BPDFamily.com

Hi everyone,

So my current relationship situation with my pwBPD has me a bit perplexed and I am looking to gain some perspective from some of the members of the forum here.

I've noticed a pattern in my relationship, which I'm sure that many members of this forum are used to. As soon as our relationship begins to reach high levels of intimacy, my BPD girlfriend will become highly emotional and ultimately seek to run away. I expect this, and so I wasn't entirely shocked that recent events that led to greater intimacy between us were followed by my current situation -- Namely that my pwBPD has attempted to cut off all contact with me and told me not to contact her.

The "Silent Treatment" officially began Monday, but it was the preceding Saturday that she informed me that she was going to be using the silent treatment. This in itself is unusual. Our relationship is long-distance, and she told me that she cared too much about me to be able to handle the emotions of talking to me, so she has cut off contact On Sunday I had a long discussion with her, trying to be sympathetic & empathetic towards her, but ultimately hoping to convince her to keep the possibility of communication open between us even if she needed some time alone.

The long-distance component of our relationship makes me question myself in this scenario. In normal "Silent Treatment" scenarios she tends to get upset at me for reasons that come out of the blue, and then rages at me for some time. However she directly told me her current behavior wasn't being motivated by her BPD (an assertion I don't entirely agree with due to the all-or-nothing nature of her actions) but she definitely has a valid concern in that maintaining a long-distance relationship is hard work and perhaps it is too much for her to handle at this current time. Simultaneously though, I still feel that her behavior is more motivated by a fear of intimacy than anything else, and that the distance, while a factor, is being confused by her for the fear of intimacy that is more primarily motivating her actions.

Does anyone have any advice on how I should be responding to this behavior? I personally want to try and reach out and end the silent treatment I'm enduring, but I am not sure if this is ultimately a good thing as this behavior is rooted in my desire to 'save' her and convince her to seek treatment.

I'm hoping experienced members on this list have some ideas, this exact thing happens with my partner whenever we reach high levels of intimacy and it's really hard to know exactly how to handle it sometimes.

I can speak to the long-distance r/s aspect. Some members here are in or were in long-lasting LDRs with pwBPD, but mine was hell and it lasted six months. My ex-boyfriend is not diagnosed with BPD, but after our b/u I found this forum, learned what BPD is, and he fits the bill. He also fits the bill for NPD.

I have often wondered whether the distance killed my r/s. Living away was out of my control and I tried to make it work. I visited my ex nearly every weekend. But after reading many people's stories about BPD, he and I could have been married and sharing a house 24/7 and things would probably still have ended badly. Maybe the r/s would have lasted longer, but there still would have been fundamental problems. My ex also is an alcoholic. He brought a lot of instability to the r/s.

My ex hated that I lived away from him. It was a huge source of contention in our r/s. He resented me for it. I think in the end it really was too stressful for him and he had to remove himself from it. Sure, he would promise me the world, promise that he "was in it to win it" with me and said he would work toward us being together in some way (either me moving to his city or vice versa), but he couldn't follow through. I was committed as ever, but he didn't like it and he got tired of it.

He laid a lot of guilt on me for moving (we met in the same city and I had to move for a job a month after dating him). He often lashed out in anger about it. He blamed me for his misery. He broke up with me just about every month, then would return. Toward the end he started detaching and would not talk to me on the phone during the week and instead would throw me a few crumbs with some text messages. That was difficult for me because that was his way of writing me off. Rather than be straight with me like a mature adult and discuss how the LDR isn't working for him, he would pick fights and avoid me during the week. Then on my visits he started ignoring me. It was soon over.