How did your BPD relationship affect your relationship with other people?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I'm interested as to whether your relationship with your SO affected your relationship with other people or not. For example:

- Did you argue with friends or family about your SO? did they think that your maintaining the relationship was self-destructive and try to stop you? Or did they think you were callous to break it off?

- Did you become increasingly dependent on other people for the emotional support you needed?

- Did you try to hide your SO's disorder from other people?

- Did your SO's disorder directly affect friends and family? Did that affect your relationship with them significantly? (I ask this because I have read that the partner is usually disproportionately affected by someone's BPD.)

I think I'm interested as to whether you maintained a support structure through the relationship, or whether the relationship acted to erode your support structure and ended in a downward spiral.

[Red Sky]

I'm interested as to whether your relationship with your SO affected your relationship with other people or not. For example:

- Did you argue with friends or family about your SO? did they think that your maintaining the relationship was self-destructive and try to stop you? Or did they think you were callous to break it off?

- Did you become increasingly dependent on other people for the emotional support you needed?

- Did you try to hide your SO's disorder from other people?

- Did your SO's disorder directly affect friends and family? Did that affect your relationship with them significantly? (I ask this because I have read that the partner is usually disproportionately affected by someone's BPD.)

I think I'm interested as to whether you maintained a support structure through the relationship, or whether the relationship acted to erode your support structure and ended in a downward spiral.

[AwakenedOne]

I never knew about BPD till 7 months after we split. I figured something was seriously wrong though. I hid her sickness from my family out of embarrassment. They wouldn't of understood at all and it would of added to my grief. I had enough to deal with. Her family saw it all though. They encouraged her rage and her hatred of me. I know that's hard to fathom. Her mom is the most evil and sick person I have ever met in my life. I learned about Emotional Incest lately, that's what her mom did and still does to her.

[fortunes_fool]

My family tried to steer me away from my ex multiple times; my mother tried to tell me, repeatedly, that she was controlling, but I didn't listen. I ended up friendless because my ex (while we were together, obviously) wanted me to be with her constantly; when we did hang out together with my friends, she would complain later that they'd been rude to her, and that she didn't want to hang out with them again. Despite this, she would often want to hang out with her friends without me, saying that I put other people off, and no one wanted me to be there. She would talk to people I'd never met about me, telling them I was abusive, then introduce me to them, and I'd have no clue why they were so cold to me. She'd tell her family members, who we lived with for a short time, that I was abusive, then tell me I just needed to be more open with them (when I asked why they seemed to dislike me). Essentially, she controlled the majority of my interpersonal interactions, to the extent that most people had no idea who I was because she told them who she thought I was first.

[Red Sky]

My family tried to steer me away from my ex multiple times; my mother tried to tell me, repeatedly, that she was controlling, but I didn't listen. I ended up friendless because my ex (while we were together, obviously) wanted me to be with her constantly; when we did hang out together with my friends, she would complain later that they'd been rude to her, and that she didn't want to hang out with them again. Despite this, she would often want to hang out with her friends without me, saying that I put other people off, and no one wanted me to be there. She would talk to people I'd never met about me, telling them I was abusive, then introduce me to them, and I'd have no clue why they were so cold to me. She'd tell her family members, who we lived with for a short time, that I was abusive, then tell me I just needed to be more open with them (when I asked why they seemed to dislike me). Essentially, she controlled the majority of my interpersonal interactions, to the extent that most people had no idea who I was because she told them who she thought I was first.

I think we may have dated the same person. My BPD ex, I actually told very few people about (by the point I got involved with her I was already an expert at compartmentalizing).

My NPD ex managed to take away my support system in so many ways, and given the number of similarities I've seen between his behavior and a lot of the former partners of members of this forum, I have wondered how many people were saved by their close ties with others and how many lost those too.

My mother criticized my relationship with that guy from day 1. I should have trusted her seeing all the  but she has always been the super-protective type and so I ruled it out as motherly concern at first. Later on, as I got increasingly miserable, we just fought about it and eventually I stopped telling her anything. I think our close relationship almost recovered from that, though I still can't bring myself to discuss romantic relationships with her because of the hurtful and often judgmental things that she said in those arguments.

He did the same thing with friends: wouldn't hang out much with mine, and abandoned me when he felt like it for his friends. He also had a habit of abruptly canceling plans at the last minute, basically whenever I really wanted to go to a social event he would block me from doing so. I did have that experience of meeting people who seemed to dislike me on sight too, so I think he did 'prime' people with some prior unflattering info (or lies) about me. Late in the relationship I noticed there was a pattern where whenever I met a new potential female friend, he would hit or intimidate me in front of them, and I wonder whether this was also part of making sure I didn't have people to support me.

All in all, the embarrassment that AO mentions really did stop me leaving, combined with the lack of emotional support. But... . What could anyone have done differently in these situations? We know that it is totally possible for people with a PD to remain perfectly nice and charming in some situations, and people don't tend to assume that their family or friends are lying to them.

