BPDFamily.com

Hello,

I was dating my my boyfriend for a long time. I had noticed very controlling things he would do, but never thought much about it. It got very hard and I don't know how i started reading one of my Psych books. I stumbled over Border Personality Disorder and decided we had a match. I confronted him about this and he told me he was diagnosed. I was very surprised an angry about how he hadn't told me. After months of doing what he asked me to do which I will soon describe, he had not even told me he had a personality disorder.

My boyfriend was mad at the world. He was disgusted by human nature, saying how the act of thinking someone other then the person you love is attractive is a human flaw. Therefore, he would make me tell him every time I found someone attractive and if I felt something for someone else even though it was for a very small amount of time. This included anything from talking to a friend to watching a movie, I had to tell him everything. If not he would threaten to break up with me. Naturally I resisted at first, but somehow I lost all sense of reason. I would blindly fall into the punishment and feel guilty if I found someone attractive, even though is humanly impossible not to. He made me feel guilty, calling me a whore, and telling me I was too sexual for him. This really destroyed me. I have my very institutionalized set of values, and the person I love makes me feel like if I had none. I don't know what to do. We finally broke up and he acts so cold. I feel desperate. Eventhough I know this was an abusive relationship, I still love him. Im trying to understand everything. Some days I even think that what he called me is the truth. I also feel guilty about how I just fell for everything. I couldn't even respect myself enough to walk away, and I followed through every time he threatened with breaking up with me. I hope you guys, whoever you are, could give me some advice.

Thank you

He sounds deeply insecure, and it sounds like he's taking it out on you, instead of doing his part to feel more confident in himself and your relationship. He may also be projecting. My undiagnosed BPD ex had similar issues with jealousy - any woman I was close to who wasn't her became instant grounds for suspicion ("stop liking people who aren't me!", essentially). There is a lot of talk on this board about "fairy tale" thinking - like the thinking that you should only be attracted to or connected to one person in your life (your partner), otherwise you're not *really* in love.

The hardest thing, when these relationship breakdown to this point, is that we have lost the ability to see ourselves - we've accepted someone else's view of us over our own view. We get caught in a debate of trying to get our partner to see us as who we are.

This is not a criticism of either of you, it tends to be a byproduct of these relationships.

I think the first step is to let go of trying to align who you see yourself as and who he sees you as. This will free you from fighting this identity argue. You know who you are. He is the one with the impulsive and distorted thinking. Its best to see it for what it is and not get caught up in trying to convince him.  I know this is hard - but you can take your self respect back and nurture it yourself.

Can you tell us more about this breakup?  How long has it been?  How many times have you broken up?

Your core sense of self has been subjugated. It is simply not working at the moment. It takes time to wake it up again so that it can steer you back to that place of self awareness.

You have not been steered by your own values for sometime, and now the driver has vacated the seat so you are drifting without direction. Do not let this scare you it is normal, most of your feelings now are reactive survival instincts, and the first one is to grab hold of the driver and put them back in the seat again. Any driver feels better than no driver. Once you get behind the wheel and put some hours in then your confidence will return and being your opwn master will feel like second nature again.

Have you ever sat down and wrote out self affirmations and the pros of being you, writing out your values, goals and aims in life? Sometimes seeing them in black and white makes them seem more real and worthy. Giving them a physical presence is the first step in owning them. The first seeds of growth if you like

Hi prisshdzz,

This is understandable -- many of us stay because we're hard-wired for love and connection. It's normal. You felt intimacy with him, and you responded with commitment and tried to show that commitment by proving you were trustworthy. In a healthy relationship, this works great. In a relationship with someone whose thinking is distorted, this can be extremely confusing, especially if we lose our sense of self.

It feels confusing when these relationships end. Yet, often there is a voice inside that is very reasonable, we just don't listen to it all the time. You know that you are not the things he called you, somewhere deep inside. That's a good place to start. Like you said, it's natural to find other humans attractive. To your BF, this natural human behavior is threatening, and he fears it represents abandonment, something he is desperate to avoid.

Glad you found the site 

LnL

Eventhough he threatened me we were going to break up after i told him each time I did find someone attractive, he would come to his senses, and knew it was his BPD. He's incredibly smart, so he was aware of what he was doing. This just makes it harder (with his insults) because of the fact that he recognized when he was out of line. We never broke up until we broke up in September. I am normally very self-aware and driven, but I miss him a lot, and the first month of our breakup, October, was very hard. I couldn't stop myself from calling him, asking him unanswered questions, and in summation sounding pathetic. I felt like the tables turned. I was the one who was over-emotional.

BPD has affected him in monumental ways. He is 25 and he hasn't graduated from college. He and his ex before me dated a long time, and that relationship affected him because she told him all of the times she had lied to him about seeing someone attractive, making him more untrusting afterwards.

We broke up because he knew that if we continued our relationship it would only lengthen his time in college. I know this is whats best for him, but I feel like he left like it was so easy for him. He left when he needed too, leaving me in the sidelines. I dealt with his demands even though I have my own fair share of things to time manage etc. It isn't fair.

This may be an opportunity to reset things.

The breakup solves one problem for him - but if you start to distance it will create another to be solved.  Remember, he is impulsive and tends to cope by blaming. Leave him alone, its the holidays, let the new problem sink in.

With respect to the paragraph above, you need to reset yourself here.  You're not a whore. You sexuality is yours, not his.  Your emotions don't need to be confessed.  Your values are yours.  Honor them.

What is happening here is the early stages of enmeshment. Its something that makes him comfortable.  With any partner, the only feel safe when we follow their model of safe.  This is normal.  pwBPD can take it to extremes and if you comply you give up your autonomy.  So while you are apart, think about your values and your autonomy and what your boundaries should be and fix those in your mind. This is a good article to help you organize this thought:

This life skill has three pillars: defining personal values to ourselves, communicating and asserting what is in-bounds and out-of-bounds to others, and being committed to make hard choices, when necessary, to honor and defend.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/setting-boundaries

The key here is not to be confrontational (or timid) about your boundaries - but committed to them and firm.

For example, you have good moral values, right?  You live them, right?  So when someone calls you a whore, how should you deal with that?

Hint: not to be confrontational (or timid)  but committed to them and firm.

I know how you feel, I am there too, I dated my boyfriend for two years, long distance, and he came to visit once a while from England to kenya, it was like heaven, i got pregnant but lost the baby at 30 weeks when we were away. When we were apart he was so insecure that i would leave him but i promised and promised almost everyday that i would never leave and he promised that he would never leave. The visits were both 9 months apart, we stayed away from each other for long periods of time.

Finally he decided to come to kenya to live with me and we were so happy. In august he came, the culture shock made him stressed, i thought maybe it was just that. He hated everyone on the streets, his negativity was drowning me, and his racism, he would use the n word often saying that all black people are the same and he hates black people, yet am black. I forgave him many times. I started reading about the condition as i remember he had mentioned it to me when we met, but he is undiagnosed.

I went back home two weeks ago from work to find he and everything of his gone. He did not tell me, I am so broken and confused I am in depression.

I called his phone was off, I went through my phone and found some strange numbers he had used to call a country called georgia, and when i called that number a guy oicked up and said he was there volunteering on a WWoof farm. I cried screamed and was so hurt. Even his mom in the UK DIDNT KNOW WHERE HE WAS.

I was so devastated, he left without goodbye, from telling me have a good day i love you in the morning to coming back to an empty house. Since then I have called him and he wants nothing to do with me.

He as completely forgotten about me, it has been two weeks. I feel used.