My ex won't move out, and other problems.

[P]

If I tried to tell the whole story I would be writing a book!

Six years ago, I started dating someone who I shouldn't, and for most of that time I was trying to find ways to dump her kindly, but it was like she was clinging to me for dear life - and then the pandemic came along, and I allowed her to stay with me.

What a nightmare year that was - constant arguments, crying, sulking, moodiness and trying to control my home - I'd make jokes and she'd lose her shit, I'd eat the wrong foods, leave things where I was used to leaving them. She's just angry all the time!

She finally went home, but two and a half years ago she was illegally evicted, and I was once again given the job of looking after her.

She ended up traumatised as a result of all of this drama and ended up with diagnoses of BPD and c-PTSD - and that's on top of Autism, an older diagnosis of schizotypal PD, and a few other things.

She also has significant physical health problems, largely down to her lack of self-care - like not eating or going to the bathroom when she needs to, which has led to kidney, urinary and gastric issues. Also, heart and lung issues that are currently being investigated.

I have never known anyone with so many health issues!

Eventually I found her a place to rent, but it had problems - noisy neighbours, broken pipes, damp and more. At one point I got threatened just because I tried to stand up for her complaining about noise.

So, I said "come stay with me for a couple of weeks, until we get it sorted!"


And she is still here - two years and she has not left!!!!!

We actually broke up in the middle of all of this - as a result of her hitting me one night - but she is too scared and unwell to return to her flat, which has been lying empty all this time.

So, my ex is squatting in my flat but is so poorly I'm lost in a fog of not knowing how to set boundaries without triggering meltdowns.

She now refuses to leave the house without me, doesn't eat unless I cook, has constant meltdowns where she has screamed so much that neighbours have called the cops and so on. I do all the shopping, most of the cleaning, take her to appointments, make the appointments and more.

I have effectively become her live-in carer, in my home!

There are social services and mental health services working hard to find her a sheltered or supported home - I have had the police involved, a therapist, caseworkers and more - but she has rejected three places for being unsuitable due to her sensitivity to smells, phobias, whatever.

And meanwhile I am constantly treading eggshells, trying to stop myself from triggering her, and often left wondering what the hell it I was said or did wrong this time!


So, here I am, stuck in a fog, trying to find my way out, and so deep into it that I feel like I no longer know who I am!

[SonofThunder]

Hello P,

I saw you also posted a short intro in the Welcome Mat board, which is great   First, a very warm welcome to you to Out of the FOG.  As much as you described the wide set of traits and issues you face with your ex, please know you are not alone in your experiences. 

I will be so bold as to say that your situation can be greatly improved with changes to yourself. Only yourself! A huge plus, if i'm reading this post correctly, is that you are not legally tied to this person in any way (marriage, deed, rent contract, shared children, other). If yes, that is a h-u-g-e plus to the difficult situation you describe. 

I will gather that you have developed yourself into a 'caretaker', which is basically largely unbalanced caring and caregiving of another, to the point that you are sacrificing yourself.  Please note that has zero to do with your PDex-partner who is squatting in your home while she has her own flat. 

A question for you. I will presume you solo-own/rent your own flat and she the same with her own flat.  If you came home one day to find a homeless person living in your flat, what would you do to render the situation?  The answer to that question is the same thing you should do with this PD woman.

My guess is that you would call the police and have them escort the homeless person and their possessions out of your flat and then you would have the lock changed and be more aware.  Same with her also. 

As for working on you, I recommend you asap read Fjelstad's book 'Stop Caretaking the Borderline and Narcissist. Im guessing that book will make you think the author has been camping out in your flat and knows everything about you.  Ask me how I know. 🙄

I recommend you take all the traits, actions, reactions and problems of this PD person and put them all in an imaginary box in your mind. A box with a clasped-shut lid and a label on the box that only says "PDex".  All her traits can just live inside the box as its easier to think of them as a collective under one heading in this situation. It seems you have no familial or legal ties to this PDex and you now have a PDex squatting in your flat against your will. The logistics of her being removed are a phone call away because her name is not on the deed/contract and she can be escorted by the local authorities to her own flat (not you escort the PDex).

