I want to stay friends. Am I deluding myself?

[Dunder]

My Ex broke contact with me after 28 days. That was two days ago and she wrote me again today. She says she's having a terrible time getting over my leaving. Our relationship is unusual compared to those often discussed on these boards. We never slept together, but we became very close, mostly through online communications. She lives in another country, and I have traveled to see her in person, but both of us  were too scared to escalate the relationship due to our living situations so we decided not to let things go further than a very intimate friendship. However, she is extremely needy, and says she can't live without me except that she lives everyday without me since I live 2000 miles away. After 28 days of NC, I think I can set boundaries for the frequency with which we communicate. Before I ended the relationship, we were texting 80 times a day at all times of the day and talking about a fantasy life together that is never going to happen. But I'd like to see if we could just be friends now that she can't seem to stop breaking no contact. Since we've never had sex nor been together in a full blown relationship, do you think that it is possible to have a normal friendship with a pwBPD?

[dagwoodbowser]

Dunder: I thought about this a while back. I looked up several definitions of what Friendship is.

Friendship survives most trials of time and remains unconditional. A blend of affection, loyalty, love, respect, trust and shared fun. Similar interests, mutual respect and strong attachment with each other despite differences in opinions, likes or dislikes. A feeling of comfort and emotional safety with a person. Someone that you know will come to rescue you from the worst phase of life. It seems eternal, it is the trust in an individual that he/she won't purposely hurt you. A type of unconditional love and companionship that although platonic comforts, gives one joy and peace of mind.

There are likely better definitions but that's what I came up with. So, if any of the above fits and describes what you and your BPDx have, then I would not think your deluding yourself

[Turkish]

I like dagwood's take on friendship. I have a few definitions myself, based upon my Ex's desire to be good friends, but they aren't applicable here.

Healthy relationships involve reciprocity. This sounds loaded towards her needs. You got something out of it as well, but something drove you here. I think it's possible, but the salient question would be are you attracted to her?

[fromheeltoheal]

However, she is extremely needy, and says she can't live without me except that she lives everyday without me since I live 2000 miles away.

Borderlines fear both abandonment and engulfment, both of which are triggering, so it's a continual battle to straddle the fence between them to avoid strong emotions, and reaction to those strong emotions is what causes the push/pull behavior most of us are familiar with.  Modern technology like Facebook and smartphones are awesome attachment machines for borderlines, my ex absolutely loved her iPhone and it never stopped buzzing, and they allow a borderline to keep an attachment at arm's length, close but not too close, so the strong emotions are avoided but the attachment is maintained; it took your ex 80 texts a day to feel like an attachment was in place.  

Strange too, how addicted I became to the texting as well, and the mistake I made was assuming the person I was connecting with by text was the same person I would spend time with in person, and ignoring the obvious differences.  The two were not even close; in the end I still liked the texter quite a bit, but couldn't stand the real her.

But I'd like to see if we could just be friends now that she can't seem to stop breaking no contact. Since we've never had sex nor been together in a full blown relationship, do you think that it is possible to have a normal friendship with a pwBPD?

Did you ever have a "normal" friendship to begin with?  My ex and I had sex on the first date, within an hour of meeting in person for the first time, and we were telling each other we 'loved' each other, we were soul mates, and we were going to spend our lives together about 3 weeks after our first date.  One thing we never were was friends.  So when that all blew up, there was never a friendship to go back to, plus someone who treats me the way she did is not qualified to be my friend.  I realize your situation is a little different, but does any of that speak to you?

[myself]

a fantasy life together

You're seeing it as the reality it is/can become, and she isn't there (yet).

If you're honest with her about offering real friendship, she has a choice.

If she's not actually (too) disordered, both of you will have a good chance.

[Mutt]

But I'd like to see if we could just be friends now that she can't seem to stop breaking no contact.

I like dagwood's take on friendship too.

I think fromheeltoheal has a good point. Did you have a normal relationship?

You're 28 days no contact and she keeps breaking no contact. 28 days is not an awful a lot of time and she's having difficulties with the break-up? She could be looking to sooth.

