BPDFamily.com

I know it sounds like a dumb question. But just something I was wondering.

My exgf w BPD didn't really have any friends.

Mine had tons and tons of friends... .  but... .  they were all male, and most of them she slept with. She didn't get along with women... .  And I'm assuming because she needed male validation by sleeping with them all and keeping them all on the hook. This was a serious bone of contention in the relationship and another reason I ended it.

My ex-gf hardly has any friends as well, and during our relationship, a majority of her contact with them was to complain about me, and even her best friend asked me how I put up with her.  She also looked down on her friends for not living the kind of lifestyle that she lived/wanted to live.  If they wanted to get dinner at a hot dog place, her reaction would be like "Hot dogs?  Who goes out and gets hot dogs?"  She was constantly trying to put herself in a position to meet new people and friends, but she rarely tried to put any effort into maintaining the relationship (until she left me for another guy, but that's another story).  She couldn't figure out why no one was calling her to go out, and I think that all of her friends were:

1) Sick of hearing her complain about me

2) Picking up on her disdain for them

3) Not much more than casual acquaintances

My exBPDgf also had almost no friendship, or not much intimate ones. I think this is directly related with the same issues that affect their love relationships: problems with confidence, empathy, reading other´s inner states of mind and emotions, lack of boundaries, fears of annihilation and being manipulated... .  

But that´s something that makes me curious about my ex, I even wondered if she was the squizoid type or something, beecause she sometimes said she doesn´t need company, and that she isn´t afraid of being alone, and that when she was a child she didn´t want to have friends ans spent much time by herself. And that this changed when she had her first boyfriend, then she started to need company. So, the need for connection probably was there before that, and the isolation as a child came from extreme low trust, and from what they call "counterdependency", maybe... .  defenses of some kind. What do you think?

Here's how my therapist explained it, and it makes good sense to me--intimate relationships require genuine and sincere emotional interaction--daily. People with mood disorders can't do that.

People with BPD have exaggerated and out of proportion emotions. They do OK with strangers most of the time because they don't have to interact with them much (on an emotional level). Friendships are much more difficult. People with BPD enter into emotional interactions in a very consuming way. This is less acceptable in friendships than it is in intimate relationships. It becomes too much in an intimate relationship as well. But it's "easier" to project those out of proportion emotions onto your spouse than your friend, because the spouse is more readily available.

My mom was also a BPD. She had no friends the entire time I was growing up. And weirdly, she didn't seem to even notice or care. I don't know what her thoughts were about it. Pressed, she probably would have come up with some justification about how much better she was than everyone else, or perhaps about how mean everyone else is, or whatever. But I believe that it really comes down to just not being able to be a friend.

Friends are less likely to say "well, gee, I've made a commitment to this friendship and now I have to see it through and work things out" and to say "What the... .  ? I don't think so!"

My ex gf with BPD used to talk a whole lot.

Why do you think that is?

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (https://bpdfamily.com/bpdresources/nk_a102.htm) – is used to diagnose BPD – for many of the reasons listed in this link - it is difficult to maintain a friendship.

Unstable interpersonal relationships is fairly apparent.

Romantic r/s trigger.


That she likes to talk!  :)

Not every action is BPD related.

Mine's had two BFF's for 18 years (both from college).  She seems to be enmeshed with one, idealizing her as the best person ever.  When they're together they act like a pair of teenage girls that can't let others threaten their r/s. It's very odd to watch. She once told me that the BFF just mirrors her view of people and validates a lot.   This BFF has been there for her BPD issues, and kind of watches over her, while the other knows of it but isn't the type to really handle the drama.  She's also got a lot of not close friends, whom she sees a few times a year; none from this group know of her BPD.  It's interesting b/c I can't tell how emotionally intimate they really are by traditional friend standards.   

