I think she may have had BPD...

[hu5tl3r]

Hi all,

I have finally decided to cut off contact with a partner who I now suspect may have been suffering with BPD.

It has been especially difficult, but I'd like to share my story in order to gain insights and clarity on the situation.

I met a girl who initially seemed incredible. She was intelligent, caring and attentive. As great as she was, I was a commitment phobe at the time so wasn't looking to pursue anything further. Regardless, she pursued me, showering me with love and affection as well as attending to my every need. Over time I gave in to it and assumed that she indeed really did love me and I convinced myself I was lucky to have found someone who appreciated me the way she did.

Early into the relationship she revealed some childhood trauma she had experienced, which had left her distrustful of her own family. I decided I wanted better for her and would try to give her what she had perhaps felt she had been missing from her family, in terms of love and support.

Soon after, I moved from London to San Francisco and we attempted to continue the relationship, long-distance. I brought her out to visit me on 2 occasions and at this point, the relationship started to suffer. She accused me of choosing my job over her, not being as serious about her as she was me. She suffered what I considered to be emotional instability and breakdowns. At one point she became so enraged she became physically violent.

Ultimately, I struggled with how everything to her seemed to be very black or white. There was no middle ground. An example being her suggesting "I knew you weren't serious about me when you had the chance to marry me to keep me in the country but chose not to" - I however, question whether it was fair for her to try and force marriage upon me if I wasn't truly ready for it.

The recurring theme was that I was always at fault. She seemed to struggle to accept any responsibility and always suggested I was the issue. Going so far as to suggest that she suspected I was a sociopath and my tendencies may have been rubbing off on her. We continued to fight with greater intensity, leaving her to disappear for a few months, only to return and for us to patch things up, for things to then break down again further down the line. The final argument leading her to completely destroy my character in ways she absolutely knew would hurt me.

We ended up not talking for nearly a year, in what I assumed was the end of our relationship. Though, I never did get over her. Assuming that she was still the one and she felt the same about me. That ultimately I had wronged her and not given her what she needed, but would return and show her that I was now ready for the commitment she required.

I messaged her on New Year's day of this year to let her know that I had finally gotten over my anger and resentment based on the character assassination she performed and the way things ended. We exchanged pleasantries and I told myself that once I returned to London later in the year, I'd finally ask her to marry me.

I heard from her out of the blue a few days ago. She messaged to say she was in San Francisco and wanted to let me know, in case we bumped into each other. She told me she was seeing someone; he lives here too.

At this point I was in complete shock and disbelief. If the distance (and me not being ready to return to London) was what ultimately caused the downfall. Why would she repeat the same scenario, with somebody else? Why would she also choose to tell me about it? How could she not expect that would be hurtful?

I was extremely upset and it manifested itself in the conversation that followed. Ultimately, she seemed to care not for my feelings and seemed extremely cold, lacking remorse of any kind.

I had always suspected through the relationship that she may have been suffering with a personality disorder, based on her childhood trauma as well as mood swings and fear of rejection, but this cold, callous display was too much for me to process. I struggled to understand how someone who ever claimed to love or care for me could apparently look to hurt me so deliberately... and that's when I came across the BPD diagnosis and it all seemed to fit.

I'm still trying to get over it and process everything that happened, but just wanted to share and hear any thoughts or comments.

Thanks for reading.

[Claycrusher]

Thanks for sharing, hu5tl3r!

I, too, once met a girl who seemed incredible.  She was intelligent, attentive, and physically stunning.  She also billed herself as a committed Christian from her infant baptism in the Lutheran Tradition.  I was a commitment phobe when we met.  That was mostly due to feeling like I didn't have time to devote to a relationship while trying to make a go of it as a fly fishing guide.  I repelled her advances for several weeks.  Regardless, she pursued me, showering me with attention.  I gave in to it and assumed that she really did love me... .

Sound familiar?

Early in our relationship, like before we even had a personal one, she revealed some childhood trauma... .  Which had left her distrustful and downright despising of her own family... .

