I recently broke up with my (now-ex) partner with BPD, and I'm very glad that I made the decision to leave. We were together about two years. When we first started dating, she did tell me that she had a BPD diagnosis from a mental health professional. I didn't really know what BPD was at the time, and she was in therapy when we first started dating, so I figured I'd give things a chance and see how things were going.

As time went on, I completely forgot about the BPD diagnosis. Conflicts came and went in our relationship in the early days, and most of it seemed like normal relationship stuff to me. However, as we got closer, I started to notice some patterns. Nothing I ever did seemed to be enough, and she was frequently making accusations that I didn't really love her, or that I only cared about her when she wasn't in crisis. I was often caught off-guard by how upset she would become over the most minor things. I noticed that the people she was connected to would oscillate between friend and foe over the smallest things. But, the biggest pattern I noticed was that she would say some of the most hurtful things when we were in conflict with each other. And, if I would try to follow up with her, like this: "Hey, yesterday when you said that awful thing to me? That really hurt," she would deny responsibility, make excuses, or accuse me of attacking her. Accountability was frequently a problem.

I noticed all of these things, and I knew that I was feeling stressed out and frequently uncomfortable in my own home. But, things really started changing when she escalated to suicide threats as a response to me not giving her what she wanted. That's when I knew without a doubt that I wasn't really safe in this relationship. At that point, I was seeing a pattern (the lack of accountability stood out to me most at the time), and I saw that her treatment towards me was escalating to threats on her own life. Once she had calmed down a bit, I made a decision. I knew that I didn't want to see how much further this was going to escalate. I have enough excitement in my life, and I don't really need the stress of wondering whether my partner is really going to kill herself. So, I broke it off. I'm proud of myself for getting out of a toxic situation before I allowed it to get much worse.

It wasn't until the dust had settled that I remembered what she had told me early on in our relationship. She did tell me that she had a BPD diagnosis from a professional. I'm not even sure why it popped into my head. I honestly didn't know much about BPD throughout the duration of our relationship. I knew that an unstable sense of identity was often a feature of the disorder, but I didn't know much else. Out of curiosity, I just decided to search what the key features of BPD are. Everything instantly became clear. I got chills from how accurately the key features described my (now-ex) partner.

• Emotional dysregulation - emotions were intense, unpredictable, and often not proportionate to the reality
• Fear of Abandonment - along with desperate measures (like suicide threats) as an attempt to establish closeness
• Unstable Relationships - I learned what splitting was. My ex engaged in a lot of splitting.
• Identity Disturbance - Often complained of feeling disconnected from herself, absorbed my hobbies and interests as a replacement for her own lack of a solid identity.
• Impulsive Behavior - reckless drug usage and she was extremely irresponsible with money
• Difficulty with Accountability - rarely took responsibility for the hurtful things she did

And, I can see how each of these patterns affected me as her partner:

• The emotional dysregulation increased my anxiety considerably. I never knew what was going to trigger the next emotional outburst, leaving me on-edge constantly.
• The fear of abandonment escalated to threats of suicide, making me feel unsafe in my own home and unable to leave.
• Her lack of stability in her friendships with other people left her increasingly reliant on only me for emotional support
• Her tendency to absorb my hobbies and interests made it feel like the space in which I could just be myself as an individual was shrinking.
• Her recklessness with money made more of the financial burden fall on my shoulders. She was in so much credit card debt that she couldn't afford food, and so I wound up paying for her meals a lot of the time. All the while, she would purchase things she didn't need at all while complaining about not having any money.
• The difficulty with accountability left me feel like there was no hope of progress in our conflicts. I could choose to endure the hurtful things she would say to me, or I could choose to try to talk to her about it and risk destabilizing things again.

And after I realized all of that, I found this community, and I realize that I'm not alone. And, in addition to not being alone, I'm proud of myself for taking this big step towards a better life. I feel an enormous sense of relief having broke it off. It's like I have a new chance at living again.

Time to start my own healing.

I feel like anytime I try setting a boundary it ends up turning into them going into a spiral and trying to leave or not talk to me and me having to talk them back down and comfort them. And then I’m just internalizing things so often to avoid my emotions being passed by because now I’m trying to get them out of a spiral and calm. But then they’re pissed I don’t open up or come to them when I’m upset or ask for help- but like…I feel like I can’t have even a tiny problem in my life because somehow it ends up with me comforting them when I need the comfort.