Then afterward, change the lock, read Fjelstad's book and also pitch your tent at the Toolbox tab up at the top right of every page here on the Out of the FOG forum.  P, you have any issues pulling off that first logistical removal step with a phone call? You dont have to say a thing to the PDex, just make the call.  When the police arrive to get the details of an unwanted, unauthorized problematic woman living in your flat against your will and the police also learning she has her own home, then her things can be gathered while the police are present and you tell them you are incapable of getting her to leave. Surely they will handle the situation while you calmly and capably act professionally. The PDex may provide an emotional display in front of them, in stark contrast to calm and professional you, which may be very beneficial to your cause. Its key imo that you be calm and professional and simply desire for her to leave with their assistance. 

Its not unethical in any way. She needs to go home; period... and not return, which is 100% on you to make certain she does not have the ability to walk through your door, ring/text you or have her emails land in your inbox. 

Wishing you the best with the first step, so you can have the peace to start working on yourself. Again, welcome here to Out of the FOG.

SoT

[notrightinthehead]

Congratulations! You are a number 1 caretaker! Can I come an live with you too? (joking, joking).

You seem to have been taken hostage and suffering with Stokholm Syndrome. If I understand you right, this is an adult person to you have no legal abligation whatsoever? Not your wife, not your minor child? You could have her evicted from your flat, block every channel of communication with her? But you hae been brainwashed into believing that you are solely responsible for her wellbeing?

You need some support! You need legal advice how to rid yourself from this person. You need a support group, counselling for yourself.Do you have  a place where you can escape to? A place where you not constantly having to focus on her? A place where you can focus on yourself? What you want, need, feel? Can you find such a place and escape to it? Do you have friends, who know about your situation and can support you?

There is an excellent book "Stop caretaking the Borderline/Narcissist" by Fjelstad. It helped me so much. Go an find it. But do NOT let it lying around for your abuser to find it!

[SonofThunder]

Congratulations! You are a number 1 caretaker! Can I come an live with you too? (joking, joking).

You seem to have been taken hostage and suffering with Stokholm Syndrome. If I understand you right, this is an adult person to you have no legal abligation whatsoever? Not your wife, not your minor child? You could have her evicted from your flat, block every channel of communication with her? But you hae been brainwashed into believing that you are solely responsible for her wellbeing?

You need some support! You need legal advice how to rid yourself from this person. You need a support group, counselling for yourself.Do you have  a place where you can escape to? A place where you not constantly having to focus on her? A place where you can focus on yourself? What you want, need, feel? Can you find such a place and escape to it? Do you have friends, who know about your situation and can support you?

There is an excellent book "Stop caretaking the Borderline/Narcissist" by Fjelstad. It helped me so much. Go an find it. But do NOT let it lying around for your abuser to find it!

Lol notright, we dished out the same thoughts at the exact same time. Love the camaraderie in sensible solutions alongside you.

SoT

[P]

Thanks for the replies and follow ups - I will check out that book.

My current self-care includes the following:

A therapist who is potentially frustrated at me.
A social worker who is trying to push her team to support her properly and get her housed into supported accommodation.
Codependents Anonymous, occasionally
Going to the gym and trying to work on my physical self

So, I am doing a few things, but I have certainly made myself a victim of her victimhood.


While you are both right, and I have no legal obligation to her, in my mind I do honestly believe that she will suffer more if I let her go - and she's very forthcoming about letting me know this.

Her diagnoses are BPD, STPD, Autism, Situational Mutism, c-PTSD, Anxiety, Gastritis, Kidney issues, IBS, Arrythmia and they are currently investigating her for further heart and lung problems. She can hardly make it up a flight of stairs at the moment - so she is genuinely unwell.

So, I feel sorry for her and I kinda feel that nobody else is giving her the care she needs, as she seems to be incapable of anything - but I feel like my empathy/sympathy is working against me here. Like, I wish I could be tougher, but she is utterly pathetic, unwell and seems to decline further every month.

