Why did you knowingly enter a relationship with a BPD significant other?

[Clawly85]

I was just curious about this.

I was unfortunately a "victim" so to speak. I entered into an 8 month relationship with someone who hid their BPD and Bipolar disorder from me. He never told me and everyone that knew (family, close friend, and ex gf) all assumed that I knew. That relationship almost broke me.

I don't have mental illness in my family nor do I have any friends with BPD or bipolar disorder, so I didn't understand what was going on in my relationship at the time with my ex's behavior. I didn't know signs and symptoms - as a matter of fact I had never heard of BPD prior to.

My question to all of you is - I feel like many people would never choose to enter a relationship with someone with any type of mental illness, especially if they're untreated. I would have never gotten myself or stayed in a relationship with my ex if he would have told me when we first met or during our relationship that he was ill. For those of you who knowingly entered a relationship with someone with BPD, why did you do this? Everything I've read up on online and on this board pretty much labels BPD as a horrible mental disorder and is a receipe for disaster so to speak. So why did you knowingly get involved? I feel like you're automatically setting yourself up for failure... .?

I'm trying to understand others points of view on this. Thank you.

[jhkbuzz]

I was just curious about this.

I was unfortunately a "victim" so to speak. I entered into an 8 month relationship with someone who hid their BPD and Bipolar disorder from me. He never told me and everyone that knew (family, close friend, and ex gf) all assumed that I knew. That relationship almost broke me.

I don't have mental illness in my family nor do I have any friends with BPD or bipolar disorder, so I didn't understand what was going on in my relationship at the time with my ex's behavior. I didn't know signs and symptoms - as a matter of fact I had never heard of BPD prior to.

My question to all of you is - I feel like many people would never choose to enter a relationship with someone with any type of mental illness, especially if they're untreated. I would have never gotten myself or stayed in a relationship with my ex if he would have told me when we first met or during our relationship that he was ill. For those of you who knowingly entered a relationship with someone with BPD, why did you do this? Everything I've read up on online and on this board pretty much labels BPD as a horrible mental disorder and is a receipe for disaster so to speak. So why did you knowingly get involved? I feel like you're automatically setting yourself up for failure... .?

I'm trying to understand others points of view on this. Thank you.

I think you will find that the majority of us had no idea that our SO's were disordered.  The few people who were aware didn't know how serious it was

[sun seeker]

    I was friends with my diagnosed exBPDgf parents for 10+ years before we got together. Her parents never mentioned it at any point. All they said was she was a sensitive girl (putting it mild as hell)  They also never mentioned her severe alcoholism.  I was close to these people. Im talking dinner at their house once a week fishing trips with her dad... Felt like a knife in the back. When I asked why they never mentioned anything at all I got was silence. I even asked her parents if it was cool I took her out and if there was any reason I shouldn't. I had so much respect for them. Not so much any more.

    I didnt find out till half way through our two year R/S she had been diagnosed BPD several years earlier and was an alcoholic. (She was sober The first year) I dont drink at all.  I guess I was "lucky" the love bomb lasted a year or so. (Lucky yea right) when she couldn't hide it anymore that's when she told me. I didnt understand the severity of this disorder. I did the research and tried my best to understand how to be in an R/S with this person. I read several books and I offered to do therapy with her.( i truly loved this girl) 

    Seemed like once she told me I was painted black. And that's when all the crap started to hit the fan. But I tried and tried. Non of it seemed to matter.  So off I go on my own adventure . The smiles are back and so is the joy. Life is better now. I learned alot from this experiance.  And now I can thank her. But I won't.  Totall N/C for life! 

[ShadowIntheNight]

She can't share something she doesn't know herself. My uBPDexgf is a therapist herself. In 10 years together this word, this illness was never mentioned and we always discussed different types of mental illnesses. We were broken up for 3 months before I even stumbled across this site googling "ex scapegoating me."  I don't think she ever was diagnosed with this, and there was nothing to make me believe she had an illness. But no one dumps a loving partner after 10 yrs in the manner she did without there being something seriously wrong with her upstairs. I doubt this dumping is the first time she used this method.

[hope2727]

I am in the "had no idea camp". He seemed so together. Honest to a fault (bahahahahaha). Faithful as he had been cheated in (not). Kind and honorable. Abused by his ex (that part still seems true as she is a piece of work). He was out of a 20 year marriage. Had dated awhile. Had a long term job history. Volunteered. Good credit no debt. Yup looked great on paper.

It took over 1.5 years for the cracks to show. The flirting, put downs, lies, abuses it was horrifying.  I kept shaking my head thinking what is going on?

I had a mentally ill ex husband. I would have never one down that road again if I had known. That's the kicker. They make sure we are hooked before they let their true colors show.