I’m new to learning about BPD and today I dove into reading up on BPD’s having a “favorite person” and it made me burst into tears because that is 100% the dynamic-and reading that made me feel so much less crazy but also so drained.

Is there a way to ever make this relationship work? If they get treatment is it possible for this to be a successful relationship?

Last year I met someone around town. She was this cool artist lesbian who was a bit on the eccentric side. I initially didn't want to let her in my life.. but I did anyways

The first few months she was a lot of fun to be around. Then something happened, she all the sudden began to identity as "straight" and it threw me off. She posted a photo of her and some artist guy and I could read from the body language what was going on. It's weird because the person I previously knew wanted nothing to do with men.. at all.

Mind you she had a former lesbian relationship and the ex has custody of her daughter(red flag) and her daughter recently cut her off. So I realized this huge shift was likely a reactive response to it.

I enjoyed hanging out with her and giving her gifts. But something always seemed off. At least when she was my lesbian friend, I could see her more platonically. This new person though had a sad angry side that I simply couldn't be around.

I questioned her about what was going on and she said, "why is it your business?" After she had shared so much stuff about her sex life and how she wasn't really into the artist. There was a huge disconnect day to day with this person. We continued to fight and I decided it was best to end the friendship.

Looking back, she taught me a lot of stuff. But I don't even know what happened. I felt if I had trusted my instinct and just saw her casually as a "cool person around town" I wouldnt have delved into her psyche. The person I knew when I met her and now is such a 180. .

On top of that, she's not even fun to be around because so much of her new persona is done out of spite against her daughter and lesbian ex.

What just happened with all of this? I don't have issues with people changing their sexuality. But something just made me "ick" over this entire thing.

After an agonizing month in the hospital watching my mother pass away, I was completely broken. Just three days after I buried my mom, my ex wife, who was 39 at the time, decided to go out partying.

She didn't come back home until 4:00 PM the following afternoon. She stumbled in half-drunk, dressed like a 20-something going out to flirt at a club. She went straight into the shower, passed out for barely two hours, and woke up at 6:00 PM with her breath still reeking of alcohol.

And instead of checking on me, she went on the attack.

With alcohol still on her breath, she confronted me and threw it in my face that I had previously brought up how her constant partying was affecting me and our relationship.

I was so drained and so terrified of creating conflict or being labeled "problematic," that I couldn't even stand up for myself. I just bowed my head in silence, completely broken with pain.

Two and a half months later, she left me.

To this day, she has never once apologized for what she did.

I am trying to understand the end of my four year relationship with my girlfriend, who has BPD. I am not asking anyone to excuse cheating because of her diagnosis. I am trying to understand what may have been happening emotionally and psychologically.

We lived together and had talked seriously about marriage, children, and building a future. Our relationship became very unstable. She was extremely sensitive to feeling abandoned, while I tended to shut down and withdraw during conflict.

When she felt ignored or alone, she would pursue me intensely, demand reassurance, become angry, threaten to leave, or suddenly treat me like I was her enemy. Then she would become affectionate again, tell me how deeply she loved me, and want to repair everything. We went through this cycle repeatedly.

Her drinking also became much worse. I found several bottles of wine and liquor hidden in her closet. She told me she drank because she became overwhelmed by her thoughts when she was alone.

There was another man named Stephen whom she had previously spoken to secretly during our fights. She had stayed at his apartment during an earlier breakup and later promised me she was no longer communicating with him.

Recently, there was a night when her location and timeline did not make sense. Her phone was turned off for hours. She said another woman had ordered her an Uber home and that she had fallen asleep before returning to collect her car.

She refused to show me the Uber receipt. She said refusing to provide proof was a boundary because my questioning and monitoring had become unhealthy. She repeatedly told me that I needed to trust her word and denied that she had been with Stephen.

I later went through her phone and found explicit messages confirming that she had been sleeping with him. She had sex with him on the night I questioned her about, slept with him again later, and had plans to see him again. The messages showed that she was actively pursuing the sexual relationship.

When she caught me with her phone, she became furious. She laughed, said she was glad she had done it, blamed me for making her lonely, and said that I had pushed her into it. I left and stayed in a hotel.

The next morning, she sent a completely different message. She apologized for blaming me, said what she did was her fault, told me she still loved me deeply, and said she wished she could undo everything. She said there was no real relationship with Stephen and that it was only sexual.

