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I am curious if anyone has a similar situation. I believe I know the answer to this and I believe the answers that she is lying but of course cannot be 100% sure.

I know that BPD can happen to someone who suffered childhood neglect abuse or abandonment. My uBPDxw has made accusations that she was sexually molested (incest) by her father and more often by her older brother. She shared this with me early in our relationship. I had her confront her family and they of course denied it. She only mentioned her Dad as her brother was at the confrontation. My uBPDxw never told me what happened in the meeting just that they didn't believe her. She didn't just tell me she was abused, she would actually it out but she was having flashbacks waking up in the middle the night screaming tell me she was in shower and scrub herself for for long time because she felt so dirty. But after the first two years of our relationship All the bad memories the nightmares, the shower all that went away and she never mentioned it for the next 10+ years.

FFD to this year and I caught her and one of her many affairs which I found out after our divorce. All of a sudden she's bringing up the past incest which I believe is together sympathy from me for what she is done. I also have found out (and this is the reason I don't believe her) that she has been telling some awful lies about me. She was telling people I beat her, beat my kids, raped her, etc. there are so many lies to numerous to list. I've found out POST divorce that she is a chronic liar even about little things. Also found out she had multiple affairs.

My question is this how can you tell if someone with BPD is lying about past childhood abuse or it's just another manipulative lie created to garner sympathy for themselves?

On one hand we know that pwBPD will do and say things for sympathy (they thrive on it) but on the other hand a childhood stress like incest is a common event that causes BPD! What came forts the chicken or the egg? You don't want to be insensitive if someone claims abuse (incest) because of its horrific effects on the victim.

In my case I believed my uBPDxw for years. I finally changed to non-belief when I discovered her pattern of lies thru out her life. Once a liar always a liar but then again if abuse (incest) can cause BPD and lying is a byproduct of BPD and families DO cover up incest then who can really know!

Just curious if anyone has similar DILEMA!

It's very tricky. From what you've said she told a lot of lies about you but I think you have to be very careful about how you question an admission of sexual abuse.

It often accompanied by strangling secrecy and shame

My partner had been abused as a child and I have seen slip into states where she profoundly disorientated and confused. It didn't happen frequently, there were years in between episodes. But just because it was visible all the time didn't mean that it wasn't bubbling away

I have no doubt that she was sexually abused...


Childhood sexual abuse does an awful lot of damage and some of the behaviour that you describe with you ex certainly sounds consistent.

Even the promiscuity and infidelity. I'm not saying that all victims of abuse are sexually promiscuous but for many it leaves a terribly confusion over healthy boundaries where sex becomes to make make themselves seem more loveable.

Whatever the causes, sexual abuse or BPD or both it sounds like your relationship was destructive to you and that's ultimately what matters.

In my relationship it created a terrible enmeshment and FOG where my awareness of her pain and damage led me to accept her abuse of me.

Relationships with survivors have a very, very high failure right. The forums which support partners of survivors of childhood sexual abuse make for very, very grim reading.

You are free now and over time the clouds will begin to clear so that you can see blue skies again and feel the sun

The other thing is I have found out that she has used these childhood sexual abuse stories to lure in her new victim. And I do mean lure!

I know she is SICK and it's a shame but I'm just not buying the childhood abuse stories anymore. They just don't add up and the FACT that just about every word that comes out of her mouth is a lie makes it very hard to believe.  I have since had many conversations with her family and they have revealed other crazy lies she has told since she was younger.

Anyone else on here ever deal with a pwBPD that has fabricated stories about childhood SA to play the victim for sympathy?

PS. this is not meant as any disrespect for anyone out there that has TRULY suffered from incest or childhood SA.

I have wondered the same thing... my ex told me about her abuse... but says she has forgiving her father and talks to him this day? She also said her EXH beat her... and her step dad and brother had to intervene... but it is weird becasue even this day... the EXH that is her daughters father has a great relationship with the family, I mean they go to casinos together, he goes up with his gf and stays in their home ... so I am starting to thibk... if the ex beat her... then why does the family love him so much... I think they lie about everything they can to play the "victim"// but I do agree... the sexual abuse things is tricky... cause if it did happen then I can only imagine the pain... so I never questioned that to her... I was also told she is saying horrible stuff about me...    

WFiscrazy... .

I thought that too. Very early on, I heard of the childhood molestation from a family member, then it was two family members... . I don't believe the traum she experienced was a lie, I do believe that something happened to her when she was between the age of 3-6, she has is stuck in that developmental age when in comes to many different social awareness things and maturity.

So I wouldn't doubt something happened, but I don't know how much you can actually remember from that age, especially when you have these repressed memories, they are defense mechanisms because at that age they can't protect themselves... . Then later on as they get older, they can remember bits and pieces, so they may embelish, or add to it, to gain more and more sympathy.  It also depends how long the abuse occured for some, was it once, was it repeatedly, how many years, etc... . There are a lot of factors involved... . But anyone is capable of telling a nasty lie, mental disorder or not... .

