No, I don’t  . I am not exactly a dodgy person either, so I think it’s not me that was triggering the paranoia.

Not triggered at all Hurt and Tired. I'm glad you are sharing this as it's helpful to me and probably others.

I like your plan. It's taking control of what you deserve and need. Because you do deserve to be treated with love and respect, and you don't deserve to be criticized and controlled in sex. It's not healthy.

It's sad that you have to approach sex as a purely physical activity. It can and should be a connecting experience in which you express love and vulnerability and build a closer relationship. But when your partner doesn't approach sex this way, and can't, it's a difficult issue. I think that pwBPD have a hard time with vulnerability, and sex is the ultimate of that. So that's where their behaviors will come out strongly. I think that's why they get really angry when you kindly turn them down, why they get critical and snappy during it....because they are feeling vulnerable and therefore ill at ease. And then the behaviors come out.....and then we the partners are hurt and express that, and thus begins the anger/accusation JADE circle...in bed of all places!!

I'll never forget the absolute explosion in bed of my ex. We hadn't had sex for 4 or 5 months, she'd been avoiding my requests to come over by ignoring them or diverting to "walk in the park", which left me confused. We finally were together in bed becuase we'd gone to visit her family together (we lived apart), and as she came to bed I put my arm out to embrace her as she came to bed and she literally knocked it away. She sat down on the edge of the bed then started to get in, I put my arm out again and she knocked it away again. She got in bed and faced me and I said, kindly and gently, "honey, is there something wrong with our physical relationship?". She got incredibly angry and EXPLODED at me....."you wanna fight???!! is that what you want??! you wanna go at it?!!! Ok...let's go at it, right now!!! I'm awake now, let's fight!!! c'mon...let's go!!"

Yikes. I told her I didn't want to fight, was just asking a question, pointed out that we hadn't had sex in months, pointed out that she'd ignored many requests to come over to my place. This all just made her more mad.

I applaud you for taking the initiative in this situation. Good job. I hope it goes well for you and thank you for sharing.

This is a deep realization and discussion here. I resonate with your insights very much.

I think grooming is a good word for how I got into the relationship.

 "by fulfilling a need. For instance, they may run errands for the victim or pay for bills."

My ex did things for me without asking in the beginning. I was surprised at them, and they felt really nice. Bringing me food on the day I was giving a talk, bringing me soap dispensers for my house super early on, sending me links to music sites I would enjoy. All of these stopped after a few weeks.

"The predator works to gain the target’s trust, often through secret-sharing"

She shared a 'secret' early on about how her husband was an abusive NPD and she had cPTSD from him. I felt bad for her, and became very protective of her.

"By appearing calm and concerning, the predator is seeking to increase their influence over the victim to advance their agenda."

She showed a great deal of 'concern' for me, much too early. It felt like it was too early for her to be that concerned about me- these things were criticisms in disguise, or outright gaslighting. She told me early on she was "worried about my memory". It felt both nice and a little weird, and my memory is not bad anyway and I could not understand why she said this. She then put me on the spot and said "ok...if your memory isn't bad, tell me when my birthday is". We'd been dating only a couple weeks and she'd mentioned her birthday in passing only once....but I remembered it. But I recall thinking what kind of person puts their new boyfriend on the spot like this?

She also at this time began with the put downs of my friends, and in fact refused to come to a party I wanted to have to introduce her to friends, clients, employees. "Why would I want to be around those people?" I was so baffled.

"Abuse: In this phase, the predator will start to use the target to meet their needs."

Then came the short temper, the snapping, the repeated use of the phrase "I need.....", "I need you to........". I was taken aback by the use of the phrase. She would criticize the food I ate, then use the phrase "I need you to eat better food...." She would criticize me and then blame me for her criticizing me and get mad at ME "I don't want to be the nagging girlfriend" as if my totally normal and not outside the bounds of the regular population food or whatever CAUSED her to criticize me.

This is when she started to mad at ME for not meeting her unexpressed needs. She even told me she didn't need or want anything when she had a cold, and I asked many times over a couple of days, perfectly eager and willing to bring her anything or do anything for her, but she repeatedly told me she was fine and just resting. Then ghosted me for 3 days and told me she was "angry at me for not taking care of her" and "she turned off her phone (blocked me) because she was so angry." When I pointed out that I had asked her many times what she needed and what I could do for her, she responded "my friends know what to do without asking".


