My apologies, This is long, but I put this post on my profile as my story and though I would post these 972 words here on the "staying" board in hopes of gaining some clarity and answers about my situation. Right now I would like to get her back into my life. I am willing to wait it out longer if necessary but I wanted to here from members of the family that are determined to make it work and have some insight into how that's possible. Any thoughts and strategies are greatly appreciated
Male mid 40's involved for 13 months with an UxBPDgf in her early 40's. My therapist unofficially identified her as likely having BPD when I described her actions and traits (below). Until meeting her, women didn’t rattle me. I remained centered and self-confident most of the time. She changed all that. I found bpdfamily while looking for answers and trying to sort out what I did and where I went wrong so I can fix me and get her back into my life again or get closure so I don’t have to feel like a dumped loser anymore.
Both of us have been divorced for a couple of years. We both have young children; our relationship was great for the first several months and then deteriorated into the roller coaster when she started having problems with her ex husband and custody issues with her child. After quite a bit of push/pull, lies, possible cheating (which I did confront her about) I tried to grow a backbone and put up some boundaries which pissed her off. A month or so later she met a new guy, someone she had met previously, though I don’t know when. Six weeks after that she stopped responding and initiating contact with me cold, without closure – just a walk off. I feel like a complete and utter failure. While I was left alone to sort out what had happened, the other guy was getting a foothold into her heart. I immediately went NC in fear of doing or saying something stupid. Unfortunately, though I asked several people (professional and others) nobody could be bothered to tell me how to handle it other than –‘Oh just meet some new women’. I remain heartbroken after 10 weeks of NC.
She has several BPD traits but I’m still not convinced it’s not just PTSD from her ex walking out on her for another woman, ADD (diagnosed), commitment phobia and alcohol. I’m not even sure she wants a relationship. Maybe she just got bored of me. Everyone says I'm crazy to want her but I fell in love (as did she, I thought), likely for the first time in my life as I never felt this way about my ex-wife. Now it's impossible for me to forget her. It feels like I have OCD about her (not the normal healthy me and certainly not good).
Though I am working on myself and working with a relationship coach to make the right moves going forward, BPD family is helping me understand what I think may be a root cause: Here’s how the classic BPD traits stack up to her persona:
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. - Absolutely. She can’t be alone; when I broke it off temporarily she came frantically running back. Yet she pushes me away when I'm too close.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterised by alternation between extremes of idealization and devaluation. – This is the obvious one. Our romance started as a whirlwind romance and ended with me as dirt.
3. Identity disturbance - markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. – Tricky here but yes. She has very low self esteem yet sometimes masks it with a bit of narcissism.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging, e.g. spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving or binge-eating. – Alcohol and sex are the two that stand out here. - no indication of cheating while we were going out , though she had some close co-workers - who knows? The others are not really an issue
5. Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behaviour. – No, I did not experience this to be an issue because here anger was pointed outwards
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood, e.g. intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety, which usually lasts for between a few hours and several days. – She did have mood swings and always said that it was hard for her to keep her mind still. Not sure how this relates
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness – She was often bored and seemed detached, but popped out of it with certain stimuli such as seeing a friend or hearing good news.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger, or difficulty controlling anger, e.g. frequent displays of temper, constant anger or recurrent physical fights. More bark than bite but she did have intense anger directed in different places, not always towards me.
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms – I need help understanding this better, from what I’ve read, it doesn’t sound like her
Other actions and issues I'm going to call the immaturity, selfishness, and narcissistic traits:
- Shy at first, but very charismatic and open once you get to know her
- Not openly interested in materialistic things yet jealous of others
- Very selfish, discussing only things that affect her
- Hardly introduced me to anyone in her life and suggesting it was a violation of her privacy
- Very low self esteem, yet feels that she is deserving of better and is better than others
- Younger and very narcissistic friends
- Almost zero real empathy for anything
- Cancels plans often, but retracts when I seem ok with it