I miss him. I love him. I forgive him. I wish him peace. However I wish pece love and happiness for me too.

[Infern0]

I've recycled and am currently in RS with BPDgf but i thought this is an interesting question.

it's funny how things happened because this time I really was at the point where I had basically "gotten over" it, and there was another girl I was interested in who I had just started talking to.

However BPDex (at the time) had been laying the foundations for recycle for about two months. To be honest she was ALWAYS laying the foundations for a recycle but either I withdrew and she sensed it and got angry, or we fell out over something else, or there was always some drama going on.

Anyway when she broke it off with my replacement she had suggested that she wanted me and that she broke up with him because the whole time it was me she really wanted. True or not, meh who knows.

This time i'm giving it a go because I do love this girl, and I need to know, I need to know if we can make it work between us or if it's just never going to happen that way. We both know about her BPD now and she's working on it. I for my part have done a great job of stomping my codependency issues into the dirt and becoming a much stronger, more centered version of myself. Thus far things are working great, although lets just say i'm on high alert for any fun and games n her part. I'm being as understanding as possible but i'm not putting up with any disrespect r lies from her.

I have explained to her i will give 100% and i'll be there through the depressions and everything else but if she lies to me or even thinks about cheating, i'll be off.  

[misty_red]

I knew exactly what was going to happen in the long term and I let it happen anyway... .One of the things I can't get over and blame myself for. I enabled her. I knew about the BPD from the beginning and even in the honeymoon-period I knew where this was heading. Yet I believed I could fix/save her. And maybe I needed some drama myself? I grew up with a narcissistic father, a mother suffering from depression (I suspect her of having BPD), a sister diagnoses with BPD... .Maybe I just wanted to be good for someone and save them. Maybe I'm a narcissist myself and need to fix/save people for supply. I don't know. But I knew from the beginning and I let it happen anyway. I could've spared not only me much of hurt but also my exBPDgf and that's why I feel guilty so much. I could've prevent both of us many trouble in simply not getting into the relationship.

[Figuring it out]

Misty Red,

I was the same. The first date with my exBPDgf, she told me about her BPD and the different urges that she has. I was very curious so I continued asking questions and revealed a lot about my own personal history as well. I felt like love could conquer all but I was naive. Now I realize how this disease takes hold and have learned from it. The breakup is a very fresh wound but I think it has made me a better person realizing that there are people out there suffering from mental illness that we wouldn't expect. She even gave me a book to read about being with people with BPD but even that did not save the relationship. We are both hurting, but after she cheated, I had to leave.

[PaintedBlack28]

Didn't know what BPD really was/meant. And she just told me without much explanations that "it was something she had taken care of some years ago" and that she was taking some meds.

[Plonko]

With my BPDexgf I was told by her early on in the relationship that she was BPD, she also told me she had body dismorphic disorder, OCD in various guises, had in the past had an eating disorder (which she won't admit but she still has) and that she had an issue with self harming. She also said that she'd been sectioned twice.

In my naivity I thought she needs someone to look out for her, care for her, love her, be there for her and that I'm not going to let these things get in the way of doing whatever I could for the woman that I had fallen totally in love with.

What I didn't realise was how totally out of my depth I was. It was only when I became a bit screwed up myself mainly through the utter frustration of it all that I knew I couldn't be what she needed and as a consequence she couldn't be what I needed and that I had to get away for my own sake.

I got away in about June last year and have been NC since then and I am now a stronger better person than I was before. I can at least thank her for giving me that. Stupidly though, and it annoys the hell out of me, I still miss her... .well I miss the idealistic vision of her that I know she can probably never be.

[nowwhatz]

I agree with what jhkbuzz said about the majoring not knowing or not knowing how bad it was.

When I met my exgf it was on a first date from an online dating sight match.  On the date I really could not pay attention to her because I invited her to see my band play so I was preoccupied much of the time. After the show I took her to a waffle house (yes I know very romantic ). She would barely eat anything and blathered on about her problems. I remember telling myself "this woman is completely crazy."  At that time I did not even notice how incredibly good looking she was because my gut and mind told me to run away. I was not attracted... .which is very strange for me because up till then I usually would know within a few minutes of meeting someone if I liked them or not and if there was a spark.

Within a few days I had gone out on other dates with more normal women. I thought about the "crazy" girl and was impressed that she was such a nice person.  She had stayed and waited through 2-3 hours of loud music because I invited her. Maybe I was bored so I invited her for coffee at the mall. I was looking for her and could not find her... .got her on the phone and and told me she had left and was on the freeway... .I thought I was stood up and said "goodbye!" and hung up.    I should have left it at some inner voice told me to call her back... .she picked up and was crying uncontrollably... .a person at the mall had "frightened" her.

