BPDFamily.com

Hey all,

I kind of need emotional support. I don’t know who to talk to because nobody around me understand how it’s like to be with someone who is very likely to have a personality disorder.

I am emotionally struggling in my relationship with my uBPDbf. We met 6 years and a half ago and it was love at first sight. Our relationship started in a very intense way and has stayed intense all throughout, with massive highs and massive downs, as it seems to be often the case.
We’ve been together on and off because he broke up with me twice and it lasted 2 years each time. We’ve been together for more than a year now and living together for 8 months (we were in a long distance relationship before, him living in the UK until he joined me to live in France) so our relationship is the most stable than it’s ever been in the past.
I have never felt so close to anyone in my entire life, we are so connected emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, physically. He is very loving and affectionate, funny, enthusiastic, curious, intelligent, has a magnificent sensitivity. Yes I am head over heels in love with him, he said himself had never loved anyone so much in his entire life and overall it seems like we are in a neverending honeymoon period.

Except when he splits.

When he splits, he is like a totally different person. All of a sudden he seems deprived of any empathy, he is going to be cold, snappy, indifferent to my feelings and he may enter the borderline rage where he starts having several psychologically abusive behaviours: gaslighting, emotional blackmail (threats to leave me, he hasn’t done that in 10 months now but those threats added to the real break-ups that happened in the past really left an imprint on me), yelling, projection, distorting reality to make everything be my fault, false accusations, throwing objects on the floor… he had his first gesture of physical abuse one week ago during a rage: he pushed me and I fell on the floor (no damage done). Even though he came to apologise right away, it kind of lit an alarm in my head.

He is very self aware so when his crisis are over he sees that the behaviours he had are not acceptable and he’s usually very contrite and apologises. But the amount of shame he feels is such that it makes it impossible to have long conversations about it, he will quickly start feeling tense again so it’s very hard to come up with solutions.

He started therapy last August and it made the crisis much worse (we went from one every 10 days being long-distance to everyday at that time).. after a very difficult summer he cooled down and the crisis decreased slightly… but he also stopped having therapy regularly.

He quitted his job that he hated and left England and his mom’s place for the first time to move with me in France in October, while he doesn’t speak French. At the same time he quitted his 10 years old cannabis addiction cause he almost entirely stopped smoking since then (except the two times he went back to England for 10 days), he reduced is alcohol consumption a lot as well but still tend to drink a lot if he has a crisis. His therapist agreed to keep having skype sessions with him but every since he’s just had them once in a while and once every other time he would skip it because the chances that he is going to be triggered are heightened before a therapy session.

In the meantime, for a year and a half my mom had to fight against a very rare form of cancer. We had to leave our flat in the middle of lockdown in April to go to my parents’ 400km away for me to be with her in the last phase of her illness and she died 4 weeks ago. My bf crisis considerably reduced for during this period, he tried to be much more in control for my sake and I was very impressed that he was so much present for me (I was scared that he wouldn’t be and that it would break something between us).. but he still had the occasional ‘episode’ including that time where he pushed me. He was stuck in a french family for 2 months in a grieving atmosphere, I know it wasn’t easy for him either.

He left Saturday to come back to our place and I had to stay because my grandmother is dying as well.. and ever since he left he barely talked to me at all. He said he needed some space (that’s how he recharges his battery) which I completely get but it’s the 5th time now that we are separated since we leave together and everytime he either became very distant or on the contrary very demanding of attention and had crisis - I was very much scared that he would be distant and mean again, he promised me for the 4th time it wouldn’t be like last time and it is. I wish he would have told me about his need for space before so I could prepare myself and that he could have given me the reassurance I need.

I think I have been traumatised by his breakups. I love him so much, I was heartbroken when he broke up with me in the past and I fear so much that he’s going to leave me again. When he becomes this cold and harsh, unempathetic person again it’s like I don’t know him anymore and it makes me panic, I have catastrophic scenarios going in my head of him abandoning me, I hurt a lot and become obsessed by it. I know I should see a therapist about that but I can’t afford it at the moment.

This is such a tough period for me right now, it’s too hard to be the emotional caretaker when my family his going through two losses and his emotional withdrawal makes me panic. He’s not talking to me. He was supposed to go to his online therapy session today but I saw him logged in on facebook when he was supposed to have it so I’m not even sure he really went.

Sorry, it’s a very long post, but I needed to share with people who could understand. What do you think of this situation? I am stuck in between feeling impressed by his efforts and feeling frustrated by him making promises he doesn’t keep, not following through therapy, not taking responsibility for the harm he does to me sometimes. I’m emotionally exhausted, I’m scared, my rational brains tell me I shouldn’t worry and just take care of myself but it’s not enough to control my emotions, that’s all I can think about, I’m frustrated he imposes this communication break on me only 4 weeks after my mother’s death and mostly without making sure I feel okay about it first (it would have made a massive difference if he had)

Thank you for reading me and for any support you can give :(

Hi Melissinde

So sorry for your loss.  It must be really challenging as you need your b/f now more than ever.

