BPDFamily.com

Hi all- I'm brand new here- seeking support, advice. For two months I "dated" a mostly wonderful man, but I could never inderstand his extreme clingyness, need to always be touching me, and his desire to insert himeslf in to every aspect of my life. All my explanations to him of feeling suffocated, needing a more "normal" relationship, and time to do my life and business- and "please,keep your hands to yourself for 5 minutes!" seemed to zoom right past him. I could see he would sometimes try, but he simply was unable to stop himself. And the shifts would happen so quickly. Within minutes.   Massive amounts of texting- freaking out if I didn't respond... .he would come to my gallery 4-5 times a day- over and over again, no matter what I said.
It became scary, and creepy, and I felt like I had an obsessive stalker- but a very loving, kind of innocent one at least. So confusing! Will the real Mr. CameraMan please stand up!

I really enjoyed him when times were normal- so wonderful!  But the overwhelmimg "always there" behavior, and inappropriatness was not improving. I wondered if he had some mental instability.  Then, one night at dinner, he blurted out " I have personality disorder". 

I read and researched all night long- the next day, after I recieved 15 texts in an hour, and I was now aware that he can't help it, and he probably will never change, and that his illness, and wounding are deep, I wrote and sent him a tender and compassionate email- but broke up with him, and stipulated "no contact". 

I blocked him from texting and calling on my cell, and had his emails sent to spam, so I wouldn't have to see them. I was pretty sure that he would not be able to comply with "no contact". 

Here in the problem lies. A month has passed, he sends me emails of his art work as he produces a new piece- I've been looking at them. His studio is right down the road from mine, so we can always see if the other is around-
I have remained 100% true to the "no contact"- or have I? If I am looking at his emails?  But the bottom line here is: I miss him fiercely.

We are not kids- he is 68, I am 59.  I have learned more and more about personality disorders, but never even gave him a chance to have a conversation about it. I just blazed a hot trail away from him- which must have hurt terribly.

The dust has settled, I feel back in control of my life, work, saftey; my flow.  However, it is taking such restraint for me not to give him an opening. I don't know if it's best to keep steering clear, or to initiate a conversation with him. I feel like if I give him an inch, he will take a mile. Arrrgggghhhh!

I fell in love with him!

Welcome 

Being in a relationship with a pwBPD can be very difficult and challenging. If you choose to pursue this relationship again, it will require you to set strong boundaries and an understanding that things may never get better. BPD relationships start very intensely. It feels like you have met "the one". You are both on cloud 9 and they make you feel so special, like you are the only thing that matters to them. And you are the only thing that matters.

Overtime though they begin to see that you have flaws and that is hard for them to handle. You will go through phases of being painted black and nothing you do can make them see you as a good person. Soon they may leave temporarily, or may cheat, or just begin to ignore you in their life. After another brief period they come back to everything being wonderful and beautiful again. The cycle goes over and over. It's a roller coaster.

If you choose to continue you this relationship, you'll find lots of support in learning how to communicate better with your pwBPD. Most importantly though you'll need to learn to care for yourself because you will need to be strong in who you are.

Here is a link to one of our articles on How a Borderline Relationship Evolves:

https://bpdfamily.com/content/how-borderline-relationship-evolves

Thank you Tattered Heart for your very honest and direct reply. I went to the link you provided and read the article.

After writing my post (from last night),  it got my wheels turning, and instead of entertaining my memories of joy, longing, and desire, I began to reflect on the scarier, strange, dysfunctional reasons I walked away a month ago.

It is a hard reality check- and sad. I am aware that what I fell for in this man is only a portion of him, and that even though it probably was not intentional or even conscious, he worked me, and as much as I wanted to resist, I "leaned in".

If I am truly honest with myself, I know there some small, but brewing elements of compassion, concern, empathy in my feelings about him, that go beyond a healthy "normal" level, and enter into the dreaded "helper", or codependent mode.  He even asked me if I would help him with his behavior, I declined. This was before I knew about his BPD.

Intellectually, my best path is clear: let it rest, maintain no contact, this is not a healthy or happy relationship for me to engage in, and absolutly nothing I do or say will change anything about him, as he is unable to make changes, even when he has those moments of seeing how destructive to the relationship his behavior is. The roller coaster was on from the very get go with him- it was so puzzling.  For 2 months I tried to roll with it, not knowing about his BPD.  When he told me about it, and I did some research, it explained everything.

What is hard is the tugging on my heart strings- the memories of (what seemed) incredible, deep, intimacy. I want more of that, but it needs to be real, and sustainable. Knowing there is this beautiful man- so (seemingly) willing and able to love, who is famished for receiving love and attention, but who is trapped on a destructive hamster wheel of limits, and pain.  There is much of the whole picture:  the good is not what it seems, but the hurt, confusion, anger, anguish are exactly what they seem to be; they are the reality.

Thank you Tattered Heart for listening, and for your support. And thank you to the bpdfamily for being such an icredible resource. ❤❤❤

Today I will focus on everything good and happy in my life, and try to switch gears when the longing and missing come up.