Hey Guys

[crunchtime]

I'm 28 years old, in a 2+ year relationship with a woman four years my senior who exhibits signs of BPD.

I just want to feel sane. I myself was a victim of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse growing up, and have extremely compromised self-esteem and self-confidence. I have been working very hard to develop my self-identity over the years, and feel a sense of self.

Lacking a solid sense of my own feelings, and who I am, has made this relationship hell on earth for me. I feel like I am going crazy. I feel like I'm losing my mind, and any time I get into an argument with my girlfriend, that feeling only intensifies. I can't tell if what she's saying is true or if what I'm saying is true. She seems to be extremely adept at making me second-guess myself, and accuses me of projection and deflection and gaslighting, when in reality I feel like she is the one doing it to me. But I don't know. Feel like I am going insane.

This is also the first time I've ever had sex or a relationship in my life. I was a virgin until 26 years old and was suicidal over thinking I would never experience affection or sex, which makes letting go of the relationship even harder for me. That is an added layer that my girlfriend is not responsible for. And of course, no one else is responsible for that but me. But it's a constant stress. For me, the sense of catastrophic loss feels very real.

I don't know what is healthy or what isn't healthy. Being isolated in this relationship makes it that much harder to deal with. She says "any girl would want this," like the constant need for reassurance, the extreme insecurity and jealousy, not wanting me to watch porn or movies or TV shows with nudity/sex/cheating in them, etc. And I don't know any better because I have never been with any other women. She tells me that I don't have the skills to be in a relationship and that I am not good at communicating, and that there are all sorts of things wrong with me that make me hard or unfit to be with, and then says she's telling me these things because she loves me and wants to help me, which is all very confusing because my feelings don't line up with that.

I don't feel loved, but then I'm accused of not loving her and being "evil" or "mean" or "cruel" or "inhuman." I've been accused of being a sociopath, narcissist, inhuman, gaslighter, etc. And my sense of self is so poor that sometimes I believe her and wonder if it really is me that's this messed up and causing all these problems. Which only intensifies my feelings of worthlessness... .which are, of course, overshadowed by HER feelings of worthlessness, that she says I'm causing her to have.

Anyway, I feel I've been underestimating the damage this has been causing in my life. Despite all the drama, I have done better in the past couple years than I have done in my entire life. Maybe from having sexual/affection needs met on a regular basis. I'm not distracted about those things like I used to be. I used to be obsessed. I was regularly suicidal before this relationship. I have not been suicidal even once since it began, although it has been extremely stressful, with regular fights and arguments and I feel like she takes up a massive amount of my time and energy.

Well, anyway, we just had a big falling out (again), and I drove home, leaving her sitting on the floor crying. I just could not deal with it anymore. She accuses me of thinking she's a "piece of ___" or "worthless" or "trash" and I have NEVER said those words to her, EVER. I needed to come home so I could try to get some sleep, that's all.

Gonna try to get some rest now. Happy Thanksgiving guys  I just thought I'd brighten the holidays up for everyone by sharing this here I suppose  

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[heartandwhole]

Hi crunchtime,



I'm sorry to hear that you don't feel sane anymore in your relationship. I can imagine how difficult it is to not know who is seeing reality more clearly: you or your partner. Many of us have felt like that and experienced similar situations.

When things seem so jumbled, Wisemind is a great skill to develop. It helps get us centered again. Have you had experience with mindfulness, crunchtime? It really helps me when I'm stressed and hurting. I also recommend therapy, because I found the objective, outside view very helpful when I was in a relationship with pwBPD.

How have things developed since you posted? Have you been in contact with your girlfriend since?

heartandwhole

[pearlsw]

Hi crunchtime,

I am sorry you are having a hard time with your relationship. It sounds like it took a lot for you to open up to someone and it is certainly painful and confusing when we are trying to give and receive love and it gets complicated.

The one thing you can have some control over is yourself, so be sure to keep working at building up your self-esteem so you can hold onto reality better - that can help you quite a bit.

You mention that you "don't know what is or isn't healthy". Well, when you aren't sure if something seems right be sure to ask us here and we can offer ideas and suggestions. In the meantime read here as much as you can in the relationship workshops to see what insights you can gain. Having good communication skills and self-awareness can help a lot with relationships. All relationships have some degree of issues, but understanding the special issues involved if your partner has BPD or BPD traits, and adjusting your communication style, can make a big difference.

Is your partner making you feel uncomfortable? Is she expressing jealousy if you see tv shows, etc.?

warm wishes, pearlsw.

[crunchtime]

Hi crunchtime,



I'm sorry to hear that you don't feel sane anymore in your relationship. I can imagine how difficult it is to not know who is seeing reality more clearly: you or your partner. Many of us have felt like that and experienced similar situations.

When things seem so jumbled, Wisemind is a great skill to develop. It helps get us centered again. Have you had experience with mindfulness, crunchtime? It really helps me when I'm stressed and hurting. I also recommend therapy, because I found the objective, outside view very helpful when I was in a relationship with pwBPD.

How have things developed since you posted? Have you been in contact with your girlfriend since?

heartandwhole

I have been in therapy for years now, which is good. Having that space to talk about these issues does help.

