did you trust your BPDex?

[Infern0]

I never did if I'm honest.

She admitted to me while we were friends that she had cheated on her last boyfriend and played two guys off against each other.

I qualified that to myself that she seemed regretful and that she was young and people could change.

But in truth,  that along with one or two other nice things she'd told me meant that I never really trusted her.

It's funny because I was never actually concerned about my replacement (Who was hovering around her since before I actually met her) I guess arrogance on my part but he never seemed a threat as he seemed so beneath her.

But there were other occasions when she would be going to a party with her friends or something and I'd be concerned out of my mind that she would be up to no good.

There wasn't really any reason other than gut instinct.

After we broke up and she's in rs with my replacement but still trying to have me on the side I see my concerns were well founded

[neverloveagain]

Mine was a waif she seemed so soft and delicate, when the devaluation started i wondered how she became so hard and cruel. She was so insecure and paranoid i trusted her completley and never questioned our times apart. Guess thats why in the end when i found out about her lies and cheating the fall wow hurt so hard.

[peiper]

I trusted my exBPD completely . And was just so shocked and hurt to find out she was cheating after being married only a month, probably less.

[hergestridge]

But there were other occasions when she would be going to a party with her friends or something and I'd be concerned out of my mind that she would be up to no good.

There wasn't really any reason other than gut instinct.

Same thing for me. I used to think there was something wrong with me for not being able to trust her. Now I realize my conclusion was well founded. Of course I wasn't so sure about her love for me when she was being clingy and needy one minute then cold and distant all of a sudden. Her promises of faithfulness did ring a bit hollow in that context, even though I didn't have a clue what it was all about.

[downwhim]

Honestly, I did not trust him. I would get this pit in my stomach and I know that was my warning he was cheating. He denied but I gave him freedom thinking he would never do that to me. Well, if I knew of his disorder up front I would have NEVER dated him. He also lied about how many times he had been married before. Waste of time... .if you don't have trust, you have nothing... .

[billypilgrim]

I did with most things.  I struggled early on, especially with her past - she had quite the sexual history for a girl her age (20 at the time we met).  I think I had issues mostly with the fact that she never seemed like she was ever going to grow up.  I kept thinking it'll run it's course, especially now that all her friends were settling down.  Nope.  It was exhausting.   

[Lion Fire]

I mistook her telling me everything all the time for honesty.

At first I was entranced by her intensity.

After a few red hot to ice cold, I hate you don't leave me,

Come here-no go away episodes I became afraid of her emotional violence.

Fear and Trust don't live together.

I stopped trusting her quite soon into the r/s

[Deeno02]

I did, and told her things that Im sure are being used to make fun of me. Just like she did with her ex husband... .

[BuildingFromScratch]

I trusted mine 100000%. But I was overly trusting to begin with. Now, I trust nothing and no one, even when logically I know I can. :P

[Pingo]

No I didn't trust mine but not about cheating.  He was very secretive, he had a crazy story that would have been impossible to believe if it were not for his family confirming it really happened.  It was just a gut sense I had.  In the beginning there were red flags of jealousy and a violent streak to him.  I so wanted to ignore this as I was so in love with him!  Within the first 2 mths I had thoughts that this man was capable of stalking or even worse if things went bad.  Shamefully I didn't listen to these thoughts but tried to push them out of my mind.  I ended up being really afraid of him, what he was capable of.  I still am, almost 6 mths out. 

I actually read a book about trust by John Gottman about halfway through our r/s.  He says that unless you can resolve a problem (the person who betrayed the trust actually is accountable for what they did, has real desire to make amends) the issue never goes away.  This was us.  Just one issue piled on top of another until there are a mountain of small betrayals.  Never thought he'd cheat though.  Found out after we had broke up for a couple of months and recycled for a couple months then broke up again that he had lived with his ex gf between our BU and recycle!  I was so shocked!  I had no idea and never even thought to question where he'd been staying.  Just assumed it was with his friend. 

[whatathing]

I never did if I'm honest.

But there were other occasions when she would be going to a party with her friends or something and I'd be concerned out of my mind that she would be up to no good.

There wasn't really any reason other than gut instinct.

