Emotionally unstable personality disorder is a label that can evoke a negative response. As a result, revealing your diagnosis to a partner can be anxiety-inducing, and sometimes exacerbate the traits you live with. This is why it’s important to better understand yourself, to help forge stronger relationships

As the name suggests, emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD) involves a lot of intense fluctuations in moods and emotions. Unsurprisingly, this can often lead to difficulties forming and maintaining relationships, as you can be seen as harmful or destructive. People with EUPD’s view of the world can also be very black and white, thus creating a finality to their perspective – for example, you’ve done a bad thing, ergo you’re a bad person.

Given the complexity of the disorder, alongside a general lack of knowledge in the public eye, EUPD has been demonised. Consequently, those who learn of a potential partner’s disorder may be cautious to form a relationship; they fear running foul of these ‘toxic traits’. Although relationships with someone with EUPD can be challenging, this isn’t to say they can’t be successful and long-lasting. The key to navigating the turbulence of this disorder is to better understand what you need from yourself, and from your partner. Here are some things to keep in mind as you navigate a new relationship.

Your feelings are valid

As counsellor Jean Watson sees it, validation is a key coping mechanism: “It’s important in helping achieve a deeper understanding of your emotions. This then allows you to explore a more appropriate level of response and affect change.”

Validating your emotions is one of the most important ways of helping you reconnect with what’s going on around you. It can be easy for people with EUPD to invalidate themselves, believing that their emotions aren’t worthy, eventually leading to withdrawal and dissociation. This can then create more friction in the relationship. When you listen to those feelings instead of ignoring them, it enables you to work through them more effectively.

Live in the moment

Due to the intensity of emotions felt, people with EUPD can sometimes be quick to act without consideration – you may run on autopilot instead of listening to how you feel. This is where living in the moment comes into play. By recognising how you’re feeling, you can be mindful of how that affects you. For example, if you’re angry, does your body become tense, do you feel hot, are you shaking?

Choosing to concentrate on yourself, rather than succumbing to your urges, means that you can better learn what your true emotions are. However, this process needs to be done in a non-judgemental way; remove personal judgements and be gentle with yourself. Remember to observe and be aware, rather than react.

Understand your primary and secondary emotions

Related to living in the moment, it’s important to recognise which emotions you’re experiencing. For example,

Spot the sneaky excuse that can lead to relationship inequality

It’s fair to say that things like household chores and daily responsibilities aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. That said, what needs to be done, has to get done. But, sometimes, people have sneaky ways of avoiding those responsibilities – and it might be flying under the radar, until now.

‘Weaponised incompetence’ is used to describe a scenario where one person leads another to believe they are bad at a task, in order to get out of doing it altogether. The key thing here is that they’re feigning the incompetence, and it’s likely to be related to unappealing or tricky chores – think using the washing machine, navigating a GP’s booking system, or doing a child’s hair before school – so that someone else has to pick it up. This dynamic can happen in many different ways, but it’s particularly prevalent in long-term relationships.

“Weaponised incompetence can be considered a psychological game played by many couples, to varying degrees,” explains Hannah Beckett-Pratt, a transactional analysis counsellor. “A psychological game is where both partners play out a certain sequence of behaviours together, that repeat patterns with which they have become familiar. This happens outside of conscious awareness, so we usually do not notice we have been playing the game until we wind up with the same end result.”

Hannah points out that the partner on the receiving end of the weaponised incompetence can often end up feeling as though they know best, or are more competent, and so do the task – but at the same time feel hard done by and confused. This feeling of frustration is usually what then drives them to complete the task they really want their partner to do, and so the cycle repeats.

“If we are playing the other side – resorting to manipulating our partner into doing something for us because we ‘can’t’ – we are victimising ourselves, and will likely feel guilty, powerless, and inadequate,” Hannah adds. “It can appear that the partner weaponising their incompetence is only affected in beneficial ways, but actually, these behaviours are reinforcing their own helplessness, and also driving a wedge between them and their partner.”

Hannah explains that this behaviour might stem from low self-esteem, difficulty with boundaries and control, or could perhaps be a leftover tool of getting out of boring chores in childhood. Alternatively, she points out that they might be overcommitted in other areas of their lives, but find it hard to communicate that directly.

“Whatever the reasons underling the game of weaponised incompetence, neither partner is acting as an autonomous adult, responsible for their own needs,” Hannah concludes. “Instead, partners engage in a battle for who can control the other one, without directly stating what they really want, or do not want, to do.”

Weaponised incompetence lays the foundations for an unequal relationship. So, what can you do to address this? The answer is rooted in communication, and Hannah has some tips for navigating it.

“When it comes to conflict within a relationship, I love the analogy of being on the ‘same page’ as our partner,” she exp

It’s the small gestures that can make all the difference and, here, we’re sharing five ways to let the one you love know how you feel

1. Lingering eye contact

It lets someone know that you’re listening, helps you express and read emotions, and studies have gone on to show that eye contact has the ability to boost attraction – even between strangers. It’s also thought that making eye contact when talking about difficult things can make us more honest, and invites the other person to be more open with us, as well. So, next time you’re having a deep and meaningful chat, let your eyes linger that little bit longer.

2. Playing with their hair

Thanks to the delicate sensory neurons located at the base of hair follicles, having your hair gently played with can feel heavenly. And there’s really no technique to it – even just grabbing a hairbrush and gently running it through your partner’s hair will do it. Not only is it relaxing, but being delicately touched in a gentle and loving way leads to the release of oxytocin, the bonding hormone, which only deepens our connection.

