The patterns you're describing fit BPD perfectly.  However, each person is an individual with unique thoughts and upbringing.  Some also have more traits than others and some of those traits are way more dominant.

My BPD daughter is a lot like your ex.  My BPD ex-wife is nothing like your ex.  Yet all three have BPD.

One more thing; BPD/NPD are like close cousins, so some of the traits overlap.  Some have one or the other with additional traits from the second category, some show dominant traits of both and could be diagnosed with both.

In any case, you did not cause this and you've been through absolute hell.  This is the time to focus on your own needs and mental health.  It's a time to heal and find yourself once again outside of the relationship.  I know it's impossibly hard because I've been there- my ex left me for another man after 23 years of marriage.  I felt all the same things and I fought for my marriage so hard at first.  Yet in time, I realized that it was a toxic situation and I had to move on for my own wellbeing.

Right now, this must be about you and you alone.  That's the path towards healing and it's what you desperately need.

OH that hits hard

I spent a lot of time feeling the way you do. Your care for him is obviously genuine and you want to help, and you want to make amends for any hurt you caused. This is genuinely kind.

The challenge is, he cannot receive this kindness due to his illness. He cannot handle the intensity of the feelings or balancing his feelings and yours.

I agree with others it’s better not to send the letter.

You are a caring person and also deserve healing. He is an adult, albeit an ill one. You didn’t cause it, you can’t cure it and you can’t control it.

I think the challenge now is to turn your compassion to yourself. Appreciate the love and care you offered him. Appreciate that he hurt and abused you. Understand you’re not perfect and it was a tough situation.

For those of us with CPTSD these relationships unfortunately tend to mirror our childhoods and bring up those wounds. That’s torture but at best it’s an opportunity to look with adult eyes at what we suffered as kids that caused our challenges.

In short - you can’t heal him, sadly. But you can help heal yourself.

Exactly right; the closer you are to them, the worse it gets. This is why they can appear perfectly normal to others who are less close to them and never see the meltdowns. Normally if someone likes you they'll treat you better than anyone else but with BPD the reverse is true. No wonder it's so frustrating!

Most family and friends of the BPD know there's something wrong though - I was warned about dating my ex by her own family, which should have been a huge red flag but of course at the start we're completely crazy about our seemingly perfect partner who matches us in so many ways.

How long have you been dating your ex, your posts don't say?

I’ve certainly noticed that with my ex, she was passive aggressive, highly critical and rude to me but very friendly and cheery with other people. I guess they reserve all of their _____ for their favorite person.

I wouldn’t say she was nasty to me the last time we spoke, just very short, indifferent and cold.. 

Yeah, I'm not expecting much, but I figured if there was a police report made that day regarding the accident, it could substantiate my claim and my daughter's claim of the incident.

a simple "Homeowner reports unknown vehicle hit their mailbox and drove away" would be something at least.  And any other details, such as "white SUV" would go a long way to confirming it, as well as subpoenaing any repairs or insurance claims she's had to make during that time

Probably the best option at the moment - you certainly can't make her do anything she doesn't want to do. Leave the ball in her court, at least for a while. Nothing wrong with sending her a brief 'hi, how you doing?' message after a while if you'd still like to keep the relationship going.

In the meantime, concentrate on yourself and your mental and physical well-being. We all know how thoroughly draining a BPD relationship can be. See friends, do hobbies and try to remember that you deserve a good life, not one of chaos and conflict. None of this is your fault, you were dealing with someone who sadly has a mental illness.

The 'Three C's' is often quoted here.. they are 'You didn't Cause it, you can't Control it and you can't Cure it'. Be kind to yourself.


As I said, it might be final and it may not be. BPD's are capable of saying the most hurtful and cruel things in the heat of the moment and then can wipe them from their mind and deny ever having said them. Quite scary when you think of it.

This is how they can verbally rip you to pieces then next day smile and act as if nothing had happened - because in their minds, it didn't. Having said that though, I've always believed they are far more aware of their actions than they would have us believe. My exBPD would be really nasty when it was just the two of us but then instantly be nice if people came around - this shows a certain level of self-control and premeditation.

Without professional treatment though, BPD is a repeating cycle. Every time my ex came back there was the brief 'nice' period where I thought 'this time things will be different'.. but of course this didn't last and the chaos would start all over again.