And everything I do seems to be wrong - but I don't want her approval, I just want peace and quiet and an end to the screaming meltdowns. The other day I invoked a meltdown by telling her she needed to become more independent and less reliant on me - which led to accusations of ableism and dismissing her illnesses!

Later on, this was followed by the rhetoric of "I don't feel loved and might as well be dead!"

Her 'home' does have some genuine issues that her landlord has been unable to fix - there is a collapsed sewer below the building and it's creating a smell that causes her pains in her chest. The current situation is that she is now facing eviction because the landlord can't fix the problems and will probably get a notice to quit very soon.

Because of her mutism, and the lack of available housing, she has thus far been unable to even get a viewing on a new home - and because she is on disability benefits, nobody seems to want to entertain her.

Her sensitivity to smell is probably her worst autistic trait; her outward expression of it is absolutely over the top - with meltdowns over perfumes and scents and continually fussing about how things 'stink' even when they do not.

She handwashes everything because she doesn't like the smell of my washing machine but then complains about the smell of her own laundry anyway. She fusses about the smell of my living room, my car, people on trains, taxis, parcel boxes, and tells me I have bad breath and BO, even though I am clean and everyone else I know says there is nothing wrong with me! Oh, not to mention a new allergy to cardboard that makes her itch!

She also has this 'trypophobia' thing, a phobia that causes her to freak out at the sight of dots and clusters of circles - which has also caused her to collapse and spend a day scratching herself - thus far she has rejected one apartment on the basis of a pattern in the ceiling, and won't walk on streets where there are non-slip patterns on the concrete!

It's utterly insane! 

[notrightinthehead]

Yes. But these are HER problems, not yours. What makes you think you can solve HER problems? What makes you think you are responsible for HER problems? Your problem is that you try to take over someone elses' job. She is responsible for HER life. She is responsible to solve HER problems.You cannot live her life for her. And frankly, she sounds completely over the top histrionic. And somehow you might even enjoy the drama she brings into your life. Of course it is your decision, and you are free to continue enabling her. But you came here because you are tired of this person in your life.

[square]

Howdy. My thoughts:

Folks here are going to be encouraging you to disentangle yourself from your ex. But I wanted to give you the context that everyone here is very caring and aren't the sort to blithely shrug off someone's struggles. So it's not a case of us not understanding or caring what your ex is going through, or that we can't fathom why you would be concerned about her.

Many of us have tried to help others, and have learned that some people just can't or won't be helped. And at some point you've got to ask yourself if it makes any sense to drown alongside someone who is doing nothing but pulling you down with them.

The mixture of traits you've described in her is a real doozy, and I can see she will very likely not change or improve in her interpersonal interactions with you. It's a real shame but you have zero control over her neurology and zero control over her choices. Your choices going forward are all that's on the table.

Is this something that you would be willing to commit to? That when she is finally out of your flat, you will never, ever, not for one minute, let her back in. Changed locks. She cannot come over. She cannot even come in just to pee. No, not even if she is dying due to some smell or sound in her new flat. Not even if they've kicked her out. Not even if she is throwing a nuclear meltdown outside.

What do you think about those scenarios? Can you do it?

[P]

It's not my problem, but I still care about her wellbeing - and walking away feels like turning my back on a road accident where someone is begging for help and I'm the only one around.

It's not that I am trying to fix her though, it's more than I'm wanting to keep her safe while compromising my boundaries for a quiet life.

I understand the logic of just sending her away, but she's worn my capacity down so much that I don't have the ability to withstand any onslaught of emotional neediness and pain that will be unleashed in my direction. Let alone the shit show of screaming that will bring the neighbours and all sorts of other lunacy to my door.

It's my own emotional entanglement that is absolutely crippling me.

I have a plan for when she's gone, to disentangle myself from her completely - but I'm not sure I can completely do that until she has the various services providing a safety net. I honestly think there's a danger of her either killing herself or dying from some sort of self-neglect.

[MaxedOut]

P,

A fair amount of what you describe is in the neighborhood of things I expereinced with the spouse I recently seprated from and am in the process of divorcing. And similar reasons to yours kept me in the situation for years (though I think a lot more good qualities and relations, in my case). A few reflections...

