BPDFamily.com

Hello everybody,

I was here back in 2006 when I discovered that my girlfriend had a BPD. It was a hard time but I learned about BPD here and was able to get myself out, and thank God that I did!

Roll on six years... .  and can you believe it... .  in a relationship again where things didnt add up or make sense... .  strange things happen... .  no reasonable explanation... .  and then it all starts to come out... .  

Wow. I thought that I'd be able to recognize the signs that someone has BPD, and yet it took me nearly a year to figure her out. And now I feel a little stupid for missing the obvious, but I guess that's what happens when you fall in love.

Here's what happened. Met her in a bar but she wasnt drinking a lot. Very pretty. Highly intelligent. Much younger than me. She told me that she was single, and two months out of a five year relationship. We met for a drink a few days later, turned into dinner, and she kissed me as we said goodnight. Next time we met we slept together. She is very good in bed. 

For the next five months she was elusive. She'd meet me, but once a week, if that. Kept going on vacations with girlfriends, but sent me daily text messages, often to tell me that she was having a "pyjama party" at home with her best girlfriend. This went on for five months at which point I said goodbye. At which point she started to tell me how much she liked me... .  but I was too old... .  no future etc, which I accepted.   

And after that she would disappear, and then reappear, days or weeks later. She told me that her ex-bf was trying to get back together with her, and was almost stalking her. I told her to go away and figure her stuff out with him and that maybe we'd meet up one day when that was done.

She turned up a few weeks later, wanted to get back together. Then she went to Paris for an office xmas party, bt she went a day ahead of her colleagues and checked into a hotel for the night by herslef.  No text from her after 9.30pm, and then nothing until 11pm the next day. Then another two week vacation in the caribbean with a gf. I said see you later. she turns up again, wants to try again, and then two weeks later i take her to a music event in a club with some friends of mine. she disappears for an hour, I see her talking to a good looking guy at the end of the night, so I left and went home. She turns up an hour later, with a bunch of excuses, said nothing happened but she did flirt with the guy, and that it was somehow my fault.

After that, more lies about where she was or wasn't. So I said goodbye, and she went off to get healthy and calm down and decided to live truthfully. She said she wasnt sure when she'd ever see me again.

Three days later she is back, and now she is acting as if we are a couple. This despite a 10 day vacation booked at Easter with a gf.

And now she tells me that she used to be severly anorexic, nearly dies, has financial problems, has had two abortions, and has an emotionally abusive father. Oh boy.

I've left out lots of details but you get the picture. I should add that she is like a chameleon, and can manipulate people easily. On the night at the club where she disappeared for an hour, no doubt with some guy, she made me look bad because I "abandoned" her. funny, because she abandoned me, and so i went home alone... But she had all my friends feeling sorry for her! amazing.

So let me tell you, these borderlines are dangerous. I'm pretty sure her ex-bf is snooping around where I live, and she told me that he had recently approached another guy that she had been sleeping with briefly (8weeks) after she broke up with the bf. The rebound guy told the ex-bf that he had been sleeping with her for two years.

So many things dont add up about this girl, and she is bad news.

Fortunately i have my wits about me this time and didnt get in too deep. But the fact is that I dont believe a single word she says.

And that's how it is with a Borderline!

What is it that you think happened between your two BPD relationships, and where you are now?  Meaning, what can you do to ensure that you won't be 'fooled' again?

she is a clever girl, and has disguised her real self very well. it is only in light of very recent behavior that i managed to conclude that she is a borderline... .  

there were lots of red flags, but nothing on its own that made me think borderline.

her recent admissions, e.g. suicidal tendencies, long term depression, anorexia, combined with what i had seen until then add up to 7 or 8 borderline traits (according to the dsm).

now, in retrospect, it is obvious.

but, until now, i didnt really have enough to go on.

fortunately i am not enmeshed financially, or emotionally (much), so the downside is limited.   

a lucky escape!

Have you wondered why this is the kind of woman you are attracted to? What things are you drawn to in these personalities before you start noticing red flags? (For example, some people say it is the intense attention/idealization or the sex).

Now that you have gotten to know two possible pwBPD, you have even more information about BPD behaviors. How can this information help you in the future? What are you learning about yourself?

Wishing you peace,

PF

Much younger.

Just months out of a 5 year r/s.

Met at bar.

Quick to bed.

Elusive.

Even without a raging personality disorder... .  

This screams... .  I'm Not Available For a Serious Commited Stable Relationship.

No?

As I worked through the relationship with my recent ex pwBPD, even before it finally ended, I realized he is the 4th... .  4th... .  man with BPD I have been emotionally entangled with through the years. 4th not counting my father, who would have been the first, and most important one. It had been 13 years between the last friendship/pseudo-relationship with a BPD man and this most recent one. I believe the death of my father in 2008 may have made me more susceptible to a repeat, especially since this one reminded me of my dad far more than any of the others. He sounded just like him when he laughed, and there were times when I looked at him, and I would swear he WAS my dad. It was truly weird and freaky. For him, I was almost a reincarnation of his mother, so of course he had to abandon me before I could leave him, like she did.

