I appreciate your replies. Luckily I have ZERO social media accounts. I'm in my mid 30s so it all started when I was in high school. I never saw the appeal, and still maintain it's to garner attention, which is also something I'm not wanting in a partner, attention seeking. I will also never try dating apps, I had done that only one time years and years ago and I did very well. But it just seems strange now, plus if I somehow ran into my ex on there my heart would drop...reading all the lies. I agree I need to move slower. I jumped head first into the last one since the love bombing, sex bombing and being put on a pedestal felt so warm and 'real', which I returned to her.

It's very traumatic and no on understands other than it was a bad relationship. I too questioned every single word, action, task, how I'd breathe, drive, etc. Everything was on the table for criticism and making me a monster somehow. I also became a totally different person in all ways and I'm still trying to put that back together. I'm in the best shape of my life and overall life is going well, it all still seems so blurry though.

And as far as hobbies and such I probably have far too many. I play multiple instruments. Lots of wood working. Metal work. Fixing cars. The list is endless. I do go out and do things whether it's a concert, golf, bowling league, family stuff. Luckily I'm not hiding in my house anymore. Sadly, my city isn't very large and like I said...it's on every list for highest percentage of singles, worst cities to date, and the highest rate of single mothers. It's a little rough.

At the same time, I'm not against meeting someone, however that presents itself. If I find a woman attractive and we strike up a conversation, ok. But I'm not actively looking for anything, and like you had said I feel like a total loser with nothing to offer. And I still ponder on her insults and accusations of my actions. It sort of haunts you; am I controlling, insecure, abusive, toxic? No one in my entire life has said that, so I like to think that I am not those things deep down as a whole. I'm also afraid to meet someone and worry if they're just going to go crazy again. Get me comfortable and break me down a little and then unleash the demon.

Hey there -

I just replied to your 9/2025 post.  I’m past the expiration date, I think  but I feel compelled to also reply to your post here.

I truly don’t understand today’s world of social media and the “presentation” I feel it forces on young people.  I’m not sure how I would have coped with that pressure.

From the words in your posting history, it’s very clear you are way more than the 6’, money-making, 6-pack ab guy who would look nice in photos and sound appealing in a dating app description.  You are allowed to quiet the noise of all the “shoulds” when it comes from people outside of you telling you to date or to “get back out there”.  Only you know when you’re ready.  And maybe this time, a different and slower approach to meeting someone or making a new friend would be more appropriate for you.

These relationships are extremely traumatic and those on the outside don’t truly know what it feels like, and trying to explain it doesn’t seem to work.  For me, I questioned EVERYTHING about myself.  Everything… and the worst thing was that I didn’t trust my judgment about anything because I thought “how could I” when I had let that happen?  I had become a shell of myself, emotionally, physically, spiritually…in every way. And I felt I had nothing to offer and wouldn’t be able to discern between an honest person and another one like him.  I recognized my vulnerability, because of how vulnerable I was when I met him.  And he knew it. 

No one can tell you what to do.  But you can ask yourself about things you’ve never tried but may like to… stick your hands in a bag of clay and try a pottery class or a watercolor painting class.  Pick up a musical instrument and take lessons.  Find a meet-up group for hiking (or some other outdoor activity), or some other activity that doesn’t involve alcohol.  Take a jewelry metal-making class.  Find out what you like that you don’t know about yet.  If you live in a large city, find every free or low cost musical offering and go listen to anything appealing - broaden your interests and you’ll meet different kinds of people.  Everyone has art or music in them…they just may not know it yet.

If you don’t go in you can’t find out.  Everything starts with one small step.

Warmly,
Gems

A big part of the challenge when we are enlisted to be emotional caretakers of our parents, is we learn to prioritize their feelings over our own. It can help to remind yourself whenever you feel uncomfortable with your father's requests to enable your mother or how your mother is treating you, that you are a separate person from them, that these are their feelings and not yours. Learning about the concept of differentiation from Murray Bowen can be a first step in becoming less triggered for shorter periods of time by all the enabling of your mother's behaviors by different family members.

