BPDFamily.com

My uBPDxgf is charming, charismatic, and smart.  She has many friends, including some apparently close ones, and acquaintances.  People adore her.  They remember her with a smile.  Men get crushes on her regularly.

Yet her behavior toward me was awful.

Is this contradiction often found in pwBPD?

Sounds all too familiar to me my friend! Its all part of the act sadly. If they were charismatic & charming all the time we'd still be with them and they wouldn't be disordered.

Everything seems to contradict itself with BPD and the more we try to put logic to all the crazyiness the more confusing it gets!

My ex is the most charming woman i've ever met and just like yours she has many admirers. She has convinced so many people in her life (including me) how kind and generous she is & how her life has been full of bad luck and misery. But I now know different. Her stories are full of untruths or exaggerations and shes not kindhearted in the slightest - in fact shes the most selfish person i've ever come across!

We live in a town of around 70000 and even though shes only 27 she must've had 20 'relationships' with men from our town who i'm pretty sure would all tell you shes nuts! People talk so i'd imagine she'd get a few shocks if she knew what people REALLY thought of her!

I've been out of her life for 8 months now but it still bugs me that her friends cant see her for who she really is - a user and a liar that just happens to have a mental illness. Or maybe they do know but don't say anything. She can be pretty intimidating and any confrontation with her can be scary!

I think of her now as a complete phoney! A conwoman that butters you up at first with superficial charm just to abuse, control and manipulate you as soon as she feels comfortable enough in the 'r/s'!

Does it bother you that people adore her?

Actually i admire that quality in her.  But the contradiction makes me question myself.  Am I missing something?  Is there something wrong with me? Am I the crazy one after all?   

During our relationship she often used her social capital to distance herself and disrespect me.  I fit the 'lonely child' type and am prone to unhealthy isolation.  Additionally she became hostile to my having my own friends and social life.

After the relationship, I was concerned about her ability to wage a damaging smear campaign.  I feared being spurned and isolated.  I'm reassured that several people we know in common have reached out to me.

my husband is very charming and generous to strangers, especially if he wants something from them, but it is always superficial and not genuine.  I can see how fake it is, but i wonder if others can see through it, too.

A common tool is mirroring - or in this case being charming.  We all put on our best foot around strangers.

Is it fake?  Not really - having an unstable sense of self leads to a chameleon like personality - again very charming on a superficial level.

Why do we see the other side?  Simply, it is with the core fear of abandonment that the maladaptive coping is seen.  Friends may see traces, but they don't live with it and a high functioning BPD may only be triggered by the most intimate of relationships.

Did it bother me?  At first, yes - but the more I learned about the disorder, the more I realized this was not about me.  I was bothered by the friends who couldn't see it.  It took me a while to realize that friends had a totally different lens than I did.

My exBPD was also charming and charismatic, very bubbly when in a good mood.  She had quite a few friends but was constantly fighting with one or another.  She lost many good friends and tended to stick close with others that were mostly shallow.  I think many of her friends are afraid of her but they are also infatuated with the constant drama in her life.  Generally speaking I don't think any of her friends realize how mentally ill she is.