You can't really know.  Is it the lying that is the real issue? 

Clinical studies report higher levels of various childhood abuse with BPD patients.  It's not always a defining factor of someone with BPD.  And then some people have reported abuse and don't have BPD.

I have wondered the same thing... my ex told me about her abuse... but says she has forgiving her father and talks to him this day? She also said her EXH beat her... and her step dad and brother had to intervene... but it is weird becasue even this day... the EXH that is her daughters father has a great relationship with the family, I mean they go to casinos together, he goes up with his gf and stays in their home ... so I am starting to thibk... if the ex beat her... then why does the family love him so much... I think they lie about everything they can to play the "victim"// but I do agree... the sexual abuse things is tricky... cause if it did happen then I can only imagine the pain... so I never questioned that to her... I was also told she is saying horrible stuff about me...     [/quote]
Wow! Your story is JUST LIKE mine.  Yes my uBPDxw told me her previous boyfriend beat on her and raped her. 20 years later she told the same LIES about me WORD FOR WORD. It's like she has a PLAYBOOK on how to manipulate men into believing that she is a victim of abuse so they can RESCUE her and thus she can CONTROL them.

I also remember that after we got married all the abuse stories ended. She even start to talk about her father and brother in a normal way like she never told me those stories. I remember thinking to myself... . That's odd, I was pissed at her brother and didn't like being around him. She acted like nothing ever happened. She never brought up her childhood abuse stories until I caught her in affair with our neighbor across the street and I heard she was telling stories about ME! Then almost like it was rehearsed she tells me she's so confused because of her past abuse... . Yeah OK!

She's  now painted herself into a corner with the childhood abuse stories. I believed her for 20 yrs when I was in the FOG and didn't know anything about BPD. Now that my head is CLEAR and I can honestly look at all the facts and her lifelong History of lying, none of it ADDS UP! Now that her family and myself have sat down and talked to each other we found out all the lies she was telling about ALL OF US. She is so afraid of facing up to her lies that she doesn't talk to any of her family, even her Mom... . Sad!

hi mywifecrazy

like others have said, it is really hard to tell if they are lying or not. pwBPD can manipulate others by telling lies... so who knows!. Mine contradicted herself once with regards to a childhood abuse that ended up in pregnancy...  in summary, based in my experience, pwBPD can distort reality so much that it makes it hard to trust them. From all the stuff my ex said to me, i just dont know what is true or not, but this does not matter for me anymore, i am no longer living her life, i am working hard at living mine instead.  :)

i agree with Green Mango with regards with the statistics...

Amen Brother! I'm not there yet but I'm getting close. At 9 months out I'm doing MUCH BETTER than I was a short time ago. Having (2) kids with her will probably mean that I will always have a glimpse into her world whether I like it or not. Thank God I have primary custody though as it helps to minimize the contact.

sexual abuse is horrible and i can imagine the pain too. but people can recover from it and create lives that do not end up in hurting other so badly...  they do not develop BPD. is not the only factor that causes BPD.

i used to feel so sorry for my ex from having this past. Indeed she would manipulate me with it, until one day, she contradicted herself and said she did not get pregnant from abuse, but from something she actually wanted with a guy she liked at a young age, her face changed and the way she told me this gave me the shivers... this means she lied to me many times before?

who knows... i wont question myself over this. I cant care for this anymore. If she needs help, she can look for it with a therapist, i cant save her from that past abuse...

I trust my exBPDgf on this one.

She lied about minor things, I'm pretty certain of that, but not the sexual abuse stories.  She was horribly abused from about 12-15 I think by a cousin and I could tell that she wasn't making it up.  It was very real, very graphic and heart rendering -from the scale of the abuse, I can imagine I'm the only one who really knows as she's so ashamed and hateful (to herself) about it.

It's because I know so much that she pushed me away.

Her mum knows the basics but has ignored the matter.  Because the abuser is a family member with a daughter, my exes words have been swept undr the carpet by the other... . "let's pretend it never happened"... . the result is that my ex is ANGRY, HUMILIATED, INVALIDATED.

That's how she treated me... . she was ANGRY and liked to publicly humiliate me.  In her eyes, I was the abuser.  (V clear pattern here)

Today, she's still angry and the abuser is probably abusing his daughter now (which probably makes my ex feel sick)... .   The exes mother is put on a pedestal because, now I'm out of the picture, my ex needs her money to pay for her life in London.  The mother is happy to pay for nice holidays and clothes etc, even though her daughter is 30 and should be independent, because I imagine she feels terrific guilt for not being there (she focussed on her career at the time).

All in all, yes, I believe every word that came out of my exes mouth.  No woman should ever ever go through that ordeal.  Truly sick.  Then again, no woman should be 'blessed' (?) with such a mother... .   who's primary motivation now is to marry her off to  a wealthy man so she never has to work... .

