BPDFamily.com

The other week, a friend I had confided in at length about my experience with uBPDx told me there would be steps forward and back as I recovered, and that 'this is normal in getting over an abusive relationship'.

I didn't necessarily see the relationship as abusive (though certain acts within it, were), but I didn't challenge friend's terminology since the dynamic seemed accurate.

Yesterday, I was chatting to another friend and said something like, it's funny that person used the word 'abuse' although obviously it wasn't. Other friend gave me this look of like, 'are you crazy?' and asked how I could possibly say that after having written out and described the series of events in such detail to them.

I have some complicated feelings about this. One is to wonder whether I've misrepresented or exaggerated in some way. But with both these friends, I've been very careful to set out the facts in detail and at length, including my own misdeeds and mistakes. So I don't think their assessment is due to my 'putting a finger on the scale', so to speak.

A belief I have is that the word 'abuse' should be used carefully and precisely lest it obscure more than it clarify. My own definition involves the repeated use of a pre-existing power dynamic to do harm, and/or actions which both harm another person and entrench power over them, thus creating a power dynamic.

For example, according to my own definition, uBPDx cheating on me was a toxic, harmful act, but it was not abusive. However, belittling and insulting me for being upset about it afterwards, was. To harm someone and then denigrate them for reacting is abusive, as it reduces their ability to identify and protect themselves from harmful acts in future.

I'm curious as to what people think the significance of designating a relationship as 'abusive', is. Is it a moral thing - the harms that came to me were not my fault? I believe this - however, this can also be true for relationships that are not abusive.

Is it a causal thing - there was nothing I could have done to avoid the harm? I think this is incorrect. There was nothing I could have done to save the relationship, but I think there were, in fact, many things I could have done to avoid harm.

Does it imply something about the obligations of other people around me and uBPDx?

Does it imply some kind of judgement about uBPDx?

Is it useful primarily as a descriptive term, or as something almost quantitative - a way of identifying that the harms are ?

What do you think?

*a way of identifying that the harms are very serious

Hi there,

Abuse might be traditionally thought as physical, but it can be emotional as well.  Take the situation of someone beating their spouse, for example if the spouse stayed out "too long" running errands or waved hello to a neighbor of the opposite sex.  A beating in that scenario would be considered abusive.  But let's say that instead of a physical beating, it's a verbal one:  shouting, insults, false accusations (e.g. of having an affair), threats (e.g. of divorce), a total meltdown.  The spouse might feel that they are subject to a curfew or house arrest, because going out without "permission," or saying hello to another human being, leads to a verbal onslaught.  The "rules" apply only to the abused party, whereby the disordered spouse exerts inordinate control, while the disordered spouse is free to do whatever he pleases.  The verbal attacks are abusive because they are unwarranted, not proportional to the situation, mean, bullying, intimidating and designed to control, alienate and restrict freedoms.  The mere threat of retribution might be enough to bend the abused person's will, and maybe they start to question history and their very identity.

At the end of the day, emotional abuse can be extremely alienating, in the sense that you're not only alienated from family and friends, but also alienated from your true self . . . disconnected from your own emotions, needs and identity, leading to chronic stress and living in survival mode.  Does that sound about right?

And "abuse" would indicate a need to take corrective action whereas "poor behavior" may not be considered to need a strong countermeasure.

Related to this, we often mention that the "acting out" personality disorder traits (Cluster B ... Narcissistic, Borderline, Antisocial, Histrionic) are generally harmful to others while some of the other PD have traits are "acting-in" which tend to be more toward self-harm.

In my mind the word "abuse" implies a repetitive pattern... whether it's abusing a substance like alcohol, or abusing another person.  A single instance of some sort of negative or hostile behavior toward another is a fight.  It could be a one-and-done event, for whatever reason: to establish dominance, to blow off steam, to right a wrong, to deter someone from doing something, or to steal something. 

He's had a bad day and he snaps at you when you say you're tired and don't want to get dinner out.  Is that abuse?  Maybe not.  It's not great, but in an otherwise good relationship, it's forgivable.  But if it becomes a pattern, then it's abuse. 

Abusive conduct toward another, as I see it, is to condition them to accepting a certain role in a relationship between people. 

I do think the word itself can get overused - or abused if you will - but it has a very real definition, and it happens.

I think we assume abuse is done with intent by an evil person. Actually, abusive relationships are not all bad and neither is the abusive person necessarily evil or doing so with intent to harm. Rather, they are cyclic, with the person being caring and loving and sometimes even remorseful in between. This is why they can be confusing. It also involves two people. People wonder why the abused person doesn't just leave, but it's actually difficult for people to leave an abusive relationship due to the cyclic nature of them.

What's the point of naming abuse abuse? It's not to vilify someone or to blame or not blame. It's to not sugar coat it. It is what it is. So call it that.

I think an aspect of the partner in these relationships is sometimes a sense of denial or minimizing the behavior due to the other qualities of the person or the experience. But abuse has an impact and it helps to identify it for the purpose of dealing with it, in therapy.

Friends will have an opinion and possibly agree/take sides but that isn't a theraputic situation. I think therapy is helpful to anyone who has experienced abusive behavior- no matter what kind or severe. The label is more helpful to them in that sense.

 

To me, abuse is someone repetitively saying or doing something that harms you- and that could be physically or mentally.

For instance, someone lying about something.  That's not abuse.  But if they continue lying about different things and our relationship is completely built on a stack of lies, then yeah, it's abusive.  My BPD daughter comes to mind where she'd ask for $10-50 daily for gas and food, yet she was buying drugs and alcohol.  If I said no, she'd scream and rage about what a terrible father I was.  That was abuse...and not just the yelling part.  The being nice to me part to manipulate me to give her money was just as abusive because it was being done with bad intentions.

There's also one-off abuse as well- which I think we don't have to define.  Hitting, insulting, belittling, manipulating...all that is certain abuse.  But I think we'd differ on when it reaches that level to call it abusive.  For instance, someone pushes me because they're rushing to the bathroom and I'm blocking their way...is that abusive?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  You'd have to see a little bit more of the relationship to really have an understanding.

I'll add one more thing- friends and family usually know better than we do if our relationships are abusive.  We tend to brush off so much as regular daily cohabitating that it all begins to feel normal.  Oh, my partner is moody in the mornings, that's just how they are.  Or, he only hits me when he's drinking heavily, it's my fault for saying something that upset him.  When we're so close to it, we can see something completely different from the actual truth.

Bottom line, if someone is acting in a way that harms you over a period of time, that's abuse.  Everyone has bad days so again, I'm not talking about a one-off incident where someone loses their cool and shouts for a few minutes.  If it happens once, probably not abuse.  It it happens weekly, then yeah...it's probably an abusive relationship.

I agree with Pook on this one.  Sometimes I think of abuse as the punishments not fitting the crimes.  The abusive behavior (punishment) seems unreasonable and disproportionate, as well as causes significant harm, rather than serving a legitimate disciplinary, educational or corrective purpose.  Oftentimes the abusive behavior will exploit a power imbalance, financial dependence, or some sort of weakness, such as feelings of fear, obligation or guilt.  Maybe there's no physical harm to you, but rather to your property, reputation, self-esteem or other important relationships.  Maybe some harsh words are uttered, but the level of harm depends on the context, for example accusations made in private vs. in public with the intent to damage your reputation.

You might wonder, how could a seemingly defenseless child or weak person succeed in abusing others but not actually cause any physical damage?  I've seen examples which I call "spoiling" behavior.  Let's say there's a wedding, family funeral, vacation or work event that is really important to you.  A pwBPD could be abusive by staging some sort of massive meltdown, attempting to sabotage an important moment for you.  And it's not just limited to one spoiled moment, but a pattern of meltdowns whenever you face an event that is important to you.  I think that could qualify as abusive, too, if the meltdowns are severe and recurrent enough.  I suspect other readers on this site will know exactly what I mean here.

Pook mentions a possible example of abuse, where a BPD child will lie/manipulate/exploit parents for money, typically to buy things that the parent didn't intend, such as illicit substances.  Demanding money for school but not actually attending classes is an example.  Demanding money or a co-signer for housing but then abandoning or destroying the property might be another.  Asking parents to buy a cars/auto insurance and then repeatedly crashing them while driving under the influence might be another example.  I'm not talking about a genuine mistake or accident, but a pattern of manipulation, deceit and exploitation over time, with a heavy dose of blame-shifting too.  In addition, there's a total lack of accountability and responsibility on the part of the abuser.  The relationship feels completely lopsided:  all take and no give.  And that is abusive in my humble opinion.

Thank you for your insights all! What we've got so far:

Abuse is 'unwarranted, not proportional to the situation' and also 'designed to control, alienate and restrict freedoms' (CC43)

It indicates 'a need to take corrective action' (ForeverDad)

It 'implies a repetitive pattern' that 'conditions [the abused person] to take a certain role in a relationship between people' (PeteWitsend)

It is cyclic (NotWendy)

It is 'repetitively saying or doing something that harms you' (Pook)

It is a 'pattern' and entails behaviour that is 'unreasonable and disproportionate, as well as causing significant harm' (CC43)

It seems like what we're coming back to is the idea that abuse involves repetition, that it conditions or shapes the relationship in a particular way, and that the harm is serious/ disproportionate.

In the case of uBPDx, there was an ongoing pattern of him describing and defining me as 'cruel' and 'horrible' for actions that were not cruel and horrible at all. He would use guilt if I was not perpetually available for his emotional and logistical needs.

For example, if I was in bed and did not want to fix his computer problems at that particular time, he would go into an audible monologue about how he was 'alone. I am completely alone. And I just have to accept that...' He would tap me on the shoulder in the middle of my doing another task on my laptop, and if I didn't respond would accuse me of wanting him to '________ off'.

We worked together and for a period, I was extremely burned out, and said I didn't want to talk about certain aspects of work at home. He would manouveure round this by saying something like, 'oh, you'll never GUESS what I did about [work related action here]... oh, yeah, I'm not supposed to talk about it.'

Over time, and in response to this environment, I became snappy and irritable - for example, he asked me if pulling a USB stick out had damaged it and I shrugged and said 'I don't know' in a 'don't bother me' tone of voice. He described this as me being more horrible to him than anyone else, ever, in his life.

I ended up internalising this view - I genuinely believed my actions were cruel and horrible - it took weeks of friends explaining to me that it was not proportionate.

There was some other manipulative behaviour from him, and one highly toxic and harmful action from me.

Basically, uBPDx was extremely mentally ill and depressed for much of our relationship. For a several month period, he would express suicidal ideation to me at least once and often multiple times per day - we're talking at least a hundred times and likely more. Sometimes this would be in situations of acute distress, at others it would be quite casual.

I found this somewhat traumatising, especially having lost a close friend to suicide previously in very proximate circumstances, and told him this. His response was - this is basically verbatim - 'ngl, this makes it harder for me to come to you if I'm suicidal'.

I assisted him to gain eligibility for medical appointments, but he sought no appointments and did not even look up information about what was available. I also encouraged him and directed him towards free services such as mindfulness classes.   

He also stated that the reason for his suicidality was his strong commitment to certain moral/ ideological values, which he and I nominally shared and were the basis of our relationship. (Apologies for being vague here - it's a very specific situation).

Some months later, I found out that he had severely violated these ideological values and did not see it as a problem. In my anger, I shouted '________ing kill yourself!'. Immediately after I retracted this ('No, no, don't kill yourself').

I believe my action here was toxic and harmful. It is toxic to tell a mentally ill person to kill themself, under any circumstances. If it was repeated or became a pattern, this would be abusive. I did not repeat this action. I never said anything like that to uBPDx again.

My action was also reactive to a a particular context - being constantly exposed to suicidal ideation, asking not to be, and having that request rebuffed. It did not reflect me setting up a cycle of getting power over another person. In fact, I tried *not* to be the person who was solely responsible for or relied upon by uBPDx in his poor mental health.

For these reasons, I believe my action was toxic rather than abusive.   

uBPDx continued to express suicidality and enact mental health meltdowns directed at me throughout the relationship, in one case spending 3.5 hours spiralling and telling me things like I was disappointing to them. He also got in my face and almost yelled that he was thinking of hurting himself, then berated me for not reacting appropriately. ('I'm telling you I want to hurt myself, and you're not reacting! You're supposed to be the person closest to me and you're not reacting!')

In hindsight, I believe this was controlling as it used threats of self-harm to demand or elicit a particular reaction from me. The meltdown also started basically apropos of nothing - just before, we'd gone out for a nice dinner.

There were other meltdowns - he would frequently ascribe his negative emotional state to me. A common quote was, 'I feel only anger, and YOU made me that way.'

 

 

You will find frequent mention of BPD "FOG" on this site and elsewhere.

• Fear ... of threats, pressure, intimidation, disparagement, etc
• Obligation ... which doesn't let us see the dysfunctional relationship objectively
• Guilt ... if we decide the relationship is unhealthy, since we are indoctrinated "It's All Your Fault!" (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=89660)

My BPD ex would often feel down and depressed as well, and her answer to feel better was running off to save someone else.  That could be helping her parents do something, one of her brothers, one of her friends, our kids or one of their friends, someone in our extended family, etc.

And on the surface, you'd think that's a good thing, making time to help others.

At the same time though, as her mental illness got worse over the years, she was always on the run when she wasn't at work.  Sometimes the kids were with her, sometimes not.  But she was gone almost every waking hour for nearly a decade in our marriage.  Entire weekends would disappear when we had clear plans.  And if I said something, I'd always get the same answer, "But my brother needed me."  "But my dad wanted me to go with him."  But that woman that I work with wanted me to come by."

So I'd ask, "But what about our plans?  Five weekends in a row, you've disappeared."  Or it was something like, "We've talked about doing this other thing for six months now."

Sometimes it was something simple, like getting groceries together.  Other times, it was visiting something new in our area or fixing something at home.  It was never anything major that I couldn't do alone, but I'd wait all of Saturday on the promise, "I'll be home in an hour or two" and then most of Sunday as well.  The weekend would just vanish with me waiting and waiting, so I wouldn't start anything big because she'd be home any minute now.  Yet she never arrived until 8 PM, 10 PM, or whatever.

Does this sound like abuse?  Maybe no.  But once it happened 10 times, 100 times, 1000 times, I was just as trained as the family dog to sit and stay, to be a good boy.  It was absolutely an abusive pattern and I couldn't see it or understand what was actually happening.

Now, if my wife wanted us to do something and I said I was too busy, it was a very different story.  She'd pout around the house and make it known what a disappointment I was.  Or if I spent a few hours with a friend on occasion, I'd get texts and attitude once I returned home.  That's because we always did what she wanted to do when she felt like being in a relationship with her husband.  It was a massive double standard and I couldn't see it....because abuse requires screaming, hitting, and stuff like that, right?

That's why some of this is so hard to define- it doesn't look like what we'd call abuse by the traditional definition.  Yet it's just as damaging mentally when you're in the middle of it all and it's certainly an abusive pattern.

