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Has anyone ever gone thru with their ex BPD constantly changing of their minds? For example mine would say she was gonna move back to NY , then that same day or a day later say oh no i can't move back to NY too many bad memories. Or she would say she wanted to have sex with me ... Then she didn't . Then she wanted to be friends then sleep with me then have a relationship etc etc etc. . Anyone else go through this roller coaster of I will I Won't?

Yes, that's a consequence of having an unstable sense of self Confused; if who you are to yourself is constantly changing, your decisions, preferences and desires will change with it.  Think how confusing and chaotic that would be to live with for a borderline, not fun at all.

And now, how can you use that?  It's very beneficial to discover how you reacted, when her mind would change on the fly, totally unpredictable and unstable, what did you do?  What did you make it mean?  Did you get really busy and run around trying to 'fix' it?  Did you decide it was something you had done that caused it?  Did you just laugh it off and consider her ridiculous?  A borderline has a very valuable trait of shining a spotlight on the areas that could use a little work; we don't want to label ourselves as someone with 'weak boundaries' because that's shaming, but how about we've got some porous ego boundaries, maybe some cracks in our ability to self-protect that are as easily repaired as just focusing on them.  So what were they for you Confused?

I realized soon enough that my ex had severe problems. I don't believe in leaving a person you love because of them whatever they are?  I told my ex at that time whatever she wanted to do I would be there for her 100%. I didn't leave my ex she left me. After I did research in her behaviors I found that she matched BPD 90%. I then contacted her thru email bc she blocked me on FB and told her what I had thought and I would help her seek therapy. I was once friends with this girl I met at 12 yo. Started dating at 14 and well the rest is just fast forward. She then painted me black turned nasty and vicious and said to my now ex wife if I ever contacted her again she would get a restraining order on me. So now whatever it is it is.

There's also the element of their ever-changing, extreme emotions. Feelings = facts to them, so if their feelings are ever-changing, then the facts of their life are ever-changing. They don't "change their mind", they suffer from an ever-changing reality, with few stable internal landmarks.

Yes, it is what it is, unchangeable, although what we can change is what we make it mean.  How did it feel when she constantly changed her mind Confused?  You mention it being a roller coaster; how did you deal with that?

I took it with a grain of salt.

OK, and that expression means it didn't affect you much, yet here you are on a healing site about 6 months after she left.  I'm just encouraging you to dig a little and possibly discover new things about yourself, as a result of how her behavior made you feel.  Might as well at this point, and anything that comes out of it could be the gift of the relationship, yes?

I have delt with this with my ex since we were teens. I don't know what your looking to get out of me? I was curious if others have experienced what I did and even tho I do appreciate your input just bc my ex most likely got this way bc of my Mother does not mean that my actions caused her to act the way she did or does. And yes I did take it with a grain of salt. After hearing someone go back and forth and constantly change their plans with you or just there life in general is a no brainier. Thank You.

And having a relationship with unfortunatly a sick person is not a gift.

You and I have a few things in common Confused: I too knew my ex when we were young, we met in 1987, and then she found me on Facebook 25 years later, and off to the races we went once again.  It was very traumatic for me, and motivated by pain I finally got off my own bullsht, because it wasn't working anymore, and I started to dig deep into CPTSD, attachment style theory, the clinical side of BPD, which led to psychoanalytic theory in general, all of it, with a hunger I hadn't had before, and the growth has been profound.  It's never too late to have a happy childhood and to grow up I guess, but looking back I now consider the relationship a gift, because I might have gotten where I am otherwise, but it definitely sped up the process and for that I'm grateful.

So as we shift the focus from our exes to ourselves and from the past to the future, we might as well see what we can take from the relationship that is empowering, something to take with us on the way to our bright future, yes?  Take care of you!

