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How do they manage to keep up the fake personality for so long?  I am struggling to understand how I was with someone 24/7 and thought he was one thing but all the time it was an act and now I see what he really is - pretty vile.  How can a person manage to do this?

Merlin,

Did you live with him?

My exBPDgf needed two nights a week at her place alone to recharge... .

She found it very exhausting maintaining her mask... .Even though over time she let it slowly slip... .

But she still needed time apart to truly hide her true false self

My ex did the same. I also told her i found it funny(it's not, but didn't know about BPD back then) that she acts different in front of coworkers than she did at home(we work together). She told me she's good at acting and likes to keep private matters and the work environment separated. Now i know about BPD, i know it's just a mask she puts on. It's all an act. And it's really weird to see, when you know she's not the person she tries to be.

It's exhausting for them. When the mask finally slips off, you will be painted black, because you saw the real her. They can't handle that and start to sabotage the relationship.

We spent most of the time together but every few weeks he would flip out and need "to be alone" then get paranoid about everyone hating him then back to 'normal'

If you figure this out please let me know.

Same here. She said it was so I didn't get bored of her, but who knows what the real reason was - exhaustion? another guy? I've no idea what was really going on, who she really was, and that's pretty frightening, that someone can fool you for so long.

Mine has told me and what I have seen in her behaviour in a company with other people is that she is not acting like herself and she is afraid that the other people see this false behaviour towards them.

Mine talked about "having many faces" as if it's a normal thing. I don't know, maybe it is.

Mine often said "I'm really really good at acting like everything's ok"

And indeed she was.

This is very true. They seem to only be able to get along with people who don't really know who they are. The BPDx's family can't stand her, i hate her guts and so does her x husband and his family. She's found refuge for the time being in the latest replacement and his family but the countdown is on until she wears out her welcome.

In my case i didnt really see it until we started living together, then it came out right away.

Before that there were hints here and there but that's about it.

Yes this need for space is true of my ex too.  I even remember him saying how he needed time to himself when he dated someone else before us.  I couldn't understand what he was talking about because he seemed fine and acted like there were no problems with them.

I never really thought about the space needed.  I know it gives him time to sort thru his thoughts.   And that's not a bad thing really.     Especially if one has troubles regulating their emotions.

For the first few months my ex BPDbf and I saw each other twice during the week and every weekend. We never lived together. We both worked full time and have teenage children.

I noticed the mask slipping and him doing the push/pull after 3 months. I was cooking a special dinner of lobsters and steamers. Fifteen minutes before he was due to arrive, I got a text saying he wasnt feeling up to it! Mind you I already had the food cooking. I called and said "You're kidding, right? You do realize I already bought and cooked a lobster dinner?" his response was again, "I'm just not up to it!".

Luckily I called a friend with the last minute dinner invite so the food didn't go to waste. I was pissed off that he would be so inconsiderate to cancel at the last minute. He texted an hour later with the following: "In the future it would help me, if instead of responding "Youre kidding! and making "me" feel bad, that you are more understanding. Sometimes I need to be alone. I'm struggling and dealing with painful memories from my past! I don't need "you" making "me" feel bad about it!"

Little did I know it was just the beggining first of a long line of excuses, stories and last minute cancellations. I also had no idea at the time that he suffered from BPD. He told me 4 years later when I finally pulled of his mask completely and unraveled all his lies and cheating!

yes.  Yes.  YES!  I often confronted my X on how can she possibly mask her internal pain?  How did she hide stress?  How could she let blank and blank not effect her?  The response, "I'm really good at holding it inside".  There were numerous times I'd try and get her to talk.  Once in awhile she would crack.  I am a very level person... .how I didn't see this as a bigger issue still baffles me.  Was it my co-dependency?  Was it my continuous walking on egg shells?  Was it because I was afraid if I'd pushed to hard I'd lose her?  I'm more inclined to think it was D.  All of the above.  It wasn't until she left that I realized what a state she was in.

Yes, this is so true.  

"How do they manage to keep up the fake personality for so long?"

By controlling their environment as much as possible.  The r/s and the interaction that they have with others is on their terms.  

When ex realized I was seeing his mask slipping he said, "you're seeing cracks in the mask."  

Mine's mask came off when we spent a lot of time together such as on holidays.  Almost every one ruined.  Then of course when we moved in together.  Mine had a lot of time on his own still as he was off work for a long time on disability so had every day to himself while I worked.  Maybe this is why he could carry on the act so well.

Yess, holidays and special events were terrible. One day on my birthday she gave me a bloody nose then one christmas she had a cat 5 episode because i wasn't happy with how i was holding the ipad while we were trying to get the kids to facetime her family which was followed by another episode triggered over how much soap i was using to give our still infant daughter a bath. Bad times.

I always knew special occasions were awful but never made that connection. My ex used to spend all day in bed alone and generally be upset/wound up when I got in from work. It's hurtful that now he is with his new gf he seems perfectly able to go out and live a normal life.  How long can he idealise her if they are spending all their time together?

What about you guys? Did you hide they fact that you were suffering in your relationship? While the pwBPD masked themselves, did you mask "us"/the rs?

Edit: Maybe even more important, did you mask them?

Yes I did.  I knew that if I told my friends what I was going through they'd ask me why the heck I was tolerating it.  I wasn't ready to answer that or leave yet.

Not long... .

My non-ex's new BPDgf seems to be acting perfectly normal around everyone and keeping that mask firmly in place. They've moved in together at just over a year and doing loads of couply things including going on holiday.

Unless he's keeping firmly schnum about any explosive rows/abuse at home then I really don't understand how she is managing it.

Special occasions? ANY occasion!

Anything that we did with OTHER people = EXPLOSION!

Then she would complain that we didn't do anything with OTHER people!

So we did... .EXPLOSION!

Ok, so I decide we'll stay in and not go out so much = EXPLOSION THAT WE STAY IN ALL THE TIME!

Goes out on her own, probably cheats on me.

I go out on my own = EXPLOSION + probably cheats on me.

She tells me she doesn't want to be with me, so I accept and try to leave = EXPLOSION

She dumped me once and then asked me to go on holiday with her to Venice?



Insane world is not for me.

This post made me smile.  And not due to misfortune... for I am very sorry you had to deal with that :/.  But it made me smile because The whole time I was reading it, I kept imagining these scenarios with my BPDex.

It was the exact same.  I get a random person on Facebook to like one of my pics?  She explodes... but her explosions were quiet.  She never said anyting.  But she just got in a mood where she would start to ignore me for hours or days.

The jealousy is through the roof.  If I'm listening to a song where the lead singer is a girl... she gets super depressed.  Its so bizarre.

Haha no worries, I meant it in amusing fashion, I prefer to laugh at how absurd it is now than get sucked into the horror of it.

And I experienced very similar scenarios to the one's you described, eerily similar, bizarre isn't it.