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2,5 years out of my relationship I realise that my BPD/NPD ex tried to drive me over the edge of sanity. And still uses clever ways to make it look like I am the one who is mentally ill.

1. She got a family friend (clinical psychologist) to try and diagnose me with NPD and other disorders. Then spread rumours that he had diagnosed me. She even told the family advocate that I was diagnosed. When I sent him an affidavit asking for him to confirm the affidavit and the basis of his diagnosis, he said "Stop Harassing me"

2. Constantly sends the police around to my residence and has filed 5 Domestic Violence applications. None of which have been passed by a judge.

3. Constantly tells people that I "am not not of sound mind"

It's hard to tell if she is deliberately projecting, or really believes it.

What did or does yours do?

Hey Moselle
I think you nailed it with your comment about projection.  I am surprised that she is still around after all that time, do you have shared custody?

I was involved with a marital T that would never address the elephant in the room.  I could go on and on about this, but the short version is that my ex told me I was projecting my Mother fears on to her.  Anytime I tried to get to a place of understanding with her, this card was played and reinforced with a T (who was a doctorate) that wouldn't address simple things like her abusive behaviors.

Good thing you are here to get grounded.

JRB

Hey JRB , thanks for your comments.

I am closing out my settlement this week after the long fight. Will agree 50/50.

Sounds like yours is highly functioning too. It's dangerous once they develop the vocabulary of recovery like 'projection', 'mommy issues' etc. They use it so cleverly to turn and blame others.

Mine has recruited a veritable army of churchgoers and other gullible folk who are taken by her razzle dazzle. They enable her and provide resources

Heck, I was fooled for 15 years  

I'm alive and I am away from her. There is much to be grateful for!

Mine told loads of people I was suicidal... .police, children's services, the school, work, family and friends... .despite her being the one who threatened suicide and spending 3 months with a mental health crisis service. 

I also felt she tried to push me to the edge... .threats to kill, assaults, threats re kids, threats re finances, false accusations, police, arrests, goading... .

Limited contact has helped a lot. Reduces risk of arrest or allegations.  She still alleges loads... .but easier to ignore if she is at arms length.

Like a previous post... .I'm glad to be alive, sane... .and it has taken a long time... .but relieved to be away from her.    Fifteen years together... .what was I thinking?

My ex came to pick me up once, was so happy to see me as I was him. Ten minutes later, in his car, he switched and started accusing me of wanting other men, a manager in a bar who’d fleetingly spoken to me the previous week, perfectly innocent conversation. Big deep breath because 'oh no, here we go again', I tried to placate him. Didn’t work and before I knew it he was screeching back to my place because he ‘couldn’t do this anymore’.  I was heartbroken. An hour later he was back at my door saying I needed psychological help. I’m unwell, but he loved me too much to stay away and would go to counselling with me to support me! 2 years later I need that counselling. I am now mentally ill! Clinical depression is tough.

I am so happy to see this post right now. Mine told me I have NPD and my ADHD was unmanageable. Told everyone I was the crazy one. Also said I was a sex addict, cheater, liar etc. My T had to stop seeing my ex and I together (Couples therapy). It wasn't until after we split did he explain to me I was not at all any of the things she said I was. The projection was so bad I actually believed at points that I was the things she said and temporarily went crazy due to how toxic my ex is. I am 9 months out of my relationship and recently dating a great woman who turns out to be a psychologist. After spending a lot of time together she has assured me I am not at all any of the things my ex projected onto me. My ex continues to contact me via email as it is her only way to contact me anywhere from daily to weekly to which I don't reply and haven't for a long time. I did lose friends and her manipulations are so good that she did acquire some of the people I am no longer friends with as her friends now.

I still have my struggles daily from the 2 yrs we were together. I have some serious PTSD that I work through and I am very thankful for the new woman in my life and her patience to work with me through the abuse I lived through. Today I guess I'm just happy to be alive. My ex has a very violent past that her father has helped her cover up and so she has never been caught for any of the things she did

I'm a bit shocked to read all your responses. It's like one of these psychological thrillers, where a devious psychotic spouse sets out to destroy the other's reputation, career and life through lies, intrigue, and deception.

I can relate to all of your posts in a very personal way.

It's our job to ensure that we go from victim, to survivor to thriver, despite these disordered people's intentions.

Reframe and refocus our lives to a greater and brighter future than before. The best response to them is to live a great life.