I am truly sorry for what you went thru. Not once but 2x like myself.  I am angry do not get me wrong with my ex. Very much so. But then again I had NO IDEA she had this type of disorder. When I was a teen and all that crazy stuff happen btw my Mother and my ex I had no idea why she hated me so much. As I tried months later to get back with her. I will say this I meet my ex late 85 early 86. She was a normal healthy fun loving girl who just came to the states from India. We were friends up until Late Aug of 1987. Then we became involved and the rest is history. My ex had such a hatred for me back then I just could not understand what the heck was going on! She was not the same girl I loved. She became this other person who hated me and it seemed loved to hurt me. Well after trying and trying to get back with her up up until 1988 I gave up. She then moved off the block and that was it. 2013 Feb she found me on FB. I didn't accept her request right away bc of all the hurt she caused me as a teen. My gut told me not to accept it but I did. She waited patiently for 2 1/2 years for me to take her bait on FB thru private messages that she would always initiate.  I took her bait in late June 2015 and she pulled the same exact stuff she pulled on me as a teen. I was patient with her tried to understand her. She told me she was diagnosed as Bipolar at 14 but the way she is her actions never added up to that type of illness. So she pushed she pulled , she tested etc. . Then when she was ready just walked away painted me black again and seems to have the same hatred now that she had back then in 1987/ 1988 for me. Even tho when we spoke she said she always wanted me always loved me and never hated me. I will be honest. If I really k ew what was going to happen with her again I would have blocked her in the very beginning on FB

Yeah, me too, but neither of us did, and it's possible to believe that everything happens for a reason and it serves us.  And teachers show up in strange packaging sometimes.  So c'mon, finding just one thing good about the proceedings, one thing you learned about yourself or whatever, a piece of wisdom you didn't have, can set the wheels in motion towards the life of your dreams while she just fades away in the rear view mirror.  No really.  So what's one thing?

With my BPD friend, I've learned to just accept this.  I know that there will be days when she replies to my texts and thinks I'm great and days when she ignores me and acts like I don't exist. 

But yes, the constant changing of her mind is frustrating and is the reason why she is where she is right now.  Last July, she had big plans to move across the country with her boyfriend, live with her parents, and enter therapy.  Fast forward to a few weeks later, and the move was canceled, the boyfriend was discarded, and therapy wasn't even a passing thought in her mind.  Actually, moving in with her parents is something she changed her mind about frequently.  I never really knew where she stood with that.

I used to get frustrated with her constantly changing emotions and desires, but it's pointless to get frustrated with someone's reality, even if that reality makes zero sense.

to be honest  I have learned nothing with her. Oh ok well one thing I have learned is to listen to my gut when it's screams at me to run and not to look back. At the end when I knew I was being discarded I just truly wanted to help her get some therapy. But now that I am painted black and she had threatened me with a no contact restring order I think I will pass. And I will say this. If she were to contact me anytime in the future I would now want nothing to do with her. I have come to realize and accept that girl I fell in love with is gone

yup mine would say that she found a therapist and was going to make an appointment and then that would always go by the way side. Never happened. Then she would get off the phone with me and always say she had all this work to do on her days off. Like make appointments for her buisness, order stuff for her buisness, food shop etc... Then I would find out she did none of it. This went on all the time! I was like Wtf?

Nice!  And you might find that shows up in other areas of your life too, maybe a gift even?

lmao I'm an ex cop so I put my gut away ! Haha I found it and when it saw her boy it was screaming don't accept it don't don't! Lol! But here she was. Knowing all the right things to say to rope me in. Seemed so together so normal ya know. And right away after I accepted  her request she automatically wanted to talk about how my mother screamed at her and did I know? Now I realize that is never had anything to do with my Mother... .That was an excuse to open up our past and to get this going. I always shut her down and said lets just move on with our lives etc. she even invited me for 2 weeks to her house in Canada in Feb of 2014. I turned her down bc I have my own buisness and just could not go. So I didn't hear from her for over a year after that. And what does she do? She picks up with some young kid off line and has him spend 10 days with her at her apt last Dec of 2014 to Jan 2015. This young man falls for her but of course he was nothing but a play toy to her. She told me she had to get drunk just to tolerate him . I was like what the heck?

Fromheektoheal have you ever heard from your ex after the last breakup? You mentioned that she found you in FB like mine. Did she ever send you fake FB messages that you knew had to come from her? I have . The last one was Feb 2 and the persons name was "Gift Love" and their profile pic said Heart Injured with a red flatline in the background. I have been on FB since 2008 and have never had fake FB messages. Only after my ex discarded me .

Interesting. My ex for two years talked about how she loved to kayak.  She had a kayak that she never got from her ex husband. And she never once said lets go. Same with art. She said she loved to do artwork.  But in two years never did.  And her first ex husband she threatened to take to court at beginning of this year.  And she never did.  Or she said too at beginning of year she wanted to do counseling.  She never did.

