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I suffered a lot for this reason. He used to have LOADS of female friends, and ALL of his exes ( I guess I will be an exception to this) were his friend, at least on FB but his ex also visited "the cat" every couple of months.
I had a terrible Christmas  lunch with him, his parents... .and his female best friend.
They used to call him a lot.
Masbe I am old fashioned but I suffered a lot. I could definitely feel the emetional cheating. Physical cheating... .i do not know, as he was super weird in the bedroom ( I had to endure a couple of EMDR therapy session in order to overcome the undoubtful trauma I suffered for this reason.) and in the last couple of months of our relationship he did not touch me AT ALL, not even a hug or a kiss. We had also a strange meeting with an old prostitute who he seemed to like a lot, he hugged her profusely and she was enlisted as a "friend" too.

Is it normal for a BPD to have a lot of female "friends"? Is it friendship? Was I justified in having all my emotional alarms ON?
On top of that, two of these "friends" live very near to me. I meet them a lot. And they look at me as if I am a disgusting monster for causing this sad, lonely, sweetest guy to suffer.

Please help me to process all this hurtful stuff.

I was in a long-term relationship with a BPD woman who explained not long after we met that she ":)oesn't get along with other women, because they cause too much drama."

I should have taken that as a warning sign.

I had no problem with her having close male friends, but she seemed to want only male friends.

Much like you situation, we would often run into exes, or she would end up inviting an ex to a party, a movie, concert etc.

Toward the end, she began bringing up detailed accounts of previous sexual encounters.

And yes, she refused to touch me at all during the last moth or two. Wouldn't even sit too close to me.

So strange.

I'm much better now and in a great relationship, but wanted to post and let you know that you're not alone in what you've experienced!

When  we were still  together, my BPDexbf  went overseas for a holiday.  There he invited an old female "friend"  who lived in the same country , but in another city   to come and see him. He sent her an air ticket and also booked a hotel room for her. Later when he was showing me pictures I saw that they were both in the same room. His reply" OH it was too expensive to book two separate rooms so I booked one room for both of us!" When I got furious he said," You have to stop thinking the way you do. She is just a friend!"

UnforgivenII-

I'm sorry you're in this horrible and painful situation. I know all too well about the situation you are in. My exBPDgf had all male friends, most of them exes or future exes... .she was unable to maintain close friendships with women (probably because she only used them to get at their male friends).

When I first met my ex she was in a large group of friends (she's a millenial) that was 90% guys... .it only included a couple of other girls that were more acquaintances than friends(she would never just go out with these women on her own) to my ex... .she gravitated more to the men naturally. She had slept with or "made out" with most of the guys in the group (upwards of probably 6 or 7 guys),
which she only had a long term relationship (like a month) with one of the guys (who she discarded and then slept with his best friend which she found amusing).

My ex was very flirty and seductive especially when she went out clubbing and alcohol was always part of the mix... .impulsive reckless sex was her biggest vice as there were endless guys that wanted her and had her on numerous occasions. Her only form of birth control was the morning after pill... .hence I got checked immediately for STDs when she discarded me.

And my ex remained friends with most of her exes/conquests... .which I think she recycled many sexually... .now she is on to a new group of people and has already found my replacement... .but I'm sure she will sleep with all of the guys in this new group too, and will alienate the girlfriend who introduced her to this new group (my replacement is this girlfriend's best friend).

As I found out in my situation, she mostly had men as friends who she groomed to be lovers or they were past lovers. In our time together, she did not have a single close girlfriend. She is to be a maid of honor in a girlfriend's wedding this spring but she hasn't been in contact with her for 5 months... .

Imagine her surprise when I refused to be just a friend to her after she discarded and replaced me... .

She will continue to do what she has always done forever and ever... .

I am scared to death to see him with one of them. I am not strong enough. I could collapse.

It would be difficult to see me ex with my replacement also, so I totally understand your emotions. Definitely NC is the only way to go in order to protect ourselves... .the cheating initially made me want to vomit as I was overcome with emotion... .

Focus on your needs and be compassionate with yourself... .it takes time to work through all of this... .keep working through your sadness... .we are here to help!

"I was in a long-term relationship with a BPD woman who explained not long after we met that she ":)oesn't get along with other women, because they cause too much drama."