I think the term is most useful to you, in context of what you wish for in a relationship. Since this one has ended, what can you learn from this?

Some forms of abuse are obvious- physical abuse that leaves marks,  injuries, is obvious. Emotional and verbal abuse is still harmful but hard to prove or even see.

Abusive behavior may not only be in a romantic relationship. It can be with friendships, co-workers, employers, family members.

Where I began to understand what abuse is is when a local DV shelter was selling T shirts for a fundraiser. The statement on the shirt simply said "Love Doesn't Hurt". It didn't define abuse, but made the point that if someone is feeling hurt a lot, and often, in a relationship, or friendship, maybe that relationship is not good for that person.

I think in all relationships, there's some times where someone is hurful to the other person. Maybe they are tired and irritable and say something snappy to them. It's when the hurtful behavior is frequent, or cyclic, and crosses the line- saying something snappy vs name calling, cussing, constant criticism. It doesn't matter what the definition is. If you find yourself feeling hurt a lot of the time. If your partner dismisses it with more criticism "you are too sensitive" or blames you for it- you don't have to accept this.

Whatever anyone calls it- the behavior and dynamics in your relationship with your ex were hurtful to you. It's not only about blame- it can be an observation for you to make a decision about. Labeling your ex's behaviors as abuse doesn't affect your ex but it can be something helpful to you- so if you experience them in another relationship you can decide- this isn't good for you and end it rather than let it go on. You can believe you deserve to be treated decently in any kind of relationship. You are the value in identifying it- you are worth it.

I know that I had some issues with calling it abuse initially. Maybe cause I'm a guy and thought I couldn't be 'abused' by a small woman. Just saw it as high conflict. Everyone I talked to called it abuse. I've accepted that I was abused now. It's a very strange to be , an abuse survivor. Still sounds embarrassing to me.

This also sounds weird, I'd rather be physically abused than emotionally and verbally. We all stayed in those relationships far too long because we justified the bad behavior. I imagine if we accepted we were being abused earlier we would have left less broken.

A year and a half after the breakup, I am still healing. It feels like we just broke up some days. Very strange. I've never had this much of an issue after any other breakup.

This is a huge misconception- and I think this is cultural. Men are expected to be stronger and the protectors. The size difference does make women more vulnerable to physical abuse but that doesn't mean it can't happen that women are abusive too. Emotional and verbal abuse are not size or strength dependent. I also think female abuse to males is undereported due to men feeling embarrassed about being abused by a woman. Female abuse to men happens. It's real and men who have experienced this deserve recognition and support, just as women have.

Hi, also just chiming in to say that this has become a consideration of mine in the last week. I talked to my friend about some of my relationship experiences, and they said "oh that's abuse," and what I did was try to talk them back from the word. I probably said something like "oh I wouldn't say it's abuse, I'd say it's mistreatment or something."

So I get feeling like it's a big term - it carries a lot of baggage with it, culturally and perhaps personally. It's hard to look at having been in an abusive situation. It's hard to let the painful memories have their full presence. But even in considering the word abuse this last week, I more solidly feel that what I experienced was emotional abuse. It took me stumbling upon the term "covert emotional abuse," to see my experience reflected. This was the case with accepting that my partner had some traits of BPD as well - maybe since I was unfamiliar with BPD, or maybe because what other people described as BPD didn't line up quite with what I was seeing, I wasn't always comfortable saying that my partner had BPD traits. Same goes for emotionally abusive.

Now I can see a few things more clearly. For one example, she'd get hung up on *how* I said something instead of paying attention to my ask/feelings (in situations when I knew I'd said something calmly and with care). In the course of the relationship, that led to me painstakingly constructing my explanations, remaking them over and over again, as many times as she took issue with them. No success there. I should be able to share feelings with a partner, or with any adult in my life that I share trust and relationship with. I should be able to offer my thoughts in good faith, and have them received. People can meet each other in process, and it can lead to more love and acceptance, not anguish and confusion. I know this from healthy friendships, and there's no reason a romantic relationship should be different, let alone worse.

My current wife, who's not mentally ill, picked up that my ex used to deny my ability to express feelings.  So she does the same thing and will say, "Stop pretending, that didn't hurt you..." when she knows I just bumped my knee or whatever common thing we do to get hurt occasionally. 

It will always catch me off guard and I'll give her a mean look, then she'll just start laughing at me as she asks if I'm okay.  The way she handles feelings/emotional stuff like that makes it so obvious that what I had before wasn't healthy.  So even if you're not calling it "abuse", that doesn't make it normal or acceptable.  In a relationship, two people take care of each other- that's "normal."

Thank you for these perspectives and insights!

I think that for me, for now, the question of 'was it or wasn't it an abusive relationship' is not something that needs to be resolved in any objective sense, since there isn't any singular diagnosis or test for emotional abuse. But the fact that there is a reasonable case for it to be described as abusive, tells me enough about the seriousness of the situation and the importance of getting out, as well as the limitations of my own perspective - I couldn't see what seems quite clear to other people.

Regarding particular behaviours in the relationship, there were certainly many actions taken by uBPDx that were toxic and harmful (and one case of an action by me that was toxic and harmful).

The word which is now becoming more helpful to me as a specific description is controlling.

It was controlling for uBPDx to emotionally manipulate and guilt trip when I didn't devote myself entirely to meeting his needs, and to invoke or threaten self harm as a way of eliciting a reaction from me. The fact that these actions were repeated over an extended period of time, and continued after I pushed back or said they were harming me, adds to the seriousness of the situation.

Perhaps a lesson I can take from this is that someone using their own pain as an excuse or a reason to undermine my needs and boundaries, is a form of control.

I have found it hard to recognise in the past because I saw myself as the strong, resilient and capable one, and uBPDx was obviously in a lot of pain and unstable.

Now I know that a weak person can be controlling, harmful and yes, abusive, too.

There are some books by author Patricia Evans that you might find interesting. One is called "Controlling People" which describes this situation. I found this one to be helpful in understanding why someone would do this.

Another one is "Verbal Abuse" which helps identify hurtful language. They aren't specific to BPD but there are other situations where this could occur. They are also gendered- the man is the abuser, or controlling person, and the woman is the one being abused but it could be either gender and one can apply it either way.

However you wish to call it, I think it helps to identify hurtful and controlling behavior. I grew up with a BPD mother who was controlling and verbally abusive but it was "normalized" or downplayed. There was no evidence of any abuse that people could see.

As an adult, I found that I tolerated being treated poorly in some situations. It's not only with romantic relationships- and one reason was that I didn't recognize the more subtle forms of this. Overt abuse is obvious- there's physical evidence, but a controlling and verbally cruel relationship can also be hurtful.

This wasn't to accuse someone of abuse. That's a strong term in the legal sense but it still is helpful to be able to identify how people behave and decide on a relationship- in general. I think we tend to consider motive- like if the person is intentionally mean or not- but either way, the emotional effect still feels hurtful. I think it is acceptable to say "this person is not an emotionally safe person to be very close to". I think we attach abuse to some kind of evil but they can also be people who are feeling hurt or are mentally ill, or who have been abused themselves. It's for us to identify behaviors we don't wish to tolerate.

Some people we can't avoid, like co-workers but we can remain aware and not get too close to people who behave like this.

NotWendy, I really appreciate your thoughts and I'll come back to them but I just wanted to jot down a couple of memories here.

I guess one thing that made it hard for me to see the nature of control that was happening was that on the surface, and maybe in actuality to an extent as well, it seemed like uBPDx was doing everything to meet my needs and desires and to be an ideal partner for me.

But things kept seeming to come with a... catch.

Take, for instance, flowers. He went through a period when he would buy flowers regularly. I would say something like, "Thanks!" or "These look nice!" and put them in a vase and that would be it. But he would keep bringing it up - for some reason, my reaction wasn't enough. He would talk about what he perceived as a lack of romance between us, and say "I get you flowers but it doesn't seem to do anything".

Something I just remembered is that early on in the relationship, when he was talking about flowers, I mentioned that I'm quite picky with the flowers I like and told him some examples (not as a hint, it just came up in conversation). Over the course of the relationship, I... don't think that was ever incorporated into the flowers that were procured. Which is fine, it's not up to him to cater to my precise flower preferences! But it does seem strange that he would go on about how the reaction I gave wasn't enough, but also didn't listen when I said what I actually wanted.

There was another time he was spiralling and berating himself and calling himself a 'piece of _____' for, among other things, not buying me flowers. I said 'I never asked for flowers!' and he started berating himself even more, saying that even the things he wanted to do for me were useless, he was useless to me, etc etc. There was an implication that his feeling this was was my fault. It felt like I was losing in every direction.

(As I've mentioned before, he also took this occasion to call his former affair partner, with whom he had destroyed his previous relationship, then play her off against me by emphasising how, unlike me, she was 'there for him').

There were other things. He moved in with me, it was supposed to be temporary while he looked for his own place, but he never left. There were money issues, yes, and if he had asked me explicitly I would have been happy to support him - indeed, I think I was, for the most part, happy to support him.

Later, when we moved house together, he asked 'Do you still want to live with me?' And to be fair to him, I said, yes, I do - he did give me agency, and I exercised it. But at the same time... he never actually acknowledged that we had originally explicitly agreed that he would stay with me temporarily for a time, and then he would move out.

So I guess I did ultimately have a choice. But it also became an onus on me to ask him to leave, rather than his responsibility to... stick with the agreement we'd made in the first place. I had freedom of choice, nominally. But it was hard to exercise this, knowing the meltdown that would likely follow.

It was just really hard - in part because we often loved living together, but also, it was pretty clear that any signs of even slight rejection or recalibration from me would be met with a nuclear reaction, and I was conditioned over time to be afraid and avoid that, and to accept a shrinking of my rights and possibilities within the relationship - namely, that I couldn't expect agreements between us to be honoured if this conflicted with his mental health or emotional impulses.

Come to that, the very first fight we had was similar.

I expressed that I was upset that he hadn't done a couple of things he had promised to do, and he just melted down and melted down and called himself a piece of _____ and got suicidal and called everyone he knew to say he was a bad person (!!) and implied this was my fault and called his former affair partner to triangulate me and ...

We did reconcile, and there was lovingness and honesty between us (I thought). But the upshot was, it was established early on that I simply could not expect that he would actually do things he had promised; in fact, that if I said I was angry or upset that he hadn't done something that was promised, I could expect a completely disproportionate and unhinged reaction.

Is this... control?

That's mental illness, plain and simple.  He thought that he was doing good and when suddenly confronted that he missed a few things, it was more than he could handle mentally and it sent him in a spiral.  Everyone here knows that spiral so well because whether the person is screaming at you or crying their eyes out, it feels like it comes out of nowhere.

Was he trying to be controlling or manipulative?  Maybe, maybe not.  It's hard to say without knowing him.

For instance, my wife and I went to a funeral a few weeks ago.  In my current location, family gathers for 7-10 days after death and then comes the burial the day after.  One aunt was laughing and joking one moment, then crying hysterically another moment, then starting an argument over who should do what a few moments later.  At the actual burial, she was screaming in anguish over the loss and everyone was sort of looking at each other- was that real?  Was she faking it?  What the heck was going on?

I realized pretty quickly that the aunt has mental illness and her feelings were just out of control the entire week.  She couldn't handle the loss internally and her emotions were all over the place.  We'd like to make it about us, but it really wasn't.  She was just grieving the best way she knew how and it wasn't how anyone else there was grieving.  And honestly, that's okay.  She did what she had to do in order to get through it.

For your ex, please realize that this wasn't a series of "you problems".  He probably wasn't trying to be abusive or controlling, he just couldn't handle reality in those moments and made things 1,000x worse by his over-reactions. 

If you and I were talking and you reminded me of a few things I forgot to do, I'd say, "Shoot, I'm so sorry.  I had every intention of following through- how can I make it up to you?"  Maybe you'd say something similar to me if it was you who forgot.  But for your ex, that logical, compassionate answer was probably not an option at all because he wasn't thinking about you, he was focused on his own dysfunction.

I hope that helps!

OK, I have a few observations here.

First, the issue isn't really about flowers, though the flowers could be a symbol, a trigger.  I think an issue could be that you aren't meeting your man's expectations, perhaps with gratitude, attention, physical affection or stroking his ego.  With BPD, expectations tend to be majorly unrealistic, and thus he's constantly set up for disappointment, and when he's disappointed, he spirals.

I'm reminded of a scene from the movie, The Breakup.  A woman is getting ready to host a fancy dinner with her family, and all she asked was for her boyfriend to bring home a dozen lemons for a centerpiece.  He brought her lemons, but only a few (not enough for a centerpiece), and he proceeded to sit on the couch to unwind after work.  He thought she was upset over some stupid lemons, and that she was nitpicking.  Perhaps she was nitpicking (she could had made a centerpiece out of the lemons and some other fruit), but what she was really upset about was the general lack of support from her boyfriend, while the boyfriend thought he was being supportive by working all day and attending the dinner with his girlfriend's weird family.  My point is, the argument wasn't merely about lemons, it was about feeling unsupported by the romantic partner.  The thing is though, perhaps unlike someone with BPD, the girlfriend didn't have a total meltdown, but she went ahead and hosted the family dinner.  With BPD, I would imagine a total meltdown, maybe breaking some dishes, out-of-control shouting, storming off, maybe making a threat of suicide, and ruining the dinner completely.

And now the issue of moving in with you.  I think that with BPD, any promises made are probably made with the right intentions, but they are based mostly on the feelings of the moment.  Maybe it's easy to make promises when everything seems hunky-dory right now.  But I think that pwBPD can confuse intentions with the realities of execution.  They tend to discount future efforts, while placing most of the focus on immediate gratification.  So moving in with you might seem like a great idea:  closeness, avoiding being alone, you're the one paying the rent, you solve his immediate housing problem.  He "discounts" the reality that he'll have to work to earn income, find a place for himself, fend for himself and do the heavy lifting of actually moving out.  Since the stress of all that is probably overwhelming to him, he copes by avoiding it.  He'll put it off as long as possible.  In my experience, pwBPD can carry a huge emotional burden when it comes to executing on mundane, everyday things, like making a plan to check out apartments, sign a lease, apply for jobs or pay some bills.  Their tolerance for distress tends to be very low.  To cope, I think they tend to rely on others to take care of them, while at the same time, they tend to blame others for their problems.  They can concoct a convoluted victim narrative as an excuse for not executing on their plans--and they might deny they ever made any promises in the first place.  Basically it's your fault he's acting the way he is.  Sound familiar?  I think that's typical of BPD.

I'll try to give some possible explanations drawing from what I know about BPD, the ideas in the book "Controlling People", and the example I have with my BPD mother. This isn't to blame anyone but to examine some reasons and dynamics.

People with BPD tend to perceive themselves as victims. PwBPD have difficulty with uncomfortable emotions, and one of the hardest ones for them is shame. In victim perspective, victims aren't accountable. Issues are someone else's fault. This avoids shame. The example of your ex berating himself for not sending flowers- in a way, victimizing himself- being so hurt- was his way of absolving himself. Surely you would have compassion for him, rather than for him feeling he should have taken action.

