I told her she has BPD

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Of course she denied it and said I was a psychopath. Good one huh? Our psychologist told me privately but admitted that he was too chicken to tell her since "she thinks she's perfectly fine" and she thinks she only just needs to be more assertive. I told her that I'd pay for the years of therapy even if not covered by insurance. I think that was the last time we chatted. I guess telling them the diagnosis does go over well.

[Hopeless777]

Of course she denied it and said I was a psychopath. Good one huh? Our psychologist told me privately but admitted that he was too chicken to tell her since "she thinks she's perfectly fine" and she thinks she only just needs to be more assertive. I told her that I'd pay for the years of therapy even if not covered by insurance. I think that was the last time we chatted. I guess telling them the diagnosis does go over well.

[mitatsu]

Hey i made that mistake too! but at least it showed me her true 'dark side' (and i thought i'd seen it all) and i'm free to recover and deal with my issues now 

[Turkish]

It usually doesn't go over well. Even a healthy person would react negatively to being told they have a mental illness, no?

I did the same thing when I had just landed here. It didn't go over well...

Later, she told me what I said scared the crap out of her. For months, I practiced LC while living together to reduce conflict. After I said her boy toy likely had issues, she started searching. She came to me and said, "I think I have an attachment disorder." I knew better by then and didn't reply. Later, she referred to her "sickness" which surpised me, because I never used to word "sick." I let it go. It would have changed nothing.

[fromheeltoheal]

I agree with Turkish, it would be hard for anyone to hear they have a mental illness, that can change your entire perception of yourself and the world, and truly turn it upside down.  And with a borderline, someone with extreme defense mechanisms, you can be sure it will come back at you, confirmed with your 'psychopath' label.  That's why shrinks won't tell their patients the diagnosis until well into therapy, when a therapeutic bond has been firmly established.

Flashback: my ex went to the doctor for Ambien, she couldn't sleep, and I wasn't there, but the appointment must have been a doozy because she left with scripts for several psychotropic meds.  That's gotta be a hint of something.  Then the time I was pissed and called her a 'psycho' and the look she gave me was one of terror, like I was onto something she didn't want me to be.  Everyone's different, but my thought is borderlines know something is up, they just can't name it, but it must suck to feel 'different' all the time, especially from people you need to attach to for survival.

[Invictus01]

At the very end, my ex told me "My whole life hurts" I had no idea what she meant by that and laughed it off but I have a feeling she was trying to tell me something that, unless you know what you are dealing with, you just can't understand... .

[4Years5Months]

The first time my ex replaced me, I was a mess, and sought counseling through my work employee assistance program.  I told my story to him, and he spent the remainder of that first call educating me on BPD.  I hung up the phone shaking.  I had never thought it could be any kind of mental issue with her.  When she recycled me and was love bombing/infatuated with me again, I felt comfortable enough telling her what he had said.  She IMMEDIATELY reacted - "You aren't a doctor!  Who was this guy?  Just some guy you talked to!  You're acting like I'm a psychopath!"  I quickly dropped it and never brought it up again.

However... .

After replacing me a SECOND time about 8 months later, she regretted it and sobbed on her couch as she begged me to take her back.  She had a moment of clarity and was honest about all of her behaviors and actions... .how they were wrong.  I explained her behaviors back to her in the context of BPD - but without ever saying anything about BPD.  When not confronted with a personality disorder, she agreed with everything I said and promised to change.  Quite interesting, huh?

She still replaced me again three months later, with the security guard from her work.

[TheBPDSurvivor]

The uBPDexgf too said like she wanted to say something personal about her and I thought she was referring to her depression and then she said how this ex understands so well that she doesn't have to explain what she thinks every single time when talking to me.

I badly wanted to inform her parents about the Disorder when I first came to know about BPD but I keep my mouth shut as I realized none of my actions will yield any returns for ME. They never walk the talk and always say one thing and do another thing.

Even if we said, It won't change anything and they'll always find someone to leech on to. We already know how they treated us, the rescuers after all.