Hi -
I hope it’s okay to bring this post forward?  I read some your post today (12/23/25) about not being ready to date yet and read back a bit to get a feel for your history, and felt the need to maybe address this one from 9/2025.

I felt this, and still feel it… these days for different reasons; and I believe there are good explanations.

When you are deeply involved in a disordered relationship, whether romantic, family or even work-related, I believe we come to live in a state of anticipation, “on edge” as you say. 

I spent nearly 26 years in disordered relationships (2), and have since been trying to figure out the WHY of me?  WHY did I say “yes” to it all… and live in this delusion of forgive and forget… and look both ways before there is any street to cross, the dreaded anticipation that there WILL be a street, or a speeding car.  What is here that could cause a rage? And I’ve done it pretty silently.

And @TelHill is correct, CPTSD may also apply.  I too was diagnosed with that and continue to work on calming those symptoms.  The healing takes time because you have to learn to trust yourself.  And to know you ARE and always WERE good and kind and more than enough.

I hope some of this helps.  There is that saying…  “life is lived forward, understood backward”.

I don’t know.  Maybe writing this is for me more than you.  That wasn’t my intention, I’m sorry.  Today isn’t a good day.

Warmly,
Gems

I have been dating a woman who has bpd for over two years and it’s always the same thing one minute she is so in love with me and the next she is wanting to break up and I know she loves me and I told her I’d never give up on her and I shouldn’t take it personally but it’s just so hard not to play in to the chaos that she brings to the table when she gets that way she also has substance abuse problem with meth which is the worse drug she could do with her own mental illness I am also an addict that’s in recovery and in a treatment facility and she was all set to come to do detox and come to sober living an be up here with me cause we are two hours away from each other it was rather crushing when she changed her mind how can I not let PLEASE READ get to me or what should I do or handle the situation any advice would appreciated cause it’s so hard loving someone with bpd and I won’t give up on her

Fair enough. Maybe it's the holidays or whatever. I really enjoy being someone's bf, planning dates, events, proudly taking them out and doing my best to make them happy. I have been single for a year before, right before I met the BPD ex. But I was wanting something at that point. Currently, I can't even imagine it, or honestly even trust someone. I know it isn't true, but I'm still in that 'they're all the same' mindset. Plus the pressure from every friend and family member to get out and date doesn't help. The city I live in, statistically according to publications is in the top 10 worst cities to date in. It also has the highest amount of singles surprisingly. Pretty telling. It's just so mind blowing how this last relationship just crumbled me. Although, it was the most I have ever given to a gf, I literally gave every last ounce of myself to that person, so I literally started from less than zero after I left.

Hi again,

I suppose I'm in a similar situation, being the stepparent and witnessing my husband's pain and suffering from being estranged from his adult daughter with BPD.  He alternates between grief, worry, frustration, anger, sadness, exhaustion and resentment.  Recently he lamented that his daughter still seems so angry all the time, and that she'll never be able to have a meaningful relationship with anyone because of it.  At the same time, I think he feels embarrassed that his daughter is entitled, *itchy and ungrateful.  But most of all, he's sad, as he misses his "former" daughter, even if she was always a difficult child, and even if life is a lot calmer when she's not around.

I guess I try to support my husband through this estrangement and grieving process.  Since my BPD stepdaughter was mostly grown up when I married her dad, I don't feel responsible or blamed for her troubles the way that most other parents here do.  There's less emotional baggage, and I think that helps me see things more clearly.  I've also learned a lot from this site.  Anyway, I try to reassure my husband, insisting it's not his fault, that he did the very best he could to support his daughter.  In fact, he's gone above and beyond, but his daughter just doesn't understand that yet, because she still feels traumatized all the time, and she's still emotionally immature.  Her emotions have gotten in the way of her learning some life lessons, which she needs to discover on her own I think.  Historically, her dad saved her from distress countless times, but in the process, he made her more dependent and reliant on parental support.  We know she detests feeling childish, and she's embarrassed she's still dependent on us--she RESENTS us for it.  She needs more time and patience to work out some things on her own.  She's asserting her independence.  It might not feel good, but that's all she can handle right now.  Maybe she needs extra space.  Maybe no news is actually good news this time.  We know she'll call as soon as she needs something, just as she has done countless times before.  In the meantime, let's try to be happy, and acknowledge the baby steps of progress.  Let's continue to let her know we are thinking of her and that we're available, but not message anything that involves expectation or obligation, because that stresses her out.