"Maintenance: Once the victim is doing what the predator wants, the predator will work to keep them under control through various means. These methods can include gas-lighting (telling the victim their feelings are crazy or unreasonable), destroying the victim’s self-esteem"

Yes. Anytime I tried to express my feelings about her snapping at me or being rude and critical, she made sure to get angry and tell my my feelings were wrong. When she ignored texts and calls over a weekend and I texted her asking why she wasn't communicating, she miraculously had the time to call 7 seconds later and not even say hello when I answered, just launched into a really angry "you need mental health help!!" And "I gave you an itinerary for the weekend!!" Which she didn't do at all. Then the debate about what an itinerary means. She insisted she was too busy to text back over the weekend, which wasn't even close to to true.

"That is what happened to me as a child and this person did it to me again, because they saw I could be.

How could you do that to someone who was abused as a child.  HOW COULD YOU!

Tell me that isn't a monster and there is no intent.  CRAP!  There is intent.

I see it in some of the writing here.  I see some men here saying they were sexually abused by the pwBPD.  That is a lot for an adult man to admit and many people would simply say how that could be.  Men are always supposed to like sex and it is supposed to be on their minds all the time.  Some men on this forum express how they were handled, and they feel abused.  Not many people would understand that.  Thanks for being so brave and speaking out. "

You really have opened my eyes to the grooming process. I sensed it before, but never could put a word on it. She definitely played into this pattern. Too much too soon, too concerned about me early on, doing things for me that I didn't ask for.

As you mention, I had told her about my sexual abuse as a boy and how it put me in the psych hospital a few years before she and I met. Early on in the relationship I expressed to her that if she criticized me sexually or made it feel bad, it would be really damaging to me. I was afraid of that and told her that if she broke up with me over sex it would be really hurtful to me, and that I needed sex to loving and connecting. She then went on to treat me like an object, criticize me during sex, withhold sex, explode at when I put my arm around her when she came to bed "what do you want!!!! If you want sex touch me in a sexy way!!" while on the other hand she would point at me and tell me to take my clothes off and get in to bed when she wanted sex, turn me down repeatedly yet get REALLY angry at me if I said no to sex, snap at me angrily during sex.

I met with a sex therapist after it all ended, and described these and more behaviors around sex with her, and the therapist said yes this is sexually abusive behavior. Very unkind and mean, disrespectful especially given my history.

Helpful post Kashi, thank you. I'm glad you are having these insights and share them with us here. I share my thinking knowing that someone else might read it and have some insights as well.

It's been a while.
Spring is rolling through, enjoying time with my son in the nice weather.

Still out of work, although I expect that to change soon.

Dating hasn't really been a thing. I am somewhat content with my solitude, which is saying a lot for me as I usually aim to be with someone.

It has been a while since I missed anything about the relationship. I even think about the dogs a lot less these days. The anger is gone, as is the jealousy. I find myself thinking a lot about what a new relationship with a new person will be like. Not ways to fix ours if it were ever an option again. It isnt and thats my choice.
I wish I could say my mind has been free of it though. Despite not wanting anything back, and not even actively missing anything about it, I still get a lot of random memories, and thoughts.
I look forward to when I go weeks without even thinking about anything connected to her at all.

Its refreshing to not have gotten angry in so long.

Thank you all for your replies.

Chief Drizzit,

You are spot on in your instincts about her having been through sexual trauma. She was sexually abused by her stepfather when she was a teenager, and I recently learned that her cousin may have abused her when she was younger. Most of those memories are semi-repressed and only come back to her in flashes. It makes sex really weird for both of us. Now that I am aware of the abuse and her issues with sex, I have a rule about not having sex with her when she is dysregulated. I don't want to be a part of her replaying or trying to work through her abuse. I don't want to be associated with those people in her mind.

CravingPeace,

Thank you for validating that this is sexual abuse. I am still getting used to the idea that I have been regularly sexually abused by her for years. You are also absolutely correct in how obviously abusive this is if the script was flipped and after sex, I criticized her for how her body felt or responded.

Turkish,

I agree that she is delusional. Her BPD is severe enough that she has audiovisual hallucinations frequently in addition to persistent delusions of persecution and other paranoid ideologies. While she has been extremely dysregulated she has told the voices to shut up and has pointed out things to me that she sees that are clearly not there. These are all pretty common symptoms of BPD that are overlooked/dismissed by many even in the psychological community, but new research is showing that they may suffer from psychosis as frequently as schizophrenics.