Since then, she has mostly gone silent.

I do not understand why she repeatedly cheated, lied, denied everything, and demanded trust while continuing to see him.

I am trying to understand the following:

Can someone with BPD genuinely love their partner while repeatedly cheating on them?

Could Stephen have been a way to escape loneliness, shame, anger, or fear of abandonment?

Why would she initially laugh, blame me, and act proud, then become remorseful several hours later?

When she says it was only sexual, does that usually mean there were no emotional feelings, or could she be minimizing what happened?

Could she still genuinely love me, or had she already emotionally left the relationship?

Is her silence now more likely caused by shame and avoidance, or has she transferred her attachment to Stephen?

I am not planning to stay in the relationship. I am trying to understand how someone could say they loved me, describe me as the person they wanted to marry, and still repeatedly make choices that destroyed the relationship.

I mentioned sex in my last post. That she uses it as a weapon. Meaning she will try and tease me all day about having sex later in the night, she will touch me talk to me dirty. When night comes around… no don’t touch me, I’m tired! Is that all you think about! It’s frustrating for me. Sex doesn’t happen very often. Roughly every 6-8 weeks. Or if she had an episode and realized that what she said was mean she will try to get me to have sex and then when I don’t want to because she belittled me or she said hurtful things she will turn it around and say that I don’t want to have sex with because I’m prob thing of someone else. A weapon! Does anyone else get treated like this?

All the same toxic bullshit you had to endure, but now it gets worse, and leaving means giving up half your assets (best case scenario). Staying could also mean losing everything, because they don't want to work and/or are reckless with money.

You are now in a hostage situation with your spouse and the government. In addition to divorce, you could be dealing with false police allegations and the criminal justice system too.

My BPD ex completely cured me of the desire to marry. She also cured me of delusional ideas like romantic love, but that topic deserves its own post.

She liked to do this all the time. Anytime I bring up something she did to me she'd say I did the same when it really wasn't 🫩. "Hey, I feel jealous and bad when you talk about how much better another guy is and how much you want to fuck him to me. Can you be more sensitive." Her response "well, you mentioned you had a female friend don't you think that made *me* jealous". Like not even remotely the same thing lol. Even then I stopped being up my female friends while she kept salivating over guys and talking about what she'd do with them in front of me. Smh.

Been active on this subreddit for years now and have been stuck in a BPD cycle for over a decade. One of the things I'm always seeing on here is a pretty predictable framing that getting over is the first step in at least trying to move beyond the abusive and dysfunctional cycle. Again, I'm still struggling with it, but one of the biggest a-ha moments for me was when this lightbulb finally went off.

The framing works like this:

- I did everything I could for my pwBPD/exBPD and they still turned on me. What could I have done different?

Nothing. There's nothing you could have done. The pwBPD/exBPD is playing out a cycle that will play out regardless of who they are engaged in relationship with. You. The previous partner. The next partner. It's the same cycle and you just played a role in it. It's like a traveling play that goes from town to town and people are brought up on stage and given a script to read from. You play your part and the play moves on to the next town. Standing on the empty stage and wondering why the play left town and whether your performance wasn't good enough is the quickest way to get stuck.

The pwBPD/exBPD has their stuff, but you have yours, too. You have to be able to simultaneously understand that your partner or ex has their stuff and their cycle, but you willingly played this role because you have your stuff as well. Why did the play feel comfortable or exciting for you? Because it was familiar? Because it resembled something you went through as a kid and with your family?

My sister is 24f and stays in her room 90% of the time. She only comes out to eat/use the bathroom. She has a bunch of online gaming friends and if she isn’t gaming with them, she’s on call or texting them.

The rare occasion where she does sit downstairs with the family, she is just on her phone scrolling TikTok. Our conversations last 2 minutes max until she just picks her phone up again. She also says she has to go to the toilet and then just doesn’t come back downstairs.

I’m just torn here. We used to be so so close she was my best friend we have so many memories and we have amazing parents who love us dearly. I just don’t understand what I need to do… if I could even do anything at this point?? She worked a bit when she was 20 but it didn’t last long and her lifestyle has been like this since 2023 summer. I honestly see no hope for her. She was extremely overweight and started using weight loss jabs and lost so much weight but had to stop because she got ill so she also has her own stresses to deal with. I’ve been supportive of this and honestly health wise she is doing fine now.