My stbx BPD wife would deliberately and regularly provoke the hell out me. Get me completely flabbergasted to the point that I would tell her to shut the f#ck up and even yell.  She would do this so that she could sit back in her smugness and say to herself "see, I'm not the crazy one, I'm not the violent one, he is."

When I was 13, my mother (whom I found out when I was 18 had depression,  42 when she admitted to BPD, then 44 when she admitted that during my childhood she was in therapy for PTSD) took us to family counseling,  but abandoned me after one appointment.  Those were the worst years as she spiraled our life out of control.  We were periodically homeless. Living in a camper was an upgrade.  25 years later she asked me out of the blue,  "did I ever tell you what that therapist I took you to when you were 13 said about you?" No (trying to suppress my anger.  "He said that you were one of the most well adjusted young men he'd ever met." I didn't say anything,  but thought,  that would have helped to know that at the time.  

My ex tried to send me to a couples' communication class by myself.  At the end,  she,  like my mom did almost 30 years before, abandoned me in couples' counseling after one appointment.  Unlike when I was a child,  and knew the T would tell my mom things so I never talked about my mom,  but myself, I knew it was confidential.  Thus,  I took ownership of my own therapy.

When she was still living with me,  she would relate the conversations she had about me with some of her friends,  as if I weren't "in the room" so to speak.  It was shocking.  I relayed them to my T who said they were maybe 15% truth mixed with distortions and disordered thinking.  

When she was still living here I found a way to retrieve some of the messages are was writing her paramour,  now H. Like:

"T [Turkish] has been nicer to me lately.  I think the therapy is really helping him.  I better understand why he is the way he is and have compassion for him.  But I still don't love him."

It wasn't the therapy as much as being here and using the detaching tools, and some of the Improving tools to reduce conflict.  

She said couples therapy would help save our relationship and that me setting it up and following through would prove my commitment. Then she didn't attend any of the appointments and, when I went by myself, used it against me saying I was the 'crazy' one because I was seeing a therapist.

Have any of you seen "Gone Girl"? My pwBPDex would brag to our T's and others how she thought that girl was genius and found her to be incredible. Looking back it blows my mind how she manipulated me and others and still does.

hi

she trotted out my past played the victim and convinced the local community i had the mental problems while sleeping with half the men lol

two married, one was her best friends husband

then blamed the breakup of the marriage on me leaving her for another woman

i had been discarded and i was moving on

you cant make this up 

ExHFBPDw for yrs. visited the family doctor. Exw couldn’t coop with it anymore.
All my fault, making up stories and blaming incidents on me which exw herself did.

At a certain point I needed help. So exw was right… I was mentally ill…
So at one appointment I took my diaries (so strange, as I started that shortly after I met her) to my P.
Then he told me  ‘you are married with a Drama Queen’.    That’s how I learned about Cluster B

Later after an incident I went to my family doctor and took part of my diaries with me. With my gained knowledge and that of what discussed with my P, I confronted him with these facts and how he felt of being manipulated by exw for many yrs, how he felt to diminish my problems. 

Exw was sent to a psychiatrist, refused (of course), shouting ‘There is nothing wrong with me!’ and kept blaming me. 
PwBPD are known for a rigid way of thinking as they deeply transformed feelings into facts.

Exw broke up in one of those typical uncontrollable outbursts and left  ‘temporarily’… , some yrs. ago now.
Of course blaming me for all.
Of course blaming me for the outcome of that divorce, forgetting her signature under the settlement…

Despite all the loss, Karma seems to exists.
ExHFBPDw madly in love (of course) with a 65-70 yr. old Mr. Onslow (UK TV-character) type, who left the UK for her at his age… so found his last love and a nurse with a purse

haha so familiar

she wants a 64 yo living in a retirement home and not a pot to piss in

look like mario from nintendo short fat balding lol

she is 41

haha good luck please take her away!

 C<||| Moselle I don't have anything exciting but she was constantly poking around and trying to make me doubt my own self-esteem. There were many times where I thought about how grateful I was that I didn't take such things personally, as her bf before me got stuck for 4 years. If she broke my self-esteem I don't know how long I would have been stuck in there. I understand that people with lower self-esteem are more likely to be locked into the caretaker role. I definitely count this as a huge, huge, huge, massive blessing.

She kept saying I was a big weirdo to her friends, but notably, I don't recall her friends validating her almost at all when she said such things. I read that as a good sign for me. It did disturb me when her friends seemed really used to the violence, almost as though it was her "normal".