Thank tou doubleAries, that makes a lot of sense.

fakename, my ex also talked a lot and had some very superficial behaviors. I guess this is a way of being able to relate without going into intimacy. It´s not really a shallow style, it´s a defensive way of relating, and also of having attention, I think. And also an expression of their anxiety, having to move, talk, etc. It´s difficult to distinguish what in them comes from the BPD that evolved into their identity; and what is part of who they really would be as a person if they hadn´t BPD.

Mine just can't maintain his friendships. People like him, he's friendly, etc. but he makes zero effort to actually maintain the friends he makes. He will never call them, never make plans, etc. I think it's a fear of rejection on his part. He doesn't want to become attached and then be rejected, so he just keeps his distance. Or, what if, heaven forbid, he called a friend to do something and that friend was unavailable or didn't feel like doing whatever it was? Exactly. Rejection. Bear in mind, if anyone calls him or asks him to do anything he almost always agrees, and he's very low drama around anyone but me - so he does have some friends (i.e. those willing to do all the work). Oh, and he finds relating to people in general to be a lot of mental work (it takes emotional energy and he gets tapped out just dealing with himself nevermind anyone else) so he usually prefers to just hang out at home anyway, to avoid being overwhelmed.

Because even in friendship there is emotional intimacy. They don't do this well, if at all. Superficial relations seem to be all they can manage for any sustained period. IN the idealization the can make stuff up, mirror us. Fear of letting someone "know" them, fear of rejection. Mine would share very little of himself. Asking questions like you would in normal friendship, little things like what kind of music do you like? Have a good weekend, what did you do? What's your favorite  restraunt? Just sharing themselves on a personal level is very uncomfortable for alot of them. i would get this silence from him, like your getting too personal kind of resistance. What if you don't like what they say? (this is how they think) And they watch your facial expressions too. I think mine had a very severe fear of intimacy and rejection. A defective schema. I don't know why because he was really good looking and smart and nice and likeable so I didn't understand this fear in him.

I couldt agree more with you arabella. My ex is the same way. Although with therapy I have to give her credit for trying a little harder now. Though, the people that are willing to maintain the friendship with her, she often assumes there is more to it than that and starts thinking about the possibility of something more than friends. It also doesn't help that she basically singles these people out, and mostly ignores everyone else when this happens.

Yup, that's it. H has a hard time with the boundary btwn 'just friend' and 'girlfriend'. As soon as he likes a member of the opposite sex he thinks there's more to it unless that person is very firm and very clear about things (and they almost never are). He also does the ignoring-other-people thing when he finds someone new - again, I think he gets overwhelmed and can't focus on multiple connections.

I see a lot of overlap between BPD and bipolar. My husband is bipolar with ASPD and NPD features. Sometimes the ASPD makes him pretty much of a jerk (as well as the grandiose NPD--but his NPD and ASPD are bipolar driven), but all in all, it just does not occur to him to make the first move. When someone calls and invites us to dinner, he's usually up for going. And just sits there until someone asks him a question, which he perfunctorily answers. He seems like he's having a horrible time. But when we leave, sometimes he says "that was really fun, wasn't it?" That always catches me off gaurd. But even though he claims he had a great time, it does not occur to him to reciprocate. He does not invite others to do anything at all. Ever. In real friendships, people take this as a message. So they pull back and wait to be invited in. That invitation doesn't come. So they wander off to find someone more interactive. He rarely even notices. If and when he does, he takes it very personal. He's angry, insulted and offended. But he never questions his own impact.

Often (we are seperated but own a business together and work together every day) he can't think of anything at all to say. I'm tired of doing all the talking, so I clam up. I'll be sitting there thinking "geez, we've really grown distant from each other" and all of a sudden he'll pop up and say "wow, we're really getting along well, aren't we?" These are the times I understand there is a real disconnect in his brain. He's not just being a jerk. It isn't simply a behavioral issue. It's a mental illness. He is completely out of sync with social "normalcies".

I would say she may have NPD overlap with BPD.  My husband talks a lot (mainly about himself).  He requires lots of ego stroking and pats on the back.