I left her after enough was enough and she continued to try and contact me, phone calls, emails, texts, for about 9 months afterwards before she stopped, and I wasn't even tempted, repulsed even.  Interesting though, the more I learned about the disorder the more her behavior became transparent, and ultimately pathetic; a borderline feeling abandoned, the worst thing that can happen, is a very sad, ugly thing.  I wish her well, as long as it's somewhere else, although that was years ago at this point.  Never say never though, borderlines hate to let go of attachments, so i expect to hear from her again, one of these decades.


I don't know, I quit FB not long after I left her, not because of her but because it turned into a major time suck, a waste of time really, much healthier for me to get out in the real world with real people.  Interesting though, she created a persona on FB that was mighty attractive, not an accurate description of who she is at all, but you'd have to know her to know that, and that speaks to what most folks do on FB in my experience, although I know lots of folks like it and get value there.

I agree. I have left FB as of recently. Too much drama I found at times. My ex had changed her profile pic to a very sexy one right before she contacted my ex wife whom she thought I might have gone back to after she dumped me. and she sent my ex wife  2 FB messages on Her birthday no less! Can you believe the balls!  She then asked my ex wife if we were still together and still married then I should back off from her! Wtf does that mean?  Then 8 min later sends my ex wife another FB message sYing the same crap she just did except worded different! I said are you kidding me!

Yep, I understand, and it's up to each of us to decide if that stuff is adding to our lives in a positive way or not.  Almost all of the "real" communication between people is lost in writing, we don't get the tone of voice and the body language, which is most of it, and it's easy to be someone we're not hiding behind a computer and communicating at that low level.  Much healthier to go out into the world and have real conversations, and use that gut feel we now see the value of, on the way to populating our lives with empowering people.  Life is too short for any more silliness, yes?

Agreed. My ex picks up a lot of unsuspecting victims on dating sites. I told her that too at the end. I said she hides behind her computer to meet people. Sad really. I just hope the hell she doesn't come back . I don't feel she will. I feel she has enough ex lovers to try and recycle then even try and waste her time with me.

My ex changed his mind a lot, and I found that this really destabilized me after some of the things I've been through.

For example, he would state that he was "unsure" about having kids.  As he explained it to me, he didn't feel an instinct to have kids, but also had mixed feelings that one day he might regret not having children.  I completely identified with his ambivalence and we left it at that.  Later, he'd say that he for sure didn't want kids.  But the statement would come out of the blue, with no thought leading up to it -- just stated as if I had always known that about him.  I wasn't sure about having kids myself, so the EXTREMELY sudden realization that marrying this guy meant never having kids really jolted me out of my contentment.  Then I would try to pin down his "real" opinion, to my peril, because he found this probing and uncomfortable.

He did this with a whole laundry list of other things, too -- liking sweets, his feelings toward his best friend, being away from me, playing certain instruments, his mother, etc.  It seemed like he couldn't hold one thought in his mind for very long.  If anything changed outside of him, things would also change inside of him.  He lacked "internal objects," as they say.

I have PTSD-like abandonment fears from things that happened to me earlier in my life.  Every time he'd change his mind about something, I'd worry that it would become a deal-breaker in the relationship.  I just couldn't process his "new" opinions as fast as he could change them, to figure out if we were still compatible.  I found this very traumatizing.

I am sorry you went thru this GEM. I too was just as I mentioned before a roller coaster  with this , that, and the other thing. Before she roped me in and we were just friends on FB my ex would say that she was separated from her husband. She left him in 2009 after 4 years of marriage. She then had a year and a half boyfriend then that ended in 2012 and then found me on FB 2013. So she would tell me that she was separated pending divorce . Then she would ask about my wife at the time. Then I would say we were doing well then all of a sudden her and her husband we going to make it work and get back together. Then the next time I spoke to her it was no they were going for a divorce and she was thinking about moving back to NY. Then she would again ask how things were with my wife etc. . Then it went back to she does not want to move back to NY her and her hubby are getting back gonna have some kids etc. . I swear it was like a tennis match back and forth back and forth. They way she did this was the same way she handled our relationship. I love you / I don't. I love you as a friend / I love you as a friend maybe more. It was crazy.