I am in contact with my girlfriend every day. We've been together for over 2 years now. Last night she got drunk again (she is an alcoholic) and it was another rollercoaster of mixed emotions. Her going from laughing and having fun and saying she loves me to being hysterical, crying relentlessly and accusing me of causing her to be an alcoholic and making her life hell... .in a span of an hour or so, is just normal now. The fluctuations are extreme and frequent, lately they've been daily.

Hi crunchtime,

I am sorry you are having a hard time with your relationship. It sounds like it took a lot for you to open up to someone and it is certainly painful and confusing when we are trying to give and receive love and it gets complicated.

The one thing you can have some control over is yourself, so be sure to keep working at building up your self-esteem so you can hold onto reality better - that can help you quite a bit.

You mention that you "don't know what is or isn't healthy". Well, when you aren't sure if something seems right be sure to ask us here and we can offer ideas and suggestions. In the meantime read here as much as you can in the relationship workshops to see what insights you can gain. Having good communication skills and self-awareness can help a lot with relationships. All relationships have some degree of issues, but understanding the special issues involved if your partner has BPD or BPD traits, and adjusting your communication style, can make a big difference.

Is your partner making you feel uncomfortable? Is she expressing jealousy if you see tv shows, etc.?

warm wishes, pearlsw.

She expresses extreme jealousy even if I do something as simple as petting her dog or cat instead of paying attention to her. The TV show issues, and not wanting me to watch porn or look at other girls, she claims are rooted in BDD, or body dysmorphic disorder.

This turned into me lying about using porn. That blew up when she went through my phone. She promised me she would never do that in a million years because she respected me and my privacy. But ever since then I haven't lived it down. She found porn on my phone and said it was the "ultimate betrayal" and that me going on porn or even looking at other girls meant that I was "betraying" her, "disrespecting" her, making her feel worthless, and then used that as an excuse to berate and insult me.

She has called me "disgusting" and a "pig" and humiliated me after I tried opening up to her about me using porn to de-stress. I have explained many times to her that I was raised Catholic and went through a *tremendous* amount of sexual shaming for going on porn. I thought I was going to go to hell for masturbating, let alone going on porn, and had a ton of issues with my sexuality growing up. And I dealt with it all in isolation.

She turns very, very mean when she gets on me about sexual issues. Like me going on porn or showing any indication that I'm interested in any other girl than her. She'll make fun of me, insult me, berate me, and it feels like she's capitalizing on the pre-existing sexual shame that I have.

She is triggered by just about everything, which has led to me lying about normally benign things, like watching certain TV shows or movies, or who I'm hanging out with and when.

Thank you for the replies, I appreciate it.

[pearlsw]

Hi crunchtime,

Sorry to hear that your partner is have expressing jealousy in this way and that you are feeling bad at times about it. If you haven't had a chance yet to read about it I would recommend you learn about JADE-ing (how not to justify, argue, defend, and explain). (Look here and scroll down to under Managing Conflict, for 2.02 How Not to Jade, but all the stuff under this section is helpful: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=36.0)

It is one of the first tools I started using when I was getting yelled at and insulted a lot and had to cut past all of that and just deal with the issue/feelings, not all the drama. It is a great way to avoid ongoing arguments. In your shoes I would just try to remain clear as to why I am doing what I am doing and that as an adult it is for me to sort out my sexuality and how I want to express it - as long as it is not getting to a point of addiction or I am not harming others. I remember when I was college hearing the political perspectives of some folks who were completely against porn while others, equally political about it, felt it was something that could be positive. It really is for you to decide and set the shame aside.

I would imagine that her having a drinking problem can make things even more difficult as when she is in that state her emotions are even more heightened and there is even less control over the expression of them. For this I would look at a tool such as depersonalization because both the negative and romantic stuff coming out of someone in these times is a side effect of the alcohol on top of the illness. (BPD) It is horrible to hear a barrage of mean, negative stuff but you don't have to stay around at those times - that is a tool I see many members using here to great effect.

What strategies are you using now to deal with these issues?

There are a lot of important issues here, do any other members have ideas or insights they can share with us on these issues? All help is appreciated!

[AskingWhy]

crunchtime, I am so sorry to hear about this.  Welcome to the site.

Being in a relationship with a pwBPD is indeed "crazy-making," and we begin to doubt ourselves and need validation.   Your history of abuse in your own family makes you even more unsure of what a healthy relationship looks like.

Believe me when I say that many of us here have been or are in your shoes.

Being BPD (even undiagnosed or uBPD) combined with alcoholism is what some psychologists call a "dual diagnosis," having two diagnoses of mental illness.   This makes the problems twofold.

I am glad you are in therapy yourself for your own issues.  Have you talked to your therapist about communication strategies for pwBPD or NPD?

People who are narcissists often behave like alcoholics/addicts and vice versa.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/tech-support/201610/is-he-or-she-addict-first-or-narcissist-first

On the other hand:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/tech-support/201407/what-porn-does-intimacy

[crunchtime]

I haven't heard of JADE before. Thanks for letting me know. I just opened up the link now and am reading through it.

