Take, for instance, flowers. He went through a period when he would buy flowers regularly. I would say something like, "Thanks!" or "These look nice!" and put them in a vase and that would be it. But he would keep bringing it up - for some reason, my reaction wasn't enough. He would talk about what he perceived as a lack of romance between us, and say "I get you flowers but it doesn't seem to do anything".
There was another time he was spiralling and berating himself and calling himself a 'piece of _____' for, among other things, not buying me flowers.
He moved in with me, it was supposed to be temporary while he looked for his own place, but he never left.
There was another time he was spiralling and berating himself and calling himself a 'piece of _____' for, among other things, not buying me flowers.
He moved in with me, it was supposed to be temporary while he looked for his own place, but he never left.
OK, I have a few observations here.
First, the issue isn't really about flowers, though the flowers could be a symbol, a trigger. I think an issue could be that you aren't meeting your man's expectations, perhaps with gratitude, attention, physical affection or stroking his ego. With BPD, expectations tend to be majorly unrealistic, and thus he's constantly set up for disappointment, and when he's disappointed, he spirals.
I'm reminded of a scene from the movie, The Breakup. A woman is getting ready to host a fancy dinner with her family, and all she asked was for her boyfriend to bring home a dozen lemons for a centerpiece. He brought her lemons, but only a few (not enough for a centerpiece), and he proceeded to sit on the couch to unwind after work. He thought she was upset over some stupid lemons, and that she was nitpicking. Perhaps she was nitpicking (she could had made a centerpiece out of the lemons and some other fruit), but what she was really upset about was the general lack of support from her boyfriend, while the boyfriend thought he was being supportive by working all day and attending the dinner with his girlfriend's weird family. My point is, the argument wasn't merely about lemons, it was about feeling unsupported by the romantic partner. The thing is though, perhaps unlike someone with BPD, the girlfriend didn't have a total meltdown, but she went ahead and hosted the family dinner. With BPD, I would imagine a total meltdown, maybe breaking some dishes, out-of-control shouting, storming off, maybe making a threat of suicide, and ruining the dinner completely.
And now the issue of moving in with you. I think that with BPD, any promises made are probably made with the right intentions, but they are based mostly on the feelings of the moment. Maybe it's easy to make promises when everything seems hunky-dory right now. But I think that pwBPD can confuse intentions with the realities of execution. They tend to discount future efforts, while placing most of the focus on immediate gratification. So moving in with you might seem like a great idea: closeness, avoiding being alone, you're the one paying the rent, you solve his immediate housing problem. He "discounts" the reality that he'll have to work to earn income, find a place for himself, fend for himself and do the heavy lifting of actually moving out. Since the stress of all that is probably overwhelming to him, he copes by avoiding it. He'll put it off as long as possible. In my experience, pwBPD can carry a huge emotional burden when it comes to executing on mundane, everyday things, like making a plan to check out apartments, sign a lease, apply for jobs or pay some bills. Their tolerance for distress tends to be very low. To cope, I think they tend to rely on others to take care of them, while at the same time, they tend to blame others for their problems. They can concoct a convoluted victim narrative as an excuse for not executing on their plans--and they might deny they ever made any promises in the first place. Basically it's your fault he's acting the way he is. Sound familiar? I think that's typical of BPD.


