BPDFamily.com

Hi been in relationship for about 4 months with girlfriend who has personality disorder and now finding out she has it . I love her so much and she has prostetic leg from auto accident which I thought was a traumatic thing to happen . But we have separated twice and now I have looked up pd and realized theres more there than expected but does not change my feelings for her I want us to have a relationship but not sure its possible but if it is please help me understand what I'm dealing with I'm not really sure but if its possible I'm willing to work at it . She did tell me in the beginning she had it but I just took for granted that it was from auto accident but after some what splitting up on my part I looked it up and after realizing things she told me as a kid there was a lot more there than expected and was not from loosing her leg .

All of us on here because it's possible, but it will take a lot of understanding from you to work on things.  BPD is, to me, a lack of adult emotional control in a person in an adult body.  If a 5-year-old is mad at you, you can physically restrain them and put them in their room till they calm down.  An adult, you cannot do this.  You also don't expect a 5 year old to have an adult level of understanding about how the world works.

BPD is tumultuous.  It's often based on neglect and abandonment fears rooted in childhood - it is often not easy to pinpoint any AhHA moment of when it started, it's more a pattern of poor coping skills, shame avoidance, projection, and splitting that have evolved over a lifetime. 

We come into the relationship meeting a funny, outgoing, engaging, sexy person.  Then, as we come closer emotionally, and get more tied to that person, the "I hate you don't leave me" behavior starts to show.  The closer you are, the more they fear you will leave them, so they push you away to beat you to it AND to test you to see if you will stay.  It's totally illogical, and logic will not sway a pwBPD. 

Look at the Lessons, see what responses you have that might contribute to any drama between you.  Our initial knee-jerk reactions, while they may be fine for a relationship with a person WITHOUT a PD< won't work, and often make things mich worse.  If you defend yourself against an unfair accusation (cheating is a common one) you are invalidating.  If you let them know something is their fault, you are assigning shame which must be avoided.

If you can be mindful and conscious of what you need to do to protect you and your own feelings from abusive outbursts, things CAN be better.  When I first found this site, I was ready to leave after 10 years of being together.  After a few years of working on ME, getting myself squared away, working on my co-dependent nature that feeds bad BPD behavior, we finally moved forward.  My new behavior helped H be more conscious of his own.  And here we are at 20 years together.