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I (M28) tried enforcing my own boundaries this week with my partner (F28), and it imploded my relationship even more. I guess this was to be expected, but I’m wanting to check and make sure I’m doing this right.

The week started off fine. We’re quarantined together. Tuesday we had a couples therapy session via webcam, and it went well enough. She left that night to go and meet some friends at their house. She stayed out pretty late (3 AM), which bothered me – but I tried to keep it to myself (working on it). She came home, and I was already in bed. She became upset when I didn’t try to cuddle with her and started to accuse me of not loving her. I told her I did love her a few times and put my arm over her. She wasn’t convinced, so I eventually went to sleep.

When I woke up it was because she was waking me up the next morning, telling me I didn’t love her and to cuddle with her. I again put my arm over her, but she wasn’t convinced and kept saying I didn’t love her. I was becoming frustrated and told her that she was being a jerk. This escalated it, with her yelling, and me telling her she’s being rude. Eventually she broke up with me and I left for a long walk. When I came back it hardly was better – more fighting and me reacting to her. Eventually it calmed down, but she never tried to recover and immediately went to begging and crying about needing me.

I spent a lot of time trying to calm her. I also made clear that she had to do something to recover from this and let me heal, and she kept telling me she didn’t know how. I explained that if she breaks up with me, I’m not going to try and make everything better and she needs to work to get back with me (this is me beginning to hold the boundary). It calmed down after and we were doing better, and I would hug and kiss her throughout the evening. However, later Wednesday night she started accusing me of not loving her again. I don’t remember exactly why, but I think it’s because she saw I was reading a book on stopping being a caretaker on my laptop. I spent a good hour telling her I loved her, that I wasn’t leaving, and that I wanted her to come to bed with me. Eventually, I told her I was going to bed but she could join me if she wanted to – that I loved her and would like her to. I went to bed. She cried and called out for me, telling me that I didn’t love her and that I was ignoring her. I told her a few more times from bed that I loved her and wanted her to come to bed, but if she didn’t stop this I would have to ignore her and try to go to bed (setting a boundary). That’s eventually what happened.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were basically the same, although the length of these cycles was different. I wouldn’t react or get angry with her. I would simply state what I needed or wanted, then do it. Saturday ended with her becoming mad at me because I didn’t try to have sex with her enough – even though back in December and January she told me she didn’t feel sexual and wasn’t sure if she was attracted to me anymore (tl;dr she was sexually assaulted at a party in November, which is when we stopped having sex, so she was unsure if it was because of that or something else…). I stopped attempting after this. I told her I didn’t like her telling me that I didn’t “give it to her” because she knows why I haven’t been trying and I’ve been waiting for her to tell me how and when she’d be ready to try to have sex again. The way she brought it up made me feel like she resented me and thought it was my fault. She was insistent on this, and I told her I wouldn’t talk about this if that’s how she acted to me (boundary). Again, to save space, this ended with her not coming to bed and breaking up with me that night.

This Sunday morning she argued with me more, saying I was ignoring her, not trying to get close to her, and didn’t love her. I would tell her that I loved her, and that I only stopped talking with her when she continued to do something I asked her not to and had told her I would stop engaging if she did. Repeating this a few times, she became very angry and packed a suitcase. She would swing between breaking up with me and begging me to get close to her while saying I don’t love her. Eventually she left and told me she was going to a friend’s house and that she was done with me. I texted the friend and told them what was up.

I went for a walk. She tried calling me a few times. I texted her back and told her I didn’t want to talk to her if she was going to yell and curse at me. I told her that if she did I would hang up (boundary). She agreed, and I called. We talked for a bit but had the same disagreements and went in the same loops. She started to raise her voice and curse at me, so I warned her I would have to hang up if she continued. She stopped, but soon the call stopped when I was repeating some of these boundaries. She texted me that I hung up – I didn’t, but maybe my cheek pressed the hang up button. I don’t know. But I tried calling her back and she didn’t answer. I texted her telling her that I didn’t hang up, but she needed to call me back in a few minutes or I was done talking for the day. She didn’t return the call but sent me a picture of her sending an email to our therapist telling him we were canceling because our relationship was over. I blocked her at that point, as she started to call a few more times after the photo.

At this point I made my way home. I just did cleaning around the house and took care of the cats to take my mind off things for a bit. Then I also emailed our therapist and told him what was happening and asked to see him anyway again this Tuesday to talk about all of this. I was starting to calm down some at that point. However, after a few hours she showed back up at the apartment, pissed that I had blocked her. She was screaming and started throwing her stuff. She threw and destroyed her car key fab and started ripping up numerous papers of hers on the desk. Stuff like that. She grabbed my camping knife, unfolded it, and started to take it to her arm. I didn’t waste a moment to see if she was serious or if she wasn’t – I wrestled her to the ground, took the knife, and slowly released her as she cried. I took everything else she could use and locked it in my car. I have her car keys.