The passivity in not taking initiative at realizing the moving in is temporary. He's dependent on you in terms of his living situation. He doesn't want to leave. By making you ask him to leave, you are the "bad guy" here and he would be victim, rather than to feel shame about depending on you.

One could also see these behaviors as somewhat manipulative.

One reason for people being controlling is that it helps handle anxiety. My BPD mother had very disabling anxiety and one way she managed that was to be controlling. She also was dependent in ways but to avoid feeling shame about that, she'd order people around. If everyone was predictable and under her control, she felt less anxious. However, to most people, this wasn't tolerable.

If people didn't do what she wanted, she'd react with angry rages. That we were fearful of upsetting her gave her control. So she learned that this was a way to control people with her anger, or, also her being very nice at times. She was manipulative but this wasn't about an evil or abusive motive, it was driven by her anxiety and her BPD. Still, the effect was the same- scary rages, verbal abuse. It was abusive- whatever her reasons or motives were. These relationships also can include a person being nice too. It's not all one way.

In these relationship dynamics, both people are controlling in their own way. When we are afraid of speaking up, or if we are walking on eggshells, in order to avoid the other person reacting- we are also controlling their emotions and reactions. This forms a double reinforcing situation. The pwBPD learns that their anger meets their needs in a way and the person who is enabling or walking on eggshells learns that this helps them avoid the pwBPD's reactions.

The book "Controlling People" does not specifically address BPD but it gives a model for the dynamic. The controlling person- whether emotionally wounded in childhood or disordered, turns to an imaginary emotional support  which the author calls a "Teddy" like a Teddy bear is to a child, or possibly a real Teddy or toy during childhood. They attribute characterstics to the Teddy- Teddy does what they say, Teddy is there to soothe them. One could compare this to the idealization phase in a relationship with a pwBPD. Initually, to the pwBPD- this is the ideal person to solve their feelings, always loving, always attentive, always agreeing.

However, humans aren't Teddy's. Eventually a human has needs, or speaks up, or may say something the person doesn't like, or makes a mistake. At this point, the controlling person relives their wound, the Teddy has failed them. Bad Teddy- and the rage and anger comes out. Teddy must behave and get back into being Teddy.

This is not about blame, it's about identifying hurtful behavior, for our own selves. Your ex sounds like he has some emotional hurts, prior to meeting you. We can't repair these for anyone. They'd have to go through their own therapy to do so if they were willing. I think what is most helpful to you in identifying these behaviors is to not get into another similar relationship and be able to seek out people who will treat you decently.

Normalization is a description to consider.  We here are reasonably normal people.  We generally have a good perspective of life.  But due to our inclinations - perhaps due to influence in our childhood or prior relationships - we began accommodating others, even the poor behaviors.  The poor behavior became normalized to the extent we didn't see it as abnormal behavior.

My experience with bringing home flowers... My ex liked red roses.  One anniversary I brought beautiful color-speckled carnations because the roses on display were virtually wilted.  Contrary to your way of receiving a gift, she raged at me for not getting roses, cut the flowers off the stems and threw them all in the kitchen garbage.  Then she had *nothing*.  Ranting and raging is quite different from a subdued response!  I was getting "normalized" to unreasonable behavior.

No two people have identical responses.  We're not like robots on an assembly line expected to be identical.  Our differences can and should be invigorating and refreshing in most cases.  But when things get to extremes of behavior, that's when a person's traits can morph into a level of mental illness.  That too can vary from one person to the next.  It's not like they carry an ID card in their shirt pocket that states "I'm mentally ill".  That's where we need overall awareness, perspective and objectivity.  Yes, and we're here to get that education and insight.

NotWendy, your comments on shame are so insightful. uBPDx indeed used to sort of escalate the shamefulness of situations where he was imperfect or criticised in a self-victimising manner.

I remember when he first 'confessed' that he had cheated/ had an affair that destroyed his last relationship. In a small, almost childlike voice he asked, 'Do you think I'm a bad person?' He also described spending a long time in freefall/ fleeing to another country (where he met me) in the tumult of having lost that relationship.

But nowhere in this was there evaluation of his own actions - the aspects of his own mental state and choices that led him to cheat. The intensity of his shame, whether intentionally or not, became a kind of deflection. It made me sorry for him feeling bad about cheating, rather than asking the questions I should have (of course, he cheated again, lol.) Cc43, what you say about a victim narrative resonates here.

Anyway, I think I should try not to hyperfocus on the details and hypocrisies and try and absorb the larger lessons. Manipulation and control can be enacted by people who are not all powerful supervillains, who may indeed be quite weak, mentally ill and unstable - in fact, seeming weak or leaning into apparent victimisation can be one way of exerting control. An important thing is to look at my own agency in normalising harmful behaviour, and in allowing agreements to be forgotten or rewritten - this 'normalised' a state of play where the only accountability was to his emotions of the moment.

Yes, take what you learned when considering a future relationship, and even in other relationships. Someone's behavior can be hurtful, no matter what their motive is. We don't have to normalize it. We can choose the qualities in someone we consider getting closer to. Nobody is perfect but we can look for communication skills, the ability to be accountable, and how they respond to conflict. Most people can be on their best behavior when first meeting someone. It's when the relationship progresses that we learn more about them.

It's not only in romantic relationships. There are disordered people in the workplace, in friend groups, and families. We can pay attention to our own feelings. Are we anxious around them? Walking on eggshells? Frequently sad? Some forms of relationships are unavoidable- like someone we have to work with, or a relative, so we have to learn to have boundaries with them and still have a cordial relationship to the extent possible. However, for someone who is single as you are, you can be discerning about who to become romantically involved with- next time there's a possibility. Your ex is in the past, so what you have learned could be valuable to you.

This was something I learned too.  I knew there were "crazy" and "abusive" people out there, but I didn't know that they were not always obvious and easy to spot.   And I knew from experience growing up and dating that some women were "clingy" and "controlling" and others were not, but I didn't think why some were like this, and the implications of what that would be like in a committed relationship.  I didn't understand that you can't let things you don't like slide; tolerance is good in society, but in a relationship, it's not.  If you're not being treated how you want to be treated, you've got to speak up and establish those boundaries, or otherwise you'll be treated as a doormat. 

There are bigger implications in all this I think humanity needs to grapple with. Like for example what happens when people like this get into positions of power, how to keep people like this out of positions of power, and how to keep them from passing these behaviors and traits to the next generation.  I feel like a lot of our problems go back to these issues writ large. 

But changing that is all beyond one person's ability... it's hard enough dealing with BPDers on an individual basis  lol

I wish there was some way we could have education in our youth about mental illness.  It might save many from allowing our FOO overwhelm yet another generation or cluelessly falling into unhealthy relationships.

Then I imagine classrooms where all the youths are looking around and virtually diagnosing all the other youths.  Oh my!

I've thought about that too.  But then again, I think my gut instincts at times in the relationship (prior to marriage) were that I absolutely needed to get out, and was not comfortable with her.  I didn't really trust her.  So I KNEW, just not how to put that knowledge into action correctly.  I would rationalize my way around to sticking it out. 

I think I was weak during those times where the proverbial schitt was hitting the fan, and I would back down, thinking "this isn't that big of a deal, I'll let it go this time," without understanding that these were not isolated incidents, and she was consciously or subconsciously, probing my limits to see what she could get away with.  Everytime I let things go, I was just feeding the monster
you just know the kids who actually are BPD would be absolutely unbearable: pointing the finger at everyone else, denying anything was wrong with them, throwing tantrums if cornered...

Re control and intentionality, one thing that has reframed my perspective over time is the experience of uBPDx telling lies re his cheating. Not misunderstandings, emotional outbursts, etc, just straight up factual lies sustained in moments of emotion but also calm and quiet, lies told strategically to multiple people and to secure a particular result.

At the time, i took the above outburst as a pure expression of distress. Now I am not so sure. Invoking self harm to demand or elicit a reaction from a partner is a pretty terrible thing, and the fact in the weeks after I was snappy, stressed or just wanted to hide and fall asleep when i saw uBPDx, and that this was characterised as me being 'horrible', is also awful.

The fact a close friend had previously lost a close person in very proximate circumstances to suicide, that i told uBPDx this affected me a lot, and yet he had no qualms continuing to bombard me with self harming rhetoric to secure a desired response or experience his own emotional release, is also pretty selfish.

*cw: suicide

Sorry, the above should say that *i* had lost a close friend / close person to suicide - i walked out of her house and minutes later she killed herself. And the delusional idea i could somehow save uBPDx from his mental illness was very linked to my regret over this.

Sometimes we have history, or something about our past that leads us into these relationships.  I think it's good to recognize it so it doesn't continue to trip us up.

In your own case, that's a horrible burden to have to carry.  I hope by understanding the nature of mental illness better, you can accept that none of this is your fault or your responsibility. 

I look back on some of the red flags I ignored about my XW, and one was the absolute mess of a situation she was in when we met (financially and legally).  But we worked in the same profession, and I remembered the struggles I had getting my career started in the same city.  And she was an immigrant with a tenuous residency situation in that she would need a work visa if she was hired, which obviously made getting a job even more complicated than the situation  I faced.  So I used that reasoning to excuse the things I didn't like about her behavior, and rationalized my way to thinking that if we were married and her immigration situation was resolved, she would calm down and things would be better.  WRONG!

Yes, it is awful to do what he did. It might help to separate the behavior from the motive. I don't know if we can know what a disordered person is thinking but we can decide, the behavior is awful.

I compare this to water safety courses I took at a teen. The lessons included being a possible lifeguard if we wanted to. The first lesson was to never let a drowing person grab on to you. We learned ways to avoid that and to get out of their grip if it happened.

Because a drowning person is frantic for air, and they will push you under and climb on top of you for air. It won't help the person either as actually, both people might go under.

Does this mean they are intentionally wanting to drown someone? Are they murderers? Probably not.

However, the result is, whatever their reason or intention, in this situation, they could drown someone.

Whatever reason your ex had for this- it was awful behavior. You can call it that, whether he was intentionally being awful or not.

I think we connect abusive behavior with the motive of intentional abuse, but sometimes it might not be intentional-- but it's still abusive behavior.

I am sorry for the loss of your friend. I understand the feeling of wishing you could have done something. I think this is normal to feel this way. But I also think there was nothing you could have done, you had no idea this would happen.

When a mentally ill person "threatens" self-harm, take it seriously.  That means picking up the phone, calling emergency services, and tell them that your partner is threatening that.  The police will come, an ambulance will come, and he will be taken for a psychological evaluation.  He will say or do anything to get out of it, but you repeat what he told you to whoever shows up.

A few things will happen once you do this.

1)  He will be furious at you for "betraying" him.  Yet, you're doing exactly what we're taught to do as kids, in an emergency, you dial 9-1-1 and tell the truth.  Explain that you did the only thing you could do to help him in that moment when he wouldn't talk things out and deal with his emotions.

2)  He will no longer play the "I'm suicidal" card in arguments unless he realizes that he actually needs immediate help.  One trip in the back of an ambulance with an involuntary hold is usually enough to get the point across.  That's not something to be "weaponized" unless you actually want to receive the help you're claiming to need.

3)  The hospital systems in the US are virtually useless for these types of things and it frustrates them as much as it frustrates you.  He will be held until a psychiatrist can interview him, and if he's deemed a threat to himself or others he will face a mandatory hold (usually 3-7 days).  They will try to help him with anxiety and other symptoms, but real change is up to him.

Side note- while he may be saying stuff like that to upset you, deep down a part of him means it as well.  He's hurting mentally and has no idea how to express what he needs in the moment.  What he actually wants though is compassion and forgiveness for the way he's acting, even though he is incapable of expressing that. 

It's honestly sad and I feel bad for your husband...but that doesn't give a free license to abuse you either.  There has to be a balance in there somewhere.

My situation was similar in some ways. When I first met uBPDx, he was very mentally ill, but also in a situation re finances, immigration etc which would tend to make anyone unstable. It made sense that providing him with a high level of personal support for a period might be what he needed to break out it. That said, over time, I found that offering him what he said he needed - a break from paying rent by crashing with me, some space from a difficult interpersonal situation, the change to take a holiday - didn't make things any better.

The dependence on me increased over time, as did the anger and blame when I didn't meet all his needs. He was also resistant to seeking alternative avenues of support. For example, I sat with him for some hours to help with the admin process of getting access to healthcare, and when he got it, he never bothered to use it. He read and talked about psychoanalysis in an academic context - psychoanalysis for other people - but never even Googled BPD despite agreeing with me that he met the DSM criteria.

Maybe a lesson we can take from this - it's not wrong to help a person in crisis. But if the crisis never ends, and if the crisis-haver does not take reasonable responsibility for their own health, not seem to understand or take into account our own needs - it's not our obligation to empty ourselves out trying to please them. It's not even going to solve the crisis.


NotWendy, this is a great metaphor.


Pook, I am not in the US, but here as over there emergency services are very ill equipped to deal with mental health crisis and can often be quite harmful. I would not call the 911 equivalent unless it was a truly extreme situation. That said, if uBPDx were to get in my face and tell me he was thinking of hurting himself, today, I would take him to the emergency room, explain the situation, and leave him there. If he refused to go with me, then I would leave him on his own. I wish I had done this at the time.

(I really apologise for spooling all my thoughts into this mammoth thread. I am looking into affordable counselling options - there are a few cashflow issues, which also I believe exacerbated problems in relationship with uBPDx - I plan to be in formal telehealth counselling to address codependency issues by August.)

One thing which I am still sort of processing. I've mentioned the toxic and harmful action I did, when I shouted at uBPDx to '________ing kill himself' (and then immediately retracted it).

Something that happened after this was that uBPDx called and spoke to a number of his friends and people he and I knew in common, telling them I had said this terrible thing, and most/ all of them counselled that I was unstable and abusive and encouraged him to cut me off.

It was absolutely his right to share a seriously harmful thing I had done and seek outside support. But I have resentment that in the weeks and months beforehand, as I've mentioned upthread, he had been sharing suicidal thoughts and ideation with me sometimes multiple times per day, like at least a hundred times. I had told him that this was very hard for me, and he had brushed this off and continued to do it, and I had tried to connect him with other mental health resources eg access to publicly funded healthcare and he had ignored it, and suggested looking things up online and he ignored that too.

i don't think it was intentional or conscious, but from my perspective, it almost felt like being 'set up'. Like, I know that '________ing kill yourself' is a terrible thing to say, but I also know I would not have said it if it hadn't been said to me and in my presence again and again and again and again in the weeks preceding.

And I never did say it again, after that incident. but he continued to pour his darkness and suicidality into me, and to ignore or resist any other forms of support or treatment (besides occasional meditation, and only after I insisted).

it made me angry because when he was calling his friends and they were telling him/ he was telling them how terrible I was - it showed me that he actually did have other relationships, he did have other options for support. pouring all of that darkness and trauma and suicidal ideation into me was a choice.