I hope that helps a little.

question for you all, have any of you taken a year off or even more where you didn't go on a single date, talk to a single person or entertain anything at all? Is this 'normal'?


Yes, it’s perfectly normal. Jumping straight into another relationship isn’t normal, which is why many pwBPD do that.

As under the bridge says, everyone is different, and everyone has a different time frame before they are healthy enough to date again. I’d just like to say I really liked the comment, you had rules and codes of conduct and they didn’t. I think that is something we can all relate to.

Personally I have been separated from my wife for 2 years and 2 months. I have been in a relationship for the last 10 months, so that was 16 months since we split up. I did start seeing someone 3 months after our split, but only lasted a month or so and was way, way, way too early.

People need different amounts of time to recover from anything - even a small incident like an accident in a normal life can take weeks or months to get over.

With a BPD relationship we've gone through an unprecedented load of chaos, frustration and hurt, which nobody can ever understand unless they've also been through it. So a year isn't really a long time to get us back to 'normal' yet; we'll spend a long time ruminating over what might have been. It's a tragic aspect of BPD that they treated us worse than anyone else but we wanted them more than anyone else.

Don't set yourself any time period for recovery but just try to get on with life - it will get easier in time even though it may take a long time. Just keep reminding yourself that you gave it your all but it was always an uneven match; you had rules and codes of conduct and they didn't.  You were totally worthy of her.. she just didn't have the ability to see this and respond the same way.

No harm in still thinking about her - she was part of your life after all - but see her in 'the whole', not just the good times. I still recall all the good times I had with my exBPD but I also remember the bad and I know I made the right decision to get off a sinking ship which had no lifeboats.

There are wonderful partners out there who will appreciate you so try and stay positive - I always find good things happen when I least expect them or have given up on finding them.

I guess, in essence, you decline to be your mom's emotional caretaker.  Emotional caretaking is a common form of parentification, when children are expected to provide emotional support for parents instead of receiving care.  I think it shouldn't matter that you're grown up now; the expectation remains that you're the caretaker, when you shouldn't be.

One therapist I know advised a parentified kid to try saying this:  "It's not my job to make a parent feel better, silly.  That's your job."  Now, I don't think you need to say this aloud.  But maybe if you say it to yourself, you might not feel as conflicted.  The therapist is right, it is NOT your job to manage your parent's emotions.  Only your parent can do that.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be nice to your mom, compliment her or act upbeat when you see her.  I just don't think you need to go way out of your way to research education opportunities she didn't ask you for, or say ingenuine things just to artificially prop her up or appease your dad.  I would try to be more genuine and notice real things to praise, such as, "You're so kind for hosting, the decorations look lovely, you always make the house look festive, what's that wonderful smell?"

I guess my take on this is, if an adult wanted to study something, she'd find a way herself.  Seniors in high school are expected to figure out how to apply for colleges and financial aid.  Thus a full-grown adult should be able to do this on her own.  I don't think you should be compelled to do it if you don't want to.  If your father or other siblings wanted to do some research and propose a program, fine, they can do that.  I think you sit back and see how things play out.  Fair enough?

I guess all I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't feel so guilty or selfish.  I bet you've been an appeaser for a long time, and so that's your (and everyone else's) expectation.  It's OK to say NO sometimes, even if it's just a silent NO.  You don't want to be ingenuine or coerced into doing something you don't feel is appropriate, and my sense is that it won't make any difference whatsoever.  I'd say, just try to be as nice as you would be to anyone else.  That includes being kind to yourself, by the way.  That could put you on a pathway towards healing.