My health suffered in mulitple ways over time - some of which could be addressed or mitigated and some that is simply the high cost of this dynamic and of spending so much time caring for another. Have you developed new health issue or had mental health changes in the same timeline as this situation?

There were so many future-thinking expecations I had about things improving (accessing support resources, new providers/medications, etc.). While sometimes things got a little better, they overall got worse and most stuff never materialized or was cut off at the knees once it started.

Now that I am not there/available, it sounds like a lot of stuff is getting figured out and the dark scenarious she warned of and I worried about are not (so far) happening. With PDs, necessity seems to often be the mother of invention improvement. Some of the common books on disorders talk about this specifically - that caregiving support can actually be really harmful for folks with PD (I think Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist has some info on this). Once I opened my thinking on that I was able to see how very different this is with PD folks. To jot some quick thoughts on this understanding:

• The deep PD wounds and workings mean someone's care must be proven, shown, limitless, and fully validating.
• This means straighforward needs (phsyical, financial, houskeeping, etc.) are tangled up with, amplified be, and distored though emotional needs (and sometimes produced by).
• The above means non-PDs never do enough, never do it right, and get called on for more and more and more caregiving and support.
• And non-PDs get punished for "inadequacies" and are made to listen to fiery emotion dumping about the failures of others as well
• This often feeds and is fed by a broader narrative of universal injustice/vicitization of the PD person.
• Non-PDs want to be supportive, want the person to know they care, and certainly don't want to be part of the world of malice that has let down and harmed the PD.
• But, the shame and insecurity that some of this was rooted in is also triggered by being reliant on someone, on losing function, on being dependent at all. That is the core would for borderline and a big thing under the preening of narcissists. So whatever happens with an individual with PD when shame is triggered happens (anger, lashing out, falling apart, self-harm, etc.)
• This gets directed at the PD - whee! More punishment for trying to help!
• The PD feels even less able to manage their lives, and their mental and emotion health increasingly degrade. Feeding the cycle more.

You mention "A social worker who is trying to push her team to support her properly and get her housed into supported accommodation." Social workers and their teams are almost always overloaded with cases. Guess which ones move? The ones that have to move because of urgency - the person who did loose stable housing, for example.

It took me, and most of the folks here, a while of learning about and practicing tools and thinking through stuff like this and changes in perception shown in the responses above to be able to feel empowered to care for their wellbeing and to not feel trapped (whether they remained or left the relationship or somewhere in between).

[SonofThunder]

Howdy. My thoughts:

Folks here are going to be encouraging you to disentangle yourself from your ex. But I wanted to give you the context that everyone here is very caring and aren't the sort to blithely shrug off someone's struggles. So it's not a case of us not understanding or caring what your ex is going through, or that we can't fathom why you would be concerned about her.

Many of us have tried to help others, and have learned that some people just can't or won't be helped. And at some point you've got to ask yourself if it makes any sense to drown alongside someone who is doing nothing but pulling you down with them.

The mixture of traits you've described in her is a real doozy, and I can see she will very likely not change or improve in her interpersonal interactions with you. It's a real shame but you have zero control over her neurology and zero control over her choices. Your choices going forward are all that's on the table.

Is this something that you would be willing to commit to? That when she is finally out of your flat, you will never, ever, not for one minute, let her back in. Changed locks. She cannot come over. She cannot even come in just to pee. No, not even if she is dying due to some smell or sound in her new flat. Not even if they've kicked her out. Not even if she is throwing a nuclear meltdown outside.

What do you think about those scenarios? Can you do it?

+1

P, once you read the Fjelstad book and see yourself in the pages, imo you will be at a crossroads regarding whether you want to end 'caretaking' behaviors yet still be the kind, thought-filled, caring person you are, but only to those that aren't attempting to use and/or deplete you. 

Until then imo, you may be subject to a continuation of your current status quo.  First step is yourself, and that is better assisted by her departure. The book will show you yourself.

SoT

[P]

I wish I could individually 'like' everyone's post in here, but I do appreciate all the feedback. Thank you. 

