Thanks folks. I haven't worked out how to answer a particular person yet but will try soon.
Yes my sister lives with me. Talking only on the phone would be heavenly.
Plus, I'm a ex healthcare worker so biting my tongue is extremely difficult. I'm learning. My current method is sort of removing my emotional self and saying to myself that this is none of my business.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been reading posts here for a little while, and finally decided to write something myself.
I’m in my early 40s, and I’ve been with my partner for over a decade. No kids, not married.

Over the last few years, we both started individual therapy, and it’s slowly become clear that there’s a dynamic between us that neither of us really understood before. My therapist helped me realize that I have very strong fawning/freeze responses tied to childhood trauma (my mother could also be very emotionally volatile growing up). Up until a few years ago, I would have said I had a great childhood, but now I understand that I've been greatly affected by my upbringing.

My partner, through her own therapy, has come to understand that she likely has BPD traits. Having researched BPD over the last year or so, I've started to understand my partner more. Similarly, learning more about fawning, I've come to understand things about myself, finally being able to put into words what has been plaguing me for a long time.

The relationship has become a kind of painful push-pull cycle. There are periods where things have felt loving, connected, and hopeful. But then there are also episodes where something relatively small escalates into days of rage, screaming, verbal attacks, threats of leaving, or saying extremely hurtful things. Afterwards, she is often deeply apologetic, ashamed, and emotionally devastated by her own behaviour.

There have also been moments in the past where the intensity crossed into self-harm (or threatening of self-harm) during arguments. Those moments were terrifying for me and have stayed in my nervous system. That part has become less frequent in recent years, but the emotional volatility is still there. Sometimes if the anger is not happening in person, I receive huge floods of angry texts about how much she hates me, my family, how I’ve ruined her life, etc. She threatens to message my family to tell them as much.

At the same time, I also know I’ve contributed to this dynamic in unhealthy ways. I freeze, avoid, delay decisions, and struggle massively with conflict and commitment under pressure. One of the biggest issues in our relationship has been marriage and children. I’ve never been able to fully move forward with proposing, even though we’ve essentially lived like a married couple for years. This has created enormous pain and resentment for her, especially around fertility and feeling like I “wasted her best years" (to quote something she said to me, and even my own family have said to me at some point too).

I carry huge guilt about that.

What makes this confusing is that I genuinely do love her. But I also feel like my nervous system is constantly in survival mode. During conflicts, I often completely shut down mentally. I lose access to my thoughts, can’t articulate myself, and just try to survive the moment. Sometimes I feel terrified of losing her, and other times I feel desperate to escape the intensity entirely.

I think part of why I stayed frozen for so long is because I genuinely couldn’t tell the difference between “I don’t want this relationship” and “I’m so overwhelmed by everything that I can’t tell what I actually want anymore.” That ambiguity has haunted me for years.

I also relate a lot to what people here describe about slowly losing themselves in these dynamics. I’ve become isolated, emotionally exhausted, disconnected from friends, and stuck in a constant state of guilt and hypervigilance. Even small decisions or tasks now overwhelm me. Sometimes I just wish I could get a break from the internal turmoil I’m carrying.

At the same time, imagining an actual conversation about breaking up or separating feels almost impossible. I know from past ruptures that it would likely bring a massive emotional explosion, and I honestly don’t know if I’m mentally capable of handling that right now. I should also add that I live in my partner’s home country (in an apartment her family owns), where I don’t really have family or close friends. So when she has threatened to kick me out during fights, it basically means I have nowhere to go and would be frantically trying to find somewhere to stay. It has never gone that far, because she usually calms down and takes it back, but the realization is that I don’t feel safe or secure in this “home.” A conversation about splitting up would likely lead to being thrown out, or at least to the fear of that becoming very real.

At this point, I honestly don’t know whether this relationship can heal, or whether we’ve both become too damaged inside it. I’m trying to untangle what is trauma, what is avoidance, what is fear, and what is reality.

I think I’m posting because I don’t really have anyone I can openly talk to about this besides my therapist, and reading other people’s experiences here has made me feel less alone. I'm trying to take my therapist's urging to "reach out to people" in some way, but trying to talk to my family or friends about this is difficult.

I welcome any thoughts or suggestions. Perhaps someone else has been in this kind of situation and can perhaps provide some insight.

Thanks immensely for reading and looking forward to connecting more with this community.

I've thought about that too.  But then again, I think my gut instincts at times in the relationship (prior to marriage) were that I absolutely needed to get out, and was not comfortable with her.  I didn't really trust her.  So I KNEW, just not how to put that knowledge into action correctly.  I would rationalize my way around to sticking it out. 

I think I was weak during those times where the proverbial schitt was hitting the fan, and I would back down, thinking "this isn't that big of a deal, I'll let it go this time," without understanding that these were not isolated incidents, and she was consciously or subconsciously, probing my limits to see what she could get away with.  Everytime I let things go, I was just feeding the monster
you just know the kids who actually are BPD would be absolutely unbearable: pointing the finger at everyone else, denying anything was wrong with them, throwing tantrums if cornered...

I freeze and fawn too. Once a person at work snapped at me. I went back to my office to sit there until I could get my bearings. She later apologized to me, saying she was having a stressful day. She's not disordered, and she went about this the way someone without a disorder would.