My husband doesn't have many friends either.  Early in our r/s he seemed to have lots of friends from his hometown, but one by one, I saw him cut them completely 100% out of his life - splitting them black for what seemed to me to be small reasons.  I never got too close to any of these friends.

He has some work buddies, but they are all married with kids and definitely don't hang out on any kind of a regular basis.  He's not into sports so he doesn't do the sports days with the guys or guys' night out at a bar --EVER.  He does love music and plays with some of his friends.  In one of our last conflicts before I left he said, "I have nothing, no reason to live, no friends, etc."  I replied, "You have lots of people who care about you" and named some of his friends.  In response to me naming one of his best buddies and music playing friends, he disdainfully said, "X is not a friend.  He is a drug associate."  They buy marijuana from each other.  This is the guy he probably spends the most guy time with.

He has a couple of work friends and they are super negative fellows like he is.  They are cynical and gripe (behind the scenes) about every perceived injustice at work. 

He is very negative, and I think he puts people off.  He can be very charming and personable, and he is a great conversationalist, but I have also seen him put people ill at ease.  He's very intelligent and says quirky things, and many people don't seem to know how to take him (they can't tell if he's being serious or sarcastic a lot of the time).

I believe his greatest source of support right now during our split is his mother (daily calls, etc.), which is a very dysfunctional r/s. 

It makes me sad he doesn't have any true friends. 

Interesting reading the other posts,  my dBPD SO has no female friends (in fact other women don't seem to like her)  but seems to have at least 10 male 'friends' on the go , keeping several on the line at a time, moving from one to another as she falls out with one she moves onto the next in a kind of endless cycle.  When she meets a new one or reconnects with an old one I see little of her , it's very irritating and stressful. Sometimes she seems to fall out with all of them , then she is much better to be with... .  till the next recycle!   

These two post were really helpful to me. I have been banging my head against a cement wall for the last year and a half trying to the best friend I could be to a woman who simply cannot be a friend. I have apologized more, better, faster, even when she clearly was at fault to try to "fix" whatever seemed to be wrong... .  which is often, usually, something.I might add that I am a woman and was very much in love with her,I thought. She confused the heck out of me by saying she was not gay but then proceeded to date me, no sex,  until she would find another guy. I say another guy becuase she has been with four different ones in the year and a half I have known her.

This morning I had an ah ha moment. I thought if I were driving behind a big truck that was giving off horrible smoke or burning oil, I would pull around them and get as far in front of them as I could or drop way back into the traffic. I would do it without a thought. My question to myself is why I have I thought that staying behind this same vehicle or in this friendship,  would somehow result in the fumes going away or becoming non-toxic? I guess I have been holding onto the good times which have been far outweighed by the hard  and abusive times.

My stbxBPDw has not a single friend other than a cousin who she can call and just talk to. Early in the relationship I found it strange that she really had no friends who she would call or go for coffee with. We ended up moving to my home town and she did try at first to cultivate some friends. None on them lasted long at all. Not really sure what transpired. I joined some sports teams, met people and reengaged with some old friends from high school. She told me many times "there not my friends there your friends" In addition to that she started finding fault with them and becoming increasing angry that I would want to spend an hour or two a day with them instead of spending every single moment with her. Many times she would say "I'm bored" or "I have no friends"  I told her she should find a hobby, take some night classes, join a team. Her answer was usually an angry response about how people in my home town did not like outsiders. (thats completely false I know a lot of people from other places and they have been warmly welcomed) Here we are in the final stages of going our own way and I really feel for her that she has no one she can phone up and be comforted and just talk.

Hi all here,

I can totally relate to all your posts, especially atcrossroads, and rambleon...

They particularly struck chords with me...

My unBP has no real friends either... Of the two left in his life, he makes little effort to contact one, and no effort to contact the other, unless they contact him...

