Do Borderlines plan the next relationship before exit current one?

[Depression = 72% of members]

After finding out my current BPDgf has borderline... .I started to think back to how our relationship started... .It is a complex and long story... .But she definatly made it happen... .Now after a year and a half of living together we are getting our own places... .I know now there was someone there that I replaced... .Is this possiable She has someone else waiting that I don't know about... .Things are not good right now and she is and has been quite distant... .even more that usual... .I don't know what to trust anymore?

[muscleheadml]

After finding out my current BPDgf has borderline... .I started to think back to how our relationship started... .It is a complex and long story... .But she definatly made it happen... .Now after a year and a half of living together we are getting our own places... .I know now there was someone there that I replaced... .Is this possiable She has someone else waiting that I don't know about... .Things are not good right now and she is and has been quite distant... .even more that usual... .I don't know what to trust anymore?

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[maxsterling]

I don't think borderlines think in terns of "relationships".  That means, they aren't "planning" for anything, they actions are based upon emotions of the moment, and it just happens.  If she had someone else lined up, she'd probably already be with that person.  Before meeting me, my wife went from person to person (man or woman).  In my eyes (and probably in hers, too) few of them were "relationships".  Rather dating and sleeping around was a way of trying to fill a void of boredom and self hatred. 

In the case of your girlfriend, it's likely she keeps one eye open in the other direction, and some day it may just happen that sh things her internal struggle will be solved elsewhere.  But I don't think there is much "planning" involved.  I don't think the typical pwBPD is capable of the kind of emotional maturity it takes to objectively evaluate the relationship he/she is in and consciously decide to look for better.

[JRT]

The pattern of my exBPD fiance was to breakup and then sit it out. While doing so, she takes comfort in food to assuage her depression and rages at her son. I have not known her to have any over lapping relationships... .then again, she is a world class liar and anything might have been possible.

[RedDove]

I tend to agree with MaxSterling. I don't think that someone with BPD can ever think long term or about consequences. Everything is about their needs and in the moment, getting their needs met, trying to try fill the empty self=bottomless bucket with holes inside of themselves.

In my 4 year encounter with my ex BPDbf he idealized and was extremely (overly) attentive when he was "love bombing" me. I'm talking 20+ texts a day, constantly wanting to see me and know where I was and who I was with. Most times when we were intimate, he would shut down for a few days (push me away) and became distant. It hurt like heck when it happened, because just when I thought we were getting closer, unbeknownst to me at the time, he was feeling overwhelmed by the intimacy.

There were two occasions when he raged at me. He's the waif, quiet type. I said or did, or he perceived I said/did something to invalidate him. I got the silent treatment for weeks on end. I ended the encounter a year ago when i discovered he was cheating on me with another woman first hand. That's when he revealed he suffered from BPD. I've also discovered over time that there were many other women. He had simultaneous non-relationships with all of us. He was very secretive and deceitful.

His faulty coping mechanisms (BPD) drive him to push people away when things get beyond surface level stuff. Whenever I tried to communicate "my" needs and feelings, bam, he shut down and shut me out. He'd then get on the POF dating site and find a replacement. Any woman who was as vulnerable and had a care taker nature like me, who would show him any attention, and respond to his idealization was a replacement.  He has "no" impulse control and can't think behind his needs, feelings, emptiness and hurt. It's very sad.

[ShadowIntheNight]

After finding out my current BPDgf has borderline... .I started to think back to how our relationship started... .It is a complex and long story... .But she definatly made it happen... .Now after a year and a half of living together we are getting our own places... .I know now there was someone there that I replaced... .Is this possiable She has someone else waiting that I don't know about... .Things are not good right now and she is and has been quite distant... .even more that usual... .I don't know what to trust anymore?

My experience was that my ex had someone lined up before she ended our relationship. It's the same with her friendships that come and go every 6 months. If you think it may be happening, confront her. If I knew I was definitely involved with a BPD now, after my experience, I wouldn't trust them at all. But that's just me.

[maxsterling]

Shadow - I see that with my wife, too, but I don't see it as a "planned" thing.  When one friendship/relationship ends, she's quick to find someone else to latch onto, and it's usually someone she already knows, sometimes a person she had previously painted black.  I don't think she sits and thinks about how she can end one relationship in favor of another.  I just think the feeling leaves, the inevitable nasty fight happens, and then the reach out to someone she already knows. 

[ShadowIntheNight]

Shadow - I see that with my wife, too, but I don't see it as a "planned" thing.  When one friendship/relationship ends, she's quick to find someone else to latch onto, and it's usually someone she already knows, sometimes a person she had previously painted black.  I don't think she sits and thinks about how she can end one relationship in favor of another.  I just think the feeling leaves, the inevitable nasty fight happens, and then the reach out to someone she already knows.  

I'm glad for you that that's how your relationship is. Mine was entirely different. There was no fight, no I hate you, no We're no good togethers. Last May I was going through a rough draft of a court order for child support between her and her exH making changes to it to make sure she and her kids were not being taken advantage of and she was spending the month going out on dates with men (I am a woman, we were together for 9.5 years) .

