Why Do They Cancel Pre Arranged Engagements?

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

I believe that one of the traits of pwBPD is that they cancel pre arranged engagements with family or friends. My exBPD use to do this often. We would arrange a night out with friends at a restaurant, theater etc. Then at the very last minute she would say "I carn't go because i fell unwell" or some other such excuse.

I knew that she was lying and she was not feeling unwell at all.  So why do they do this?

[Willingtolearn]

I believe that one of the traits of pwBPD is that they cancel pre arranged engagements with family or friends. My exBPD use to do this often. We would arrange a night out with friends at a restaurant, theater etc. Then at the very last minute she would say "I carn't go because i fell unwell" or some other such excuse.

I knew that she was lying and she was not feeling unwell at all.  So why do they do this?

[momtara]

I don't know, but my hubby did it often, and it drove me nuts.  It IS possible they feel unwell because such events stress or trigger them for various reasons.  If they aren't comfortable socially or don't want people to see through their façade, they may want to avoid social engagements.

My hubby sometimes even seemed to look forward to them, but then he'd get 'sick' or come up with some other excuse. 

It's hard for the partner of that person, since it's a relief to be out with other people who are normal!

[heartandwhole]

Hi Willingtolearn,

I didn't really have the same experience with my pwBPD.  I know that kind of behavior would have frustrated me.

I knew that she was lying and she was not feeling unwell at all. 

How did you handle it when that happened?

[Willingtolearn]

Hi heartandwhole

How did i react?  Sometimes i just said fine and let her get on with it.

Other occasions it would end up with a full blown argument.  It was very frustrating. Sometimes we had planned months before hand to meet people and then at the 11th hour it was all called off.

[RedEye]

My wife does this a lot. We became completely unreliable once we were married. A lot of times it's because of my wife is legitimately sick (she gets sick a lot), but a good portion are just because she's angry and doesn't want to do anything or isn't comfortable. I wish we would stick to our commitments... . now I just can't make any commitments anymore. I don't know if it frustrates the people we cancel on, but it frustrates me a ton.

[changingme]

I dealt with this same issue as well.  Same for holidays and birthdays somehow we seemed to always fight because he would just get into these moods.  It was very hard and sad and for years I would dread any upcoming holiday, birthday, wedding, etc.  Events are definitely triggers for them. 

[Octoberfest]

I was supposed to meet my BPDex's parents on numerous occasions.  Both her mother and her father (they were divorced).  In the 9 months I was with her and the NUMEROUS trips to her home town, I met her grandparents a grand total of 2 times.  That was the extent of meeting her family.  Each time it was supposed to happen, her parents would have plans come up or they would refuse to meet me... . I kind of doubt that was the real truth. I suspect it had a lot more to do with the fact that she was dating 3 guys in 3 different cities at once at one point, and she couldn't very well introduce multiple boyfriends to her parents.  Not to mention that in the span of 9 months she had... . 4-5 partners (one was a girl) including me, she sure didn't want to make it look like she went through guys that fast.  What a troubled girl... . I can't fathom living the way she did. 

She also ruined special events.  Valentines day, group retreats with the Fraternity for our formals, birthdays, she always found a way to cause a scene and ruin them.

Glad to be free

[Hazelrah]

I definitely experienced this many times with my W.  She often felt unwell before planned social excursions, and we were forced to cancel quite a few plans.  It got to the point where we rarely did much socializing with other people, other than immediate family.  I always encouraged her to go out with the few friends she had, but she rarely did--she usually just wanted to spend time with me.

[Bach Cantatas]

My goodness I thought that I alone experienced this behaviour. It happened on numerous times for me and ultimately was a major point in our developing separation. I am not sure as to the reasons why my ex did this, but very often she found other activities to attend to which were not of great I.E. professional importance. Very bizarre indeed!   

[numbr3]

My xh always seemed to be sick or pick a fight most b.d.'s, anniversaries, holidays.  Sometimes it seemed to be a passive aggressive act to ruin my happiness.  Also I think those events are stressful for them. Not sure how those events were during their childhoods either.  Maybe it triggers those memories.  I know he always wanted all the attention. It is like a 3 year old being naughty to get the attention. After awhile it just sucked.

[MovingOnForLife]

Boy am I glad to see this post!  My stbx uBPDh used to do this all the time and it drove me nuts!  He would always get angry at me for some stupid reason and then refuse to go.  He especially loved to refuse to go to Christmas dinner.

I was feeling bad today but this post cheered me right up!  It really wasn't me!