The whole saga is sad, lonely and repeating a cycle which is depressing... . the pretty girl, designer clothes, holidays to Sharm el sheikh, 5 star hotels, all of it just hides BPD misery and a family dynamic which is hell.

The saddest thing is my exGF is perhaps the sweetest girl i've ever met when well.  And that's coming from a man who ended up in hospital, he was so depressed and ill!  I pray that life catches up with the cousin... .

This is exactly what happened with my wife. She was abused from 12-15 by a boyfriend's father. She told her sister sometime in the first year, they went to her mother, and nothing was done except that they cut off contact with the family. It picked up a year or so later and got much much worse.

When we first broke up, I took all the information that she gave me, researched the people involved, maybe even found some proof online, and turned them all into the police. At the time I just hoped it might put something right in the situation. They kept trying to contact her, but she didn't answer for a time. They contacted her mother, who then sent an email to her to tell her she thought she should cooperate with them. This is when she contacted me, to say thank you 7 months after she first cut me out. She worked with the police for a while before it became too stressful for her and stopped.

The thing that hurts is that I know she feels complicit because she went back to it, but honestly, no one did anything to help. She also felt that she was taught to obey adults no matter what and without question. I've heard the same thing repeated to her nieces. She told me she almost felt it was worth it, to be held by someone when it was over.

I don't think she told many people about this. I feel pretty certain it wasn't a "lure" considering how much shame it brought her. To be completely honest, she only seemed to have a vague idea that it was abuse and not her fault when we first talked about it.

I was so proud of her and her sister. They sat down with their father a couple of years back and they told him about it and the other problems he wasn't aware of. This was borne out of him picking up the Understanding the Borderline Mother book that I had lying around. He brought up that his mother and ex had a lot of the traits, and also noticed her sister's notes on her mom that she had scribbled in the book. He is a decent man, who heard all of this and cried wishing he had been around more and had assumed that things were fine while he worked. He was pretty angry by the end of it. He went home and his wife had him settled back into the status quo within weeks. She admits that she didn't do enough, but blames my wife for not telling her about "how bad it was." I've held a serious grudge against the woman for this.

I really think that this would have been a situation where some healing could have been done if the gaslighting and FOG hadn't suddenly obscured it all. All of a sudden, yet again, my wife's feelings and reality were denied.

The experience I had in my 3+ year r/s with my uBPD/NPD ex gf in this regard was extremely confusing.  She told me on our 4th date that she had been sexually molested by a female coach in HS.  As a result, she said she didn't trust women (few women friends) and didn't believe she could have an orgasm.  She said she had only told a T, who didn't help her much.  Never told her ex H of 13 years and never told any of her family.   Well, we slept together that night and she had zero sexual dysfunction.  In our first round of couple's T, she worked with the T individually for a couple sessions to begin to deal with the shame and pain from the experience.  Not surprising, she quit T after only two sessions and then would deny that the sexual abuse affected her at all.  In the second and third rounds of couple's T (different T's), after we would deal with repeated emotional dysregulation, rage, emotional abuse, etc. she'd deny that the sexual abuse had any long term affects on her or her behavior.  I didn't understand PD's at that time, so I would just shake my head and say that the behaviors weren't healthy or normal and had to originate somewhere.  She'd then project the issues back on to me and attempt to get the T on her side.  Our initial couple's T became the individual T I have seen for the last 2 years.  She expressed to me post b/u that she believes the teen sex abuse may have been a story to lure me in.  I want to give my ex gf the benefit of the doubt, but as with much of what I experienced in the r/s nothing makes rational sense.

One other potential lie was that she claimed to have had a benign brain tumor that caused her severe headaches for years.  She would say that neither her parents nor her ex h would listen to her or sympathize with her pain and suffering (I would later be cast in this role re other issues).  She told me she had brain surgery through her nostrils to remove the tumor, but even though this is a pretty invasive procedure there were no visible scars.  The surgery didn't work and she finally stopped having the headaches after the birth of her youngest son.  This is the child she had to attempt to trap her ex h in their marriage (my T also corroborated this belief in a post b/u session).  I don't know what to believe anymore other than without question my life is and will be better WITHOUT her in it... .

I know how you feel. Thank God for this sight or I would NEVER have decided to go NC to clear my head and heal.  I can't talk to or see her at all because the minute I do I go back to trying to figure her out and it only ends up hurting me.

Her world is strange place and I never want to go back there ever again!

Hey mywifecrazy, I agree with all above that it's hard to say for sure.  I believed my BPDxW was telling the truth when she said that she had been sexually assaulted/raped as a teenager, in part because her intense rages were consistent with what other rape survivors have experienced.  Yet others in her family who were there at the time of the incident have disputed her story and claimed that her rages pre-date that particular incident.  So I don't think I'll ever know for sure, though it does seem that a history of sexual abuse often goes hand in hand with BPD.  LuckyJim

My exBPDbf told me he was sexually abused once when he was 8 by his 15 year old cousin and he never told anyone but me, from what he says. He says the cousin seemed just more curious and made him touch her in certain places, etc. But other than that (which I do believe) , I think mine must have been a pathological liar and cheater as he had multiple affairs in his marriage and he always told the opposite thing to me than he would tell the other woman or his ex-wife.

