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I have a fairly consistent image of myself and nearly everyone else in my life, but for the person that I've been married to for so long I do not. It fluctuates weekly from a verbally sadistic witch to a somewhat pitiful caretaking homemaker whom I cannot help but love. Am I the crazy one here? This almost sounds like black & white splitting. The difference though, I suppose, is that this dichotomy of perception is pretty much confined to this 1 individual, my wife.

Her behavior does seem to vascilate from one extreme to the other and this is what is so confusing, creating a continuously changing perception, in a person I should know so very well. This, I believe, is part of what makes it so hard to leave. Once you have made up your mind, the other person soon appears. It makes it very difficult to sustain a steady course towards divorce, particularly when you are used to placing a high degree of trust in your gut feeling. This particular situation is elusive though, and seems to require something more.

I don't know if I'm alone, or mostly alone in this feeling. I imagine not, but it does make it very difficult to sustain a steady course in such a monumental task as divorce. I wonder if this is what keeps so many of us in emotional checkmate.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Hey, I am not married, but in a relationship with a BPD. I am in the process of disengaging, and you are right. When you want to leave and walk away the kind, caring, 'I am trying to change' person pops up and says hello. You get dragged back into a world of 'What if's' and 'Maybe's'. It will never change, you just have to be brave enough to walk away, this is what I am finding VERY hard to do at the moment... .Good luck.  x

I think I was in your exact situation.  My stbx wife was severely agoraphobic, and had basically cut everyone but me out of her life.  The good news   was that I was also the recipient of her frequent drunken rages, and all her frustrations   .

In the end, I realized that pity is no basis for a marriage.

GCD145

yep I can so relate to this!   |iiii  I had someone ask me one time  if you scrape all the "love"away, and just look at him as a person, like someone just off the street that you happen to know the details of their lives do like the person the he is? Deep down inside do you think that he is just a neat person, a good guy... .I couldn't answer... .the answer is sometimes, sometimes I think he is a really cool person, other times I think he is the worst guy I have ever met. And yep it is only him I think of that way. Which is why I am 12 years into this nonsense.  ?

You are definitely not alone in the feeling! I tried 3 separate times to break contact with my BPD. even went NC for months, and then the loving 'will do anything to make things better' person appears who promises the world to you... and they genuinely are promising the world to you... its just not theirs to give away... .

I literally knew my BPD for half my life. It was incredibly, almost impossibly hard for me to be able to consolidate the 'BPD'  with the 'loving' side of my BPD. I could not comprehend how two completely opposite natures could exist within the one person... .it still is hard for me to put together and it made trusting my instincts so very very hard... .  but it helped when my BPD shot themselves when in a rage they said they wouldn't be so crazy if I would just be what they'd alway needed me to be. and bang, solution solved, it was literally as if the door just... .appeared. of course when I left they went back into 'take me back mode, i've been trying so hard, i've been better... will be better'... .and it is so hard to stand firm in that situation, it's easy to forget where you where 1 week ago, 1 month ago, maybe even 2 minutes ago... .this literally kept me in checkmate for... .4 years?

When I first met BPD my instincts told me they where bad news. I just chose to ignore them. and instincts get muddled when you grow to love and care for another person because its hard to consolidate a 'bad gut feeling' coming from someone that you cherish... .and that is the fog of BPD.

What really made me chose NC was knowing that I was compromising myself, and my family, to keep my BPD happy and avoid a BPD melt-down. More than that, it was hurting my relationship with my family, my friends, and my education. not through anything BPD did directly to me, but through me trying to keep the good side of BPD always around. This knowledge is what makes me 100% sure I can't go back to BPD.

I've decided that for me its not a matter of choice. my BPD is able to be an amazing friend, has many, many reedeming qualities, and I look up to a lot of the things they've accomplished. However, this doesn't take away from the fact that they are unwell, I cannot help them, and worse than that, I probably facilitated them. I cannot go back to my BPD, as wonderful as they can be, because with me, they fall back into being not-so-wonderful, and for them, its frustrating, but for me, its potentially catastrophic. I only get to live once, as far as I know, and I'm not willing to risk it.

so whenever i'm feeling nostalgic, I look up an abusive message BPD sent me (and the one where they are abusive, but as soon as i say i'm leaving, they are suddenly very very apologetic) remind myself that yes they have their good side, but the bad side is damn bad, and grip onto that like the seat of a rollercoaster :)

Oh yes. This was very much a part of why I stayed with my xBPDw for over 3 years.  The "good" her was SO good and I kept hoping that she would exercise her demons and either integrate the "bad" side or find enough peace with it to no longer act on it. Her personality split was pretty extreme.  In one persona, she was a patient, kind, faithful wife and dedicated life partner to me.  But the other persona was rage driven, sarcastic, bitter and driven by uncontrollable urges to go out and binge on drugs and have illicit sexual experiences.  

Her dark side acting out would be followed by a period of extreme sweetness to seduce me back to her.  This continued right up until the end when she left ME, just when I thought that things were finally on a more solid footing between us.

So from my perspective, yes. The dual personality thing was why I stuck around for so long.  Now I just see it for what it was, manipulation so that she could continue to use me.


Oh man, that is so true.  I fell hard in love with her. But it was tainted and used to make me feel sick.  I ignored so many warning signs!

You have hit the nail on the head there. I am his driver, bank and caregiver. It's not love on their part (OK, maybe a twisted type of love), it's convenience... .

True "splitting," would have you out the door. What you describe is FOG. Everything is very grey in a fog state, very confusing. It is neither completely black or completely light.  In fact, the very question you bring to the table is about your grey areas. This is a normal response to the black and white splitting of the BPD partner.  No one would describe the BPD partner during one of their hate rants as OK. It's definitely black. It's the times apart form the hate rants that are somewhat light. Living for the moments between the two is what non-BPD's struggle with. That's a true grey area.

One of the authors that helped me understand the changes in BPD was Christine Ann Lawson. She wrote a book about Borderline Mothers where she describes the Hermit, the Waif, the Witch and the Queen.  Often the archetypes interchange with each other. So a Hermit borderline who isolates herself will also suffer rage attacks and turn into a witch. Both are defense mechanisms that arise from childhood neglect (usually from their own Borderline Mothers)  This book is expensive at $35, but it might be available at the library.  It's the author's own theories, but they do really clear the fog.  |iiii