Why do I care what other people think?

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

I'm sure there is a twisted version of what happened between us going out there... .

When I met her, she was living with a family friend (after her divorce).  This was an older lesbian (who had an on-off partner, and I genuinely don't believe there was a sexual element to her relationships with my ex).   She'd given my ex a home when her family "kicked her out", given her a job, taught her to drive... . made her part of the family.

As she started getting to know me, she said that this lady was "controlling" and "jealous" that she'd found herself somebody (me).  She said she was demanding.

At around this time, their friendship changed and this lady supposedly:

1) Kicked her out one night so she had to go to a hotel (because she'd come back late, and this lady was annoyed she wouldn't be fit for work the next day)

2) Took her phone away, smashing it up

3) Taken the company car away from her  

My ex took a step away from me at this point, saying her friend needed her.  She finished with me "for the short term" and said she was struggling to be there for everybody.

Then she started turning up in the mornings after she'd done a night shift, on her way home.  We got back together, and I just thought she'd had bad luck but things would be fine now.

I HATED this lady for what she'd done to my ex!

My ex also showed me pictures of herself with bruises, and said her ex-husband did them to her. she told me how abusive he had been.  I thought what a horrible guy he was, and maybe that was why she was now gay.

She didn't talk to any of her family, and again told me about all the horrible things they had done to her.  I believe SOME of them are true, based on facts that I absolutely KNOW to be true, but I do wonder now about her role in it all.

About that time, a friend called and said she'd heard from another friend rumours about my girl.  As she said some of them (that my ex "had issues" and had borrowed loads of money from people and not paid back) I felt a weird gut feeling, but chose to ignore it and believe her when she said they were malicious lies, as this friend of a friend was also friends with her family.

The point I am making is that now I don't know WHAT to believe.  Were these people really all horrible?  I believed they were awful, bad people.

And now I wonder what she's saying about me to her new friends in her new town.

I heard from a mutual friend that my ex had told some people I had ended it with her before we finally broke up (we never did).

It scares me. I am one of the kindest, nicest people you will meet. I have never deliberately hurt anyone.  

It terrifies me what she may be saying about me, and that I have this group of people hundreds of miles away (Who I'll probably never meet) believing bad things about me.  One thing that particularly worries me is that we do a contact sport and get lots of bruises.  She always took photos of her bruises, one of them was a black eye.  She emailed it to me showing me what had happened (as she was staying overnight at work that night) and I have kept the email with her explanation, so as to exonerate myself if needed in the future.

But it scares me.  For some reason I don't trust anything she said, but the sad thing is that I think she actually believes a lot of what she says about people... .

I'd love to know more about these people in her past that supposedly hurt her, but I know I never will (for fear of it getting back to her if I were to start asking around for answers).

Why do I care so much that her new friends, who I have never met, may think horrible things about me?

I feel guilty for thinking so badly of the people in her past now.  Maybe they're really lovely people!

[mango_flower]

I'm sure there is a twisted version of what happened between us going out there... .

When I met her, she was living with a family friend (after her divorce).  This was an older lesbian (who had an on-off partner, and I genuinely don't believe there was a sexual element to her relationships with my ex).   She'd given my ex a home when her family "kicked her out", given her a job, taught her to drive... . made her part of the family.

As she started getting to know me, she said that this lady was "controlling" and "jealous" that she'd found herself somebody (me).  She said she was demanding.

At around this time, their friendship changed and this lady supposedly:

1) Kicked her out one night so she had to go to a hotel (because she'd come back late, and this lady was annoyed she wouldn't be fit for work the next day)

2) Took her phone away, smashing it up

3) Taken the company car away from her  

My ex took a step away from me at this point, saying her friend needed her.  She finished with me "for the short term" and said she was struggling to be there for everybody.

Then she started turning up in the mornings after she'd done a night shift, on her way home.  We got back together, and I just thought she'd had bad luck but things would be fine now.

I HATED this lady for what she'd done to my ex!

My ex also showed me pictures of herself with bruises, and said her ex-husband did them to her. she told me how abusive he had been.  I thought what a horrible guy he was, and maybe that was why she was now gay.

She didn't talk to any of her family, and again told me about all the horrible things they had done to her.  I believe SOME of them are true, based on facts that I absolutely KNOW to be true, but I do wonder now about her role in it all.

About that time, a friend called and said she'd heard from another friend rumours about my girl.  As she said some of them (that my ex "had issues" and had borrowed loads of money from people and not paid back) I felt a weird gut feeling, but chose to ignore it and believe her when she said they were malicious lies, as this friend of a friend was also friends with her family.

