Broke up with BPD boyfriend

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hi there,
Browsing these message boards has been massively helpful in sorting out the chaos of my recently ended romantic relationship with a BPD man. I actually didn't realize he had BPD until 3 days after I broke up with him and was describing our fights to my therapist - the way he explodes on me, how his eyes glaze over and he dissociates, his memory issues, projection, contradictions, swaying between delusions & lucidity, push/pulling, etc. She said "Okay, I don't want to be an armchair psychiatrist, but from what you've described of him, he has every single borderline trait." I didn't know what borderline was at the time. I went home and googled it and was BLOWN AWAY by everything I read - it explained our entire relationship. I just can't get over that we were together for 3 years and it took an entire two years for the stuff to really hit the fan.

Not that there weren't massive red flags right from the very beginning. The first time he blew up on me was actually after our second date. Before we met I had planned a vacation and told him during that trip I likely wouldn't be very responsive. By the 4th day of my vacation he sent me a nasty email accusing me of ghosting on him. I knew something was off at that point but when I reminded him I was on vacation and didn't always have access to email, he shifted gears entirely and I let it slide because I had never met a man like him. He was so emotional and sensitive and expressive and childlike in his enthusiasm for adventures like hiking. There were aspects of him and us together that were dream-like and so easy to get swept up in. His child-like awe and wonder was contagious and felt like it was healing a broken part of my soul.

So I ignored lots of red flags as the relationship progressed. Eventually it came out that he loved to troll online. I've read a lot about how people who like to troll are usually either psychopaths, sadists, or narcissists. He switched jobs about 4 times within the first two months of us dating and eventually as he began opening up to me more about work I realized it was because of his volatility that he wasn't able to hold a job for very long. I remember thinking if he blows up on other people it's only a matter of time before he blows up on you... . And I was right, of course. But he managed to keep that mostly at bay for about 2 years. I'm insanely laid back and my presence seemed to calm him. I watched him calm a lot the longer we dated. I was hopeful that our bond was healing this issue with volatility he had.

After two years of us dating, his roommate situation blew up and he desperately needed someone to be paying half the bills so he asked me to move in. Deep down my gut was screaming no because my guard was still partially up due to all the red flags I'd seen. But he managed to talk me into it. Of course as soon as I moved in he began blowing up on me. The first time scared me beyond belief because it felt like he was on the verge of hitting me the entire time. After it happened a second time I sat him down and told him I wouldn't stay in a relationship where I felt unsafe, which is how he made me feel when he yelled at me/verbally abused me. Using the word 'abuse' was a huge mistake and apparently a big trigger for him, because it's been used in every single one of his previous relationships but he refuses to acknowledge that he's the common denominator / it could be true. He accused me of gaslighting for using the word abuse.

I set that boundary, but instead of working to enforce it, I just shut down after those first 3-4 blowups/attacks. I was scared of him so I just quit speaking up or daring to disagree with him about anything. I walked on eggshells and felt like I was dying inside from being so silenced. He began withdrawing and abusing Ritalin and Focalin. He would sometimes disappear for entire weeks at a time on binges. And of course after the high came the lows, when he was hungover he would yell and take it out on me. Every time I attempted to talk to him about it he would give me a stern look and say he did not want to talk about it and I better not push on that.

Eventually he began mentioning how he had always struggled with suicidal tendencies, but this was the first time in his life where he realized he could actually really go through with it. That was the straw for me. At the time I happened to be reading a book on relationships that pointed out that if one partner's mental health needed addressing but wasn't being addressed, absolutely nothing you do could improve the relationship. Mental health always has to be taken care of first and foremost. So I began rousing myself out of my silence and insisting on talking to him about his depression and Ritalin abuse. For an entire month he kept dismissing me and shutting the subject down. I finally started to get angry at being silenced. Then he made some offhand comment about his girlfriend before me - how their relationship damaged his self trust and he realized from there on out he just needed to find someone who would never, ever leave him no matter what. I realized he was saying that he picked me because of how passive I am. I realized he had been subtly controlling me throughout our entire relationship. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I started giving him the silent treatment, which distressed him enough that he finally asked what was wrong. I said the same thing was wrong that had been wrong for the last few months - I've been trying to talk to him about his depression and Ritalin abuse and he keeps silencing me. He (of course) blew up on me. Screamed that that was a lie - he's ALWAYS open for communication. He didn't remember me ever attempting to talk to him about these issues at all and accused me of gaslighting again.