I got the recommended book as an audiobook through Spotify and have started listening to it - I may need to listen to it a couple of times for it to sink in, but it's making a lot of sense.

However, I'm not 100% clear on this - the idea that we cannot make people feel a certain way -- as in, people are responsible for their own feelings.

While I generally agree, I'm also sure that if someone acted like a complete jerk, then the recipient would be upset and possibly distressed by the action - so, in some cases, behaviour can 'make someone feel' a certain way.

When I'm being threatened, I often get the "you made me feel like that", argument - and if I try to tell her that she is responsible for her own feelings, I'm often met with the above justification. 

When she got violent at the start of this year (thankfully rare) she stamped on my foot and declared "you're responsible for your own pain"!

[Poison Ivy]

Google "How to Stop Taking Responsibility for Other People's Feelings."

Here are some excerpts: You can influence how a person feels, but you are not responsible for how they act, behave, or express their feelings.

If you are not responsible for how another person feels, who are you responsible for?

 Spoiler alert: You!

[square]

Here is where I am about being responsible for feelings.

I believe it is to be expected that people will naturally have reactions to being treated rudely, or threatened, or invalidated.

When I am treated that way, I accept that I feel angry, sad, frightened, hurt, or whatever I feel.

Now, as a person responsible for myself, I act on those feelings in a responsible way.

Perhaps I ask the person to refrain from such behavior in the future, or merely express that I am hurt. I do not name call, insult, threaten, throw things, or give silent treatment in hopes of controlling someone's behavior.

If the person is a repeat offender or I have reason not to trust them or no reason to attempt to trust them, then I remove myselfratherthan engaging in harmful behavior.

I have in fact done exactly that after years of asking my husband to stop yelling at me, insulting me, ignoring me, etc. Wjen asking in various ways did not work, I moved out. I didn't try to manipulate or frighten him.

Your ex is allowed to have hurt feelings. She is allowed to feel upset and angry and sad about things you say and do not say, and things you do and do not do.

She can also constructively ask you to change.

And if your answer is no, then she needs to take that no.

If it's a deal breaker for her, she can move on.

You have said no, and that is your right. She needs to move on.

I accept that she is not well, but this is fundamental. You do ot belong to her to serve her demands.

[Poison Ivy]

 

[SonofThunder]

Good feedback from Square and Poison Ivy.

P, blaming (link below) is a common trait of PD's and is many times a purposeful script-flip that has been baited (link below) by the PD in order for the PD to enjoy the feed of being the victim

https://outofthefog.website/top-100-trait-blog/2015/10/30/blaming

https://outofthefog.website/top-100-trait-blog/2015/10/30/baiting

If listening to the book, you will hear about the Karpman Drama Triangle (link at bottom for a visual since you are reading an audiobook) which a PD lives on, but needs a dance partner.  The roles are:

-Persecutor
-Rescuer
-Victim

The main two constantly switching roles in the triangle dance are persecutor and victim and the PD uses the persecutor role in order to get to victim. Victimhood is a huge supply feed for a PD. 

For example, possibly your PDex purposefully (baited) you for a reaction and your reaction triggers her next triangle persecutor action of stomping on your foot and (blaming) you for her doing so.  Your new unfavorable reaction to having your foot stomped is then flipped to role-assign you as the persecutor and your PDex's "you made me feel like that" provides the PDex the desired switch to victim. 

The Karpman Drama Triangle is a crucial tool in the arsenal of the PD, but the key is that it takes two people (minimum) to dance.  The triangle is useless with only one person. Your goal is to get yourself off the triangle. Therefore, as you read the book and possibly deduct that you have learned to be a self-depleting caretaker, understand that you are also your PDex's triangle dance partner. 

The rescuer role will sometimes be creatively deployed by a PD by suggesting a way to fix a situation, and sometimes the PD will recruit other people to be the rescuer so the PD can remain at the desired role of victim.  Ultimately, understand that the rescuer role is used to facilitate the next round of persecutor/victim dancing.

