BPDFamily.com

Hi, english is not my first language so I hope I can explain myself as I wish.

I´ve been in a romantic relationship with someone with BPD for 10 years and it´s been a rollercoaster of emotions.  During this 10 years we´ve broken up and reunited several times.  Most of you know how hard it is to maintain a relationship and the frustration you can feel when trying to make it work.  It amazes me how many stories I read in this forum that I can swear I´ve been in the exact same situation.

I broke up with my BPD girlfriend about a month and a half ago.  In that moment I felt like I couldn´t handle it anymore and I just hoped she could find someone else because I didn´t want to hurt her by abandoning her. She had a couple of major episodes out of the nowhere.  Any little thing can trigger it and she even threatened to take her life.  At the moment I felt trapped in this relationship but jokes on me, because she already had someone ready to take over my place. I found out that she already dated this other guy while we were together.  In my experience, each time that she had one of this episodes it was like the perfect reason to start speaking with another guy.  The sad part is that this crisis are never justified but BPDs can convince themselves that you are such a bad person.

I must also mention that in the 10 years we were together, it has happened many times.  This makes me think that the only way a BPD can last so much time in a relationship is with someone as codependent as me.  Now that she is in a new relationship I´m so heart broken.  I have this feeling of frustration because maybe my ego can´t withstand that one day I´m the center of her universe, the love of her life, her favorite person in this world even over her family and the next day you can be forgotten and replaced.  It makes me feel that if I didn´t want to lose her, I had to accept her abuse.

As you all know, when you first meet a person with BPD, relationships are very fast and they make you feel so loved and important.  I´ve noticed that many girls with BPD are extremely attractive as my girlfriend is so like many others, you decide to ignore the red flags.  In my case, I must mention that she was straight forward when we started dating and told me she had borderline. She mentioned she was afraid of starting a new relationship with me.  She was really interested in being with me but she was afraid because of bad experiences in the past.  Obviously I was also interested so I thought that by being a good boyfriend I could make it work and help her.  If someone is reading this looking for answers, I can mention that in my case the honeymoon phase lasted about 3 months without a major episode but there were certainly many small problems or comments that alerted me, but I thought I could live with that and even thought that borderline wasn´t such a big issue.  The first episode started after 3 months, and it was crazy.  We went to a night club, she drank a lot and started flirting with other guys.  I took her to her place and she asked me to spend the night with her but I refused after the way she behaved and considering she was drunk I told her it was better to see her in the next days and speak about everything.  This triggered something (I believe her fear to abandonment) and fast forward she tore the inside of my car, I had to call the police, and she even threatened to say that I abused her sexually if I didn´t stay with her.  That was the first major issue, I decided to end everything and "ran" as far away as possible.  For the next days she apologized and begged me to get back together and I forgave her but since that moment I realized that BPD was something serious. 

After the first major issue, problems were each time more constant and scary.  However, I also learned how to handle the situations much better.  It´s never a good idea to confront them or try to reason with them during a crisis. It´s better to try to confort them even if you are being abused and try to reason with them later.  However, even when you think you know how to handle the situations, you will encounter with another big problem called infidelity.  I´ve read it has happened to many others dating someone with BPD but apparently they always have other people on the bench, ready to take your spot.  It appears as if they need so much validation that you are not enough.  During this 10 years, I´ve known of at least 5 times she has been on a relationship with other guys while being my girlfriend.  She went partying many times arguing she was sleeping at home and went out on dates.  I´m a bit ashamed of sharing this and still wanting to be with her, evidently I also have issues and no boundaries.  One day she can tell me I´m the most amazing human being and next minute she can say the most hurting words you can imagine.  This relationship almost cost me every single female friend that I´ve had because she can not stand the idea that I have friends.  Even when I deleted many of my female friends from social media, she then started suspecting that I could be gay (which I´m not) and wanted me to delete my male friends also.  It made me feel that I could not have any kind of relation other than her, somedays, she even tried to distance me from my family.