Why was that choice made? I don't know. But it wasn't just a lack of support or lack of control. It was, I think, about conditioning me to accept a particular role in the relationship as his externalised emotional regulation. And indeed, he continued to blame me for his mental state and to target his spiralling and suicidality at me for the duration of the relationship.

Usually both threats and suicidal talk are made in private scenarios, typically without witnesses.  When you do try to reach out for emergency services, the other is very likely to Deny, possibly even Project it onto you.

So, if at all possible have witnesses, as hard as that is.  An alternative is to (unobtrusively) record the threats or suicidal talk so there is documentation of what caused you seek help.  Otherwise, predictable Denials will result in little or no action.

I recall one time when I and my spouse had just left my cousin's home and she got triggered and started hitting me on the head as I drove down the highway.  Well, I "missed" our exit and the next exit just so happened to be the local hospital's exit.  I drove up to the ambulance entrance and reported what was happening.  She of course refused to get out of the vehicle.  Staff declined to take enforceable actions - adults have rights to decline services after all and I didn't have proof of what I reported - and so I was told the police would be called if I didn't leave the ambulance area.  I learned my lesson.  Have some sort of documentation to get action.  This was before smart phones existed, so I bough a digital voice recorder.

hotchip,

I had a uBPD ex-h. He passed away of natural causes through poor lifestyle choices and his refusal to get care for a serious heart problem. He claimed he was going to unal!ve himself many times when he thought I was going to leave him. He used it like a control mechanism to get me to stay. He was not the type who would go through with it.

It's natural and healthy to try to deal with the aftermath of these overwhelming relationships.  You can try self-help like a 12 step program (Al-Anon or Codependents Anonymous) or attending services for whatever faith appeals to you until you are able to get therapy.

In my case I told myself that I'm in charge of myself and my own life. I have a right to not help anyone but myself. Adults are obliged to take care of their own lives. I am not a babysitter and I will not put up with moochers and freeloaders. 

In my ex's case, his behavior was intentional.  I had a dBPD mother and I'd guess her's was not.

Regardless if intentional or not, the controlling behavior makes you feel you have no personal agency. I needed distance from the relationship and build up trust in myself (self-confidence)  that I would not allow myself to be used by a disordered, unscrupulous person again.

Here, we don't apologize for processing our feelings and emotions.  Everyone here arrived a complete wreck in need of support and a community who would understand what unique things they're facing with a BPD in their lives.  For me, that was 3 or 4 years ago when my BPD ex suddenly walked away.  I was a complete mess and genuinely appreciate all the voices that made me feel normal.

Not that I was okay, mind you, but because people could relate to me and understand exactly what I was going through.  Before finding this site, I really thought that my problems were unique and nobody could possibly understand.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was very wrong.

So please keep venting, sharing what feels relevant, and continue to ask questions.  Some people post here just to write and get it recorded on paper (well, virtually anyway).  All of it is perfectly okay.


With BPDs, they say and do things in the moment to gain sympathy however they can.  Why?  Because they're crushed in spirit and can't stand their emotional state.

For example, my BPD ex told others that I abused her.  But then I thought back and she told me that all of her ex's before we got married abused her as well.  She painted those guys as horrible people and it suddenly sunk in that she's described me that way as well, even when we were still married and everything was good.  If she was off, she'd bad-mouth me so others would feel sorry for her.  And to be honest, I doubt she thought anything of it in the moment, like those lies don't stick around for years or decades.  

Many of her relatives seemed to dislike me and I never understood why...but now I get it.  People talk and stuff like that lingers.

My BPD daughter (yes, I hit the BPD jackpot) does the same thing- when you cross her (or she perceives it that way), she's going to talk incredible amounts of trash...some of it that she doesn't even believe.  It's an emotional release to say horrible things I guess.  When my kid was around 10, she told a neighbor that I had been abusing her for years.  The police and social services came, interviewed and checked out my kid (plus interviewed her younger sister), checked out our house, and left without saying another word.  I didn't find out until years later what that was actually about.  Yet I'd bet a dollar that the old neighbor still hates me decades later.

It is wildly frustrating and completely unfair, but hopefully you realize that this isn't actually about you.  If your person was single, he'd say that stuff about his boss, his mom, his neighbor, or whoever he felt was "ruining his life" in the moment.  If he was with another woman, he'd do the exact same thing....regardless of how good or bad that person was.

That's just what BPDs do when they're disordered.  And because they feel terrible in that moment, they never see a reason to go back and tell the truth to the person they lied about you to.  Heck, most of the time I think they forget about it, even though their words live on and cause chaos down the road.

Hotchip- here are two articles that might help you process what happened.

https://www.bpdfamily.com/content/karpman-drama-triangle

and another analogy story of the possible dynamics-

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=65164.0;all

In my situation, it was with a parent, so this is a long term relationship and one doesn't "divorce" a parent. Some adult children go no contact for their own emotional safety. In my situation, I didn't do that. It was BPD mother who would oscillate between being angry at me and then not - the "push pull" dynamics.

Although my BPD mother had mental health care- it wasn't effective with her for several reasons, - BPD was not well known at the time she started it, and also she herself could not process that anything that happened in a relationship had anything to do with her. She was in "victim" perspective- and any issues were someone else's fault. This also involved "projection" of aspects of themselves on to someone else. Without the ability to look inward, or motivation to work on that, that impacts the effectiveness of therapy.

So, if there was any idea of mental illness- although she might agree to attend therapy- she also would present us as the ones with the mental illness, and she did with me, several times. She did make some threats of self harm and we did call emergency when we were concerned. I agree with that advice but I'm focusing on the dynamics here.

We are human and have our own emotional capacity. There's also the "boy who cried wolf" phenomenon, with multiple threats a day.

Most of the time, I didn't react in anger at BPD mother. Regardless of the situation, I didn't want to be disrespectful to a parent. However, my father had passed away.  I was grieving, emotional. I didn't have much tolerance for BPD mother's behavior at the time. I yelled at her and she reacted to that.

To parallel your situation- you had just lost a friend to the unthinkable. You were not in a good place emotionally- which would be expected. I think a non disordered person can understand that someone who has experienced a loss is having a hard time themselves, but someone in victim perspective doesn't. If you have been their emotional sounding board and now, you aren't doing that, they perceive it as you doing something wrong to them.

My BPD mother also reacted by telling people I was emotionally disturbed. In a way she wasn't wrong- I was upset- but for a normal reason. You were too, but where you assumed your partner would understand, he did not. If he was used to making a threat, or sharing your emotions, he still expected it, and when it didn't work, he had an extinction burst- "pushed the button" over and over again.

I think counseling is a great idea for anyone who has been in a relationship like this. With the victim perspective/projection/blame - it's hard to not blame yourself. I think it's fair to call behavior that is hurtful "abuse" even if the person doesn't intend it to be- when it has an emotional affect on the other person. Eventually the other person reacts to that. If someone is being physically hurt, they may react by fighting back, even if they aren't someone who usually does that.

In this situation, it seems you are in general, a caring person and your partner became dependent on your emotional caretaking. When you were in a situation where you needed someone to be empathetic to you, you assumed, like one normally would, that your partner would be empathetic to you as well. However, he couldn't be and his emotional needs continued.

You have a lot to process- the loss of a friend, and the ending of a relationship with a disordered person. That doesn't mean anything is "wrong" with you. It's a lot to process. Therapy can be a supportive situation for you to work through this. It's OK to post here too, but I think the one on one with someone also can help.

To add- pwBPD have difficulty with uncomfortable emotions and turn to external sources for relief- and in that moment, they just want relief. They are focused on their own feelings. There's also emotional immaturity.

Another analogy is the Madeline children's book where when the other children see all the attention and presents Madeline gets- they want their appendix out too. They have no idea what that really involves- the pain, the surgery. They see the attention.

Prior to my father's serious illness, BPD mother was the main focus of attention from her family and friends who were in the role of emotional support/caretaker to some extent, but my father, and also us adult children- we were the main people she looked to.

It was obvious to most people that this was a very stressful situation for all who were connected to my father, including my mother but the natural course of events was that the focus shifted to him.

For my BPD mother, this meant a decrease in emotional caretaking for her, but not a decrease in her emotional discomfort. So, her BPD behavior increased and also like the Madeline story, she sought attention.

It baffled me at the time, since I didn't understand BPD as well- how a mother could not see that her children also were emotionally affected by this situation.  Why would she do hurtful things ?

For your partner- you were feeling the emotional loss of your friend at the time. What he percieved was your change in attention and focus from him and on to your friend. He felt his own emotional discomfort increase, and so did what he saw would get your attention back to him. You told him it was difficult for you- that wasn't his focus. Whether he meant it or not, one doesn't know.

This was more than you could manage emotionally at the time, but you are only human, it was a human response. I also said some regrettable things to BPD mother when I got upset with her, things I would not normally say, but it also was in difficult circumstances.

For a pwBPD, the response to this can be projection- all that back at you. My mother also called up her family and friends and told them I said horrible things to her. BPD mother would periodically stop speaking to me and then reconnect.

Why you when it appeared your ex had other people in his circle? My BPD mother did too. However, BPD affects the closest relationships the most. You were the intimate partner- so you were the closest. It wasn't personal to you, but that you were this main person at the time.

I was thinking of this too, with the way he was quick to triangulate.

Hotchip, I think you should consider that the thinking in a pwBPD is so disordered that yelling something like "Kill yourself then!" at them isn't the same thing as saying that to a "normal" person.  You saw what he did after... he ran to call all his friends and present himself as the victim, and you as the aggressor.  This is what he wanted all along!  While you think you did a horrible thing, you essentially gave him what he wanted.

I noticed this in my own situation... a few times when I was absolutely at a breaking point - stressed out at work, and then at home on top of that - I lost it and called BPDxw all sorts of names. 

Now, I would also immediately feel upset with myself that I had allowed her to get to me, and was now "wrestling a pig in the mud" as the analogy goes.  When I was at that point, yelling and telling her in no uncertain terms what I thought of her, she would (paradoxically) calm down and seem satisfied. 

I realized she fed off the drama in a way I didn't.  She seemed to like fighting and screaming like that.  I don't know why... maybe in her head that showed I loved her?  If I didn't care and just ignored it when she sent me nasty-grams and said all sorts of mean things about me, my family, my career, etc. would she fear I didn't care because I didn't love her?  Her parents fought a lot, and although I couldn't speak their language, I understood they said some pretty awful things to eachother on a regular basis.  Maybe she grew up internalizing fighting as "love"?  Or maybe she had such a horrible self-image than when she could put the ball in my court like that, and make me the one swearing and losing my temper, she could tell herself I was also to blame?  Like I shouldered the burden of being an awful person with her?  One can never really know with a pwBPD, and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter.  The point is, a pwBPD doesn't react to things the same way a non-disordered person does.  For them, drama and anger is like brain candy.  They feed off it mentally, and will go to extraordinary means to provoke conflict if they're not getting it.

Here's a blast from my past.  I never overreacted to my ex's ragefests - one of her big complaints about me - but one time I tried to shout over her ranting...

OK, my read of the situation is that he goaded you, and he was pleased when you reacted, because it proved to him that he still had power over you.  Then, when you said something untoward, he hit the jackpot, because you totally validated his victim narrative.  What's more, he turned around and proffered up new "evidence" of how victimized he is, to garner even more attention, pity and/or support from his friends.  Let me guess, he wasn't really devastated by your remark, was he?  My guess is that he was almost fake-mad and threatening, saying something like, You've hit a new low, I'm gonna make you pay for this, just you watch.  He was revelling in vanquishing you, right?  My guess is that he didn't accept your apology, maybe by saying, It's too late, you can't take your words back, you monster . . .

In my experience with pwBPD, their versions of emotional events tend to be highly distorted.  Sure, there might be a kernel of truth (e.g. you saying something you regret).  But you know what?  I'm almost 100% certain he left out the salient details of his part in the argument when he relayed it to his friends--that he was goading you, perhaps insulting you into the wee hours of the morning until you finally reached your breaking point.  And he certainly didn't reveal that you were remorseful and apologized.  Rather, his telling of events typically projects his own feelings and actions onto you.  He turns YOU into the abuser, though in reality he's the abusive one.

And I wouldn't rule out that this encounter might have been "staged."  I suspect that the pwBPD in my life has orchestrated certain altercations, seemingly to stir the pot, but also to get a reaction out of an adversary, and to bolster the victim narrative so to speak.  It's almost like he's trying to trigger you to do something that you feel guilty about, so that he can cash your payback check in the future.  Does that sound like an explanation?

Or maybe he just likes drama.  He likes the intensity of feelings because they make him feel alive, and he likes having an adversary that he can beat sometimes.  Breaking you down could perversely boost his self-esteem, but in a terribly misguided way.

Just my two cents.

Although it isn't nice to say, in these relationships we tend to find ourselves acting out of character. They truly love drama and start fights just to get you to react...then run off telling everyone how horrible you are.

In the beginning of my relationship she had regular contact with her ex fiancé...she volunteered to live in his house to watch his dogs while he was deployed. We got into so many fights about how much they talked and the way they talked. 'If I die, please take care of our boys'....wasn't even in a combat zone as there was no war going on. 'our boys'?.... after hours of arguing I said 'I'm so tired of this person being a third wheel in our relationship! I wish he would die like he's so concerned about!'....I really didn't wish that. I just wanted that person out of her life and out of our relationship.

Another time I was uninvited from holiday parties, a wedding, and more by her best friend. Apparently her friend knew too much about how toxic and abusive I was and she didn't want me to ruin anyone else's life. Insane. Again, per usual, hours long argument where I'm told how awful I am, how it's my fault I've ruined relationships and how I need to change.

Stupidly, I say 'why do you keep pulling in 3rd parties and sharing lies, made up stories or things with no context! I'm tired of this. Do you not think I vent about you and ask for advice? Yet no one hates you because I tell the whole story including what I did. I wish your friend would get in a plane crash or just disappear!'

I didn't really want these people dead. Knowing what I do about bpd now, her ex was a victim too and was trapped in the loop. Her friend was reacting to what she was told with zero context. My thought process and words should have been 'I just want these people out of my relationship and to know the truth'. We all say horrible things at times but the good thing is we know it's wrong and have apologized.

Thank you for the wisdom everyone. It means a lot.

I just want to clarify a couple things - there's a lot of context and I hope I haven't mis-explained things to people - there's a couple of details I haven't shared before because they're hard to explain. The suicide of my friend happened before I knew uBPDx. He wasn't reacting or trying to deflect attention from that.

The situation was, he had his own (genuine, severe) mental health issues and was bringing up suicide with me at least one and often multiple times per day for some months.

While I was willing to support him, over time, this became pretty exhausting, traumatic and taxing for me, and at some point I told him that I found it really hard to keep on hearing continuous suicidal ideation, especially given my experiences. i.e., I was still grieving the violent death of someone close to me who had suicided. uBPDx brushed this off, and continued to express his suicidal ideation to me on a regular basis, while not expressing it to others from whom he could have also asked for support.

