I'm sorry bus boy, that mental state you got in must have been terrible, and I'm sorry you went through that, but you did, and you are, going
through it.
Some borderlines use control to control the emotional distance in a relationship: trash someone's self-esteem and have them scared, they won't leave, which handles the fear of abandonment, control how close they can get emotionally, handle the fear of engulfment. And that's not necessarily malicious, it may be just something a borderline has discovered that works, to handle those ever-present fears.
Having that much control over her bf is, in my mind not respecting his boundries.
Which started with him not respecting and enforcing his own boundaries. We can't expect someone to respect us if we don't respect ourselves. Sure, many of us got blindsided by mental illness, it felt like a dream come true, everything was awesome, until it wasn't. And we didn't know our partner was battling the constant fears of abandonment and engulfment, we didn't know the whole dream-come-true idealization stage was about attachment for a borderline, so we were kind of learning on the fly there, but after a while, after someone is being regularly disrespectful, abusive and controlling, when is it we say ENOUGH! This boyfriend sounds like he's getting a sense of identity as her 'protector' for now, but if he's constantly called to protect her from an illusion, how long will he put up with that?
And a very fulfilling thing, if you're so inclined, is to emotionally detach from someone to a point that when they try their old stuff expecting a reaction, and expecting to smirk or whatever, and it doesn't work? It doesn't faze you? Oh the expression on their face when that happens is priceless. And then who's smirking. Just sayin'... .