She is also deeply insecure and really completely lacks a sense of self-worth. She really has no sense of self at all and completely defines herself by her relations to other people. She is a mom, a wife, a worker at this company, etc. but she doesn't know who she is outside of these roles. She is a shell of a person that is a hungry hole of hurt that constantly needs to be filled.

We have tried couples counseling multiple times. She has quit therapy every time except for the last therapist who quit us. He is an LMHC/PhD who specializes in cluster B personality disorders and was told ahead of time about my wife's BPD. After having had 4 or 5 sessions together he had seen her split on me twice. He told us that he could not work with us until both of us were in a place where we were open to listening to the other person. He said that he knew that I had been in individual therapy and had been working on myself and my own issues, and he suggested to my wife that she do the same. Once she had spent some time working through her issues with an individual therapist and was in a better place, he said that we could come back and work with him.

Cliff Notes version of what he was saying: Couples counseling is a waste of time until your wife addresses her BPD with an individual therapist. Unfortunately, she is still in denial of her condition and blames everyone else in the world for how miserable she is rather than seeing the one common denominator in her misery is her and her behavior.

Jaded,

Thank you for your expression of sympathy. I remember quite well the horrible abuse that you suffered through and I hope that my post was not triggering for you. You are correct though. Remove all of the discomfort and extra horror that is added to this by it being tied to sex and it is quite typical BPD behavior...it just hurts so much worse because of the nature of when it is happening and the context in which it is occurring.

I went over this incident with my therapist last week and I have come up with a plan on how to deal with this going forward. I will treat it as I would any other problematic BPD behavior. I will place boundaries for my own protection and I will not reward problematic behavior by giving her the desired reaction. In this case, the desired reaction was to see me hurt and to hear me defend myself (JADE.)  She wanted to push me away because I was getting too close and she felt the threat of engulfment, but she wanted to pull me back in the next night because the sex was soothing to her. Typical BPD push/pull behavior, only with sex.

Going forward, I will talk with her before we start to get intimate next time. It will go something like this: "I want to be intimate with you, but I want to make sure that we are going to be nice to each other throughout and afterward. I don't want either of us to say or do anything negative to spoil what should be an experience that brings us closer together." I will only move forward if she agrees to this. If she then goes back on this agreement and criticizes/accuses me, I will immediately get up from the bed and without a word go to the guest room (my safe room) and lock the door.

I will also not be intimate with her again until she apologizes for her behavior (takes ownership of it) and promises to stick to our agreement about no negativity during or after intimacy. This removes the rewards of having me JADE and of her being able to soothe herself with sex. If problematic behavior no longer produces desired results, the behavior will eventually stop. In the week or so since this incident has happened, she has not tried to initiate intimacy with me again and I do not plan to do so with her until she makes amends or tries to initiate herself. If she tries to initiate sex, I will only move forward once she agrees to the conditions of no negativity during or afterward.

I don't know how effective it will be, but it is the best idea that my therapist and I could come up with. It will also mean that I will have to approach sex as purely a physical act and drop any expectation of true intimacy. True intimacy is not possible as long as my wife's BPD is untreated, and it may never be even if she does receive treatment. Radical acceptance of this is sad, but it means that it makes it harder to hurt me if I am not emotionally exposing myself and am treating this as just sex rather than making love.

HurtAndTired

I read this and felt a chill. This is what my BPD mother does. She doesn't seek this for sexual purposes- which is why I didn't recognize it as grooming. Having people "do things for her" and being able to control them meets an emotional need for her.

She will send people on errands for her to do or get something she doesn't need. It's the act of "doing for her" that she wants. She's elderly and has people assist her as caregivers, but she sends them to the store to get her things. This didn't make sense. Why would you pay someone to come take care of you and then send them out to get a $10 box of bandaids at the pharmacy?

She will call me to ask me to make a phone call for her- and she is able to call me so why can't she call herself?

She has also tried this with my kids and other family members and tried to share "secrets" with them asking them to not tell me about it ( they tell me). I had boundaries with my kids so that she couldn't do this with them.