One lives miles away, (about seven hours), and the other is periodically in and out of the state we live in, for work... This one works in the same profession that BP used to work in... He spent seven years unemployed, being supported by a wealthy successful female partner, but had come out of his last employment with a big payout anyway, so didn't have to worry about not working for that long... He spent those years of unemployment seeking the same work, and got knocked back so much, that he gave up for a while, then all of a sudden, he got a break, and was back into it again, trying to contact BP and encourage him back too... no use...

Unless of course BP wanted to use that against me for some reason, just reminding me how much money he could be making, and way more professional than my low ground uneducated 'cleaning' job...

BP often expresses verbal resentment at this friend, via my ears, for 'being back in the gay profession', with all the guys they used to know, the 'winners' he calls them... (who by the way are all as highly qualifed and making lots of money and living great lives). His friend has asked if he wants a job, and from time to time, BP mentions how this friend could get both of us jobs on a mine site again if we wanted... he then splits black again, and denigrates the whole profession and the people in it...

Some of what he says is valid, and I always validate his feelings about being back in it again, and do not encourage him unless he exhibits enthusiasm... even then I have to be careful, as it is an extremely touchy subject.

So, as with all of his daily rants, tirades, projection sessions, nothing is ever resolved, no progress ever gets made, life is one series of continual dramas, self inflicted no less than by himself, this poor waif, victim, is actually exhausting, and very boring and time wasting.

if he spent half as much time actually making things happen, than complaining about why he cannot do it, we could be living a wonderful life together... as always, I know this will likely forever be merely a dream for me...

As I know there is no point in focusing the blame, the only thing you can do, is change your attitude, your circumstances, if you are a victim... truly...

Sure, you can go through some really horrible and negative experiences, even get bogged down in that grief for a while, sort of wallow in it, but eventually, you have to drag yourself from the abyss and get on with things...

What annoys me, is this endless bemoaning of circumstances, yet doing next to nothing about it to try and resolve things or gain closure... and move on...

I use the SET method, validate, validate, validate, (with limits, and boundaries), but it continues to make no difference... Any time we make progress, he swings back to the same broken record list, and destroys everything in minutes...

All because they are 'under pressure' or their car is broken, or some other drama has eventuated...

Often, I go to work each day, and many members of the public have acted ignorantly, dirtily, or something negative happens... The odd day, most things happen negatively, so you get a little angry, hurt, and you process that and then move past it...

Some things/events take a little longer to process through, others you get over in five seconds... the minute you see a happy pensioner, someone smiles back, or you see a little bird flitting about...

For BP, one negative event, and the whole day is coloured by that, and it brings up the 'Groundhog Day'. The endless recycling and complaining about the same things, the same events, the same tired people, subjects in his life... as if all of these things are still happening... and they actually aren't...

I have never seen anyone who can hold onto a grudge, quite as much as he can... I have never seen that ability to focus solely on the negative traits in people, ignoring any attempts at friendliness they have shown, or support... BP can only understand the world from his point of view, he cannot see things through others eyes, like true empathy, not for long, and not cemented in any way... He has this need to denigrate everyone, and only see what bad things they have done, not what he has said or done to them mind you... he can only see what they do to him... and in his mind, are still doing...

So, today, we are once again apart, and this time, whilst I take a small part of the blame, 90% still rests with him... as I try, and he makes virtually no effort, unless it is to make excuses for his poor behavior yet again... or even worse, expect me to abide it every day... yet not tolerate it from me in any way...

For the last few weeks, he has been back staying at my house at nights, this stage has taken a long time to regain, and much pain for me... and much more abuse...

I felt like a significant milestone had been reached nevertheless, and we might actually be able to make some real emotional progress together, which ultimately benefits both of us... security etc...