I get it.  When I look back on the many times I needed support, it wasn't there mostly.

Because I think he cannot handle too much stress.

So maybe I need to reach out and talk to a safe friend whom I can trust to listen.  The more I reach out to him, the more shaky things seem to get, which makes my situation worse...

It's so hard.  I am trying to live one day at a time, not get my expectations high.
We are separated going on 2 1/2 years, after 10 + living together.
we meet up once a week...
We are attempting to start over. Slowly.

hang in there, do something nice for yourself.  It's hard to do sometimes-you deserve it
Blessings
j

Melissinde,

As Juju said, this must be an incredibly difficult time, only made so much worse by the person you probably wish to speak to most distancing themselves from you. My thoughts are with you.

Whilst I'm not in the same situation, I know a similar pain with being broken up with a couple of times. The first time she left it was for 2 weeks, and things felt fine after. Now, 2 years later, she has left me again, and 3 months into that I feel the hurt. There is a trust that is breached when that happens. I can only imagine such a thing gets worse the more it occurs.

You sound exhausted and I am not surprised. This is the first time I have answered another's post on here but I will try and give the best advice I can. I would say as you have probably been told thousands of times before, to focus on you. The understanding I have is that this is something they just have to get through, and you can't have too much of a hand in things right now. You must be experiencing a lot of grief, I'd let that play out naturally, the same as the split that he is going through.

I hope that isn't terrible advice. I'll ask one question that might help, was there anything you felt you did previously that helped resolve things between you during other periods of distance?

Thank you juju2 and dumpedinlove for answering, I just feel so alone and panicky, and there is no one I dare to talk to because people tend to have a massive lack of knowledge and understanding about personality disorders and to judge him harshly when I talk about what happens.. which doesn't help me at all.


That's exactly what happens when he is emotionally withdrawing.. any attempt at pulling him back will result in him pushing me farther away. Even if I know it it's not always easy for me to have self control and keep my distance because it scares me so much. I'm trying to leaving him his peace at the moment and not write but huh, this is hard, and the longer I wait the more I feel resentment.


The best thing to do seems to do nothing really.. that's the hard part. Or sometimes it happens that after a several days of silence, if my anger has cooled down, I come back to him with gentleness and understanding but most of the time I am the one doing the first step to reconciliation after a crisis and it exhausts me. Right now I don't feel how I could take a gentle step, I don't have much room for empathy towards him at the moment..

You're both right that I should just focus on myself but it's really hard to do.. I feel heartbroken as if he had abandoned me, it's very difficult for me to think about something else. I can't just watch an episode of a TV show without interrupting it once in a while to check facebook. I don't know what to do with my brain...

Another thing bothering me is that very often, after a crisis like that, he feels an awful lot of shame which makes it harder for him to reach out to me. He was supposed to talk to his therapist today and he didn't come to me so I kind of bet that he didn't which is doubly annoying: first because he needs this session, second because he is going to feel ashamed about that as well. So it will result in him pushing me away even harder because he doesn't want to deal with the shame and most of the time how does it end? Me trying to comfort him because he feels bad about being abusive, which is kind of crazy when you think about it.

Sorry if I seem to show lack of understanding towards him, I'm spending most of my energy giving him empathy and understanding but right now frustration and pain are steaming inside.  :help:

I understand.

this journey is not easy.

The most sensitive, caring and kind people who are the most impossible!

this is the hardest thing I have done in my entire life.

Most of this makes no sense.  It's about being flexible, flexible, stopping reason and all that you know is true.

It's about being willing to go where most people refuse to go.

Hi Melissinde,

Reading your post reminded me of my own situation, and I imagine that reading the posts of others will remind you of yours. The one thing that has helped me this past week has been reading about the experience of others and realizing that it’s not just me, that I’m not the jerk, not the unstable one, etc.

I don’t know what to say other than this is so awful, your pain must be immense. I think what makes it worse in your situation (and this is something I cannot relate to) is that he left you twice, each time for two years. So of course you’re feeling panic. I can’t imagine. The woman I love will push me away for a few days at a time, but two years sounds unbearable.

He sounds like he has such an amazing side, and I can understand why you love him. (My therapist told me that I don’t love my girlfriend but that I’m addicted to her. I really don’t know if this is fair or not.) During those two year periods when you didn’t talk to him, were you able to get over him?