I should have taken that as a warning sign.

I had no problem with her having close male friends, but she seemed to want only male friends.

Much like you situation, we would often run into exes, or she would end up inviting an ex to a party, a movie, concert etc."


Mine said this verbatim. Also said she never thought she could live on her own.  She would constantly try and make me jealous saying "oh that guy asked me out"... .etc... .yati yati... .Understanding it is a mental illness really helped me out... .

Hi Unforgiven11

Yes, it's not unusual for them to have a circle of friends of the opposite sex, ex girlfriends and other available females who will give them ego feed but who don't create a fear of engulfment.

My ex needs these women, not too close but available for coffee, chat, cinema etc. He flirts with them - this feeds their egos so it's mutual exchange. The flirting is also used to create jealousy with who ever his current partner is. The women are usually vulnerable types who enjoy the attention.

They have been called "orbiters" and "groupies" on these boards.

It's a mental illness. BPDs can't cope with intimacy, or with abandonment so the friends, especially if there is a sexual frisson, meet their needs.

My uBPDexgf tried to pull this most my friends are guys sh!t at the end of our relationship even though she literally had no guy friends... .she had like 3 good girl friends. Even those seemed to be in and out of her life. I would've never put up with her having guys friends at the beginning of our relationship, she knew better and being a chameleon like she was the first 1.5 years she did everything according to what I wanted... even though I didn't really want to control her... she was just a chunk of clay that I sculpted... and like I said bot because I wanted it that way... I just took it as her being young and without direction. I loved her alot and never abused this aspect of her, even though ex boyfriends before me had... I loved her like she was part of me... because I felt she was.

Exactly. Only female friends.
Tahnk you for your support.

Same words. I was the crazy jealous obsessive one.

Thank you, it was really clear. It hurts like hell. But thank you for the explanation.

I loved him and I love him still. It hurts.

Thank you all so much. You are all so kind. You are so precious.

     He had many female friends. The confusing thing in the beginning of the relationship is that he would mention them to me referring to them as "my friend ___" and i would think of them as someone he chatted with after church or ran into in the park occasionally while walking.  But "friend" could be labeled by him as a woman he once knew in high school who commented on his fb posts to the woman he was dating and sleeping with.  Very loose interpretation of "friend". 
     Once in a while, I would ask him if he was still friends with a person and he would say oh yes and I would just assume he was sleeping with them.  I know that sounds paranoid, but that's the level of trust I had towards the end.

The same here. I was labeled as the paranoid obsessive jealous partner.

I deflected her jealousy induction repeatedly. I think it drove her crazy can't she couldn't manipulate me in that way. I told her that being with someone was a choice and that if she wanted to leave just leave. She didn't believe me and left and then tried to recycle me. The shock of me not allowing that is still being played out in her stalking. Such arrogance. We are not toys to be played with. You're worth higher standards than that.

My ex had many, many male "friends." And I am sure she had sex with all of them now... .she would wax poetic about the 2 exes who refused to have sex with her because they were saving themselves for marriage... .that those were the two she should have pursued and stayed with... .of course, she does not count them as her "friends" since they "rejected" her by not having.

I agree that she used the term "friends" loosely... .friends could be anyone from a years long relationship, to a few months, to a one-night stand... .but definitely all guys she had sex with.

I'm sure she's struggling with my refusal to be counted among her "friends."But she has a tremendous capability for getting new friends. Ugh!

So I definitely see that as a red flag now... .for a woman to have only guy friends is highly unusual. Normal women have best girlfriends whom they confide in... .not guys that they share the intimate details of their lives with, especially not ex-lovers.

non-BPD people have good friends from both sexes... .plus have friendships with couples. My ex never had friendly relationships with couples, now that I think of it... .I'm guessing the wives or girlfriends saw my ex as a threat as she could not stop herself from flirting with every guy, attached or otherwise.

One of her favorite sayings was, "Even if there is a goalie in the net, you can still score!" Crazy, crazy, crazy!

Mine too had mostly male friends and befriended males...

She said that she "didn't like making friends with females because they were too catty and dramatic... "

Guess who the dramatic and catty one turned out to be?

Guess who had sneaky and questionable behavior around her male friends?

Guess who was accused of being controlling, obsessive and crazy?