However, only a few weeks after his return, and that was sleeping here, and leaving in the mornings, and most days, occasionally returning during the days, (if he had nothing more important to do without me) whilst my family was at work, the Honeymoon period gradually disintegrated, through no fault of mine... He would fluctuate between complimenting me, to being downright rude, ordering me around, or criticizing, continually interrupting me whenever I tired to talk for more than one second, he would come up and work with me on my evening shift, and spend a lot of that time trying to engage me in his blame/projection/tirades... I would refuse of course, and usually only one or two days, he would actually do the mopping whilst I did the toilets, but even then he would still try to bring up the same worn out, and useless conversations...

He would then, during the days, do exactly as he pleased, and what he was comfortable with, and I respected this, and his feelings, despite continual hurt and needs of my own, and then ironically, complain about the choices he was making himself! then say he wasn't complaining! what a joke...

Rollercoaster - from paragraph 2 down of your post you are describing my husband.  It's uncanny!  I absolutely cannot stand his victim mentality and when the blame shifted to me, well, it wasn't pretty.

The constant negativity, complaining, hating people for perceived slights, etc. eventually wore me the heck out.  I am almost a month out of a 10 year marriage and will likely be divorced by summer.  Your name, Rollercoaster, says it all!  Stay strong!

I was practically my Ex's only friend. She is only close with her dad. She expressed many times he is the only one she can rely on. I became or was becoming the first new person ever she could... . Then she sabotages it... Paints me black and I'm 3 weeks into silent treatment.

She had a few friends... . Who now are better friends with me than her. She rarely ever texted them back... . And was unreliable, and when with them she was verbally pushy... .

I went to Ren Faire with her room mate the week after her ST started. We had a blast, her room mate said I'm a good friend to her, and that I became a good friend through my ex... . But my ex never was a "good friend".

I didn't steal her friends, they still care for her, but I give those people attention and check in with them regularly.

I think it is sad. I love her so much. I hope she is ok... . She seems to do fine as a loner... But can't imagine it's what she wants inside.

Mine seems to have issues being close to anyone.  She seems to make friends really easy in her AA groups.  They will be the best people ever for a few weeks, and then she will fall out with them and she will have some reason why.  Usually the reason is that she thinks they are being too judgmental. 

She tells me she has a hard time making friends outside of AA because she thinks people won't understand her.  So as soon as someone starts to get close, suddenly there are all sorts of reasons why she can't be close to that person.

I think the underlying problem is she sees the whole world as judging and condemning her, and she trusts nobody.

It's really heartbreaking to see someone living like that.

Mine had a lot of friends... but most didn't know her real well... she had few really close friends... . and none that lasted many years. She had a long string of guy friends she had r/s with (was engaged 7 times, married twice, and didn't even know how many boyfriends she had been with.)

The key question was why... . I think because real  friendship requires trust and honesty like any good r/s and she manipulated, put on a false front that she thought people would like... and as a surface appearance it worked okay, and for horny guys... who didn't care anyway, it worked okay, but for real intimacy... she didn't ring true and authentic. So people didn't want to be played.

When I first met her she appeared to have lots of friends but it has become more obvious that they were more acquaintances.

She made lots of friends everytime she started a new job but they were quickly forgotten about when the job finished.  She definitely likes having more male friends to hang out with, for the attention (gotten too close to a few of them).

Everytime I have been out on a night out with her and these so called friends, she is a completely different person, she puts on a different persona.  And without fail, I would end up getting grief at the end of the night for ignoring her because I was enjoying a normal conversation with some of them.

The friends that I did end up getting on well with are soon cast aside and I am told we are not going to hang out with them again.

The ones that we are allowed to hang out with, I am pretty have heard a load of bad mouthing stories about me.

The ones who could be perceived as good friends are kept at a distance and only met up with very occasionally. But even those relationships were on a superficial level. All banter and fun, no deep connectioms.

Same for my GF with assumed BPD (not diagnosed yet):

• Has a lot of "friends" to which messages she still responds to,
  Mostly all of them male,
  Most of them want to seduce her or act as WhiteKnights,
  Many of them she used to slept with.
  One o

f them is ex-husband, with whom she still Co-Parents a dog (exchange every week).