Blah blah blah... .to shorten this I set up another coffee date and was captivated by her beauty and exotic charm... .totally unexpected and was blown away by the connection.  She had gotten her hooks into me and the rest is mad drama.

I didn't know about BPD until at least a year later when I started searching for answers.

In the first 2 years I probably stayed in it because she was so good looking and when we were "on" it was amazingly good.

Last year until the summer she was getting treatment and was way more normal than I had ever seen her.  I thought if she had treatment I could manage it.

Like others who have recycled... .why I kept taking her back after I knew about the BPD is something I am trying to figure out.

I think I just thought I was smart enough and strong enough to handle it.

[Gonzalo]

I had no idea what BPD even was, and she still doesn't believe she has it. Even if she had mentioned it, without the experience I have now I would have though it was just something that needed work to get over, not that it was a huge scary thing that was going to rend at my soul. Even without knowing about it, there were a lot of warning signs that I should have taken seriously early on, like me saying "If you can't make that vacation it's cool, do whatever works for you" and her exploding into "How dare you think I need your approval for what I do". But I had the optimistic attitude that these are just misunderstandings, and we can sort them out like adults by talking about them once things calm down.

I didn't enter mine knowingly, but I would have, and the reason is that without personal experience I simply had no idea how bad things could be, or how intractable BPD actually is for someone who hasn't already acknowledged it.

[Trog]

I thought my sheer will and desire to overcome would be enough. This was foolish. I'd had great success at managing relationships on my family and felt I could control or defuse almost anything and anyone. Firstly, I do not have that power eap not with disordered people and 2) even if I did the reward of being able to 'struggle thru' is surely incompatible to being in a two-way, equal and fulfilling relationship. I felt, if I just put my mind to it I could accomplish anything - some people take th bible too literally, for me, it's Doc Brown.

[Clawly85]

I had no idea what BPD even was, and she still doesn't believe she has it. Even if she had mentioned it, without the experience I have now I would have though it was just something that needed work to get over, not that it was a huge scary thing that was going to rend at my soul. Even without knowing about it, there were a lot of warning signs that I should have taken seriously early on, like me saying "If you can't make that vacation it's cool, do whatever works for you" and her exploding into "How dare you think I need your approval for what I do". But I had the optimistic attitude that these are just misunderstandings, and we can sort them out like adults by talking about them once things calm down.

I didn't enter mine knowingly, but I would have, and the reason is that without personal experience I simply had no idea how bad things could be, or how intractable BPD actually is for someone who hasn't already acknowledged it.

Wow, I can really relate to this. My exbf is BPD and bipolar and never told me. If I only knew then what I know now I wouldn't have disregarded all of those "red flags" with the behavior. The one thing that I find a commonality on this board is the rage. My ex never raged at me until the very end of our relationship when I confronted him about his behavior. He was over the moon, into me and our relationship for about 7 months and then it was like overnight he lost interest in me. When I think now about the things he said and did, he did alot of things that weren't normal for someone his age. I always passed them off as "immature quirks" but they were really red flags of mental illness.

They ranged from childlike behavior, to wanting to move in and having a baby with me 2 months into our relationship, to the paranoia where he thought the local fire department and people from our town were planting microphones around his house and were listening to our conversations when we had the windows open and were talking.

I had never heard of BPD before all of this. I feel like he made a fool of me by hiding his illnesses. He I think either believes there is nothing wrong with him, or that he is "cured" of his past as he once put it.

[Invictus01]

Didn't have any idea. Now, there were warning signs, but really, just like in any game, you need to know the rules of the game to understand that those are warning signs. I didn't. Now I do.

[Gonzalo]

Clawly, part of what has helped me get all of the former relationship filed away and under control is treating it as a learning experience that I needed to have. As emotionally painful as it was, I didn't end up with a marriage, kids, police report, arrest, lawsuit, injuries, wrecked credit, or any of the other really difficult to deal with situations people talk about here (I lost some money, but not enough to change my financial situation). It took a lot out of me, but I think I am much better equipped to deal with relationships now, and have no hesitation setting hard, unyielding boundaries. When you look back on it, you're like "Why did I let someone b___ me out for eating my own sandwich in my own car?", but at the time you figured you must have done something wrong, because of all the pop-sci 'it takes to to tango' nonsense.

I know what you mean about the 'immature quirks'. It starts off with things that are actually neat and fun (my ex- got my whole family on this big kick about trapping ants for an ant farm on a vacation), or that are just minor and obviously not a big deal, and then you start making more and more excuses. Then later on, you find that they have more and more just grossly immature characteristics (like 'you're bad if you don't want to do it exactly my way) and eventually realize you're in a relationship where you can't hold an adult conversation. I never would have believed it was possible if I hadn't lived it.