BPDFamily.com

Hi there,

as many others, I came across this community, when I was searching for some answers. My online research has the purpose to cope with a 2 years relationship with my ex-girlfriend, who started to act in some kind of new ways, I hadn't encountered before. As many people who would call compassion as one of their traits, I rather begin to look for the malfunctions first in my own behavior or reactions rather than in the ones of the other. After all exhausting thinking back and forth, about how to react, to change my ways to deal with her, to treat her differently or to change the way how I perceive situations to alter my reactions, I was kind of 'positively' shocked about the description of BPD patterns here on the site. Especially the one that describes romantic development of BPD relationships: the vulnerable seducer, the clinger, the hater. Hence, I decided to present my case, for it might open the eyes for others and strengthen me in my learnings from the past relationship.

Some words about the framework of this. The girl and me had a 11 years age difference and different mother languages, which didn't really matter for 10 months. We shared a lot of same interests and the honeymoon phase was filled with holidays, camping, thinking about one idea and the partner opened his mouth just to formulate the others thoughts. Everything seemed to good to be true. Very passionate, great sex, the constant caring for the being of the other. As a man I can tell, the vulnerable seek for protection and a kind of comfortable devotion of the girl really get you hooked. As a guy she simply makes you feel like a guy. Her guy. You think, no matter how big the dragon that comes around the corner, I will kill it to protect her. With my bare hands. Kind of romantic. She seemed to sniff exactly when she needed to present the innocent wife, who talks about a common future, having kids or how I am the best lover she ever head, who does things to her she never knew these sexual  feelings even exist. Then she shifts to the 'naughty girl' that just reveals her desires only to me.

The little signals that give reason to doubt the 'call of the sirens', I simply overlooked them. Because, nobody is perfect right? And she is younger than me and how can you not accept your lovers shortcomings. In the beginning there had always been a bigger trouble in setting priorities for her, who to spend her time with, her friends/constant new acquaintances that came and go or her boyfriend. She decided in my favor, however, I could feel her sacrifice and slight discomfort every time she told off the other people. The first new experience to me occurred when we had to part to live in different European countries, not too far though. Her time as a volunteer teacher ended and she had to return to her city. It was nothing impossible to resolve for us, since I can work from anywhere and her country also speaks my first language, besides others. I thought, when she is the right one, dude, go for it, give it a try. So I went!

For some weeks. In the first week we went to a city festival, we got pretty drunk with her friends, whereas she topped this with finishing the night with 3 Irish coffee in less than 5 minutes at 9am in the morning. She ended up 10 min later in my arms, in somebody's front yard and I heard this panic sentence the first time: 'please don't leave me! Please not yet. Don't you ever leave me!' Again, as a caring guy, I received the message as kind of sweet, there was a girl who wanted to keep me,  and needed me and rescue. So I was there. Oh boy I jumped. Although, I could not really make sense of the intensity of how she seemed to feel this fear of being left behind nor the reason that triggered it. Because, did I do quite the opposite of leaving. I was moving closer towards her, getting comfortable with the idea to take myself off the market and there was no black cloud or slight light from me that signaled a 'bye-bye'.

Then other signs followed - that I tried to ignore. They were not bad enough for me though, to let go this passionate experience. The way she talked about her father was very devaluating. I liked him, she as well, but seemed to be emotionally detached from him. Often she ignored him or commented with 'he was always working and never there'. When she invited for dinner and her parents were 15min late, she raged the first time, yelled  and wanted to blow off the whole evening because of the disrespect towards her. It took me 15 min to convince her, better enjoy the rest of the evening than blow things totally off now.

Under the stress of her new job, I prepared a cooking together in the evening of her first day at work. My idea was to listen to her first day and relax her with cooking. After 5 min home, she started yelling in my face, how I ever can come up with expecting from her to do this now, cooking with me after such a day. Ok, good. Stress and more work, I might have been wrong with my wellness choice. But I had good intention. The disrespectful, inappropriate reaction hit me - and started to occur more often now. I cannot recall the exact words, but it was always some kind of devaluating sentence from your loved one that usually gives you the clear red flag and only one option which is to feel useless and take your stuff to leave the house for good. My hand on the door, she always made me stay.

Her chronic pain settled in this phase, limbs that hurt, her head aches, back pain, always too tired to talk long, and especially belly gut pain. I took care of a hot bed bottle. And she needed my support in a difficult phase of starting a new job. We dwelled a while in this clinger phase. I had to take care of my stuff in my city. I traveled back and forth, what I think, triggered and nurtured her abandonment fears. It is also the source for my blaming myself today for 'not enough commitment'. Then the devaluating of my personality and our relationship started, alongside with the come here/go away paradox communication. Words not matching actions and actions not following words. This really cooks your brain. I heard things like: 'I want to build something, but you are not here.' 'Can we just not talk about the future, but just have fun' ':)on't leave me' 'when you move here, it just puts more pressure on me'. 'Every time when you are here, I let down my friends and feel terribly guilty'.'I really love you, I really do, but it's really hard for me'. She found all kind of actions and thoughts to put distance between us. And she had a subtle way to pre-announce it. Right before a period of withdrawal, she would send me a text saying:'XYZ happened, so you won't hear much from me, but know that I love you.' But I was the knight, who tried to climb the wall faster than she could put it up.

