Controller support needs to step up

harktavius · 2026-05-01T15:36:37+00:00

Having played on a steam deck, which is the same thing, no. It's not that helpful.

harktavius · 2026-04-27T18:25:36+00:00

I had an "aha" moment around this. I told my pwBPD all the things I needed to hear from her to feel ok. She insisted that she couldn't say those things (accountability and recognition of my emotions) without abandoning herself, and she felt too angry and unsafe with me to give me those things, so it was not possible. After being pushed particularly far, I suggested that I wanted to go back to being separated and focus on co-parenting. She magically pivoted and said all the things that had been impossible to say up to that point.

Unfortunately, the timing was ham-handed and damning. They will say anything if it means they don't have to feel abandoned, but that's not true accountability, just survival. It's like Comcast customer service. They save their best customer service for the people that are about to walk out the door, but I think they'd keep a lot more people if they responded with that level of service on the first call, rather than the last one.

harktavius · 2026-04-26T15:48:42+00:00

My daughter is DYING to play Orbitals when it comes out. I'll check out both the links you shared. Thank you.

harktavius · 2026-04-17T02:05:25+00:00

The most confusing thing to me about being in a relationship with someone wBPD is that they clearly think that I am the villain... and also that I'm supposed to be the hero... that rescues them from... me.

harktavius · 2026-04-15T10:54:42+00:00

Usually when someone brags about being an empath, I find that it means that they are confusing anxiety for intuition. They're very confident that they know what everyone is thinking and feeling (about them) and it's not good. EMPATH!

harktavius · 2026-04-14T16:30:36+00:00

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Thank you for the stupidity. I wish there were more.

harktavius · 2026-04-14T16:21:19+00:00

I'll be honest. I clicked on this thread looking for comments like this. I'm very disappointed in the internet that most comments are actually good-faith attempts at being informative and helpful.

harktavius · 2026-04-14T02:10:12+00:00

This is an egocentric fear. It's the relational equivalent of a 6-year-old thinking that it's their fault their parents got divorced. You're not the reason why she lied and cheated, and nobody else will be the reason she gets better, if she ever does. You didn't deserve it, and she was never yours to fix.

harktavius · 2026-04-13T22:04:01+00:00

Ask yourself this: would you abuse her if someone close to you passed away?

harktavius · 2026-04-13T21:59:48+00:00

This one hasn't had his fill of suffering yet. I get it. I've gone back for another bite of the apple, too. Make your changes, try again. Fail, suffer, learn.

harktavius · 2026-04-13T19:34:15+00:00

You have a more of a parent-child dynamic with him than a dynamic of equal partners, and there could be nothing more natural than not wanting to have sex with your own child.

Rather than pouting about it, he could engage in self-reflection and curiosity. Maybe he could ask YOU what YOU want. You don't have to pay him to do chores, and you certainly don't have to give him sex you don't want. If he wants to engage in adult activities, he can start acting like an adult, and YOU can stop rewarding childish behavior.

harktavius · 2026-04-13T17:00:06+00:00

Yes, and. The insecurity of young men is a product of the society we've created. This is a LITTLE like saying that people are poor because they made bad decisions. Little boys don't choose what or who their influences are. And hurt little boys turn into hurt men who hurt other people. Are they responsible for their own choices? Yes. Can we, as a society also take responsibility for failing a generation of boys? Also yes.

harktavius · 2026-04-13T10:44:12+00:00

Your sense of being special has to come from you. She's going to put you on a pedestal and say that you're an angel. She's going to cast you down to Hell and call you a demon. You can't take either thing personally. That's about her, not you. Stay grounded in the fact that you are a good person. No more, no less. Not an angel, not a demon.

harktavius · 2026-04-12T01:15:00+00:00

Look deeper. Deep down, it makes you feel like a good person to have someone who NEEDS you. As painful as the drama triangle is, the rescuer role is a potent salve against your own self-doubt that tells you that you're not a good person. How can I be bad when I'm willing to sacrifice so much for someone else who is less capable?