There is 1 female childhood friend though, that she limits communication just not to be emotionally exhausted.

She has basically said to me, she sees no value in friendhips whatsoever, allthough ironically, she sees that she cannot ignore an ex-lover who writes her, because it would not be polite because they used to share some moments together.

Drives me mad, especially the ex-husband dog exchange.

I'd say that just like b-cluster disorders, there can be a spectrum of relationship behaviors.  There are common themes around instability / durability of the relationships.

As some have posted, there may be a mix of N/BPD attributes, etc.

In the case of my uBPDxw, she often raged at her mother, was intensely jealous of and bore resentment toward her sisters, and had few real long-term friends. Very few from HS, none from college, none from grad school. She did establish friends from a "moms group" that formed when our kids were in preschool, and my perception is that she's been better able to maintain those friendships thanks to social media. And she did hold on to some ex-boyfriends to varying degrees...

But then, I take a look in the mirror...

I'm not in touch with my estranged half-sister (who has BPD behaviors)...
I have a few very close life-long friends from HS or earlier... 
Most of my friends are from college, including my closest friends...  although some have faded away over the years.  There are a few who will always pick up the phone or write back, but who I probably won't hear from unless I initiate... 
I've maintained some contact with friends from grad school, but everyone dispersed and I'm not in regular contact. e.g., I reached out to a friend in Israel after the Oct 7 attack, and it was great to catch up, but we are not chatting on a regular basis...
When I step back, I realize that most of my social interaction for the past 10-15 years has been with colleagues, past colleagues, and business contacts. e.g., LinkedIn is my most active social platform, where I'm in touch with people I know via work almost every day.  I ski and cycle with a former boss.  etc.

My point is:  I'm not that sure I'm that different than my uBPDxw when it comes to friendships...  I like to think that work and being a parent take most of my attention - and have for many years. But the flip side of all this is that I wonder:  Would I have better or different friendships if I had not poured so much into my relationship with my uBPDxw?  Hard to say with certainty...

Long story short, I agree that personality disorders make long-term stable relationships challenging to maintain, and deeper connection relationships difficult or impossible to achieve.
However I do try to keep in mind that very often, this is THE thing that disordered people struggle with.  It's a catch-22 - they want connection and recognition, but don't quite perceive how to be in a healthy relationship - so healthy relationships are almost always out of reach. 

I've known my husband for almost 16 years and he hasn't had any friends this whole time.

At first I felt sorry for him and tried to get him integrated into my own circle of friends. I thought he had social anxiety.

Over the years he's managed to burn bridges with all of them. He's so paranoid, so quick to be insulted by the smallest things, always willing to believe the worst of people, that over the years more and more of them have gotten on his enemies list until now he wants nothing to do with pretty much any of them. Of course he says it's because they're all "stuck up" and hate him for no reason.

And he gets really angry if I try to maintain contact with any of them. I try to anyway but it's always an uphill struggle if not an outright fight. He thinks if I go hang out with them without him (and in most circumstances, he's either not invited anymore, or he doesn't want to go because he hates the friend I'm going to see) that means I'm choosing my friend over him and I'm being disloyal because I should always put him first.

For one of the more extreme examples, when my daughter was a newborn, one of my closest friends (have known her over 20 years now, longer than I've known him) was coming over a lot to help out. That is, until my husband got into one of his unhinged rants/borderline rages at her. He usually saves those for me. It rattled her so bad she quit speaking to me for about two years.

We're back in contact now that she knows I'm planning to divorce him. Oh, and she kept the unhinged text message rant he sent to her all this time in case I ever needed it for evidence.

Basically, I think they don't have friends for the same reason they have trouble with romantic relationships, and it's easier to "dump" a friend than to divorce a husband, so people don't put up with that kind of treatment from friends for as long.

This describes my wife, too. It's tragic, really, as she has intense longing for safe, close relationships and suffers because she lacks them. The situation probably won't ever change, since she is blind to her responsibility in how her friendships go up in flames.