The '________ing kill yourself!' was something I said upon learning that he had severely violated some values that we both nominally shared. Furthermore, the moral violation he had committed went directly to his supposed motivations for wanting to kill himself, and made him seem really hypocritical.

I'm sorry to be vague about it, it's quite a particular situation and hard to explain. I guess I'm just asking you to take on faith that in context, I was reacting to a huge moral violation and a betrayal, but also, that he was not in that moment goading me or attempting to elicit a response, and he was genuinely devastated by my reaction.

That said, there is a lot of insight and wisdom in your analyses.


CC43, I'm still not sure if I would define the relationship as a whole as abusive, and I do not think uBPDx was abusive in this interaction. That said, I think you are spot on in the thing about the salient details. I did not simply say 'kill yourself!' to him out of the blue. I said it after him spending months saying 'i'm gonna kill myself, i'm gonna kill myself...' to me regularly and at times in a very flippant way. Saying it a couple of times, or only in moments of genuine crisis, is one thing. But doing it again and again, after I had told him this was traumatic for me and he chose not to stop, is another. It felt really unfair for him to characterise it as a shocking, unheard of thing to say, when it had been fed into my ear for months.
 Initially, I baulked at your characterisation of this as him 'goading' me, I don't think it was so deliberate, but I think what you say about


has a ring of truth.

TellHill, I am really sorry to hear about how your BPDx used suicide threats as a mechanism of control, and I am glad you have come through with some resilience from that.

NotWendy and PeteWitsend and Me88, it's interesting you're all noticing the same thing re the impulse to triangulate. I believed, and still believe, that uBPDx had the right to talk to people around him and seek support after I acted in a toxic and harmful fashion - and while the circumstances make it more understandable, I do believe I acted in a toxic and harmful fashion. 

But it's 'interesting' that, once again, the person he called first was the affair partner with whom he had destroyed his previous relationship. It's also 'interesting' that they spent a lot of time commiserating about the 'abusive' relationships they had experienced and how I was similar to her abusive ex-husband - the same one she had cheated on with uBPDx. I never heard the full details about what this person did which was abusive, but the affair partner had also characterised uBPDx's former partner (the one he cheated on with her) as 'horrible' to uBPDx, and uBPDx had repeated this to me.

This may well have been true - I don't know the facts. But uBPDx never seemed to consider that maybe the affair partner was not the most unbiased judge of the issue, and in hindsight it seems like there was some self justification going on by both parties. uBPDx also mentioned a few times that one of the things that went wrong with the previous relationship (the one where he cheated) was that his former partner's mother died, and his partner was depressed and didn't 'want' him.

Knowing what I know about him now, it seems plausible that his need for attention and inability to cope with her grief might have been issues as much as her being 'horrible'. 

Finally, it's 'interesting' that once the affair partner realised the uBPDx was not going to break up with me, she immediately disappeared from his life after having been his 'rock' (his words) during the conflict with me....

Now that I write it out like that, oh man.

NotWendy, the story about the man on the bridge made me go '!!!'

I'm going to make a list of things uBPDx said/ did around suicidal ideation and suicidality, and see if that brings me some clarity:

- When we first got to know each other, within days, he randomly messaged 'I want to kill myself' then brushed it off.

- He later expressed more explicit suicidality, but also expressed that he didn't want to be a burden to me.

- Within weeks, he was in a state of extreme distress and expressed (I believe genuine) suicidality resulting in me essentially becoming his full time carer for a month. I took on this role voluntarily and even 'happily' (not happily, but I wanted to help someone I loved) and was not pressured by him.

- At the time, he blamed a friend for his mental state, saying it was 'partly  because of him I feel this way' and that his friend made him feel 'guilty for being alive'

- After this, he was somewhat 'better', however, still expressed suicidality regularly. When I told him this was hard/ traumatising for me he said 'ngl, this makes it harder for me to tell you if i'm going to hurt myself'. He didn't acknowledge any of the impacts on me at all, and nor did he offer to do anything to try and make it easier.

- He also said quite a few times that his suicidal ideation made him a better person than other people, or revealed that he had stronger values than other people (and one other person in particular). Later, it was revealed he had actually violated these values quite a lot, and that was the context where I yelled '________ing kill yourself!'

- After I said the toxic and harmful thing, he went to his friends including affair partner to characterise me as horrible.

- Once, when we were in McDonalds and I wanted to stay where it was warm and he wanted to go outside, he flippantly suggested that the noise inside made him want to kill himself. I told him that it was really ________ed up to threaten self harm like this, and he acknowledged this and apologised.

- There was the 3.5 hour spiral incident I've described where he berated me for not reacting enough to his threats of self harm.

- He never saw a counsellor, Googled mental health resources or did anything for his mental health apart from going to occasional meditation sessions after I insisted.

- At the end of the relationship, he told me I make him feel 'guilty for existing'. I pointed out that he had said this about his friend who supposedly made him feel 'guilty for being alive'. He responded by looking at me with hate and saying, 'are you trying to make me feel bad for wanting to kill myself'.

What seems to emerge is a pattern where uBPDx repeatedly expressed suicidal ideation as a way of eliciting a particular response (attention, care, drama, portraying himself as 'better' than other people) or position within a relationship. When that response was withdrawn or was in danger of being withdrawn, he took steps to prevent this from happening, including trying to induce or exacerbate feelings of fear I might have regarding his suicidality. He never took any steps to care for his own mental health or to alleviate the impact his actions were having on me.

It seems like he used suicidal ideation as a way of getting certain benefits, responses or even power over others (me)... is that a fair way of characterising it given the facts I have shared?

At the same time, I don't know if it was particularly calculated.


Pook, you've got it.

I'm pretty shaken because this is such manipulative, controlling yet also desperate behaviour.

I don't think it's about who was right or wrong in either situation but to be able to look at the relationship, any disordered dynamics, and learn from them so when there's another possible relationship- you are more aware of them, for your own benefit.

I think it's fair to say that each of you were good to each other at times and not at other- and each behaved in ways you don't want to repeat- either you to someone else or be subjected to it.

Triangulation is more about the dynamics than if someone has the right to vent. We can vent but what is the perspective of the person venting and does it help or have negative consequences.

Triangulation fits the Karpman triangle dynamics. https://www.bpdfamily.com/content/karpman-drama-triangle

People who don't have BPD can do this too. It's about being aware of what you are doing and also who are you hurting when you do it.

If someone is venting from victim perspective, to someone who takes rescuer position, then the two of them are aligning against a person they perceive as persecutor. Often the rescuer isn't objective and in taking the venters side- the venter doesn't get feedback on their behavior. The person who is in persecutor position can be harmed by this if others have a wrong or negative impression of them.

I think it's fine to reach out to someone who can be genuinely supportive and maintain good judgement. We all vent sometimes. But I think we can also use judgment when we do that and be careful not to cause harm to someone else.

Your ex had every right to vent to his ex affair partner but did it help him to process the situation better or reinforce his victim perspective?

You also found yourself losing your composure in this relationship- something to pay attention to in other relationships.

Nobody is "right" or "wrong" here, it's about learning from this, making choices in the future.

Triangulation is some self soothing thing they do in my opinion. They cannot be seen as a villain, only the victim. They'll skip A-Y....and only talk about Z which was your reaction to being verbally or even physically beaten down for hours.

One time we were having an argument about how I didn't want her moving back into her exes house when he was gone. I told her that her argument was trash. That was distorted into me calling her a trash human being. After an hour of defending myself and trying to clear things up I said 'fine, is that what you want? I'm already in trouble for something I didn't do, you're trash, a dumpster, happy now?' which she told her friends and family. So again, not context, no story about what the argument was about, how it developed, and that my comment was said in sarcasm and frustration.

And sure, I'm ok with people reaching out for advice or to vent. But it has to be a true story with both sides shared. I would always tell my friends what I said or did and if I was wrong I understood that. I was able to apologize and try to be better.

Everyone has 'toxic' behaviors at times. I think that's a strong word to use, but none of us are perfect. It just matters how awful our behavior is and if it can be corrected and forgiven.

I have seen posters mention this a lot. It must be common with BPD. It was common with my BPD mother. I'm sure this terrified my father. It certainly did as her children.

We aren't trying to villify your ex. I don't know if we can know all the motivations behind someone doing this. I think we can say that someone who brings up suicide is not emotionally healthy.

I think the lesson in this is to recognize it. Disordered people are everywhere- we will meet them at some point. If you begin a relationship with someone who does this in the future, this will hopefully alert you that this is not an emotionally healthy person to become involved with. You can choose who to become romantically involved with.

We don't choose our mothers but even in this situation- there was no talking or fixing this kind of thinking for her. She had access to mental health, it was up to her to work with the professionals. We are just lay people. So are you. And even if we were professionals, treating family is not appropriate.

If we are concerned, the best we can do is to call emergency, which I did at one point to get her to professsionals, but it didn't change her thinking.

Your ex has a mental illness. Mentally ill people have disordered thinking. Yet, he's still responsible for his behavior.

It's hard to explain this in logical terms. It's for you to learn from when looking at a future relationship.

Being toxic is not a one-time action...especially when being verbally attacked with suicidal threats and insults. 

He was mentally abusing you for extended periods of time, you said yourself that this happened daily.  And you did what all humans do, on one occasion of these endless attacks, you said what you actually felt in the moment.  Meanwhile, your ex said everything he felt in every moment and unfairly blamed you for it.  Hopefully you can see a clear difference between the two things.

Should you have said it?  No.  But should you have been placed in that situation to begin with.  No, no, no, and no!

You're trying to take responsibility, and that's great.  That's how people learn and grow.  But I also feel like you're so close to this and it's still so fresh, that you're not seeing the big picture clearly.

You made one mistake.  He made hundreds of mistakes weekly while completely betraying your trust.  In no world does that make you the "bad guy" or him the "good guy".

And don't get me wrong, he's not trying to be the bad guy.  He's simply mentally ill and terrible at coping with his own reality.

What I'm saying here is that you must let this go.  I know that feels impossible right now, but the problem here all along has been mental illness.  You couldn't fix it, you couldn't change it, and you literally had zero control over avoiding the moment in time you finally reached.  The only way to avoid what happened would have been leaving the relationship earlier.

Because let's be honest- pretend you didn't say what you said.  Then what?  You still know the thing he did to betray you, he's still going on and on about suicide, and that tension would only continue to build and build each day until something broke. 

In other words, that path wasn't sustainable- you were already well past the point of no return due to his actions.  So don't blame yourself for being human, anyone would have responded that way eventually under those circumstances.

I don't think you did.  If he was throwing around threats of suicide that often, and behaving as you described, it's understandable you'd get frustrated and throw the threats back in his face.  sure, telling someone to kill themselves sounds awful, but given the history here, it's not the same as if you had told a non-disordered person that.  When you're dealing with a pwBPD, normal rules of human communication go out the window. 

Did he know about your friend who committed suicide?  The thought occurred to me that he might have been using your history to take advantage of you, thinking you'd cave on everything he demanded out of the fear that another person close to you could kill themselves.  But regardless, you have to understand: pwBPD use all sorts of manipulative tactics to get their way; you can't focus on what they're saying, just their behavior generally.  If you he hadn't successfully used threats of suicide to get what he wanted from you, he would've moved on and either tried something else.  He doesn't want to kill himself; he wants other things... he wants his way, he wants to be taken care of & not work, he wants attention, he wants sympathy.  He doesn't want to be accountable for his behavior or his own life.  Threats of suicide are just a means he uses to get his way.


pwBPD establish patterns with people who tolerate and enable them, and they return to that well as often as those people allow them to. 

Thank you everyone for being there, thank you.


PeteWitsend, yes he did and he knew this made it harder for me to hear his continuous suicidal ideation, yet he persisted.

I need to process for a bit, but I read over this thread and I think I am ready to say: yes, the relationship was abusive. uBPDx was manipulative and controlling during the relationship to an extent that was emotionally abusive.

This is not a statement of judgement. It does not make uBPDx a bad person, which is a category I don't even believe in, really. It is simply, as NotWendy has put it, describing what happened.

Need to sit with that and its implications for a while.

I put these two statements together to contrast his behavior and your reaction a bit. 

So this person knowingly used a highly traumatic event in your life to manipulate you. 

Whether he's a "bad" person or not, this is dreadful behavior, and sociopathic to put another human being through.  This isn't something you can pass off as "well, he was just going through a hard time in his life." 

You're very tolerant, and had the personal fortitude to overcome his behavior, but can you imagine the hell he would put someone weaker than you through?  You were able to get out, but what if someone else can't?

I'm not saying that you need to consider him a bad person, because I also don't really agree with labelling people good or bad, but we still can judge their behavior and hold them accountable in some way.

It sounds like you're recognizing what he put you through & learning from it, which is good.  Maybe someday you get a chance to weigh in on his character to help someone else see it; maybe another friend dates him, or someone reaches out for advice about it, but maybe you never get that chance.  But at least as more people learn how to handle pwBPD, or these Cluster B behavioral disorders, they'll have less opportunities to use other people and cause chaos for all of us. 

We all process this in our own way.  I think as an adult having an interaction with someone like this for the first time, you need to rearrange your worldview to accommodate the possibility that someone could be like that (BPD).  It's really insidious.

I just bumped into uBPDx, and it's shaken me, a lot.

I asked him why he cheated and lied to me, and he denied doing that, which makes no sense, because he did. Even if in his mind it wasn't 'cheating' because he had ended the relationship (which he hadn't), he lied about who he had slept with - this has been confirmed - like, that's just a factual lie. 

He also hid the relationship from me while i worked closely with his new partner for some weeks, during which it was highly relevant for me to know, and others were strongly encouraging him to tell me about it, because they saw it as unethical and compromising that I hadn't been told, because it was.

I just don't understand - what was the lying and hiding for, if not to conceal the cheating and manipulation? Was he just lying for the love of the game?

He also denied asking/ demanding that I move out, which is weird, because i can see messages on my phone confirming that this happened. Like, there are the words, 'I would like you to move out' from him, and a later message where i say to him 'you asked/ demanded that i move out' and he accepts this? so how is reality now being rewritten so that he didn't ask/ demand that I move out?

He also accused me of coercing and controlling him, and isolating him from his family and friends. which is weird, because i have never met his family. they're not in this country. i don't know what he is talking about, or how I could even have done that, practically speaking. He had phone calls with them occasionally and I encouraged him to do that. I covered his rent for 7 months and suggested that if he wanted to see his family, he could spend the money on going to visit them, which he chose not to.

Anyway, I asked him to leave the cafe 'out of decency'. He said, you don't control me and you can't tell me where to be, and I repeated, 'I am asking you to leave out of decency.' Eventually he did, but he also said he was going to tell others that I was controlling him, so, there's that.

I feel sick.

