BPDFamily.com

Hello,

My girlfriend with BPD and I have been together for almost four years. The relationship has been, well, you know, complicated, but in my opinion also good. I have never learned so much from anyone before. From the beginning there were issues, and of course there were the classic ups and downs, the now I want to be with you, now go away. Well, it is sad, but she has an illness.

I must say though, as much as I make it sound awful (and those moments were awful), I have always loved her and cared for her. I understood she has an illness, and tried to be patient with her. When things did not get out of hand, they were good. She has never treated me bad in an intentional way (in my opinion), never has attacked me physically, or screamed at me. Of course she has said hurtful stuff to me, but I do not see this as a BPD trait, happens in every relationship. She has always supported me when I needed it, and I truly believe she is a very good person despite some bad moments.

But the past five months have been tough. She broke up with me back in May, just to come back the next day. Then, she cheated on me. I put up with all of it, and just two weeks ago she told me she needs space from our relationship. I understand her, but it is very painful for me to go through this after she did all of the other stuff.

I have talked to her, and she seems to be unable to forgive herself for hurting me. Meanwhile, I confessed I might also need time for things to calm down and deal with the pain, as I have been too angry at her from time to time. There was way too much negativity between us. These two weeks have given me time to think and realise things, and despite it all, I do think I want to be with her. I might be a complete fool, but I do want to.

My question is, what am I supposed to do if she wants space? I have respected her request and given her space, which seems obvious to me, but sometimes she messages me (and I admit I have messaged her sometimes). Is this normal? I hope she can calm down and cope with her feelings towards me, and specially towards herself. So, what does it mean when a pwBPD wants space?

  Some call this the “recycling phase”.

 Part of the push and pull cycle in BPD. Sometimes they get over it and sometimes a replacement comes along and you are all of the sudden discarded. There is no way of telling but best is to emotionally  detach yourself as much as you can until the BP works their way out of it. You can stay in contact but be ready for anything.

 

Hey jjalspa!

As to what can you do in this situation, from my experience, it is wiser to indeed give our significant other with bpd space and time when they ask for it. Chasing her might feel like an aggression to her and, at the same time, it puts you in an unconfortable place feeling like you absolutely have to do something to make things right (while it could unvoluntarily make things worse).

Then, why are they asking for space? I can't give you the perfect answer, but I'll try to give you hints based on my experience and what I have learned so far.

It could be because they are dealing with emotional turmoil and are struggling to get through it.Guilt, as you said your girlfriend told you she was feeling, may be a huge trigger for them and is often intertwined with shame. At least it is for my boyfriend who has bpd. I can't say if it is "normal", but I can tell you that it happened many times that my boyfriend asked me to give him space because he was dealing with too many emotions and he was not able to handle them at the moment. It also generally takes longer for a person with bpd to regulate their emotions and come back to a baseline.

Based on the other threads I read here, asking for space can sometimes mean that they don't know how to end the relationship or want to keep a foot in it in case they would like to come back.

Hope that helps, take care of yourself!