What do past r/s and friends say about BPDx

[Depression = 72% of members]

In my case her longest r/s lasted 3 years with many break us.

Her friends are all emotionally shallow and they never have any "real" conversations. It's all about partying and drinking alcohol.

O.

[Octavianues]

In my case her longest r/s lasted 3 years with many break us.

Her friends are all emotionally shallow and they never have any "real" conversations. It's all about partying and drinking alcohol.

O.

[lipstick]

Hi Octavianues,

Well - depending on who you talk to - you'll get a different answer regarding my ex.  He doesn't really have any friends. One is a total loser POS that we both knew in high school. He and the ex have stayed buddies all these years. We're all fifty now. The other one kind of distances himself from the ex as he doesn't want to be involved in the drama / abuse between my ex and his abusive spouse (of 25 years).

The people he works with think he's terrific. The people in his neighborhood and the local police have a very different opinion. He likes to project a false image of himself as the dedicated family man. He is a phony and a liar.

My mom calls him "Sasquatch". Says he looks like the creature in the Jack Links commercials !      

[Mutt]

Hi Octavianues,

You're worried about the types of people that she is surrounding herself with because you are a caring person. I was the longest r/s for my ex and I don't think she'll have anymore that last more than 7 years. She is undiagnosed, untreated and quite bad. It depends on her partners tolerance and if they happen to trigger her if it has any hope of lasting. It's neither my business or in my control.

Her friends sound like they are emotionally immature, laughing it up, not having too much care and in for a good time. They likely don't question her dysfunctions at all  and they mirror her dysfunctions as well. They leave her to her devices and simply enable and that's why she surrounds herself with such people.

“People inspire you, or they drain you – pick them wisely.” – Hans F. Hansen

[OutOfEgypt]

If you really get a chance to see the real history, I'm certain it paints a vivid picture.

Same thing... . my ex has lots of emotionally shallow or emotionally messed-up friends that function more as "narcissistic supply" for her.  I think that is pretty common.  The friends who really know her, like from back in the day, don't talk to her anymore or she doesn't talk to them at the moment because she blames them for "judging" her (and her frankly monstrous behavior).  But in time, I'm sure they will cycle back in for a time... . and then back out.  Her relationships with her family were always screwed up, and same thing... up and down.  In and out.  She'll "give them another try" as long as they kiss her feet and seem really sorry for all that they did, and then as soon as they put down healthy boundaries or don't suck up to her demand for attention and accept her blame she cuts them off.  And romantic relationships?  Well, my ex had slept with over a dozen men before she married me.  And she said that with one or two exceptions they were all "relationships."  So, that meams over a dozen relationships over the course of probably seven years of dating before we met, with three of them lasting a few years.  And that probably doesn't include the guys she lured in over the internet and become involved in intense phone-sex relationships with.  Her longest romantic relationships were 2-3 years, tops -which I always thought was funny because she paraded herself around in our marriage like she was a relationship expert when it came to "long-term relationships."  Hmm... . laughable at this point to think about.  She told me the boyfriend she had before me frustratingly claimed she was "insatiable."

[willbegood]

My ex doesn't really have any good friends. The one close friend she had doesn't speak to her anymore because of the way she is.

I think she said she was wit her ex husband for like 10 yrs. Since I've known her and including our r/s she's able to keep it together for a couple months and that's about it. It seems to last a bit longer if she doesn't have someone on the side to talk to. I hung out with her a month or two ago. She said she wasn't speaking to her b/f anymore. The next week she said she was in love with him. The week after that she came to a party I was at and was hanging on me like she loved me and was no longer with the b/f. Talked to her a couple weeks later and she said she was moving. She found another guy and was falling for him already.

For her to have a longer r/s she'll have to find a guy who will put up with her nonsense and the stars will have to align that she doesn't bump into another man who starts talking to her.

[OutOfEgypt]

The week after that she came to a party I was at and was hanging on me like she loved me and was no longer with the b/f.

Yup.  My ex still tries to do weird things like that.  She'll need to tell me something private with our kids nearby -say if I'm cooking something on the stove- so she'll come up real close, like she's hanging on me, wrap her arms around me, and like stick her nose and her tongue almost in my ear as she whispers.

That is what they do... . always looking to lure

[antjs]

my exBPD is 29 years old. she has 3 ex-fiances, 1 ex-husband, 3 ex-bfs and 2 abortions. her marriage (longest relationship) lasted for 2 years including 8 months of devaluation. she victimized herself and i believed and totally trusted her can you imagine ? i would say she is a mixture of high and low functioning. she can be a sweet with people and really know how to seduce and get what she needs out of people. still she was not satisfied with her life and will never be. actually she does not have a lot of friends. she split her parents black after her divorce and ran away from her country. from her stories she did not have a lot of friend in her hometown. still though her friends totally believe her victim identity when it comes to her romantic relationships as they are deceived by her "sweetness".

