Reddit reviews Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship

> If this goes on for days, I progressively end up in a more depressed/helpless state. Making decisions gets difficult, even something as simple as picking an item off a menu. Confidence at work or with any other hobbies gets low enough that I stop doing or achieving much of anything.

This is a very classic "freeze" response, also known as dissociation. Basically, if you're pushed into fight/flight long enough or persistently enough, you'll start freezing up. That makes it difficult to concentrate, difficult to connect to other people, and even difficult to take concrete actions like picking something up. It's one end of trauma-related emotional disregulation, with the other being fight/flight/anxiety/anger. It's very common for unchecked verbal aggression to put people into a state like that. It's also decently likely that you have some form of trauma history that made you more vulnerable to freezing up like that, and that made it difficult for you to get angry enough to push back when she becomes verbally aggressive with you. I'd suggest reading In An Unspoken Voice to learn more about how we get stuck in these fight/flight/freeze responses.

> The only consistent recommendation I see, besides medication, is DBT. What does that mean, for someone without good access to medical care? Buy her a workbook and tell her to read it?

You could try to do that, but it doesn't sound like she has either a lot of insight into how her behavior is harmful or a strong motivation to change. Most likely the best thing that you can do is to focus on improving your own ability to advocate for yourself, to understand what's happening in this situation, and to get clarity about your own conscious and unconscious patterns of thinking and reacting that keep you stuck in this situation. This is unfortunately a "put your own oxygen mask on first" kind of situation.

On another note, DBT might actually be really helpful for you. One area it covers is emotional regulation, or learning to work on your emotional responses so that you can respond in a way that fits the situation. That includes learning about the different basic emotion types (Anger/Shame/Fear/Guilt/Envy/Happiness/Sadness/Love/Jealousy), learning when they fit the facts of a situation, and also learning to recognize when you're skipping past the appropriate emotional reaction and jumping to another one. For example, it sounds like when your wife gets angry at you over nothing, you skip right past anger and into fear/shame/sadness. If you can afford it or are covered, it might be worth finding a DBT therapist to help you work on that. If you can't, this is the workbook that my therapist used with me.

> What can a person like me do to be more resilient to verbal aggression/abuse?

Learning to set boundaries for yourself is probably the key skill to get started with. There's a lot of confusion about boundaries out there. Sometimes it sounds like it's something that other people are responsible for ("they should respect my boundaries"), or that they're responsible for enforcing them once we communicate them. Instead, a boundary is an action that we commit to take ourselves in order to maintain our self-respect and ability to function. It could be something like "If someone is yelling at me or calling me names, then I will leave the area." Frequently, it's helpful to have a series of planned boundary-maintaining actions so that you don't have to take drastic action off the bat -- so in that example, you could plan to first ask the person to stop yelling, then leave the room if they won't stop, then leave the house if they follow you and keep yelling, then stay somewhere overnight if they keep yelling when you come back, then move out temporarily if they won't stop when you come back, then end the relationship if you can't come back without being yelled at.

Other times when people talk about boundaries it sounds like we should just already know what our boundaries are, when in reality it's a really messy difficult heart-breaking process to discover first that something is unacceptable to you and then that you're willing to enforce a boundary to prevent it. There may be significant new emotions or memories of past situations that you have to become comfortable with in order to -- for example, you may be deeply uncomfortable with the idea of being alone or seeing someone else suffering when they claim that it's your fault, and it may be related to difficulties in your childhood or past that seem similar.

There's also a significant chance that you've internalized at some level that you're responsible for your wife's emotional reactions, or that you've done something wrong, or that this is normal. So there's a significant ongoing rediscovery aspect where you'll revisit past relationship conflicts and go "Wait, that's not my fault at all!"

The other thing you can do is to look into whether you might be exhibiting codependent behaviors or in a trauma bond. No More Mr Nice Guy is a decent guide to working on this, although it's a little bit much to handle if you're still in the thick of it emotionally. You can also read When I Say No I Feel Guilty.

> What's the healthy approach towards me getting some kind of support system/network?

Keep on posting here regularly, for one. You can also take a look at /r/Divorce (I've been assuming from the comments from your friends that you're married -- apologies if I'm getting that wrong). I assume you've seen /r/BPDlovedones/ , but it might be worth reading their recommended resources. Work on exercising regularly, see a therapist or couples therapist if you can, try talking to any friends you have that haven't been dismissive before. A light 10-20 minute/day meditation practice might be helpful with learning about your thoughts and emotions, but there can be complications with large amounts of meditation if you have a trauma history or are in a stressful situation (see this book and this guide if you want to pursue that route).

Also just spend time with friends and social groups even if they're not resources for talking about your relationship. It can be important to remember that social relationships can just be fun/light and to provide a counterbalance.

> So... is there any healthy middle ground between "suffer through it, don't talk about it, relationships take work" and "run away, AWALT, borderlines are crazy"?