The point I am making is that now I don't know WHAT to believe.  Were these people really all horrible?  I believed they were awful, bad people.

And now I wonder what she's saying about me to her new friends in her new town.

I heard from a mutual friend that my ex had told some people I had ended it with her before we finally broke up (we never did).

It scares me. I am one of the kindest, nicest people you will meet. I have never deliberately hurt anyone.  

It terrifies me what she may be saying about me, and that I have this group of people hundreds of miles away (Who I'll probably never meet) believing bad things about me.  One thing that particularly worries me is that we do a contact sport and get lots of bruises.  She always took photos of her bruises, one of them was a black eye.  She emailed it to me showing me what had happened (as she was staying overnight at work that night) and I have kept the email with her explanation, so as to exonerate myself if needed in the future.

But it scares me.  For some reason I don't trust anything she said, but the sad thing is that I think she actually believes a lot of what she says about people... .

I'd love to know more about these people in her past that supposedly hurt her, but I know I never will (for fear of it getting back to her if I were to start asking around for answers).

Why do I care so much that her new friends, who I have never met, may think horrible things about me?

I feel guilty for thinking so badly of the people in her past now.  Maybe they're really lovely people!

[laelle]

Hey Mango, I was thinking something along those lines as well.  I remember things that my ex use to say about his ex that seem rather contradictory now and even then.

As far as caring,

The only answer I could give myself is... . the people who believe what my exbf says, don't really know him.  He may never have alot of people around him that do really know him, because he pisses them all off and they leave.  Why do they matter anyway?

[mango_flower]

Very true Laelle

I know they don't matter, but it bothers me to think that people out there could hate me and believe I am bad, without even having met me!

I'm pretty sure that my ex will never allow me to be in the same room with them if our paths were ever to cross haha!

A few of them were her friends from before, who she had invited to come to our wedding.  I'd met them just once or twice, briefly and they told me they'd never seen my ex so happy and thanked me for making her that way... . oh how it hurts to fall from grace!

I just pray that in time they will see the true her as well, and maybe doubt anything she says.

[laelle]

Very true Laelle

I know they don't matter, but it bothers me to think that people out there could hate me and believe I am bad, without even having met me!

I'm pretty sure that my ex will never allow me to be in the same room with them if our paths were ever to cross haha!

A few of them were her friends from before, who she had invited to come to our wedding.  I'd met them just once or twice, briefly and they told me they'd never seen my ex so happy and thanked me for making her that way... . oh how it hurts to fall from grace!

I just pray that in time they will see the true her as well, and maybe doubt anything she says.

Dont worry, if they ever get close enough to her... . They wont doubt you EVER again.

[dsmoody23]

I've been struggling with this too, in a lot of the ways you're talking about.

It hurts badly to see the friends I've made, through this relationship, turned against me. Especially since the truth of what was actually going on, instead of whatever version of events they were getting from her, would produce entirely different feelings if they were ever able to see it. A huge part of me wants to publicly, loudly state the truth and win them back. But I also know that's a game I would probably lose.

In terms of past relationships and abuse, I've been trying to rationalize the stories I was told, that I believed were truth, with the very likely fact that it was a significant deviation from reality.

My girl brought up her physically abusive husband on our second date. I never met him, or heard his story, but I instantly despised him. I was raised to think that a man who strikes a woman is a sorry excuse for a man, and her story seemed so genuine and painful.

The reality of it is, there were plenty of times during our relationship where I would have hit her too, just to make her stop, if I had the capability for that in me. Thankfully, I don't.

I think the reality is that he was probably just a flawed person who reacted very badly to a very difficult situation. Not a pardon, but I can sympathize with him feeling that there was no way to stop her constant accusations, demands and anger.

[MysticK]

This is the part that I struggle with also. We had a long and troubled relationship, but she wasn't emotionally sadistic until the end. It was not that hard to end it at that point because I really can't/won't love somebody who treats me horribly - and she really was sadistic in the end. When she realized that I was serious about ending it, she began to say, basically, pay me this much money or I will ruin your reputation. She well knew I don't care that much about money but had struggled through the whole relationship to keep her from ruining us financially. Her spending was horrific and was another reason I ended it - among a host of other textbook BPD behaviors. Then she began systematically breaking items in the house ... . the new appliances, the plumbing, etc. And, of course, there was a 20-year reputation I had worked so hard at building. She went after that, which is what hurt the most.