A trigger situation followed. We planned to visit a festival during our holidays. She was euphoric to attend full 3 days and buy the tickets for 160 $ each. I said, great idea, love to go but can we just go one day, not all 3? She  responded like I just had declined her proposing to me. My 'let's find an agreement' ended in: 'you bring me down soo many times, you are not passionate about anything, I am really disappointed by your acting'. You make me feel bad!' I was defeated - what did I do? I just told my opinion and suggested to meet in the middle. Then things went down the river. I received criticism for the way I dress, the way I walk, my posture when I sit, the number of friends I have, my attitude towards life in general, my music, my age, my lack of a big family, what I talk at her family's table. In addition, her mother was very supportive to her, no matter what. She commented her daughter's relationship with me once like: 'daughter you know, when you stay with him, he will die a lot of time before you, and you have to stay alone for a long long time - I am 36.' Not only nurtured this her abandonment fears but also did I receive this as a great disrespect towards me'. Who knows, when and how we die? Well, the manipulation worked. For whatever problem with me, Mama was the one to address now and we found more reason to distance.

The ultimate distance weapon followed. After a weekend with her, I had to leave for my city. Some hours later, I received a message she would feel a lot of belly pain, she would almost loose consciousness but taking a pill from her father (a physician) made her feel better now. "However, she has to take care of HERSELF now!" This sounded odd. From there on, she transformed into the 'vamp' who goes out with her friends to have fun and focus on doing the things she likes. I was like the source for getting attention, when she needed it. Her communication style changed a lot from there on. I can just advice everybody to pay close attention to this change. It marks the point from where she just sees you as an option, not more. Here the latest, it is time to leave! I stayed. Hungry and eager for repairing and getting my beautiful honeymoon back.

After some days of very brief text messages she opened up to me in a Skype. She went out with her friends and she had to confess that she kissed with another woman. I thought, Ok, well, woman! It's odd telling me she kissed a girl friend and feels she needs to confess to me, but she turns into the party vamp and yeah, well, it's kind of an erotic thought. Before the decline of our relationship I should learn by looking in her phone messages that she flirted with a guy, gave him her number, followed him home that night and met him some more times after that without telling me. This night she disappeared from the club and left her best friend standing infront of the house while she was calling to sleep at her place. She told me, she was soo drunk, she even let her best friend stand in front of the house and wait for the first train because she could hear her phone ringing. Well, I can believe this now or I can suspect she stayed at the guys place, or the guy at hers and she can't confess because she fears my judgement and the one of her best friend for letting her down and cheating on the relationship. I will never find out the truth. The kiss with a female, hence, is just a slightly altered confession to comfort the guilt attack and sparing some significant details. I confronted her with that of course. Once caught, she insisted I am seeing this totally wrong, it is just a friend, she liked his attention because she felt so insecure, only one meaningless kiss happened and I would see more things than are actually present. I tried to react cool and said, I couldn't hold her back from texting him anyways but she has to know she is putting our relationship at risk.

She came for holidays to my place. Driven by my fear of being cheated, I looked up her phone and found she called him 8 times at night the weekend before she arrived at my place and deleted some messages between them. We had a fight about this of course. Her excuse was the same, he is just a friend, she didn't reach him that night and it was a big mistake to call him. My demand for comfort and talking about my hurt feelings by her acting out was declined with the sentence: 'it was a mistake, I am sorry.' And like most of the times I was left in the dark, alone with the shadows of my smashed feelings. Then, once she returned to her city after the holidays with me, she send me a text saying, how much she is missing me, she loves me, but it would really hurt her so much. 2 hours later with the level of alcohol on a party, the message turned into: 'Love is ___ty'. Then she walked up to the same old 'guy' and told him, the story with me would be over and for all time done. What the happened, I don't know. Feeling guilt and shame the next day, she told her best friend about it, who is a shrink and her supporter. How awful she feels because she doesn't realize herself and her doing anymore when she does these things.