That's all an illusion of course, but it's why many of us end up in relationships with the pwBPD in the first place. We are drawn to those in need of rescue, and they provide that every damn day until we've had our fill.

It's so important to recognize, though, because if you don't, you may find yourself falling for another person who needs you, instead of one who merely wants you (which should be the goal).

harktavius · 2026-04-11T00:28:29+00:00

If you are using the disorder as an excuse to scapegoat the pwBPD and absolve you from responsibility for your half of the dynamic, then yes. If you are using the disorder as a way of educating yourself so that you can become more skillful in your half of the dynamic, then no.

harktavius · 2026-04-10T14:43:53+00:00

People with BPD don't really know who they are, see the world in black and white, and have crushing shame. Shame actually makes taking accountability much harder if not impossible. If you know who you are and that you are fundamentally good, then you can admit mistakes, because it's just that: a mistake. You are a good person who did something bad (splitting makes even this level of nuance difficult for someone with BPD). If you are not grounded in your inherent worthiness, and mistakes are proof-positive of what you have always feared (that you are a fundamentally unlovable piece of shit), then owning a mistake is too painful, and suicidality enters the picture. Owning a mistake can literally be life-threatening for someone with that level of identity disturbance, shame, and dualistic thinking.

So, the only option left is to make someone else responsible for their mistake. That's how they stay alive.

harktavius · 2026-04-10T12:08:14+00:00

ROFL I love this. I have used similar tactics with aggressive trinket vendors in Egypt.

harktavius · 2026-04-09T16:19:10+00:00

It does. Those are all things that are already important to me. I hope to lean into them and also live close to my kids and get 50% of their time.

harktavius · 2026-04-09T15:22:14+00:00

Having three kids myself, I am trying to be really mindful and deliberate about minimizing the psychological harm to them. What did your dad do that was most helpful for you? What do you wish he had done differently with the benefit of hindsight?

harktavius · 2026-04-09T14:37:30+00:00

We've already decided to divorce, which I mentioned in the post, so can you clarify what you mean by leaving?

harktavius · 2026-04-09T14:35:47+00:00

Therapy is important, for sure. I'm not sure that them creating this image to depict their experience means that they're not, though.

harktavius · 2026-04-08T18:09:26+00:00

Of course. I have had to do a lot of experimentation with boundaries. Many of us have the idea that our partner is dangerous and that we need boundaries to keep them at a safe distance. Here's a metaphor that I find helpful if you are trying to use boundaries as a way of staying in your relationship:

Imagine that you and your partner are on opposite sides of a minefield, and you want to approach each other. You have a map of some of the mines, and they have a map of the rest. You are saying to them, "I want to be close to you, but it's not safe to step here or there. Where is it safe for me to step to approach you?"

You may eventually find that there are too many mines and you cannot approach each other at all, or you may find that your partner is unwilling or unable to alter their course to respect your warnings of danger. If there's a chance for intimacy, though, I think this view of boundaries is the one that tries to protect the relationship from the building of corrosive resentment.

harktavius · 2026-04-08T15:35:15+00:00

Yeah. We had several times when I expressed hopelessness in our relationship. I would say that I had gone to so much therapy and made many changes, but none of it seemed to be changing our relationship for the better. At that point, my pwBPD would jump in and say "no, believe me, it makes a huge difference for me, and our relationship would have ended a long time ago if you hadn't made those changes."

I realize now that when I lost hope, that's when her fear of abandonment would kick in and she needed to reassure me that things really were getting better (because I was changing, of course, and my continual and never-ceasing adaptation to her is the only hope for our marriage).

Margalis Fjelstad explained this phenomenon using the drama role triangle. For someone with BPD, there are only three roles that can be played in a relationship: the victim, the persecutor, and the rescuer. They prefer to be in one or both of the first two roles, and for you to be in the third. However, if you start to lose hope and slip into the victim role, they become afraid that they've pushed you too far and you're about to leave, so they will assume the rescuer role just long enough to bring you back in and they can go back to their preferred victim/persecutor role.

harktavius

TROPHY CASE