Some of the crazier things he told me was that the Bahamas Intelligence service emailed him and was trying to get him to work there and that he was a bodyguard for our Prime Minister.  True he did do security but that is nothing like a bodyguard.  I find he liked to embellish.

I also found he had paranoia and thought people were always looking at him or talking about him too yet I would tell him all the time it was not the case. But he was insistent on it.

Not wanting to hijack the thread but I wonder if paranoia, constant lying / and embellishing and cheating are common in BPD?  I think they are but mine had NARC traits too so a mix.

paranoia was a big one for the pwBPD in my life. She would believe people would follow her (even strangers!), she would get paranoid people were thinking about her all the time, that people would notice stuff about her that is not even happening, related to this story, she would say stuff that at the beginning i found really odd, but i didnt pay attention. But now, it all seemed to be linked to the paranoia she exhibited...

This is a very difficult thing to know. Everyones 1st response should be to believe them, as if true, support & validation is critical. The only thing worse than being molested is not to be believed you were!

My BPDexgf once confronted her mother & older sister about her childhood abuse. Her mother initially didnt believe her but soon did. But it took her sister several weeks to believe her & I can tell you that hurt her very, very badly.


+1. there are many factors that cause BPD. Childhood abuse, esp sexual abuse is a very common background, but as more is learnt about BPD many other factors will be shown to be included, esp genetics.


A good way to validate stories, discuss the details with them. As it will no doubt be very confronting you should have no trouble remembering them. A week or 2 later, discuss it again. Liars find it almost impossible to remember all the details they tell everyone, as usually the details given change from person to person. If, over time, the details remain the same, you can be confident they are telling the truth. If the details change, you can be sure they are lying or at least "embellishing" the truth.

I am very sure my BPDexgf was serially molested/raped by at least 2 different people as a very young girl. She would have horrific night terrors where I would wake her as she thrashed around on the bed. I would ask her while she was still in that half awake, dream like state, what the dream was about (its very difficult to lie or be deceptive then, even for a pathologically expert liar). She would tell me & the details were always the same. We would discuss these at other times as well & the details never changed.

My advice would be to believe them, give them your support, until you know for sure otherwise... .

I know that childhood sexual abuse isn't always present in pwBPD. I have spent some time thinking about it, and I think that BPD does make them more susceptible to being abused. You take a unstable sense of self, mirroring behaviors, and lack of boundaries, and I can imagine a predator smelling blood in the water.

My wife told me once that she felt she had to go along with things because she was taught that adults were always right and you could never question them. Emotions were suppressed unless they were pleasing. When you're only interactions with people are a series of attaching behaviors, how could it not turn out badly?

As many other posters have said sexual abuse and BPD don't necessarily go together. I do think that BPD seems to thrive in an environment of neglect or emotional disconnection where healthy boundaries either don't exist. This is also a fertile ground for sexual abuse.

If a child is not being really listened to and cared for they are vulnerable.

As far as the abuse goes I think you have to approach the admission of abuse very carefully because even with genuine victims it does such terrible damage that their perceptions and feelings can get very tangled, confused and contradictory.

I think there iis agood chance she was molested at some time by someone.  but it is not who she says it is.   

What I experienced with my uBPD/NPD ex gf was just sad and confusing.  At one point, she's telling me with tears in her eyes about being molested as a teen by a female coach.  She has sexual dyfunction, doesn't trust women, etc.  Then, a year later she openly talks about how the shame and pain from the abuse was at the center of her emotional dysregulations, rages, extremely defensiveness, verbal abuse, etc.  She then quits T and won't acknowledge the effects of the abuse.  Another year later, she stated in a different couples T session that while the abuse happened it has had zero effect on her and minimized the whole thing.  She even went to far as to deny the previous things she told me or the first T.  That is what led my T (and the same T she was going to work with individually two years before) to state that she might have fabricated the whole thing for whatever reason.  Sad and crazy stuff! 

My ex did something very similar but I don't doubt that she was sexually abused.

Acknowledging that your behaviour and even your personality has been shaped by someone who abused you is very difficult

In a sense it's admitting that your abuser still has power over you.

My ex alternated between rare moments was she admitted how much she had been affected by the abuse but most the time she minimised what happened.

I think that's very very common among survivors of abuse

Denial is a defence mechanism - its understandable in the circumstances

Striking a balance between compassion for them and healthy self awareness to protect yourself is very difficult.