Sound familiar?

After we had started dating, and being virtually smothered with attention from a very stunningly attractive girl, I decided I wanted something better for her and would try to give her what perhaps she felt like she had been missing with her family in terms of love and support... .

Sound familiar?

Things are very black and white to her, too, and she has trouble with shades of gray.  No middle ground... .

She has a labile sense of self, sometimes rapid-cycling from loathing (my life is over, I suck, I got a B mark on a college exam) to delusions of grandeur (when I graduate, I'm going to walk in to an $80,000.00 per year job; so glad I'm smart enough to have picked supply chain management as my major field of study.)

Sound familiar?

My ex-wife is also a pathological liar, highly manipulative, lacking in ordinary empathy, lacking in respect for commonly accepted societal and cultural boundaries, lacking in personal accountability, and has very little impulse control.

Here's an example.  On December 21 of 2015, she left our children to fend for themselves, while I was at work, without my prior knowledge or consent, and lied to them as to her intended whereabouts, and later lied to me as to her whereabouts and her emotional state, all to engage in extra-marital sexual relations with a married woman whom she had only previously met in person one time, and probably that woman's husband, too, as "unicorn" in a threesome with that married couple.  In the small hours of December 22, 2015, when I came home from work, she was waiting in our living room for me.  She had a confession to make.  She wasn't where she told me she was.  She had gone to meet her new girlfriend and her new girlfriend's house and, in spite of the epilepsy that prevented her from taking a high-paying job involving a 40 mile round trip commute, elected to drive 180 miles, round trip, at night, for the sake of a lasagna dinner with her girlfriend and that married woman's husband.  I told her I didn't believe her.  She repeated the story.  That went on for a while until I told her flat-out that I knew there was ONE THING she would do that for and told her it was sex.  She broke down crying and said she had gone there for sex, just with the girl and not the guy, and felt like it was about to happen when I started texting and calling her and spoiled her fun.   The following day, she said I was being unfair by making her choose between me as the man she had been married to for 17 years and this woman she met on OKCupid while telling me her libido was in decline and had only seen once previously in person.  If she backed out of that relationship then, that woman would think my ex-wife was a liar, and my ex-wife couldn't bear to have this woman think of her that way, yet it was perfectly okay to prove to her husband of 17 years that she was one.

She kept clinging to the fiction that she only intended to have sex with the girl and not the guy for the next five or six months.  She came to me seeking my advice over a small problem... .   Before getting to the problem, she had to give me some background.  She went out to a hotel in the big city to meet her new girlfriend B.  When she got there, B. had brought along her other girlfriend L., whom my ex wife had never previously met.  My ex-wife proceeded to have sex with L. while B. made a video recording of the event.  My ex-wife told this story as if she had told it to me before, but she hadn't.  She tried to "gaslight me" in to believing that she had, because one of the boundaries established as a condition of my postponing divorce from her was one of telling me who she was with and what she was doing with them if she was using my property and the gasoline I paid for to do it.  There was a point to her telling me this story, though.  My ex-wife wondered what kind of issues might arise from this and what she could do to mitigate them.  I told her I had no idea, but she needed to stop clinging to the story that she didn't set out to play unicorn back in December because she essentially did exactly that in the story she had just told me.  She broke down in crying fit that lasted for a couple of hours.   When she pulled herself together, she asked me why I hated her so much... .   I hadn't yelled at her or raised my voice.  I said what I said in a conversational tone.  I told her I didn't hate her, which was factually true at the time, and she broke down again, but eventually admitted that yes, she had gone off on December 21 of 2015 to play the unicorn role... . 

Her sex partners of that day sent her home with a jar of pickled jalapeno peppers.  At Christmas, she only ate half of the meal I had prepared, but went from that to her pickled peppers and asked me if I wanted some.  I said "Uh, no... .  I don't think I do right now," and she stormed off in a huff about how unfair and childlike I was acting... .   

That's a sample of what BPD looked like to me... .

Sound familiar?