The stress of living with someone demonstrating borderline traits can be overwhelming. Heck, regular life these days is stressful enough. During my separation with my BPXW I took a stress test on paper that indicated that I was more likely to die of a heart attack or commit suicide than see my fiftieth birthday.
Under these levels of stress, anger management can also become a problem. I can speak from personal experience that becoming angry, even if you don't physically lash out, can land you on the wrong side of the law. It's expensive and time consuming to get back on the right side of the law even when you've done nothing wrong. Those with borderline traits have a fantastic ability to appear sane once the police show up, where you are still mad. It's the Elmer Fudd thing.
For these reasons and many more, getting control of stress, and managing anger are
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critically important.So, how do you do it?
We've all heard the tricks, counting to ten, deep breathing, etc. You can find those kinds of things all over the net. But what specific information might be useful to NonBPs? Well, the key to stress and anger management for NonBPs is creating and maintaining emotional distance. If you are deeply emotionally involved in the relationship, they've got you, and they can push your buttons, pull your chain and rip your heart out at will. If, on the other hand, you develop a healthy detachment from them and their behaviors, then you can begin to focus on what's important. That is, your children, your own mental health, maintaining control when the police show up, etc.
The only "downside" to this is that it may trigger feelings of abandonment in the person you care about. Managing this effectively depends upon your long term intentions. If you are staying in the relationship, say for the sake of the children or something, then you can reassure your significant other that you aren't going anywhere, but you aren't going to be emotionally blackmailed or manipulated anymore.
Stress has been defined as what happens when you have a loss of control. You choose to live in the doghouse of your own making. Take back control and your stress will go down.
-Kelly