BPDFamily.com

Hello, I have just discovered this wonderful forum and I feel relieved just for it. I apologyze if my English is not perfect but it's not my main tongue.

I really dont know where to start from, I feel at such a low point in my life, I have no mental energy, zero emotional strenght. I feel like thinned inside, I want a way out.

I have been together with A. for almost 2 years now. He came from a conflicted relationship, with a child from the ex-girlfriend. At the beginning I thought she was the problem (he depicted her like a monster to me) and he seemed like an angel sent from above. The connection and chemistry was unbelievable, sex too, everything.

After 2 years, the problem is that, that special, wonderful chemistry still exists. But the bad side appeared.
I have read so many articles and definitions of BPD. I see a therapist myself and she has confirmed that (from what I tell her) he is very probably affected by BPD.
The worst case. He is not violent to me, but has mood swings, emotional swings, backlashes, paranoid thoughts, one day he loves me, the other day he thinks I don't love him anymore and becomes angry, leaves me every week, then he comes back, sometimes he's sweet, sometimes he's cold and distant.

I see this "bad part" of him like a monster that eats him when it comes, but that this side is not the "real" him. I feel like this is a cancer taking him away from me. The good part, the loving one, the sweet one, is the only part that I aknowledge as HIM. I don't deny the fact that he's BOTH sides, the good and bad, but I know that this is a personality disorder and I can't blame him, I can't hate him for when he does that, and so I always forgive him, try to understand, talk it around, give it time, to make the "anger" go away and let the good side come back in.

This circle is killing me though. I make enormous efforts for this to work. Her ex-girlfriend hates me and makes our relationship miserable, always trying to make us fight. My parents hate him. I try so hard to make it work for everyone. I am good to everyone. I try to always please him and walk on eggshells all the time. Everything makes him angry. If I try a little flaw in the relationship and I address it, he gets mad and blames me for not loving him. I am afraid to talk or to say anything because he would leave me, and my problem is, I am dependent (and I know it) and I feel so miserably alone without him.

Also I don't want to hurt him. He suffered so many horrible things as a child. I know that all of this is not his fault. He has this temper because of a lot of suffering he has been through when he was a kid. I can't hate him, I tend to forgive everything.

I know that leaving him would devastate him, and make him HATE ME to death. I would become a monster, a devil, a witch, someone to talk  bad about for the rest of his life and I don't want this. I have loved him so much. I have given everything to him. I don't want to be remembered this way but it's not possible any other way.

The end point was reached when he started this marijuana addiction, he's always smoking, he smokes 5-6 joints a day, almost quit his job for it, not studying anymore, mistreats his parents, he left all of his good friends behind, he always hangs out with two junkheads he met and all they do is smoking and getting high, this has gone on for the last 5 months. I have tried making friends with them, trying to smoke myself, but that's just not me. I have tried to detatch from all of this, telling him that I don't like smoking. He cut me off from his life, almost, not on purpose, but he's completely immerged in pot and weed all day, we see each other like 1 day a week now, and that day he smokes too. I always develope a bad asthma from all the passive smoke and I have enough.

I don't know how to leave because I am so dependent on him though. He fills many voids that I have in my self. I have been diagnosed with BPD too when I was 18 (26 now), after many attempted suicides and cutting and injuring myself, many failed relationships due to my  low esteem, blaming others not to love me enough. I was not toxic towards other but towards me.   I went into therapy and it took me 3-4 years and SO MUCH EFFORT, PAIN, TEARS, SELF INTROSPECTION, I can't even tell you how much I have cried at my therapist's office, but I am out of it now. I am a rather balanced person, I am so rarely angry at people now. I never thought of hurting myself anymore.

But one thing remained in me, and that's the big feeling of a sentimental void, I need to feel a strong love and he feeds me that need with those strong emotions and rollercoasters. When he's angry he really is, but when he loves me he really does. I don't know if I really need him or not, like: I would probably feel good even if he wasn't there in my life (probably better), but I don't know and I don't want to try,  because I am afraid to feel so alone and blank again. But on the same hand, staying with him makes me feel like I am wasting my therapy, recovery years.