We just had a huge blowout again, about me going on porn. She sees me having gone on it as the ultimate violation of her trust and overall betrayal of her.

I don't use JADE as much as I just get pissed off. I get angry, and I can't put it into words. Then she says "That's because there is no real reason for you to be angry." Which only makes me angrier. It just boils up and boils up, and since I can't form thoughts exactly about why I'm angry (because I'm confused), the anger just gets worse. And she antagonizes me about not verbalizing my anger.

It goes back and forth like this and then blows up. Tonight it ended with me swearing at her and yelling at her, telling her to get out of my car and leave me alone. She kept saying I betrayed her, I lied to her, and hurt her, and wants me to ask her for forgiveness.

But I'm not sorry that I lied. Here's where the JADE comes in, I guess: I lied because her initial reaction to finding out I had gone on porn was so awful, and she threatened to end the relationship over it. This being the first relationship I've ever had in my life, starting at 26 years old, and at the time we had only just started seeing each other... .I myself was desperate. I didn't want to lose the relationship so I just started using porn on my own time without telling her, and when she'd ask if I was using it I'd say no.

She promised me she'd never go through my phone, that she respected me etc., and of course a few months back that's what she did. Took my phone and locked herself in the bathroom and went through everything. And she found porn, of course, I didn't delete my history because I didn't feel like I needed to hide anything.

Anyway, yes, I did lie. I can take responsibility for that. But I'm too angry to feel bad about it. And if I tell her I don't feel bad, which I have... .she just blows up. Takes it as a huge offense.

She says she wants communication, but when I tell her how I really feel, she can't deal with it. And I don't yell and swear when I say these things, or say them vindictively. But she asks me if I feel bad about lying, and I tell her no. Because I don't feel bad. I don't feel guilty about it because I felt like she's the one that put me in a position where I even remotely felt like lying would be necessary, a situation I've never been in before in my life.

That only makes her accusations of me being a sociopath/narcissist more convincing, and then I start wondering if I really am a bad person. It makes it very hard for me to own my feelings about anything, because they're always tied to how SHE feels and how it affects HER. Then naturally, she turns it on me, saying that I always "make everything about me."

Just a little raw right now. The fallout just happened about 10 minutes ago. Part of me really loves her and cares about her, genuinely loves her. She is deep down a very caring and loving person. And I can empathize with the pain she's going through and how desperate she feels.

The other part of me is starting to hate her. The time, the energy, the anxiety, the stress, the shaming, the guilt tripping, and then saying I'm the one treating her poorly. The whole complete mess of it all. The other part of me can't deal with her and is sick of her and just wants to be rid of her.

So it's really in the middle. As I assume all of us feel in our relationships. If it was 100% bad and I was 100% unhappy, I'd just leave her. I wouldn't stay if there weren't good sides of her and good times that kept me coming back for more. I really feel like there is a lot of good there.

I guess I JADE as much as anyone else. Only thing is she accuses me directly of "deflecting" and uses other psychology terms when I'm simply telling her how I feel. She asks me how I feel, I say I'm angry, and then she says I'm "deflecting" because I'm angry instead of asking for forgiveness and trying to shift the blame to her.

I don't know. I feel awful right now because I do love her but I also can't tolerate being treated like this all the time. And I feel worse and worse about myself because I start to believe that I really am as bad as she says I am.

[crunchtime]

re: Porn

I'm undecided. I've read everything there is to read about porn addiction. I can see both sides of the argument.

The issue, I think, is I see both sides, while she is entirely one-sided. She's completely against it in any and all forms and thinks that people who watch it are all disgusting pigs without any exceptions at all, and the whole existence of it makes her sick.

I have tried quitting. I have tried very hard. It has a way of creeping back. I've found quitting tobacco easier than quitting porn.

Problem is, I've told her I think it might actually be addictive, but she hasn't been supportive. She has only threatened to end the relationship if I keep using it, and has given me ultimatums on multiple occasions.

Then she shames me saying "You can go jerk off to girls online, I know that's what you really want. You never needed me. You'll be fine without me. I'm worthless. All you ever needed is girls online anyway. You'll be fine."

Things like that. And it hurts even more because I got hooked on porn because I never had any kind of affection or sex in my life at all until she came along. I was trying to fill a void, and I knew full well the whole time I was going on porn for years and years that I wanted more.

I thought I was done with it when I got with her. For a few months I had no desire at all to even think about it. Then it slowly started creeping back in, as the stress in the relationship grew.

Similar to smoking. I can go weeks or even months without rolling a cigarette, but when stuff gets bad and I am strung out, I'll chain smoke. You brain remembers what your fixes are. I guess porn is no different.

So anyway, it's a very sensitive issue for me, as well as her. It doesn't help that I've been conflicted about it myself, and don't have a clear position on it, and seem to go back and forth between quitting it, and trying to quit for as long as I can, and then falling back into using it again.

I've really valued real sex, and real affection, of course. I really have. I would appreciate that better than anyone having gone WELL over a decade without even the smallest bit of it.

But the shaming is hard for me to deal with. I can't wrap my brain around loving someone so much, and feeling like they love me so much, while all these other horrible things and conflicts exist at the same time.