After five years I realised my now ex-gf is probably BPD

[Sunshine81]

Hi,

This is my first post, so here goes. Apologies if any of my language or terminology is a little off kilter.

I separated from my ex-wife about six years ago, longer if you don't just measure the separation from moving out.

After a while on my own I got back in touch with a girlfriend from my college days. We had a short-lived romance back in the day, and as it turned out both of us felt there was unfinished business.

She is divorced and has a daughter. Her ex-husband is remarried and has a very young daughter by his second wife. That causes complications in itself as the new wife is making it quite clear that the other daughter is not welcome in the new family.

I only have one side of the story in terms of the divorce. Allegedly he was caught playing away and the marriage never recovered. Looking back through the lens of what I think I know now, there is a strong chance that he ran away from her behaviours as part of her BPD. From my limited but growing knowledge of BPD, it now raises a flag that they met in March, were engaged by October, and were married the following summer. She has said more than once that had they waited longer before marrying, they would never have got that far. I'm wondering now if that is because he would have lost his shine and been replaced by a new infatuation.

So, the pattern of the relationship looks like this. We started chatting over email - she lives 500 miles away - and both decided there was still a spark there. She omitted to say that she was in a four-year relationship, which caused an issue when I thought to ask that question. She said the relationship had gone on far too long and it was complicated as to why she hadn't finished it sooner - there were business issues tied up within the relationship. She assured me she could untangle herself from the relationship but that it would take time. In the meantime, it would not be difficult to avoid physical contact with him as he lived further from her than I do.

Our relationship became physical, on the understanding that her existing one was over. I discovered a month later that it was not. The upshot of the argument that followed her disclosure was that far worse than her lying about sleeping with someone else was my 'bullying methods' for finding out the truth. I would point out that there was no verbal or physical intimidation on my part, I just asked the question outright.

So, not the best of starts, but I was cool with the idea that I'd walked back into her life after 20+ years and she was in a difficult position already being in a complicated relationship. I can kid myself now that I would have happily waited six months for her to be totally free, but I knew there was every danger of a crossover and ploughed ahead anyway.

She then broke the other relationship off. A big commitment as she had business interests at risk if he chose to be nasty about the whole thing. Such a commitment made me feel as if she was totally serious about our being together.

Three or four months of bliss (that whole honeymoon period I keep reading about) where we swore our undying love for each other, where sex was amazing, where we discussed plans for the future in a way that I never had before. Then out of nowhere, she asked me to find a message containing a hotel booking on her phone and I found a number of messages from some other guy at the gym calling her 'sexy girl'. Looking back, I think I was supposed to find them. Another row ensued. Eventually she apologised with the explanation that he was someone who she had trained with a few times who now obviously had other ideas. She said she would deal with it and said she'd been silly to let her ego allow it that far. I wondered if there was a pattern emerging.

Four more months of bliss, then suddenly she said that we couldn't be together until my divorce was finalised. In legal terms I was still married, but she knew I'd lived at a separate address for a year, and that my ex-wife had a new partners. We had been sleeping together for more than six months. I'd even met her daughter and friends. It all seemed a little Victorian that we now had to play some act until I had my decree absolute. She said she was sure we would spend the rest of our lives together, but she just didn't know when that would start. She was happy to stay in touch, but we couldn't meet.

After a few weeks of this new arrangement, she began picking fights on the phone. Sometimes denying conversations had happened in the past at all. Sometimes denying my recollection of situations and conversations. One week she agreed that we could still be 'adult' in the content of our conversations, the next week denying we'd ever had the conversation and making me out to be some kind of sex pest. Eventually she picked a huge row over nothing, then told me it was over for good.

Now I'm sure a few of you out there may recognise how I felt at that point. I'd gone from the love of her life, the person who she had been searching for forever, to someone who was out of her life, with no explanation, no idea as to why in terms of any catalyst, and now on the receiving end of my first dose of the silent treatment. To say I was in a bad place is something of an understatement.

For two full months she didn't reply to any communication. Then, on my birthday, a text message wishing me happy birthday. Stupidly, I took that as an olive branch and replied asking when was a good time to call. She said she could talk the best part of two weeks later. Looking back, that was to make me feel small, but I was walking on egg shells so I didn't want to rock the boat.

When we did speak, I was told it was definitely over, she had only sent the text because she thought it 'churlish' not to acknowledge my birthday, and that there was little more to say. However she relented and said she would give me more detail in another call the week after, but I should recognise that we are all left with unanswered questions, and no one should expect closure in a all relationships.

In the next call, I was told I was the most self-obsessed man she had ever met, I was narcissistic, I took pleasure in making women want be but then not letting them have me. It was delivered with all the vitriol you might expect in that sort of monologue. I was gobsmacked. I was angry. I was also slightly amused at the notion that I would work hard to attract a partner and then take more pleasure in saying no to them than I would in enjoying their company - I'm not Quasimodo, but I'm not beating women off with a stick either.