It even happens with strangers. I was at a restaurant when a woman at a nearby table said something mean to me. I had a freeze and fawn reaction. It was really out of line but there are disordered people everywhere.

I think if we try to make connections with people, there's some risk to that, but the alternative is to not have friends at all. When someone breaks my trust though, it's very difficult but I get better at not letting it get to me as much.

It recently happened with someone who I thought was a friend. Well, she disagreed with something- remotely connected to me but not directly- it was with a person I also worked with. Her reaction- to block and unfriend everyone connected with that person. So, I found myself blocked, unfriended and without any contact with her and it's gone on for several months now.

My first reaction was similar to how I reacted to BPD mother- as if this was something I needed to fix. Emotionally, I was distraught - I think far more than the actual situation called for. I think this brought out the response to- if BPD mother is angry, I needed to somehow fix it as if it was my fault. I did try to reach out to her with no results.

It's not like me to discard friendships like that, and unless it's a major transgression, I try to work it out, if possible. But this was the familiar BPD like split. Sometimes we don't see something disordered until we do. I'm not upset about it anymore.

For the moment though, I am less inclined to try to form a new friendship with anyone. I don't think it's good to self isolate but also, I feel a need to be protective for now.

Thank you!  That does make me feel better as I am pretty sure that it is the same where we live.  Honestly, when I think about it, I have so much on him, that I don't really worry about his "keeping the kids from him" threat.  What I worry about more is how he will escalate if he doesn't get his way.  He has no problem creating complete chaos for anyone around, when in this mood, so that he will eventually get his way.  In the past, I have done similar to you...if he is in a good place emotionally, he is more than welcome to have the kids, but he usually wants to be around me when he is in this place as well and is embarrassed about mentioning that he does not live at the house, packing lots of clothes and "living" at our house.  But when he switches, he packs his bag again and brings all of those clothes with him back to his place and wants nothing to do with me or my 2 older kids (his step kids).  Sometimes, in this mode, he is "too busy" emotionally to think about our kids, but other times, he is completely obsessed with them (like over the top obsessed)...and will go to all lengths to get his way.  I really think that this extinction burst is about him seeing how happy the kids and I have become without him at the house.  He no longer has control over me or the kids every day...and his only way to regain this in his mind is to completely throw me and the kids off.  And honestly, its working.  The kids and I have been "on edge", and not our happy go lucky selves, since he switched.  I know I can wait it out, as he will eventually switch back...but...I want more than that!  Our happiness shouldn't have to depend on his actions.           

Notwendy,
It seems the abusers really scan the horizons to see who they can take advantage of. I am sorry that you had such a painful experience. Betrayal really hurts. I think our best traits can often be our downfall in the wrong situations. I don't want to become a person who avoids meeting new people because I enjoy all kinds of people. I don't want to avoid the park because I enjoy going there for my daily walk and engage with lots of people who I truly value. It is a free public park so there are all kinds of people there including some of the most disordered. Many years ago, my therapist asked me if there were quite a number of mentally ill people there when I was telling her some of my experiences and I said yes. It is not your typical situation in which there is a more strict screening criteria like a job or a place where it costs money to be. It is a very safe park. People are there at all hours of the night. I like your suggestions on boundaries. I will continue to work on setting better boundaries. My FOO has some of the most awful boundaries: either too rigid or too loose. 

TelHill,
Your feedback about freezing and fawning really resonates with me, especially the fawning. Someone abuses me and then I often try to say or do something nice so the disordered person won't be upset with me. I am a work in progress in learning to disengage as soon as the abuse starts. It frustrates me no end that I can't be honest with a person like my neighbor who has no capacity for empathy. I am doing better in spending more time interacting with really nice people. Going to the park is really important to me. It is a good place to work on my boundaries including with this man who I need to avoid or disengage from quickly when he approaches me. He is friends who another abusive man who I know and he introduced himself to me by commenting on how we both know this guy.

I was thinking that this site has, over the years, proven itself to be an excellent peer support site, though of course anonymous and remote.

One concern with online support is that you don't really know the qualifications of someone online proclaiming to be qualified to provide support.  (Yes, there are some who claim to be qualified but you just don't really know.)  However, over on our Books board we have a long list of excellent books.  Some of those authors have online sites and a few do make referrals to other professionals, though generally we don't track those details.

You may decide to share with others about this site but keep in mind this site is oriented to those impacted by relationships with people who exhibit BPD traits.  This site is NOT to be shared with people who have BPD (or other acting-out PDs such as Narcissistic, Antisocial, etc).  Sadly, our experience is that they are too likely to cause mayhem and discord here.  Also, it is not appropriate for minors to post here due to privacy and other obvious reasons.

I wish there was some way we could have education in our youth about mental illness.  It might save many from allowing our FOO overwhelm yet another generation or cluelessly falling into unhealthy relationships.

Then I imagine classrooms where all the youths are looking around and virtually diagnosing all the other youths.  Oh my!

I hope you are prioritizing as much self care as possible. I spent hundreds of hours listening to my mother with BPD and father with strong narcissistic traits (both deceased) scapegoat their sisters and a brother who were lovely kind people and appointed family scapegoats. If I had to do it over again, I think I would just walk away once the venting started, as allowing them to project on how they felt about themselves onto other people never helped. It just left me feeling taken advantage of and uncomfortable.