He refused to acknowledge that he needed help, let alone agree to seeing a therapist, so I told him I was done and wanted to move out. The breakup was absolute chaos, he yelled at me for about 2 days straight, but I moved out as quickly as possible due to fear. By the end of that week I had movers ready to go and a place to move to. When I saw my therapist and she mentioned BPD it all made sense and I realized I really made the right decision.

The actual weekend I packed to move out was heartbreakingly sad. Sometimes he has moments of complete lucidity where he can see the way he's been acting and owns up to it, apologizes. He didn't try to talk me out of it - he agreed there was something "deeply damaged in his soul" that prevents him from maintaining ANY relationship - romantic, platonic, professional - and he knows he needs to figure out what it is about him that causes this. It was so hard to know exactly what that thing is but not be able to say anything about it. My therapist had warned not to mention BPD because of how thin-skinned and grandiose he is, how that lucidity can switch back to delusion at the drop of a hat. So I bit my tongue.

I moved out and on the very first day of me being out I got a suicide note. It was vicious. It accused me of being a gaslighter for calling him verbally abusive and said he hoped his suicide would make me feel so accountable that I would never dare enter a romantic relationship again and abuse another man the way I've abused him. I called 911 and they sent mental health services to his place. They apparently got him set up with a therapist. He sent a text a day later thanking me for calling 911. Then the day after that he sent a vaguely threatening letter demanding I apologize for gaslighting him and calling him verbally abusive. I quit responding to him at that point completely.

I'm still a bit rattled and scared of what he might do next, but luckily he doesn't know where my new place is. I'm mostly just concerned about what's going on with ME to have picked and stayed with such an unstable person for so long, how many red flags I tried to ignore. My therapist points out that I did set boundaries and [eventually... ] enforced them. She thinks it all shows progress with me asserting myself. I mostly agree, breaking up with him is the hardest thing I've had to do - but deep down I knew it needed to happen 8 months ago. So I can't quit focusing on how it took me an entire 8 months to come around.

[BabblingBrooke]

Hi there,
Browsing these message boards has been massively helpful in sorting out the chaos of my recently ended romantic relationship with a BPD man. I actually didn't realize he had BPD until 3 days after I broke up with him and was describing our fights to my therapist - the way he explodes on me, how his eyes glaze over and he dissociates, his memory issues, projection, contradictions, swaying between delusions & lucidity, push/pulling, etc. She said "Okay, I don't want to be an armchair psychiatrist, but from what you've described of him, he has every single borderline trait." I didn't know what borderline was at the time. I went home and googled it and was BLOWN AWAY by everything I read - it explained our entire relationship. I just can't get over that we were together for 3 years and it took an entire two years for the stuff to really hit the fan.

Not that there weren't massive red flags right from the very beginning. The first time he blew up on me was actually after our second date. Before we met I had planned a vacation and told him during that trip I likely wouldn't be very responsive. By the 4th day of my vacation he sent me a nasty email accusing me of ghosting on him. I knew something was off at that point but when I reminded him I was on vacation and didn't always have access to email, he shifted gears entirely and I let it slide because I had never met a man like him. He was so emotional and sensitive and expressive and childlike in his enthusiasm for adventures like hiking. There were aspects of him and us together that were dream-like and so easy to get swept up in. His child-like awe and wonder was contagious and felt like it was healing a broken part of my soul.

So I ignored lots of red flags as the relationship progressed. Eventually it came out that he loved to troll online. I've read a lot about how people who like to troll are usually either psychopaths, sadists, or narcissists. He switched jobs about 4 times within the first two months of us dating and eventually as he began opening up to me more about work I realized it was because of his volatility that he wasn't able to hold a job for very long. I remember thinking if he blows up on other people it's only a matter of time before he blows up on you... . And I was right, of course. But he managed to keep that mostly at bay for about 2 years. I'm insanely laid back and my presence seemed to calm him. I watched him calm a lot the longer we dated. I was hopeful that our bond was healing this issue with volatility he had.

