BPDFamily.com

How many of you went through this?

I was subtly put down constantly haha.

A lot of times she did it in sort of a funny teasing manner but sometimes it was just downright insulting.

Clothes,  hair,  being "short" (I'm 6'1" haha) weight,  smell etc. 

Oh and she'd also do things like say "I love guys with beards" when i am always clean shaven.

Just constant little digs designed to erode your confidence and self worth.

And not for a second did I consider responding with take a look at yourself love because you certainly aren't perfect.

YES! Mine did this a lot. She wanted to buy me new clothes because I had no style lol. My response: you don't even have a job. It was always these little comments and it builds up.

Hi inferno,

Yes I got this all the time... .I talk to much etc etc

Its all about sharing how they feel, also I found it was away of keeping me down so they felt more in control (you won't leave etc which goes back to there core wound of abandonment)

Chin up... .Im 4 months out and blacker than black... .

Cant really say passive aggresive... .

Sarcasm and loads of it! That was his thing. Always in a way that if I would comment on it he'd say I got it wrong and didnt mean it in a sarcastic way... .(Gaslighting)

And accusations... .Loads and loads... .You dont care for me, you dont love me, you love your ex more then me, your ___ing your friends, you dont want me in your life... .Bla bla bla... .

All this nonsense mostly over not responding to a text quick enough (within 1 minute).

Once he managed to send me 77 messages within an hour. Going on and on about how I wanted him to die and wouldnt even morn if he did... .When I asked him afterwards he said his reaction was totally normal, he was just expressing himself and I was too sensitive... .All his friends thought I was the one with a mental illness... .Projection and triangulation. He would also hit walls, bang his head against the wall, kick tables. I would tell him that made me uncomfortable and he again would say I was just too sensitive and he didnt do anything wrong. Better the wall then my cheek right? What the heck

These episodes occured every other day... .

Ehhh why did we put up with these ___ers? Sounds so insane once out of the FOG!

Definately preaching to the converted on this one. She seemed to get a real kick out of the old put downs. Most were similar to what you guys all put up with.My height and build (yeah im only 5ft 8,and she had dated taller guys,but her BF immediately before me was only 5ft 4.And although i have a slim build i do take care of myself) My lack of dress sense (im a musician so i always tended to dress in a fairly rock fashion) that had to go, my wardrobe is now filled with clothes she chose.And i havent had the heart to dispose of them yet. I had the opposite with the shaving thing though, when she met me i was bearded (bit cobain-esque with my long blonde hair) soon i was hearing "shave please ,you look haggered" and "i wont kiss you unless you shave"etc etc. A lot of her friends took notice of these comments and its one of the main reasons some of them dont talk to her anymore. She would try to write it off as "oh its just the way i am,i dont say this whole "i love you thing,this is my way of saying i love you"

I feel sorry for her current supposed boyfriend/supply/parasitic host. The guy although smartly dressed in a suit,always wears the same thing (and i mean the same thing,same suit every day) not to mention hes not a looker.Its only a matter of time before the digs start at him and he finds his confidence being chipped away.

Yup. Been there heard that... .

my ex said some really inappropriate things about her exes... I always thought she loved them more than me. And I brought it up...

Shes known my replacement from college days, maybe bout 20 years or so. Hes bald as hell, not cool bald, but George Castanza bald from seinfeld. Dresses light old man. Not like me at all. But maybe hes more presentable to her snooty friends. Whatever.

lmao! Good for him lol.

The subtle control and manipulation designed to keep me down/on edge/on a quest to improve myself seems so obvious and cruel and childish now I am clear of the FOG.  :)igs at my clothes, hair, feet?, smell, jokes, my driving, if I was ready to leave the house before her she would give me something to do and them be cross that I was then holding her up?,  laughing or aggression if I expressed sickness or pain, to my friends, family (untrustworthy), my home (she couldn't stay there as it would feel like being raped? or being forced to wear an ex-lovers underwear?), my work (I was supposedly a workaholic and cared for that more than her because I enjoy it and do a full-time job whilst she was off sick and taking her workplace, a charity, to tribunal for bullying/ victim mentality) to my personality (not strong enough, not assertive enough, a people pleaser). There is no logic to staying in a relationship where there is so much dissatisfaction. So her push and pull ran out of steam where her pull was no longer enough. I'm out with what self respect remains. Phew!

sounds like my experience lol did we date the same tall black girl?

Well she thought she looked like Angelina Jolie. I could never see that but she is a fine looking woman. That really annoyed her!

I'm Caucasian, and she's African American... she would bait me into race debates. Pathetic... my ex is hot i can't lie lol. And she is a sex addict.