My replacement is a female... Yeah... .


NOTHING that they do makes any sense... Stop trying to figure them out.

Mine didn't have any friends. He had workmates but as he hasn't worked for over a year he hasn't seen them since the company closed although most live near bye. Oh and he has loads of Facebook "friends" ! but he doesn't see them either and anyway I don't think that counts.
I have a couple of good friends, an older couple who I think the world of. I don't think he liked them very much though he denied it.  After the first couple of times if I asked him to come with us for dinner he would say "no, they are your friends".
He didn't like me spending time with them though, if out for a couple of hours with them he would text constantly or pick an argument before or after. It's not as if I have loads of close friends, my past and my lifestyle saw to that and I don't and have rarely gone out drinking or partying, not for many years anyway. My family is small and scattered but he didn't like it if I visited them much either and in nearly 3 years they never met him although they knew about him of course.
So Male or Female never came into the equation really. He liked me to be with him almost 24/7 and needed to know exactly where I was and what time I would be back even if I went shopping. So bloody sad.

@Complicated,

My ex did not have any Female friends. It was weird that when I first met her she always hanged out with this one female friend of hers and after a while she disappeared.  Until this day I wonder what issues they had. In the 3 years I dated her I never saw her once.
My ex used to tell me that she only gests along with guys and not girls.  I knew that was a bit odd but ignored it. I know I know that the more Male friends she has the more chances for her to bed them.

I have learnt to never trust a girl that has more Male friends than female.

My ex did not have any Female friends. It was weird that when I first met her she always hanged out with this one female friend of hers and after a while she disappeared.  Until this day I wonder what issues they had. In the 3 years I dated her I never saw her once.
My ex used to tell me that she only gests along with guys and not girls.  I knew that was a bit odd but ignored it. I know I know that the more Male friends she has the more chances for her to bed them.

I have learnt to never trust a girl that has more Male friends than female.

Same. Mine moved from another city and roomed with boys because of the same issue.  It makes sense, probably has to do with there hyper-sensitivity.  They will friend women that are laid back in my experience.

probably best to examine the relationships and their nature than count them. there have certainly been times in my life that i had more female friends than male, and vice versa.

having said that, i would consider it a red flag if someone tells you they rule out an entire sex. not an indicator of BPD, but certainly a red flag.

Mine also had mostly male friends who I would consider orbiters. Some were from work, others from the gym she went to, while others she would meet who knows where.

Here is the thing I don't get some of these guys knew each other. Knew that she'd been with some of their mutual friends, but still slept with her.  Aren't these guys taking advantage of her disorder using her for an easy lay?

id chalk it up to all involved (her included) as having poor boundaries.

Rayban-

My ex also would sleep with all of the guys within her group... .I chalked that up to lack of impulse control of BPD, plus I don't think that's unusual behavior with millenials... .I don't know if all the guys knew that they all slept with her, but I'm sure they probably all compared notes and knew she was "easy." Many continued to send her pics of their private parts while we were together. She also said she "made out" with a lot of the guys within the group... .I interpreted that as including everything except intercourse... .perhaps another millenial could define that better for me as i am a baby boomer and making out means necking or kissing.

She also loved to play Cards Against Humanity with these guys too. There was always a ton of drinking with these guys which I'm sure led to bad decisions on her part as well.

Wow this thread has triggered me. My ex has all male friends, and they are all former sexual partners. She would assure me that these men respect her relationship she has with me and that she is only interested in me romantically and sexually. I believe her with regards to the latter however, one of her male friends would constantly send her inappropriate sexual messages, and even asked her out on a date after her and I had a big fight. Not really respectful. More like waiting in the wings for things to go south to make a move. She even admitted to me that he was still in love with her, but still wanted to be friends with him. This boggled my mind. That to me is not friendship. He obviously wanted more and was manipulative. Each time she would get a text from him or say she was going to go out with him, I would get triggered and we would fight. She could not understand my position on this one guy friend (the rest I was fine with, met some of them and became friends with them) but then it turned into her accusing me of not letting her have any male friends and that I was controlling her and keeping her prisoner. What? Not in respect to having an issue with ONE male friend of hers. Now I see my co-dependency behaviors in other ways were probably may have been causing her to feel this way, but this was out of bounds for me, regarding this one male "friend"

Sadly I cannot be friends with her. I will always likely want more than friendship and that is not being trustworthy or being a friend. I bring nothing to the table for just a friendship with her.   