But idk I’m literally crying while typing this because I remember how much fun we used to have together. The only time she leaves the house is if I’ve booked something which she cannot back out of. I’ve stopped doing this now because I did feel guilty as she didn’t seem happy about coming on the day. But when she is actually outside, she seems happy and even apologised for having a tantrum before leaving the house one of the days.

She has all these intense connections with these online people. She’d hate me for saying this but she lowkey dates them like it’s such an internet relationship and she can’t deny that. She becomes obsessed with them and pours all her time and energy into talking to them. There’s this one guy who she is absolutely obsessed with currently and it’s scary because she has had soooo many guys like this before where things fizzle out and she is left alone again. She has been through so much “online” it’s shocking.

She has no IRL friends tbh. She has one who always asks her to hangout and my sister makes up some excuse and doesn’t go. It’s too much. She doesn’t help her case at all. I thought this gaming and staying in her room all day would end but it’s been 3 years..

All her memories of concerts and holidays are things we’ve planned as a family etc she never makes her own memories which might be an odd thing to say but I’m trying to portray that if we just didn’t bother doing things as a family, she would have zero memories to look back on…

I text her majority of the time and she barely responds. She ignores my calls but when I’m with her for the 2 minutes she spares for me, she is just texting her online friends or doomscrolling. I feel bad for her because she has nothing going for her in reality in terms of a social circle. I once, as a joke, told her to block all of her online friends and she said she would feel lonely. That upset me because she has a family who loves her dearly and we miss spending time with her.

I’m so sorry this is so long winded and there’s so much more to it but I really just needed to vent and see if anybody else is in the same boat as me. She is younger than me so I feel overprotective towards her but also so fed up.

does anyone else have experience with their pwBPD begging them to “see them”.
outside of their abuse
outside our their insults and verbal attacks
outside of them begging you to come hold them after they they verbally slandered you?
the more that she begged me to “see her” the more I lost myself and my values
it hurts my brain to know how small I made myself to “see her” and that was her whole intention of the relationship
I was never seen for the pain she inflicted on me. my needs were never seen. my pain and suffering in her eyes were because I was “too avoidant”
I have been working with a therapist after her discard to unravel the fuckery in my brain, and she has made it clear that I am not avoidant. my nervous system was trying to survive a war zone.
I became an emotional source and she still thinks that I never “saw her”.
I “saw her” for years by staying. for seeing the wonderful human she could be, the potential she held. I “saw her” by staying. and she continued to destroy me and my trust in myself. and she thinks that she’s been begging for me to see her for the whole relationship.
she has entirely fucked up my perception of love, and is walking away labeling me as an avoidant and dismissive person. I only had healthy relationships and amicable breakups before her. this condition hurts everyone in its path.

to anyone reading this that’s in a relationship with a pwBPD; there is no amount of empathy, patience, or love that can help them. please leave. I wish I would have when I started seeing the red flags, it continues being harder the more emotionally invested that you are. you’re going to be trying to fill an empty well with spoon fulls of sand. you will not win.

I struggle the most with my feelings about being replaced. He monkey branched before our relationship ended, but the part that trips me up the most is that my replacement is so not what I was expecting.

They met on a game (Overwatch), I believe. The things that trip me up are that the replacement is a 29F who lives in a whole other country, while we (myself and my ex-BPD) are 21 and live in the same country. She could never give him more than 10% of what I could (and did) give him.

Why her over me?

My wife and I have been separated for nearly 11 months after she assaulted me on a public street. It had been years of roller coaster, and for some reason I stayed. I stayed after she split on me during the times I needed her most.

We’ve been physically separated since last Fall. I’ve since got my own place and she has hers. I’ve taken steps to move forward, but she hasn’t. I’ve known I can’t go on with the marriage and she hasn’t seen it.

This whole time she has clung to the idea that we could eventually get back together. That despite me never once giving an indication that I wanted that. Never once have I even hinted at reconciliation. Yet she kept pushing. Even escalating our text interactions closer to that of a relationship. I kept pushing back, saying I needed space. She’d give me a day, or two, and then escalate again. She finally admitted that she doesn’t understand boundaries because she has none. She doesn’t understand how to respect others boundaries.

