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Dated girl with almost every symptom of BPD i've read over the course of three months.

Ill make this short as i can.

 essentially after 21 months together i found out she was living a double life for almost an entire year. Found her with her fiance when i brought her lunch at work. She saw me, ran inside, got mad at me for coming to work and blasted me for it, then snuck out another door into his car. I approached them and said I had been with her for two years while she screamed "drive" over and over until they left the parking lot.

 An hour later the police call me, because her boss, which turns out was her fiances mother, has contacted them. she's told them she didn't know where i lived, my birthday and that ive been stalking her for almost an entire year. Didn't hear from her for days after this, then when she did reach out she swore up and down on her son that she never cheated, none of this was real, she never talked to the police and it was my fault because i got her in trouble at work.

Earlier that day she texted me "good morning my love, how did you sleep".
I guess after 3 months of her completely cutting me out of her life after almost two years of such in depth emotions and highs and lows its still incredibly difficult to understand HOW she still displayed such affection and deep love for me. For living this double life how could she still make me feel like i was all she had in the entire world, saying things like "ill be so broken when you move for grad school", literally just days before she cut me out.

I guess i'm having a hard time processing the good and bad deep emotions with having two relationships. Calling me crying apologizing after a fight saying she's sorry. It all felt like she was sincere but its crazy to think how could she continue to have such vibrant emotions for two people for so long?

Is this normal, after receiving no closure or the truth to still be overwhelmed with confusion?

Thank you,

JB

Wow, I am so sorry, That is horrible. You have come to safe place. I can't write more now but I will check back in later. You are not alone. Please know that you did nothing wrong. Now you have to take care of you. My  mom once told me that the person I loved with BPD (pwBPD) wasn't in that body now. The person I know was long gone and his body inhabited by a dangerous stranger now. She said I had to protect myself at all costs now. It was good advice. I think it applies to you too now. Ok I'll check in later. Keep us posted on what was going on.

Yes completely normal.

I still have a hard time with the betrayal, even now when I am in a pretty good relationship. I have this fear. It is not good.

Sorry, most of us have been there.

You will read on here all kinds of talk about whether it was real for them or not. We want to believe it was, but in the end we will never know.

There is no answers, no closure that will solve the puzzle for you. Do your best to purge her and move on.

The important thing is to stop focusing on her and focus on you. Most likely you are were a pretty awesome person before you met her. That is probably why she was drawn to you. Now you need to be that person again. Grow and learn about what happened.

I've been reading on and off for months about characteristics and the attributes related to BPD and its just amazing how perfectly it explains how she acted.  Thank you for the response and the reality of most likely never getting closure. I am definitely moving on with my life, emotionally though it is indeed a bit more challenging.

Thank you!


Thank you as well. It was definitely a bit outrageous when it first happened. Emotions have subsided gradually but i guess the hurt, confusion and a sense of betrayal still linger.  It does make you wonder though how much of that person was real and what wasn't. Thanks for the post!

If anyone doesn't mind helping or giving their input I would appreciate it.  I'm having a difficult time figuring everything out with a few things and third party opinions from those with similar experiences are helpful.

If you've read the intro then you'll know 21 months, with Atleast 8 months of it her being engaged to someone else. Around last summer I wasn't allowed at her house anymore citing "her friends hate me. Her mom heard us fighting and doesn't want me over, she doesn't want me around her son, etc etc.".

 I didn't question it because she was so adamant and irritated that I just let it go and she would go out of her way to drive the 45 minutes to my house to see me "when she could".

I guess I'm asking was this her keeping her distance, right after she wanted to be more involved in my life with my parents and I. Did she want control. It's almost like she was trying to push me away, but made no real attempt to actually push me away if that makes sense.

Hi JRB46,



That makes sense, some pwBPD will have an exit plan when one r/s fails then they can jump into another r/s, so there's no reason to make attempts. I'm sorry that it turned out this way, you were in what you felt like was a committed r/s.

