I can empathise totally as it was exactly my situation. After 4 years of her BPD behaviour which consisted mainly of her moods and constantly breaking up  - I suppose we could call this 'standard BPD' and was hard enough to cope with, she suddenly seemed to go up the scale and now seemed on the verge of possible violence. Add to that the jet-black eye pupils of one who is totally removed from reality and it became quite scary.

This made me really re-think the relationship as moods are one thing but violence is a totally different ball game, especially as BPD are so good at playing the victim and it would be so easy for us to end up the villain.

I think then I knew I'd reached the end of the relationship; she wouldn't change nor ever accept professional help and all the signs were of her actually getting worse so I'd have to either endure this or finally end it and I chose the latter, hard though it was.

It all depends on how much you're willing to take and we all have different breaking points.

Best wishes

Couldn't agree more CC43, my aunt is everything my mum wishes she was, my aunt is a vivacious, outgoing lady who has lived a life having many interesting hobbies such as wing walking with an air acrobatic team, body building, modelling. She's outgoing and my mother hates that! My aunt coped amazingly losing her husband suddenly a year after my dad died too and that will no doubt stick in my mind throat. To make it worse, my ain't and I look alike, are just like each other in personality and are very close so again she hates it! What she does is to try and invent back stories that she had a horrific childhood to excuse why she is the way she is and make my late grandfather out to be Josef Fritzl but she was in a household of 4 adults and 3 other siblings and nobody saw anything bad happen! Interestingly my Gran had the same traits and used to make my granddad's life hell at times!

The general consensus is that you don't tell the disordered person a diagnostic "label" such as BPD, too often there's a negative overreaction.  We read here that there are even some therapists who treat BPD patients without them being told what precisely the therapy sessions are for.  There is simply too much Denial, Blaming and Blame Shifting for the person to truly listen, especially to a close relationship partner... there is just too much baggage from the close relationship.


My close person - who may have BPD, I never did have confirmation and it's been two decades - never figured it out.  After 8 years in and out of family court (during and after divorce) and with the court consistently ignoring her allegations and antics... the final time we were in court the decision read that she needed counseling but the court declined to order it.

Family or domestic courts deal with litigants as they are.  They don't try to "fix" them.  That is a concept we need to ponder for ourselves.  Perhaps you can share your thoughts with his therapist?  I doubt there is a law you can't provide information.  But be aware that unless your spouse gave permission, the therapist can't share any details with you.

He has a job and is well payed (a little bit more than me thank god). He is constantly behind with tasks and always feeling bad about tasks that are piling up: emails, etc.. Any time he tries to sit down and actually work he gets huge anxiety attacks and so sitting down to actually do stuff is extremely painful to him. He keeps telling me he needs help with that, but I am too weak to help him: "you are never there for me, you will never be there for me".

I believe that he does not want to accept or even investigate the idea that he might have BPD, though he has heard of the concept: a previous girlfriend told him. He is set on ADHD as his diagnosis and is working from that hypothesis. I think that DBT may be his best bet for him, but it sounds like I should not be the one to suggest that. I have been secretly reading about DBT, trying to learn the skills, listening to things that Marsha Linehan has said. Most recently I saw a video on youtube where she explains radical acceptance and it literally felt like that is exactly what he should be doing and is having trouble with. It felt like that is what I should be doing too, of course, I am quite moved by the idea and it has somehow managed to soothe my nervous system for a day. That and the fact that he is currently giving me the cold shoulder and not really interacting with me at all other than work (we are colleagues) and kids. He would occasionally give me tasks: get me that medicine, call that person... but he wants to spend no time with me and he is pulling away emotionally.. Sadly to me this feels better than the alternative of constantly being worried that the next thing I say/do/ not do will set him off.  The kids feel this change in me too - the last day they have been more relaxed, fighting less, hugging more. That was totally devastating to me, the realization that when I am stuck in fight/flight my children are there with me.