So I wasn't about to reward her for refusing to work on having a healthy relationship. After years of having the same circular arguments and having the fourth therapist tell us, "I just don't know who to believe," I gave her a letter telling her that only she and I knew what really was going on; that I cared for her and felt she needed help and would end the relationship if she did not get help. She responded by suing me and launching a horrific disinformation campaign at my job, my church and in our neighborhood. It still amazes me that, out of five relationship counselors, only one caught on that she was a borderline - after the ex claimed she had cancer and told her coworkers about it when she really did not have cancer at all!

Luckily, the people who work with me every day wanted nothing to do with her when she tried to ingratiate herself and talk badly about me. After the courts ordered her to move out of my house, the neighbors seemed to avoid interacting with her for the most part although she did get a job as a nanny at the house across the street for a while!

I stopped going to church because I am not interested in habilitating a reputation that I earned and deserve. But I would be lying if I said it didn't hurt. Some people I thought were my friends passed along rumors without ever calling me or asking if they were true. Some have apologized but I really am not interested in chasing these bits of falsehood down. I don't want people like that for my friends.

One poster on this Web site was helpful in saying, Most people recognize crazy. You really can count on that. In hindsight, this really was good advice. One thing one of my employees said was, she obviously needs help, and you deserve credit for leaving her. I also am trying to come to terms emotionally, rather than just rationally, that she is a phenomenal liar. I am no dummy but it was years before I caught on. She is that good. She was a nationally ranked performer and her acting skills really fool(ed)  people, including me. The book "Borderline Personality for Dummies" says that it is best to stay out of the same circles as the BPD because "the person you lived with is not who the public and your friends know". This is the fact, and I am working to come to terms not with this fact alone but also with the emotions I feel around it. I am focusing on not chasing down the rumors and trying to set the record straight because most books on BPD say don't waste your time doing that. It is difficult, though, because this really is not a large town and running into her is inevitable in spite of my best efforts.

I know time will out the real truth, but I have to admit that the waiting is painful and difficult. After landing a job in a nearby town, she went bang within a year and became persona-non-grata in that WHOLE town within a given industry. So she went to another town nearby and began to volunteer her services and ingratiate herself so she can begin anew with a new slate of unsuspecting victims. Unfortunately, I run a business in this town and really feel panicked about running into her. She will stop at nothing to harm my standing in the community. I worked really hard for the respect I've earned. What bothers me the most is not so much any concern that she will succeed but embarrassment that people will know that I ever was involved with her in the first place. As I've said, this is a very small town... .

[gettingoverit]

I wonder how much of this has to do with a lot of us nons being people pleasers and rescuers? As people pleasers (myself included) we tend to go out of our way to help and do things for others as a way to stroke our own egos and make ourselves feel good. I think this is most likely due to the fact that a lot of us on this board suffer from low self esteem and get our sense of worth  by doing things for others so that they will "like" and "approve" of us. When our BPDs lie about us and say horrible things about us to others, it hurts our fagile egos. How could those people believe those things about us?   

It bothers us because we know those stories are not true, we know that we did everything we possibly could to make our BPDs happy and NOTHING changed the outcome. So in my case when I already felt like a failure because our relationship did not work out, and then added to that my ex started slandering and lying about me to others and making it out to be that all our problems were my fault, it definitly stung. I wanted to sit down with every person my ex lied to and explain the situation and how untrue her stories were. But of course that was not possible without looking like a nutjob myself. We know that the stories are lies. We know that we as people pleasers did everything we could and we still got crapped on. We know we put up with waaaaay more than we should have and after all of that our BPDs put into question our integrity and character. That is a very hard pill to swallow. If our self esteem was not so wrapped up in people pleasing others and being liked by others, I don't think we would actually care about what others said or thought about us. I think we would be strong in who we were as people and know deep down to our core who we are and who we are not.

I guess what I am tring to say is (this applies to myself as well) that people are always going to say things about you or think things about you that may not be true. That is called life. We can not change how others choose to view us. All we can do is live a life of integrity. By doing this, sooner or later the truth comes out. Our BPDs are known to have little to no integrity whatsoever. The lies and bs they dish out catches up to them sooner or later. It ALWAYS does. Work on your self esteem so that you get to the point that you don't give a ___ what they think or say about you. You know what is the truth. Your friends know that truth also (your real friends). Those that are friends with her are most likely just as messed as she is. Let those losers think whatever they want. They are not your friends anyway.

[MysticK]

But of course that was not possible without looking like a nutjob myself.

Thank you! This made me laugh, but it's really the bottom line, isn't it?

We know we put up with waaaaay more than we should have and after all of that our BPDs put into question our integrity and character. That is a very hard pill to swallow.

Amen! Thanks for your post. It was really helpful.