I think this is also a sign of someone who is very uncomfortable with uncertainty.  A healthier way to handle this would be to inform all parties that you don't know what you want and need time to think, then spend some time alone to reflect, journal, take note of inner feelings, etc.  It's also good to do this in order to take note of how outside factors are influencing your emotions, e.g. do I feel like running every time we get closer?  It sounds like your ex had a real lack of insight on the situation and her reactions to it, which undoubtedly made you feel very out of control.  Sorry you had to experience this, too

My ex had a BIG problem with rejection and abandonment. She is still affected from what happened with us as teens. My mom breaking us up. My mom telling her I was dating someone else when it was not true. My ex was very naive and trusting and she believed all this. After this happened she became this other person and the rest is history. She herself told me she was not ready to make a full commitment because she was reminded of when she did this in the past. Our past. It just kills me that the love of my life is so mentally sick now and there is no talking to her , no helping her.  All I can do now is pray for her .

The worst part of them changing their minds, of course, is the constant scrambling back and forth to try to satisfy what they feel like today, when it's the opposite of what they said yesterday. It's like running sprint relays trying to keep up with it all.

I know this now of course (too late), but the best thing to do in the face of ever-changing expectations/explanations is to decide what YOU want, ask for it, and walk if you don't get it.

I heard all of the imaginable opposites: I want another kid with you / I never want to have another kid, "I don't feel like your wife" / "I'll get the divorce finalized when I need to", I love you / I don't care, go away / come back, I'm obsessed with XYZ / it's not like I'm obsessed with XYZ, I want to be your friend so you'd better act like a friend and nothing more / I don't want to be your friend, I want to be together like we were, "I was wrong about SO MUCH" / "that was my experience so it's all true" ... .all of it and more.

Yes! Delt with it all. At the end my ex wanted to stay friends but I thought about it and said hell no. After what she pulled on me I was not going to sit there and be another horse in her stable just to save me to ride later. Nope! It just bothers me that as friends from childhood / teen years there was absolutely NO Respect for me whatsoever! That's just sad.

I can relate to the inconsistency. It's so baffling to work hard on a solution or decision with someone (my ex) and then have them tell you soon thereafter that they want something totally different. Again and again and again.

She asked me how to make things right with me after the infidelity came out. I gave her lists that she wrote down: build trust, do what you say you're going to do, don't have contact with the other man/men, erase photos of old lovers from your phone, get into therapy (specifically DBT)... .She agreed up and down that she would these things. Later she had gone back on and/or changed her mind about doing each and everything I required.

It still breaks my heart because of my intense feelings for her but I had to eventually go NC. Today I met a guy who works with the ex that she cheated on me with and it spun me out.

I'm sorry you had to go through this.

I'm convinced one of the reasons these relationships are so damaging to us partners is because they keep us in a constant state of uncertainty, i.e. we never know exactly where we stand.  Being embraced by the pwBPD when we don't know where we stand provides a sense of relief akin to drugs, and we crave that relief of finding out that everything is okay.  It's just uncertainty, relief, uncertainty, relief, uncertainty . . . and on and on.  It's possible to get hooked on a cycle like that.  And then when they leave us, it's uncertainty, and we expect the relief to follow because it always has.  I think that's why so many people on this board are so heartbroken.

It is really hard to go through talking through something with your partner or working out a compromise just to find it all falls apart later.  Most recently, my ex has been threatening to get a restraining order against me.  Ever since our breakup, it's been threat, relief, threat, relief, threat, relief . . . the madness just will not end.

I can so relate to this.The first time it happened to me was in a coffee shop. We’d only just started seeing each other when he decided it wouldn’t work between us. I got a call soon after saying he wanted to meet. I was so relieved because I really liked him. We met and it was all so positive, we could work it out, he loved me, would I like to come over to his for dinner that night, etc. 10 minutes later and I’m not exaggerating he changed his mind again. It wouldn’t work, he couldn’t do this. We parted with me feeling confused and heartbroken. I had no idea what was going on. This scenario played over and over again in different ways. No wonder we’re so wrecked at the end of it. Worse, they don’t seem to stop wanting to replay over and over again. Do they ever go away? Also, how do they live in this constant state of turmoil? I’ve been on the receiving end of it for just two years and I’m in a terrible state. How do they survive?