Should I approach him with: look here's what I think - you have BPD (in addition to ADHD) and you should check out DBT because it actually helps. Or is the fact that if he wanted to, he could figure this out himself and is not doing it enough to tell me, he is not ready to accept this/work on this.. I am currently thinking it is the second.  How did your close person with BPD figure it out?

Let me just add that he is among  the smartest people I know which complicated things further.  Let me also add that I have so much respect for him (ignoring all the lashing out) and I truly look up to him in many situations and I really really want to figure out if there is a good thing I can do myself apart from stay by him, suffer through rages, try not to lose myself in the process.. Because it really feels like what I do currently is more hurtful than helpful. I enable him in many ways.

Hello, I wrote a post before about this before, but there have been a lot of updates, so I'm writing from a clean slate.

Currently, me and my partner have been in a relationship for 3-4 years now. We are long distance, but we meet in person time to time. She is FA attachment & BPD diagnosed (In therapy and medicated) and I'm ADHD & Anxiety/Panic Disorder diagnosed. I also have anxious tendencies (from trauma and past relationships), and I'm currently in the process of therapy and self care. I'm also an FP of hers.

We've had a good relationship, but we've had our ups and downs. We met when we were teenagers, and we bonded together over common interests we had. We got together almost 4 years ago almost, and it's been well. She does occasionally tend to take space whenever we have a disagreement or misunderstanding and talk to me in the morning about how it made her feel that way and how I felt a way and we come to a mutual ground about it. She does get anxious whenever I have to go to work or when I go on a trip, but she usually does tell me how she feels. We've never had any physical or verbal violence, the most is her avoiding me to not say anything she will regret. We've had a couple of times where she might read my tone or facial expression in a way and she gets upset thinking that I don't want to talk to her and that I'm forcing myself, but I clear that up with her by being direct. We would talk everyday, at first it was like everyday every hour, but slowly it shortened because we got busy, but we made time for each other still regardless. She also has a very short lived social battery, so sometimes she takes a nap or doesn't talk to anyone for a period of time in the day to recharge. I guess you could consider I'm one of the first people in her life to actually show that I care about her despite her BPD, so it was a new experience for her. I spent a lot of time with learning about her patterns and I've helped her through episodes, meltdowns, and a lot of other things. We were planning to move in together as well and we had some general ideas of where we wanted to live and she wanted to be it accessible for her to get more treatment as well.

We also did break up one time because I was at an extremely intense point of my life with my studies, my parents, my friends, and my health. I was really struggling a lot. During that time actually, my partner was pushing everyone because of a situation between her and a friend that I'll mention about in the next couple of paragraphs.

For the past few months , she's been going through a lot of stuff in her personal life (which triggered her fear of abandonment, her paranoia, and her fear of rejection). This led her to push everyone away, including me, for 2 weeks ish? Then she texted me and explained what was going through for the last couple of weeks when she was avoiding me, (which I knew from her social media) and the ultimatum she said was either to take a break or break up. She said that she doesn't think she can handle a relationship as of right now, and elaborated how she deals with SI, she's anxious, avoidant, she has paranoia and hallucinations and that she doesn't want me to have to deal with her through recovery and relapsing because it's an intense process and she doesn't want to take me down with her. As much as I was being understanding, it seemed like she was being really pushy about it regardless, like as if she was trying to get me to leave before I could leave. Kind of like she opened the door for me and wanted me to go out before I can go ahead and do it myself. She said that she's not the one for me and I deserve someone else. I care and love her a lot, and I didn't just want to leave her like that because I was fine with pursuing further in the relationship with her. She also did tell me that she feels like a burden because she can't do a lot of things because of her current living situation and her mental health, and I understand that because she's mentioned it multiple times and regardless of what I can tell her, she will still feel that way. I eventually came to terms with how she feels and I didn't try push her or anything in our relationship. I used that time validating and setting boundaries with her about it. 

In the end, she asked me if we could still stay in touch, talk, hangout, visit and I said that was okay.