Someone else mentioned closure, yes many members here can relate with you because their exes didn't give them closure, but you can give closure to yourself, maybe that's something that you can work on? I know how not getting closure feels, it's difficult but giving yourself closure is possible. I speak for myself when I say this but I felt stuck and giving myself closure felt like I was unstuck.

How did you give yourself closure. It's been almost 4 months since I was abruptly cut from her life like I meant nothing. It's hard to give myself any with such conflicting feelings and questions unanswered. It's not even as much as I thought I was in this deep committed relationship, but she was so into our relationship as well it's almost mind blowing which I think is my problem, all while I as secretly  A side piece her family and friends didn't know she had anymore.

Maybe, but a pwBPD have all or nothing thinking ( splitting ), they live impulsively and feel intensely. It's tough she was really into you, you probably thought that she wouldn't do something like this or the thought never came to mind because you didn't have to think about it. We get attached to our expwBPD but underneath the surface is a completely different story, we don't see the disorder, we feel for them and our pain is extreme when we get cut off. I'm sorry that you're going through this.

I definetly recall the splitting. Either I was all she had, the greatest thing ever or I was hurting her somehow by saying the wrong thing at the time. Definitely based on how she acted around me, being so emotional during arguements and seemingly causing just irrational drama, no I didn't suspect anything. It was emotionally draining for me so I can't even fathom how she handled it with me let alone two males.

That's the tough part, it's an oxymoron, we pine for our exes but we know that they're bad for us, it helps to balance these thoughts out when we're thinking strictly of the good times, write them down and make another column for all of the things that you didn't like about her during the bad times.

You probably don't see it now, but the other guy has done you a favor, you're out of the fire and he's in the frying pan now. The other thing is that being split black is easier than being split white when you break up, I was split black too, my ex wife of 7 years wouldn't talk to me, being split gave me the time and space that I needed to detach and rebuild myself.

Some members have their pwBPD constantly trying to get their attention by invading their privacy everyday, I would want to have some space and time alone and not see my expwBPD especially when they did something like your ex did that displays that they didn't have empathy for you, it would trigger me, I'd find it would reopen the wound every time that she tried to contact me. I was lucky I was split back.

Which one do you think is harder when you grieving the loss of the r/s? Split black or white?

Hi JRB45 and *welcome*


My understanding of this disorder is that people with BPD (pwBPD) have a disordered fear of abandonment that can be particularly triggered by feelings of intimacy/attachment.  My thought is that she used you to deal with the disordered fear of abandonment she felt towards her fiance; after all, being engaged, getting ready to get married, I see those situations as massive triggers for pwBPD.

What can differ between some pwBPD, are how they choose to deal with their disordered feelings.  Some pwBPD might turn to drugs, alcohol, material gratification (ie. overspending), or other addictive behaviors in order to distract/alleviative their disordered feelings.  In the case of your BPD loved one, I'm guessing for her having an affair was the preferred way to avoid her disordered feelings.

By being with you, in effect, she "abandoned" her fiance.  And by abandoning her fiance, she would have, in her mind, avoided abandonment by her fiance.  He can't leave her, if she leaves him first.  And after those disordered feelings quelled, she would go back to her life engaged to her fiance.

PwBPD can exhibit lots of degrees of compartmentalization.  I suspect that while she was with you, she was someone completely different from who she was when she was with her fiance.  There is no "real" her in the sense that she wasn't pretending to be someone else.  She's always someone else, depending upon who she is with.  This ties into the "identity disturbances" associated with BPD.



This behavior of keeping loved ones isolated and separated is a familiar quality shared by many pwBPD.  I think they do it in part to limit the chance that other people will notice that they have identity disturbances.  And in the mind of a pwBPD, if there's no evidence of a problem, then the problem doesn't exist (in their mind; i.e. compartmentalization).

She kept you away from her other life because you were the salve to help her manage her disorder which was manifesting in her other life.  You probably haven't spent enough time with her for her to exhibit a lot of the other behaviors that are associated with pwBPD.  Given enough time, I have no doubt you would have witness it first hand, which would only have added to your confusion and pain.