I am really wracking my brains to see how I could have isolated him from his friends. There was one time i said about a particular person, 'i ________ing hate M', but by that point they hadn't seen each other in months anyway and I never actually stopped him from seeing M, i just mouthed out about him? When we went on our last holiday together, uBPDx spent a day apart from me so he could go stay with his friends and go to a party and I encouraged him to do this? I supported him to go on a different holiday where he met up with other friends without me? There were lots of times he went out with friends without me and I always encouraged this. Oh, maybe it's that I didn't hang out together with his friends. But also... whenever he invited me... I did...?

I LITERALLY DO NOT KNOW HOW I CAN POSSIBLY HAVE ISOLATED HIM FROM HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS!

As much as we wish for closure, trying to make rational sense or have a discussion with a disordered person can leave you feeling worse than before you tried. These are called "circular arguments" - they don't lead to anything and you only feel worse after one of them.

That's the point to take from this. If you find yourself in this situation again- you can see more clearly that this is not an emotionally stable or rational person.

I think we all have an idea in our own minds about how a relationship should be, according to how we'd act in one. We tend to fit the person into that idea and possibly a lot of the time, it matches. When it doesn't- there's dissonance and we want to make sense of it but we can't.

You wouldn't lie or deny something to your partner, so why does he do that? Because his thinking is disordered. That's the most anyone can know.

Sometimes we don't know the result of something unless we've experienced it. Now that you have, what do you know? For one- if you run into him, trying to go back and get an explanation doesn't work. You feel awful afterwards. So now you know the results of this, and won't do it again if you run into him.

Sometimes we don't get closure with someone else. If this happens, we can give closure to ourselves. It's hard to accept that we can't understand why someone does what they do but this may be the case here.

If what you want in a long term relationship is someone with whom you can communicate and work out differences- he is't that person- but you can apply that value to others that you meet.

Thank you as ever, NotWendy.

It's just crazymaking because I know I am a person with a lot of faults and a strong personality. I know this. So when someone accuses me of something serious like abuse or control, I really want to dig into whether it is true or not, and not lie to myself or hide my misdeeds. So I am really reluctant to just dismiss it when someone says 'actually, you did this terrible thing'. This is a quality which often serves me well, but right now, it's looping me into a spiral of disordered thinking.

For people who know me, it's quite obvious that in many situations, the opinion I have about what should happen is very clear. And maybe that might be experienced as compulsion for some people. For example, there was a situation when uBPDx was going to borrow money from his sister that I believed had been acquired through unethical means, and I said that I thought this was unethical, but it was his choice whether to take it (in the end, he did not). Maybe this was experienced as control and isolation?

The correct answer to all of this is, 'who cares?' I am not perfect, but even if I have done something bad, uBPDx is simply not a reliable narrator. His thinking is distorted and impossible and cannot be used to deduce the reality of what has happened. My focus should be on stabilising myself so I am not caught in these swirls of delusion, as NotWendy says.

He actually made a direct threat, saying, 'if you tell me to leave, i'm going to tell everyone that you've been controlling me'. !!!!

This may be about your own boundaries. Boundaries are about knowing what is us, what isn't us. I think for some of us who are empathetic, we do consider what others say about us, but some people are disordered.

Borderline is named for being on the border of what was known as neurosis and psychosis. Someone who is fully psychotic is more obvious, but for pwBPD- feelings can feel like facts. So if they feel something - they may in the moment believe it's true, even if it's not true.

I know someone who sadly aquired schitzophrenia. If she says something like a person is shooting radio waves at her, I know that isn't true, and her saying it doesn't make it true. But when someone with BPD makes a false accusation or statement, it could be just as false, but not sound as obvious. What can help here is a stronger boundary- what is true about you, and what isn't.

If your ex called you a pink elephant, would you be ruminating over it, wondering if perhaps you did something or didn't do and you might be one? No, you are certain you aren't an elephant. You wouldn't be wondering.

Now, substitute "pink elephant" for the accusation of keeping him from his friends. You know that neither of these statements are true. You don't need to give them any more thought or defend them.

In my own experience, when I realized my BPD mother could say things that weren't true, I was shocked. In my own mind mothers don't do this. Why she did, I don't know but if she thought something, it seemed real to her.

If I could step out of my emotions, I could see where I could do or say something and she'd experience it in a completely different way. One example was when she was getting some construction work done in her basement. I had just had some work done in my house and had cleaned up the construction dust from it. I casually mentioned that she might want to cover a bookshelf in the basement as it would be a lot to clean up.  I didn't mean literally- she is a short person- she'd have to ask the workmen to do it but that wasn't how it came out or how she heard it.

What she heard was that I ordered her to climb up a bookshelf, which was not feasable or safe for her. I would not ever have even thought that. This resulted in her getting upset with me, and accusing me of telling her to do that.

You probably never even thought about keeping your partner from his friends but if he thought it, he believed it, even if you did nothing of the sorts. This is disordered thinking. We can't control that. What you need to keep a hold of is your own reality. It's not true and him saying it isn't true.

Sometimes we just can't ever know what someone else is thinking but we can decide for ourselves if it's true or not.

Thank you, NotWendy.

Like you, I grew up with an unstable mother who, among other things, semi-regularly threatened to murder-suicide me and accused me of causing her death (this was when I was a small child, and my mother is still alive).

Over the years, I have learned to not treat statements she makes as reality, and in fact I've been NC for several years, after she falsely claimed my father was suicidal.

It breaks my heart to see another person who I thought I loved become detached from reality like this, but it is what has happened.

I am not a pink elephant and the things uBPDx are saying are not true. 

A really funny thing my mother used to do was accuse me of putting her in a nursing home and it was like, 'i'm five years old, and you're not in a nursing home.'

There is a connection between our family of origin dynamics and who we form a romantic relationship with. It's an emotional, subconscious thing. You might want to look into this through counseling. Your doing this may help you identify this dynamic so you can avoid it in the future.

As children, we want our mothers to love us. We are also magical thinkers, and also believe what our mothers tell us. You know now that what she said about being put in a nursing home was absurd, but you probably could not process that as a child.

This may be why you tended to take your ex's accusations to heart and to try harder in that relationship, rather than to recognize that this was disordered thinking, on an emotional level. There's a familiarity to that for you. You will be more aware now.

If we had a Fault Scale to measure the proportional amount of "fault", and if you honestly consider the fault you shoulder, you'd have to conclude - if you can weigh the facts - the disordered person would have the lion's share.  Yet, contrary to the reality, we've been indoctrinated the opposite due to the years and relentless intensity of "It's All Your Fault!" (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=89660)

The Bridge (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=65164.0;all)
The Backyard Black Hole (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=65164.msg13138572#msg13138572)
There's a Hole in My Sidewalk (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=65164.msg13229364#msg13229364)

if you can recognize how absurd her behavior was, you should be able to do the same with your Ex.  His claims - e.g. denying he asked you to move out when you have the texts of him doing just that - are essentially as ridiculous as your mom's were. 

I think Notwendy is right in seeking counseling for these issues.  I think counseling can be helpful to identify these "blind spots" in our thinking.  If you know they're there, you won't get so tripped up, or triggered when you encounter them, so to speak. 

Like running into your ex-... the guy sounds like a real piece of work, and you shouldn't be surprised he'd openly lie to you.  Knowing that, you can mentally put some guard rails around the things he says and does. 

It also sounds to me like you might have an unhealthy attraction to him still and that's clouding your judgment. 

PeteWisend, where are you picking that up? I don't think I experience any desire for a resumption of the relationship or physical intimacy.

I do, though, experience an ongoing sense of care and identification. I am sad to see him, well, unwell to the point of being crazy, and my initial response is still, against all evidence, 'is this true' rather than ignoring his allegations.

Counselling for specific things like codependency is pretty expensive, but theres a free online option i plan to attend next week.

hotchip,

A pwBPD's intense emotions and distortion of reality can cause a  normal friend or family member to doubt reality. It's happened to all of us. It takes a lot of strength and fortitude to step back from it and distance ourselves.  Having your mother threaten you as a child is scary. I think trying to appease your mother is a very normal reaction to try make her stop and control the situation to stay safe.

 I've overcompensated by people pleasing and putting someone else's wants first to stop problems and restore peace. My late mother was dBPD and raged at me for being a less than ideal child. I tried to be better but it was never good enough. I'd be in tears and frustrated not knowing what to do to be better to avoid her rage. I thought I was a very nice and pleasant child.

I suffer from codependency as a result of my childhood. There is a free 12 step program called Codependents Anonymous which has online and in person meetings. I've been to meetings and found them helpful.

While you're healing, you may want to avoid places where you'd run into your ex. If you do, keep conversations short and polite avoiding anything personal. You might want to avoid this friend group where your ex is smearing you to. It's too much pressure to wonder if they believe you or him. They may not be healthy if they don't see your ex as disordered.

I don't mean to say you want him back, but you seem to still be carrying a flame for him in some way.  I'm inferring that because of the amount of attention you seem to have given him as a result of the interaction you had. 

And this next part:


If I understand you correctly, considering him "unwell" is a choice you're making. I don't know that I'd use that word to describe someone who's BPD.  It's a personality disorder.  This is who they are.  It's not like getting over the flu, and there's nothing you can do about that.  You can't help him see that he's wrong, and/or why it's not okay to lie to others like he does. 

I think that's why a lot of people leave these relationships still hung up on their feelings; it seems so wrong that people behave like this, and if we could just show them the error of their ways, then they could recognize and appreciate us, and become who we want them to be.  Or at least reaffirm our faith in humanity, that liars and frauds can't just move among us indefinitely without facing some accountability.  But they're not sick; their thinking may be disordered, and this may be due in some part to genetics and in some part possibly to childhood trauma, but they are adults who've learned to use their behavior to get what they want and manipulate others.  It's not as innocent as you seem to want to believe.

The Frog and the Scorpion parable is applicable here. 

Maybe you're just understandably frustrated he could continue to blatantly lie to you, but if you can see these things with your mom, and not with him, that made me think you're still holding out so hope you can "change him." 

You mentioned he left his original country.  In my case, BPDxw did too, for reasons that are pretty obvious in hindsight: she was escaping a country where everyone knew "her type," and could reinvent herself, and find new people who were - if not completely gullible - unacquainted with people like her she could take advantage of. 

I think it's telling you offered him an opportunity to visit his home country and he declined.  And again, his feelings as expressed to you are not genuine.  He was supposedly homesick, but really this was just something he could use to evoke some sympathy for him.  He wants to kill himself but never does.  He's a lonely immigrant, but won't go home.  You, hoping against all evidence he will admit he was at fault in the way the relationship ended, but this is "controlling him."

PeteWitsend, I consider pwBPD mentally ill or unwell. I don't like the segregation of personality disorders into another category, distinct from other extreme mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. I think BPD and schizophrenia are both persistent and do not go away.

It's interesting to note that my late dBPD mother was an immigrant, as was the rest of my family. I've got plenty of disordered relatives. There are other reasons for coming to a western, stable country other than finding new people who don't know your past relationships.

There's poverty and hunger. There are also countries with toxic governments and psychological torture. My family is not from East Germany but the goverment from their country did the same. Their secret police and the secret police from my parents homeland collaborated.

From Wikipedia: Zersetzung (pronounced [t͡sɛɐ̯ˈzɛt͡sʊŋ] ⓘ, German for "decomposition" and "disruption") is a psychological warfare technique first used by the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) to repress political opponents in East Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. Zersetzung served to combat alleged and actual dissidents through covert means, using secret methods of abusive control and psychological manipulation to prevent anti-government activities. Among the defining features of it was the widespread use of counterespionage methods as a means of repression.[3] People were commonly targeted on a pre-emptive and preventive basis, to limit or stop activities of political dissent and cultural incorrectness that they may have gone on to perform, and not on the basis of crimes they had actually committed. Zersetzung methods were designed to break down, undermine, and paralyze people behind "a facade of social normality"[4] in a form of "silent repression".[4]

I questioned my late dBPD mother harshly and my uBPD ex-husband too hoping to get a different answer too. It's human to do this.

Thank you for your insights TellHill and PeteWitsend, there is lots of truth in what both of you have shared which is helping me.


Thank you for sharing this. Re: wanting people to change - TellHill, like you, I spent years asking, bargaining, harshly questioning and begging my mother to change or acknowledge what she'd done. It's hard to disengage and I'm glad you eventually succeeded.


Pete, re: being an immigrant - I am also an immigrant and live far from my family. As TellHill says, there's lots of reasons why people do this that aren't to do with being disordered. I've spent a long time away from my country of origin, not because I don't want to be there, but because tickets are expensive and there are decisions and sacrifices to be made.

That said, in this case, uBPDx chose to come to this country in a chaotic state, and in the aftermath of the dissolution of his previous relationship, as a result of his having an affair with a mutual friend of his then-partner. He also mentioned that despite having been continuously in relationships since his teenage years, he was not in touch with any of his previous partners - none had wanted to continue having a connection with him after the fact.

So PeteWitsend, your intuition was right - like your ex, he was running away from the results of his own actions.

The big question: are they unwell or manipulative? And in this (and many) cases, I think it's both. From what I've read, BPD ppl often make manipulative suicide threats, as was the case with uBPDx. But they also do commit suicide at very high rates. I think that's part of why this experience, and this disorder more broadly, is so crazy-making. It's an unstable mix of truth and untruth.

I'm trying to remind myself that we can never fully know someone else's mental state. We can only see their actions and how they affect us. Maybe the scorpion really is in a lot of psychological distress and doesn't want to sting the frog. But, we know from experience and observation that this is what it's going to do, so if we don't want to get stung, we have to remove ourselves from the situation.


TellHill, thank you for this good advice. I am going to do this. That said, I did speak to one person who said I shouldn't worry about anyone believing his untruths, as they can see he is unstable and his claims are not credible.

The question is, why do I still care? What is the 'hook'?

As you have picked up, I still do feel care, concern and identification with uBPDx. I want him to have integrity, not be manipulative and not be a liar. I want these things though reason tells me they are not going to occur.

Part of that reflects an attachment, not to the relationship itself (which I certainly don't want to resume!) but the story it represents, about myself as 'special' and genuinely loved, and as having the power to pursue a shared life based in integrity with another person. This sounds good, but as I've mentioned elsewhere, it is to an extent a narcissistic narrative. No one is so special they have the power to create integrity for another person.

Perhaps accepting uBPDx is a liar is easier than accepting that my concept of the life I was living, the relationship I had and even who I was or was capable of - is also, to a significant extent, a lie.

I have another idea about your feeling of attachment to him. It was romantic but also unconsciously felt familiar and obligatory- due to your experience with your mother.

There are cultural attitudes about mothers and how children should behave towards them. For me, the idea that my mother was abusive was something I felt had to be wrong to think and not dare to say, and a sense that if only I was "good enough" she would behave like other mothers- kind and loving.

The sense of "feeling special" was an aspect of that. We were considered "good" if we somehow enabled, a cooperated with her- and tried to make her happy, as if we had the ability to change her- make her happy. I can imagine that this behavior was reinforced and encouraged in our families.