My wife is the same way. No real close friends. She is Undiagnosed at this point Quiet BPD. Working on getting that official in marriage counseling. I try and have my guys night on friday and saturday at home, and I encourage her to do the same thing and make some new friends (we moved in the middle of 2020, that was a joy and she really doesn't;t have any good friends down here yet) She talks to a few people on the phone, but she tells me she hates talking to people on the phone...unless its her parents or me. She doesn't even want to call Dominos to order a pizza. If she can avoid talking to someone, she will. She has had life long friends from when she was a kid, but honestly I pointed this out to her years ago, that she has a type of personality for friends...loud mouthed, opinionated people. Myself can be included in that as when we met I was an outside sales rep, before going back to the world of RND and design. So I was very confident in my ability and carried some BDE. Through out the years that confidence dwindled of course as a reaction to being abused by my NARC business partner and his BPD (petulant) wife. I try and push her to go outside her comfort zone, make some new friends, but she has never really lived other women (except for the one Lesbian encounter she had with her friend during her first divorce). She tells me, she only wants to spend time with me and wishes my friend would not come over on Friday/saturday, 2-3 hours at a time maybe, assuming we don't fall asleep after the first few drinks lol) and says frequently she wants me back on those nights and wants to spend MORE time with me. As if 5 nights a week of doing the EXACT same thing every night, because it's what we can afford currently. Honestly she would be happy if I quit my company and just spent all day laying in bed and eating whatever fattening food she could get her hands on. I told her I work from home, have no employees or co workers to talk to and spending time with my neighbor to hang out and watch a few fun tv shows is not the end of the world. Everyone needs their own time. Before you correct me, yes I have canceled those nights to take her to a movie, dinner or couples outing. So it's not that I am not flexible. Sorry that kinda turned into a tangent.

By the time we separated and divorced, my spouse had maybe 3 friends left.  They were other women who in some way depended on her.  I believed she likes being in control.  Even with subsequent fiends she had spats and suddenly they were no longer friends.  Whether she cast them aside or they did doesn't matter.

As her behaviors worsened over the years she did have increasing conflict with her co-workers and employers.  The closer they were, the worse it got.  She was closest with me so eventually she drove even us apart.

While BPD affects the most intimate relationships the most, friendship is still a relationship and it affects all relationships to some extent.

When BPD mother was younger, she was described as quite popular. She was very beautiful, intelligent, and charming. But she also has a social persona which parallels this. Behind closed doors is a different person.

Her friendships though seemed to me to be transactional and she has to be in control. She would often change circles of friends. She has had two long term friends since college. I recall being home visiting and one of them trying to call her and my mother refusing to answer the phone. Finally, I picked up the phone and talked to the friend. I thought it was rude to ignore her but BPD mother was angry at her for something. I guess the friend was accustomed to this behavior and it didn't bother her so much.

Covid made serious damage to BPD mother's socializing. She was an elderly widow at the time but still socialized with others. Because of Covid, all her social groups shut down and in addition, nobody wanted to risk exposing her due to her age making her so vulnerable to serious illness from it. She was very demanding and controlling with her few remaining friends. They have moved on. We moved her to an assisted living facility where people are very social but she won't participate in the social groups. It's apparent she is different from them in terms of her being able to manage a friendship. I think her friends tended to accommodate her behaviors but people she doesn't know well probably won't.

I think the isolation of older people during Covid took a social toll on them. It may have kept them safer from the virus but it has a negative impact on their connections.

My H's kids' mom has many BPD traits, and her husband has many NPD traits. I think the longest-term friend that either of them still have is Stepdad's girlfriend, who used to be married to Stepdad's former friend. I am not sure that either of them has friends who have been around for >10 years. They may have friends they've known for ~8 years, but those friends moved out of the country ~3 years ago.

What we do with the information that pwPD's struggle to make and keep healthy, lengthy friendships may depend on our relationship to the pwBPD.

