undiagnosed BPD/npd

[gtrhr]

So, some of the traits typically associated with BPD did not happen that often or I would say at all.  She never once became suicidal, or threatened to harm herself.

But in the early days when I tried to end the affair with her there was a moment of hysteria in which she actually threatened to send an email to co-workers and reveal about us, and then to my wife whom I later separated from in order to be with her.  She was a raging lunatic on the phone with me after we appeared to be a calm breakup earlier that evening.

There was a time when she declared to me she really found me to be a special person.  It seemed like a great way to kick off our relationship after our separation and I was feeling so great about our prospects after all we had already been through to reach the point to legitimately date.  And then later that night she texted me a dozen times complaining about something we had talked about earlier in the day.  She was kind of hysterical and making it seem she would leave me after I had recently separated from my wife in order to give us a sincere chance to finally be together as a couple.  She really exerted such controlling behavior.

That incident was regarding, she would sometimes go to lunch with guy friends, yet she wasn't being open about the fact and was reluctant to tell me about it.  She claimed I was jealous, etc. and wanted to spend too much time with her.  And I shouldn't expect her to tell me all of her plans.  So I made plans to go with a female friend to lunch too about a week later, and then ___ hit the fan because the girl was someone I used to like.  She started fabricating things saying that girl and I had dated before, etc etc.  And that the girl had declared she liked me.  None of that was true.  It was the most bizarre stress filled 24 hours of our early "legitimate" dating.

And of course it was all my fault for ruining things by going to lunch with this girl... .But wait I had not even gone out with her to lunch, I planned it for a week away and tried to discuss with her about how she felt about me going to lunch with a female.  She actually thought I would cheat on her, which for me the idea of cheating on her was an impossible idea.  I was madly in love with her for a couple of years and changed my life to be with her.

Of course the double standards kicked in and the people she went with she never had an interest in before, and it didn't matter that I wasn't interested in this girl anymore.

After this humongous period of stress she was intimate with me in order to "make me happy" as she said.  But I was miserable already.

As you can imagine my levels of stress and sheer anxiety have been enormous with her.  To the point I read some of the borderline traits and think, do I have them too?  Normally, no I absolutely don't.  But when pushed to the brink I definitely do the fight or flight response.  And neither works. She either shuts down if I'm fighting for fairness and justice.  Or she shuts down and claims abandonment if I left.  It was a no win situation.

I read the article for the "3 minute lesson on ending conflict."  There was a brief time she sincerely tried to do the couples dialogue and work through some issues now that I think back.  It was a short lived time.  We tried counseling and some limited progress was made. But she quickly reverted back and left me feeling hopeless.  She told me once, "Why do we need to talk so much!"  Ah it left me reeling.  If we didn't talk and address the situations as they happened just too many things were going to build up.

I haven't been a saint either. I couldn't act like Gandhi and wait patiently for years in hopelessness while she continued to verbally abuse me.