She’s calmer now and oscillating between wanting me to get close to her and not trusting me, to becoming upset and saying we’re over, etc. She’s trying to refrain from saying we’re broken up more, I’ve noticed. But I’ve reminded her that she has broken up with me numerous times and hasn’t tried to recover, so I still consider us broken up. I tell her I still love her, because I do, but that I won’t put up with emotional abuse like that, and if she wants to be with me she needs to do something about that. Our therapist got back to me and offered to do break-out sessions this week. I told my now estranged partner that our therapist had offered to do this with both of us and talk about all of this to help us see what we can do going forward. It’s unclear to me if she will do this.

This is a long story and I apologize for that. I’m just looking for advice, constructive criticism, and support. Am I doing this right? I want to start building healthy boundaries and focus on taking care of myself and making myself happy. My car recently died so I’m going to go buy the car I want, even though I know it’ll probably upset her. Stuff like that. What I feel I’ve tried enforcing this week is not putting up with being yelled at, cursed at, or broken up with manipulatively. I worry I’ve been harsh, and her attempted self-harm worries me and I’ll inform our therapist who can pass it on to her own personal therapist. Regardless, I know I have to continue in this direction for myself. Help?

buddy, she's physically threatening to harm herself with a knife... I don't mean to make light of this, but I think you have bigger issues here than enforcing boundaries.

Honestly, if there is a spectrum of cases just among the stories I've read here, you are dealing with one  of the more extreme ones.

Regardless of your long term plan here, you need to start thinking of ways to physically protect yourself when things get out of control with her, like the knife situation.  Of all the dishonest and manipulative ways to resolve an argument with a partner, threatening to slit one's own wrists has to be close to the top.  So it's hard to say how far she would be willing to go. 

She's shown a willingness to really escalate the situation when you do enforce your boundaries here, and you've played along with that (for example, I would've hung up on her a lot sooner, when yelling and profanity started, if that was your boundary.)  So, you need to have a plan for these extreme situations.  What would you do if she turned the knife on you?  Or threatened you?  Or attacked you physically?  Or tried to draw you into a physical confrontation with another guy?  What would you do if she called the police and said you had threatened her? 

hey PeteWitsend,

I agree with you. Just trying to make sure I'm thinking of this correctly and moving in the right direction. As for the knife thing - yes, I've removed all objects like that that could be used as a weapon. We have one other mutual friend who is aware of the situation. I have made our couple's therapist aware and am working on contacting her therapist.

As for myself, I am constructing and enacting a safety plan. This week I will hopefully find and buy a car to replace my dead one. In the meantime, I'm preparing my backpacking bag as a bug-out. I know I can run to that mutual friend if I really had to. I'm not scared for my physical safety necessarily, since I can easily overpower her even when I'm tired. Last comes to shove, I can ask my family for financial assistance in finding another place to go.

I'm assuming you're indicating I'm on the right direction with boundaries. Still working on it and trying to stay firm. She's calmed down now, but I'm still alert. Thanks for reading through this and for your reply.

As for the police thing... I don't know. All I would have is some history of posting on here, as well as on Reddit. I have journal entries. I've texted quite a few friends about this, so there's a record. I wouldn't hit her if she attacked me, and I would try to push her away and leave the house without hurting her in that case. That is something I have worried about though.

Hi BeardedRadical:
Sounds like a challenging situation.  I'm sorry you are going through this.

She needs to learn to use coping skills to deal with various emotions.  Perhaps that is something you both can discuss during a therapy session.  It can help to brainstorm a list for coping with the 4 most common emotions: Happy, Sad, Anger, Fear

Perhaps you both can Take an emotion at a time.  Since anger seems to be front & center here, perhaps that's the one to start with. i.e. unhealthy ways would be self-harm, make threats to self harm, text bomb, silent treatment, etc.

Healthy ways to cope with anger could be:  Go for a walk, exercise, put a music app on your phone & make a playlist for anger (perhaps exercise to the music), punch a punching bag, hit a pillow, stomp your feet, journal

She will never get better unless she is willing to at least try to manage her emotions.

Yes, setting boundaries is important, and you need to do this in all your relationships.  One silver lining of being in a relationship with a pwBPD is that they make this need very clear.  

Remember that your boundaries are for you: you're deciding what you will and won't accept, and enforcing those things.  Boundaries are not things you want the other person to do.  