When it comes to BPD, what I can say is that all the emotions were real and intense.  How she felt about you at that time was sincere.  She probably felt gratitude towards you for helping her deal with the disordered feelings she felt; which were also real and intense.  Her disordered feelings were intense enough to drive her to live a double (if not more) life.  When it comes to emotions, pwBPD can't think past the moment; this quality is related to their impulsive behaviors.  For pwBPD, they do what they do because they truly feel like they have no choice.


You won't be able to get closure, in the sense that you will never be able to relate to why she did what she did.  I suppose maybe you can improve your understanding of this disorder to help you accept that she did what she did.  Part of you has yet to accept that she did what she did (i.e. bargaining part of grief).



I think you are best served by treating yourself like you are suffering from a big kind of betrayal or even abandonment of a sort.  This means it will affect your ability to trust other people for a time.  :)on't expect to be over it like a more typical ending of a relationship.

I hope some of this helps.

Best wishes,

Schwing

Just to clarify because I think my post wasn't well written. Me and her were together for 21 months. She had only been with her new fiance for a little over 8 months and they got engaged a few months in. So Originally it was me and her, then past our one year mark she secretly got someone else. Around now is when the new fiance and her have hit around the one year mark.

I do find the impulsively really interesting in terms of how she processes her thoughts. In the long run, after graduate school i could provide much more for her and her son. Her new fiance is much, much younger than her and works a blue collar, dead end job .  Also i found interesting is that he is the polar opposite of what she finds attractive, the type of guy she would make fun of if we saw him in person.

When we first got together we were together all the time. Basically living together a month in at her moms house. I definitely got some weird feelings and saw somethings that i considered inappropriate at the time. A bunch of things i saw as red flags and about 6 months in i did try to break it off with her but she went from "I hate you, don't talk to me again" to "i love you, i'm sorry i'm a bad girlfriend".

One month after this big blow out, I was scheduled to be moving 4 hours south for grad school. Even after she got engaged last year and had a second relationship she would still cry about me potentially moving, saying she would be "so broken when i left". I constantly told her i would come back every weekend, take her to the beach down here etcetc.

I guess I feel like i did a lot to try and help her with her life and how she felt which is why im having a problem with coping.  Her life was very sad in a way and i felt sorry for her which a bit was her coming off as a victim basically all the time within any situation and taking no responsibility.

Sometimes i think to myself, What if. What if I set more boundaries. What if I didn't move away. What if i would have proposed to her. What if i had not argued with her. What if i had done this, would it not had let her astray.

For someone who exhibited the most emotion towards me ive ever felt, good and bad. I never thought in a million years after her crying about me going to grad school, or her stalking my social media to see who liked my photos and such, just irrational drama and her seeming SO upset I still can not comprehend it all. I think thats my problem.


JRB


I think it is alittle bit of both? I was still seeing her regularly for the most part, when she worked on my side of town id pick her up for lunch. She still slept over at my place atleast once a week. She texted and called all the time. I think it is literally how she was saying that black/white split "good morning my love" to a couple hours later calling the police and lying to them which could have potentially ruined my graduate school career if i didnt have all our texts to show them.

 I think it's how badly she did me after i tried to help her through her emotional turmoil, behavioral problems with her son and her living situation with her and her mother. My parents offered her a place to live, to help buy her a car, we gave her son toys, a tv and bedroom curtains. In terms of her, She always called me whenever she went through her "i'm nothing, i want to die, nothing makes me happy" phases which seemed to be about once every other week.

I guess its why put me through all this when shes basically living with someone who is taking care of her and her son. Why stilll put all this on me and saying im all she has. Its literally, to me, kind of crazy. Also, as i responded to Schwing, there are alot of What ifs, if i would have done something different she wouldn't have strayed or distanced herself.


JRB




ALSO --

I do appreciate all the feedback i have been receiving.  It is great to her third party opinions and i do appreciate all the time to respond to me.