The energy could be better spent on fixing us, the co-dependants., than saying it to them.

[raisins3142]

Her, her father, and her brother all claim to have PTSD.  Her dad is a diagnosed narcissist though.

The thing is that the classification for PTSD is very close to BPD.  So, if you can play victim to the psychologist and point out one bad person in your life, then you'll likely get a PTSD diagnoses... .and all of a sudden all your problems are due to a single nasty thing/person very recent in your life.  It is a "low shame" diagnosis.

I now believe that simply most of her family is cluster B and they either inherited it and/or created it in children by environment.

She did have a traumatic event in her late teens, but when she told me of her life prior to this incident, she was also squarely cluster b.

I told her before NC that she had borderline personality traits.  I feel bad about it, but I hoped it helped her.  I doubt it however.

[Hopeless777]

I simply believe she deserved to know. No one is telling her anything, only enabling her. The relationship is near death, so what is there to lose. Maybe someday someone will tell her again and she'll be receptive. I still love her and truly believed that hearing it was better than not.

[Mutt]

Hi Hopeless777,

A personality is complex and is based on thousands of experiences. BPD is ingrained in your ex partner's personality, emotional arrested development of around the age of 16 to 24 months. A personality is a difficult thing to change?

I like yourself and some here; told my ex that I think she has borderline personality disorder. It didn't go over well either   She swore at me.

I was hurt and angry by her abandonment and thought that it may help, she may seek help, a possibility with reconciliation.

Have you accepted that a loved one suffers mental illness?

What's the back story on people that are enabling her highly dysfunctional behaviors?

[letmeout]

Hey i made that mistake too! but at least it showed me her true 'dark side' (and i thought i'd seen it all) and i'm free to recover and deal with my issues now 

Love that quote!

When I told my then husband, now ex, that he was BPD, it caused him to start acting so much worse that I started to refer to him as Freddie Kruger.

After I left him, he was telling everyone that I was BPD and basically said  everything that he had did and said were things that I did and said.

It is amazing how a BPD will project everything onto another person since  they are not able to take responsibility for their own behaviors.

[Gonzalo]

I simply believe she deserved to know. No one is telling her anything, only enabling her. The relationship is near death, so what is there to lose. Maybe someday someone will tell her again and she'll be receptive. I still love her and truly believed that hearing it was better than not.

I felt much the same way, and when we were in the process of splitting up I refused to say what she wanted to hear (that there was a 50-50 split of blame and that I had done some sort of terrible wrong to her). At the end I even offered to stay with her in spite of everything if she admitted that she had a major issue and would get help with it. I didn't actually say BPD at the time, since she freaked out and began the usual mix of dragging in a half dozen things, changing the subject, and blaming me, but I at least told her.  She has a crowd of people who enable her now, so until that blows up she's not going to have to deal with any problems.

[Lucky Jim]

We Nons have this fantasy that if we tell our SO that he/she has BPD, the SO will seek therapy to ameliorate the disorder and the r/s will improve dramatically.  Yet it rarely if ever plays out that way.

It turns out that the last thing a pwBPD is likely to do is take responsibility for is having the disorder.  To the contrary, a pwBPD will usually deny -- quite emphatically -- that anything is amiss in terms of his/her mental health.  The concept that a pwBPD will undertake therapy on his/her own to address his/her BPD issues is highly unlikely.  Even if the pwBPD sees a T, the treatment is likely to be short-lived because the pwBPD will find some reason to drop out as soon as the T gets close to the real issues.

Yet the fantasy persists, despite all evidence to the contrary!  I should know, having been married to a pwBPD for 16 years!

LuckyJim

[Hopeless777]

We Nons have this fantasy that if we tell our SO that he/she has BPD, the SO will seek therapy to ameliorate the disorder and the r/s will improve dramatically.  Yet it rarely if ever plays out that way.

