Recovering from a relationship with a BPDP, need guidance, insight from others

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Hi,
first of all, I'm happy that I found this place, as it contains plenty of very useful information which helped me to wrap my head around what was happening in my current (ex-)relationship and the relationship I had with a person with BPD before that.

A little background information on me: 35 y/o, living in Europe (English is not my native language so pardon any possible errors), self-reliant, working a good job, above-average salary. Unfortunately, I've experienced emotional abuse when I was a child. My parents broke up and I was raised by a narcissistic and very critical mother. I've been in and out of therapy for years. Other than the emotional deficiencies, I've had some issues with alcohol and drug abuse in the past. However, I managed to overcome them and stay clean for a very long time (years).

Around 2015, I got involved with a person who displayed clear symptoms of BPD, albeit I had very little knowledge about the disorder at the time. Let’s call her “V”. We broke up for good in 2018 - I broke up with her, threw her out of the house, as she was being very manipulative, she would ruin my self-esteem (which has always been pretty low to begin with), share our private conversations with others - like, for instance, when I would go to therapy, she would immediately tell all of her friends about it and comment on it, which was making me feel like I couldn't trust her. I was not happy about her sharing private things about me with her friends. Eventually, I kicked her out. She tried coming back to me about three times, almost begging to come back, but I didn’t let her. Eventually, she moved to another country and I didn’t hear back from her ever again. When she was with me, I urged her to go to therapy, and she told me that she was diagnosed with BPD. That’s also when I started doing my research on the disorder.
In 2018, I got involved with her best friend whom I’ve met on a party. I started chatting w/ her about my then-ex, asking questions, trying to recover from the relationship. That girl, let’s call her “M”, was 3 years older than me, had her own apartment, a job and seemed like a very stable person. However, I knew that she also dabbled heavily in drugs/medication and had been involved with far-right groups in the past. M also told me that she’s been having this weird on/off relationship with a skinhead where they would date for a few months or a year, have an argument, break up, have other partners and then eventually cheat on their respective partners and get back together again. That was going on for well over 10 years. She also assured me that it was all in her past and that I shouldn’t worry about it. I asked her if she also had BPD like my ex, to which she responded that she always thought she had it, but never got it diagnosed.
Eventually, we started dating. From my perspective, it seemed very weird – why would she date her best friend’s ex-boyfriend like it was nothing? Eventually, V and M had a falling out because of me. I felt bad about it but didn’t really care, as I was still very angry at V.
Fast forward, things with M seem to be taking off. We talk a lot, it seems like we’re really getting along and like I’ve finally met my true soulmate. At the same time however, there was hardly any physical closeness or intimacy between us. We would do things together, hug, etc., but no kissing and no sex, unless she was drunk/high on her meds. My brain was screaming that something was way off with her. I’ve been experiencing cognitive dissonance, because she would tell me that I’m the best person whom she has ever met in her life, that I’m the smartest guy she has ever known and all that (idealization), but at the same time she would freeze and close her mouth when I was attempting to kiss her. She would also refuse to have sex with me when she was sober.
I kept ignoring all the red flags.
I kept pushing her to go to therapy, because I knew that something was very wrong w/ her, but she never did…
She would also not share too many personal information w/ me, and the things she told me were contradictory. Like she would tell me a story about her past, and later when I referred to the story she would tell me that this thing never happened and that she never told me that (gaslighting).
With time, I started to realize that she was addicted to Zolpidem (Ambien), Xanax and downers. She would take them every night before going to sleep. She got me hooked on them as well. She knew very well that I didn’t want to drink alcohol, but she would offer it, and after she got drunk, she would give me zolpidem pills and insist on having sex.
I never met her friends, I’ve only met her family.
Another thing that was weird was the fact that her entire family treated her like a princess, and they would do everything for her. They even bought her an apartment when she was 18 – she would organize drug and sex parties in that apartment, and her entire family had no clue (she was shifting her persona depending on who she was with, so her family thought that she was the sweetest and the most innocent person in the world).
Another important thing to add is that her entire family loved me, her mother and her dad were super kind to me, they kept telling me how happy they were that M was with me, that ever since she started dating me, M is changing for the better and that her entire family is now glad that she’s okay, and that they’re not worried about her.
I started noticing all of that, but I kept ignoring it.
Eventually, we moved in together (bad mistake, I know). She insisted on moving in with me to my apartment in another city, while she would rent out her place and save all the extra money.
When we started living together, she started to show her true nature. She was always lazy, had zero “adult” skills – she had no clue how to cook or even fold her clothes at 38 years old. She was obsessed with her looks, and kept asking me if she looked old. When she was home, she would only wear old clothes, she never cared if she looked attractive around me. Also, no sex, unless I initiated it and she was “in the mood”. Sex with her felt like sex with a prostitute – she seemed completely mentally disengaged.
