When did you know you had to cut things off?

[Indoor_Tree]

This is my first post; I hope this is the appropriate group to post this question:

My question is, what helped you decide that you needed to cut contact completely with your loved one with BPD?


I'm trying to remain friends with my ex who has BPD, but it's been a challenge to say the least. We were in a multi-year, on-again-off-again, romantic relationship, and we officially settled on being friends more than year ago. I love this guy in a very platonic/paternal way, but I would be fine without him and I've maintained the friendship with him largely because it kills me to think of leaving him to deal with his mental health alone. I moved to a city an hour away from my ex about 6 months ago, and I've started seeing a guy who I enjoy quite a bit. This is when my ex kind of had a meltdown and a lot of emotional outbursts. My ex will become distraught whenever he knows I'm going to see the other guy, and it doesn't help to just not share that information because he puts the pieces together pretty well... I'm exhausted dealing with my ex's emotional outbursts, talks of suicide, telling me I'm what's kept him alive, and all the big and small guilt trips he has taken me on. He's trying to work on his mental health ever since the sh*t hit the fan, but he's had trouble accessing mental health services (e.g. can't get an appointment to evaluate meds for a couple months, have to get on a waitlist for DBT program, etc...). Luckily he at least has a counselor he's talking to weekly now. He makes me feel like I simultaneously torture him by staying in contact, but he also makes me feel like he'll end up killing himself if I cut him out of my life. He ended up taking himself to the ER this last weekend because I didn't answer the phone after he called 30 times while I was at the other guys' place... I wouldn't mind keeping him in my life if things could go back to how they were six months ago...

[HopelessBroken]

Hello and welcome Indoor Tree!

This is a great question that you raise and I can only imagine the stress of your current situation. I decided to end things with my exBPD partner when he discarded me for the 9th time in 3.5 years. I was at a breaking point with how I was being treated and it was hugely effecting my mental health. He was being treated at the time so I also did not see that his behavior was ever going to be stable. It was heartbreaking and I still think of him daily.

Some questions to think about might be:

What are the positives I get from this friendship with my ex?
Would keeping this friendship possibly negatively affect my new relationship?
Are boundaries possible to set with my ex? (Have boundaries been attempted, did they plow over them in the past etc).
Am I truly done with the romantic relationship?

We are here and we get it. 

[Indoor_Tree]

Thank you for your response. I admire your strength in being able to break things off with your exBPD partner when you knew you needed to. My ex/friend with BPD has gone through therapy before, but he only just got the BPD diagnosis in the last year. But that's one of my worries is that he might not change at all with treatment either. Or at least not enough to have a manageable friendship with me.

I appreciate you giving me some questions to think about to help give me some clarity. I think I discovered a next step for myself by reflecting on your questions; thanks for that. 


1. What are the positives I get from this friendship with my ex?

Some positives include: Having a friend I'm comfortable hanging out with and there being no expectation to talk the whole time; he's a friend who will tell me exactly what he's thinking without filter; I enjoy my time spent with him 70-80% of the time.


2. Would keeping this friendship possibly negatively affect my new relationship?

Yup. It's already been a stressor. The guy I'm seeing right now is fortunately very understanding about things and hasn't been giving me a hard time about anything. I'm still feeling things out with the new guy, and I'm not sure where I see things going yet with him. However, I feel a pressure to make sure that I don't get serious with the new guy partly because I know how much it will upset my Ex/Friend in his current state. So there's definitely some self-limitation I'm doing in regards to even entertaining the thought of looking for a long term partner. I'm not sure if this dynamic would ever change if I keep in contact with my ex...


3.Are boundaries possible to set with my ex? (Have boundaries been attempted, did they plow over them in the past etc).

I have a hard time answering this one. I'm really bad at establishing clear boundaries, and it's something I need to work on. I tried to establish a boundary where I told Ex that I won't answer texts/calls from him while I'm hanging out with the other guy. I wanted to set that boundary mainly because I don't want to feel obligated to end things early to go comfort by ex/friend. My ex kind of acknowledges that boundary now (definitely did not at first), but he'll call me towards the end of hanging out with new guy (when he thinks I should reasonably be done hanging out) and it will set him off if I don't have a prompt reply. He gets very upset about making sure everything is fair (e.g. "You make changes in your schedule to spend extra time with new guy, but you never make changes in your schedule for me). This whole checks-and-balances thing drives me up the wall.

I don't know if I have a good answer for this one, because I haven't done my homework enough to know if I'm implementing boundaries very well... This is definitely a next step for me to; I need to feel solid about boundaries.


4. Am I truly done with the romantic relationship?

I'm a pretty solid "yes" on this one.