 C<||| Turkish that sounds brutal. Maybe she didn't tell you how okay you were at 13 because that would mean you're more stable than her. She would then lose any a good amount of "control" and "authority" she might be trying to lord over you. It would also expose that you were being defaulted into parent mode upon your own parent. That's brutal. I'm with you on that one. People sometimes look at me funny when I talk about parenting my own parent. I assumed everyone did it as surely as we breathe air.

Mine tells other people that I am a "psycho stalker" and collects "evidence" to prove it.  One of these days he will probably try to get a PPO to make his dreams a reality.  He checks my whereabouts online 2-3x per day and documents my online actions in a Word file he mails to me when he's feeling like accusing me with "evidence."

This reminded me of something very early on in my marriage.  I was cleaning and accidentally knocked her journal on to the floor.  The page was open and I couldn't help but look.  It was pages/months of entries starting with; "I am angry at JRB because  . . . ". 

All of the "because's" were really petty things like; leaving the toilet seat up or not closing the garage or thinking I locked the door to make her have to unlock it etc.  I was really astonished and baffled.  I did not know what to think and assumed that this must be what people journal about so they can deal with it. 

I have a different understanding of that today. . .

Mine also told load of people that I was stalking her, violent towards her, a sex addict, having an affair, gay, was going to kill myself and our kids... .

Also she made allegations to my employer!

Really quite charming.

Ditto ditto ditto.

I'm amazed how similar our stories are

Mine too said I was violent towards her and a sex addict and would make fun of me telling me I was gay and everyone would tell her about it. It was her who was violent. Worst thing I ever did was throw a package of blueberries at the wall after she repetitively hit me once. She could only emotionally connect with sex and we were having a ridiculous amount of sex which she spun around later to say I was a sex addict. It's crazy how they self project onto others.

I don't know what my ex told other people about me (although based on what he said to me about his other exes being 'abusive' or 'crazy', I can make an educated guess). However, he did his utmost to convince me that I was unwell and unstable, and he was so adamant and forceful in his opinion that he succeeded for a while.

During the breakup stage, when I had broken down into tears because he had raged at me, he said, "It's a good thing you're crazy. That's the only thing that stops you from being completely evil." Note: this breakup was triggered by my carefully weighed decision not to take hormonal birth control to manage my bad periods, him getting angry, and me finally telling him that it was my body and I was getting the final say in how I dealt with any health concerns. He got furious and accused me of abusing him by denying that he had a right to an opinion, then spent the next few days getting drunk, sobbing uncontrollably, self-harming, and verbally tearing shreds off me for my 'abuse'. My tears in the middle of his rages were apparently proof of how crazy I was.

Most of the time he believed I was being deliberately manipulative and abusive rather than mentally ill, though, so his comments tended to focus on that.

The ustbxBPDw used Projection and painted me black to anyone she could including my children and my immediate family.

It didn't really work when a detective called me wanting to interview me on her complaint of sexual assault prefaced by him saying "I am aware of her history". I never was questioned further, I gave him my lawyers number and I never heard about her complaint again.
The stbxBPDw I am still married to is a compulsive liar and who knows what else besides me being insane she claimed.

Love this post!
Mine told me that I was "schizo" and that I couldn't find a girl in my country who would put up with it so I had to look abroad.
Besides the projection of various kinds, it is the gas lighting that was truly testing my sanity. It wasn't until I found this Board that I leveled myself out and was able to understand more about BPD/NPD.
I take medication for anxiety so she calls me crazy.
Anytime I have a normal reaction to something she says or does that is unacceptable, she tells me I am over-reacting or it is all in my head. And of course she flips it all around and accuses me of the same behavior.

This is classic projection of their own belief that they are evil.

What are some of the tools we can use against this kind of projection?

Ex has this thing he does where he puts on a good boy act. This is something that he has done for years. When others are around, he acts like he is great and wonderful. I tried to tell somebody about some of the stuff that has happened and was told, "Oh, he would never do that."

I have tried to share some of the stuff that has happened and was told, "Oh, he has never said a bad word about you." So, I end up looking like the crazy lady that is trying to paint him black and make stuff up because he doesn't show that side to people. He will call me a b*** to my face when nobody else is around and then be nothing but nice when other people are around. I try to plan events for the kids with other people around so that I can avoid having to interact with him.