Hi JRB45,

I'm sorry for misunderstanding your situation.


I think then the roles that I described between you and the new fiancé are reversed.  She has been depending upon her fiancé to help her manage the disordered feelings, the imagined fear, that you intend to leave her.


I imagine that when she is upset by her disordered emotions, and is desperately trying to avoid this imagined abandonment, she would be willing to accept *anyone* who is willing to subscribe to her distorted perspective.  There is no calculus of a better future, or more comfortable lifestyle, or any such considerations.


When I was in a position similar to yours, my mistake was that I confused by BPD loved one's desperation of not wanting me to leave as a sign of her attachment to me.  What I didn't realize that she felt no such pains if she were the one to leave me; if she were the one who abandons rather than abandoned.


This kind of thinking assumes that if our behavior were different, then they (our BPD loved ones) would not experience their disordered feelings/distorted thoughts.  I don't believe there is anything we can do to prevent them from experiencing their disordered feelings.  At best we can help limit the degree, and only if there is some endeavor on their part to accept their disorder and to recover from it.  Otherwise, eventually we will only be the scapegoat for a problem that they do not accept of themselves.

The phrase having your cake and eating it springs to mind. You and the fiancé provided her with something that she could not get from one person alone. Maybe the fiancé's mother being her boss provided financial security and she wanted to keep that at all costs but maybe her relationship with him wasn't what she wanted so you where there for that.

My exgf cheated on me while I worked away. She enjoyed the financial security and a roof over her head and that of her children but wanted the excitement of others adoring her. I once spoke to her uncle after we split up and said that she will never find happiness as one person cannot be everything she wants. He thought about it and said "Ive never thought about it like that but your absolutely right. No one person can be everything she wants".

I fee that way too, Absolutely. Sometimes i feel i don't know what she wanted from me because sometimes whatever i gave her just wasn't enough.
I dont want to discredit the good parts of her because she could be a wonderful human being when the highs were around, but her lows were so terrible as well.
They are definitely providing for her needs now. Helping her and her mother with transportation. Baby sitting son and they are close by.




no worries, it was definitely my fault for poor writing.

Is this part of BPD impulsivity?

It seems i'm in the same situation you once were.  I usually assumed her tantrums, crying and running away during arguments were incredibly immature. Looking back after reading i can only assume this was her testing boundaries to see how much i would deal with.

I know hindsight is 20/20, so I assume i'm having these "what if" feelings now because I've looked into what BPD was.  It explains who she was SO WELL but she didn't have insurance and she never got diagnosed with anything. So at the time while we were dating i just thought she was depressed about her life or her situation and it would just be a phase but now i see thats probably not the case. I just thought it would all pass, her outbursts and lows and it just never got better but worse and worse.

 So sorry you are going through this! It is very hard, especially in the beginning. I was married for 5 years before I looked deeper into his 2nd life. I know seeing them together was really hard, but now you know. You will not have to question your sanity/reality. This really sucks, it hurts, and its hard to wrap your head around. You might have to get your closure from knowing the truth. My husband will not admit anything. He let go quickly and has not bothered me as much as some other BPDs. It hurt my feelings, I felt like he didnt even try to save our marriage. I am still in pain over all of this, it is getting easier and I am starting to view this situation with clarity. The more I read and accept he has a mental illness, the better I get. Read as much as you can, vent to safe people, if you can go to a therapist that specializes in BPD it will help. When my husband did his final discard,  I thought I was in the middle of someone else nightmare, I hoped it would pass like a bad storm. Since I have been away from him for awhile, I see I was in my own nightmare, I don't want it to pass, I want to move past it! I wasted a lot of time tying to figure out what he was thinking/feeling... .Now I know I will never know the truth, even if I did/do, it will not make sense, it will not change a single thing. My personal discussion has been to let go, but get healthier. when the dust settles, you might see some "red flags". I hope you have come to stay and learn, we are here for your journey into healing