Folks here who are legally married to a PD or a family member of a PD or an employee of a PD all have a difficult high hurdle to climb over (divorce, go NC with family, find a new job), but you have a lower hurdle, because you are not legally obligated, related-to or dependent-on your PDex in any way. 

Again, the first move is to have her evicted by the proper authorities (its YOUR flat), change your lock, block her phone and email from arriving on your devices and then be ready for deploying a legal restraining order when she reacts (her responsibility) to your fully justified self protective moves. Those above moves are 100% self-protective boundaries and her running into your boundaries is her problem.

I know you are concerned about her, but possibly look at it this way; she is like a wild tiger that you have allowed to come live in your home because you feel sorry for the cat. But now you realize this wild tiger is beyond your ability to live with because its natural instincts are to maul you.  The tiger is just acting like a tiger; its what tigers do!  The key is to have the tiger go live in a place by itself so you don't get mauled.  It's not safe to live with wild tigers. They may sometimes look cute and cuddly and then wham! Those instinctive behaviors can never be 'cared' out of the tiger. 

After you get the tiger out of your flat, then begin application to alter your learned caretaking behaviors so you can protect yourself going forward from becoming the emotional caretaker of yet another wild tiger.  Stay here on Out of the FOG long enough and you will see the patterns that exist with nonPD's who do not learn to alter their caretaking behavior; they are PD magnets. 

SoT

Drama Triangle Wikipedia Link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle

[Poison Ivy]

Good info and advice from SonofThunder, as usual. I particularly like the "wild tiger" analogy.

[Rebel13]

Hi P, you have gotten such great thoughts, support and advice from the brilliant and caring people here. I'm probably the least qualified to comment on your situation, but when I read your two posts, I just kept thinking -- you've gone to such lengths, put yourself out so much, to help this person -- and HAS it helped? Is she better in ANY way after all the time, attention, energy, and probably money you have poured into helping her? It sounds like she has a roof over her head and the basics of life, which you are able to provide, but in all other ways is completely dysfunctional and perhaps even getting worse. As others here have said, her problems are not solvable by you, and it doesn't sound like your providing the basics of life is helping her access the care and resources that might help her solve them. I wish you the best in getting your safe, peaceful home back for YOURSELF.

[treesgrowslowly]

So much excellent advice here.

My hope is that you find your way to seeing that you are not responsible for her survival. There is a social services system in place in our society for this very reason. For people who are in her situation. I realize that system is not in great shape, but we individually, cannot save disordered people and let in tigers who abuse us in our own homes. IMHO, she is a long ways away from realizing the damage she causes herself and others. Right now, she is acting out - and you're paying the price.

Sometimes, we folks with empathy need to remind ourselves of that helpful adage: You cannot light yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

Our empathy can be used against us. Most of us were not taught how to protect ourselves from this stuff. Thank goodness for this forum.

Trees

[P]

I was listening to some more of the audiobook today, and came to the section on merging.

This is something I always noticed with her, that she tends to get very upset with any disagreement or unwillingness to join her with anything - whether an activity or a drama.

She moans constantly about other people's incompetence, poor management, the way society works, life etc. but if I try to reframe anything or look for any positive, she takes it as a personal attack or dismissal of her feelings.

When we were together, hints of me having my own thoughts often triggered enormous meltdowns. It's like, she would get an idea, plan whatever it was in her head, and then get incredibly distraught if I wasn't thinking the same thoughts or enthusiastic about the same thing.

She won't see it like this, but me not wanting to do the same things as her is partly why she blames me for her poor mental health and meltdowns - in spite of her having a track record long before she met me. 

[MaxedOut]

She moans constantly about other people's incompetence, poor management, the way society works, life etc. but if I try to reframe anything or look for any positive, she takes it as a personal attack or dismissal of her feelings.

The merging is such a confusing thing, P. I am glad that the book is helping in seeing the underlying cause for it. A huge source of conflict with my STBXw was over her having conflict and splitting on others like friends or members of either of our families. But also whatever random interactions or issues she had with society at large. In the case of important relationships it is an area where what she wanted/wants directly runs against my own values in how I interact with others and think about things.

