Anyone else who started the relationship long distance - another country/state?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Anyone else who started your relationship with the BPD long distance where you lived in different states, countries and even continents and then one of you moved so that you could live together?  I've read somewhere that BPD loves long distance.

What was the course of your relationship?

Ex BPD partner lived in another country on another continent. We met there while I was visiting family after my former partner of fifteen years died in an accident. My BPD ex and I was long distance for a couple of years. We were in contact daily by Skype and visited each other for as often and long as we could. One time before moving to live with us she visited me and my kids for three months. During this long distance period everything was great (a few red flags which I ignored to be honest but other than that - great )

So then came the day when she finally moved to live with us in my country. Boom! She changed more or less over night. Devalued me, the kids, the country we live in (me, the kids and the new country was the best thing ever happened to her according to her until the day she moved here). The following 2,5 years everything went downhill. Temper tantrums, sulking, inactive lifestyle on her behalf (she spent most of the time on her back on the bed), mood swings, splitting

First I thought it was adjustment problems - new culture, new climate, missing her family and so on so I made excuses. It just got worse and she became paranoid and really mean at the end and then BAM! She got out of bed one morning, ordered a cab and went to the airport and took a flight back to her country the same day. That was it.

Please tell me your long distance - then moving in story!

[Fogclearing]

Anyone else who started your relationship with the BPD long distance where you lived in different states, countries and even continents and then one of you moved so that you could live together?  I've read somewhere that BPD loves long distance.

What was the course of your relationship?

Ex BPD partner lived in another country on another continent. We met there while I was visiting family after my former partner of fifteen years died in an accident. My BPD ex and I was long distance for a couple of years. We were in contact daily by Skype and visited each other for as often and long as we could. One time before moving to live with us she visited me and my kids for three months. During this long distance period everything was great (a few red flags which I ignored to be honest but other than that - great )

So then came the day when she finally moved to live with us in my country. Boom! She changed more or less over night. Devalued me, the kids, the country we live in (me, the kids and the new country was the best thing ever happened to her according to her until the day she moved here). The following 2,5 years everything went downhill. Temper tantrums, sulking, inactive lifestyle on her behalf (she spent most of the time on her back on the bed), mood swings, splitting

First I thought it was adjustment problems - new culture, new climate, missing her family and so on so I made excuses. It just got worse and she became paranoid and really mean at the end and then BAM! She got out of bed one morning, ordered a cab and went to the airport and took a flight back to her country the same day. That was it.

Please tell me your long distance - then moving in story!

[Ahoy]

I lived 580 KM from mine, two separate Aboriginal communities. I used to drive out to see her on weekends. We were long distance for about 2 1/2 months with us calling every night for hours.

We used to FB message, I would sometimes make her upset with comments, she would so quiet, it was torture... .Overall though, I had a beautiful siren to share my afternoons with on the phone. We were soulmates after 2 months and only seeing her in person 3 times!

Moved in with her, engaged after another month. I think because we were so isolated (not many options with men, places to socialise) I got a pretty long idealisation phase. I was basically her security blankey while all her friends were in another state. I think I was her friends/father/lover all rolled into one!

Moved twice to two new towns/communities, always leaving the last in tears. Devaluation happened at around 1 year into marriage (2.5 years total). I think it was because I told her I wasn't comfortable with her becoming a spy because the first thing on job applications is that you need to keep secrets from your family (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)

Fast forward another year, she moved to her home state for some R&R, I thought she would recharge, come back after 6/9 months and we would finish our last 2 years working remote.

Long distance the second time was totally different, she had already cheated on me once, zero love, zero care, 5 min phone calls while she was driving around after work only. I made her a daily 'relationship' newspaper with lame/cute news articles about all the things we had done/would do, pictures of us, never ever acknowledged it or said thank you. ZERO appreciation for me slogging it out working 80 hour weeks either.

She started seeing LOTS of guys (apparently) not cheating I think, just sourcing the replacement. Found my replacement, continued to take my money. Lied about said replacement being a gay friend.

SOMEHOW I got the kahunas from my support network to throw out an ultimatum, come back (with LOTS of compromises and I mean SOO MANY compromises) she declined and I called it quits.

4 weeks later I guess I had BPD withdrawal, I called her up saying I would drop everything and come move with her... .too late, replacement was official, I was yesterdays news.

I THINK, I had become the father figure to her by the end, I was paying the bills for just about everything, giving her what I could when she was in another state, while she was socialising every day (but telling me how stressed/messed up she was). She wanted her cake and to eat it too.


Long distance 1 - Amazing, if I faced the phone towards the ground, love would have dripped out of the speakers

Long distance 2 - 'Ahoy who?'


I know now I did very little wrong. I lost my temper and mentioned divorce during long distance 2, I was so very confused with her logic (once again HAHAHAHA) I think I certainly sped up my discard process triggering abandonment fears... .I was upset with that up until I heard about the second affair last week. Now I'm so happy that I accidentally sped this process up. Healing HURTS but this is 100% the best thing for me.

Thanks for the post. Feels good to write it all out.

PS: I learnt about BPD after the fact. I read the stories here and everything suddenly made way too much sense.

[Fogclearing]

Ahoy!

Thank you so much for your reply! It taught me a lot to read about your experience. Yes, there are truly factors in long distance and then moving in with each other  that prolongs  idealisation face and probably also blurs the red flags. Like you I learned about BPD after she left and I am still trying to solve the puzzle.

So many similarities. Doesn't matter if we are men, women, straight, gay, old, young or wherever on this planet we live. There are so many similarities in this. I am glad I found you guys in this forum because it really helps me.

Back to long distance: I never had a long distance relationship before meeting ex partner with BPD. She had several before me - since the childhood of Internet in fact and with people in different countries in three different continents - America, Australia and Europe. That should have been a big red flag for me and from now on it will. There is something with BPD and long distance. Prolongs the idealisation phase. Definitely. Makes it easier to act normal - definitely. Makes it easier to cover up two timing - definitely. I also had a feeling that she could also use "cultural differences" as an excuse and as a way to create conflict (my culture was always in the wrong - go figure )