That gut feeling, I also felt it since the begining of the r/s. There was something about her that seemed slippery. I could see that she had poor boundaries with people, and it made me nervous. I hadn´t yet nothing to worry, only that gut feeling, but she seemed volatile, wouldn´t say exactly what she was thinking, had ambivalent attitudes, all very subtle and nothing that I could point exactly what it was. And there was the communication level, in which she sent mixed signals, and one moment she was so close, and in the next moment she wouldn´t reply to phone messages. She was a pro at leaving me insecure, and I was already an anxious attachment before I met her, so it was like nitro and glicerin coming together to form an explosive anxious bonding. The more I felt insecure, the more I seeked security, demanding, asking, etc.; the more I did that, the more she felt engulfed and became more evasive and ambivalent.

So, answering your question, no, I never trusted her, and I also felt that I had to save herself from her own volatility. I felt something like I knew who she was under that behavior, I interpreted it as being a form of disorientation, immaturity, and I longed to reach a time when she would recognize it all, and change. I wanted to protect her until that time came, and I thought time, and our love, would cure everything.

[OutOfEgypt]

In a relationship?  No. I realized that I didn't trust her from very early on, perhaps even before we married.  I saw that she would fish for attention, sexual attention mostly, from other men even while we were dating.  She passed it off as being "harmless" and "just joking around" and told me I was being jealous and overly sensitive.  And I bought it.  I had very little relationship experience, so what did I know, right?  Tons, now!

That said, there are certain things I would trust her about.  Or let me put it a better way, after 15 years you know a person.  You know where their weaknesses are, where their temptations are, and what kinds of things they do when they are hurt, upset, or lashing out.

[dakini9x]

I did in the beginning, as I had no reason not to trust him.  After I uncovered a few lies, I started questioning my judgement and not trusting.   He would get so upset about this... If only I would just trust him, everything would be okay.  Or dakini9x, you really do need to just let it go and trust me. Yea, right!

[BorisAcusio]

I was well aware from the beginning that she was cheating on her husband for 7 years with at least a dozen men. Of course I did not trust her and she repeated the same pattern with me. There lies my responsibility. It was a self-made trap, walked into it, and went back for some more.

[Pingo]

Part way through our r/s we went to see a marriage counsellor for a while.  I brought up the subject that I was afraid of him and didn't trust him.  This was an immortal sin!  He was so upset and insulted by this.  Like I was the one with the problem bc I couldn't trust him!  He refused to look at his behaviour, no accountability.

Upon reflection, this was only the second r/s I have had where there was trust issues, the other one many yrs ago when I was with another man with a PD. 

[clydegriffith]

I never did. I didn't really love her either, i just tried do the right thing because she trapped me with a baby. I stupidly thoughty "hey, we're having a baby together and it seems like she's totally in love with me, why not give it a shot, i've always wanted to be a dad". Stupid stupid stupid me. Everything went to hell before my kid was a year old.

[mywifecrazy]

Mine was a waif she seemed so soft and delicate, when the devaluation started i wondered how she became so hard and cruel. She was so insecure and paranoid i trusted her completley and never questioned our times apart. Guess thats why in the end when i found out about her lies and cheating the fall wow hurt so hard.

I know EXACTLY how you feel. My uBPDxw is the Waif type too. She had me COMPLETELY fooled for 20 years. The stuff that started coming out after I caught her with my replacement floored me. I had no idea what she had been doing behind my back and right in plain sight. Yes, it made my fall very painful as well.  I heard somewhere the Waif type pwBPD described as THE SILENT ASSASIN... .Rings true in my case.

MWC... .

[mitchell16]

I started out trustiing mine even when she told me she had cheated on her exhusband even while they dated. but as we got closer she would let it slip that the ex boyfriend before me she had lied to him also by telling him she was working late and going out to dinner with a guy she worked with who then she got involved with in a sexual relationship. and also the ex before me she would lie to him and tell him she was going out of town to visit her relatives and ended up going to a wild party and most likely cheated on him. I stilled trusted her to that point cause I thought she was being honest, owning her past mistakes. well, at about the 4 or 5 month mark she tells me she has to go out of town to these relatives house, she needed to think our relationship over and that she wouldnt have cellphone service. Of course this set of huge red flags and later she admitted that she met her ex boyfriend. after that I never trusted her again. of course I later caught her in numrous lies which didnt help, everytime I reached a level of starting to trust her I would catch her in lies and it would destroy it all over again.

[blissful_camper]

I thought that I could trust him.  But thinking you can trust someone is different from actually trusting someone.  

We were friends and had known each other for many years.  I felt that I could be open and trusting for that reason, and dismissed the nagging feeling that I couldn't trust him as my own issues.  The writing was on the wall and yet I talked myself into trusting him.    