In my experience the "love cycles" with a BPD can repeat many times.

1.  You are perfect, her savior and she can´t be in this world without you. She will do anyting to please you and make you feel lucky of finding her.
2.  Her fear of abandonment starts acting and her jealousy will start escalating.
3.  She starts acting crazy, bombarding you with messages, calls, etc.
4. There´s nothing you can do to make her reason.
5.  There´s a big episode and you cant recognize her.  You cant believe that loving and sweet person transforms in such way.  She threatens to harm herself and could show up in your place or at work because she is truly out of control.
6. She is so hurt by what you did (usually you did nothing wrong) that she looks for other men to tell them how bad you are.  She will try to erase you from her world.  Sometimes she will not be able and the relationship continues and maybe even the cycle starts all over.  However, if she manages to block you, etc.  You are done, she might go to a new partner.
7.  If you´re repalcement is not what she expected, she will certainly engage contact with you again.  Or if she gets to the point of painting black her new relationship, she might also try to get back to you and the cycle starts all over.

Among the crazy things I had to live with was:

- Sometimes if I closed the door of the bathroom, she requested proofs of what I was doing, she always accused me of going inside to speak with other girls.
- Verbal abuse as you have never experienced before.
- Major mood swings.
- Some very big fights in public.  As a man it is dangerous because people don´t know about the situation and  when a girl yells at you in such a way in public they think that you are being abusive even if you don´t even answer at all.
- Each time we went out, I hoped not to find any attractive women because she always accused me of checking her out (which I didn´t) and the day would turn into a nightmare.  She will threaten to speak with them and make a major public scene.
- She is extremely attractive, beautiful face, smoking hot body, she is a 10 but she is always thinking how to improve her physical appearance.  She is never satisfied with her looks but not in a good way, in an obsessive way that affects her mood.
- Believe me there are MANY more issues I don´t remember now.

After writing all this, I can´t believe I still want her back.  In this moment she is in her new relationship but we are still in touch.  She has come to my place and I´ve been to hers many times, we´ve made out, romantic dinners, sex, etc.  She tells me I´m the love of her life but at the same time she evidently wants to be with this other guy that gives her VERY expensive gifts and pays everything to her.  She tells me that I was the one that triggered her and that with this new guy she hasn´t had any fights or arguments.  She is a new person and I was the one to blame for how she was with me.  I would never go out with a girl that´s in a relationship however with her I do it, because this other guy started a relationship with her, knowing she was my girlfriend.  For a long time he tried to convince her about dumping me to go out with him so I don´t feel bad at all about her cheating on him with me.  But I really don´t like being in all of this drama, I believe I deserve better but I just can´t let go.   Even when I wish her the best, I have to accept that I feel bad when she tells me that she is now a normal person and that I was the one that triggered her.  A part of me wishes that Karma catches this new guy for interfering with my relationship and that he gets to know her bad side soon. 

I would really appreciate any advices and would love to hear if someone else has been through something similar.  If someone reading this is dating a person with BPD and have any questions, feel free to reach out.  This is only my personal experience.  I´m not an expert but I like sharing it because I know how hard and painful it can be to date someone with BPD.

Hi Ralphsal, thank you for sharing your story. So much of this sounds so painfully familiar. I have some questions, because I’d love to learn from your experiences. In your 10 year rollercoaster relationship, how long have your breakups been? What are the longest periods of no contact or being blocked?

Hi CanBuild91, sorry to hear you’ve been through some of the same pain. In regards to your question, I believe the longest we’ve been without contact is around 2 or 3 months. But in my experience this only happens when she is dating someone else.I also have to mention that sometimes it is me who reaches out first and sometimes it is her. It’s very difficult for her to be alone, so if she is not interested in someone else, the no contact would be no longer than a couple of days.

When she is in another relationship, I’ve noticed their problems start around the third month. That’s where she notices that she idealized the new partner, things are not as perfect as she thought would be, and starts realizing I’m suddenly not as bad as she painted me.