BPDFamily.com

I'm in the process of divorcing my uBPDstbxh. I'm reading a lot of useful information here. I'm trying to stay focussed on the bad parts, because those are the things I really don't want to go back to.

Thing is... .the last good part (we've been together for six years) lasted for two years, until this January. We never argued, he never lost his temper, we were in sync all the time. It was beautiful, blissful love. We had so much fun and we did so much things together.

I just wonder how long your SO's good episodes lasted. I wonder, because it is just me who came to the conclusion that he must suffer from BPD/NPD, based on all the crazy stuff, impulsive and unreasonable behaviour, insomnia, name-calling, angry outbursts, silent treatment etc...

Is it possible for a high functioning BPD/NPD person to remain 'good' for this long?

(I'm not American, so forgive me for any language mistakes)

Thanks for mentioning the "high functioning" part. I believe my ex is high functioning. She is a dentist and very good at her job. She did change jobs three times in less than a year a couple of years back, but besides that no one outside of me (or her family) ever see her rage or inner turmoil.

I would say the good episodes last as long as they aren't emotionally triggered by you or because of you. I have known mine since childhood, but I didn't see her BPD traits till she came back 4 years back. So I won't count the good parts from before that. Once she came back, the honeymoon phase lasted a month, and the good parts lasted 6 months. There were multiple red flags, suicide threats, felt like dealing with a child... .but the blame was towards her family, not towards me. Once she switched the script and they became good and I became bad, the subsequent 'honeymoon' phases lasted in the matter of weeks... .up to 4-8 weeks. Two years back I believe she came to an acceptance that she won't be marrying me because of her family. Since then the scary rages and blaming of me increasingly went down. I guess she didn't feel emotionally as close anymore, and so the scary parts I experienced stopped. There were blowups or anger/blame/rage every couple of months... .but they were isolated situations rather than the nonstop misery. But even during the good times her narcissism would be putting me down every now and then, based on my height, education, income etc. To be sure, since she came back in September 2010, I never really had peace. Either i was taking care of her like a child, or at the receiving end of her blame.

It is really hard to understand high functioning BPDs/NPDs. They are invisible, and only their emotional/intimate partners get to experience it. Since I am the only one who has experienced it, I am full of doubt if she is only going to be like this with me only and not with the next guy. Because to the rest of the world, they have that child-like charms... .that intensity, that self-loving narcissism that most of us don't see as  red-flag

In my experience my uBPDex would go for longer times without episodes if we didn't change routine, didn't go on vacation (always turned out bad) or as long as my daughter was in another province (she lived with her grandparents for a year)... .I guess these were triggers for him.  But if we stayed home and stuck to our routines and nothing happened out of the ordinary, no holidays like Christmas (always was a bad time), things were pretty good. 

in my experience, our "good" episodes would last as long as we were together (in person) - regardless if at home or on vacation. the splitting and rages would occur when there were changes in our schedules that caused us to be apart and not see each other (whether for a day or longer). for a BPD, absence does NOT make the heart grow fonder.

yet, while i suffered his wrath, he was high-functioning enough to hide this drama from friends and coworkers. it is frightening, really. i always wondered why i was the "lucky" one to see behind his mask.