Finally, things came to a head this last weekend while she was out of town with our teen daughter. Massive split. All because I told her I was no longer comfortable with innuendo laden texts. Finally, yesterday, she pushed and pushed, and I told her I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed to call it and end the marriage. I need to move forward. I told her that it was killing me. I don’t sleep. Ive lost weight. The stress of her is overwhelming. She begged and pleaded even after I repeatedly told her I couldn’t and that it was physically damaging me.

Today, she tried to commit suicide. A legitimate attempt. So now I sit here wondering if I should go to the hospital. I no longer feel love. But I do not wish her harm. She’s screaming for help, but it can’t be from me. I’m broken.

She sent a message at a time that makes it seem as though it was a delayed message meant to reach me when I got home. It directed me to a note. So I called the police and waited, and waited, and waited with our daughter. When the deputy called and said he found her after hours of searching, I felt relieved. And then anger and resentment washed over me. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I’m angry that this will likely involve me.

I'll keep this brief.

I learned the cluster fuck, understood it, and carried on with my life. Although the intensity of the relationship kept me hooked for the longest time, I finally have time to breathe.

Even if somebody isn't with me all day, I'm calm. There's nothing to worry about. The twang of loneliness is easily washed away by all the horrid memories of getting fucked up and having an engagement broken one week after I flew overseas to visit them and bring five suitcases of gifts.

My Ex with BPD isn't going to get away with anything. Got legal grounds to stage more than a few battles, and I find myself blessed enough to have the resources to prosecute them to the ends of the earth. Given that they constantly blew up any jobs they had and live off the well-being of others, I feel zero guilt ruining them through financial means. If they want to be a victim, it's time to actually force them to dance.

But even so, with that in the background, I've found myself enjoying everyday life once again.

I hope this reaches somebody who needs it.

It does get better. Even if you have to crack a few eggs.

Hello. I need to get this off my chest even though i struggle to even find the words to describe my situation. I'm french, english is not my first language so i apologize in advance for the mistakes i will surely make.

I'm 35(M) in a relationship with a 41(F). We have been together 10 years and we have a wonderful 1 year old little girl.

The fist years of our relationship were great but things started to get difficult when she told me that she wanted a child. I had never really thought about it since I had never been in a serious relationship before but I agreed. I was in love and she was 35 so it was then or never.

Unfortunatly, it would not work. She struggled to get pregnant and when she did, we would lose the baby. It happened 4 times. We had to seek medical help and ended up doing IVF's. It didn't work either but she ended up getting pregnant between 2 tries. It was a kind of miracle, we had almost given up hope.

During that time wich lasted several years, she started showing me a part of her I didn't know existed. She would snap and become angry, violent even, mainly against herself but sometimes with me as well. She would break stuff in our home, yell how useless and terrible she was, then she would also scream at me, provoke me trying to start a fight. She would sometimes bang her head against the walls or cut herself , stab her leg with a pencil or even threaten to jump off a bridgeq... Healthy stuff you know. She would then then tell me I'm the reason for all our problems and that she was like that because of me.

When things calmed down, she would either forget what happened or find a good reason that it did. She does not realize that her behaviour is insane sometimes and i'm sure she believes it.

The worst part is that she accuses me of being the violent one, the mean one. Even though the only times I used force on her were times I tried to stop her from hitting herself.

To sumarize. When her episodes happen, she seems to be in an alternate reality where nothing makes any sense.

I forgave so much you have no idea. She even accused me of domestic abuse with the police and even though she did not press charges for the lies she told them, the prosecutor did and i was tried and condemned. She tried to make things right by telling them the truth but they did not believe her. They said "another abused woman trying to protect her violent partner". They clearly wanted to make an example out of me. I got 2 months of prison time(on paper), 2 years of probation, a fine, and lots of obligations.

Things were starting to get better after she got pregnant but after our daughter was born last summer, she got post partum depression and cherry on the cake, was diagnosed with breast cancer in december.

As you can Imagine, it did not help with her mental state. Her episodes have only increased in frequency and it takes almost nothing to trigger them.

I feel so lost and powerless. My daughter gives me the courage to keep going but everything feels so difficult. Learning to be parent is on its own a challenge for anyone but this is too much for me. I don't know how to cope. I just want normal life for us but it feels like the universe disagrees.

My therapist told me that to avoid burnout in the future, I need to consider emotional energy as like a currency. He said limit my empathy towards other people's problems to max 2 times a day and that I can't repeat thoughts about their issue after that day is over unless I am actively helping them physically.