Unfortunately, when dealing with a pwBPD, enforcing boundaries is not easy, and typically results in more conflict.  Don't be surprised if you find your only method of enforcing boundaries with them is simply to leave (and that begs the question of what sort of relationship you even have).  

pwBPD also tend to escalate their behavior when you enforce a boundary, and this can get extreme (known as a "extinction burst").  For example: you hang up the phone when she screams because your boundary is you will not accept yelling and profanity.  Now, she denies she was screaming, blames you for hanging up, etc.  Or gets emotional, begs for sympathy, cries, etc. Or escalates this to threats: to herself or you, or others.  

Recognize this for what it is.  If she wants to get upset because you enforced a boundary & hung up on her, admit it, and be clear  "YES, I hung up on you because you were yelling at me.  I will do this again if you yell at me again."  End of story.  Remember to ignore their subjective history; it's completely meaningless.

Focus on what you need; you don't have to be rude or disrespectful, but take care of your needs, and don't leave things in their hands, because they will simply use it as "leverage" against you.  For example:  When I moved out and filed for divorce, I left all our joint tax returns in the house.  I didn't want my XW to accuse me of stealing or hiding documents.  She did anyway, of course.  

I never got these back.  occassionally I've needed them when proving income or registering for something.  If I ask for them, ask her to copy them and provide the copies, or offer to copy them at my own expense and bring them right back, she won't say "no," but she'll keep playing with me, telling me she's still looking for them, or that she forgot about my request and needs more time.  She'll do this for weeks.  

What I should have done was simply take what I needed, make copies of everything, and give her the copies.  Or even the originals.  She would still accuse me of taking/hiding things, but she would do that anyway.  

So, I hope that's sort of illustrative to how I would approach resolving issues: focus on & get what you need, and let her deal with her emotions.  Altruism doesn't work when you're dealing with a pwBPD.  They don't reciprocate, won't appreciate it, and possibly even see it as a weakness & attack you more once they perceive it.  

The strategies, advice, and techniques you can read about on this site will help you reduce conflict, or avoid dangerous or violent situations, but they can't change who your partner is.  It's up to you to decide what you're willing to tolerate.  


In a normal situation, yes.  But if his GF is a pwBPD, then she's not going to learn coping skills; she can't.  

And therapy sessions are pointless; they simply serve to provide a venue for the pwBPD to blame the other party for their own behavior.  And if the T doesn't allow them to get away with that, they'll simply refuse to keep going.  

pwBPD need years of CBT and/or DBT, and have to undertake this voluntarily, without prodding from the Non-, or even being ordered by a court.  

Sorry, my login times out & I can't go back and edit my post anymore.  By this, I don't mean "leave the relationship for good," I just mean "leave the room" or "leave the area."  Get away from them until they stop violating your boundary. 

I'll definitely be trying to get her to do this more. Problem is that once that moment has started, there's nothing I can do. As others have said, I need to set my limit there and leave for a bit - which I have been doing. Sometimes it just doesn't get better within the day though.

Yeah, this reinforcing of a boundary I've set is what I'm trying to do more and more here. As you can see, and as you expect, it didn't go over well but I think I handled it better than I have in the past. Still going to continue working in that direction.

I'm trying to be clear and use the "broken record" method when telling my pwBPD about what I'm needing and going to do. I'm going to work on doing this respectfully and better. And as for the one's I've set and communicated so far, I plan to continue to do so and be clear with them as best I can.

She's in counseling  herself. She mentioned maybe talking about medication today. We'll see... I'll let her make those decisions on her own. I won't beg her to do so like I used to. She's been given all the tools and steps she would need to start moving forward, and I'm hopeful she will. But I need to focus more on myself, and that is what I plan to do.

Hi Bearded Radical,

I completely feel your pain here. I've been through several situations with my ex when the knives literally came out, or she threatened to jump off our balcony and yes out of instinct had to wrestle her to the ground. I remember the first knife incident over a really ridiculous argument (in my view) she had a melt-down grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer and began clutching the blade extremely tightly in her hands and pointing it towards herself, she said if I came near she was going to stab herself. Out of fear for both her and my safety I quickly ran out to a family members house who lived close by to ask for help. This only poured petrol on the situation she was about to start smashing things to smitherins until we had to physically restrain her, one family member called to speak to a mental health professional but instead they sent the police round. The police did a good job to calm the situation to be fair to them.

However, she never let that situation go, she would always use it against me telling me how I needlessly called the police on her (which wasn't true) and resented the fact my family 'got involved', completely hating and devaluing them for a long while all because they bore witness to that level of behaviour. We genuinely only had her best interest (survival) at heart, though of course she accused us of humiliating her unnecessarily.

What is encouraging in your case however is that your partner is seeking treatment, at least of sorts. Mine totally refuses to acknowledge there is anything wrong with her, and the fault of our relationship being 'not normal' as she'd say in situations following extreme anger outbursts was all my fault for making her feel that way.

Good luck to you.