And he doesn't tell people what he is up to unless it makes him look good. For example, he will talk all about going to church and being a server and his men's group yet doesn't mention his latest love interest or his trip to a drag show. He claims to be gay and/or bisexual and has come out to a few very select people yet keeps it pretty quiet.

I look like I am a cheater because I am seeing somebody and I am not keeping it secret or hidden from anybody but the kids. It was HIS idea to see other people. He puts on this show that he isn't seeing anybody or interested in anybody to our friends and family yet would tell me all about his latest love interest. It has been a real mind boink to have him say and do things in private and then act different publicly. From an outsider's point of view, it looks like he is the poor innocent husband pining over his wife and kids. He is the victim that was kicked out by his cheating wife that replaced him.

All of the things that he has said and done over the years have magically been forgotten and swept under the rug. I protected him for so many years and kept a lot of stuff quiet so now that I am talking it definitely seems like I am the one that is mentally ill.

I think this would be good to know because of how frequently it seemed to occur. One member went so far as to call this her partner's "big three" behaviours that were very difficult to understand, let alone manage. The other two were cognitive distortions and splitting.

If I told her that I felt bad or sad in some way my exwife was very quick to tell me that I "should see someone". She was very quick to tell me that. I could barely finnish the sentence, she would interrupt me.
I Think there was an element of "I can't handle your pain" but I Think she was also trying to say "See! You're sick too!".
It was really damaging because I withdrew and kept my feelings to myself. And I felt it was very hurtful that she would cause me so much pain and then refuse to deal with. In a BPD context it makes perfect sense of course, but I didn't know then.

My ex's tendency to project onto me was a massive problem for me. In his case, it happened most frequently when he was emotionally dysregulated, which usually manifested as anger and irrational suspicion. His fury and his lack of insight into his own mood and behaviour meant that anything I said or did would be taken as proof for what he was saying. He was so adamant that his projections were accurate that everything could be twisted to fit them, especially given the paranoia - as he didn't trust me at all when he was in these moods, it was logical to him to assume that any attempts I made to reason with him were just manipulative lying.

An image that helps me in retrospect is that of the riptide. Trying to reason with my ex when he was doing this was like swimming against a rip current and getting more and more exhausted and farther from the shore in the process. The only way to escape the current was to stop fighting it and swim out of its path (i.e. get out of my ex's way). Once I was out of the current (i.e. the rage and the attendant projection were over) then I could make my way back to the shore and safety. Ultimately the only way to deal with this in the long-term was to go no contact.

Now the memories of what he said and did rarely hurt, because over a year has passed since I went NC and I've come a long way since then. Only last night I was thinking with surprise that his words had ever had that much power over me.

Mine told me he was told "he'd drive me crazy, just like he did his ex". He hasn't succeeded, if that was his lofty goal. He sort of succeeded with his ex, or likely she already had emotional instability due to being molested, because she'd engage in ugly fights with him, and he'd end up stabbed, hit with a hammer, or his hair cut off from behind. I now realize that he wasn't the blameless victim he painted himself to be. Sure, what she did was clearly abuse, but what did HE do? I now know. He pushed and pulled, said horrendously cruel things, probably taunted her as he does me, mocked, belittled, and that's the short list. Everyone said he treated HER way better than me, but I wonder. Maybe he did slightly because I WILL NOT retaliate the way she did?

I was actually suicidal for a brief time, and he uses that to make it seem I'm the issue. I was suicidal because I was just so darned depressed that I'd gotten out of a mildly verbally abusive 18 year marriage, and knew all the signs to look for in regards to an angry man(my ex also had anger issues), and yet here I was again! I felt totally duped, and NO ONE else in my friend or family group caught on either. I even asked their advice about him. He fooled everyone. I fell for his victim story, because I myself had gotten out of something abusive.

Of course, I got help for feeling suicidal, and that's been two years ago, and I've gotten nothing but stronger, and more emotionally healthy. I have stayed in therapy, and I worked on boundaries, and myself, and making plans.

He'd much rather focus on ME, than to really have to work his DBT plan. In fact, he insisted I go see HIS psychiatrist, in hopes that I'd be diagnosed with something, and he was super, super disappointed when I wasn't. I got some meds for my anxiety, which admittedly I have. Who wouldn't living with all this chaos, and I'd likely have mild anxiety anyway. It runs in my family.