I'm sorry you went thru this. When my ex 1st started doing this with me we were early teens. Me 15 and her 14. At one time she was normal. Until my Mother came btw us. After I tried getting back with her is was yes/ then no. I love you I don't. Fast foreword and if you read then you know the rest . It can literally make a normal person go crazy. All this back and forth stuff. I know it hurts believe me I know it does. I feel because they are not sure about themselves then they are not sure about their decisions then. Lack of self they call it. They just simply don't know who they are.  My ex has not changed! Not one bit! Acts the same way she did when we were teens. In the romantic department I mean. If we think about it painting is black , blocking us on Facebook, cel , email or whatever is really just plain child like behavior. Ppl with BPD are in fact looked at as their actions to a child of 3 yo. Like when they don't get their way they "act out" with us in the receiving end. Now here is a good question. Well k ow that some of us have gone thru the I love you/ I don't. Constantly "changing " their minds. So if they do that then how in the hell do some of these ppl ever get to walk down the aisle? My ex planned her wedding to her ex husband. They dated a year got married and lasted 4 years after that! So she kept" changing" her mind with me like a light switch so how did this guy manage to marry her if she is that way? Is it just done with certain ppl? Good Question!

How do they live with it / the confusion?

I don't think my exBPDbf processed it as "changing his mind."  If called out on an inconsistency (about our relationship or otherwise) he would find a way to reconcile or fall back on "I was thinking about [what he said before] but I've decided [new conclusion]."  It was confusing as hell for me, because he would state things as absolutes, and he maintained that he "always did what he said he was going to", I just learned that he could conveniently reframe commitments as "thoughts" at will, while noting his reliability each and every time he followed through with a "commitment" that had become inconvenient.   He did this about everything from hobbies, to weekend plans, to financial decisions, to our relationship. 

The hardest one for me to process was, after insisting on integrating our holiday celebrations, including his parents giving my kids presents, when I voiced concerns about sudden mixed messages re commitment to us at the end of December immediately after he realized his adult son needed to move in with him,  he tried to say he hadn't been pressing for deeper intimacy and family integration just  weeks earlier, and that he had just pushed for a joint Christmas because it "was fun."  (Everybody in his family clearly thought something marriage-like was imminent, after 15+ years of him being a bachelor. Even if he was faking it or just playing at commitment, they weren't.  I can't believe that many people would conspire to future fake my young kids.)

In the end, at least regarding us, he acknowledged that he had wanted something different, but said he just wasn't capable. But, he didn't still see it as changing his mind, and instead (illogically) blamed it entirely on external events involving his family.

So, I think, in his mind, it wasn't confusing. In any given moment, he generally had certainty and he simply didn't process the mixed messages he delivered as mixed messages. 

Exactly! My ex would say hold on let me think? She said this a lot! Then after we would have phone sex she the next day would call me a friend? Well wait I thought last night I was something else?  She then would say she did a lot of thinking today etc etc. it was like she never turned her mind off. She could not commit to anything! But in the same sense I know she committed to plans with a few exs but when it came to me she never could. I just don't get it.

My ex changes her mind all the time. One moment she may want to have sex with 10 different guys, another moment she wants a boyfriend, another moment she wants to get married, another moment she wants nothing to do with men, another she just wants to die, another she wants to find a job, another she wants a real career, another she wants to run away to some place, and ect. It's impossible to be with someone like her.

Are you sure we didn't date the same woman?  Mine went from she hated sex. Everyone she slept with she did t like sleeping with them. Then weeks latter oh some of it was good she said. Then she wanted to get married then told me it was too soon and tried to say I was pushing for it when it was her. Didn't want after she dumped me to have another relationship then her last words to me were her babbling about those future relationships she claimed she did t want and now was telling me in my next relationship  . I just hung up on her.

Wow, that sounds like my ex. She definitely did the "reframing" thing a lot, where she would suddenly have come to the conclusion that she was "in denial" before, or that things "don't matter" that were stated previously with great importance, etc. I honestly think she'd spin one way and try to make a decision, only to start spinning the other way afterwards and recant.

Sometimes I wonder if it isn't also an inability to make decisions about things that are even remotely subjective. Lacking any kind of internal stability, it must be hard to make emotional value-based decisions - hence the back-and-forthing. And when it comes to intimate relationships, a lot of people take "I can't make up my mind about you" to mean "I should end this relationship." When "I can't make up my mind about you" is literally the best a pwBPD can experience, I can see how they'd continually err on the side of caution, almost by default.

That still doesn't explain why mine insisted on sabotaging any moments of peace we had in our "friendship" after the breakup, but it explains some other things... .