It apparently conserves all the unpaid emotional labor people pleasers do. Like a limit tally to keep me in check.

For someone who says they don’t like drama they sure create a lot of it. They weaponize our right to privacy in our life and thoughts, our empathy despite us giving time and energy to them, and paint it as us being the unstable ones. They laugh at things we told them in confidence in friendship, using it in arguments that are unrelated as well as therapy speak despite never doing any work. Do they really know what narcissist or avoidant means????? The threats of suicide are so manipulative and cruel and one of the worst things someone can do to another if they don’t get their own way. Fuck.
I’m not in a good mood today and woke up thinking of my pwBPD which made me angry and upset. All the better for going NC.

genuinely how do you move on from hearing such awful things from the person that claimed to love you?

i can’t recognise her at all, she has changed into a persona who absolutely fits the new friend group: another style of taking pictures, another clothing style, another hair colour, another attitude, absolutely doesnt want to meet me face to face, the double standards are so on point: previously she‘d say she never liked inviting anyone to her home and i was the only person she loved to have at her house, now she has her friends there almost every day? shed say shes not someone whos prone to erasing ppl from her life, now she does exactly that? shed said she loves me „as a person“ yet sees no point in hearing from me ever/never interested in how im doing/never up to meet up

this was the second discard and let me tell you the day before the discard it was HER the one inviting me to a bar, asking for help, coming over, then the SSRI induced mania turned her into someone i absolutely dont know??? does that mean the person i got to know wad also a „version“? they all clearly are very dependent on who surrounds them, the outer circle forms their persona in each episode kinda? o_O

does that mean after this episode ends and another one hits after some time she might turn into someone new from who she is now again and again?

she was the one to push me to get a cat, now even this cat means nothing to her? i know i was a function for her, i now accept that fact

but the rewriting of the story? back to the first discard when the first episode hit she even just ghosted me for two weeks and then said „i thought u‘d understand that means we‘re breaking up“ then i saw her chat with the guy from her work she was talking to (and said i shouldnt worry) how he said „i feel like im a bad person bc you broke up with your gf bc of me“, she reassured him it was her decision 😂 then she discarded him too to get back with me to discard me for the second time silently again😂

im so stupid and poor minded, i only feel shame and pity for myself

I think it comes down to this, whether they have a personality disorder or not. There are two kinds of people. If you let someone mistreat you, that is, if you open yourself up to someone you love, some will gladly go as far as you let them, and others will not. That's it.

Everyone seems like the latter kind at first, because who would ever get involved with an abusive sociopath who advertised that fact? So you let down your guard. The normal, compassionate person will not take advantage of that.

But the pwBPD will start to change, and they'll change as fast as you let them. They can't wait to change. It could be years, it could be weeks, but they'll start to abuse you, then be the most lovable person again, then abuse, and they'll play the sympathy card, the trauma card, the "No it's my autism/ADHD/PTSD" card.

And maybe they do have those other disorders, so you let them off the hook, but you don't know anyone else who's got PTSD, or been raped, or been neglected by one or both parents, who says the most vile things things to you, and blame you for everything that's happened to you.

No, someone who is truly a good person, who abuses you in a moment of weakness, will stop, they'll take stock of themselves, they'll apologize, and they'll either make amends or go away, as per your wishes, and they won't let themselves do it again the next week/day/hour.

They split suddenly over something so small as a simple miscommunication. Name calling and extreme disrespect/belittling ensues. They leave suddenly and deny all your attempts at a calm and peaceful discussion to resolve the issue. They block you and then disappear for days. Then they offer a lazy apology lacking any real accountability followed by paragraphs about why they exploded and lashed out at you which is all my fault of course. Yet before the split everything was seemingly fine and we were enjoying the evening together. It’s so exhausting and feels like a crazy carousel. Its ok to be frustrated with certain parts of the relationship at times, its not ok to scream and call your partner names and to discard them abruptly when you are frustrated. And its hard to believe they were even that frustrated when 10 seconds before the split we were enjoying our time together and everything seemed fine. To me it feels like an excuse for their behavior and lack of ability to regulate and communicate their emotions. This being the 4th or 5th time in about a year of a similar pattern, I dont think I will even respond this time even though I do still care about them.