Two months later, a woman who I had spoken to most everyday for 10 years had reduced her communication to about one text a week. We always talked, rarely texted. By August, after hearing nothing for two weeks, on my birthday she mailed me a note inside a birthday card telling me she had been dating men in the summer (I'm very sure she started that in April, I just noticed it in May, this in retrospect to figure out what the heck happened.

So I was aware that something was going on starting back in april, by August she was gone. That is planning, and it wasn't someone she knew. If it was she would have been gone sooner. Pure and simple. She didn't  tell me she was going, she just changed her actions toward me. She never even gave me a reason either. I cannot tell you to this moment why she left. I'm not sure she knows. I just know she was planning it while she was also making sure I was taking care of the final court order for her and her kids to be taken care of.

And after the discard? All that we went through together for 10 years? I was told I was a good FRIEND.

If you suspect things aren't right, they probably aren't. That's all I'm saying. We do that as a self-defense mechanism. Best to not give in to it and push it aside, that leads to surprises and hurt.

[vortex of confusion]

I don't think they possess the ability to plan that far in advance. I think it is more about trying to fill that void within them.

My husband and I have a bit of a twisted story. After 15 years of marriage and 15 years of trying to communicate with him, I answered an online ad for a guy that was looking for "just a friend" because he was in a similar situation. I talked to the guy for two days before I was overcome with guilt. I told my husband immediately. Instead of seeing it as a sign that our relationship was in all kinds of trouble, my husband saw it as an opportunity for us to have an open marriage. I was a ball of conflicting emotions when my husband of 15 years basically said, "Let's see other people." I went with it because I was tired of not having my needs met and I didn't want to break up our family. I thought what the hey, why not! I was at a very, very low point.

Anyway, we both talked to lots of different people with our respective ads. I was looking for ONE person that I could have an actual relationship with that wouldn't interfere with my ability to be a wife and mom. I have no idea what he was looking for because it seemed that he would change his mind constantly. If he had somebody, then I was okay to do what I wanted. If he didn't, then he would insist that I couldn't talk to my friend any more. It was like people were purely disposable to him. About a month ago, he found another friend and was telling me about how he felt a real connection with her and how great she was. We had a discussion about how the two of us were fundamentally incompatible but that we wanted to try to work things out because of the kids, blah, blah, blah. The talk was all about us having a companionate marriage where we are friends and raise the kids together but look elsewhere for romantic type stuff. A week or two later, he did a complete 180. He ditched his friend and suddenly decided that he wants to have a "normal" marriage.

The thing that bothered me most about all of it was his ability to throw people away with what seemed like little or no remorse or something. I had a couple of people that I talked to that were just friends. When those friends moved on, I was sad. Most of the time, they moved on because I refused to be anything other than just a friend. My husband would talk to somebody for a day or two and go on about how great this person was and how great of a connection there was, blah, blah, blah. It was totally mind boggling. There was no planning on my husband's part at all. He would go from being gung ho about us one day to answering ads the next. It was all about him and how he was feeling. He couldn't make a plan and stick to it if he had to.

[waverider]

Dont think they plan it. It may be more of a case of lack of boundaries that being in a RS may not stop then grabbing an enticing possibility if it presents itself.

Flirting and wanting to be popular is common for many pwBPD, so opportunities often do present themselves.

It would be unfair to generalize to much on it though.

[LilHurt420]

I tend to agree with MaxSterling. I don't think that someone with BPD can ever think long term or about consequences. Everything is about their needs and in the moment, getting their needs met, trying to try fill the empty self=bottomless bucket with holes inside of themselves.

In my 4 year encounter with my ex BPDbf he idealized and was extremely (overly) attentive when he was "love bombing" me. I'm talking 20+ texts a day, constantly wanting to see me and know where I was and who I was with. Most times when we were intimate, he would shut down for a few days (push me away) and became distant. It hurt like heck when it happened, because just when I thought we were getting closer, unbeknownst to me at the time, he was feeling overwhelmed by the intimacy.

There were two occasions when he raged at me. He's the waif, quiet type. I said or did, or he perceived I said/did something to invalidate him. I got the silent treatment for weeks on end. I ended the encounter a year ago when i discovered he was cheating on me with another woman first hand. That's when he revealed he suffered from BPD. I've also discovered over time that there were many other women. He had simultaneous non-relationships with all of us. He was very secretive and deceitful.

His faulty coping mechanisms (BPD) drive him to push people away when things get beyond surface level stuff. Whenever I tried to communicate "my" needs and feelings, bam, he shut down and shut me out. He'd then get on the POF dating site and find a replacement. Any woman who was as vulnerable and had a care taker nature like me, who would show him any attention, and respond to his idealization was a replacement.  He has "no" impulse control and can't think behind his needs, feelings, emptiness and hurt. It's very sad.

sadly this describes my husband to a T.