BPDFamily.com

My story of separating from my possibly BPD girlfriend is here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=349479.0

I wanted to ask about a specific pattern she dispays and whether others have seen it in their own relationships.

I understand that pwBPD have little capacity for introspection. In my girlfriend, this seems to manifest as constantly placing blame on external causes for her problems, (rather than how she is reacting to external factors). She also tends to simplify problems to a sometimes ridiculous degree.

For example, she dislikes most television. She won't come out and fully admit it, instead saying that the noise from the TV hurts her sensitive hearing. I believe her aversion comes from a controlling father who dictated what everyone else would watch.

Our other partner (poly relationship) likes to watch TV, and they constantly fight about it. Two days ago, she got it in her head that the TV is too noisy because she is sitting directly across from it, and somehow he is having trouble hearing it from his chair, which sits perpendicular to the TV. This makes no sense; the room isn't big enough for where we sit to make much difference in volume.

She wanted to move his chair in front of the TV and the sofa to where his chair had been (where it doesn't actually fit). We balked, because that arrangement reduces useable space in the room. She had a meltdown. She insisted moving the furniture would have solved ALL our problems - her sensory issues, her constant emotional meltdowns, her mooching off me financially, her creation of chaos.

She constantly makes these sort of excuses. Her mental health would be fine if it weren't for the pandemic. She has meltdowns because her psychiatrist prescribed the wrong medication. She can't get a job because women are discriminated against in software engineering.

Her clutter has spilled into every available living space in the apartment. She said that getting IKEA cube furniture would allow her to get it organized. (It didn't.) Then she asked me to help her organize her clothes. I helped a few times, before I realized she was just moving things around, when what she really needs to do is reduce what she has, because it doesn't fit in her bedroom.

She will sometimes come up with ridiculous excuses just to avoid any internal self-examination.

Has anyone else noticed this pattern? How do you communicate with a pwBPD the need to take personal responsibility? I am trying to use SET - support, empathy, truth - but when I get to the truth part, she will often leave the conversation.

to be frank, i think this is primarily about her uniquely, and your relationship, uniquely.

what is the status of your relationship? are you trying to improve it? survive it? get away from it? how you might deal with these things really depends on that.

My boyfriend and I are trying to take a big step back from the relationship by getting our own place without her. Whether and how much we let her back into our lives depends on her and her ability to keep boundaries we have set. For example, no more financial help, no more emotional support of her to the detriment of our own mental health, and so on.

We have a couple of months left with her before we will be able to move out.