Romantic Pen Pals for 4 years; does he have BPD?

[Seraffa]

The never-ending Daisy petals of love as I pluck them:  

He loves me - he's afraid of us - he loves me - he's afraid of himself - he loves me - he's afraid of family repercussions - he loves me- he likes how good I make him feel (about himself)- he loves me - he's afraid of his bad health - he LOVES me - he's afraid of his strong sexuality if around me- he loves me - he's afraid of not being able to provide for me - he loves me - "I'm the only one who can give him the strong emotional and physical contact he would need" - he loves me - he won't give me a postal address for a yearr- he loves me - "distancing himself from me is his way of protecting me from him because I should really find someone who can take care of me" - he loves me  - "I may very well be right, but he has to decide in his own time" - he loves me - "He knows he is stubborn and hard to deal with, and that I'm able to stand up to him in his moods" - he loves me - he needs his fix of me - he loves me - he wishes he could be organized and creative at the same time

He, (wonderful in and of himself, but self-proclaimed "bad guy to be around" and I have been pen pals/skype pals for 4 years through good and bad times, ill health and good health. He has seen a faulty Canadian healthcare system help reduce him to a victim of diabetes and heart attack, and now has gone back to live with his family in England for a year, under a top notch healthcare system. He has splintered neck vertebrae pressing on his spinal cord half the time and a couple concussions from playing rugby in years far past, and intermittent menieres disease that keeps him in bed with dizzy spells one-third of his waking life.

He will also not persue alternative healthcare treatment yet even at age 64, because (as he used to protest) - "they claim to have found a cure for everything, but they really haven't". People like him, much to my sorrow, have to learn the hard way and allow themselves to get hurt before their stubborn facade finally comes down. But part of it finally did fall a year ago when they rushed him to the hospital and opened him up to do a 3 way heart bypass, and he realised, almost penniless, that he had to go and live with his children, and house-sit for strangers, until he physically mended and found a new IT programming job with the few coding skills he does have.


Our underlying feelings for one another have been persistent, but not followed a path of normal maturation or cooperation with one another the past 4 years. We were both close to pennilessness during the time, but he and I have truly felt some kind of deep love for one another ever since my own homelessness, then his heart attack, and then the both of us going to live with our respective families as we figure out our financial futures.

With so much I am learning about how to communicate with my BPD mother it wouldn't strike me as odd if he were to have some aspect of BPD himself. He's the last of a dying breed that were sent away to boarding school very young, seeing his white missionary family out in Nigeria only at certain portions of the year, and never was around his mother much, even after he was fully grown up. the rest of his background is so colorful and varied that I truly can't help but love him in my own personal way. He's like a mini Winston Churchill, but slightly different.

The wanting to keep his physical addresses from me and his sister's postal address, and not being able to establish a post-box of his own to receive letters and things in the mail strikes me as highly odd, however, even if he is ashamed of not being able to be the same man he was before his heart attack. The doctors say that along with diabetes, he has about "10 good years left". I'm thinking "why hide out from the world, and hide out from love, when you only have 10 years left to really, really fulfil all those desires you've had all along... .   "

It sounds to me like he has some elements of BPD whether it's just natural, or now from all the meds he has to take.

He responds lovingly and is more attracted to the idea of exploring becoming engaged to one another as I go along and use a few simple probing questions to find out what he is afraid of, and follow up with my own adaptation of S.E.T. --- whatever is happening to him .

There have definitely been episodes in our lives where he has responded with odd, disappointingly black-and-white viewpoints about seasonal holidays, the subject of divorce and remarriage, and other things that have taken him, basically, 4 years to start to see a few little gray areas,instead of all black and white.

If you went to England to see your friend for the first time, and be around him for a few days, observing stuff, what checklist would you keep in your suitcase to help you decide if he was BPD, or just overly co-dependent with his immediate family members making him SOUND like he can't progress inside himself?

[briefcase]

We can't really diagnose anyone here.  But many members here do not have diagnosed partners. 

You say you are pen-pals. How did you meet him?