I'm not an expert but I would not necessarily disbelieve what your ex said

Madison66, just because she keeps changing how much it affects her doesnt mean she is making it up. As Reforming said, its their way of coping & imagine how difficult it would be to admit the very person who molested/raped you, who you find so extremely repulsive, is the one who defines you & your life. Imagine what that would be like. No wonder its so difficult to admit.

Its a process for them too, with both forward & backward steps. Her quitting the T isnt a surprise either, as the more they open up, the more vulnerable they feel, the more they will push away. Its part of the push-pull of BPD.

At the end of the day, dont underestimate the effect this has on US too... . we are also victims of this abuse... . 2nd hand victims

Reforming - I don't disagree with what you are saying.  I don't know what to believe or even care to believe after 3+ years of lies, deception and abuse.  It may sound cold, but it's pretty simple to me now. She would not or could not take accountability for her issues and behavior.  She became the abuser, both emotionally and physically.  And, that was unacceptable to me so I left.  Having a PD, having been a victim of any kind of abuse or just being an @sshole doesn't excuse ones actions.  I say that without any emotion.  It is what it is. 

HealingForMe - I also agree with what you wrote until the last sentence.  I WAS a victim of this abuse, but no longer... .    

If she was abused, the abuse can truly mess up the mind.  Self healing with sexual abuse takes many many forms and can takes years before a person is "really" ready to deal with it.  It may well be possible that she is dealing with her trauma with her behavior.  Although it will be very very hard to know.  She might not even have enough perspective to know that she is dealing with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse.  <--- This assumes that there was abuse.  That said, you might not ever know whether the abuse was real.  This sounds exceptionally tricky where a delicate approach and the benefit of the doubt might be warranted regardless of whether you will ever know the truth.

I think it's interesting how mywifecrazy mentioned a BPD using stories to lure in future victims. When I first became acquainted with my now ex, she almost immediately told me of past sexual abuse. She narrated this story to me within forty-eight hours of meeting her. I did the only thing that I thought was appropriate... . I thanked her for placing an enormous amount of trust in me to talk about the molestation. Then I simply let her know that I'm available if she ever wanted to talk with somebody.

It was only during the first moments of intense stress and drama that she began talking about how she couldn't recall ever being molested on the school bus... . And came with it the ramification that she would lie about such a thing... . Such a terrible lie for anyone to utter... . I should have left then and there but I did not. I should have left when she began the suicide threats to get what she wanted... . I failed to walk away yet again. It was only with further stress that she revealed that she lied about the suicide threats as well. She told me that these threats are a means to get what she wanted, more attention, whatever the case might be. This escalation is what eventually gave me an opening to leave after contacting the authorities.

Hi Madison,

I completely agree that being abused does not give someone the right to abuse others.

I lived with a survivor for 15 years and there were times in the relationship when her behaviour was abusive.

But I was so enmeshed that I made excuses for behaviour I should never have accepted.

I stayed because I felt her pain and hurt as my own - it wasn't

And because deep down I didn't feel like I was worth more.


I tried for years to get her to talk to a therapist about the abuse.


She went once at the beginning of the relationship and then at the very end when she was secretly having an affair.

When she was very low and depressed she would sometimes talk about the abuse but in kind of dissociative state.

Lot of survivors never get help - they bury or hide what happened - denial is their defence mechanism but the damage is so profound that it bubbles up through through every part of their lives destroying them and the people who love them.


The other legacy of abuse is secrecy. Terrible shame and fear of discovery - they feel responsible - means that many hide what's happened from their family and loved ones.

Lying or hiding the truth because a survival technique but it kills genuine intimacy and trust


Now if you add BPD into this mix - a disorder defined by a persecution complex and the belief that you are a victim - you get a devastating combination.


My ex told me about the abuse very early in our relationship presenting herself as a waif / victim


I responded by trying to rescue her and continued to try through most of our relationship.


Understanding the dynamics of our relationship has helped me make sense of what happened but I'm still left with the question.

Why was I drawn to the destructive turmoil? Why did I stay?

I'm working on that now and I gain perspective I realise that she's terribly damaged and destructive but I have my own sheet to deal with it.

I would never date a survivor again but I feel compassion for them

You put that well, Reforming.  Your experiences are quite familiar to me.  I think you are asking the right questions:


Those answers to those questions, I suggest, is where the healing begins.

LuckyJim

BPD people are usually not the "forgiving" types, My daughter used the same line about me! Their was NO abuse to her ever. So when we tried to speak she told her hubby she was forgiving me ... . FOR WHAT being the only one to stand by her through the years? I nor her father ever abused her and we have 2 other normal children to vouch for that.

My exBPDgf kept telling me how lucky I was that she was forgiving me, despite that it was her abusing me. After we broke up, she even told anyone who would listen that I had raped her because we had sex when she had been drinking. I would tell her we shouldn't but she wouldn't take no for an answer. She would be persistent and manipulative as only a pwBPD can be until I gave in.