It's just so sad that so many with BPD don't want to take a good hard look at themselves, and actually work on their main relationship. It seems the very hardest relationship for them to maintain is with the one closest to them.

That was a huge problem for me. I tried to point out his interruptions one time. I would then interrupt him to try to get a word in edgewise. Then he would twist it all around and point out that I was interrupting HIM. Forget the fact that I was simply trying to finish what I was saying when he interrupted me to begin with. I finally figured out that it was best to simply shut up all together. He would interrupt me and I would stop talking and refuse to finish the conversation. He finally got to a point where he would say, "I interrupted again didn't I?" Having a conversation with him became impossible.


This was another issue for me. I wanted to go to counseling at one point and he didn't want me to go. We did go to ONE counseling session together and he sat there all quiet and let me do all of the talking. I felt completely crazy because I was rambling on and he was super quiet and said almost nothing. At home, it was just the opposite.

When it came to me seeking individual counseling, he was afraid that the counselor would tell me to divorce him or something. He wanted to pretend that there weren't any problems and that we didn't need any help at all. He didn't want to deal with the pain that was caused because of his sex addiction. He seemed to think that going to SA meetings was enough and that I should be happy and that it would somehow fix everything. I was hurting and in pain and it was completely dismissed because I wasn't the one with the problem. When it came time to make amends in the 12 step process, he used that as an excuse to reach out to a bunch of women/people from his past without any consideration that him talking to women that he had been intimate with might be hurtful to me or our marriage. I was supposed to be okay with it because it was part of the amends process.

This is a great question to ask.

I only knew this girl for 5 months, and in that time she said the following to me -

- that she thought I was a player when she first met me
- that she thought I was schizophrenic after our first argument
- that I was a pillock (when in hospital awaiting the results of an X-ray for a suspected broken bone)
- that I was too sensitive (after each time I stood up for myself)

Then there was the gas-lighting
Then there was the testing which she voluntarily told me about

For a short time she even had me convinced it was "all my fault" and she convinced me that when she upset me (which happened just about every week) that rather than have an argument, that I would have to go 24 hours without contact with her, so that I could get over whatever she had done to upset me.

How did I fall or this!

Her final attempt to make me feel like the nutty one was 4 weeks after she dumped me.  I attempted to talk to her, only to be met with "I don't want to talk to you" and the final words she ever said to me were "you can't help your character".

Yeah thanks for that!

Nice try. But then I came to my senses, met some people who'd had the same thing done to them, found this website and am slowly coming back to normal.

After all this, and a couple of weeks after her final insult to me, I sent her an email saying ok, fine, I'm off, lets heal, get over each other and avoid each other from now on... .And then she spent the next year chasing me.

How can anyone make any sense of this.

WELCOME to the wacky world of BPD and all the fun!

Funny thing is, when I was in the idealization phase with him he would always comment on how "normal" I was. Should have been a Red Flag actually. He would say it to the point it started irritating me. Of course he bad mouthed the people before me as crazy, alcoholic, emotionally abusive unstable women that needed therapy.
After discarding me he of course would not talk on phone so I messaged him telling him how I felt about that. He wrote to a relative of mine telling me I was disturbed and was going to block me. I let some friends and family read what I wrote to him and all they said was that I was being too NICE.

He revealed to me later that my replacement had convinced him in the beginning that I was a physical danger to him and to her. Anyone who knows me thought that was hilarious. What really hurt was that he BELIEVED her, at least for a while. Ive never even raised my voice to the guy. So both of them tried to make out that I must be mentally ill because I was depressed and felt betrayed. Almost two years later Im still shocked that I could actually have forgiven him for it.

I would be careful of believing your ex's version of events too readily. It may well be that he was the one who convinced her that you're dangerous, and he's putting words in her mouth to make you believe that other people share his perceptions and support him. It's also a get-out cause that means he doesn't have to take responsibility for his behaviour - "She convinced me, it was all her fault." My ex used to tell me that his previous partner really disliked me, and that she'd said all kinds of nasty things about me. For a while I believed him. It took time to realise that he is not a reliable source on anything to do with his relationships. Now I suspect that the ex never said anything nearly as bad as he claimed she did, and his main objective was to set me against her, so I would steer clear of her and not end up making discoveries that could have been awkward for him.

 C<||| Hopefulgirl that's a lot of quite serious accusations.