[fromheeltoheal]

My ex had an unstable sense of self and lived in perpetual chaos, and that rippled out into all her relationships, romantic and otherwise.  Everyone is great, her 'best friend', until they're not, some lasting as long as a year but most ending within a few months.  It's a flow-through system and of course if you ask her it's 'them' that caused the rift; might have been, but knowing what I know now, I doubt it.

Very sad living like that, no anchor, continually floating, but she's used to it and has had a lifetime to develop coping tools; she always survives and always finds a way to carry on, as we all do.  It's taken me a year and a half to get over her, me not having all those coping tools and having fallen into the abyss, it took a while to climb out.  Live and learn.

[talithacumi]

Mine was a waif. Has never attached to anyone emotionally other than his romantic partners. Has had six of those spanning the approximately 24 years of his adult life. Other than me, ALL have been devalued, cheated on, replaced, and ultimately discarded usually during the third year of his relationship with them. His relationship with MY replacement is now in ITS third year, and I've been getting concerned messages from my kids about his FB posts that lead me to think he's currently in the process of doing that to her as well. Me? Oh, I'm "special" cuz I lasted 12-1/2 years! LOVE of his life. You bet!  

Has had one, and only one person with whom he's remained in contact since high school. Not a deep friendship, but a comfortable one. Some shared interests. Not a lot of emotional sharing by either one of them. Not constant contact either, though. Ebbs/flows. Not the kind of person I would characterize as really good/close friend. Not the kind of person my ex, come to think about it, ever characterized as a really good/close friend either. But the only one he has that even seems to come close, I guess.

Seems more like an extension of their disorder to me than anything else really.

I get the impression that being in a "committed" relationship is (for my ex, anyway) the single most effective, and therefore critical mechanism he's found for coping with the constant/profound stress, anxiety, insecurity, self-doubt, and fear he experiences over the possibility of being rejected/abandoned and, conversely, engulfed by others.

That he needs, and therefore seeks out/commits himself to attaching exclusively to a single individual who fills the role of primary caretaker/fixer/rescuer for him - and is then compelled, by the nature of his disorder itself, to spend as much of his time as possible saying/doing whatever he perceives, believes, feels, and thinks is necessary to keep that person satisfied/happy/deluded enough to continue serving in that role and providing him with the kind of relationship/identity he needs in order to function.

No one and nothing else matter as much to him as having this relationship/identity. When he feels his ability to have them are threatened (which seemed to happen, oh, on a pretty much DAILY basis to some extent when he was with me anyway), all his interest/thoughts/time/energy/resources/efforts become focused on securing it again in some way.

This, not surprisingly, leaves, and appears to have ALWAYS left him without any real desire/ability to have any OTHER kind of truly substantive relationship with anyone OTHER than his currently designated caretaker/rescuer/fixer. The people he's drawn to spending time with other than his partner are those who don't need/want more than the inconsistent, relatively superficial, and often false/fantasy-based encounter he's actually capable of providing under the circumstances.

The extent to which my ex reveres what he perceives to be the "real" emotional investment/attachment he "shares" with his currently designated caretaker/rescuer can best be demonstrated by his apparent need/ability/willingness to have SEX with other people (if nothing else then, perversely, as a means of self-soothing/making himself feel good enough when triggered to BE with his partner again) but refuse/find it repugnant and shameful to make any kind of genuine emotional connnection of ANY kind with anyone BUT his partner.

It's sad, but it's the way the disorder works. Chalking it up to anything else is to continue to deny what it is, what it does, and just how bad it is for EVERYONE who ends up being effected by it.

[Alex86]

Her friends sound like they are emotionally immature, laughing it up, not having too much care and in for a good time. They likely don't question her dysfunctions at all  and they mirror her dysfunctions as well.

Yes. Sometimes I believe all her friends have BPD. During the second try to get back together she was behaving like her best friend. Because she didn't have me to give her an identity. The question that eats me up is why her friends don't try to help her see the problems. Maybe she doesn't let them. Maybe it's all about the parties, going out and have a crazy life without question anything.

[OutOfEgypt]

I believe they pick friends who won't help them see their problems for that very reason.  They are usually immature. emotionally dysfunction and caught up in their own drama, or codependent... . or all of the above.  They get to feel like they are "cool" for having her grace their presence, they get a certain thrill from feeling like someone like her likes them (hmm... maybe like we did, too?), and she gets to have little minions who fuel her ego and never tell her how screwed up she is.  It's like a parasitic relationship.  These people are "needy" for someone to control them and make them feel good and "have fun with" and even "help them" (BPD's, like mine anyway, are good as being 'counselors' for dysfunctional people), and the BPD person is "needy" to surround herself people emotionally shallow minions who will fawn over her and help her live in the dream-world where she is actually a good person, and feeling superior to her dumb friends.  They get to build each other up for how "awesome" they are.  Shallow.  Of course, they don't know that she trash-talks them behind their backs.  My ex did and still does.  Even after our divorce and final recycle, she would tell me how her friends are "drunks" and "whores."  I'm thinking "Then why are you friends with them?  Oh yeah, because they are too immature and dumb to ever recognize the truth and confront you on it."  They exist as narcissistic supply, in my honest opinion.  But she'll use them for a time and then get bored of them.