It's been some years since I've used this community and for the time being while I find therapy again I'm just hoping for some support.
My recent ex partner is not diagnosed as BPD and to my knowledge has never sought treatment. The past 5 and half years have actually been very pleasant and its only recently that I noticed after a very traumatic instance in our relationship that she was exhibiting signs of the disorder. I was in another long term relationship before her with a diagnosed BPD partner that was worlds different and I guess maybe its my fault that I let my guard down and stopped looking for the signs and ignoring the red flags. There really wasnt much in that way though. She is fairly antisocial but outside of that she treated me kindly almost all of the time. She was supportive of me, compassionate, and highly intelligent. In my eyes, a model partner, and I love her dearly. In the first 5 years of being together we only fought a handful of times but in the fights we had I didnt see anything that stood out as a red flag.
We recently decided a few months ago to open our relationship. It seemed like a good idea in the moment and through all the work Ive done in therapy I thought that I had the tools in place to handle it. I trusted her completely and even though I knew Id have some struggles with it on my end to begin with I felt confident that I would be able to move past them fairly quickly. It was my suggestion to begin with as well.
She started dating a man and I was having some issues I knew would come up and I admittedly handled those issues incorrectly. One night she came home drunk from a date and we had sex. Later that night when she passed out I realized her phone was open to her text thread with him and I found that for the last 3 weeks she had been lying to me about where the relationship was and also that on that night they had fooled around. I left it for a week to see if she would tell me about it figuring that it would maybe just take some time for her to be comfortable enough to tell me seeing as it was something new and unexplored for both of us. A week went by and she didnt tell me and I regrettably confronted her about it in the middle of the night when I got upset she hadnt told me yet. That night she blew up on me. Projection of her anger on to me, gaslighting me by stonewalling me and shutting down, being intentionally vague, ect. The next day we both handled things very poorly. I myself struggle with mental illness and I was feeling rejected and confused about why she would lie to me after all these years we spent happy together. The night ended by her asking me to hide the weapons and knives in the house. It shocked me at first and I did my best to collect everything and I bought a safe to place them in.
The next day when I had a moment to reflect I noticed that I was entering in to some familiar feelings that I had with my ex with BPD. I felt the PTSD kicking in and I started realizing what I was seeing. Threats to self harm, projection, explosive anger, admitted feelings of emptiness, gaslighting, ect.
I didnt and still dont want the relationship to end and over the next month I tried a few times to use empathy and put myself in her position. The night I found out I closed our relationship but I felt guilty on my own, without her pressure, that I told her she couldnt speak to someone she obviously cared for. We spent an afternoon together and I tried to determine if she was feeling better and maybe I was overreacting to everything that was going on due to my experience with my previous ex. I didnt feel comfortable with it but she did tell me she missed talking to him as a friend. Although I wasnt sure if she was still speaking with him I had my suspicions but tried to let it go.
I kept trying over the next few days to get her to talk about what happened and how we could regain stability in the relationship and each time she would completely lash out at me and get frustrated and tell me she didnt want to talk about it. When I'd tell her I wanted to move past it and get over it her only offer to me was to say "then get over it and stop talking about it". I read articles about communicating after boundaries were crossed in a poly relationship and I tried all the tips I could find to get her to talk to me about it.
Through all this my suspicion about her speaking to him kept growing so I thought that if maybe I told her I was ok with speaking to him again that she would put down the gloves and start coming back to the table to meet me in the middle. Her behaviors before I said it was ok were making it fairly obvious she already was. One day we went for a hike and we went to the store to grab some stuff on the way there. She entered her pin into the keypad and I recognized it as her phone password. We usually dont hide anything from one another and she had told me it a few times but I had never committed it to memory. She had already assumed because I was suspicious and questioning her about speaking to him that I was going through her phone but I decided that even though I remembered it now, I wouldnt use it. On the hike that day I decided that I was going to encourage her to speak to him again, flirt even, rather than invade her privacy. We had fought earlier in the week and when I brought up if she was sending nudes to him, rather than answer no she said she could be friends with someone and not want to
PLEASE READ them. I knew the photos I had taken on her phone and there was only 1 she liked, so when I was encouraging the flirting I brought up a specific photo I thought she may have already sent him. Rather than say no, she said " I never told you that." I saw as a lie by omission and it gutted me.