When I was reading her messages though, it sounded like she didn't want to really break up, but was throwing it in the air that it's an option I can take.

I told her we can do a break and she can take her time to get better. I only chose to take a break because I still love her and care about her, and I'm totally fine with just pausing and have her focus on herself.

We did end up to do small conversations about like what we've been up to and common interests we have. Not for very long times, mostly very very short. I would say our me and my partner's contact have been very minimal and that's because of boundaries I set with her for when we talk and interact. She agreed on it and was glad to be talking with me again very slowly. She still has me on all her social medias, she still has stuff about our relationship on all her social medias, she also sends me stuff on social media, and occasionally sends me messages.

I think I enabled her to push me away a bit because I did happen to get a vulnerable with her about my physical health in a conversation a few days ago, and after that she seemed to have withdrawn herself, even after she told me she was okay with listening to me.

Through this situation though, I noticed that she's been really close with that friend of hers that I mentioned earlier on. They've been talking about wanting to move in with each other, wanting to hang out all the time and go explore the city, and basically mirroring that friend's behaviorism and interests. This is where I got caught off guard because seeing this was pretty out of nowhere. I will say that this person also has BPD.

My partner has had a lot of toxic experiences with this person, along with positives. The most notable one was probably the one that happened when me and my partner got close. I don't exactly remember how it went down, but I believe that person wasn't happy with the fact that me and my partner got close, which led to this friend of hers ruining their relationship. Her friend had a lot of people against my partner and they would all talk bad about her and make really snarky remarks about her mental health on social media. It went so far, my partner was almost hospitalized and almost filed a lawsuit for emotional distress. They just recently rekindled their relationship after 2 years of that situation going on, and I believe that because of the positives my partner is willing to keep trying with her constantly. They've been having these kinds of extreme up and downs even before I met my partner. Other people in my partner's life in the past have gotten involved with this person differently, but it would end up creating a toxic cycle.

With this context, I don't know what to think about at the moment. As of myself, I've been trying to take care of myself with the guidance of my therapist, and have been engaging myself in new hobbies and activities with friends, family or by myself. Even though with that, this runs in the back of my mind.

I'm curious to know if this related to the push/pull cycle, or like devaluation/idealization? Emotional discarding? It might just be my ADHD that makes it hard for me to understand these concepts, but I'd appreciate any guidance.

Thank you for replying, for more context yes he has BPD diagnosed 4 years ago and is on medication to support himself. We went through the idealisation period and the honeymoon was great, even when he had periods of emotional lows and required first aide for self harm. He is experiencing a lot of change and family difficulties over the last 4 months, and was at emotional capacity. He went from I love you and intense to pulling back over a couple of weeks. I’m still working through the emotions but if I’m being honest with myself the last 4 months I have felt like I’ve been investing more and had to be very careful about what and how I said something because he would shutdown. There were signs he was hiding things from me which he hadn’t done previously but he was very good at either making me feel like I was seeing things that weren’t there or talked his way out of it. AndI wanted to believe him. It calmed my anxiety. Over the 2 weeks I felt suddenly devalued, not even friends. He had control over when he would pop up again and when he would suddenly disengage and I couldn’t work out the pattern. I’m glad I saw the location because it helped me implement my boundary of stepping back - I couldn’t heal while he easily moved on. But what I didn’t expect was for him to deliberately not reply or check messages that I did send because I believed him when he said he would be there when I came back. I understand his experience but for me the sudden shift has been hard on my nervous system.

I’m open to being friends if it’s healthy for both of us. But I am curious if others have successfully come back from the devaluation and silence NC stage and engaged in a healthy boundary friendship? And also any tips on whether complete no contact while he is not engaging or the occasional check in over the weeks or months?

Hi and welcome.

Do you think he's BPD?  I'm curious because you haven't really described any behavior from him that would seem to be problematic in that sense, though I can certainly understand why you're feeling shock and grief over losing him.