Eventually, she even kicked me out of the bedroom and I just slept on the couch. She would also always hide her phone from me. I am also certain that she was having an affair with a guy she worked with while she was living here.
At the same time, she kept telling me how wonderful and great I was, and that she wanted to marry me.
Around the same time, I started to slowly connect the dots and realized that she was using me for money, and as her toy until her nazi skinhead ex shows up again.
I started snooping around on her laptop and uncovered an entire “unofficial” world of M. She had a secret e-mail box, a secret facebook account, all of which gave me plenty of insight and I realized that she was not the person she was trying to be perceived as, quite the opposite. She wanted to be perceived as a victim, a poor soul abused by her ex, that she was not very interested in sex. Well, the truth turned out to be quite the opposite. She had numerous accounts on dating sites, plenty of sex partners and she was still obsessed with said nazi skinhead ex.
She didn’t know that I gathered all of the information about her and I used the info to “check” if she would tell me the truth. For instance, I would ask her if she has ever had a threesome, to which she would reply “no, never”, while in fact she did, multiple times.
Then I finally understood what was up. She was definitely using me and pulling one over me.
3 weeks ago she and I went together to see her brother who lives in another city. After that she was supposed to go over to her parents’, while I was supposed to go back home. Funnily enough, before we went on that trip she would buy plenty of new clothes, new underwear (something she never did when we were together), and she also went to a doctor for a “routine blood test”. When she got her test results back, she told me that she wants to have children and that her doctor told her that it’s her “last call” if the wants to get pregnant.
When were at her brother’s place, things got weird. She literally started a fight between her brother, herself, and her brother’s wife. She knew that I would get upset, and I did. When we left her brother’s house, I got mad and told her that her brother’s an asshole because of the way he treats his wife, and asked her why would she try to escalate the conflict, to which she replied that I was being delusional and that she was not trying to do anything like that.
Eventually, I got so angry that I told her that I’m not spending any more time at her brother’s place and that I’m going to drive back home. She asked me “are you sure you want to leave?”, to which I didn’t reply. I got in the car, and started driving back to my apartment; she called me about 30 seconds later and said “are you aware that if you leave now, things will be over between us?”, to which I replied that what she was doing was emotionally blackmailing me and I hung up.
When I got home, my instinct kicked in again and I went through her laptop. Found out that she was e-mailing back and forth with the nazi ex for several weeks. They were planning to meet up exactly at the time when she was supposed to be with her parents…
I took photos of the e-mails, sent them over to her and told her to get the f*** out of my house. That she had 24 hours to move out. Her only response was to blame me for going through her e-mails, calling me a lunatic, a psycho etc. (gaslighting again). She also kept insisting that she was only talking to her ex “as a friend”. Which was obviously a lie.
The next day, she was on her way to my apartment with her brother. I left the doors to my apartment open for them and left outside. I left a little surprise for her brother in the hallway – I printed out and put up photos of M with a syringe, shooting up (a photo from her past that V had sent me years back). Her brother must have seen that photo while they were collecting her stuff from my place. When they were done, she sent me an angry text saying that I “ratted her out” about the drug use. What was also weird was that she was also using slang words, almost as if she was 14.
Several days later, she e-mails me out of nowhere saying that she “forgot” to take all of her things from my apartment and that she would drive up to my place on a weekend with a friend of work to pick the rest of the stuff up.
I packed everything neatly in boxes and waited.
When she came around, she insisted on taking her stuff out from my apartment by herself, to which I refused. I suspected that she told her friend form work that she was leaving me, and she didn’t want to make it seem like I was kicking her out.
I stood my ground and brought all the boxes down myself, put them in their car and sent them on their way.
2 hours later, she sent me angry e-mails/text messages, asking why I didn’t pack her favorite perfumes in there (perfumes which I gave her as a gift), but put some canned food (that her parents gave us) instead. She was fuming.
Later, she discovered that I put a note inside one of the boxes. In that note I calmly explained that I knew what was up for months and that I had fun listening to her lies and wished all the best to her, the nazi boyfriend and that I hoped that he would get her pregnant.
***
I understand the situation and I understand what happened. Another cycle in a pathological relationship between the BPD girlfriend and the nazi guy.
What I’m worried about is that when they break up again (and they will), she will be pregnant and she will come back to me, begging to take her back with the child. I’m very worried about the child, I know that she is obsessed with having her own child. But, the woman is almost 40 and she can barely take care of herself. And the guy she’s obsessed with is not exactly the best father material.
I think she wants to keep me as her backup plan if things don’t work out between them. I think that because even when she was sending me angry e-mails, she never really called me names or anything. All of her insults were like disguised praises, i.e. “you’re so smart that that it has made you paranoid”, etc.