My ex was a waif and they control with PA behavior. The ironic thing was that I had controlled all my past relationships with my own PA behavior (her PA basically trumped mine and I became a love addict for the first time in my life but that's a different story :) ). I had a fear of abandonment and treated my partners horribly with mental and emotional abuse just like many of us have endured. I would have never become aware of my issue had I not hit rock bottom in this relationship. I've now been treated for PA and I'm very aware of myself and when it comes up I refocus and make better decisions.  It's pretty simple if you are aware. I am still dealing with engulfment issues.

Because I have lived my entire life with PA and abandonment/engulfment issues I think I can relate to how she felt at times during the relationship. I always carried a mask of indifference. I acted like I could take or leave my partner and it kept them hooked. If they left I would have been devastated but they would have never known it. I was left once and ironically I wanted out of the relationship before she left me. I was crushed when she left and it took me a long time to get over her. All the other times I left and because of the way I treated them they were crazy for a long time. I didn't realize exactly what I was doing but I knew I was in control.

Because engulfment seems to tie to PA I will say that if a pwBPD traits feels similar to the way I felt when a partner became needy and clingy I lost respect for them and began to really resent them. When this happened I would literally feel trapped and saw no future for myself especially with this person. It got worse and worse the longer it went on. I had to escape but I didn't want to be the bad guy so I would set them up to make them angry at me. I was hoping that they would leave but if not I would not feel so bad if I left them since they were angry. Basically I turned it around on them and in my mind I was leaving because they were crazy or whatever.  They usually were crazy after I put them through the ringer. A lot of my actions were subconscious. I am not borderline so I didn't have the swings back and forth from abandonment to engulfment, and I don't jump from relationship to relationship (and I would never settle for someone because I had to be with someone) but I think I can somewhat relate as to how she felt when she was engulfed and why she used PA behavior.

I am not proud of my past behavior and i am so thankful that I have improved myself and become a better person. I have to reiterate that I would have never become aware of my faults if I had not hit rock bottom.  PA behavior is disgusting to me now.

I won't lie i had anger problems with mine towards the end. I had enough of the lies and bull. My therapist said my actions were completely normal under the circumstances. After all, no one likes being insulted or lied to. It's like poking an old dog, that nice dog once poked to many times will bite eventually.

Yeah I had so much of this. All the same stuff as had been mentioned, I swear these people must have their own schools where they learn the same crap. Nothing about me was good enough. My personality, I wasn't assertive enough, my balding head, my smell, I had ugly ears, my jokes weren't funny, I was the stupidest person she ever met, my driving, my dancing, my taste in music, my clothes, I wasn't muscular enough which she insisted meant I wasn't a proper man, I was the most annoying person she knew, I was no good at my job, I was tight with money (even though I paid for everything)... .just everything about me offended her. I was left a brittle and hollow shell at the end of it all.

Gosh man I'm so sorry... like I said mine did all this too... .They must have a school to learn all this s***

Interesting thread.  My ex picked at me, made me feel like I was always irritating him, could never do anything right.  But honestly I can't really remember what he did to make me feel this way.  It was all so very subtle!  And confusing!  He wasn't one to outwardly rage very often, his tactics were subtle threats and silent treatment.  He never called me names, he wouldn't put my appearance down in any way.  It was all so hard to put my finger on, the FOG was thick!  I felt wretched, always anxious, wondering what was wrong with me... .I couldn't recognise the abuse, he was very manipulative and good at it!


Waifed, thank you for sharing that, it gives me insight into some other r/ss I've been in and I also think I am capable of some PA as well.  Although not intentional but as a defense mechanism for sure.  I grew up with the queen of PA, my mother!  So I recognise it, hate it and am guilty of using it at times.  And you are right, without the pain of this r/s which I consider hitting rock bottom as well, I wouldn't have opened my eyes to all of this I don't think.

My ex always used to tell me she treated other people the way she wanted to be treated. 

And i realized she was right about that.

Essentially she wanted to be treated passive aggressively teased and controlled.

For a while it was sort of a fun game teasing each other over trivial things. 

She was playing to win though.  It was really lose lose.

Oh yeah too many to mention:

- I couldn't run, because that would make me skinny

- I reminded her of our 3 month anniversary, she said i sounded like a woman

- My butt had too much bone

- When we would play fight, she would always try to dominate me and hurt me in the process, called me a whimp.