This stuff makes my head hurt sometimes.

in between my two BPD relationships i had my guard up... .  was very defensive... .  and never got involved romantically with any of the women i met during that time.

why did i fall again for a BPD? well, firstly, i didn't realize until very late in the day that she was a borderline. her explanations were credible, and she lied a lot, but i wanted to believe her so i didnt see the lies as lies until late in the day.

she seemed interesting, open minded, unconventional, and interested in me.

but now, in retrospect, it is all so obvious.

the fisrt BPD i knew was very "rock chick" and this one was "waif".

they both made me feel the same way. great sexually. horrible emotionally.

i hope they both find peace.

i will survive1

thanks for your nice thoughts and good questions. this place is a gift from God.

b2   

I've been involved with a couple of BPD's too, and am now wondering, since supposedly 2% of the population are BPD, what is going on with me and women, that I gravitate to those?  Probably I'm susceptible and they find me, but why is that then?  I'm a people pleaser, and folks like me create very unhealthy loaded bonds with BPD's, time to learn and grow beyond it, but it does feel good that I'm over her and focusing on my growth; I consider that progress.

And this is what it comes down to in any unhealthy relationship - borderline or not. 

We WANT to believe what we know in our gut isn't true.

We're human.  We want things.  And sometimes we WANT things more than we want the truth.  Truth isn't always pretty, but you can always count on it.

Glad you saw the light, bewildered2.  You aren't the first person that has fallen for another crappy relationship and wondered how that could happen.  Many people here talk about how they got involved with yet another borderline (or some other person who is just "off" and should have known better.

I think many of us move on to relationships with yet another dysfunctional person (borderline or not,) because there's no way to implement what we've learned without putting it into practice in a relationship.  Much of what we learn is only head knowledge until we're involved with another person.  That's when the rubber meets the road and we really see if what we learned is not just stuff we know in our heads, but if it has been incorporated into who we really are - without thinking about it.

turtle

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

The only thing I see wrong that you did is that you did not erect your boundaries soon enough or quick enough. I see the only thing that we can do is have a well honed defensive strategy, since we make never be consciously aware of the reasons we draw nutbags. As in, be very mindful of subtly enabling tendencies, that make us feel queasy on the inside. I take it from your narrative that you had a lot of queasy moments, no?

thanks for all your thoughts.

turtle - the rubber meets the road is a great concept... .  theory is great... .  but putting it into practice appears to be hard... .  at least for me... .  until now! the fact is that she was good... .  as many borderlines are... .  she was very very good at telling a bunch of lies... .  and i am still too trusting... .  

maryiscontrary - my boundaries were up for years, and they served me well. the fact is that my instinct told me that she was wrong, a liar, after only about three months. all of my friends said that i was wrong, that she was ok, and just in a difficult spot. as it turned out i was right and they were wrong. despite my instinct, i still fell for her. the good news is that i never got involved to the extent that i did last time, so the pain is a tniny fraction of that experienced the first time aroun. i didnt get in too deep, thank God.

i had a lot of queasy moments. and i have learned that those nqueasy moments are super important.

i saw her with a group og her colleagues about a week ago. it was supposed to be a quick drink with then and then we would do our own thing. it turned into an evening where i spent 6 hours being polite to her colleagues, she was never around, and then late in the eve she was rude to me and then she went off with her friends, and i was not invited.

says it all.

i am learning!

b2 

I cant understand, no matter how much I try, wehy on earth we get attracted to such types. Its a pattern thats hard to break... .  Not only BPDs, many other PDs also... .  We end up acepting unaceptable behavior!

maybe because we are too nice?

too nice to everybody but ourselves!

time to learn from our borderlines and be a little more selfish?

b2

My hypothesis is not because we are nice, it is poor, poor boundaries.

It is also a failure with empathy. That is... .  a blindness to the malintent of others. It's one think to be astute to others suffering. It is another type of empathy to be cognizant of sociopathic intent. This is also empathy.

Yes, I think we confuse poor boundaries with being "nice". It may appear as nice, because everyone else gets what they want from you!

Yup, a people pleaser like me is wired to put other people's needs ahead of my own, and set crappy boundaries, if at all; I'm working on that.  And that's why I now consider my BPD ex a gift.  The idealization phase felt so good that I let my guard down entirely and wasn't even thinking about boundaries, went into it blind because I thought it was finally the real deal.  But then once she was in and figured out I'm not perfect, fancy that, her rages, devaluations and criticisms hurt that much more, because here's someone who knows pretty much every intimate detail, so she had lots of personal ammo, like a Trojan horse for the psyche.  I now get BPD and know her desire for complete control is motivated by a need to feel 'safe', and the devaluation is just a phase of the disorder, when she's faced with the fear of engulfment, but that's her crap.  It hurt me doubly because of the bait and switch, and that's made building and enforcing healthy boundaries a focus in future relationships, with everyone really.  So thanks BPD.

wow... .  the quality of thinking here... .  and expression of that thinking is top tier... .  i take my hat off to you all... .  you have made me think... .  and question aspects of my own behavior... .  so is "being nice" just a form of expression of an inadequacy of our own... .  a lack of setting boundaries... .  and if so... .  why do we do that? i wonder... .  

b2

Maybe we do that in order to look good? Thats disgusting... .  

I think being kind and principled is different from being "nice".

Why do we do it?

I think for me it is because that is what I was taught as a child.  I believe my mom has BPD (a very new and difficult realization for me with the help of some great therapists).  Her needs were the most important, and I was rewarded for being the 'nice, kind' child.  It was put into my head that I was being nice and good while ignoring my own needs.  I didn't even know what my needs were!  Also, she had no boundaries, so how am I supposed to know what those are, either?

I do have a better sense of what my values are now, but I am still learning.  Erecting firm boundaries is not an easy task, I've found, but a necessary one.  I know when I am not using boundaries and taking care of myself because I become depleted.