BPDFamily.com

When my ex (16 years older than me) and I were "just" friends for the first four years of our relationship, everything was wonderful.
She was very considerate, I could do no wrong, we had a lot of fun... .It was simply one of the best relationships/ friendships I've ever had with anyone.
I don't remember her behaving badly towards me or anyone else during that period neither at the place where we work together or when we were spending our free time alone together. Some people didn't like her then but I just thought that they just didn't know her well enough.
Once we started getting closer and closer to each other and things turned romantic, my now-ex began acting differently. At first she seemed as in love as I was, though she was moving at a faster pace, talking about moving together and showing me apartments for rent online etc. I would have sold my soul at that point to live with her and spend all my time with her but I decided to go slow since her previous (straight) relationships (of which she had just two, that I know of) had been such terrible experiences for her. The honeymoon phase lasted for about three months and then it was just push-and-pull and fights and accusations on her part and she lost interest in all the things that we had in common as friends. However, the day before she dumped me was a really good day for us and I was left under the impression that we were gonna make it as a couple.

Anyway, could it be that feeling romantic love towards someone serves as a trigger that brings out this BPD side of a person that they've managed to keep in control for a few years?
If I'm the trigger for her, can there ever be a chance for us to be friends again?



 

Yes, I think some people with untreated BPD are heavily triggered by feelings of romantic love.  This has to do with the reality that genuine romantic love, by its very nature, is mutually selfless.  It is counter to everything the motivates a person with BPD.

They usually suffer from depression, and tend to have very low self-esteem - if not downright self-hatred.  They craft themselves into the "perfect" friend/lover in order to attract someone's attention because they believe that is what they must do since they do not believe who they really are is someone worth being loved - if they even know who they really are.  They don't do this with the mental intention of doing so, not really.  It "just happens". 

They've learned, over time, how to garner positive responses - how to mirror our likes and dislikes, our interests and our passions, so that we will invest in them.  But it's all a lie - always.  They will change, like a chameleon, for the next friend or lover, and for them it is an exhausting effort to keep any friendship or relationship alive. 

It is so heartbreaking how desperately they seek to be loved and adored yet sacrifice the genuine love and adoration they could have had for something false and temporary.  They never really get what they want, in the end, and they are blind to this self-deprivation cycle.

You did nothing wrong in loving your ex.  But she cannot ever actually love you back, or anyone, in any real way until she has recovered from BPD through therapy.   I think it is possible she could be friends with you, but that depends on whether or not she can live with knowing that you know she's a fraud.

In my experience, they are unable and unwilling to give any real effort to anyone who has learned their truth.

Thank you for replying. More and more I hear about other people's experiences, the easier it slowly gets to live my life as it is without my ex.
I'm thankful that I met my ex at a time when I was already an adult and had a pretty nice life and friends and my faith also. Had this chaos taken place in my life when I was younger, I probably would have killed myself. My ex is 55 years old and she doesn't have a social life outside of work - except for two of her sisters (her four other siblings dislike her and don't want to be around her "for some inexplicable reason" - gee, I wonder why now) and (at times) her 41-year-old son. I know she's living a very isolated life and hoping to have more friends around instead of just sitting around watching TV all alone. Her life opened up when we were friends and I'm certain she really, truly loved being friends with me and seemed genuinely happy. It was the romantic love that made her train go off the tracks, so to speak. I believe that. Without us getting involved romantically, I think she would have been quite fine - at least around me. She just couldn't handle the intimacy. She had bad experiences as a teenager and then when she was in a relationship with a guy who drank and beat her up and used and abused her in pretty much every way imaginable. She always boasts about how well she's coped without any "therapy nonsense" while she actually displays many signs of PTSD.

People with BPD are some of the saddest, most pity-worthy people I've ever heard of (in countries living in peace, that is). They've had to endure terrible things - unfortunately they turn on those who genuinely love them and would help them face the past.

The day before my wife ghosted us was the first time in six months where I felt like I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.  The woman I fell in love with had come back to me for an entire 24 hours.  I was ecstatic. 

I don't know if it was a mask, but at best it was her having made peace with leaving us.


https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=297980.msg12795459#msg12795459
 

I would never claim, nor make a blanket statement like: pwBPD are incapable of loving.

But, to answer the question, yes romantic love can be a trigger. If you don't get attached, you won't get hurt is the assumption. So, when a pwBPD falls in love, they open themselves up to be hurt. So much of their existence is spent trying to avoid the pain, when they discover that they are vulnerable, the dysregulate because the fears of abandonment or enmeshment becomes very real.

Thank you for your replies.

It's just so sad to see my ex these days... .She's gone back to her old routines and being on her own. She was so happy with me when we were "just friends."