After two years of us dating, his roommate situation blew up and he desperately needed someone to be paying half the bills so he asked me to move in. Deep down my gut was screaming no because my guard was still partially up due to all the red flags I'd seen. But he managed to talk me into it. Of course as soon as I moved in he began blowing up on me. The first time scared me beyond belief because it felt like he was on the verge of hitting me the entire time. After it happened a second time I sat him down and told him I wouldn't stay in a relationship where I felt unsafe, which is how he made me feel when he yelled at me/verbally abused me. Using the word 'abuse' was a huge mistake and apparently a big trigger for him, because it's been used in every single one of his previous relationships but he refuses to acknowledge that he's the common denominator / it could be true. He accused me of gaslighting for using the word abuse.

I set that boundary, but instead of working to enforce it, I just shut down after those first 3-4 blowups/attacks. I was scared of him so I just quit speaking up or daring to disagree with him about anything. I walked on eggshells and felt like I was dying inside from being so silenced. He began withdrawing and abusing Ritalin and Focalin. He would sometimes disappear for entire weeks at a time on binges. And of course after the high came the lows, when he was hungover he would yell and take it out on me. Every time I attempted to talk to him about it he would give me a stern look and say he did not want to talk about it and I better not push on that.

Eventually he began mentioning how he had always struggled with suicidal tendencies, but this was the first time in his life where he realized he could actually really go through with it. That was the straw for me. At the time I happened to be reading a book on relationships that pointed out that if one partner's mental health needed addressing but wasn't being addressed, absolutely nothing you do could improve the relationship. Mental health always has to be taken care of first and foremost. So I began rousing myself out of my silence and insisting on talking to him about his depression and Ritalin abuse. For an entire month he kept dismissing me and shutting the subject down. I finally started to get angry at being silenced. Then he made some offhand comment about his girlfriend before me - how their relationship damaged his self trust and he realized from there on out he just needed to find someone who would never, ever leave him no matter what. I realized he was saying that he picked me because of how passive I am. I realized he had been subtly controlling me throughout our entire relationship. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I started giving him the silent treatment, which distressed him enough that he finally asked what was wrong. I said the same thing was wrong that had been wrong for the last few months - I've been trying to talk to him about his depression and Ritalin abuse and he keeps silencing me. He (of course) blew up on me. Screamed that that was a lie - he's ALWAYS open for communication. He didn't remember me ever attempting to talk to him about these issues at all and accused me of gaslighting again.

He refused to acknowledge that he needed help, let alone agree to seeing a therapist, so I told him I was done and wanted to move out. The breakup was absolute chaos, he yelled at me for about 2 days straight, but I moved out as quickly as possible due to fear. By the end of that week I had movers ready to go and a place to move to. When I saw my therapist and she mentioned BPD it all made sense and I realized I really made the right decision.

The actual weekend I packed to move out was heartbreakingly sad. Sometimes he has moments of complete lucidity where he can see the way he's been acting and owns up to it, apologizes. He didn't try to talk me out of it - he agreed there was something "deeply damaged in his soul" that prevents him from maintaining ANY relationship - romantic, platonic, professional - and he knows he needs to figure out what it is about him that causes this. It was so hard to know exactly what that thing is but not be able to say anything about it. My therapist had warned not to mention BPD because of how thin-skinned and grandiose he is, how that lucidity can switch back to delusion at the drop of a hat. So I bit my tongue.

I moved out and on the very first day of me being out I got a suicide note. It was vicious. It accused me of being a gaslighter for calling him verbally abusive and said he hoped his suicide would make me feel so accountable that I would never dare enter a romantic relationship again and abuse another man the way I've abused him. I called 911 and they sent mental health services to his place. They apparently got him set up with a therapist. He sent a text a day later thanking me for calling 911. Then the day after that he sent a vaguely threatening letter demanding I apologize for gaslighting him and calling him verbally abusive. I quit responding to him at that point completely.