I think I’m getting worse and longer ptsd flashbacks to similar feelings from childhood. I haven’t had them this bad in a while. I think it’s due to the grief, and also feeling tired and depleted, which tends to be a trigger for me.

Thanks for holding this space, it gave me room to feel less self
Critical and acknowledge that I’ve been struggling some.

Might this approach help deflect some of the pain of what your loved one is spouting?  Admittedly, the endless negativity will still be hurtful, but it will frame the insulting allegations and insinuations quite differently.

Reset "the reason she was triggered as a kid was because I abused her" to "the reason she was triggered as a kid was because I called her a pink elephant".  Silly yes, but it makes the point that her claims are not just false - which you already know - but ludicrous in a less hurtful way.

Emotionally she's like a two or three year old having a tantrum, she's feels hurt, so she has to make you feel hurt however she can.  Well, she's an adult now, no excuse, though you can't force her to see reality.  For people with BPD traits, feelings are their version of reality.

Yes, all of that makes sense. I think I am just so confused and lost. I am having a hard time figuring out if my ex truly did have BPD or if it was more than that. To the people that I am describing this to, they either say that he could possibly have the worst case of BPD they've heard of or that maybe he also has NPD or ASPD.

I feel so responsible. I truly believe that I made it worse. But at this point, I also cannot tell if that was all by design and he convinced me of that. There were absolutely times that I kept my cool and I let him go through my whole phone and accuse me of texting other men or of deleting texts and I let him rage and yell and throw stuff and I just stayed calm and quiet. But there were times when I couldn't control myself and after days of being stonewalled or accused or after hours of petty jabs, I would snap and I would say things back that I regretted. He made me feel like I was untrustworthy and disloyal. That I had made him so jealous because of my behavior. I would spend weeks, months trying to convince him that I was worthy of his love and of being trusted. I AM crazy for trying so hard. For blaming myself. For holding myself to these impossible standards but not holding him to the same ones. For telling myself well he's unwell so I have to let it slide. Or he's unwell so I can't expect him to understand. Or his exes cheated on him, of course he fears that I will do the same. Yes, I know they can lie about these things but I did confirm that it for sure happened with at least 2 of them.

He would have me send him videos of all of my notifications throughout the day because he thought I was texting other men at work. I had my location on for him nonstop. I would rush to answer my phone quickly so that he didn't get suspicious if it took longer to text back. I would tell him when I was getting in the shower in case it took a little too long to respond. Had to text when I was leaving, when I got home. If god forbid, someone from my past did reach out, I had to tell him/show him immediately or he would think that we had this whole conversation and I deleted it or deleted some of it to make it more palatable. There was once when he spent hours begging for me to come over while also saying to stay away (the whole testing you to see if you will still come no matter what they're saying thing) and I finally fold at like 1am. So I go over there and he won't let me in. For almost 2 hours, I sit in the 40-50 degree cold on the cement outside his door. Begging to be let in. FINALLY he does and he tells me, "don't touch me, don't touch my dog, don't turn off the tv(it's blaring), just shut up and go to sleep" and I do. I just lay there in the dark, horribly uncomfortable because I couldn't get under the covers and I'm too scared to complain or move. And I'm too scared to leave him. Why didn't I leave? Because I was set on proving to him that I wasn't going to abandon him. That he wasn't unlovable like he so feared. Stuck in a whirlwind. Thinking that if I just stick it out, eventually he will see that I mean it when I say I love him. That I mean it when I say I'm not going anywhere.

It's also so confusing because the good times were so magical. And at the beginning, there was a whole lot more good than bad. He once drove me home from work because I was sick. He bundled me up on the couch, kissed my head and made me homemade soup. Put on disney movies for me while he rubbed my feet. Or for dates sometimes we would take these wonderful romantic night time bike rides through the city. Stop at parks to explore or have a picnic. The way we would explore together made me feel like I was a teenager again. In love and free. He helped me make dietary changes that truly made me feel healthier. We went to shows together and the drive in. Went on incredibly fun road trips. Cooked together. We would go swimming and he would just hold me and stare into my eyes while telling me how beautiful I was. All kinds of wonderful romantic movie type memories.

I am just a complete mess ya'll.