3 - (SYM 80) It Takes Two to Tango: Borderline Personality Symptoms and the Characteristics and Daily Emotional Experiences of Romantic Partners

Interpersonal dysfunction is a core diagnostic criteria of borderline personality disorder (BPD), characterized by frantic efforts to avoid abandonment and unstable, intense relationships. While research has frequently examined the behaviors and expression of emotion in romantic relationships from the perspective of the partner with BPD, much less is known about the characteristics of the partners of individuals with BPD. The present study examined how participants’ BPD symptoms related to personal characteristics and the daily mood of their partners. In particular, we sought to determine if the relation between conflict behaviors by the participant and partner emotional state differed based on the participants’ level of BPD symptoms.

The present study recruited 158 participants (79 cohabitating couples) from the community. Participants (both members of the couple) completed a three-week daily diary that assessed their own mood state, as well as their estimates of their own and their partner’s negative relationship behaviors (e.g., criticizing or acting cold towards the partner). At baseline, participants completed a measure of BPD symptoms.
            Results from multi-level regression show that partners of individuals with many BPD symptoms are elevated in their own BPD symptoms, antisocial symptoms, depression, anxiety, and insecure attachment. baseline BPD symptoms interact with daily negative relationship behaviors (e.g., criticism, yelling) to predict partner daily anger. The interaction indicates that while all partners have higher anger on days the participant endorses engaging in negative behaviors, partners of participants with high BPD symptoms do not see as much reduction in their anger on days when the participant endorses not engaging in negative relationship behaviors. This suggests that the anger of partners of participants with many BPD symptoms is less responsive to fluctuations in the participant's daily negative relationship behaviors as the partners are more inflexibly high in their own experience of daily anger, regardless of whether the participant engaged in negative relationship behaviors. Clinically, the implication is that individuals with higher BPD symptoms may have partners who are more chronically elevated in anger and who may be less responsive to positive changes in relationship behaviors, at least over a short period of time.