It turns out that the last thing a pwBPD is likely to do is take responsibility for is having the disorder.  To the contrary, a pwBPD will usually deny -- quite emphatically -- that anything is amiss in terms of his/her mental health.  The concept that a pwBPD will undertake therapy on his/her own to address his/her BPD issues is highly unlikely.  Even if the pwBPD sees a T, the treatment is likely to be short-lived because the pwBPD will find some reason to drop out as soon as the T gets close to the real issues.

Yet the fantasy persists, despite all evidence to the contrary!  I should know, having been married to a pwBPD for 16 years!

LuckyJim

I was married for 28+ years to a BPD. She's been in intense therapy for three years. Done no good of course because her T won't tell her what the problem is. She thinks she's simple unasked time. Anyways, after moving out and various attempts at reconciliation it was obvious that her therapy was misdirected so I simply told her straight out. By then it hardly mattered.

Once painted black, can you be painted any darker? I think not. Maybe someday it will help her.

[Hopeless777]

Hi Hopeless777,

A personality is complex and is based on thousands of experiences. BPD is ingrained in your ex partner's personality, emotional arrested development of around the age of 16 to 24 months. A personality is a difficult thing to change?

I like yourself and some here; told my ex that I think she has borderline personality disorder. It didn't go over well either   She swore at me.

I was hurt and angry by her abandonment and thought that it may help, she may seek help, a possibility with reconciliation.

Have you accepted that a loved one suffers mental illness?

What's the back story on people that are enabling her highly dysfunctional behaviors?

Hi Mutt. Always great to hear from you. Yes I have accepted that she has BPD and there's nothing I can do about it and I can no longer live with her because of the violence and dysregulation. The back story, as it always seems to be, is that she hides it fom others. The kids and I took all the rage. Eventually they moved out and I was left. Lasted less than a year. Who knows who will be subject to her rage and violence next. I think she's keeping it at bay while she persecuted me in the courts.

I don't worry about it too much now as I'm free and forgive her. She does have BPD you know.   :'(

[Lunira]

The energy could be better spent on fixing us, the co-dependants., than saying it to them.

Yup.   To me, the real question needing answered isn't "Why did he say this?" or "What did she mean when she said that?"  Rather, it is "Why did I willingly have a personal relationship with someone whose behavior, priorities, and attitudes I find repugnant?"  It's really a journey of not only (re)discovering your values, but embracing them, and also embracing everything that flows naturally from having them (i.e. personal boundaries).   

[Lucky Jim]

Really like how you put that, Lunira.  Totally agree.

Once painted black, can you be painted any darker? I think not.

Great point, Hopeless.  I would also add, "Who cares?"  I am divorced from my BPDxW and have only compassion for her in terms of having BPD.  I couldn't take the rage and abuse, either.

LuckyJim

[Gonzalo]

Great point, Hopeless.  I would also add, "Who cares?"  I am divorced from my BPDxW and have only compassion for her in terms of having BPD.  I couldn't take the rage and abuse, either.

I'm like you, I wish there was a way I could have helped her, but I was not going to take the abuse any more. I think some people get so emotionally tied in with their ex that they have to hate the ex for enough strength to break things off and/or stay away. It doesn't really seem to the best way to go about the split, since they seem to hold onto the anger and confusion for a long time, but not everyone can compartmentalize the 'person with a problem' from the 'person who's treating me like crap'.

[parisian]

I think some people get so emotionally tied in with their ex that they have to hate the ex for enough strength to break things off and/or stay away. It doesn't really seem to the best way to go about the split, since they seem to hold onto the anger and confusion for a long time, but not everyone can compartmentalize the 'person with a problem' from the 'person who's treating me like crap'.

I told mine too. It was only after much frustrating push/pull behaviour when I was trying to maintain a friendship of 'sorts'. Of course it was never going to be a real friendship but was more just about her having company before she had new supply (my replacement). I just got tired and over it, in addition to being sick of her constant 'I never did anything wrong / bad' statements. They have no ability to reflect on their behaviour nor to take responsibility for what they did, and see nothing wrong with it.