Did anyone here experience a similar situation?
What should I expect?
I don’t want to have anything to do with that person anymore, as she was ruining me, my self-esteem and caused me to fall off the wagon (I’ve been sober for 2 weeks now). I just feel sorry for the potential child.

Thank you.

[monkeybrain]

Hi,
first of all, I'm happy that I found this place, as it contains plenty of very useful information which helped me to wrap my head around what was happening in my current (ex-)relationship and the relationship I had with a person with BPD before that.

A little background information on me: 35 y/o, living in Europe (English is not my native language so pardon any possible errors), self-reliant, working a good job, above-average salary. Unfortunately, I've experienced emotional abuse when I was a child. My parents broke up and I was raised by a narcissistic and very critical mother. I've been in and out of therapy for years. Other than the emotional deficiencies, I've had some issues with alcohol and drug abuse in the past. However, I managed to overcome them and stay clean for a very long time (years).

Around 2015, I got involved with a person who displayed clear symptoms of BPD, albeit I had very little knowledge about the disorder at the time. Let’s call her “V”. We broke up for good in 2018 - I broke up with her, threw her out of the house, as she was being very manipulative, she would ruin my self-esteem (which has always been pretty low to begin with), share our private conversations with others - like, for instance, when I would go to therapy, she would immediately tell all of her friends about it and comment on it, which was making me feel like I couldn't trust her. I was not happy about her sharing private things about me with her friends. Eventually, I kicked her out. She tried coming back to me about three times, almost begging to come back, but I didn’t let her. Eventually, she moved to another country and I didn’t hear back from her ever again. When she was with me, I urged her to go to therapy, and she told me that she was diagnosed with BPD. That’s also when I started doing my research on the disorder.
In 2018, I got involved with her best friend whom I’ve met on a party. I started chatting w/ her about my then-ex, asking questions, trying to recover from the relationship. That girl, let’s call her “M”, was 3 years older than me, had her own apartment, a job and seemed like a very stable person. However, I knew that she also dabbled heavily in drugs/medication and had been involved with far-right groups in the past. M also told me that she’s been having this weird on/off relationship with a skinhead where they would date for a few months or a year, have an argument, break up, have other partners and then eventually cheat on their respective partners and get back together again. That was going on for well over 10 years. She also assured me that it was all in her past and that I shouldn’t worry about it. I asked her if she also had BPD like my ex, to which she responded that she always thought she had it, but never got it diagnosed.
Eventually, we started dating. From my perspective, it seemed very weird – why would she date her best friend’s ex-boyfriend like it was nothing? Eventually, V and M had a falling out because of me. I felt bad about it but didn’t really care, as I was still very angry at V.
Fast forward, things with M seem to be taking off. We talk a lot, it seems like we’re really getting along and like I’ve finally met my true soulmate. At the same time however, there was hardly any physical closeness or intimacy between us. We would do things together, hug, etc., but no kissing and no sex, unless she was drunk/high on her meds. My brain was screaming that something was way off with her. I’ve been experiencing cognitive dissonance, because she would tell me that I’m the best person whom she has ever met in her life, that I’m the smartest guy she has ever known and all that (idealization), but at the same time she would freeze and close her mouth when I was attempting to kiss her. She would also refuse to have sex with me when she was sober.
I kept ignoring all the red flags.
I kept pushing her to go to therapy, because I knew that something was very wrong w/ her, but she never did…
She would also not share too many personal information w/ me, and the things she told me were contradictory. Like she would tell me a story about her past, and later when I referred to the story she would tell me that this thing never happened and that she never told me that (gaslighting).
With time, I started to realize that she was addicted to Zolpidem (Ambien), Xanax and downers. She would take them every night before going to sleep. She got me hooked on them as well. She knew very well that I didn’t want to drink alcohol, but she would offer it, and after she got drunk, she would give me zolpidem pills and insist on having sex.
I never met her friends, I’ve only met her family.
Another thing that was weird was the fact that her entire family treated her like a princess, and they would do everything for her. They even bought her an apartment when she was 18 – she would organize drug and sex parties in that apartment, and her entire family had no clue (she was shifting her persona depending on who she was with, so her family thought that she was the sweetest and the most innocent person in the world).
Another important thing to add is that her entire family loved me, her mother and her dad were super kind to me, they kept telling me how happy they were that M was with me, that ever since she started dating me, M is changing for the better and that her entire family is now glad that she’s okay, and that they’re not worried about her.
I started noticing all of that, but I kept ignoring it.
Eventually, we moved in together (bad mistake, I know). She insisted on moving in with me to my apartment in another city, while she would rent out her place and save all the extra money.
When we started living together, she started to show her true nature. She was always lazy, had zero “adult” skills – she had no clue how to cook or even fold her clothes at 38 years old. She was obsessed with her looks, and kept asking me if she looked old. When she was home, she would only wear old clothes, she never cared if she looked attractive around me. Also, no sex, unless I initiated it and she was “in the mood”. Sex with her felt like sex with a prostitute – she seemed completely mentally disengaged.