It's funny because I was never actually concerned about my replacement (Who was hovering around her since before I actually met her)

There wasn't really any reason other than gut instinct.

After we broke up and she's in rs with my replacement but still trying to have me on the side I see my concerns were well founded

There was a third party hovering my ex during my r/s with him.  (She became my replacement)  I wasn't concerned either for a few reasons.  1.  I felt that he wanted to be with me.  2.  She was younger than his daughter (a 20++ year age difference).  3.  She was his employee.

There were red flags and I had my suspicions but I didn't think he would go there.  Was I ever wrong.  He went there.  

I didn't trust him.  (With good reason)

[In Pain]

I never suspected she was cheating on me.  Boy was I dumb !

But did I trust her ?  NO !

I NEVER left my money, wallet or nice watch visible so she could steal from me !

Maybe I valued my watch more than my integrity !

Oh boy !

[hergestridge]

I did in the beginning, as I had no reason not to trust him.  After I uncovered a few lies, I started questioning my judgement and not trusting.   He would get so upset about this... If only I would just trust him, everything would be okay.  Or dakini9x, you really do need to just let it go and trust me. Yea, right!

My xwife kept repeating that pattern over and over. Actually, she has been doing so since she wasa kid. Whenever she was caught with her hands in the cookie jar (as kids are from time to time), she would get so upset about having to take the consequences that she got ill basically (panick attacks etc).

As a 7 year old she demanded (very aggressively) that all her mistakes and errors should be immediately forgotten and never mentioned again. I find that really odd. It truly is a personality disorder.

[Popcorn71]

I trusted my xBPDh totally.  He had been cheated on by his ex wife and told me he would never hurt me like that because he knew how it felt.  He was always telling me how faithful he would be and how he could be trusted.  He often told me that he valued the fact that he could totally trust me.  He said that was why he was attracted to me when we met, because he could see I wouldn't mess him around.

I trusted him in every possible way.  He threw it all back in my face.  The reality was that he couldn't be trusted at all.

That's what hurt me so much.

[Turkish]

About normal things, yes. She was generally high functioning and responsible, until she started detaching from us in the last months, and then she didn't even worry about trying to help clean the house.

Her first instance of "almost cheating" was by contacting her exBF when we started having issues in our first year. It was inappropriate contact at best. She even used to tell me that if she got married, that she'd invite him (I much later found out that she was still fantasizing about him as a husband 1.5 years later, and even into our r/s).

As for cheating in general? I was blind, and mistakenly assumed that a person who was so disgusted by cheaters, who made this one of her "do it once and we're done!" conditions, was someone who was so terrified of being alone that she would never leave me. Again, I was blind.

By year 4/6, I started to get this gut feeling "don't marry her; you can't trust her stability," My sin against my kids is that I chose to have them without marrying her. They carry my name, so technically they aren't bastids. Maybe they'll hold it against me someday, maybe not. In any case, my ex started to pick up on the fact that I was still delaying marrying her because I had doubts, and sometimes she would express these doubts, too. It became a dysfunctional feedback cycle.

So the last question is that if I felt underneath that I couldn't really trust her, why did I choose to stay with her?

[Rise]

I never did if I'm honest... .

There wasn't really any reason other than gut instinct.

This is what I wonder for those of us that never trusted their ex. First, why did we ignore what our guts were telling us? And second, why is it that we got so wrapped up in a relationship that lacked one of the basic foundations of a healthy relationship? A healthy relationship can't exist without trust. And I don't think most people want to be with someone they don't trust. So why did we get so caught up? Sure, that gut feeling could have been wrong. But even if it was, why would we want to be in a relationship with someone we lack trust for?

[hergestridge]

I never did if I'm honest... .

There wasn't really any reason other than gut instinct.

This is what I wonder for those of us that never trusted their ex. First, why did we ignore what our guts were telling us? And second, why is it that we got so wrapped up in a relationship that lacked one of the basic foundations of a healthy relationship? A healthy relationship can't exist without trust. And I don't think most people want to be with someone they don't trust. So why did we get so caught up? Sure, that gut feeling could have been wrong. But even if it was, why would we want to be in a relationship with someone we lack trust for?

This is a whole different topic, but here we go;

More or less from day one my exwife made it clear she was going to give me hell if I tried to leave her (threats of suicide, sexual revenge actions etc etc). In a matter of months after we met she had alienated me from most of my friends.

Soon it was her and me left and as long as I gave her all my attention life was liveable. Of course I knew it wasn't a healthy relationship, but I wasn't sure I had a life without her.