I wanted to let mine know (some) of the truly awful things she had done to me as I was simply over enabling the behaviour by playing along with the charade of 'did nothing wrong'. I wished I'd had more integrity to just walk away without making those comments, but it just drove me to put it all out there in addition to also trying to ensure there would never ever be any chance she would make contact with me again in the future.

I'm pretty sure it worked. I got the 'don't ever contact me again' set up protection order email... .

[blissful_camper]

Ex seemed genuinely interested in resolving his issues during the idealization phase.  He was aware that he had repeated the same pattern in each relationship.  He was curious about why he had issues, and after his first rage, he panicked that "it was happening all over again" with me. 

He claimed that he went into therapy and built upon that lie for nearly 6 months.  I believed that he was in therapy, didn't ask questions, but provided encouragement and positive reinforcement when he spoke about his "sessions."  He made it all up to keep me on board with him. 

Many months into the r/s I sent links to BPD/NPD descriptions and he acknowledged that it sounded a lot like him.  While he seemed open to it, days later our r/s rapidly went downhill.  He seemed to have utter contempt for me. 

Early in the r/s he described his issues.  There was a red flag which I won't forget: "I cry just like everyone else." 

Much learned from that experience... .  2 years out this summer and have no regrets leaving that r/s.

[raisins3142]

I think some people get so emotionally tied in with their ex that they have to hate the ex for enough strength to break things off and/or stay away. It doesn't really seem to the best way to go about the split, since they seem to hold onto the anger and confusion for a long time, but not everyone can compartmentalize the 'person with a problem' from the 'person who's treating me like crap'.

I told mine too. It was only after much frustrating push/pull behaviour when I was trying to maintain a friendship of 'sorts'. Of course it was never going to be a real friendship but was more just about her having company before she had new supply (my replacement). I just got tired and over it, in addition to being sick of her constant 'I never did anything wrong / bad' statements. They have no ability to reflect on their behaviour nor to take responsibility for what they did, and see nothing wrong with it.

I wanted to let mine know (some) of the truly awful things she had done to me as I was simply over enabling the behaviour by playing along with the charade of 'did nothing wrong'. I wished I'd had more integrity to just walk away without making those comments, but it just drove me to put it all out there in addition to also trying to ensure there would never ever be any chance she would make contact with me again in the future.

I'm pretty sure it worked. I got the 'don't ever contact me again' set up protection order email... .

Sadly, in my anger, one of the reasons I exactly described my ex's personality and character is because I wanted her to leave me alone forever and I wanted no ability to go back to her in a moment of weakness.  It worked, but I'm not proud of all of it.

[Trog]

My exW has been sectioned 5 times, is Comorbid with a psychotic illness and a personality disorder. Not only does she sent she has an issue (it's everyone else's fault she gets sectioned) but if I ever brought it up to discuss or come up with coping methods or medicine, I was being 'cruel'.

They don't do responsibility - they simply can not and would rather lose their husbands than face themselves.

[Lucky Jim]

They don't do responsibility - they simply can not and would rather lose their husbands than face themselves.

I agree w/you, Trog.  At least in the case of my BPDxW, there was something too frightening about looking at her own issues, so she remained a rageful person because she was unwilling to work through the hurt underneath all the anger.  As a result, her anger was always simmering until it boiled over, which happened more frequently as time went on.  As you suggest, she wouldn't or couldn't "do responsibility."

LuckyJim

[Hopeless777]

They don't do responsibility - they simply can not and would rather lose their husbands than face themselves.

I agree w/you, Trog.  At least in the case of my BPDxW, there was something too frightening about looking at her own issues, so she remained a rageful person because she was unwilling to work through the hurt underneath all the anger.  As a result, her anger was always simmering until it boiled over, which happened more frequently as time went on.  As you suggest, she wouldn't or couldn't "do responsibility."

LuckyJim

Only too true. My dBPDw refused to see anything as her responsibility and, therefore, never apologized for anything. Everything was my fault. After a while you start wondering about yourself. It's so messed up. There's just no way to healthly cope with a pwBPD.