Looking back (seemingly my new catchphrase), I believe she was projecting her own qualities on to me.

I realise I'm running the risk of using all 16,000 characters and possibly making this the longest intro post ever, so I'll get to the point.

Since that break up four years ago, we have got back together and split up again two or three times - to be honest I'm tired of trying to remember the timeline. The time has been interspersed with long periods of the silent treatment. I'm talking months at a time, not days. The most recent is from early February this year until now. Not a word apart from a missed call to a friend of mine.

This has happened in the past. One time a random forwarding of a two-year-old email with no content. A second email to apologise and say there was no funny business about the other email, just a slip of the fingers. Now, anyone over the age of two knows that you can't forward an email without clicking 'forward', entering the recipient's email address, then clicking 'send'. There has to be some serious slippery finger action to achieve that.

Anyway, in the times we have been together, there have been plenty of examples of rapid mood swings, unreasonable behaviour, paranoia (I've been accused of being involved with people at work, women on the school PTA, mums from the school, old flames), bursts of anger that seem to come from nowhere, self harm (I never considered this self-harm until I read up on BPD, but she will often pick at the skin on her face to cause spots and scabs that just weren't there - her comments that I sound like her mother when I ask her to stop make me think this is a long term 'habit', and our relationship is one long unstable relationship. She appears to have a strong fear of abandonment as she will often take quick action if she believes I'm moving on.

She is taking medication, which I believe is for depression. I've been told what she is going through is not my fault, but I've never been let in close enough to find out what that might be. So even now, I'm not totally sure she is BPD, or has been diagnosed with BPD. She also has a rather unhelpful relationship with alcohol, particularly given she's on AD medication.

I've spent months over the past four years trying to identify what might be wrong. I've read through depression, peri-menopausal depression, post-natal depression (particularly it's higher occurrence in highly successful women), bipolar disorder, and finally BPD.

I forgot to say, she is highly functioning. She is a first-class honours graduate, blue-chip CV, C-suite at a major financial institution. I'm not sure any of her friends and family know, her daughter especially. I've never approached any of her friends and family as I don't believe it's my right to open those potential flood gates.

So, I find myself here, as in my non-qualified opinion, she ticks far too many of the boxes for there not to be the strong possibility of BPD. I've filled in the self-tests, and even when I try to game the system or give her a huge degree of the benefit of the doubt, they always come back with 'strong indication of BPD'.

I don't want to conveniently label her, but there's a feeling of some closure in just possibly having uncovered something that may answer some baffling questions and behaviours.

Six months of total silence - I'm aware she's reading my messages - tells me it's over. History tells me it isn't and she'll pop up again. Research suggests that may well be because she is with someone else now, and was in previous times of silence, but I've also seen how exhausted and depressed she is keeping this facade alive.

Like many other people, I'd love to make things better, I'd love to go back to the heights of the first few months together, but I'm also aware that I need to be looking after me.

If you've read this far, thank you. I'm not exactly sure what I've said or what I wanted from writing this, but I feel so much better for sharing it.

[Cat Familiar]

Yours sounds like a classic story of which so many people have a similar version. My question to you is are you done? Or, knowing what you now know (which is a lot), do you want to give it another shot? You realize that the honeymoon period is wonderful and that she is a package deal--you can't have Dr. Jeckyl without also having Ms. Hyde.

[Sunshine81]

Yours sounds like a classic story of which so many people have a similar version. My question to you is are you done? Or, knowing what you now know (which is a lot), do you want to give it another shot? You realize that the honeymoon period is wonderful and that she is a package deal--you can't have Dr. Jeckyl without also having Ms. Hyde.

Thank you for replying.

The honest answer is that I'd give it another shot tomorrow. The hardest part was not knowing what I was up against. Nothing made any sense. Some things still don't, but it all has some crazy logic if viewed through the lens of BPD. Nothing has been communicated, so I've been Dr Google for as long as I can remember. I don't for one minute think there's any quick fix, or any fix at all for that matter, but I think she's worth the fight if she does.

[Cat Familiar]

What about her is so compelling that you'd like another chance?

[Sunshine81]

What about her is so compelling that you'd like another chance?

That's the million dollar question. There was enough about her for me to rekindle a relationship more than twenty years later. We were university students at the time, so six-week relationships were considered long-term back then :-) so there would never have been enough time together to sense anything might be different.

Right now, it's hard to say honestly if I'm not just in love with the euphoria of the honeymoon phase, rather than any combination of compelling characteristics of hers. It feels cold to say that, but what I've learned in such a short time makes me think I'm yearning for something that never was.

I've just read 'Stop walking on egg shells' and it was eye-opening and enlightening. Every page was 'that's me!', 'that's her!', 'that's us!', usually accompanied by a face palming as I wonder how all this information, all these thousands of stories that are pretty much the same as mine, were out there the whole time and I missed them as I Googled further and further into researching clinical depression.