But, as far as whether there's any issues with him, it sounds like he either: 1) tried to let you down easy, or 2) decided to keep you around in the event he changed his mind, or (assuming he was going after someone else) it didn't work out.  But it's not possible to know which at this time. 

It sounds like "extinction burst" behavior on her part: escalating the emotional level to possibly include violence in order to get you to comply with what she wants. 

You could be at a bit of a fork in the road in your relationship, as in you whether you decide to separate from her (at least until she calms down and agrees to stop this behavior), or you keep riding the emotional roller coaster with her. 

Maybe you can stick it out until the "extinction burst" burns itself out (though it might get intolerably worse before it gets better).  It can get really ugly though, so yeah, take precautions to protect yourself from any violence, or false allegations, or other insanity, if you decide to stay put. 

In my own situation, as I withdrew and refused to engage in the fighting after a certain point, BPDxw started escalating the nastiness, and it was so off-putting to me that it allowed me to just leave & divorce without any second thought. 

Hi there ladies,

Putting aside the volatile emotions and victim perspective of BPD for a moment, I've observed that BPD often involves unrealistic expectations.  Sometimes I think it's as if pwBPD live in a fantasy world, with a heavy dose of childish, "magical" thinking--believing that they should command everyone's attention, and that others should cater to their every need, without regard for other people's circumstances.  Their conception of an interpersonal relationship is too demanding, too INTENSE.  An example might be that the pwBPD believes that close relatives should always remain "available" to her--to talk, to entertain, to give her money, to help with logistics, to solve daily problems or take her on vacations.  Another example might be that she expects parents to spend all their disposable income on the adult BPD child, because they "owe" her.  She might have the expectation that the childhood home should never change, and that family members should never move away, let alone marry (or remarry), or devote time to their own families.  Another expectation might be for a Prince Charming to knock on her door, sweep her off her feet and set her up in a palatial home, where she has no responsibilities for upkeep or income contribution.  Since these expectations are unrealistic, childish and partly delusional, the pwBPD feels constantly disappointed and aggrieved.  And so she might lash out, accusing you of "abandoning" her, not helping her, not catering to her every need like she was used to in the past.  She'll say you're a terrible person, selfish, narcissistic--and that your life and home are horrendous, your friends are evil, that you should be punished and rot in hell . . . and maybe she'll threaten you too.  Immediately after that she'll try to "punish" you by cutting off all conntact.  I think this is a reflection of her childish expectations that set her up for constant disappointment, which leads to petulance, tantrums, rages, threats and/or bouts of depression.  On top of that, she's seething mad when others seem happy and hit life's milestones, because it's a stark reminder to her that she is not happy nor hitting milestones.  It's almost as if she's stuck, while others close to her are moving on, and she's not happy about that.

Look, nothing you do will change your sister.  The only person you have control of is YOU.  I'd say, if your sister is ripping apart your sanity, then you deserve a break from her.  You don't have to explain anything to anybody, just take a break.  I'd say, let her calls go to voicemail, and don't listen to any messages if you can't handle them right now.  You don't have to read her texts or emails, either.  If something were truly important, trust me, you would find out some other way (for example, your parents or other family members would reach out to you).  And if you're worried about what your sister is saying about you behind your back, I'd say, try to stop worrying about that.  Your family already knows your sister has her issues.  My guess is that they already know she's prone to lying (or extreme exaggeration).  You do NOT have to defend yourself.  I'd say, try to focus on YOU.  Get busy with your life, so that your disordered sister doesn't occupy so much headspace.

Your sister is doing to.you exactly what my mother does to her sister.. My mum turned on her sister massively a month or so ago and my brother and I are struggling to cope with her behaviour. It's hard for my aunt because she frets about my mum potentially going through with suicide threats, my mum has caller display and so like to not answer the phone to her sister or half sister just so she can make them panic!

The sad thing is that unless any professionals are willing to step in push my mother into some serious therapy, I think we're screwed and just have to minimise contact as much possible otherwise she'll just keep being mentally abusive to myself and my brother