Eventually, she even kicked me out of the bedroom and I just slept on the couch. She would also always hide her phone from me. I am also certain that she was having an affair with a guy she worked with while she was living here.
At the same time, she kept telling me how wonderful and great I was, and that she wanted to marry me.
Around the same time, I started to slowly connect the dots and realized that she was using me for money, and as her toy until her nazi skinhead ex shows up again.
I started snooping around on her laptop and uncovered an entire “unofficial” world of M. She had a secret e-mail box, a secret facebook account, all of which gave me plenty of insight and I realized that she was not the person she was trying to be perceived as, quite the opposite. She wanted to be perceived as a victim, a poor soul abused by her ex, that she was not very interested in sex. Well, the truth turned out to be quite the opposite. She had numerous accounts on dating sites, plenty of sex partners and she was still obsessed with said nazi skinhead ex.
She didn’t know that I gathered all of the information about her and I used the info to “check” if she would tell me the truth. For instance, I would ask her if she has ever had a threesome, to which she would reply “no, never”, while in fact she did, multiple times.
Then I finally understood what was up. She was definitely using me and pulling one over me.
3 weeks ago she and I went together to see her brother who lives in another city. After that she was supposed to go over to her parents’, while I was supposed to go back home. Funnily enough, before we went on that trip she would buy plenty of new clothes, new underwear (something she never did when we were together), and she also went to a doctor for a “routine blood test”. When she got her test results back, she told me that she wants to have children and that her doctor told her that it’s her “last call” if the wants to get pregnant.
When were at her brother’s place, things got weird. She literally started a fight between her brother, herself, and her brother’s wife. She knew that I would get upset, and I did. When we left her brother’s house, I got mad and told her that her brother’s an asshole because of the way he treats his wife, and asked her why would she try to escalate the conflict, to which she replied that I was being delusional and that she was not trying to do anything like that.
Eventually, I got so angry that I told her that I’m not spending any more time at her brother’s place and that I’m going to drive back home. She asked me “are you sure you want to leave?”, to which I didn’t reply. I got in the car, and started driving back to my apartment; she called me about 30 seconds later and said “are you aware that if you leave now, things will be over between us?”, to which I replied that what she was doing was emotionally blackmailing me and I hung up.
When I got home, my instinct kicked in again and I went through her laptop. Found out that she was e-mailing back and forth with the nazi ex for several weeks. They were planning to meet up exactly at the time when she was supposed to be with her parents…
I took photos of the e-mails, sent them over to her and told her to get the f*** out of my house. That she had 24 hours to move out. Her only response was to blame me for going through her e-mails, calling me a lunatic, a psycho etc. (gaslighting again). She also kept insisting that she was only talking to her ex “as a friend”. Which was obviously a lie.
The next day, she was on her way to my apartment with her brother. I left the doors to my apartment open for them and left outside. I left a little surprise for her brother in the hallway – I printed out and put up photos of M with a syringe, shooting up (a photo from her past that V had sent me years back). Her brother must have seen that photo while they were collecting her stuff from my place. When they were done, she sent me an angry text saying that I “ratted her out” about the drug use. What was also weird was that she was also using slang words, almost as if she was 14.
Several days later, she e-mails me out of nowhere saying that she “forgot” to take all of her things from my apartment and that she would drive up to my place on a weekend with a friend of work to pick the rest of the stuff up.
I packed everything neatly in boxes and waited.
When she came around, she insisted on taking her stuff out from my apartment by herself, to which I refused. I suspected that she told her friend form work that she was leaving me, and she didn’t want to make it seem like I was kicking her out.
I stood my ground and brought all the boxes down myself, put them in their car and sent them on their way.
2 hours later, she sent me angry e-mails/text messages, asking why I didn’t pack her favorite perfumes in there (perfumes which I gave her as a gift), but put some canned food (that her parents gave us) instead. She was fuming.
Later, she discovered that I put a note inside one of the boxes. In that note I calmly explained that I knew what was up for months and that I had fun listening to her lies and wished all the best to her, the nazi boyfriend and that I hoped that he would get her pregnant.
***
I understand the situation and I understand what happened. Another cycle in a pathological relationship between the BPD girlfriend and the nazi guy.
What I’m worried about is that when they break up again (and they will), she will be pregnant and she will come back to me, begging to take her back with the child. I’m very worried about the child, I know that she is obsessed with having her own child. But, the woman is almost 40 and she can barely take care of herself. And the guy she’s obsessed with is not exactly the best father material.
I think she wants to keep me as her backup plan if things don’t work out between them. I think that because even when she was sending me angry e-mails, she never really called me names or anything. All of her insults were like disguised praises, i.e. “you’re so smart that that it has made you paranoid”, etc.