Yeah nice woman  lol

You guys are kidding me, right? I'm not very active here because I'm more into reading than writing but this thread kills me. I can identify with EVERY response so far! She criticized my hair, because she preferes balding guys (I look more like the twin brother of Dave Grohl and in the beginning, she said she fell in love with me instantly because of my style). Another member here stated that she "forced" him to wear the "underwear" of her ex. Same here, but she tricked me to do so. How? She said my shirt was dirty (not at all) and she would give me one of her old shirts. We went out and in the middle of the night she told me that it's not actually one of her shirts but one of her ex lovers. Remember the thread about "the (evil, sardistic) smirk"? That's what I saw when she told me the truth. I didn't want to make a scene at this point, but I was pissed, because she would - of course - be if it would be the other way around. Brings me back to another thread where somebody was wondering if those hurtful actions are planned or spontaneous. They are planned, intentional, believe me.

(English is my second language)

Yea lots of this in my relationship with my BPDxh.  Negative comments about my body, followed by 'I love you anyway'.  He told me that even though most men don't like overwight women, he loved my curves.  Often told that no other man would want me because I had kids.  There are many more examples but generally comments designed to chip away at my self esteem and make me feel bad about myself.  He also tried to make me believe that he was the best offer I was going to get.

Funny, I've been turning down better men than him since we split up.

Some familiar phrases: 

"You're lucky that don't have someone who mistreats you, a lot of women do."(when I wanted to discuss a decision he made, he refused to talk and said this)

"You really like "that outfit"(fill in the blank) don't you?" (wore it twice in a month, a conservative, not a sexy outfit but fashionable and I loved the skirt). This is his hallmark PA insult. 

"I understand why you don't give me your best." (in reference to him being bored one afternoon because I wanted to relax).

"I really wouldn't want to hike with a younger woman, I wouldn't be able to keep up. You're perfect for me."

(that was about 3 miles into an 8 mile hike and I wanted to turn around and go back).

"I think any man would react to you like I do. I'm just a normal guy".

"I'm a good guy and young women know this. But you've got me so you're the winner". 

"It doesn't matter what I want. I've got you".

Can I have her number?  :)

Guys this thread has really opened my eyes. They are all the same.

My ex uBPD gf almost never criticised me personally during our relationship--which isn't to say she wasn't a drama queen. An incredibly needy person, most of her jabs while dating regarded the amount of love, time, and attention I gave her. But after the relationship was over, added to my supposed lack of attention and support I was apparently angry, negative towards her, and overall just an unhappy and physically threatening person--to others, not her-- in general. Of course her six week on-again/off again affair, almost weekly break ups and recycles, broken promises, and outright lies had nothing to do with it. When I enrolled in a three-and-a-half week partial hospitalization program to battle depression following her first devaluation and discard for my replacement, it was because I was "manipulative."

Perhaps my idealization stage lasted nearly to the end of our relationship, because I was treated fairly well. But the last five or six weeks, after my replacement came along, I could do nothing right. Too old for her, too boring, too uptight. And too insecure, which of course had nothing to do with her horrible treatment of me. How she could tell me these things while continuing to run around behind my back--while still claiming to love and adore me--I will never understand.

Wow, I forgot this one:

"Five guys totally flirted with me today. That's the great thing about having an affair--your self confidence goes up." 

~Statement by my ex after she had supposedly ended her affair with my married replacement. When I protested, I was told I was "too sensitive" to not understand she was "joking."

Constantly and always.  He would always "tease" me, but could get pretty mean about it at times.

He said it was in the boyfriend handbook.  Boyfriends are supposed to tease... .

Mine did a fair bit if this after the split,when she was still pretending to want to fix it...

After she took glee in telling me she was 'involved with someone who makes me feel special' she said, 'Of course,mi suppose you haven't had that many partners so of of course he makes me feel good... '

This, from a woman so sexually inexperienced ( with men) when I met her that I almost gave up!

Much like a vampire... I was her 'maker' :)

Does anyone want to expand on the non verbal aspect of it?

Durring the devaluing it felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath and she dissapeared into the depths and I was clinging to side of a cliff and she would come along and do 1 little piggy 2 little piggy with my fingers

I remember so much of it had to do with timing and a look of disgust/disapproval. Or just being constantly annoyed with everything I would do. A bunch of well placed sighs.

Mine would cal me fat, ugly, tell me no one would ever want me. That's  When we first started. She used to constantly feed me so I gained weighted  She would complain if I went to the gym... .i wasn't spending time with her and if I went that meant I didn't love her. I think she got me fat on purpose! I then went to therapy and got stronger put major boundaries on that. Then she would "tease" me about the way I was at work. I was too loud, talked to much, got along with others... .sorry if people like me and I am good at my job. She would say just kidding but each jab was meant to punch a hole in my self esteem. Then the you don't love me or respect me or you make me feel bad about myself... .those were continuous but picked up speed towards the end. All meant to damage my self esteem.