1. crazy,
2. alcoholic,
3. emotionally abusive
4. unstable women that needed therapy
5. disturbed
6. was a physical danger to him and to her (Ive never even raised my voice to the guy)
7. must be mentally ill because I was depressed and felt betrayed

Possibly a lot of projection. I would be pretty upset if my friend's partner used those labels on her. Well done on not letting it get to you too far if any. I don't think such aggressive labels are used on partners in a healthy relationship let alone on a regular basis, especially during the early stages. I recall words like "jerk", but not much more than that. I think it's normal to have disagreements and some conflict but excessive accusations seems unusual to me.

It's pretty impressive how far out of a "normal" relationship we allowed ourselves to get in to. I would be interested in finding out how they were able to get us to somehow "consent" to such behaviour. How did they draw us in? How do we avoid that in future? I don't think there's a perfect answer for those, but I think it's worthwhile to investigate it.

I'm surprised you managed to forgive him for that. That sounds like it would have been a struggle for many people. Well done overcoming that Hopefulgirl. I think that's a big deal :)

This is a really good question and one I've been thinking on recently.

I remember two distinct events that drew me in. The first was on our second date, she did the victim thing. She told me about her exes who physically abused her, her dysfunctional relationship with her parents, that she hated her mother, about her brother who was born disabled and died at the age of 17 and about one of her daughters who was a manic depressive and needed looking after.

Guess what, my knight in shining armour / fixer personality came to the fore and I really wanted to help this girl.

The second was after a couple of times when she had devalued me and through her actions showed me how little I really mattered to her (though she said it was just her being thoughtless - yeah really!) and I felt a boundary had been crossed. I challenged her about these two incidents, and rather than engage and properly discuss it, she said to me "Just Leave". And like a little boy, I was sent home. What she did was to shame me for having stood up for myself and she invalidated my emotions.

My mistake, was to try and get back in her good books and get back with her. Like the little boy trying to get his parent to say, "it's ok, you are good really". This was such a huge mistake, I should have walked away from her, but by then I was in the FOG, Fear/Obligation/Guilt and my sense of self and my rights and way of thinking was already being eroded.

For the future, if someone crosses a boundary (and yes it has happened) I just walk away. If a boundary is crossed and there is no proper resolution, I walk away. I want to be with good people, who validate me and are positive about me and the world around them.

What is it with the accusations of their exes being sex addicts?

Mine was raped by several of her exes.  I should say, "raped". I don't believe anything she ever told me, especially since she has left me for a few of her exes and her sister was probably told all sorts of untruths about me. I work with her sister. 1yr out and I am finally using the washroom on my floor (she works on the other side). Last year she threatened to go to HR and have me fired if I so much as looked at her the wrong way.

I think I had clung to my very ill ex because I knew work would get worse for me if she finally discarded me. At least when we were dating her sister didn't dare cause me work issues. It's very hard and scary.

A few weeks ago something about me came out at work and actually got her and a friend in deep trouble. I am walking a bit taller now. I have come to the conclusion they are likely cut from the same cloth. Her sister is as much an emotional bully as she is.

Well, I do suffer from CPTSD, so my x didn't actually do anything to "make me look like I was crazy... ."

I know that threads like this are meant to be therapeutic, but let's not forget that our pwBPD was not the only one involved in the r/s. We all had our parts to play as well.

I sure had my part to play. After therapy, pensive moments of stillness with myself and a lot of help and information from this website, I was able to recognize and OWN a lot of what I did and what I brought to the marriage.
1) co-D, rescuer and "fixer"
2) mother was a NPD and I married one.
3)weak boundaries
4)desperate for love
5) didn't love myself enough

The above is the short list. I am learning new things about myself and before this process is over, I expect I will learn more.

balletomane,
You are probably right about your statement. The part of me who loved him and believed that he thought so highly of me always wanted to believe some other person was directing him what to say. The "replacement" and I have mutual aquaintances and she started some mini smear campaign online behind my back, I suppose she was so taken in by him and reportedly was very jealous. She chose to do that, to portray me that way. On top of being severely heartsick to basically tell everyone that I was unloved and unwanted is something I can't forgive her for easily . And yet I can forgive him for letting her talk that way, and not defend me?  All part of the "devalue stage" i suppose, unfortunate I didnt know he had BPD at the time. Wish so badly I could go back in time and stick up for myself, why did my self respect ghost away?

gotbushels,
When he would tell me about women he dated since his divorce( ex wife was seemed to have a personality disorder as well) he would portray them in such a way that I would think "well, Im not like those other terrible women who didnt understand him, or used him, or stopped speaking to him. Aren't they awful. Poor guy." Of course, the "emotionally abusive, selfish, never understanding" woman that apparently acted like she could take him or leave him turned out to be the person he kept going back to. So of course I thought  1. So what am I, chopped liver?  (Actually met her not too long ago. She seemed to be a sweet person, confident, smart, with a low tolerance for bulls**t.)