Did anyone here experience a similar situation?
What should I expect?
I don’t want to have anything to do with that person anymore, as she was ruining me, my self-esteem and caused me to fall off the wagon (I’ve been sober for 2 weeks now). I just feel sorry for the potential child.

Thank you.

[Giulietta]

Hi there MB!

So sorry you are going through this. I'm pretty new here myself and English isn't my first language either, so bear with me, and what follows is just a personal opinion, as I'm no expert.

Are you still attached to her? Do you have any reason to believe she might be pregnant with your child? Because unless she does get pregnant and the child is yours, there really isn't much else you can do, in my opinion. The best case scenario that I can see here is: she goes back to her skinhead until they break up again eventually, she gets bored and finds some other boyfriend, and so on. I wouldn't contact her again (and I know it's hard), unless of course she is pregnant with your child.

[csquare319]

Thanks for the story, Monkeybrain. Your write-up on your ex, the gaslighting, the lies, the cheating, the controlling and manipulation using sex, the denial of basic facts and reality, shirking of personal responsibility, all describe my pwBPD to the T.

Reading between the lines I can tell that you've been detaching from her for months, which is way ahead of most of us when comes to recovering from an entanglement with a pwBPD, I am certain of your full recovery.  No doubt she is scorned and looking for blood, but most pwBPD are quite inept when comes to real world matters, so take precautions and set boundaries, but don't worry too much about serious retaliations. Also enjoy your newly found freedom from this mental malaise.

[EZEarache]

Wow that's a lot of crazy shazoli to deal with. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

She would immediately tell all of her friends about it and comment on it, which was making me feel like I couldn't trust her. I was not happy about her sharing private things about me with her friends.

I realize this isn't in regards to your most recent relationship, but my exGFwBPD also tends to do this to me all the time. It's really difficult to face her friends, as a result. You're never really sure what the story they are spinning about you is. Her friends were trying to convince her to leave me, back in October. It's really hurtful. I personally try not to talk about my friends or lovers behind their back to anyone. It's just not a good foundation to live on.

