BPDFamily.com

Recently I hit a breaking point where I couldnt take it any longer. I had to leave the house to stay at my parents and seek advice from a therapist I havent spoken to in 8+ years. I currently live with my girlfriend of 1.5 years (8 months living together), and have hit the point where I couldnt hold in my sadness, unhappiness, and loss of voice. Over the past year theres been many ups and down, highs and lows in my relationship. All of which I thought were normal for any couple but noticed that its became worse over the past couple months. My therapist noted that my girlfriend may have be a BPD due to all the things ive stated to her.

-Im afraid to speak my mind due to the reaction she will give.
-If i dont agree with the way she feels about something, it becomes combative and i never have her side.-
-Ive been called a f*** moron, idiot, immasculated in front of others, especially my brother and sister in law.
- Whenever she drinks, becomes aggressive, angry, confrontational, and starts arguements regarding marriage, engagement ect. Difficult to speak to during this state because she is aggressive and "I am right, your wrong." I dont drink with her because I want to avoid confrontation if drunk.
-Said in past if shes not engaged by her 30th bday then shes done or will leave.
-Made it vocal that engagement ring MUST be 3 months salary, anything less is not enough.
- States I dont respect her 'timeline' and its selfish of me to not respect when needs to be engaged by, have kids by...

My girlfriend has abandoment issues due to her father who was abusive as a child and left the family. I understand why she acts after reading about BPD and how it affects partners without it.

Overall, I know I am super unhappy, scared to speak my mind and how I feel. I know its not my responsibility to fix her, as I feel that im afraid to leave her due to her thinking shes going to abandoned again like in the past. The reaction and panic attacks she gets scares me, so i dont know what to do. I want to be happy, and my therapist tells me that I wont be able to be happy like I want if im with someone who abuses me verbally and emotionally. States that people like her need incredible help, and sometimes therapy doesnt help. I dont want to be forced into an engagement that i am not ready for due to the way i feel. I dont want to end up divorced because she cant change and I cannot deal with the stress and unhappiness. I dont want any future children to have to run to their room to hide because mommy is yelling at daddy again for no warrented reason. I know that my feelings have been held inside for so long due to being scared and afraid of her reaction and how she would take it. I dont know how to go about going forward and how to verbalize my concerns, feelings. Any advice, support or understanding would be greatly helpful.

Hi Maddie, welcome!

I'm gonna dive straight into this because you've made a few things very clear, which is good! (It means you can start to work out some boundaries and understandings very quickly :) )

Your comments about timelines really resonates with me; very often my ex would say mid argument 'i dont know, we're clearly on different parts of our lives right now and you just dont get it', leaving me completely unable to respond to her. She also had very demanding and precise ideas about what she wanted from her life and when to have them. I really couldn't keep up, not only because they were hard goals to achieve, but often when she got them, she'd immediately fixate on a new, even further away goal that would suck all the life out of our connection.

First of all, good on you for getting help. Half the battle is often being brave enough to seek out professional advice about these kinda things; it took me 5 years before I started seeing a therapist from when I was first recommended to.

BPD relationships are always rocky, the condition is an emotional rollercoaster on which you are simply a passenger.

Verbal smearing and slandering is a typical BPD action, paired with public smearing and disgracing. It's never fun. It's never good. Even if the BPD isn't doing it personally from their perspective, it IS personal to the receiver.

Fundamentally it truly sounds like you're not happy Maddie. In your short post you raise a lot of potentially big problems in any relationship, let alone with someone who potentially has a mental disorder. People stay unhappy unless they make changes; make clear boundaries, talk over built up frustration and anger, and try and form a deeper understanding over things. It is so so important that you don't bottle up your emotions, because if you do and stay in the relationship, they will come back to stab you, and if you don't they will be used against you in a post-relationship smear campaign, but if you share them, they can no longer pose a problem. 

A question to you:
What do you think will bring back happiness to your relationship?

I think if you can identify what would make you more content with your position again, you'll have a light at the end of the tunnel, or something to work towards. It may be you reflect on your position now and conclude that there is no reasonable way to get back a healthy, happy relationship. We are here to support you if that's the case. It may be that you find a way to make that connection with your partner and rebuild. There are countless members on this site who are here with experience to help you through that too.

Remember, you should always be your own priority. If you don't want to do something, no one can truly force you to.

All the best!