I used to get upset how ungrateful she was for all the things I've done for her, but now I realise she's very sick and I I'm the one who should be grateful I got out when I did

Just wanted to comment that I really feel you on this one. I think that I have mostly recovered from my relationship with my BPDex, but this is a subject which still really haunts me a bit.

My BPD ex told me that not only had her father subjected her to incest, he had also made child porn movies of her and sold her into child prostitution. The things she told me that she had been subjected to was truly the stuff of nightmares and it broke my heart to think that she had suffered these experiences.

When we were together, I believed her 100% - the way I could see how affected she was by her own accounts of what had happened, the many classical symptoms of post-sexual abuse she showed, etc.

To make a long story short and spare you the details, I later found out that many of the stories she had told me simply didn't add up - couldn't practically have happened. It is still mind-boggling to me that to this day I AM certain that she was subjected to some kind of sexual abuse for a variety of reasons, but it seems there was no real telling where truth stopped and the lies began with her. I am certain that she actually believed her own lies to some extent - no one could be as convincing as she was otherwise.

I believe something happened to my BPDgf, I do. I don't know how much of it she actually remembered, but she remembered enough to know.  She also disclosed this to me very early on, prior to us begining to date.  And she mentioned it in a text message, and my heart-broke.  Then next day when I saw her and just wanted to give her a hug, she acted like it was no big deal.  I think she failed to realize because of her immaturity to understand what saying that to someone who cares about you, makes them feel.  I am quite sure she gained sympathy from it, and played off the whole victim role very well, but I don't think she understand the complete reality of the statement.

Sadly, after I began becoming intitmate with her, I had wanted to stop.  I told, I didn't want to do etc... . with her anymore because I felt like I with a child, it was very akward, and very strange.  Unlike anything I have ever experienced before, I almost felt like I was the person harming the child... . never again for me... .

if you go over to the Parents board you will see many families dealing with being falsely accused of abuse. my ex accused her biological father of abuse and then later denied it, although he was a confirmed alcoholic that had been pretty much cut out of their family. in the end she was the only one still in contact with him... . weird secretive phone calls where she would go off and talk to him. so, i'm not sure what happened but i know she was lying one way or the other.

my ex also would accuse her mother of being uncaring, etc. but over time i began to realize that this was completely unfair projection of her mother. it's impossible to know what went on in childhood but what i do know is that my ex would unfairly cast people in a negative light (including me).

while recognizing that something probably happened, it's important for all of us to realize that the stories we heard may not be truthful in full or at all. it may not be a bad idea to read some on the parents/family board to see how the situation affects them also. parents are often unnecessarily viewed negatively because of lies told by pwBPD.

This has also happened to me. My second marriage was in my 40’s with a man in his 50’s. We just got divorced after 8 years… the last three years he kept attempting to kill himself and blamed me because of small things: I got a text from someone at 8pm (he refused to look at it when I tried to be transparent about it), I took off my wedding ring to knead dough (he said it meant i was leaving him), so many other eggshells. He told me about two things that happened as a teenager that he never told anyone else. But the people involved he remained close to. Before we got married he said he wanted to save sex for after marriage because we were Catholic. I didn’t care but agreed for his sake. Then after we got married he kept rejecting me. Told me I was too fat, he’s too stressed, the chores weren’t done, can’t do it in the morning, can’t at night, can’t on an empty stomach…. Etc… always excuses. We went to 5 marriage counselors/sex therapists. (We are both therapists… he was a new one). When the sex therapist gave us the assignment of scheduled sex and I need to initiate…. I tried one night and had to stop after 15 seconds because he seemed off. So six month later I discovered he was telling this therapists that I sexually abused him. He then kept saying he didn’t believe my own story of being raped (once in my life by a known person). He said he thought it probably happened but that I wanted it. That’s when I realized he was probably projecting…. None of his “sexual abuse” stories were real. They were situations he engaged in and then felt bad about… so he created lies that protect his ego. I then found out their devout Catholic was creating fake Facebook pages where he could indulge in communities of satanic ritual, demon worship, witchcraft…. He was running up credit card bills and ordering statues of Baphomet and Lilith to be delivered to a public locker so I would not see them….

He was abandoned as a child. His teenage mother gave him to his father’s parents to raise when he was 6. But beyond that…. The sexual abuse stories all happened when he was 12-18. One by his grandmother, two by his mother’s sisters. He told one psychiatrist during one of his many hospitalizations that he kept attempting suicide so I would not leave him but he doesn’t actually love me and thought I had molested him.

I do not think those stories were true. I think the way he kept dismissing MY actual experience was a projection and his telling others that I abused him made me realize how easily he uses others to gain pity with new sources of supply..