[Rex31807]

I knew i had to cut things off on a Sunday morning on the way to Church. There was a glass on the counter. She was in a rage and came at me with it. I was worried. I went out the door and she threw the remainder of the glass at me and it hit the side of the car. I am glad it didnt go through the window.

I was worried that she was going to stab me with the jagged edge.

It was awful and i knew i had to leave.

[Duped_312]

My situations a little different, but... I knew I had to cut things off when my ex fiancé crashed the second car in a year that I had given him for free, or paid for myself. I knew I had to cut things off when he was in a post seizure state and put his hand around my throat and engaged in a terrible struggle with me while our two babies gratefully slept in the next room. I knew I had to cut things off when, through much reading and research at night, realized he had BPD and this was truly a disorder and would likely never improve. I knew I had to cut things off when, after realizing the BPD, I began to see how much worse it was going to get; how much MORE isolated he was going to try and make me, how close I was to taking on an 18,000$ loan that originally for us to get into a really nice rental house, but that he convinced me to use for dental work for him; how stupid I had become, how dangerous I had made life for my babies, how terribly I felt for turning against my sweet parents bc he had managed to pit me against them. Once it all hit, it hit really hard, and fast and I knew, its time. It sounds like youve already gone through something like this or already split up, but Im fresh out, so this is sort of where it is for me.

Since we have children, it is very hard to "cut things off" per say. In a perfect world I wish I never saw or heard from him again to be honest with you. I wish him and that sh*t family of his would just disappear into the abyss and never show up anywhere near me forever. But legally, he has a right to see his children, even though all he does is have children with women and then basically become the worst biggest dead beat. He doesnt see them. I let him stay around bc I legally have to and dont want any trouble. He doesn't bother me talking-wise, like he doesn't call me over and over, or crazily text me. He will pop in once a week to repeat the same few whiny phrases, looking for me to drop everything and get back together--  But I just back him into a corner, and then he disappears for another peaceful week. He has no car, no job, has seizures, has legal and financial problems up the a**, and is on unemployment. For reference 12 months ago he was making $70,000 a year, doing amazing work, we had a new baby, a new house, and were about to start saving for something big. Within a year, he threw every single thing into the trash. He needs to check into a facility and get on short term disability for awhile. He is by no means "ready willing and able" to work. His mother and father are the cause of his problems, his father committed suicide when he was young and his mother is a piece of sh*t. I can't stand her. She is unfortunately the only one "helping" him right now, and by "helping him" I mean, shooting down any possibility of BPD, not being honest about her contributions to his sh*tty life, not giving him the emotional closure he really needs, not accepting harsh truths about her son's actual life (gambling, substance use, stealing, lies, money, legal problems). She thinks bc "he didn't tell her that" , it didnt really happen. I particularly knew I had to cut things off once I realized she was the root of the problems, and that she was going nowhere up, and therefore neither would he. Everyone in that family is sick, and when everyone is sick, no one is. I cut things off when I realized that.

I cut things off once I realized the babies could have been up when he attacked me while holding one of them. I realized that we could have been in the car any of the two times he went into a pyschotic break and crashed with all of us in it. I don't regret getting out one iota. I am grateful he doesn't bother me like some seem to do to others on here. He knows better. The other day he posted on FB some psychopath stuff with his bloody fingers from playing the piano for so long? Like.. effing freak. Someone obviously told him to take that crap down immediately bc within 1 minute it was gone. He is incredibly lost and alone. I feel horribly and guilty and responsible. It keeps me up at night. It destroys me from the inside out. But I also feel free and relieved and like I am survivor and have an actual chance at life now. I knew I had to cut things off when it all became so obviously clear how much better off I am without him, guilty or not.  I clearly don't know your situation entirely, but it sounds incredibly heavy on you, annoying, and bothersome, and a very obvious imposition of control. Every time you answer that phone or text or whatever, he got you. And like a duck being fed bread, he continues to learn that you will answer/feed him. It wouldn't take long for him to figure out the opposite, if you were to hold strong to a boundary of no-contact. If he did do something insane as a reaction, you are not responsible. These people have done a really good job of making us feel solely responsible for their transgressions. I still struggle with it, believe me. I still answer his texts, when I don't want to. Its attention whether its good or bad. And believe me my attention is all bad. All I do is berate him, more for myself and my own venting purposes than to actually hurt him, bc I know Im not actually hurting him. There's nothing there to hurt anymore. Contact with me is not worth his while so thats why he is not annoying with me. If he feels like getting verbally abused for 45 min, he can text me, but he doesn't bc he knows that's not what he's after. He's after coddling, and I do not provide it.

I hope you find the strength to "cut things off". They are bottomless-emotion-leeches. It will never be enough and it will go on forever. If you want be successful in future relationships, which I'm sure is already hard enough (I can't even think about it myself), he has to go I think. <3