Towards the end she rarely spent time with me unless she needed something. What always surprised me was she would act like it was not a big deal. When we were together during these times she had a complete look of disgust on her face and she looked like she wanted to be anywhere else.  She never kissed me... .I would get a goodbye peck on the cheek.  She didn't want me around her but wasn't quite ready to discard me yet. She was still lining up her back up plan. She was surprised when I have her a ultimatum and stuck to it.

What I find crazy is I miss her. what the heck?  But I am getting better!

Yes!  This exactly!  He wouldn't necessarily put me down verbally.  He was very covert with his disapproval.  Often seemed irritated at me, like I couldn't do anything right.  But being the sensitive person I was I could read it no problem!  He knew where to poke me too.  The things that I was insecure about.  He knew how to manipulate like a pro.

Heres mine:

Get a haircut you look like a taxi driver.

Be a man

you cant fix anything

You are a loser

You are ridiculous

Get some friends

after sex... .is that it?

Your a good kisser again.

Grow up your a child

Like their would be this moment where I would be off ballance then boom "you can't do anything right here let me do it,". Or "what's wrong with you?"   

My ex was a "low level borderline," so it wasn't a furry of rage it was perfectly timed and calculated and to an observer they would agree with her because I was so off ballance. 

My ex too was a master manipulator. I've had multiple of people in my life with PDs and the more subtle and well timed the more dangerous in my opinion. If she had outright punched me in the face then I could have evidence for myself and others. 

Oh my... id have said we dated the same person except im female and the ex is also... you just wrote part of my life for the past 2yrs... jeez! Sadly for me, the doors eventually got replaced with my face... plain crazy looking back & im only 5 weeks out! Wow id love to hear your story x

Maybe she meant as in behaviour?  :) Angelina jolie is major BPD... .

Guys, I see you describing lots of AGGRESSIVE comments, they are not passive-aggressive at all! Most of them, I mean.

My xSO uPAPD would criticize my hair a lot. Until I told him to give me a haircut from the most expensive salon in town. Never happened, of course. I was joking and I made it clear but now I realize I should had distanced myself back then instead of jocking about it. Maybe he was jealous cause he is bald.  :)

What he was really PA was regarding witholding. He never ever complimented me. Of course constantly complimented other people when mentioning them to me. Now I see it as a technique to put me down. I didnt care about it back then and I dont now. Its a very sad and pathetic personality.

In 18 months mine probably complimented a hand full of times. She said, she only compliments when it's deserved... she was very passive.

In terms of straight up agression,  mine towards the end told me that spending time with me was boring because we always did the same stuff.

this infuriated me because when we were together I used to always be like hey babe want to go out tonight and we would be invited to parties or go to the bars or casino etc. Well I say "we" I mean I was invited by my friends.  Because she didn't have any friends just me and her Weird orbiter who ended up being my replacement,  bilbo baggins

Well she would always say because of her anxiety she didn't want to go out or she'd be tired from her meds or she'd have a bad back or whatever.

So our "dates" were always I'd get a DVD out,  make dinner (she wouldn't eat due to bullimia) and it'd be fun,  I'd keep her happy and entertained etc.  But that was all she ever wanted to do and I kind of accepted that.  I used to laugh that I'd rented every DVD in blockbuster haha.

but yeah now she goes out into town with bilbo baggins and his druggie mates and gets wasted off her face. One of my friends saw her crying in the gutter on Friday night while bilbo ran around with a traffic cone on his head.

I'm going to run into bilbo one of these days,  and it ain't going to be a fun day for him when I do.

Hm, passive agressive,

She would make fun of the boundaries I had made around her friends. Like "Fluff don't want me to do xxx. *grin*"

The few times I spoke up for myself I'd get a "I should just kill myself" or "Wow, whatever. That's really bad of you to say".

She would pretend to be a sleep and say I wasn't man enough when I failed to wake her up. I'm gentle... ok...  :)

Constantly mentioning the men that wanted her, and what they did for her.

Gah, I know there's some stuff back in my mind I just can't pull out.

At the end of it all she gave me a mens t-shirt. It took me a couple of weeks to ask myself who's the t-shirt was.  :) And if and what it represented.

Oh, this is funny. I find it to be PA. After the big suicide tantrum one of the last days I noticed a painting in her bed room that I hadn't noticed before. It said "I never listen to you when you're being morbid".

My ex pulled some sadistic stuff too. Like it's so hard to even explain it. But it's like once they got you trained then when other people are around they like to flex like them as that person are in the know and you are an oblivious idiot. 