The middle ground is to work on asserting your boundaries, understanding and accepting your emotions, building a healthy set of activities and friends, and getting clear on what's acceptable to you. If it turns out that you have a trauma history, then something like somatic experiencing or EMDR can help you start to heal from that and become more confident. As you become more confident and assertive, set more boundaries, and work for the kind of relationship that you want, then you'll see w

Do you have kids together? If you don't, the standard answer to just go ahead and leave is probably "right" -- there doesn't sound like there's much good happening for you here. But the problem with "just leave" is that it's all or nothing, and doesn't provide you with an incremental path to building the skills and self-knowledge that will allow you to actually leave.

If you do have kids together, then "just leave" is definitely a bit tougher. This sort of situation can be a kind of crucible that allows for immense personal growth, or can just beat you down.

A couple resources that may help with clarifying the stay/leave question are:

• Too Good To Leave, Too Bad To Stay. This is a workbook with diagnostics for what relationships can be fixed vs should be ended. If you read it and your answers come out as overwhelmingly leave, then do your utmost to just leave, even if you have to move out while she's not there, text a breakup note, and ask your friends to help you.
  
  
• Wired For Love discusses attachment theory and adult relationship dynamics.
  
  
  Good luck and we'd love to keep on hearing how you're doing!

Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner

Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship

I second u/LesGHOW advice for counseling. But I also found the books:

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help YouFind - and Keep - Love

and

Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship helpful too

Oh man - I get that. I wouldn't ever imply that I have to go through what my partner would have to go through physically in order to have a child. We've also both have had women in our immediate families have pregnancy troubles - it's a very scary possibility for us.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that when people say "we're pregnant" they're trying to imply they both have children growing in their individual womb. That seems like an equivocation / literalist approach which seems to be the complaint people have. I think it means "we have an unborn child together that we intend to bring into the world as a couple."

I also get that a philosophy we're trying in order to maintain a happy relationship isn't necessarily for everyone. It's a fallacy to think that what applies to me automatically applies to everyone else.

It's a common trend on Reddit that if you say something then it means you're applying those feelings to everyone; which I'm not. We've found happiness in trying to grow together. That doesn't mean we don't value our independence or autonomy. It just means that we try to evaluate our issues in the context of being "together" rather than being two separate entities. And it's helped us become less defensive and more communicative.

We both read this and it helped us reorient a bit and focus more on what it means to be a couple.

Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship https://www.amazon.com/dp/1608820580/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_oOL7AbSF7CY7Y

I do believe that BPDs can love deeply. For a long time I ruminated on this question, and I realized something that gave me peace. It was that in my prior relationships I didn't "love" them, I was only meeting my own needs to not be alone or unwanted, and in this I kept setting myself from heartbreak. I came to this conclusion after an IOP treatment, and reading A LOT of insightful information on neuroscience, narcissistic parents and child development. With the patience and love of my SO I now understand what it is to "love". To me, to love someone for who they are inside flaws and all, I want the very best for him and I treat him with respect instead of using him for my own needs and never considering his. I also had to learn boundaries, and making him my world is kinda weird.

I suggest reading a book called "Wired for Love"
and learning that it's okay to be alone (it was white-knuckling on the bathroom sobbing wanting to die kind of hard to learn but sooooo worth it. I have noticed that the BPs gain stability through experiencing their pain and learning to let the emotions wash through them.

Sorry for all over answer above but I do believe in you and that people with BPD can love immensely, deeply and passionately! And I hope that someday you find yourself really in love.

Wired for Love.

Hello. I want to recommend this book to you.

I think you have different relationship patterns. I'm currently reading an older edition of It's Not You, It's the Dishes (which I picked up at the library). This book explains in economics terms how some relationship troubles happen, and how some can be fixed. The books that described attachment theory are Love Sense and Wired for Love.

> I don't think he even pays attention to me - he's often on his phone when we are together, interrupts me when I'm mid-sentence or just completely tunes out. He also often forgets when we make plans, mostly I think because half the time he isn't bloody listening.

In the edition I'm reading, this is chapter 7 - Asymmetrical Information. In particular, a passage about "high information processing costs". What I think is happening is that he's getting information overload, and tuning out is one coping mechanism. The solution might be to "keep it short". The amount of details you might think is sufficient to describe the situation is less than he thinks is necessary. If this is the case, you may need some experimenting to zoom into the optimal amount.


Some reading on attachment styles and how they impact relationships:
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_stop_attachment_insecurity_from_ruining_your_love_life
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compassion-matters/201307/how-your-attachment-style-impacts-your-relationship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

http://www.amazon.ca/Seven-Principles-Making-Marriage-Work/dp/0609805797
aaaand...
http://www.amazon.ca/Wired-Love-Understanding-Attachment-Relationship/dp/1608820580/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449455904&sr=1-1&keywords=wired+for+love

While you are at it, buy this book and try to learn from it:
https://www.amazon.com/Wired-Love-Understanding-Attachment-Relationship/dp/1608820580