I'm still a bit rattled and scared of what he might do next, but luckily he doesn't know where my new place is. I'm mostly just concerned about what's going on with ME to have picked and stayed with such an unstable person for so long, how many red flags I tried to ignore. My therapist points out that I did set boundaries and [eventually... ] enforced them. She thinks it all shows progress with me asserting myself. I mostly agree, breaking up with him is the hardest thing I've had to do - but deep down I knew it needed to happen 8 months ago. So I can't quit focusing on how it took me an entire 8 months to come around.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey BB, Welcome!  I'm sorry to hear what you've been through.  Many of us, including me, stayed way too long in a BPD r/s.  Don't beat yourself up!  Everyone heals at his/her own pace.  Do you have any particular questions?

LuckyJim

[Mutt]

Hi BabblingBrooke,



I’d like to join Lucky Jim and welcome you to bpdfamily. A r/s breakup with a pwBPD is a difficult thing to do and it can be hard if your solo to maintain no contact, which is self protection, it gives you the space and time that you need to heal. If you stay in contact a pwBPD can’t think about your needs, they have empathy but it’s impaired, you have self protect, they won’t do it for you.

Don’t be hard on yourself. BPD is emotional arrested development and a pwBPD cannit sustain healthy adult emotional intimacy, intimacy triggers the disorder, that’s why you got blows after two years.

[Angel3287]

Hi Brooke,

As someone 2 months out of a relationship with a xBPDbf I can truly tell you the best thing is to go NC and stay far, far away.

It is difficult as most of us her a very empathetic, sensitive people who really wanted the best for our ex's. We, too, discussed therapy during our relationship and he ultimately decided that "it wouldn't help him anymore" and that it was a waste of time.

In short- you going NC, maintaining your boundaries and focusing on a happy, whole life are the most important things you can do for yourself now. He will realize there are no ways around your walls and give up, find a new target and continue his cycle... .sadly.

[BabblingBrooke]

Hey BB, Welcome!  I'm sorry to hear what you've been through.  Many of us, including me, stayed way too long in a BPD r/s.  Don't beat yourself up!  Everyone heals at his/her own pace.  Do you have any particular questions?

LuckyJim

Sorry for the delayed response! I wasn't getting notifications...

At this point the biggest question I have surrounds my need for support from friends and his privacy. He found my tumblr and flipped out because I had written about the harassment and abuse. I didn't use any identifying information about him at all, but being so thin skinned he of course completely flipped out and sent threats. I've since moved to another blog and make my posts private after 24 hours (so if he were to find the new one he'd only likely see just the most recent post). I feel guilty for writing publicly about his mental health, but I need to tell the full story to get support from my friends. (One of my friends on that site has BPD and it's been helping a lot to hear her take on each situation as it unfolds.) Abuse flourishes in silence, which is 99% of the reason I stayed way too long - because I wasn't telling anyone what was going on and getting perspectives from healthy friends and family. Him trying to silence me feels like more of how he controlled me in the relationship. Do you think it's reprehensible to blog about the situation?

[Lucky Jim]

Abuse flourishes in silence, which is 99% of the reason I stayed way too long - because I wasn't telling anyone what was going on and getting perspectives from healthy friends and family.

Right, BB.  Many of us Nons have covered up for our pwBPD by keeping quiet about the abuse.  I certainly did.  Why do we perpetuate the problem by keeping it a secret?  That's a tough question and one that I still ponder.  I think bringing abuse out into the open, into the light of day, is a healthy move.

LuckyJim

[once removed]

Do you think it's reprehensible to blog about the situation?

no. i think the question is are there alternatives, and is this worth the trouble (ie is it escalating the situation).

[BabblingBrooke]

no. i think the question is are there alternatives, and is this worth the trouble (ie is it escalating the situation).

Thanks for the response. That's what my gut pushed me towards - still writing about it, but I started a whole new blog elsewhere, only allow 12 people to read it and am still using my old blog daily so he doesn't go looking for the new one that I'm REALLY using.

[BabblingBrooke]

Right, BB.  Many of us Nons have covered up for our pwBPD by keeping quiet about the abuse.  I certainly did.  Why do we perpetuate the problem by keeping it a secret?  That's a tough question and one that I still ponder.  I think bringing abuse out into the open, into the light of day, is a healthy move.

LuckyJim

Awesome. That seems to be the way my gut is steering me. Thanks!