Because it's H's kids' mom and stepdad, I don't feel the pull to "fix it" for them or to "help them see the light". I do use the information to help me take better care of the kids. For example, if the kids' mom has a falling-out with one of the kids' friend's families, we might try to facilitate the kids seeing that friend on our time, if Mom won't make it happen on her time.

Members in romantic relationships with pwBPD who struggle to keep friends may feel that pull to "fix it" for them, "help them not be lonely", explain their behavior to others ("she didn't really mean it, can you call her to work it out?"), etc. That's where it's important to work out personal boundaries (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=61684.0) and to decline to overfunction for the loved one. Losing friendships is a natural outcome of some BPD-type behaviors -- it isn't our job to rescue.

Members who have exited relationships with pwBPD may struggle with something different -- with a sense of superiority, escape, or "told you so": "That's what you get for being a jerk! I hope you're happy alone. It isn't that hard to be a decent human being". The task there is also to disengage and detach. If we're wrapped up in an ex's friendlessness, that means we're still giving them power over our lives.

Members with a family member wBPD, whether parent or child, may find themselves in either of those positions: feeling pain at their child's lack of friends and self-destructive behaviors that push others away, or feeling frustrated and "I wash my hands of you" with a parent's perpetual discarding of friends. It's never bad idea to try to find a balanced, centered perspective (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=64749.0) between those two poles, where we acknowledge the pain we feel at seeing a loved one alone, and the frustration at watching them be so hurtful.

There is a diagnosed person with BPD in my life, and she complains that she has no friends.  I think there are many reasons she has a hard time cultivating friendships.  First, her mood and outlook are pervasively negative.  It's not very fun hanging out with negativity and criticism.  Second, she's not active in life:  she's not in school, she barely works and she doesn't have traditional hobbies.  Without regular interaction with a peer group, it might be hard to meet others with whom she has something in common.  In parallel, she self-isolates and spends oodles of time watching TV and scrolling the internet, which aren't exactly friend-magnet activities.  Third, because of her unstable mood, she has outbursts, with seemingly insignificant triggers.  She has a history of standing people up without warning, and she doesn't respond to texts.  I imagine that a new friend would have a hard time putting up with that, leading to a pattern of unstable relationships, a hallmark of BPD.  Fourth, my observation is that she doesn't really know who she is or what she likes; if you ask her, she'll usually say, "I don't know."  That's not very engaging.  Fifth, she's extremely jealous when others are happy or successful; she feels inferior by comparison, and that makes her angry and/or depressed.  Misery doesn't love company, misery loves miserable company.  Finally, she tends to expect others to do things for her, which in the friend zone might involve making plans, hosting a party, etc.  So she hasn't figured out that friendships are give and take.  She's all take and no give.  In my opinion, these are some of the reasons for the lack of friends.  I feel a little sorry for her because her bad mood makes her miserable, and yet historically she's been resistant to working on improving her mood by following doctors' and therapists' recommendations.

I think that pretty much nails it.

I saw the same thing with BPDxw; she was actually very outgoing and social, and people were very charmed by this, especially guys, since when she would just meet someone new, she'd act like they were really interesting.  And I suppose to her, they were. 

She was very shallow though, and most of these new "friends" wouldn't last long, unless they were willing to feed her ego or go along with all her BS.

After our divorce, she cut most of them out, since almost all of them refused to take sides, or outright disliked her; women in particular told me she would go out of her way to make them feel bad if they were stay at home moms or didn't have white collar jobs.

One thing I noticed: BPDxw always NEEDED people.  she had no real hobbies or interests of her own.  And she was constantly sizing herself (or me, or us as a couple) to show how she was better than others. 

I attributed all this to her feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.  I've often made the analogy - and have seen others here use it - of a bottomless pit of need.  She needed attention, drama, and conflict, because it was all she knew how to use to fill the void.  She couldn't stand to be alone with her thoughts.