I found out about the story and dumped her for denying my existence and our relationship, breaking finally the trust as base of any relationship after we had repaired our feelings more or less in the holidays. She was devastated but the first thing she cared about was, how the heck I found out about it and how I come up with this? She bagged me 3 weeks to give her just one chance to explain and show me how she can change. And the first time in a conversation she really started efforts to talk about her shortcomings of 'repeated feelings' she has in her life and cannot explain to herself. That she feels really empty time after time, she has difficulties to feel anything and herself, and has the periods of feeling totally insecure. The idiot, dreamer and rescuer, who I am put his ass on a train to her with the hope to finally have a break through and living happily ever after would be close now. Guess what?

After 4 weeks spending time at her place, I had to return to take care of my things again. My expectations were, she would return the effort and come with me. No way! Backpack in my hand waiting for my kiss, she told me, it's best she has time for herself now and doesn't need to have a bad consciousness every time she wants to go swimming or with her friends! This broke me. Not even at home, I had a new text that night, saying 'it is so strange to sleep alone without your arms around me, but I understand, you don't want to talk now.' I felt like a fly in the spider's web, covered in glue. I couldn't get a straight thought for one week to form any reply, response or even wear two same socks in the morning. The absence of my reply gave her the chance to make a reason for blaming me. And she did. My expectations of her returning the effort and stand in front of my door would be way too high. And everything she would do for me, would never be enough to comfort me. She can't wait for me any longer. There would be just too much between us. She is really sorry for taking so long to try change her feelings.  She realizes she damaged me in some way, so she is sorry, but she had to protect her own feelings. She is sorry she dragged me in her mess, and she hopes I have my peace back soon. 14 days later I saw her with a new guy, dressing like the 'vamp' and dating the DJ of the local club. It hurts to see her happy and me writing blog posts.

There are signs very early, maybe on the first date, week. Take them serious. In my first week with this female, we talked relationships, and upon my question why her last finished she replied: I cheated on him and lied about it. Then she moved on to me.

Hey man.  Just stopped by to say I can relate to a lot of what you went through. 

It's funny, when my exBPD was caught in a huge lie, his response was to yell at me saying "I TOLD YOU I WAS SORRY!"  As if that absolved him of all responsibility.  They're not very good at taking responsibility for their actions.

The "replacement" she has found for you will soon be going through the same emotional roller coaster you went through.  Don't look back.  She emotionally abused you and cheated on you and lied to you.

You don't deserve that. 

Sebastian you just described my relationship with exgf. First year was the honey moon stage. Than some rages with silent treatment . Then the devaluing me by saying I'm cheap, selfish. Ask why I wear my jeans the way I do. Why did I buy a used truck. The list goes on until July when she dumped me and said she just wants to be alone. It's crazy but hang in there.

the worst thing in coping with such a relationship and seeking the help by reading this forum, is that I recognize myself in some behavior that are described as BPD traits here. e.g. she cheated on the relationship, she lied and denied the relationship. Then she begged me to not leave, convinced me to drive 600km to give her the chance to show me her love. Of course, I consider it as normal to ask this effort back and expect back what I gave, even if it was absolutely not up to me to make this move and give in. The rejection of giving the same effort back for the relationship gets then refused by telling me 'I would be the one with too high expectations and no matter what she would do, even come to my place, would ever be enough to comfort me and fix my discomfort'. So she just doesn't come because it would be in vain. This leaves me look like the guy who is the 'insane' black hole who can never be comforted and with unrealistic expectations. And it makes you doubt your sanity.

With giving her another chance, she just avoided to be 'dumped' and took the chance to turn the situation from 'getting abandoned and dumped' into 'well, I did everything I could to fix him from the cheating, but nothing was enough for him and I told him I am sorry, it was just a kiss, so many times'.

This twists the blame around on me. And makes me doubt my healthy expectations I can ask from my relationships. In the whole story there is but one difference between 'the normal' and the 'BPD'  - the normal lover never grows cold on his love and feels always responsible for fixing no matter who broke it.

I understand. 

My exBPD begged for me back and the slowly shifted the blame to me for the relationship not working.

"I need you to be my friend, not my lover all the time."

"You forced me back into the relationship."

"You should be able to accept my apology and move on."

Anything to make me the crazy on and him the victim. 

Yup.  Crazy game isn't it?

there is another topic I would like to bring up for sharing your experience with it: PAIN

my BPD had a hypersensitivity to pain. The more our relationship developed towards intimacy, the more severe got the physical pain she got. Especially triggered by two things, the one was my absence. The other one seemed to be every time when she did something that sabotaged the relationship like lying or calling another guy and drunk at night. The pain seemed to be triggered from guilt, and what she felt was so severe that she broke down and had to take pain killers or leave work early due to being nauseous.

What's the role of physical pain in this game?

It made very sad to see her this way and sometimes it also makes me develop an 'understanding' of her actions with the goal to put up distance between us - or better between her and what causes the pain. Of course, actions of cheating to get away from the pain, just ended in a vicious circle of implying greater pain and so on... .