*welcome*

You demonstrated great wisdom by reaching out to a therapist.  What does the future there looklike?

Please understand you have found a place that "gets it".  We understand the crazy you have been through AND  we can teach you how to understand and work through this so YOUR LIFE IS CALMER!

How does that sound?

https://www.bpdfamily.com/content/what-does-it-take-be-relationship

Can you read over that article and let us know what you think?

We can help you!

Best,

FF

Alittleawkward: Thank you so much for you insight and truly thoughtful words. Its nice to have a place to bounce feelings off of and know that there are other people out there that have been through and are going through similar struggles. I know no relationship is cookie cutter and every action and words hit people differently emotionally.

I am very unhappy at the moment and havent been for a long time due everything going on. I know in my mind I have the right to be in a happy and healthy relationship where my partner treats me like gold and doesnt put me down with words. The fear that I have constantly affects my choices and decisions towards her, always afraid of what could happen, or how will she react this time. In the past I have brought up numerous times that I dont like the way she speaks to me, or please dont speak to me that way, its hurtful.' But then it happens again, without remorse. 

Its hard to pinpoint exactly what will bring happiness back into our relationship. Of course I can say things such as listening to me when I speak my true and honest emotions (when i open up to be vulnerable).  Understand that I want to be happy and in a safe space that I can speak without the fear of being screamed at or guilt tripped, as well other things.

After speaking to my T, it made me think that im staying in this relationship because im afraid and scared of leaving someone who i know will react so strongly (panic attacks, begging not to leave, abandonment) to if I want to break up and be personally happy. When reading more about being a co-dependant or a caregiver for someone with BPD the more it scares me into what i think my future would be like. I treat everyone with kindness, sincerity, and love. But if things dont change I cant see myself taking the overwhelming negativity, guilt, and abuse, as i know it will swallow me whole and eat me up inside.  I know its cliche but i live my life by the phrase we all learned as kids, :"treat others the way you want to be treated." I just want to be treated with kindness, love, and compassion.

If you dont mind me asking, how did you handle the situation where goals were being pushed upon you? Once my GF found out that i wasnt ready to propose next month (on her 30th bday) she lost her mind, yelling and screaming and blaming me for not respecting her timeline and wishes. My immediate feelings were that I felt my feelings werent being accepted and I had no choice but to abide by her rules and time. But i say to her that i feel ashamed i couldnt live up to her expectations and give her what she wanted. Deep down im not ready, and its hard to explain to someone that your just not ready. I dont want to be pressured into engagement by someone who wants what they want and doesnt think of what others want. The feeling of being constantly under pressure to meet someones wishes is terrifying when you feel helpless and alone. Its hard to express and may seem minor in the eyes of others, but the stress it adds onto everything else in the relationship is a cloud hovering over I cannot get away from. Nor do I think will ever go away. Thank you again for your responses, means so much.

You are wise to not "cave in" to the "timeline" for your girlfriend has for moving the relationship forward!

Best,

FF

My first point would be that when they say hurtful comments without remorse, they can't help it. Sometimes, like with any person, they go out of their way to cause hurt when they have reason to - the trouble with BPD is, because they act emotionally, problems that would be nothing to most people are the ultimate insult. As hard as it is to wrap your head round and even if the actions they take are; it's not personal. But it's also fine if you can't handle the abuse. Intentional or not, what BPD partners often receive is abusive behaviour, and you can control the situation by leaving it or laying down clear boundaries.


An important note - you can never truly control someone else's emotions or actions. The only person who you can control, is yourself, so don't let others take that grip. When you're caught in the relationship to avoid tension its easy to just let things slide but if you are in such an emotional place where you consider ending it a reasonable thought, something should be done. I wouldn't wallow in these thoughts but rather take action, whatever that may be.



To be completely honest, I fantasised with her the vast majority of the time, but I also believe I'm a little bit younger than you so my reasoning for leaving may not be as strong. But when I got an attractive job opportunity in another country and she shot it down, whilst she was planning to do the same the year after I started to realise just how heavily I'd been fantasising. I'd also made ideas about things as big as weddings and moving very clear from the outset so I didn't feel nervous to bring up and hammer home my own wants. Eventually it became unreasonable to see this woman who condemned my hobbies, passions, friends and family as someone I wanted to do all the things we talked about with, until one day I had to deal with one emotional blow up too many and decided I was better off by myself.