Yes! It made me feel so bad! And it was so subtle and hard to pinpoint down and confront! It made me so confused, worthless and controlled!

Another example. I noticed she had stopped being online on Skype. Then I noticed my Skype messages was instantly received which means she was invisible. So I asked her why she was invisible, to which she said it was unintentional, and then looked to the left out of screen and grinned. Who was sitting there?

Ugh, I hate remembering this line: "Why, what's wrong... "

Yep, same as the above. Sighs, looks of disgust, shaking her head as she walked away.

One of her favourite tricks was to be all silent while I tried to make conversation, giving abrupt one word answers to everything, then when I finally gave up after four or five attempts at small talk and went silent myself she'd wait a couple of minutes and then say something like "well this is fun. Getting conversation out of you is like blood out of a stone". And she'd be deadly serious and tell people I was no company and if it wasn't for her there would be no conversation between us at all!

  they are absolutely crazy

I distinctly remember a period before she devalued hard core that was like the transition.  Where she would rebel against me like I was her dad.  I tried so hard to make her aware of her projections durring this stage.  I was really busy at work so I guess she didn't feel I was giving her enough attention yet engulfed.  But rather than talk to me about talk to all her "friends"

It's almost just like the "vibe". Just a malicious vibe with ill intent.

I believe passive-aggressive insults are sadistic by principle. You dont understand whats going on, you cant even see it and when you realize something, you still cant pin-point it. Of course you cant say "hey, what are you doing/ saying?" cause they will deny the intent behind it, so no matter what, we always look bad.

Now I see more PA "tricks" he pulled out of his top hat: saying he bought this particular gift to a relative (from a particular brand I love but would never spend money on it myself). He made clear he bought it for somebody, but of course, never for me and had to rub it on my face. This happened many times. I guess that made him feel better.

Also, sent me expired chocolate (we live in different countries). That was the ultimate PA trick, expired food. I thanked, laughed and asked if he was trying to poison me with this PA move. It was his way of giving me something that I couldnt use. Thats SO weird!

The last one was forgetting my birthday. He´s giving me the ST now, picked a fight a couple of days before my birthday (and I fell for it), so now he feels justified in throwing his rage quietly on me. He has done that before, he knows I care abt my birthday. If I ever confronted him, he´d say he forgot or needed time out. There was one year that he sent a happy birthday email to an account he knws I rarely open. Then complained to a common friend that I hadnt thanked him... .LOL.

I remember how once, when we met two old friends of hers from her original country, she referred to me as 'Bozo' , as if it was a cute name she used for me.

She'd never called me that before, and I just laughed and said 'What?' And laughed and asked where the heck that had come from!

My nickname was puppy. Ugh lol

This is getting creepy. Mine once called me bozo in public too.  lol

And my reaction was pretty similar to yours. Unbelievable.

Personally I think this thread is amazing. They all acted the same. It makes sense now...

Pretty much yeah.

Weirdos  :)  (I know, they're ill blah blah, but I'm still too raw and angry to forgive just yet)

yeah some people here want to project the person with BPD as a victim but I'm not going too! You can't use BPD in a court of law as an insanity defense so I'm not validating nothing those wack jobs do.

After we broke up mine would tell a close friend of mine that she was going out on a date with someone. She hoped that the friend would tell me and I would get upset. She tried it before so we were on to her and knew enough that it was a trick. Mine also told me once towards the end when I was being devalued that if we didn't end up together all she wanted was a loving sexual relationship with a man (we are both women). I knew then she was on her way out. Then came the text that her overwhelming love for me had turned to resentment. Which really means she resents herself.

I have a query. I know passive aggressive behaviour is not specific to BPD but does it tend to indicate PD or other mental illness?

I ask because a lot of the anecdotes described in this thread are not too dissimilar to the attitude my non-ex had towards me on many occasion.

He used to make fun/criticize the way I talked all the time, sometimes when I was half way through telling him a story or something, got really really annoying because I would think 'You're not even really listening to me are you?' And he would just COMPLETELY forget plans we had made, I'd ask what time to come meet him that night and he'd be like 'We're going out tonight?', and I would respond 'Yes. I discussed this with you last weekend!' There were a few other things as well but I can't quite remember them off the top of my head.

He was denser than a sack of rocks though, worse than any guy I've ever known before (I actually still ponder a little whether he may have been on the autistic spectrum/aspergers because some of the things he would do I would just think 'are you serious? Do you live in the world?', like living life with blinkers on so I'm not sure if his behaviour was due to, perhaps, having difficulties picking up social queues.