My uBPD daughter has told many lies about abuse by me, starting about 4 years ago, for reasons I don’t understand. She told me she had had some therapy and did psychedelic drugs and then had all these new memories. For example, she says I whipped her daily from the age of 3, that I hired rapists  to rape her and I locked her in a garden she’d and tried to burn it down. Nothing like this ever happened, and she had a happy childhood with a loving family, but she has told these things to many people. She grew up in a small community where people knew her well and know these things didn’t happen. She moved to the other side of the country where no one knows her family and sometimes I wonder if that is so she can tell these lies and not be questioned about them. She is now estranged from most family members because of these false allegations. She uses these lies to blame me for things that are not going well in her life and to try to extract financial support. She has been telling these lies for about 4 years now as far as I’m aware and I think she may actually believe them now. It is a very sad situation snd one I still don’t really understand. Before this experience, I would have said people who recall sexual abuse should be believed. Now I know it is not always true.

This is a very intriguing question because with one ex -- the one who was diagnosed with anxiety, CPTSD, and perhaps BPD by three different therapists, respectively -- she spoke of horrible physical and psychological childhood abuse, including sexual.

Yet, she lied so much -- she actually said more than once she lied all the time -- I did start to doubt how much of what she said was true. To hear her tell it, both her father and her brother(s) sexually abused her. She had an ex she said she was no longer with but was cheating on me with (and, I suppose, with me on him) and told me she didn't like having sex with him because he reminded her of her brother. And yet she wouldn't not cheat with him.

Interestingly, I was aware of another relationship where the woman claimed to have been sexually abused as a child by family members. Years later, she claimed her ex had sexually assaulted her. Why years later is anyone's guess, though I'm thinking now she must have had something like BPD, but out of the blue she tried to get him fired from his job. He denied it, of course, and thankfully, he had a bunch old texts and emails that just blew enough holes in those accusations she had to rescind them.

But it's terrifying to think what might have happened if he didn't have something because his employers came at him like he had to prove he didn't do something rather than she had to prove he did.

These are scary, truly destructive people in some cases. 

I agree with what many have written above.

My BPD ex was sexually abused as a teen. I have no doubt it actually occurred. In her case, it was her stepfather, who had malignant NPD. Everyone in the family recognizes how physically and emotionally abusive he was, and boundaries in the family were really messed up. And sexual abuse in childhood is a fairly common antecedant for BPD. One unfortunate consequence in my ex's case is that her initial imprint, for sexual experience, was on her stepfather. So she generally goes for romantic partners that are based on that templace. It's classic "repetition compulsion". With only a few exceptions, her romantic partners have all have had NPD, and much of what she's said about them to me is verifiable (e.g., her second husband carried on an affair with her sister for ten years, then dumped her for her sister, etc.). I was one of the few exceptions, and it was by far the longest relationship she'd had, but when an extreme stressor occurred, she monkeybranched and dumped me for another NPD guy.

As far as "luring" - I think it's common for people with BPD to recite ad nauseum how they've been victimized in life. And I think people with BPD often look for somebody sympathetic to that in a romantic partner.

I think it's also occasionally possible for people with major psych issues to come to believe that they'd been sexually abused when that's not the case. I've been in therapy groups with individuals where I've thought that was likely true. But I think it's less common.

I don't know if you can ever know for certain if abuse occurred. My ex accused her father of abuse a few years back and cut all ties with him, but the abuse seemed to consist of a spanking once and otherwise gruff behaviour. After that, she accused pretty much everyone of abuse. Now that we're going through a divorce, she's accused me of various abusive behaviours. Thankfully, I also have texts from her contradicting her own accusations.

I was always a bit skeptical about her past abuse claims and thought she was overreacting. Now that I'm the target of those claims, I don't believe any accusation she's made in the past.

So yes, I think abuse has definitely happened in the past with some BPDs. But I think a lot of them just fabricate it to justify whatever it is they're trying to justify.

Agree.  They're such unreliable narrators, and will claim anything if they feel it will benefit them in the moment, that you have to take all their claims with a grain of salt.

After all I went through, I kinda look at it this way: maybe BPDxw was abused and maybe she wasn't... but in the end, it's purely academic, because I didn't accept how she behaved and how she treated me, and after a certain point, being abused is not an excuse for abusing others around you. 

Knowing whether she was actually abused or not might matter in therapy... if she was willing to go to that and work on herself.   But to me, I just have to remember not to base my own actions and decisions on her claims.  She's shown a capacity to invent whole situations out of cloth, so I'm not going to be concerned about anything or believe her unless I see it with my own eyes.

My ex didn't accuse her family, but she felt someone else had some sexual intentions when she was a child.

I know one other man while she was with me, she accused of intentions that were predatory and he went to court

I question that

Then she accused me of the same thing (kind of) and then flipped and said she never thought that

Then she accused some person at work without a doubt that was just completely not true.  There was no evidence.

There was a feeling he was creepy.

I'm a woman, sometimes I feel a bit creeped out about men at work who don't respect your space.   For example, they get too close and you step back and they step back into your space.   You should be able to step back, and the person realizes hey they are just protecting that space between you.  You are work, you are not friends, you don't want people stepping over that boundary. Sometimes people have no awareness.  So, I can imagine how someone with trauma would react to that.