He makes me feel dependent on him (and I am), dependent on his good side, I can't leave him because I don't want to disappoint him, and all of my life revolves around him now. I have very few friends, I am losing my family to this relationship, but I can't think of losing his good smile, his good laugh.

I am so alone and miserable right now, I want my life back. I was a good student, a good daughter, a good athlete. I am his pleaser now, because he's always so angry, but he bribes me back in all the time with his good side. At the same time this relationship is not healthy.

I can't address anything that I don't like in him or he exaggerates this and says that I don't love him. It is probably true now, but it wasn't in the past. I truly loved him, a part of me still does, but the marijuana addiction has completely, finally ruined everything.

Two things usually happen:

Examples: I have tried to address the bitchy attitude of his ex girlfriend or the fact that he doesn't study and never works or drives sober. His reaction was blaming me that I hate him and I don't apprecciate him, and that I am not ready for a committed relationship with someone with a children with the ex-girlfriend. He left me for almost 5 days giving me the silent treatment, in those days I cried my eyes out, so so miserable, and when he came back everything was normal again, the fault was all on me, it didn't even matter anymore. He blamed himself a little, and acted like nothing was.

Other times he lashes out anger at me for very little triggers, goes silent for 1 or 2 days, then comes back crying for forgiveness.

Both scenarios I always go back to him, forgive him or pretend nothing happened. This is killing my psyche.

My therapist knows this, but I feel that her help is not enough anymore. I want to reach out to people that have gone the same that I am going through, I need some guidance in this.

Please forgive me if I have hurt anyone with my words, I am only describing my partner, not BPD in general (I was/am BPD myself.)

Hi sakurablossom,

 *hi* I'm glad to hear that you have a therapist. That's been so helpful for me to navigate my husband's BPD as well as participating on this site. You have a great insight into BPD in that you have experienced it yourself, and now you find yourself in a relationship with someone who has it. That gives you some valuable understanding of how your communication might be received by him, so you are many steps ahead of lots of people who come here who are utterly mystified by their partner's behavior.

You already understand that he is both sides, good and bad--and that's another realization that takes people a long time to fully get. So the point is to maximize the time he's spending in the good side and minimize the time in the bad. Learning the tools here has greatly helped me do that with my husband. One of the most important things I have learned is to look for signs of dysregulation and change my approach immediately when I start to see them.

I can't address anything that I don't like in him or he exaggerates this and says that I don't love him. It is probably true now, but it wasn't in the past. I truly loved him, a part of me still does, but the marijuana addiction has completely, finally ruined everything.


It is so frustrating not to be able to talk about the relationship without the discussion becoming an all or nothing thing.  I've dealt with that with my husband and I longed for a partner who could discuss relationship topics without it devolving into a "you hate me." I think it's possible to build that bridge, but like you, I challenged him on his substance abuse (drinking) and though I hoped it would get better, just mentioning it made the problem worse--obviously triggered his BPD shame--and then he felt as though I attacked the one and only strategy he had to try and deal with that toxic shame.  

I would recommend that you rebuild relationship with friends and family. Lots of times we hope that our BPD loved one will provide us all the emotional support we need, but this is unlikely when they have a hard time supporting themselves emotionally.

That there's a child and an ex-girlfriend in the picture only adds complications. Lots of other members are dealing with similar situations. Keep posting more about your story and let us know how we can help.

 

Cat

Hello sakurablossom

I would like to join Cat Familiar and welcome you to the board. I am sorry that you are feeling so low with all of this going on. It's a though situation. Addictions are a hard one. My spouse has been having a marijuana addiction as well, and it has not been an easy road for us since I brought it up. Like Cat Familiar mentioned, the communication tools can help decrease the intensity of the bad stuff.

Are you two living together? And if so, do you have a bit of space you can retreat into for yourself when things don't go well? Or a place you like in nature, where you can find a bit of peace just for you?

I understand you have learned many valuable skills over the years. Does your partner have a therapist for himself as well?