We don't recognize some behaviors we grow up with as "wrong". They are our "normal". We would recognize abuse if it were obvious- like physical abuse but verbal and emotional abuse may have been normalized in our families.

There's also boundaries and a sense of self that got blurred in families with a disordered person. So perhaps if you say that your ex was abusive in ways- you may feel a sense of this being wrong about you. If you were to think he was not a good person, would that feel wrong to you, or as if you were doing something wrong by saying it (whether he is or isn't) due to your connection to him.

Maybe you also see the good in him the way you did with your mother. Few people are all good or all bad at all times. I don't even think the term "bad person" is that helpful. People might have hurtful behavior for all kinds of reasons, some we may not even know why. It's about recognizing the behaviors as hurtful and making a decision about a relationship with that person. If it's a close relative, that might mean limiting/managing contact and the situations one is in contact with them. If it's a potential romantic partner- one can say "no" to that.

BPD (or any Cluster B/Personality Disorder) seems fundamentally different to me than from a mental illness such as schizophrenia, or depression.  In the former cases, there's a calculating aspect to the problematic behavior.  In the latter cases, there's not. 

To put it a different way, a pwBPD may dysregulate, or in extreme cases can disassociate completely, and may have absurd or irrational reactions to events when compared to how a non-disordered person would perceive them.   A pwBPD can make a mountain out of a molehill, and spin the most innocent off-hand remark into a bloodfeud that never ends.  But they still pick and choose who they're going to fight with.  You can see they are absolutely calculating, abusive, and cruel in how they react to those events, and how they treat their close relations.  Schizophrenics do not have that calculating aspect to themselves; they are truly disassociated from the world around them, and their behavior is unpredictable, and not always self-serving.  Those who are clinically depressed are a victim of their brain chemistry and cannot function because of it.  Very unlike BPD in my mind.

To say a pwBPD is "unwell" in the same way gives an unwarranted pass to their calculating behavior.  Maybe in a sense they are unwell, but to allow them that excuse serves their problematic behavior further, and enables them to keep doing it, or do it to an even worse degree.  And also prevents those victimized by them from standing up for themselves and enforcing healthy boundaries to distance themselves from it and keep their own sanity.  Or in the case of children, from developing mature attitudes on how to treat people that don't treat you how you should be treated.


Oh, to be clear, I was not lumping all immigrants together.  I just think that when you see certain types of behavior, the immigration status could be another red flag.  A sign they feel they need to run from something.  like they're always looking for new, innocent "victims," and trying to distance themselves from their past relationships.  I imagine a guy like hotchip's ex, who's apparently a serial cheater, and takes advantage of women by preying on their better nature can't stay in a small community too long before he gets a reputation among the same women as a user...  or killed by some jealous husband or boyfriend who catches him... old school stuff like that!   

In BPDxw's case, it also fits her M.O., and since she's been here in the States the avoidant behavior continues: moving homes or jobs frequently; burned bridges with former coworkers, neighbors, and friends.  She can't move countries again without losing custody of our daughter (and the child support payments she needs to maintain her standard of living), so she hasn't done that.  Still, once she moves, joins all the local message boards on Facebook, joins PTA, volunteers for everything.  Gets to tell her sob story about how hard she worked to get to America and make it here.  Gets to bask in the attention, and feels great when everyone comments on what a go-getter she is.  Then she never shows up, never does her assigned tasks, things fall apart, things don't get done, and she's there making excuses for why.  Blames other people for it.  Insults people in the process.  Picks fights on facebook.  Gets blacklisted.  Runs to find someone to commiserate with.  Triangulates with a "savior" to help her badmouth all the people she just burned.  Moves on... new house.  New job.  New career.  Repeat ad inifinitum.

I'm currently living in the Philippines (because my wife is here) and the average household income is $8/day.  The average cost of living is $10-12/day...and now closer to $13.50/day with surging gas prices.  Literally any person in this country, no matter how wealthy or poor, would immigrate to America tomorrow if given the chance. 

When they do get a chance to work overseas, they are FANTASTIC workers because they've never had any opportunity before and they'll do anything to keep that blessing.  A McDonalds paycheck feeds 10-20 people back home for the entire month.  That's why you see all foreigners in fast food, hair salons, stocking shelves, etc.  They are extremely thankful for those jobs and do not take it for granted.

Hmm. PeteWitsend, right now I don't see it that way. For me, seeing uBPDx as unwell is actually helping me to protect myself. I might hate him, I might feel sad about the Dr Jekyll version of him, but ultimately, there is no point bargaining with a disorder. If he's sick, that's very sad for him, but putting distance between myself and the sickness is the right thing to do.

To use an imperfect analogy, you wouldn't get on a cruise ship knowing there was a deadly viral outbreak on board (unless you were a doctor, had appropriate protective gear, etc). Whether the people who have contracted the illness are to blame or totally faultless, is beside the point. You won't help and you'll make things worse for yourself.


Pook, my country of origin is in the same region as the Philippines. It is a different environment where there is much less expectation that external or professional services will intervene to help someone in personal or mental health crisis. Partly because the resources are simply not there for most people, and partly because people's conception of self is much more interdependent and less individualistic than the West.

Apart from the manipulative dynamics, I think this may also have made it harder for me to just detach from uBPDx's many problems and toxic actions. A sense of obligation that made less sense in a modern, Western context where he actually could seek other services and wasn't going to end up on the street if I asked him to leave (and in the end, he showed no such qualms about telling me to leave, so).



NotWendy, you've got it again.

I still feel angry with uBPDx, obviously, but I also feel embarrassed for him. I want him to be 'good', act well, hold his head up, face and fix the things he's done. As if this will prove that I, too, am 'good'. After the boundaries between us were blurred for so long in the relationship, with his repeated assertions that everything he did (whether bad or good) was because 'you made me that way' - I have internalised the idea I am responsible for, well, everything. It's a fantasy of redemption and control.

The migration process and isolation which ensued tended to exacerbate pre-existing mental illness tendencies in my mother. I think uBPDx was certainly unwell and behaved badly in his country of origin, but I suspect it became worse after he emigrated. Maybe something about these dynamics triggered a deep familiarity in me.

For a long time, I had a strong sense of loyalty to my mother. No, she wasn't 'bad'. She was just too special for others to understand. Or the good in her was so very good that it made up for everything else.

I completely understand.  My wife and I had several arguments when we first got together in person because she's such a strong, independent woman who's moved mountains for herself and her son.  The family bonds in the Philippines are so much stronger than the USA as well; family is everything here because you can't survive without them.  So there was a lot of figuring out the cultural differences for both of us and it was an adjustment for sure.

For you, having to do that on top of mental illness problems sounds like such an impossible task.  I'm so sorry you went through all of that.

Well, now, I agree that distancing yourself from him is the right thing to do, but is he "unwell"?  He's openly lying to your face, and has a history of lying compulsively to get his way, to avoid responsibility, and to manipulate others.  He knows what he's doing; he even ran away from one place when he wore out his welcome there.  Honestly he sounds more akin to NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) than BPD, although comorbidity of those is more likely in men, as I understand it. 

I know someone who is mentally ill; he likely has full blown paranoid schizophrenia, and this developed later in life (in his 40's).  I saw he had some professional issues, and looked him up, and was floored when I found a twitter feed where he was apparently hospitalized on a psych hold, and claiming someone was burning his hair out and skin with chemicals, and his family was barred from seeing him.  He had a couple arrests for stalking his ex-wife. 

He was clearly unwell.  He could perhaps be put on anti-psychotic drugs to curb the behavior and get him functional again.  The stalking charges were forgivable in the context; he likely didn't fully grasp what he was doing, as his mind was incapable of perceiving reality like you or I would. 

Now compare this with your ex... what's going to make him stop lying to people compulsively like that?  How would you ever know whether it was true or not? 

Looking for the good in people is widely considered a positive personal trait.  We celebrate it in others.  "I'm a glass half full person."  But when you're dealing with a pwBPD, it's toxic; it draws you right into a web of deceit and keeps you there, as they are adept at getting you to chase their "good side" by showing you their "bad side"; they draw you in deeper and deeper by holding that wonderful love and affection they showed you at first out as a "carrot" ... if you can only do or say the right thing, they'll be better and you'll live happily ever after, right?  But reality isn't like that, and you chase and chase and chase that dream, until you wise up. 


Absolutely.  Like I said, distancing yourself from people with behavioral disorders is the right thing to do, and I'm not saying otherwise.  It might be the only thing you can do, in order to avoid getting dragged down into the mud with them. 

Though a doctor can diagnose and cure most cruise ship illnesses... psychiatrists and psychologists have a much worse track record with BPD and other behavioral disorders.  They're not the same thing. 

PeteWitsend, as I have read, BPD was so named because it exists on the borderline between psychosis and neurosis, with psychosis being completely factually distorted perceptions of reality (eg., seeing or hearing things that are not there) and neurosis being intense emotional states causing distress (but not fully losing touch with reality).

It is clear uBPDx is not in full psychosis. He is able to lie and to withhold information to obtain a desired result, i.e., hiding his cheating. He is also highly intelligent and articulate in certain professional settings. At times, he has appeared to feel extreme shame for his actions, which means he is aware of them. In that sense, he is responsible.

Yet I think there is also a distortion of reality that is not quite the same as pure calculated lying. For one thing, the lies aren't very strategic - lies to do with cheating, money and other things that are externally verifiable, or bound to be found out over time. They are reactive, desperate and somewhat stupid.

In the legal system and various philosophical systems there is a spectrum of intentionality, from things you did when you were of sound mind and had considered clearly and in advance, to things you did voluntarily but on the spur of the moment, to things you did involuntarily or under compulsion. That's why there's a difference between murder and manslaughter (and lots of other classifications to do with pre-meditation).

From what I can tell, uBPDx 'acts out' when he is in an emotional state that seems overwhelming or unbearable to him at the time. Whether it's cheating because he wants validation, misappropriating money because he has no self control (yeah, that's something that's come out) - his acts are despicable but I think not planned in advance with the absolute maximum level of intentionality. Otherwise surely he'd plan it better and say things that are less ridiculous. (When not dysregulated, he is a highly intelligent person).

Then, instead of facing the consequences of his actions, he panics and lies to make the bad impact go away, even though he must know it will blow back on him later.

Maybe a better comparison than schizophrenia is something like alcoholism. uBPDx's addiction is to validation because there is a gaping hole inside himself. Like many alcoholics, he 'drinks' (lies, cheats, manipulates) because in the moment, he cannot stop. When you talk about him lying 'compulsively' I think you're seeing the same dynamic. Then he tries to cover it up, and it gets worse.

The vile behaviours I'm describing in this post here come largely from the end of the relationship, but the emotional manipulations from earlier in the relationship I think also fit the same pattern.

So, he's distressed (and I still believe much of his suicidal ideation reflected genuine distress). He needs an emotional 'fix' from me, therefore, he manipulates me with suicidal words and threats (neurosis) so that I give him the emotional reaction he wants. It's voluntary in the sense that he exists in reality and knows what he is doing - he's not talking to poles or trees in the street. It's involuntary in that, like an addict, he really feels like he cannot live without the emotional fix that I provide.

This seems like both sickness and intention to me, but if you see this as full intention and don't like the word 'unwell', that's also valid.

To put it another way, leaning on the murder/ manslaughter analogy: the intentionality that I perceive uBPDx having, is much more on the 'manslaughter' side of things than 'murder'. But regardless, I need to stay away if I don't want to end up dead.

(I don't mean to treat the analogy in a flippant way - I think it does illustrate something - but apologies if it comes across like that).

I think that's a comparable analogy in that the outcome can be harmful whether motive. The consequence is considered with the safety of society in mind- is this person a danger to others along with a deterrent to the behavior. The judge and the penal system has this power.

Where this differs is that BPD behaviors aren't necessarily technically crimes. Some are- such as physical abuse, but lying, cheating on a partner-there's no legal recourse, or power. The consderation becomes our own selves, our own emotional, physical, and financial safety.

Of interest- I was concerned for my BPD mother in her elder years. She had difficulty with making reasonable decisions. Family members were also concerned and wanted me to seek legal advice for this and from her health care providers. Even with her behaviors, she was considered legally competent in the medical and legal sense, so I could not intervene at all, even if I thought it would have been in her best interest.

In addition, we have the choice when it comes to a romantic relationship- even without there being anything wrong with the other person. Someone could be a great person- just not a good fit for you. Given the choice, you don't have to choose between motives for behavior, you can choose to not get involved with someone who you see has these behaviors.

I was curious what the legal standard for an insanity defense is, and it's pretty established (going back to 19th Century English case that's been accepted and cited favorably by U.S. courts for almost as long as that) that either the person is not able to understand what they're doing, or if they do, that they don't understand that what they're doing is wrong. 

That might loop in some of the behavior of a pwBPD.  I think a pwBPD would understand that cheating is wrong.  A lot of their other behavior, though they might not see an issue with it when confronted by their partner, family member, or spouse, they would not want their behavior to be public knowledge, so they must know it's wrong in that regard.  In court, a pwBPD would fail the standard and be convicted. 

They often do display a double standard, i.e. they might yell at, scream, and insult their partners, but of course, the second you start to respond in kind they are the victim and it's not fair... so again, they know.  They just have no shame when it comes to their close relations, and no concern for other people, and so they feel they have a license to behave this way. 

In my own case, there was often a clear pre-meditated factor when BPDxw would pick fights, insofar as I would look at it in hindsight and see she came up with a pre-text to get angry about that she knew was wrong, or was inconsistent with how she behaved in other contexts. 

As I understand it, there's a pretty high burden to this.  And I suppose I can understand why, if the court is going to take away someone's legal rights and give them to someone else, but yeah, it's unfortunate when it allows them to keep making bad decisions so far into the end stages of life. 

In the USA, driving over the speed limit is wrong.  Most of us have broken that law hundreds or thousands of times.  And when we get down to it, we all present what feels like valid excuses at the time. 

- I am late for work and I can't be late.
- My kid is sick and I have to get home.
- My wife is in labor and we're rushing to the hospital.
- I thought the speed limit was 55 in this area!?!
- I'm rushing to a dentist appointment they just worked me in for.
- I was getting away from that car that was swerving everywhere.
- I was just trying to get out of this bad neighborhood quickly.

Police have discretion and for several of those, you might be let go without a ticket.  Other cops might impose the maximum penalties regardless, just because they're jerks with no hearts.  Despite the "excuse", they are all technically wrong and against the law regardless.

Here's where the BPD thing makes this a complicated discussion.  Is cheating wrong?  Yes.  Do they know it's wrong?  Yes, on some levels.  But the part of their brain that says "don't do that" is muted by the part that's screaming, "I deserve this because my life stinks and all these things keep happening and it's not my fault and I deserve a break and people don't love me and this feels wonderful in the moment and I think that if my partner loved me they'd understand because they didn't make me a sandwich for lunch yesterday and that proves they hate me so this is really justice for what I deserve for putting up with the constant abuse in my life."