From the SO's point of view... . Is there a pre-emptive strike that could be taken? We can all say in hindsight 'I should have left.' But we somehow rationalized their behavior. Some of us, at least, can say that someone did try to point out the red flags to us, and we ignored them, and in hindsight we would listen. For future relationships, I know I need to keep those lines of communication open, and in general it is generally good relationship advice not to let a single person take over your life. But, do you think there is any way that friends and family can help people who are in situations like the ones we have known?

[Rockstar22]

My ex definitely tried to drive a wedge between me and anyone else I was close to. My relationship with some of my friends and bandmates and even certain family members was affected. She would give people the evil eye that she didn't like, she would tell me that someone was rude to her or that she "knew" they didn't like her. She would suddenly develop extreme headaches, mysterious illnesses and even vomiting sometimes when we were invited to go somewhere and visit people she didn't want to be around. Some friends thought "we" just didn't like hanging out at their house or didn't like them or whatever.

She tried to devalue me to my own mother, telling her all kinds of terrible things about me, then when my mom told her she didn't want to hear it and finally to shut up and leave her be, she started screaming at her, telling her how bad of a mother she had been to me...

When we broke up, I had to bite the bullet and apologize to several of my friends for all the invitations we were given to come over and the distance that had come between us because of my ex. Sometimes, you've got to put your pride aside to reconnect with the friends you value and explain that you were being manipulated at the time and you just went along sometimes to "keep the peace". If you give people a geniune apology, most guy friends, will understand this (especially married ones) and you may be surprised how understanding and supportive your old friends and even their wives and gfs can be in helping you in your crisis. One of my best bro's told me I should have come to him sooner, that my problem was his problem, etc. The wives and gfs often would tell me stories of how cold my ex had been to them at times.

Don't let your pride get in the way of reaching out to others, reconnecting and healing the damage your ex did, not only to you, but your other relationships as well. It was definitely a huge step for me. 

[Blimblam]

Everyone I know lost respect for me.  My friends lost respect for me for being so hurt and hung up over someone who did me wrong like that.  I didn't tell my family what she did and they took her side.  People saw me hurting really badly and basically lost respect for me. 

[antjs]

Mine was very low functioning with divorces and abortions while is only 29. I was out soon after 6 weeks. I did not lose any contact with friends actually there were some crazy makings in front of my friend. I have never ever in my life talked about my relationship with a close friend. but, this was the first time i have done it after a lot of gas lighting and controlling behaviors. They second me and they were happy because they thought i was brain washed.

One of the funny things she did is that after meeting her ex more than once, crazy makings after which she would 'love" me the next minute as if nothing did happen is that she was trying to make drama in front of my friends and said that we can not continue together but she "loves" me . i acted very cold and was honestly embarrassed to have this discussion in front of my friends. She said why do not i introduce her to my parents ?  really after all these crazy making incidents and Triangulation with your ex. not to mention your lovely history of relations and abortions, being of different religion (it matters in the middle east) and being older. Yeah, not your fault of being of different religion and age but b*tch it takes a lot to prove to me that you are worth being introduced to my family.

I am glad that i am out so soon. I am glad that i did not let her isolate me completely during the idealization phase. I am glad that i did not lose my support system. I am glad that she happened to me so that i can learn such a precious lesson in a short time with minimal losses. about the losses the b*tch claimed that she was pregnant when i broke up with her. God, I am happy that i was not stuck with her for a child. She is so dark that when i asked her if you are pregnant what would you do ? she said heartlessly i will get an abortion. during one rage (we recycled for a week) she told me that i am trying to find an excuse to leave her cause she is pregnant     

[Popcorn71]

My exBPDh had a negative effect on many of my relationships.

At first he was Mr Charming and everybody thought he was fantastic and right for me.  However, after a year or so the controlling started.  I didn't notice it although other people did.

Eventually he stopped most of my family visiting because of the atmosphere here.  He wouldn't come to any family events with me or visit my relatives.  He was very jealous of my closeness with my mother.  He caused no end of rows with her, but fortunately she has a very strong personaility and stood up to him all the time.  He tried his best to come between us though and if she phoned, he would answer and always tell her I was too busy to speak to her, without asking me or even telling me she had called.

He stopped me working (I believe because he was insecure as his ex had left him for a man she met at work).  When I did have a job, he hated me talking about the people I worked with and accused me of fancying my co-worker.

If we had workmen in the house and I praised their work in any way, he accused me of fancying them.  One worker was a man 20 years younger than me and he hated it when I said what a nice young man he was.  Mysteriously, he 'lost' all contact details for this man so that when we needed more jobs doing, I couldn't get in touch with him.

The most badly affected relationship, has been that between me and my two teenagers.  He treated them really badly but pulled the wool over my eyes and I didn't realise it at the time.  Fortunately, we are now well on the way to getting back to how we were before my ex came into our lives.

When he arranged a surprise party for my birthday, it was 90% his friends that were there, including some that he knew I didn't want in my home.  These were some of the people from the group that I now know he was trying to integrate with and eventually found his replacement within.  It was the start of him changing himself into somebody entirely different to who he was when I first met him.

I also found it strange that we would go out a few times with friends (mostly his) but then they would seem to avoid us or never be available for a night out.  I thought they didn't like me, but since we split up, these people have been friendly to me and don't seem to have anything to do with him.  It looks like he was the problem after all.