Radical Acceptance and a Borderline Spouse
Living with someone who suffers from borderline personality disorder is extremely difficult, as we all know first hand. We are all familiar with the verbal attacks, emotional blackmail, manipulation, hurtful criticism, threats, and the silent treatment. Being woken up in the middle of the night, listening to rage, having intimacy withheld from us... the list could go on and on... yet many of us (unless we have children or parents with bpd) have chosen to get into the situation and stay in the situation in which we are living with or dealing with someone with bpd. .
The reason is different for each of us, but in the end, our goal is to make things better. How do we go about doing that when so much of the problem seems to be out of our control? How do we handle something that is so difficult to understand as borderline personality disorder?
One way is to stop fighting things and defending yourself; to learn to let go and accept what is: Radical acceptance.
When faced with a painful situation, you really have only 4 options:
· Solve the problem.
· Change how you feel about the problem.
· Accept it.
· Stay miserable; continue to be a victim.
Everyone feels pain. It is part of life to experience painful moments. We grow and learn from the pain we endure. Many times we fight against it and say to ourselves "this isn't fair". Yeah, it may not be, but by fighting against it, you aren't working through it. The very fact that you are judging it as "not right" or "unfair" means that you aren't accepting it. Yeah, it hurts. Yeah, it isn't your fault. Yeah, things can be better. Accepting the reality allows the pain to go away. Dwelling on the unfairness only keeps you stuck in your misery.
Pain + non acceptance = suffering.
Reality is what it is
Everything has a cause
Life can be worth living - even when there is pain in it.
If you accept your life "as it is" then you can let go of the bitterness and the anger and the "why me" stuff, you can begin to focus on things that you can change, and to let go of the things that you can't.
People say "I can't stand it!"
What is "it" that you can’t stand? How do we define “it”.
The problem isn't the experience, but our interpretation of the experience.
It's how we see "it" and judge "it" that influences how we feel about "it". The glass can be half empty or it can be half full. We determine that. The glass just is what it is... a glass.
This isn't easy.
You will need to do this many many times during the day.
Change never comes easy - but - nothing changes without changes....
thanks ..
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