I was struggling so bad that I ended up telling her I was ok with her speaking to him again and even that it was ok for her to have whatever relationship she wanted with him as long as she was honest with me about it. Mostly because at that point I was just tired of feeling like she was lying to me. That night when she fell asleep I looked at her phone. I felt awful for doing it and I had a frog in my throat but I had to know if she was lying to me. I didnt read the messages but I scrolled to see she had been speaking to him before I had told her I was ok with it. I woke up the next day feeling
PLEASE READing awful and I decided I wouldnt do it again. A few days past after that and things started to return to some sort of normalcy. We had sex, we were laughing a little again and communicating, and I started to think that maybe this would be a rough patch that we'd get past.
A few days later when I tried to bring up what happened again to speak about it, she again, lashed out. I grew frustrated and over the coming days and eventually I decided that I made a mistake telling her to speak to him again. I thought it be a fix that would bring her to the table to discuss things with us and help fix things but she still wasnt interested in talking about it. I decided to set a boundary that if she decided to continue to speak to him that I would remove myself from the relationship. Admittedly I should have done this from the start but I was so caught up in the whirlwind that I didnt have the forethought to do it then and again I was learning about Poly and how to be understanding amd respectful of her other relationships.I realized how frustrating it could be for someone to be told it was ok then not ok to speak to someone and I felt like I was robbing her of her autonomy. I was so confused trying to do the right thing but also angry that she wasnt trying to meet me in the middle. I couldnt handle the lying and it was getting harder to accept it as something that was just from anger. I didnt fear it was because of him, and I didnt think she was seeing him behind my back. Im actually pretty sure of that.
I set the boundary a few days ago and she was pissed at me and I understood why. I tried to give her space to be mad at me. During this time I contacted my old therapist and she got back to me and I confided with her on what was happening. She explained that I messed things up pretty bad with how I handled it from the get go but she encouraged me to get to do what I thought was best for me given the circumstances. She didnt try to analyze my ex and she didnt fault me for experiencing the feelings I had and went as far to tell me that if I thought there were issues with mental illness that I should address them empathetically and decide from there if I thought it was worth staying. I wrote a letter and last night I put it on the table to give to her. When I went to go to bed I noticed her phone was covered again and I felt inclined to look but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. This morning when I woke up she went to walk the dogs and I gave in and looked. Sure enough, he was in her text threads. I read them and I just realized then and there that it was probably time for me to leave. When she came back I decided to give it one last shot, even though I knew it be in vain, and tried to talk to her about how when she said she felt I was punishing her over the boundary that it wasnt a punishment. In the argument I said something that put her on the defensive enough for her to tell me that shed been waiting for me to bring up how she always says "I". I had two NPD bosses and I talk about them fairly often when we got together and I'm pretty sure she thought I was going to accuse her of having NPD. I was so thrown off by it that I was at a loss for words. When I tried to bring it back to the boundary she told me "eff your boundary" and I just gave up. I asked for the ring back, and I admitted to looking at her phone and I walked away ending the relationship. In that argument she said opening our relationship was a mistake and I couldnt have agreed more but also eventually the mental health issues would have caught up to us.
I sent her the letter any way out of spite and regrettably tonight I spewed some pretty hateful words to her about what shes done to me this month. As true as they were I regret it. I am angry. At her, at myself.
Everything points to BPD but Im not qualified to make that determination. I dont think our relationship could work because she has refused therapy in the past when its come up. She doesnt seem interested in adressing it at all. I know that I should walk away but Im struggling right now because I do love her. She is a good person at heart. Whatever mental health issues she has doesnt mean shes a bad person, it just means shes struggling to cope with her trauma. I dont feel codependant to her. Im ready to leave the relationship. But theres a part of me that wants her to wake up tomorrow and tell me shes ready to try to live better. I want her to have a good life. I want her to realize that as hard as it is its also so much better after you get passed the hard parts. I dont want to break our family apart and lose this person I know could be so much more.
I guess the advice I'm after is how do you tell someone walking out the door that youd be willing to start fresh if they went to therapy after the break up. I know she has split me. Right now I am all bad. I may even be painted black at this point. But shes so smart in every other aspect of her life, and this has all happened so sudden, that Im having a hard time believing that its impossible.