[thisyoungdad]

Thank goodness I am not alone in this. She used to do this with so many things, even date nights we had scheduled or other things we had planned for the two of us. In the months leading up to her leaving she did it weekly about one thing or another, a lot of it related to "us" though. She just did this recently about an event that we were both going to for our daughter. About 4 days prior she announced I was "not allowed to go" as if she were my parent, and then proceeded to have this huge issue where it became clear that if I did go that she would cause such a scene it would be horrendous. Not for me, she would make a fool out of herself, but I didn't want my daughter to experience that at something that was supposed to be fun. I just remembered what my therapist keeps saying which is she thinks she wins in those moments but the reality is at 3 my daughter already sees that dad is missing when he was supposed to come or how she treats me and eventually that will be self critiquing for the ex because my daughter is very close with me even at 3 and has set mom straight on some things already. It is going to be interesting but I for one am glad to not have to directly deal with the making excuses for her bailing out. What a nice freedom it is.

[Nearlybroken]

My ex would do this all of the time.He was comfortable going out with the guys he works with ( and would often tell me of women chatting him up whilst he was out) but apart from that he was utterly unreliable.He would sometimes cancel at the last minute but very often would simply not respond to invitations or would fail to show.Friends,family, they were all on the receiving end.When we visited his family he would actually not speak or would want to leave after ten or so minutes.During one of our splits he was invited to a friend's wedding via text first (totally failed to respond) and then via formal invite ( didnt reply at all).I was abroad with work so he didn't have the excuse that I would be there.And this was his best friends wedding!Over the past few months he slowly cut off lots of friends with his failure to make contact etc.Some of my family live in France.They visited the Uk some time ago when we were together so we all arranged to meet up.Literally an hour before he cancelled.I was very annoyed as the primary purpose of the meeting was for that side of my family to be introduced.I asked him why.His first response was that he may have to walk his father's dog so couldnt come.Eventually he told me the "truth"... .he didnt want to come as we would be speaking both  french and english and was worried we would be speaking about him in French.He would only consider if everyone spoke english.Though I calmly pointed out that the youngsters spoke only French this was not good enough... .he would not run the risk of two 4 years old bhiting about him in French.Dear Lord.

[momtara]

MIne would always be 'sick,' and so I couldn't say anything, because then I'd seem unsympathetic.

The illness is likely somatization, which is partly psychological:  www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000955.htm

It's a BPD characteristic.

[Reg]

In my past relationship this happened very one sided.  It it had to do with her family there was never a problem, but if it concerned my family and friends I would often see that problem.  It probably has to do with the problematic self confidence... .

[findingmyselfagain]

I'd tend to agree with Reg. It's important to remember their emotions are extremely unstable and "triggers" aren't always easy to deal with and reactions can be extreme compared to our experience. Maybe they look in the mirror and see a minor imperfection and think they are ugly, or social situations or just very difficult with the lack of sense of identity, or suddenly they are very depressed for some reason? Who really knows? As far as my experience, mine seemed very flaky when it came to committing to our first date. She somehow couldn't plan a week in advance and just waffled a lot to the point where I wasn't going to ask her out again if she didn't commit. Only when she met me and we were doing wedding planning and taking care of things and going to family events we had to book our time in advance. We had things planned up to 3 weeks in advance and she seemed fine. The only other time I had trouble was during the devaluing. At that point *I* was the trigger so there wasn't much getting around that. Once she started destroying the relationship she became extremely unstable. It makes sense in a twisted way now. At the time and for months afterward I was just scratching my head. I'm still amazed at it all even chalking it up to the mental disorder.

[LetItBe]

This happened frequently with my BPDxbf -- but never when it was an event/gathering with his friends or family.  He had a complete meltdown and ran off the evening he was supposed to meet one of my family members.  It was one of the most dysregulated states I'd ever seen him in, and things had been just fine between us right before that.  He also broke a very important promise to me (I believe trying to instigate a fight) only a few days before we were supposed to go to dinner with a close friend of mine.  He broke up with me 2 days before his birthday celebration that I had arranged.  He also became truly, physically ill right before a couple of meaningful, intimate events we were supposed to attend together.  The symptoms were very real and very obvious, and we instead spent those times with him being sick and me soothing him.  It was interesting that all the times he got sick, I never caught any of the illnesses myself.  It does seem as if it was a matter of somatization for him.  He deals with it all the time, unfortunately.

[letmeout]

This may sound funny, but I am the one who would cancel social engagements with my BPD ex. The last 5 yrs with him I could never predict how he was going to behave in public (because of his sudden and unexplained mood swings), and it was terribly embarrassing when he would become all crazy in front of family and friends.

