BPDFamily.com

Hi everyone,

so 6 months ago I fell madly in love with a guy. I'm 30, he's 38. I had always been a commitmentphobe and never saw a real futur with any of my previous partners but with this guy things are very different: he is the first guy I've met who is as sensitive as I am (we're both HSP/highly sensitive people), same professional interests though not the same field, same unusual goals in life and aspirations for the future, insane sexual compatibility... .We also complete each other as we have different strengths and weaknesses. We both felt from the beginning we had finally found THE ONE which I had given up on. But as you can guess there is a twist!

I didn't know about BPD before dating him but now 6 months into the relationship there are enough signs that I am about certain he has it. He is not suicidal and has no history of cheating, however he has bouts of anger that are sometimes triggered by things that I didn't even realise could offense him. They're not frequent but are sudden, unexpected and extremely painful to me as I'm so sensitive and hate conflict and verbal violence and feel attacked for no reason. also black&white thinking about people in his life; over the last 6 months he's had a few bouts of deep anxiety that make him unable to sleep, which has made him resort to binge drinking a few times, including one time because we had our first big fight and I turned off my phone for the night.

We both broke up with our previous long time partners a month or two before we started dating, so pretty difficult times in both our lives. His breakup was a huge mess. They should have broken up years ago but he's terrified of being alone. He's also lost his job recently and is going through a sort of mid life crisis - which is what I thought initially triggered his episodes of anxiety because he's a generally sensitive guy. We rarely fight and most of the time things feel amazing and he is the most loving, caring partner, which has made it very confusing to me until now.

Last week and we had an argument about moving in together as I changed my mind and told him I needed a bit more time living on my own, which he initially took well enough to my surprise, but on the next day he was an emotional wreck. We aren't in the same city at the moment so it happened over the phone. I think he tried to take it well and rationally but felt extremely hurt as he was really looking forward to us living together and I'm the only stable thing in his life at the moment. My big problem is that I am conflict avoidant and tend to repress my doubts which had been growing, so I was all for it for a while and we had even found a place, and it felt like I had changed my mind almost overnight which would have been hurtful to anyone, but it's taken him 3 days of complete despair, which had me also completely down in the dumps as I tend to absorb other's emotions, and an initial angry argument, to get kind of over it.

The argument was quite nasty and I was really hurt, which has made me doubt everything. I want to build a life with this man and while at the moment as soon as the argument is over, things become so amazing again I wonder if it was not just a bad dream, how could this be the same person, I'm thinking about getting worn out after years of it.

Truth be told I hesitated as to which forum to post this in as I'm thinking 6 months into a relationship it's still time to run away, but on the other hand I know I'll never find anyone with whom I share so much emotionally, sexually, professionally, ideologically... .It just feels so right on all the other levels.

Basically I'm wondering if this is doomed or if I can do something - if HE can do something. What gives me hope is that he is old and experienced enough that he realises he has a problem. He realises something in him makes him suffer, and people around him. He's told me he sometimes wonders if he is not simply insane. He knows I suffer from it and I think it makes him even more desperate because he is scared it will drive me away eventually, and I am scared of this too. He has mentionned his relationship with his parents, and his adolescence, as being a very painful thing he would like to sort out. I would like to tell him about BPD, or BPD traits even if it's not proper BPD, but don't know how. I actually mentionned BPD in passing kind of jokingly a couple of months ago as I was checking the wikipedia page with the list, and while he seemed to agree he matched a bunch of things, he's quite wary of diagnoses in general as he thinks everybody is weird in their own way and pharmaceutical companies just want to shove pills down our throats. I didn't think twice about it back then but since our argument this week end it seems clearer and clearer to me.

I think he would be open to therapy if he realises it's necessary for our relationship to work in the long run. He's clearly at a point in his life where he wants to change, he wants to become more serene, we've talked about it before. But he's at a loss about how to go about it. He says he's gonna take up sports again because it makes him feel more peaceful afterwards, and he's opening up to meditation and such which he was initially very skeptical about. But I think therapy is probably necessary in the long run. I have found a few therapists in my city who claim to be educated about BPD (I don't live in the US so there are no specialists).

He also says I need to learn to be direct with him and to speak my mind instead of avoiding conflict, because it makes things worse in the end like it did for the living together thing where I did a 180 on him. But I'm kind of scared of what will happen if I do. I guess it's a good way to be certain he has BPD, if all hell breaks loose when I tell him his ex isn't a crazy evil person and that he's got his fare share of blame for their break up for example. I don't know.

Anyway I thought advice from people who know the disorder would be most helpful at the moment. I want to try everything I can to make this work, and I think he wants to too. And if it's impossible and too dangerous for me in the long run, then I want to leave with no regrets, having tried my hardest now, and not in 10 years time with a kid.

Welcome an-cat-dubh!

I'm glad you've found us.  At least a couple of things you mentioned are good -- you've started looking into BPD early in the relationship, and your pwBPD has shown some signs of openness to getting help.

You might want to read a couple of threads.  bananas2 pointed out a couple of common themes in the Success Stories on this board:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=313277.0
The topic of whether to raise the topic of BPD with someone you think has it comes up frequently on this board.  Here's one thread that has a story of a decent outcome:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=312831.0
But another thread with multiple input was considerably more cautious.  I'm sorry, I've looked and can't find it.  [Can anyone else link to recent threads on this?].  Basically, shame is a big issue for pwBPD, and a label can be very uncomfortable.  I would avoid any further mention of BPD with your partner until you've done quite a bit more pre-work, reading, and consulting on this board.

Take a look at the "Lessons" thread at the top of this board, as well as at the resources on the right.  "Walking on Eggshells" is the typical first book recommendation, though there are a couple of other good ones.  Finally, I'd encourage you to invest some time on a regular basis in this board, and use it as a learning resource.  I started using it infrequently during a couple of times of crisis, and it was only after I started coming back regularly that I started to understand what a powerful tool is is for support and learning.