[monkeybrain]

Are you still attached to her? Do you have any reason to believe she might be pregnant with your child? Because unless she does get pregnant and the child is yours, there really isn't much else you can do, in my opinion. The best case scenario that I can see here is: she goes back to her skinhead until they break up again eventually, she gets bored and finds some other boyfriend, and so on. I wouldn't contact her again (and I know it's hard), unless of course she is pregnant with your child.

Hi, thank you for your response.
There may be some lingering toxic attachment on my end, but I'm doing everything I can to push it out. I deleted all of our photos, threw out everything that reminded me of her + strict no contact.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear - what I suspect is that she is going to get pregnant with that other guy, and might try some of her manipulative tricks to get back w/ me and somehow try to convince me to be the father.

Other than that, nothing really worries me and I am done with this relationship, it was extremally toxic and destructive for my self-esteem. I am glad that I had been dating a pwBPD before so I was able to pick up the subtle hints and figure her out.

[monkeybrain]

Thanks for the story, Monkeybrain. Your write-up on your ex, the gaslighting, the lies, the cheating, the controlling and manipulation using sex, the denial of basic facts and reality, shirking of personal responsibility, all describe my pwBPD to the T.

Reading between the lines I can tell that you've been detaching from her for months, which is way ahead of most of us when comes to recovering from an entanglement with a pwBPD, I am certain of your full recovery.  No doubt she is scorned and looking for blood, but most pwBPD are quite inept when comes to real world matters, so take precautions and set boundaries, but don't worry too much about serious retaliations. Also enjoy your newly found freedom from this mental malaise.

I think all people with pwBPD use the same tricks. That was the case with my current ex and the previous one, who also had BPD (albeit the previous ex had it diagnosed and eventually went to get serious treament after I broke up w/ her). The current ex is still in denial, heavily addicted to substances and afraid of therapy/rehab. I think she is mostly afraid of the damage it could do to her image/persona she is trying to maintain w/ her family and friends.

Like I said in my previous post, I had been dating a pwBPD before, so I knew what to look out for, so yes, I have, in fact, been detaching from her for months before the grand finale.
The thing I discovered (stating the obvious here) that pwBPD are literally children trapped in a body of an adult. They think and act like children, and they must be treated as such.
That is why during the breakup, I drew hard boundaries and ended things on my terms, because I sensed that she was about to end things in a sneaky, manipulative way to leave me confused and scorned.
I sensed all that and outplayed her like a child.

[monkeybrain]

Wow that's a lot of crazy shazoli to deal with. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

I realize this isn't in regards to your most recent relationship, but my exGFwBPD also tends to do this to me all the time. It's really difficult to face her friends, as a result. You're never really sure what the story they are spinning about you is. Her friends were trying to convince her to leave me, back in October. It's really hurtful. I personally try not to talk about my friends or lovers behind their back to anyone. It's just not a good foundation to live on.

Well, the thing I have learned through my experience of being in two consecutive relationships with pwBPD is that they need to feel in control of how people perceive the world. And they use information, screenshots, photos, texts and, of course, lies to shape the way others see you. That gives them control. So another thing I have learned is that when you are in a relationship with a pwBPD you should absolutely NOT communicate w/ them via apps, e-mails etc. Anything and everything you can and eventually will be used against you in case the relationship goes sideways.
My current ex insisted on chatting w/ me on Whatsapp. I'm very open and honest and shared plenty of private thoughts and matters w/ her - like I've been honest and open about my past addictions.
I know for a fact that she is now using that bits and pieces of information to paint me black - probably showing out-of-context screenshots to her family and friends to make it seem like I was the devil, while in fact, I thing I was the best thing to happen to her in years...

[Giulietta]

Maybe I didn't make myself clear - what I suspect is that she is going to get pregnant with that other guy, and might try some of her manipulative tricks to get back w/ me and somehow try to convince me to be the father.

You were very clear, and that's exactly what I thought, once they break up again she might try to come back to you, pregnant. And unless the child is actually yours, that's really not fair. You did well to delete things that remind you of her, as there is always a risk that we look at these things one day, when anger subsides, and we start to remember only the good times we had with that person... and you know what follows. Well done. You will have to be strong if she ever shows up again. They are very seductive when they want.