Once I tried to leave it seemed impossible. She had herself committed or just plain ignored me. My option would basically have been to call the police or to escape from my own property.

In hindsight I realise that I would have needed third party help to get out, but who would assist a *man* with something like that?

[Turkish]

I never did if I'm honest... .

There wasn't really any reason other than gut instinct.

This is what I wonder for those of us that never trusted their ex. First, why did we ignore what our guts were telling us? And second, why is it that we got so wrapped up in a relationship that lacked one of the basic foundations of a healthy relationship? A healthy relationship can't exist without trust. And I don't think most people want to be with someone they don't trust. So why did we get so caught up? Sure, that gut feeling could have been wrong. But even if it was, why would we want to be in a relationship with someone we lack trust for?

This is a whole different topic, but here we go;

More or less from day one my exwife made it clear she was going to give me hell if I tried to leave her (threats of suicide, sexual revenge actions etc etc). In a matter of months after we met she had alienated me from most of my friends.

Soon it was her and me left and as long as I gave her all my attention life was liveable. Of course I knew it wasn't a healthy relationship, but I wasn't sure I had a life without her.

Once I tried to leave it seemed impossible. She had herself committed or just plain ignored me. My option would basically have been to call the police or to escape from my own property.

In hindsight I realise that I would have needed third party help to get out, but who would assist a *man* with something like that?

Though this doesn't help your situation now since you're escaped, local DV hotlines lines can probably refer resources for men and give advice. I know of a local shelter and group that mostly offers services for women (the greatest need), but they also offer and have sheltered men and their families.

[Faith1520]

This made me think... .

I was about to say that I trusted him with everything I had, because during the relationship I really felt that way. I did trust him a lot, but at the end I realized that I often didn't feel safe telling him how I felt. Mostly when it was a negative feeling or something that was bothering me about the relationship. I couldn't feel safe because it would be twisted to become my fault or he would somehow take offense to it. Suddenly me being upset turned into both of us being upset. I learned in the end that w/BPD he couldn't handle his own feelings, so I couldn't expect him to handle mine.

I did trust him very much as far as being honest with me. To this day I don't believe there was anything he ever lied to me about (unless you count subconsciously twisting things to fit his perception of reality) That's one thing I still appreciate him for. He projected a lot of things onto me, but he never accused me of cheating and never acted jealous of my relationship w/male friends or me going out without him, etc.

[Infern0]

I never did if I'm honest... .

There wasn't really any reason other than gut instinct.

This is what I wonder for those of us that never trusted their ex. First, why did we ignore what our guts were telling us? And second, why is it that we got so wrapped up in a relationship that lacked one of the basic foundations of a healthy relationship? A healthy relationship can't exist without trust. And I don't think most people want to be with someone they don't trust. So why did we get so caught up? Sure, that gut feeling could have been wrong. But even if it was, why would we want to be in a relationship with someone we lack trust for?

I had some sort of ridiculous belief that we could build trust and all the rest of it, I was willing to put work into the relationship but she wasn't.  I didn't know she was BPD when we were together (had never even heard of it) but I was aware she had issues that were over my head.  I actively encouraged therapy and for her to make an effort to get better but that was what lead to my downfall.

At the start when it was fun and easy she was happy,  but when it got more serious and I started to suggest stuff like counselling for her and to work on her issues instead of just complain about them she changed.

In the end she went and got with an idiot who doesn't ask too many questions

[Turkish]

At the start when it was fun and easy she was happy,  but when it got more serious and I started to suggest stuff like counselling for her and to work on her issues instead of just complain about them she changed.

In the end she went and got with an idiot who doesn't ask too many questions

"I know I'm sick, but I feel like you're throwing my sickness in my face."

I knew for sure then that nothing I said or did would change anything. Even when she will occasionally bring up her issues vis-a-vis the kids (depression,.anger), I don't say much.

[Infern0]

At the start when it was fun and easy she was happy,  but when it got more serious and I started to suggest stuff like counselling for her and to work on her issues instead of just complain about them she changed.

In the end she went and got with an idiot who doesn't ask too many questions

"I know I'm sick, but I feel like you're throwing my sickness in my face."

I knew for sure then that nothing I said or did would change anything. Even when she will occasionally bring up her issues vis-a-vis the kids (depression,.anger), I don't say much.

Yeah mine said "you make me feel like a freak" when I suggested that she may not have the awesome life she wanted until she put the work in.