BPDFamily.com

Hi everyone, very new to all this & having read some of your stories it's nice to know I'm not the only one in this situation. I have very recently ended my on off relationship after 3 years. We have just about started to try& understand about BPD and I thought we were dealing with it by going to counselling together & my partner had agreed to go on a 6 week CBT course, which he has now decided is not for him.  I do love this man but am mentally drained as I never know when he is going to kick off again. We can be having a lovely evening, one of us could go to the shop for example, 5 mins later I'm being yelled at, accused of seeing other people and being called all sorts of things, he rarely says sorry just blames everyone else. When he's having good days we make lovely plans & have had some amazing times, one instance was I'd bought tickets for a concert he really wanted to go to, I'd been to work 12 hour shift ( I'm a nurse) can't always answer my phone or send texts, because I'd only text him once that day, he came to my house tore up the tickets & pushed them through letterbox. If I buy him gifts 9 times out of 10 he ends up throwing them back at me at some stage. On his good days he says he really wants to get help & he knows he has a problem but nothing is improving. Why do I feel so hurt & sad that our plans & dreams came to nothing. Please give advice

It is a extremely tough situation to be in, please read everything that you can about this disorder and there is a ton of information on this site about it, education is going to be your best tool to get through this, it is only my opinion but I would not spend any time trying to save this relationship thinking love will work, they are human beings so anything is possible but if he is diagnosed and in denial and not willing to do the therapy all you are going to get out of it is more hurt, he would have to make a full commitment to therapy, A commitment stronger then marriage to it and want to change because he recognises there is a problem. My advice is Pretty much the same ultimatum I had to give to my ex-girlfriend, I loved her very much in and after over five months being separated it still hurts very much, I was accused of all the same things that you are explaining,   No therapy and commitment to it then you cannot be with him at all. 

Hi, I wonder if your post is in the right area, leaving? You sound like you want to try and work things out?

Hi Kay-

You sound like a nice person and you say you love him, and these relationships are very painful for us when we go all-in emotionally; I'm sorry you're hurting.  First, he doesn't have a choice, which doesn't make it OK, but it explains it a little.  This personality disorder makes it so the sufferer feels all emotions strongly, like they're turned up full blast all the time, both the good ones and the bad ones, and you probably noticed that the smallest things can set him off, which isn't about the thing, it was just the last straw.  CBT can help, it's really just a chill-out meditation technique, but sounds like he wouldn't commit.  You feel so hurt and sad because you love him, or at least the version of him in your head, and not only is it not working out, he's being abusive, so it feels like an uphill battle.  The only way it will change long term is if he commits to long term therapy, and even then there is no cure, he would only learn to temper the effects.  There comes a time when you need to decide if it's time to save yourself, a very painful decision, but one way or the other we're here, and we understand.