BPDFamily.com

I wanted to share my story and experience with those familiar with the world of BPD.  It changed my life in ways I could not have imagined. Sometimes I still can’t believe this stuff happened in my life and I was truly unprepared.  It also shows what can happen when anger and tension escalate over the course of time.
Now I’m trying to pick up the pieces of my life and move forward…

I’m a gay male and was, until several weeks ago, in an 8-month relationship with a UBPD man.  I am hearing and he is deaf.  When I look backwards, sometimes I still cannot believe the experiences I had in this short time, the intensity of them (some good, many bad to very bad) and the overall destructive impact the relationship.

Before this relationship, I was completely unaware of BPD – no past exposure or experiences with people who suffer from disorders like this.  I started seeing a therapist a few months after the relationship began who suggested that my partner’s behaviors demonstrate some typical Borderline characteristics, which then led me to explore the topic in therapy and also sent me on personal the journey to try and understand what I was actually dealing with.

It is also my first time in a relationship with a deaf person.  Communication about complex subjects has been challenging since his vocabulary and ability to articulate, even in writing, has limitations. I found that added so much complexity to resolving issues since I was never really sure the words said were the words actually understood.  To add some context, he lives about 1 ½ away from me so much of our communication when we are not together is via text messages.  At first, I enjoyed the attention and accolades of the messages.  As time progressed I noticed that if I didn’t respond within minutes of reading a message, I would get the question “why are you ignoring me?”.   This became a frequent pattern, even while I was at work.
He told me stories of his past relationships and that they had ended because of bad things people did to him.  For instance, on his birthday he was supposed to meet his boyfriend at the airport to go on a trip.  The boyfriend did not show up and blocked him and disappeared.  There were also stories about his family abandoning him.  His mother moved out of state and didn’t tell him. Initially I thought he was a victim, and perhaps because he is deaf, people were unkind to him and took advantage.

When I began to experience the volatility and anger, it initially began because he said I had to look at him in the eye when he was speaking to me or it was disrespectful.  Then it evolved to include other things:  Me not learning ASL fast enough, me looking at someone else, anything that he did not like in the moment.  When being yelled at, I found it hard to remain calm and focused and make direct eye contact all the time.  Sometimes I would walk away and that would escalate the argument and anger to even higher levels. Over the course of time, I started to feel controlled – if I walked away or did not look at him in the eye it would make matters worse and whatever we were talking about would then shift to his anger about being disrespected by me.  And then the response that if I don’t respect him, then he will not respect me.

The other aspect that was new to me was pot smoking.  He smokes three or more times a day.  Says it is his medication for his back condition.  He’s a personal trainer and in impeccable physical shape, (6’5”, 265 lbs) but complains of chronic back issues. I had a very difficult time adapting since I had never been with someone who did this and so frequently. 

When I would try to address issues around anger and volatility, a pattern emerged.  He started to shift the blame onto me for everything and said I deny responsibility for any of my mistakes and place blame on him for everything.  Starting calling me “Mr. Deny”, among other things, and in episodes of anger would say things like I am not a “real man” etc..  There were a few times he actually acknowledged that he had “issues” but eventually I became the source of all our problems and he would say I have to fix my issues first and we would deal with his later.

There were many times when an argument became so heated that I felt I had to leave. This became my reaction when I felt things were getting out of control with his anger, but that would only make matters worse.  He would physically restrain me at times, smashed by cell phone a couple of times when I tried to make phone calls, and I started to realize that leaving only made things worse, but I couldn’t help myself at times. It seemed like to only safe thing to do.

I had periods where I tried to learn ASL. One time I was showing him the words I learned on facetime and he had a complete melt down.  He said the ASL tutorials were wrong and that I had to relearn the words the way he showed me.  This was the first time I saw him completely lost control. He started ripping apart his kitchen cabinets and then hitting his head with the pieces of wood.  Then he went and got a bottle of sleeping pills and showed me while he swallowed all them and then hung up.  Then the facetime calls started about three hours later from his car.  He had driven all the way from Palm Springs to New Mexico and was saying he was going to kill himself.  Thankfully he did not this time, nor any of the other previous times.
I always believed that he would never physically hurt me and he promised that to me.  I told him many times I was scared about the level of anger and the yelling but he convinced me that he that it would never escalate beyond that.

Several weeks ago, we had a verbal disagreement. I got up and walked away to feed the dogs and that was the trigger.  When he got up and blocked my way I pushed him out of the way and that was it. In retrospect, I had become frustrated with being controlled/dominated like this and did not want to feel that way anymore.  Next thing I knew, I was on the floor being punched in the face multiple times.  He then took off and left me bleeding with a black eye and cuts on my face.

I wouldn’t speak to him for a few days, but finally answered his texts. When I explained how upset I was about this,  below are the responses I got verbatim. No apologies or responsibility, only blame that it was my fault.
   
“You are the one who hurt me in physically. It went too far to me. You choose over line when I ask you look at me when talking. It was rude that’s it. Then you cross line physically crazy at start. I had to stop it
You shouldn’t disrespect me first place. If you respect me everything will be so great but you want be bossy in relationship only your ways. And not equal with me. That’s not how it rolls
See you keep blaming me no matter what. You can’t Fking physically to your boyfriend furst place. Quit being asshole. You knew you did was wrong! You cause the scenes. End of story I’m not going repeating like loser. You can’t physically me first place! Don’t walk away after you finish talked every time! Don’t ever push me again period. Do you understand that or no?”

I was initially hoping to at least get an apology or agreement to get help or some concern or remorse, but absolutely none, only blame that it was my fault. I did get one text in between these which said “I love you very much”.

Is this a typical ending to a relationship with a UBPD? 

Is it typical to express no remorse or take responsibility or apologize and to place full blame regardless of the magnitude of the situation or act? 

Under what circumstances would you give them a second chance, if any?

wow.

this was volatile, to be sure. how are you holding up?


its hard to say.

is getting back together on the table?