I guess I have the feeling that many people do now. "I now know what's wrong, I can go fix it!". I have posted the 'three Cs' above my desk. Other than in the darkest days of the rollercoaster I knew I wasn't the cause. I got burned again and again as I was reminded that I had no control over most of what was going on. The cure bit is the hardest part. It's hard to avoid getting a bit evangelical about it all once you know, to misquote The Joker, 'my pain has a name'.

I can't help but stay out of her life. She is the one who has disappeared for six months and counting. It's my birthday next week, and I have no idea whether I'll get a one-off message. I've taken her numbers out of my phone, so calling, texting, WhatsApp and the like are all out, as is Skype. I can email, but I must confess, before I found this board, and before I'd done anything like the reading I've done since, I fired off an email saying it was my last because I now knew what was wrong. Something I regret now, but like pretty much everything from the word go, if I knew then what I know now, I'd have behaved so much differently. The taking it personally bit was the hardest thing. Now, being confident that I'm responsible for 50% of the relationship, and 100% of myself, I look back and lots of painful stuff just disappears. I didn't need to attend every fight I was invited to. I didn't need to follow the logic through to the nasty conclusion, because logic was never part of the deal.

I do have her email, but I'm not sure what to say if I did contact her again. I'm not sure if I'm feeding the problem by popping up a fortnight later and saying that I want to be there. It's still difficult to get the game-playing idea out of my head, so I'm finding it difficult to stop predicting cause and effect.

I'm working on me. Even the reading around BPD is education and self-development in itself. I've changed my diet and exercise regime. My head feels clearer and I feel like a weight has been lifted.

In an attempt to answer your question, I can't put into words what's so compelling about her. I'm not ignoring the idea that I may just be looking for her to tell me that it wasn't all a facade. I may be looking for the beautiful future that we talked about when times were good (not just at the outset). I may be hanging on to stuff that just wan't there. In time, I don't think I'll need to know the answer to that question, as I don't think she'll be part of my life any longer.

[Cat Familiar]

Right now, it's hard to say honestly if I'm not just in love with the euphoria of the honeymoon phase, rather than any combination of compelling characteristics of hers. It feels cold to say that, but what I've learned in such a short time makes me think I'm yearning for something that never was.

Yes, the honeymoon phase can be so euphoric--that's what hooks us.

I've just read 'Stop walking on egg shells' and it was eye-opening and enlightening. Every page was 'that's me!', 'that's her!', 'that's us!', usually accompanied by a face palming as I wonder how all this information, all these thousands of stories that are pretty much the same as mine, were out there the whole time and I missed them as I Googled further and further into researching clinical depression.

I guess I have the feeling that many people do now. "I now know what's wrong, I can go fix it!". I have posted the 'three Cs' above my desk. Other than in the darkest days of the rollercoaster I knew I wasn't the cause. I got burned again and again as I was reminded that I had no control over most of what was going on. The cure bit is the hardest part. It's hard to avoid getting a bit evangelical about it all once you know, to misquote The Joker, 'my pain has a name'.

I like to think "mitigate" instead of cure. I've married two husbands with BPD--one was far on the extreme end, and I stuck with the relationship for many years, enduring verbal and physical abuse, financial irresponsibility, suicide threats, illegal activities, repeated infidelity. I guess it says something about my being an incurable optimist that I kept thinking I could get him to be a better man.

My current husband is a good man, however also BPD--but he's highly functional and good hearted--BPD-lite. I didn't see the signs for a few years after we got married. When I finally put 2+2 together, I was heartbroken--"Not this again!"  

But, now that I've learned the tools, we no longer argue and basically get along well. Knowing what I know now, keeps me "meta" about the relationship, so in one way, I'm not "all in" the way I was when we were first together and there is a distance that was not there at the beginning. But it's nice, it works. However, he still has those BPD characteristics, but I'm able to step aside and go somewhere else so I don't see the dysregulations up close and personally. And because I'm not "feeding" them with my behavior, they don't blow up so spectacularly as they once did.

So--mitigating--and I can call it good. If I'd known what I was in for, during that incredibly wonderful honeymoon phase, which lasted a couple of years for us--would I have chosen to commit myself and marry him? Well, that's a good question and I don't have a ready answer for that. There are a lot of great financial benefits to this marriage--and it's ironic for me to think this way because I married him for love, but now I can say the biggest benefit to me is money. If I was living in an urban area, instead of this small rural place, perhaps I would have had more suitable suitors to select from, but the "pickins" around here are slim--unless I had wanted a redneck, high school dropout tweaker, and no thank you very much.

I think a lot of people here, had they known, would never have had a second date with their now BPD spouse. And since it's a spectrum disorder, I believe that some relationships are beyond mitigating--my first marriage is a good example.

It's great that you've been able to reframe the relationship, now that you've learned more about the disorder.    I hope you have a wonderful birthday.  

Cat