How long until it went bad for you and your SO?

[btechpc]

How long after moving in with your SO did it go bad? Did their moods stay the same or get worse? Did they wait until you had moved in together to recall let out the 'dark' side?

I'm struggling so bad right now. I feel like sometimes I want to end it with my gf, but part of our issues in our relationship is the fact that we don't live together.

[love4meNOTu]

It began two weeks after we married.

So six months in. It was downhill after that. He went from raging once a month to once a week, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. It was like watching a person self destruct.

It's very sad. But I'm safe from the anger now.

Hugs,

L

[justanotherguy25]

I was with her for 2 years.  The first year she lived in another city about 45 minutes from me.  I would see her on weekends and sometimes during the week if I felt like driving ( she did not drive )

She moved in after a year of dating.  The entire time she lived in that other city I did not see one ounce of anger.  None of her BPD traits showed their faces.   It was probably 3 or 4 months of her living here before I saw "abnormal" behavior.   The anger slowly started to build.  She told me after 6 months of living together that she was diagnosed with BPD a few years earlier.   We lasted almost a year of living together before she moved out.

[bajaloverz]

Been married less than a year. We were seeing a therapist before we got married.  I thought that it was so childish what she was asking for and when the therapist called her out on it we stopped going.  Up until six months after our wedding it wasn't that bad, but it has hit rock bottom lately. 

So to answer your question it was always there but up until they want to let out the beast you are in heaven and their saving grace.

[maxsterling]

I invited her to move in quickly after about two months of meeting her because she wanted to relocate to my city (she was just visiting when we met).  I told her at the time that I still think it would be best for her to have her own place, but at least for awhile she could stay until she got acclimated.  Things were more perfect than perfect for about two weeks.  I even remember how she remarked how perfect and happy things were, and that she could never see us fighting about anything (big red flag).  A few days after that comment, she got sick and that prevented intimacy for a few days.  And just as she was getting better, I got sick with a bad flu for about two weeks.  She didn't like me being sick, and that's when the negative attitude started - like she was pissed off that I had the flu.  When I got better, I was depressed, and she asked why I was depressed.  I said it was difficult to be around someone who is so negative all the time.  That triggered the first rage, that involved her screaming at me in the car for two hours, her trying to open the car door while I was driving, her hitting her face and punching her leg, me telling her that this r/s isn't working out, her saying she wanted to kill herself, me calling the crisis line and the police, her throwing things at me and the police, the police telling me to leave for my own protection, and finally her telling me that if I left she would kill herself in the living room and I would come home and find her lifeless body and it would be my fault.  All that was about 3 weeks after the "we never fight" comment, and about a month after moving in.

[Surnia]

I'm struggling so bad right now. I feel like sometimes I want to end it with my gf, but part of our issues in our relationship is the fact that we don't live together.

Can you share en example of the issues you have through not living together?

[HopefulDad]

It went bad after our 3rd was born.  But when I look back at our history, I see how the BPD was always there, but the triggers were fewer early on so it was easier to rationalize the episodes ("she's just moody".

But even before things went bad, some of those fewer episodes stunned any bystanders as I've found out years later when discussing those times.  I wish I knew then what I know now. 

[Love Is Not Enough]

I think the first rage was about 5 months in. They started to get really bad after about the first year. In her defense though it was mostly because of her mother who was living with her. She is also BPD and the absolute core of my gf's issues. Not only did her mother pass to her the emotional sensitivity, but her mother also severely neglected her as baby to the point of being taken away. She let her mother move in with her hoping for a fantasy of a relationship that will never happen. Basically her mother was just using her for housing and it all ended in a massive explosion. Her mother also has valid reasons for being the way she is (terrible childhood sexual abuse). Talking with my gf's paternal side of the family I have found out these issues go all the way back to my gf's great grandmother!

Then I moved in with her after I should have broken up with her for visiting an ex. My thinking was that we had already set everything into motion to move in together (lots of things paid) and I was hoping the tension would break us up. How idiotic is that? Of course at the time I didn't have the courage to do it myself and I didn't want it to be my fault. I see how faulty my thinking was now and I should not have moved in with her. Things got much worse after that finally led to a physical altercation where she attacked me.

From my experience things always got worse after she felt she had more control over me. Telling her I loved her, giving her lots of attention, attaching to her children, and then finally moving in with her all caused her to rage at me more. I think they feel more comfortable with you and know you are less likely to leave. I think it is a malformed version of intimacy for them to rage at you. The more control the more intense the rages. Marriage and then children lock you in forever in their eyes.

Until they become self aware of the destruction they cause and seek help I do not see how giving into them more would help. It only results in losing more of yourself.

How do you think living together will improve the relationship?

What things do you like about her the most? What is keeping you in the relationship after all the negative things you have experienced so far?

I am not asking you these things because I think you should break up with her. I am asking because I feel like you are grasping for anything to try to improve the relationship or fix her. I know you feel lost right now, I have been there. It is an awful place to be and it caused very illogical thinking for me. Like moving in with someone hoping it would break us up. The FOG is impossible to see through sometimes. I just hope you take the time to carefully think things through.

[hergestridge]

How it worked out depended on my attitude and how it changed. For the first years of our relationship I let my BPDw dominate and was very submissive. I think things worked better for her then. 8-9 years into our relationship I needed to set boundaries. She was stuck in anxiety and depression and was becoming increasingly aggressive towards me for not being "supportive" enough and I just couldn't seem to do the right thing. That was when she started becoming truly impossible to live with. Then all of a sudden things were OK for a week or two. The push/pull. It's been like that ever since. I wasn't cool anymore.

I think the thing that "did it" was a time when she felt I didn't stand up for her when the got fired from a job where she'd been complaining about each and everything. She was going to make some sort of revolution in the workplace because they didn't use the proper safety equipment or something. And she wasn't even a proper employee. She was just called in to work hours. I rushed to the hospital when the panic attacks came afterwards, but I have too much intergrity - you won't get my sympathy out of courtesy. She just assumed I was going to pay her half of the rent and give her a pat on the back for losing her job.