[allegora]

I hope I can give a different perspective on this. I cancel a lot of plans for various reasons. Mostly, because a better option comes up. With my ex, I would want to see him all the time, but I tried to not be so clingy and not admit that to him. If there was a chance I could see him I'd cancel plans with other people. I've seemed to spend half of my life trying to accidentally bump into certain people. With other situations, I just get a feeling that I don't want to do something I previously thought I did want to do. It sounds bad, but social responsponsibilities rarely enter my head. Especially when my family is involved, so I'll just not turn up to birthdays etc. because I had a previous bad feeling about the event. And yes, as findingmyselfagain said, the bad feeling can genuinely be as small as looking in the mirror at a weird angle, thinking you have a double chin, and not feeling capable of leaving the house.

I also find it hard to connect with people I don't know. Once the connection is there I'll rarely cancel plans, but the not knowing whether you even fancy someone you're supposed to be going on a date with. After my last break up I have started dating again, but I keep refusing the make plans because I can't decide whether I want second dates. It is absolute turmoil living like this. This post makes me think I shouldn't date because of my condition, but all I long for is a loving relationship. Even though I've been controlling in the past, it's only because I loved the person so much. I think people without BPD don't understand that being so clingy and needy is actually is an expression of deep love.

It's interesting what LetItBe said because I can completely understand that - when it was MY group of family or friends I knew how the dynamic works and where I fit in. Other people's groups of family or friends are an unknown, which isn't something I can deal with unless I'm prepared or had a drink.

Hope this helps answer your questions... .

[bauers220]

Oh WOW - and YES this was a MAJOR trait of my ex.  From day one!  We met online and had planned 3 different times to meet in person.  After the third time - and each one was a different reason - I said I was simply going to assume she wasn't interested and move along.  She practically BEGGED me to try one last time and she showed.  But it became almost a joke I'd say to my friends - that she kept about 1 in 4 dates with me.  It was always something from a fight w her husband and they were up all night, her son being sick (can't argue with that), she didn't feel well, some important thing came up and she had to tend to it - like financial things that could wait - and my favorite one (NOT) - she just was not up to socializing.  I'd roll with it mostly - but there were a few times I was utterly MAD.

Recently she planned a night out with me.  Last minute said there was an issue - she had a family thing come up - husband's family and she lamented over not being able to see me.  I actually think there was truth to it cause she managed to make changes on her end and come through and see me... .but for hours it looked like it fell apart.

And last weekend - she asked to see me after our day of truth telling and forgiveness.  She cancelled of course saying she wasn't ready to see me until she could forgive me all the way.

Then she left my life... .

and the beat goes on... .

[LetItBe]

I also find it hard to connect with people I don't know.

It's interesting what LetItBe said because I can completely understand that - when it was MY group of family or friends I knew how the dynamic works and where I fit in. Other people's groups of family or friends are an unknown, which isn't something I can deal with unless I'm prepared or had a drink.

Hope this helps answer your questions... .

Thank you, allegora.  This makes sense based on what I know about my ex and helps me to depersonalize something I shouldn't have taken personally to begin with.

[letmeout]

When my BPDexH wanted to cancel plans, he would tell everyone that I was the one who cancelled them so he wouldn't look bad. I allowed him to do this just to keep him happy.

[topknot]

I got stuck with theater tickets more than once. At the last minute, something came up. I always took it personally. Here's how quick it would change. I texted once:

Me: "I'll stop over tonite and drop that package off."

Him: "I plan to be home all evening."

Me: "Okay, we can have a quick glass of wine and catch up on things."

Him: "If it's okay with you, I'm just going to bed. I have some flu thing that's

going around."

This was a back and forth text. I kept rereading it like "huh?"

All the time... .

[willbegood]

My ex caused a big blowout either day of or day before. I finally learned to start talking and calming her down beforehand before she had her breakdown.

I think they have a fear of good things happening in their lives. Just like when we get close to them and they pull away.

[mannaguy]

MIne would always be 'sick,' and so I couldn't say anything, because then I'd seem unsympathetic.

The illness is likely somatization, which is partly psychological:  www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000955.htm

It's a BPD characteristic.

This is what my exgf went thru all the time! IBS. Her stomache would not stop gurgling/Altho Prozac etc may have made things worse...

Could never make any plans! I gave up... .there would always be a meltdown before.

Delays at least where it seemed that she would cancel(often did) her work or that I might have to cancel my owrk or time with my kid... .

[Bulgakov]

The first time I went out and left her behind (b/c she told if I didn't go it would make her hate herself) was the first time I was physically attacked by her upon my return. Unfortunately, that being such an early event in a first real relationship, it has left some deep fears/scars.

[Bulgakov]

She wonders why my friends don't call anymore. I haven't been able to get a direct answer in years, or I know it will fall through, so I have been saying "maybe" and "I could probably do that" instead of "sure thing" or "definitely". Just typing that out makes me sad. She bails on her friends too. I have watched it.