All of her friends were friends with benefits unfortunately... .

My ex had hardly any friends. Apart from me, whom he called his best friend (we'd been close for a few years before we became a couple), there were two guys he'd known since he was eleven or twelve and whom he would meet up with every couple of weeks to watch films. That was it. The rest of his life seemed to consist of short-lived, stormy romantic relationships that almost always ended with him severing all contact with the ex. He did sometimes reach out to exes, but he was very secretive about it - when I was with him I noticed that they would re-appear and disappear from his Facebook friends, and he never said a word to me about his interactions with them. I tried to reassure myself that it wasn't my business, but now I think it was very much my business - he used to lash out viciously if he felt I hadn't given him a detailed enough description of my lunch break, he saw cheating everywhere, and he was constantly telling me that his suspicions were my fault because I was "uncommunicative." Now I think this was him attributing his own thoughts and behaviour to me.

He would move quickly from relationship to relationship, and when it went sour, he would change his friendship group too - when he broke up with my replacement, she noticed he had about twenty new Facebook friends within a week, all strangers to her. When he broke up with me the first time he started going out to lots of bars and parties and trying to organise parties himself, so I recognised what he was doing there.

"Friends" of the opposite sex are typically previous attachments that the PWBPD tries desperately not to loose. They will make up a reality where they are the poor victim who was hurt so much by ex's and triangulate to get their needs met. It is up to us to stop being an "orbiter" who is an OPTION for them when others aren't available to sooth their fear of abandonment. |iiii

Ex preferred the company of females. He had guy friends and was a part of guy groups with church and stuff. There were a few female friendships that he had that bothered the snot out of me. It wasn't the number of friends as much as how he interacted with them. I know that he preferred female bosses and female coworkers. He is in a female dominated field.

The one "friend" he had that bothered the snot out of me was his ex fiance. Whenever we would go to his home town and we would run into her, she would hug him and talk to him like they were best friends. It is funny that ex's dad hated it. His dad thought it was rude and disrespectful of her and him to carry on like that. Ex's mom didn't seem to care or notice. She had to be nice as did ex. Ex's dad would slink away and would get irritated with both of them for not respecting the fact that ex was married to me. When ex finally got the nerve to unfriend her on FB, she sent ME a message telling me that he was in trouble for something or other. Needless to say, I lit into her and I am sure that I sounded crazy. There were several other women that he was "friends" with that made my skin crawl. There was something about the way he talked about them and interacted with them. I am sorry but you don't sit there and gush over another woman to your current partner. I don't want to hear how great and amazing and beautiful and talented and blah, blah, blah this other woman is. And don't get upset when I ask if you have a crush on her or something. Why else would a guy do the whole starry eyed gushing over another woman like that?

When I was a kid, my friends were predominantly male because I liked cars and bugs and stuff like that. As an adult, I don't choose my friends based on their genitalia. Since my ex is bisexual, the gender thing is kind of irrelevant. It was more about how he talked about the other person, how he interacted with them, and how he treated me when in that person's presence. If he was with somebody and ignored me or automatically assumed that I was jealous or untrusting, that sent up a huge red flag for me. Of course, he would promptly dismiss my concerns and say that I was being ridiculous, jealous, insecure, or whatever.

My ex tried the jealousy thing ALL the time, with almost anyone who was there, it didn't seem to matter. At one point I remember saying to her after she had been ignored me at a party and gone chatting to some guy who apparently had been messaging her... .I said, "I'm not going to fight for you, if you want to be with him, then leave me." This caused a huge row, and not that soon after I got the  discard. Later she tried the recycle, which I refused, and again, like you, that's when the stalking started. It lasted a year. Like you say, such arrogance.

Looking back, when she felt in control of the relationship, she was a bully, and alternatively when she realised that she'd gone too far and ruined things, she'd try the pity play, and if that failed then she'd try and prevent me from moving on by stalking me.

As for normal friends, well not many of either sex tbh, I think she used her family (mother, daughters, grand children) for her social world, and I think really they were "supply" as in narcissistic supply more than anything else.