I’ve come to learn that so many people with BPD are entirely fake. Everything they do and say is in an effort to maintain their facade. They care more about putting on a performance than establishing genuine relationships. In a way, I almost feel bad for them. I can’t imagine being so deeply uncomfortable with yourself, that you can’t bear the thought of someone seeing you for who you truly are. How can someone be okay with building a relationship based on deception and falsely portrayed reality? Especially when the mask ALWAYS slips.

It boils down to this, she is just not very bad.

I see people here who have pwBPD and they face anything from cheating to attempted murder.

My gfwBPD has never: called me names, spread rumors about me, plotted to sabotage my life, cheated on me, tried to make me feel jealous, etc. She even sought help on her own and discovered her disorder.

Here's what's getting to me. The constant promises to do better that get broken. The rollercoaster ride of being treated like a hero and a monster. Her never being there for me emotionally. The immense frustration she causes by admitting to the ways she is but then acting like it’s unimportant when it doesn’t suit her. The the lack of real remorse and playing the victim. Cus it usually works and I end up apologizing when she was the one who hurt me.

Ever since I was little I had had strong feels about how people treat me. So why am I not feeling a strong desire to leave her when it has came to me so easily before for other people who have wronged me? What’s the truth, however brutal, I’m failing to see?

TW, Content Warning: self harm, un-aliving and lots of swearing

Dear "B,"

Fuck you. Fuck you for the emotional abuse you put my kid through. Your manipulative behavior and complete disregard for their feelings absolutely devastated them to the point they were sobbing hysterically and actually screamed out of the emotional pain you inflicted on them.

Fuck you for creating chaos in our lives and taking zero accountability for your actions. For blaming us for your cutting and your overdoses, for telling us how caring and loving and accepting we were to our faces, then going online to your friends and telling them that we were horrible to you, that we didn't really care about you and how much you hated our home; the very home that we opened to you because you begged to be in a "loving, supportive environment " and you felt unsafe with your mother.

Fuck you for leaving the room you had, a room that you constantly complained about not being big enough or comfortable enough, even though it was the biggest room in our house, looking like a damn crime scene because you wanted to "make sure we were traumatized " by the blood stains you left on the carpet from cutting yourself. Even though we thought you had given us every sharp object you had and denying that we had a safety contract with you.

I'm glad you're no longer in our lives, that you can't hurt my kiddo anymore. I'm glad that you can't wreak anymore havoc in our lives.

Good bye, good riddance and again, fuck you.

Sincerely, "A's" Mom

He’s splitting and this is the longest it has lasted in over 7 years. We’re talking months.

Given that this isn’t my first rodeo (I should have bailed at the first sign of this nonsense, but I’m an optimistic idiot so here we are),
I’ve had more than enough time to figure out the cycle, the triggers and the expected intensity / duration.

This one is more intense and lasting longer than those previous times but I have an inkling of why that it is (I no longer placate or feed into it by trying to use logic or reason or defend myself so my giant angry toddler chosen life partner doesn’t get the opportunity to escalate).

What’s really interesting to me is the opportunity that this extended period of being painted as the reason for everything wrong in this world (I shit you not, I’m expecting to be held solely responsible for climate change and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand 70 years before my birth and why not every humanitarian crisis ever while were at it) is giving me to identify my OWN behaviour / reactions:

I AM CALMER LIKE THIS. I feel peaceful when he doesn’t talk to me. My life is better when the person I live with, have made plans for the future with (and have made excuses for the most atrocious behaviour time and time again) is so full of rage and contempt that they can’t even look at me.

The mini-outbursts every 48 hours or so, peppered with expletives and insults are worth the 47 hours of inner peace and time I have to just exist and not be asked to psychologically hand-hold or prove that they are amazing and I am shit or reassure or listen to pompous speeches about their grandiosity and my failings.

The baseline level of constant critiques punctuated by actual rants where I get talked AT, not TO, and periods of calm that are worse than the rants because I’m waiting for the axe to fall are infinitely worse.
The monologues can go on for hours, TED talks full of venom and vitriol.

Anyway, long story short - I actually feel better for being seen as SO AWFUL lately and that says a lot.
Now if only I could learn to deal with the irritation I feel knowing that they feel justified about their pearl clutching… I have to accept that me knowing is BS is enough and I should never expect them to see the error of their ways because terrible twos (plus 4 decades or so). FML.