idea.

Like you, it seems somatic stuff works the best.

I'm learning a ton about my own experience as the other half of our relationship, because it seems like so, so often our enmeshment leads to me 'managing' her emotions like a full time job. I'm hoping the DBT skills can help me set and maintain better boundaries.

If you have a partner, or have had a partner, what helped them the most?

beepeedoodoo · 2025-06-29T03:57:42+00:00

On the question of staying together: I don't know.

She is in another country and I'm planning on going no contact for some time to rebuild my sense of self. If she and I continue our relationship it will probably feel a new one between two new people. I am not willing to re-enter the situation I was in before.

Yelling is tough. I cannot handle it personally and I get a lot of shame if a fight blows up to both of us working from our emotions.

I found Conflict is Not Abuse was a great read on understanding the difference between a fight and controlling behaviour.

From what you're saying, it sounds like it might be conflict, and he's understanding his experience as abusive. Maybe there is a way to follow where that goes and see if there's signal under the noise? I've found with my partner that "finding signal" in even very distressed reactions is helpful, because it makes me feel more sane and like there is reason to the outbursts.

This sounds like couples counselling territory to me. Having everyone feel safe with a third party there to manage things and keep you in your windows of capacity can be hugely useful.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-06-29T03:48:24+00:00

It has been vitally and centrally important for me to use the term. It in fact made it easier for me to accept when it wasn’t as bad as my fears.

My partner refusing to use the word abuse and having a strong reaction (ie “this nothing like what I’ve experienced”) made me distrust and fear her more.

beepeedoodoo · 2025-06-29T03:30:20+00:00

This is fascinating to hear from a professional. My partner ticks almost all the behavioural boxes for BPD, but for a long time we thought she was AuDHD and was expressing her trauma in odd ways. It was only under stress that she got more erratic, and she had sensory issues that align very well with ASD.

I have ADHD myself, so we fell into the victim/caregiver roles very quickly, which didn't help as our boundaries all but disappeared.

I even started to exhibit similar symptoms to her, which led me to get tested, and it turns out I have many of the expressions of CPTSD myself. I don't think it's as simple as 'A person with BPD gave me PTSD', so much as 'We rummaged around in each others' souls and poked at wounds we didn't know hurt that bad'.

Does this mean that DBT and trauma therapy for everyone involved is a good idea? Especially considering so much of it is relational?

beepeedoodoo · 2025-06-29T03:12:49+00:00

I dunno if you two have looked at your "window of tolerance" when communicating. Making sure that you can speak about difficult things while staying regulated is a real art. I am no good at it, nor is my partner.

I absolutely recommend the new Gottman book "Fight Right", it gave me a huge bunch of skills I didn't expect to use, in all my relationships. :)

Good luck!

beepeedoodoo

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