My kids are grown now. We don't live near her. We used to call her on the phone when they visit but they don't want to do that now because it makes them feel uncomfortable. She will ask them personal questions - it's the "friendship forming" behavior. I tried to make the calls on speaker phone as a protective measure and she got angry, saying she wants to talk to them one on one. So now, we don't do this at all.

I wasn't familiar with the term "grooming" until recently and I assumed it was for sexual exploitation so didn't read up on it. This isn't what my BPD mother is seeking. For her, I think it meets an emotional need somehow. She didn't need to do this in a romantic sense as my father took on the role of emotional caretaker for her.

I don't know how common it is with BPD but I did sense something was going on during her interactions with my children and felt I needed to intervene.

Yes, I think I have been sensitive to being around difficult people. I just learned to tolerate it from my BPD mother because of that relationship and my family dynamics.

If I only knew her from attending a work meeting- even if it didn't feel comfortable, the relationship would be different. I could act professionally and also stay at an emotional distance which would be normal in that situation.

What feels different is to act this way with my own mother but in a way, it works better if I do keep an emotional distance.

Responses to questions:

How does he communicate these things to you:

Quote from: CrazytownSA on May 18, 2024, 09:27:36 PM
How do you do that when they're literally telling you that you're a piece a PLEASE READ, a b****, a c***, arrogant, stupid, worthless. I totally get that they are really describing their own insecurities and projecting. I don't say insulting things back, but what are you supposed to say to that?

text? phone call? email? in person? other?
He texts them to me because when he starts saying them on the phone, I tell him that I won't tolerate being talked to that way and hang up when he won't stop.

The stance that I have been taking is that I will no longer allow him to take my peace. When he says insulting things, I have said they don't hurt me anymore and just reflect on his character.Most of the time I won't respond at all, and that really makes him mad. Damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Are you telling yourself that those things don't hurt you and just reflect on his character? Or are you telling him?
I text that back to him when he is texting horrible things to me.

How do you know that when you don't respond, he gets mad?
 I know that because he will call 5-20 times and then will text pages and pages of irate texts when I won't answer the phone.

So on May 19th I, and friends of mine, moved his stuff to storage. On Wednesday(22nd), I dropped off the key to the storage unit at his house when I knew that he would be gone to work. I sent him a text message with the info, and took the advice of Kashi and phrased my text that it was really difficult for me(truth), and framed in a way that I was trying to help both of us, that it would give him access to his things without having to coordinate with me whenever he wanted, and he could get things as he was ready etc etc. That actually worked. His response was "Thanks, I guess. I feel so disposed of".  I told him he will always hold a piece of my heart, that we just aren't healthy together and bring out the worst in each other. I apologized for causing him pain and told him I will always love and care and about him. I told him he's never disposed of, that just can't be together.
Thursday he text me that he was sorry and wished he could have dealt with things differently, that he cries every day, misses me, and that even with as hard as everything was, that it was the closest to happiness that he had ever been in his entire miserable life. This absolutely breaks my heart. It is so so hard. I know that bpd people are broken hurting souls, and I want so badly to be able to help him and heal the hurt, but I acknowledge that there is nothing that I can do that will accomplish that. We will always end up here, except with just more of me chipped away at. I pray for him every day. That is the only thing I know to do. I miss the sweet, loving, and affectionate side, but I just can't endure the angry, cruel, and heartless side anymore.  I pray for God to help me let go and move on. I am really struggling.

I meant that we are here to help and encourage YOU!

Dear Mom,


Wow, CC43 sure has given you such a clear path!

She’s 25 and working, so it sounds like now is the time for you to let her go and live her own life (and we all have to learn lessons) so you too can live your own life.

Trust in the foundation you built while raising her, and trust that God will care for His child.
Yes, there will be some rough spots for her, but DO NOT run to her rescue, she’ll be ok. She might also get involved in some unhealthy relationships as is the nature of BPD but those are her choices, DO NOT try to control her life. I think what she is showing is not that she can’t handle things on her own, but only the tendency of kids with BPD to be deeply concerned with feeling abandoned. But you have to be tough, as long as you guide her (just as you did in raising her), she should not feel abandoned, but DO NOT take care of everything for her.

CC43 has given you an excellent plan to relinquish control of her life to her, she has to make all her own choices, so do not give in to her or let her walk all over you.

Wishing you the best, OurWorld

We are here to help and encourage her,