At one point I thought,"From his history, he seems to be impulsively drawn to dramatic women who do crazy or mean things, maybe I should ACT more like them! I'm too normal (to him anyway  lol)".   I'm ashamed that I could have actually gotten to that point that I thought that could make him stay.

Ive gone out with men who don't have BPD who spoke of ex's as "crazy" on second date and it turns me off. In case of pwBPD it just seems to be one more compulsive trait that I kept sweeping under the rug and I dont know why. 


 

I think that's a good identification.

Sometimes, it's possible for people with these traits to still get drawn into a BPD relationship. It's a bit puzzling. You'd think with enough "smarts", such people would be able to avoid these relationships.

It might help you to know that I did this--summarily a bad idea. It fits in quite "textbook" to what the textbooks say will happen. In my strong opinion here, you're very likely better off not having looked at this "path".

Not sure what you mean by this.  :)

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 C<||| balletomane the "riptide" is quite an imaginative and interesting image you use to deny projection balletomane.  :)  Thoughtful!
Being very clear about not subjecting ourselves to projection, even in retrospect (possibly even more important), I'd consider, is very important for the step of knowing "what was our bit" in the recovery process. Well done.  |iiii Sometimes when we're trying to disassemble the specific instances, we also have to "walk" through it. That's not easy.  :)

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 C<||| stimpy wow. That seems to be a very insightful exploration. Nice one. You seem really clear about what she did, what you did, what you could have done better, what you will do "next" time you're in this sort of situation.  |iiii

stimpy you used a lot of examples that are like high-grade honey to caretaker bees. It seems you have done some limit work--did you figure out why you had this big internal pressure to fix this person?

Hi gotbushels, thank you for your comment.

As to why I wanted to fix this person, well, what I said was to help this girl, and that is not quite the same thing as fix, helping and fixing are different. Nevertheless, you ask a good question.

I think I now have some self awareness, maybe not everything, but my self learning and understanding is a slow process. In answer I'd say the following -

To a degree I think it is natural for any human who hears of another having had a hard time and misfortune to feel empathy and compassion for that person, that I believe is normal. To want to help is also I believe normal.

But how could I help?

Looking back over my life, I have come to realise that in my work and in my hobbies, this need to improve, fix, renovate, enhance has been a thread that has run through most everything I have done. I can fix bikes, cars, houses... .you name it and I'll fix it. This is partly I think just DNA, my Mum was a nurse - helping unwell people and my father was a builder, fixing houses and building new developments and converting properties and bringing them back into life.

All good stuff.

But how could this inate and natural desire to help/fix/improve convert into this new scenario? Well, this is where I think at a subconscious level I over estimated my abilities and underestimated what might be REALLY happening with my now ex girlfriend. I was out of my depth and didn't know it.

In simple terms, I had never come across someone like my ex before. I had never met someone who's husband and also after that her boyfriend had beaten her, I was genuinely very shocked. I was quite upset, and worse I now realise that it also keyed into some of my early childhood experiences. My father beat my mother, my mother used to cry in pain. My bedroom, at the age of 11, was across the hall. I heard everything. And although I have three brothers, by this time, they had all left home (I was the youngest by 7 years). So her telling me this stuff I think keyed into something very primal and deep in me. As the 11 year old boy, I couldn't fix the dysfunctional relationship between my parents, but maybe as an adult I wanted to fix/help/overcome/remedy the dysfunctional relationship my girlfriend had with her some of her exes.

But, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into.

And I think the tools and behaviours she learnt at a sub conscious level to get over her past relationships (parents/husband/boyfriend etc... .) and survive and function, she then used on me. I think she learnt to always put herself first. To be a people user, as a "victim" she thought she was entitled to use people and to manipulate them, and if needs be devalue them and guilt them and confuse them, so be it. And as a victim, it was of course always the other person's fault, and because of this she need feel no shame or guilt for her actions. That's my take on it anyway.