I often read that and I am very skeptical about this kind of statement. Why would loving someone and having emotional dependance issues be incompatible? I am pretty convinced I sincerely, genuinely love my bf, I also know I have emotional dependence towards him and that's a problem. I probably wouldn't have this emotional dependence if I didn't love him.


Not at all. First time I was really heartbroken, I didn't know about BPD so because he was splitting it made me believe he had never really loved me. 2 years after the broke up I still loved him and was suffering from the break up.
Second breakup was different... he had gone back to me while I had started a new relationship. I was still in love but didn't trust him enough to leave my other boyfriend. Because my bf at the time was very open-minded we tried having a polyamourous relationship (everybody agreed) but in the end my BPDbf left me because he needed exclusivity. I didn't get over him after, we actually kept in touch this time and I knew deep down we would come back together at some point (and we did after my relationship was over).

Hi Melissinde,

I can relate to a lot of this. I have also felt a connection with my partner like no other -- I really do consider him to be my soulmate -- and that's why it's not easy to just leave even when I'm exhausted by all the drama and fighting. I can also relate to the coldness and lack of empathy after fights (he does apologize sometimes, but if I bring things up or talk about how hurtful it was for me, etc., his usual response is "Think about how hurt I felt" and then suddenly it becomes a competition of who was more hurt, which I never wanted in the first place). Like you, I don't want to talk to anyone I know about this as I know they won't understand and will judge him unfairly, so I would always turn to self-soothing activities like meditation, going for walks, yoga, etc. All of this would help, but finding the support of this group has been invaluable -- something about talking, and in a constructive way, is really healing.

I can also relate to that feeling that the world is falling apart when things aren't going well in the relationship, and that must be compounded by everything else happening with your family. But some advice I heard from Neale Donald Walsch (he wrote Conversations with God) is to give whatever you feel is missing in your life. So if you feel you're missing love, give love to someone else. So it could be reaching out to an old friend, or volunteering. And for me, that's been really helpful in overcoming these challenging periods. And also just focusing on creative projects and things I enjoy. Wishing you the best.

Hi

I echo what Happy shared.

what really seems to help me is giving to others in some way.  then, I get to have the byproduct, which is my life gets taken care of.

It's more difficult to help during these times.

Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences.. it's nice to know I'm not alone (even though I wish none of us had to go through this).


Thank you, I'll try to do that.


He does that too.. Actually he's doing this at the moment. He just entered this phase that I hate the most where he reaches a surface calm but he's actually not being himself at all. In this phase he has a state of mind where he is convinced he is absolutely right and there is no compromise to be made. So right now he decided we shouldn't talk about the hurtful behaviours he's had because I should trust he's already well aware of it and he makes him feel too bad to think about it, that it's useless and that we should just move forward. I hate when he is like that, it's like I'm living with someone else that I can't trust at all. Sometimes this phase can't go on for weeks where no communication about the issues is possible at all and I feel like I'm on my guard all the time.
I'd rather stay away from him when he's like that but hey, we live together, his place is my place and yes I can go to friends or family if I need, I'm that lucky, but I would like to be able to live my life and be at mine.

I really don't know what to do, I don't know how to deal with this personality of his, I don't have to have to deal with it right now, I need my boyfriend but the man I need is nowhere to be found at the moment. What should I do? How can I deal with him when he's like that for quite a while? Can someone please give me some advice? I feel scared and tired and terrible

Hi Melissinde,

I know exactly what you mean and have been through these situations myself. I have realized that getting him to understand where I'm coming from, to at least acknowledge my point of view, or to empathize with me in any way when he's like this is fruitless. For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me, and I must admit that when things do go wrong, I still find myself doing a lot of soul-searching, trying to figure out what I did wrong. But I recognize that this is just his worldview. It's not a reflection of me. No matter what goes wrong with another individual -- whether it's a friend, family member, or complete stranger -- in his mind, it's always 100% that other person's fault. Perhaps somewhere deep down he knows a part of him is in the wrong, but he's too ashamed to admit it even to himself.

So then I surrender, knowing that if he is not providing me with the support and understanding I am craving in the moment, I can give it to myself. This requires a lot of inner work -- meditation, going for walks, etc. Even when you occupy a tiny space together, which we have for most of our relationship -- headphones have become our best friends! I don't have many close friends and have become more isolated during our relationship, so it can be lonely, but it helps that I'm an introvert anyway.

And just taking time to be with myself and doing things that make me happy and not focusing on the relationship or trying to fix anything helps. Because the more I focus on the problem and trying to fix it, the bigger it becomes (and especially if I try talking about it with him or sharing articles on communication or relationship advice, which never turns out well). Whereas if I just focus on trying to feel good myself and giving him space, the situation eventually works itself out. I'm not saying this is easy (especially when we lived in a studio apartment, and he's one of those people whose emotions can fill an entire room), but it's the only thing I've found that works.