3. Showing gratitude

We all like to be acknowledged for the things that we do, and so make sure to let your partner know when they’ve done something – big or small – that you’re grateful for. It could be picking you up a small treat from the supermarket at the end of a long day, remembering to check-in about an important event, or just the day-to-day love and support they offer you. Whatever it might be, take some time to reflect on what that means to you, and let them know how much you value them.

4. Hand holding

In 2009, a study published in the journal PNAS looked at at the effect hand-holding might have on our connections. Measuring the brainwaves of couples while they were sitting together, what they found was that, when the couple held hands while one of them had mild pain administered, their wavelengths appeared to sync up, and the participant experiencing the pain reported feeling it less intensely than when they weren’t holding hands. Those findings speak wonders to the comfort and intimacy that comes with this simple gesture.

5. Recognise their achievements

Life is that much easier when you’ve got a cheerleader in your corner, celebrating your wins and helping you to keep up the momentum with their support and encouragement. So be that person for your partner. That might mean hyping up their achievements at work, taking an interest in their hobbies and skills, or recognising how far they have come on personal journeys with mental health and wellbeing. And you don’t have to get the pom-poms out to do this – often, simple words say it best.

Have you ever started dating someone, and it’s felt like your relationship has gone from meeting up for coffee to planning to move in overnight? If you’re in a relationship where it feels like things have left you feeling overwhelmed (in a good or bad way) with their intensity, it could be a sign of love bombing

Passionate. Exciting. Fast-moving. It’s like they can’t get enough of you, with the constant compliments, loud exclamations of love and devotion, grand gestures and (expensive) gifts. They want to spend every minute with you. We’ve all been in one of those relationships, haven’t we? Who doesn’t love to feel loved?

But what happens when those gestures of love and affection come at a price? What if those overwhelming shows of affection aren’t actually a way of showing how much they care about you, but a way of gaining control?

What is love bombing?

According to the experts, love bombing can be a sign of a toxic or abusive relationship. If you’ve ever felt that your partner’s pace is overwhelming, their attention relentless, and have been unsure if it has made you feel unbelievably happy, unpleasantly uncomfortable, or a mixture of the two, then you may have been love-bombed.

“Love bombing is a term used in psychology and sociology to describe a type of behaviour in which a person demonstrates an excessive amount of love and affection for another person.” Counselling Directory member and counsellor Ian Stockbringe explains. “The goal of love bombing is to make the recipient feel loved and important. It can be used as a technique to control or manipulate someone or to win their affection. Love bombing can be manipulative and emotionally abusive, as the recipient may depend on the bomber’s constant attention and affection.”

For many of us, the more affection we recieve, the better we feel. But that’s the problem - the more we feel pulled into the onslaught of affection and attention, the harder it can be to recognise other warning signs in your relationship. At its core, love bombing is emotional manipulation, used to boost the love bombers ego by gaining a sense of power and control over another person.

Why do people love bomb?

While this tactic is most frequently used by narcissists, abusers, and con artists, not everyone is aware when they use this tactic. For some, growing up in a family or culture where overt expressions of love and affection were normal, can make them more likely to shower others with attention and words of love without considering this may make others feel uncomfortable.

For others, a lack of connection or feelings of insecurity may push them to move too fast, in an effort to form long-lasting attachments. Some may unconsciously take on negative behaviours (love bombing) due to past relationships. Yet for others, it is a way to manipulate, influence, or take advantage in order to gain what they want.

Counselling Directory member and counsellor Emma Davey explains more about Read more

Do you know your love language? What about your partner's? Discover the ways you like to express and receive love, to ensure the lines of communication remain clear

No matter how much we love our partners, sometimes, it can feel like we get tongue-tied expressing it, or that we’re reading signals the wrong way. We may know that communication is key to a healthy, lasting relationship, but are you communicating in a way that matters most to your partner?

What are the five love languages?

Developed in the 1990s by author and counsellor Gary Chapman, the five love languages are a method of explaining the different ways people like to express and receive love. These include:

• Acts of service
• Physical touch
• Quality time
• Gift giving
• Words of affirmation

But can learning about our partner’s love language really help us communicate? Psychotherapist Beverley Blackman explains more.

“Learning each other’s love languages (we usually have two preferences that stand out) can help you understand your partner better,” says Beverley. “In the early days of a relationship, a person may be looking for a particular behaviour as validation that the relationship is heading in the right direction. If both partners are aware of their own and their partner’s love language, then it gives them an opportunity to understand them better.

“All love languages are important as everyone is different, and has their own way of expressing affection. It’s little acts of connection that keep a relationship balanced, respectful, and affectionate.”

In essence, our love language is the way we prefer to share how we feel about those we are close to. By learning more about your own love language, as well as the way that your partner prefers to show their love, we can begin to avoid some miscommunication and misunderstandings, as we learn to look for signs that we might have been missing.

The five love languages explained

Acts of service

Who doesn’t like it when life feels that little bit easier? If your love language is acts of service, there’s nothing you value more than when your partner goes out of their way to make your life easier. Whether it’s making you breakfast, looking after you when you’re sick, or picking up an extra task or two around the house when you’re feeling exhausted or low, you firmly believe actions speak louder than words.

Physical touch

What better way to feel close, than through getting close? Those whose love language is physical touch feel most loved when sharing physical signs of affection. This includes everything from holding hands and cuddling, through to kissing and having sex. Sharing physical touch can create a sense of intimacy that is not only affirming, but creates a powerful emotional connection, as well as a sense of warmth and comfort.

Quality time

There’s no greater gift than the gift of time. If quality time is your love language, you feel most appreciated when your partner wants to spend time with you. Active listening, eye contact, and having their full attention (without distractions of