BPD I think that gets blown out of proportion.

But also, they put themselves into positions where that can get convoluted.

They can have moments where they are validated and all of a sudden, they think they need to share themselves with that person.   I think they extend themselves into that validation and then think oh my god is this what I want but they are stuck in it.

Child abuse is something like that.  It's an adult making a child feel like they are special and safe.   The child in a way goes into that space and they don't know that they shouldn't.  The adult has now has trapped them in some kind of reality.  One where they feel guilty for wanting to be loved but that love is not as it should be with a child and adult.  These people know how to work that.   That is the child's sexual abuse shame.  That is the child thinking they deserved the abuse; they somehow attracted it.  The guilt. THE SHAME. For love.  They are told its ok this is love.

Where does that come from? That doesn't come from nowhere.

It might be distorted for BPD as adults, but it come from somewhere.

Someone leveraged it in them.  Somehow.

Somewhere a line was crossed.   That could be non sexual but the idea of that closeness placed in their mind and a line crossed.

Could I also just say

Sexual child abuse is so rife and the world sticks their head in the sand about it

OH no it doesn't happen in our family or community!

Well, I am sorry the ugly truth is it does

It happens to little boys and girls ALL THE TIME

What we need is for MEN to stand UP and be angry.

That is what it will take for it to stop

Not blaming men.  But GOOD MEN to be ANGRY

Not look away that their gender is creating this.  Mostly.

Do you understand?

Men are the solution not the problem.

SO yes, I think MANY BPD are sexually traumatized somehow.  If they aren't then they had BPD or Narc parents and some very dodgy family dynamics. That bordered on relationships that crossed boundaries.

Off my soap box.  I just wish men would be angry enough to stand up and not feel everyone is pointing at them as the problem but looking at them for the solution.

Feel strong in that role.

When is that going to happen?

@SendingKindness

What about the men around you. Did they do something?

I was abused my uncle. I was 4 years old. 

I remember what I was wearing.  I remember exactly the day.

I remember fighting him.  I remember running into the kitchen where my mother was and his wife.

He did NOT flinch.  Not at all. 

He knew that a four year old couldn't explain what happened.

That PLEASE READ (https://bpdfamily.com/safe-site.htm) distorts in your head.   I know what happened.

You tell people they don't believe you.  You tell your mother, and she says don't say anything.

There are creeps right next to your kids.

There is.

Wake up people.  These creeps are so sure of themselves and know how to destroy little minds.

They know how to do it right under the parent's noses.

It's not paranoia it happens all the time.

Sorry I ranted.

I just need people to wake up.

Something happened to them and a series of things.   

It's distorted their minds.

Genes, narcs, bpd parents, people stepping over their boundaries as a child.

It's not out of thin air.   They are now the result of that.

No need to apologize.  I don't think anyone is denying it happens, and my own understanding of child abuse is that it's depressingly more widespread than our society acknowledges. 

When larger abuse scandals hit the public, I think we tend to assume they're limited to *that* instance, and are not systemic, or linked to powerful people who get away with it.  Not everyone is held accountable, but we as a society ignore that and move on.

But we're talking about specific cases we endured, and trust we put in people that we later learned were not trustworthy. 

Like I said above, I think when considering whether a BPD-partner was or was not actually abused, whether you decide to believe them or not, it's important to remember they're not trustworthy, and act accordingly.  We really can't know what happened unless we were there, or I suppose people we did trust were there and can verify it. 

And regardless, being a victim of abuse doesn't justify their continued abuse of those close to them, and their own lack of personal accountability.  You may sympathize with their lot in life, but not excuse their behave, or suffer from it. 

I saw this sort of thing a couple times with BPDxw.  I think their lack of impulse control plays into it.  They don't consider how the OTHER person may behave, and be genuinely surprised when they turn out to be another human being with their own wants and needs, and not just a shoulder for the pwBPD to cry on.   

I think of times when I was dating BPDxw and wasn't there for her *immediately* ... for example, she locked herself out of the house, and I wasn't able to get there as soon as she would've liked.  I was at work, and had to take a long bus ride and train ride to get home.  So she would reach out to other guys she knew were single and would come give her attention.  She didn't consider the consequences. And of course, that invites a bad situation... they get angry when they realize she's using them, and/or refuse to take "I have a boyfriend" for an answer.  She's lucky in both cases nothing worse happened to her than getting groped by some creep at a bar, and me and him nearly coming to blows after a shoving match.  In the other, the guy backed off when I showed up. 

Whether she would've actually cheated on me, I don't know, but these were huge  red-flag red-flag red-flag - both the lack of loyalty and fidelity to the relationship, and the way she'd put herself in dodgy situations like that you could see playing into a predator's hands. 

of course... she was an adult when she did these things, and a mom in the 2nd case. 

getting abused as a child is a different issue.  I do not blame children for that sort of thing; they don't bear any responsibility for their lot in life.