Similar to your expereince, anything counter to her way of seeing things was considered attacking, taking that person's side, not being loyal, etc. I long ago stopped trying to provide a more positive of balanced perspective or anything. But even stuff that I would consider supportive and comforting were seen as invalidating and attacking on my part. That was tough because her splitting also encompassed self-worth and how people feel about her. 

That really hit starkly for me about a year ago. I'll slightly change details but to give a sense of it (there was prior stuff very similar but seeing it in isolation after learning about the merging BPD thing made it hit totally differntly). She had split on a friend over what she saw as attacks/criticisms about her not working, not doing able bodied stuff. I was there for most of the interactions and did not interpret things the same way, at all. This was a person who cared a lot about her (and had apologized and was trying to feel out how to mend fences and reassure my ex about stuff). The escalating emotion developed into feelings that the person had always looked down on her and this was the latest in a series of things. My STBXw was broken down crying and truly feeling wounded and hurt and was sayng things like "She never cared about me. I was such a fool to think we were friends. She never loved me. She doesn't care about me or how I'm doing or anything. She probably hates me." And as was usually the case, saw this as the latest in a life-long history of people not caring, attacking her, etc.

These were profoundly untrue conclusions and she was clearly feeling like no one loved, cared, or really saw her. I did not say *anything* about my view on the whole thing or advocating for considering the other side or similar. I did say something reflecting what she was saying and I think even saying "I can understand how this can feel like that person doesn't care. I do know though, that she cares about you."

To me that is comforting and supportive, like, if I am in a place where I think someone I love and who is important to me doesn't care or love me, and I am just wrecked about it--please talk me down from that ledge a bit. But no, that was perceived as me taking sides, discounting her, ignoring mistreatment of her, prioritizing the other person and myself before her, and intentionally trying to tear her down. Me saying it at that moment had zero to do with trying to get her to see another vantage point, or trying to manage any repair or recontact, or my own interests - I was just heartbroken seeing her hurt so much.

In the aftermath of that incedent (and whatever extended blast of criticism I weathered from that comment as those would be some of the worst verbally and emotionally abusive points in our marriage) that I was smack dab in the merging phenomenon. At that point I had developed some good boundaries around these situations (e.g., not being an intermediary, not sharing my perspective, getting better about validating feelings and the valid parts of what she experieinced without validating the invalid) which was part of why it was so clear that not mirroring even terribly hurtful stuff was fully firing that identity immersion area. When she was most disregulated, I was (to her) asserting indiviudalism, that she couldn't count on me, that I might also betray/abandon, and that I was denying both reality and invalidating her.

It's a mess.

And it's a mess that I beleive gets bad and worse *because* of the ongoing enmenshment, dependency, isolation, etc. I saw it worsen with everyone as my ex, like your ex, became more disabled, more agoraphobic, more cut off from relationships due to conflict. When PDs are needing to interact with the world, they have to calibrate to the world more and I think stay more grounded in these areas. Close folks still face the more extreme parts but the range/window is less extreme. I think this is really one of the biggest harms to the PD resulting from caretaking/codependency. It's like setting up a little up a little distillery in your house that keeps cycling the juice of thoughts and emotions. With less and less going into the still from others - fewer and fewer outside thoughts and emotions, the resulting evaporate jsut gets more and more concentrated and poisonous.

Stop Caregiving and Eggshells have good approaches that can help in this area, as does the Toolbox. Most is about setting boundaries and simply not offering anything for the PD to latch to. I did those things and also developed some short statements to use (shorter versions of this type of thinking: "I am not asking or expecting you to see things my way - you are entitled to your feelings and views. I am also entitled to mine"). Sometimes we want or there seems to need to be more substantive stuff. Depending on the situation, I would use somethign along the lines of:

• Acknowledge the emotion (empathy/recognition)
• Lean in (attention/questions)
• Respect/validate (agree with something/build on what they say/connect some dots/state something most folks beleive in)
• If needed/applicable, steer energy to brainstorming/determining helpful action that isn't me taking on more things

I reccommend another book for these types of situations (that would be great for audiobook if avaiable as it is all text): It's All Your Fault!: 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others by Bill Eddy.