Is it still wrong?  Yup.  But their minds convince them that it's mostly right because they have a solid, air-tight reason that absolutely nobody could deny.  They'll never share that reason, of course, because it would make them sound crazy.  But they know what's right and that's all that matters.

I agree here.  What makes BPD so BPD is "delusional" logic, the recasting of fact patterns to fit a narrative of victimhood, to justify ill treatment of others.  But in my humble opinion, I think that deep down, pwBPD know full well that they are acting badly.  That's why the feel such deep SHAME, which is a huge feature of BPD.  They know better, but their inability to control their emotions and impulses gets in their way.  They lack emotional control, and they're acting badly, and they know it!  However, because apologizing and making things right involves taking responsibility, well, that's impossible to do, because it would contradict the victim narrative.  What do they do?  They might enter into a pit of despair ("I'm horrible/hopeless/unloveable").  But more often than not, they pretend like they did nothing wrong, or they shift the blame onto someone else, in the hopes that you give them a pass, as well as keep the victim narrative intact.  Most "normal" people wouldn't give them a pass--only the people closest to them will, when they are operating in a FOG of fear, obligation or guilt, or they're committed to making the relationship work.

Just my two cents.

I've shared this here before.  One time, my BPD daughter was particularly dysregulated and she began saying pretty often, "You never listen to me and if I could just explain how I feel, you'd understand."

About the 4th time she said that, I replied, "Sure, explain it to me.  I'll listen."  She refused though and said that she wanted to think about it.  And maybe a week later, she showed up on a Saturday when I was off work and said that she wanted to talk.  We went to a quiet part of my house and I told her to go for it.

For the next 45 minutes, she spoke non-stop and it was like the paragraph I wrote above about the sandwich.  Just one random thing after another, and ever 5-10 words we were on a completely different topic.  Something that happened when she was 8, then what happened at work yesterday, then when I wouldn't buy her a car after she wrecked her 2nd one, then someone that bullied her in high school.  It went on and on and on, and my brain was literally screaming inside.

I didn't stop her though and let her ramble.  Truthfully, I'm glad I did because I felt like for the first time, I actually understood what it's like to have BPD.  Her mind couldn't focus and it bounced from one thing to another, then to another thing, then back to a few words she said 15 minutes earlier.  It was maddening and I could feel myself going insane from the onslaught of words...until it dawned on me that my kid felt this way the entire time she's disordered. 

Every moment of every day when she wasn't thinking clearly, this is what's rattling around inside her head.  It was chaos, and I don't think I've ever felt more heartbroken in my entire life.  I can say with 100% honesty that I'd rather have her cuss me out and tell me how horrible I am than to go through that again, all that frantic emotion at once...she was crying her eyes out and getting more and more upset as she talked.  Yet she couldn't stop, she had to get all of it out, so I just sat there and tried to listen and make sense of what I was hearing.

At 45 minutes, I cut her off with a lame excuse...I think I said that I had to go to the bathroom or get a drink.  Like I said though, I was literally going insane just getting a true glimpse of how her mind worked.  My cutting her off actually served a purpose though because she finally said, "That's what I've been trying to tell you for over ten years now."  And I thought, you didn't tell me anything...none of what she said made sense...but at least it was cathartic for her.

I shared all of that to say this.  If that's BPD and how a BPD typical mind operates when it's disordered, they're simply fighting to survive and last out the moment.  There's literally no right or wrong in any of that, and no sort of justice within it.  It's literally self-torture and I would have done absolutely anything to get out of that room after 45 minutes.

I can understand why they scream or why they cheat.  It's an escape from their own hell, and it allows happy feelings to take over for a little bit.  It is truly the most heartbreaking thing I've ever experienced in my life because my mind was trying to think like her mind to understand it all.  It just wasn't possible though.

I don't see this the same way.  I don't think they're unable to focus, and I don't think the incoherent rants and misremembered history is a sign their mind is sick.  I think it's simply another avoidance technique, and reminds me of a debate strategy called the "Gish Gallop" which was basically throwing out so many "arguments" to support one's position that the opponent couldn't refute them all, at which point one could claim to have "won" and move on.  Each argument didn't have to be logical or even true, there just had to be enough of them to overwhelm the opponent and dominate the conversation.   

If you're in a discussion, and you know you're in the wrong, it's better to try to go from a discussion to a "debate" where you can "win" and then claim you're in the right and the other person is therefore "wrong" and short circuit the whole thing.  Just another way to avoid responsibility.  I feel like all of us endured that sort of situation, where you naively tried to get the pwBPD to stop doing something, or apologize, only to be met with a flurry of angry denials, counter-accusations, excuses, complete fabrications, etc.  And then instead of focusing on what you were upset with, you're trying to defend yourself, and the pwBPD has derailed the conversation to avoid any accountability for their actions and shifted the blame to you, and something you supposedly did or didn't do that caused them to behave the way they did. 

What your daughter did reminds me of what BPDxw did during our last marital counseling session.  I arrived with some pretty clear goals of what I felt needed to happen (or stop happening) if we were going to stay together:
1) No more fighting in front of our daughter; if she wanted to fight, at least wait until we were alone; and
2) No more baseless accusations that I was having affairs, being unfaithful, or whatever weasel words she'd try to use, ESPECIALLY not in front of our daughter.

Clear as day, right? 

Her response to was to go on an absolute rant for 15+ minutes about everything I ever did wrong in 5 years of marriage & 1 year of engagement/dating... 4 years ago my mom said this, and I did that, last week I did this, a year ago I didn't help her find a job, 2 years ago I complained about her spending, 4 months ago I rolled my eyes when she wanted to talk about something, I drink too much, I have a friend who cheated on his wife, my family thinks they're perfect, but my brother is unemployed, my aunt is not very nice, my parents are divorced, etc. etc.

The therapist started taking notes, but after a couple minutes just put her pen down and listened.  Then when BPDxw finally stopped talking, said "Okay, he's given you some pretty clear things to work on, what can he do in return?" 

She said "he needs to love me enough." 

The MC said "Well, how does he do that?  That's not something someone can work on."

As the MC continued to try to get her to commit to something, and made it clear BPDxw's deflections and hand waving didn't work on her, BPDxw started screaming at her and then stormed out of the room and told me to "just divorce [her] already" (I did a few months later!). 

I think had you tried to pin your daughter down in the same way and force her to take some accountability for her behavior, she'd storm out of the conversation like that as well.  So it's not that their minds can't focus: the rants, the pointless circular arguments, the finger pointing, deflection, etc. is all a game they knowingly play to avoid having to accept any accountability for their behavior.  Because if they do that, then they need to change their behavior, and they'd sooner die.

In my daughter's case, what she was saying/doing was hurting her far more than it was hurting me.  The more she rambled, the more distraught she became and there was actually very little about me in all her talking.  It was just a jumbled mess.

In your situation, I can understand how someone thinking in a disordered way would try blame-shifting to avoid talking about the larger issue.  You and I both know the real problem- it was disordered thinking and not being able to control responses. 

I had a similar incident with my BPD ex wife.  After we were separated for 3-4 months, she asked me to meet her at Olive Garden after church to talk.  I thought, okay...progress.  Maybe something is starting to change.  But once we were there, we talked a bit and when I told her that I still thought about her daily, she began to scream at me in the restaurant at the top of her lung.  People were startled and stared, my wife was embarrassed.  But anytime I said anything about us, she'd lose it all over again and the whole restaurant would freeze in shock.  I'm surprised that we weren't kicked out, to be honest.

My ex wasn't doing that for dramatic effect, she literally couldn't help herself when she heard me say something that her disordered mind didn't agree with.

Later that day, my wife told me in the car that she had feelings for another man and wanted to pursue that relationship.  It was just a few short sentences amidst hours of disordered dialogue, and I realize now that it's the only reason she met with me that day.  That's why she didn't storm off after screaming in the restaurant, and why she asked me to take her shopping afterwards.  It was all for that singular goal, but it took her almost three hours to get there.  The "calculated" part was two sentences; the disordered part was three hours of nonsense that prevented her from saying those two sentences.

For your situation with the therapist, I can't say how much was calculated and how much was just emotion flowing.  Maybe we can't know for sure.  But when I look back at the worst moments with my BPD ex and my BPD kid, their pain was real in the moment and they weren't benefiting from it.  Other people also saw what only the closest typically see...the true nature of BPD and how ugly it makes them in those moments.  I don't think that's intentional either, to let others realize how messed up they are.

That's just my opinion though from closely observing two people who displayed BPD in completely different ways.  My wife was the quiet type while my daughter was traditional explosive anger all the time. 

I look at this behavior through victim perspective and projection. I think in the moment, they feel as if someone or someone else is causing their distress, and they then feel justified in their defense or relaliation. So they have a sense of right or wrong but in the moment, they feel attacked.

I think most people who do have a sense of right/wrong would not deliberately do hurftul things but if they felt attacked- they may "fight back" in that context. The difference with a pwBPD is the situation and how it affects the other person. With my BPD mother, the smallest slight might trigger her and so her response would be out of proportion, and excessively punitive.

She was very exact in her requests. If you went to the store to get a can of soup and it was the wrong brand by mistake- she'd feel you did it on purpose to upset you and she'd rage at you. Sometimes one didn't know what it was that she was angry at.

Whatever her motive was, being raged at for something minor - that was experienced as abusive, whether or not she intended it to be, but in her disordered thinking she felt in the moment that we were abusing her.

CC43, your comments on shame are on the money. With uBPDx, the day after he cheated, he spent the entire day walking and walking without eating (and then came home and tried to deny what he had done, by retrospectively claiming we were not in a relationship). When I first told him that this wasn’t true and that his actions fit the definition of cheating, he nodded and said ‘sorry’ and seemed so ashamed he could not even lift his head.

Then, just over 2 weeks later and seemingly apropos of nothing, the lashing out began - accusations, word salad, demanding that I move out, etc.

It’s not really possible to logically reconcile uBPDx’s seemingly genuine deep regret for destroying his previous relationship through cheating, and his actions in our own relationship. But in emotional terms, it makes sense. uBPDx was able to emotionally paper over his previous misdeeds by telling a story to himself and others (me) that it was a special circumstance, his former partner’s fault for being ‘horrible’ and so on. I think when that story becoming unsustainable, the shame became unbearable and anything, to the point of treating me appallingly and telling desperate, stupid lies, became justified to him.

About two weeks after the cheating, and a few days before uBPDx started painting me black, we were talking about another situation. Someone being dishonest and seemed to live in two realities at once, both believing and disbelieving their own claims, even contradicting their own accusations at the same time as they were making them. I told uBPDx that I found this extremely destabilising. uBPDx looked at me with what seemed like great compassion and said, “Is it because of me?”

At the time, I didn’t understand. I didn’t know yet that he’d been lying to me, but he obviously did and it was preying on his mind. Which wouldn’t be the case if he was entirely incapable or not cognisant of his own actions.

There was another thing I might have mentioned before – uBPDx accused me of making him feel ‘guilty for existing’. I pointed out that a year ago, he had described another friend as making him feel ‘guilty for being alive’. He looked at me with hate and said, “Are you trying to make me feel guilty for wanting to kill myself”. Which is obviously nonsensical – pointing out that his mental health spirals were following a cycle, is not the same as trying to make him feel guilty for wanting to kill himself. These are two different things.

In this case, the reality – that he was mentally ill, that there was a problem in his own head, not just the outside world – that no-one else could save him from it – was completely intolerable to uBPDx. Blaming and projecting onto me was easier.

So to summarise, I believe uBPDx, and maybe many BPD people, know exactly what they are doing cognitively, but are unable to handle the truth emotionally because they don’t have the distress tolerance or other skills. The shame or awareness they have done wrong, or that they have responsibilities to fulfil that they don’t want to, feels like an assault to them. Lashing back feels like self-defence against the assault. Thus the projections, blame shifting, distortions of reality, etc.

But then, because they aren’t actually (for the most part) psychotic, they do know they are harming others tremendously. That their actions are bad and look bad to other people. Cue more intense shame. Which feeds into more desperate attempts to relieve shame. Which leads to more lashing out. And the cycle continues…


NotWendy, my mother was just the same! There was an incident in my childhood just like this but with fish, not soup.

It seems to me that as disordered as their thinking gets - and I agree they're not entirely all there when they perceive things in a way that makes them the victim somehow, and therefore justifies their rage about them - they're still overall aware of the fact that they're treating you this way and it's wrong, or unfair, or an aberration.  And the distinction I'd make is that they would not treat a stranger the same way (especially a stranger they wanted something from). 

That's why I'd make the distinction between the behavior of a schizophrenic and a BPD; I think we can excuse the former: they truly have no ability to control what they say and do.  a pwBPD does.  It's why I noticed when talking to other people she'd adopt this really fake tone and repeat platitudes she'd hear, as though like "oh, all us girls can understand how it is to have to deal with their husband and his annoying family"... but her behavior toward me and my family was absolutely uncalled for.  I would sometimes be surprised when I'd find old letters or cards they sent to her and see how unhinged her claims were that "everyone always hated her" as justifying her ongoing hostility toward them (and me when I'd defend them).

Whenever she got called out for this stuff, she'd react the same way, lies, anger, rage, etc. Or if she couldn't bully the other person, like the MC we saw for example - complete avoidance. 

She knew what she was doing; it might have been irrational, thinking she could completely control and dominate another person or persons like that, but she was still trying it.  I wouldn't say "she was unwell" because of this.  To me that excuses her behavior. 

So to take it back to the original question in the thread, I think that's the use of calling it abuse. 

That defines it as intentional: it has a purpose, and that purpose is to terrorize another person or persons.  It can be physical abuse, emotional abuse, or verbal abuse, but it's all the same in the end, and has the same end goal of wearing the person down enough that over time they submit to the abuser's demands and put their needs first.  From the standpoint of the abuser, it's even more ideal if they can submit without needing to be told; they instinctively begin to understand what's expected of them. 

the label of BPD - whether diagnosed or not - may be misleading to focus on, since the traits of BPD, can be hapless or neutral.  If you read the diagnostic criteria of it on this site (link: https://bpdfamily.com/content/borderline-personality-disorder (https://bpdfamily.com/content/borderline-personality-disorder)) there's nothing there about abusing others (the word itself only appears in the context of substance abuse by the pwBPD).  A person can have irrational and/or extreme emotional reactions to events, mood swings, etc. but whether they are also be manipulative and cruel is another issue.  Whether this is a result of comorbidity with another personality disorder like NPD or ASPD, or just normal human ego and id out-of-control because of BPD, I don't know.  But I think when you're in the unenviable position of having to live with someone like this, to focus on whether they're unwell, or what's wrong with them is ultimately just an academic question, when your first priority should be responding to their behavior, addressing it, not letting it overwhelm you (and your other family and kids if you have them). 

I wish there was still an edit button.  I meant in my case, my exW did these things.