[drummerboy]

I think it's possible but you would not be able to get emotionally involved with her. I would guess it would be a mainly one way relationship as these PDs seem to live lives of constant chaos and drama and from what I have seen the main use they have for friends is to listen to their victim statements. If that's your idea of friendship, go for it. They can be fascinating people in a car crashy sort of way. Always drama and intrigue!

[Infern0]

Are you physically attracted to her?

If yes then no, you cannot be friends.

If no, then maybe you can.

It's that simple.

[Aussie0zborn]

I want to stay friends. Am I deluding myself?

Yes. As already suggested, this would be a one way street with no benefit to you. Save your time and spend it on developing yourself so that you don't get hooked into these needy relationships again.

[FannyB]

Sure you can be friends. But if she really has BPD it won't be a 'normal' friendship as per Dagwood's definition.  However, given the distance between you, if it works for you on some level then go for it. A sort of 'penpals without benefits' relationship if you like!

[Dunder]

I got my first taste of what friendship with my Ex will look like. I told her we could be friends via email only. I told her how I had deleted my Facebook and all other social media accounts as well as FaceTime and Skype. She wrote me a long email last night mostly about her work, but at the beginning of the message she told me that she doesn't like this new "sane" person that I've become and that the most likely thing that will happen is that she'll get bored with just writing email messages to me and just forget me. And then she thanked me for helping her forget me in this way. My interpretation is that she resents the boundaries I've imposed and she's threatening to withhold her attention if I don't change them. No contact worked for 4 weeks to give me just enough space to recognize the dysfunction in our relationship and take measures to insulate me from falling back into the same unhealthy relationship.  Restricting access to me to email cuts down on the impulse messaging. It cuts down on sending a single smiley face just to poke me or a "whatcha doin' message. Also, I don't feel obligated to respond immediately to an email the way I did to one of her texts.  I'm an not completely detached from her, but the month of no contact has given me a much more objective perspective of her behavior. Before no contact, I would never have been able to stick to these boundaries of communication but since she was shut out for a month, my willingness to answer her emails on occasion is a lot more than she was getting from me. But last night's message has made me much less optimistic about a friendship with her. At no point in her very long message about herself did she ask how I was doing. It's exactly the dynamic that many posting to this thread predicted, a one-sided friendship in which the Borderline talks incessantly about herself and the Non just listens and offers comfort, advice, etc. Not very fulfilling for me. Oh well. It's still way better than being romantically invested in this person.

[Dunder]

I feel like all the old bad feelings are coming back. Even though I've restricted her access to me down to just email, that little bit of contact is still too much for me right now. I offered her my friendship yesterday and now I just want to go back to no contact again. What should I do?

[fromheeltoheal]

I feel like all the old bad feelings are coming back. Even though I've restricted her access to me down to just email, that little bit of contact is still too much for me right now. I offered her my friendship yesterday and now I just want to go back to no contact again. What should I do?

You know what you should do, but if you need validation here, you should respond to those "old bad feelings" my focusing solely on your needs and taking care of yourself.  If you did that would you continue to communicate with her?

[myself]

a one-sided friendship in which the Borderline talks incessantly about herself and the Non just listens and offers comfort, advice, etc. Not very fulfilling for me.

I have that going on with someone who's supposedly not disordered, and like you I made a genuine offer of real friendship too (hasn't been any romance). It's been kind of sad, and eye opening, to find we're not actually as good of friends as had been claimed. It's a personal balancing act of being open and accepting the truth no matter what it is. So you step back to see and be part of the bigger picture. If the other person decides they're going to meet you in the middle somewhere, for real, you'll strengthen the connection. If not, that's another answer, probably leading to letting go. Either way, you keep making the best of your life. Believing in yourself and what's in your heart of hearts. Shaking off as much FOG as possible. A friend to yourself.

[ReclaimingMyLife]

Healthy relationships involve reciprocity.

I think Turkish says it all. 

My sister who is a psychologist says the conventional wisdom within her profession is, "you know it is BPD when you are doing all the work!" 

Not very reciprocal so not sure this makes the best candidate for a friend.