The results were a disaster, for both of us.

For all the gaslighting/invalidation/manipulation she used on me, I do as it happens have quit a good sense of boundaries. My failing was not enforcing them early enough. But we argued and split up repeatedly all the way though our very short relationship. I knew she was crossing my boundaries, but until she finally dumped me in the most cruel way imaginable, I still wanted to make the relationship work. After that, and with her final insulting words to me a few weeks after she had dumped me, I had had enough and hard though it was decided to move on.

Then I slowly learned about NPD, BPD and found a mentor who had experienced just the same thing. And she listened to me and gave me the time, patience and listening and validation to see me through to be back to normal (ish!) :-)

So the good thing is, I have learned more about myself, what makes me tick and why I am as I am. I am wary of self proclaimed "victims" now. And I am more aware of my inate desire to automatically help/fix. Now I need to learn much much more about someone before deciding quite who they are and what relationship I want to have with them.

Looking back and unconsciously, I think I felt I could fix anything. Now I know I can't, and also I know better that this desire to help/fix/improve might at least partially be a result of wanting to fix the dysfunctional relationship between my parents and as a little boy, being unable to do so.

I'd like to hold that out as a very good example of a concise investigation into the "why" and the "personal reason" of why a non has an exceptional urge to help another person. The "really why" beyond the surface "why". It can tell us how we could have been--or perhaps could still be--in a more vulnerable position to the dance that BPDs may draw us in to. It shows us how a virtuous wanting can morph into results that some may consider perverse.

This is a good example because it partially answers our confusion. The confusion that stems from thinking we are "together" people, when we really may not be. The belief of "BPs are drawn to incomplete others" v "we are complete--it's the BP's illness". We have had firsthand experience of the violent interactions we are vulnerable to when we are not as "together" as we think. The BP's actions here are blessing to us in the sense that it has allowed us to catch a glimpse of things, often beyond the heaps of pain, that can significantly enhance our lives.

This is a good example of an investigation resulting in a personal connection between the relationship and a possible FOO link. This is a good example of looking into ourselves in a deeper way. Finding out about the self beneath the surface that we seek to share with others. Isn't it true that to know ourselves, we first are required to see ourselves for what we are?

Thank you very much for sharing stimpy. I think you've gotten a lot out of this investigation than what's obvious in your post. I encourage you to keep going to see what you can do for yourself. Many of us that go on to search and inventory get a lot out of this act of going beyond. It helped me to know to be patient with myself for the process.

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When she did the dumping, she acted like we were only friends the whole relationship time. I guess sex two or three times a week for six months, bday and xmas presents, and public displays of affection, while on dates. All things just friends do.  LoL

"What did yours do to make it look like you were mentally ill?"

To my knowledge she didn't do that. She told others I was a controlling jerk instead. I wonder what's better, having them tell everyone that you know that you are crazy or a jerk instead? Who knows or cares though really? I guess I prefer the false jerk label.

gotbushels,
By my last comment I meant that I would hear him talking about his exes and describing them in an unflattering light and it should have been a red flag that I was dealing with man not mature enough to own up to things... .I never thought that I someday be the one who was on the other end of that.  I remember thinking at the time that this must feel like those people who lose a loved one to a cult. Or, surely he loves me and this is just a big glitch in communication instigated by the jealous new woman.
Having to defend myself of things about my personality that are completely untrue, feeling like I should apologize for crimes I haven't committed just to bring Peace.  Ended up taking the "high road", which only made it possible to friend me when that relationship soured.

I shouldn't really bring those other women into it, its between him and me really. I guess my point is that these women he's with, or been with, ending up Believing in Him so much that we don't even trust our own brains anymore. Like you said, we thought we had "it together", women with multiple degrees, good steady jobs, caring close families, friends.

Here is the big thing we have in common, that I don't think they would dispute --  We were LONELY.

Hi All. Thanks for all your comments on this thread. There's some clear evidence here that we we were indeed involved with a person having a serious mental illness.

They may have done all sorts of confusing things particularly around projection, splitting and cognitive distortions.

When we try to control, fix or manage them we play into the insanity. And we may have become seriously ill ourselves with depression or anxiety.

The message I'd like share is that no matter what our disordered partners have done or said, we can recover from this. We can grow and we can have fun and happiness. It's important to re-frame or refocus our experience and draw new life to us. It may be slow, it may take time but if we take small steps towards happiness, they all add up.