Reflecting on Red flags I ignored - helps the detachment process

[hopealways]

Looking back at the numerous  red flags  I ignored, I have made a very short list of some which I look at and this is helping me heal during the detachment process.  Share yours as well.

-She cheated on her fiance, whom she was living with, for me for 1 year, and claimed it was the first time she ever cheated

-She told me "are you sure you want to be with someone as troubled as I am"

-She said her childhood dream was to come to the USA, marry an old rich guy (I'm not old BTW) who would die and leave her all his money

-She said she dreamed of the devil every night until her early teens and that as a baby she would wake up screaming constantly

-She admits to a history of turbulent relationships, even left one of her "amazing" boyfriends suddenly and without explanation after 1 year

-She said once referring to herself: "I'm so emotionally f****d up. I can feel one thing today and something completely different tomorrow."

These were just a few. Add to the mix all sorts of yelling, rages, insults, depression but you can see this is all so typically and obviously BPD. If only I knew what BPD was when I met her, the first red flag would have sent me running. 

[coletown11]

These are some of my early red flags that I completely ignored:

-told me she was a terrible person, empty, rotten, cold, that her family doesn't like her.

-told me she would hurt me

-I had known her for several years, I could never understand why she was with the guys she dated (they were all pushovers, low self esteem)

-she had moved in with and then left pretty much all over her previous boyfriends

-also asked me several times if I was sure this is what I wanted

-very early on had a shockingly disproportionate, rage filled reaction to a comment I made about how I thought it was weird that she didn't remember something we did together only a few weeks earlier. I knew she was argumentative but I kind of liked that about her, but this was on a whole different level

-after I told her I was going to pursue her (she had asked me out a few times over the last few years), she raged at me, then told me I didn't want her and I thought she was ugly.

-spent much of the first few weeks going through every single text, fb message, gchat conversation we had ever had (going back to about 2010) to try and find holes in my statements that I found her attractive and wanted to be with her.

-went on a date with me while she was still with her ex. I had no idea she was still with him until a ways into us making out. she told me she was a terrible person, and I asked why and she said "you know why, im still seeing someone." - the red flag wasn't just the cheating, but the fact that she said she was still "seeing" someone, she had been in a relationship and living with this guy for over a year.

-spent the first couple months constantly in rage filled text arguments, mainly her accusing me of not wanting her, and me defending myself. 

[MyEyesrOpen]

here are some of mine;

- told me his ex (that he broke up with a year before he met me) lied to him for 2 years and was married with kids, living 20 minutes away from him i wondered how he never "caught on" to that

- he kept ditching me whenever things were getting "too good"

- he craved attention from women constantly

- he stood me up on my bday (also being valentines day)

- he stood me up again 2 weeks after that for a weekend getaway i booked and paid for

- he changed his status to "in a relationship" the day of the weekend he stiffed me on. when i texted him that night "you're in a relationship?" he replied "no"   ? What the heck?

- his supposedly lying ex gf was actually still his gf and contacted me

- after we both dumped him, he turned around and emailed us "this is me leaving YOU now"

- he cheated and lied to me constantly

- he wanted to rush into marriage

- he tried to get me pregnant and lied to my face about it and when i wouldn't accept that, he admitted it by saying "its the only way we can be together"

-every time i gave him what he wanted, he backed off

There are some severe red flags i cant even add on to this site in fear that someone here may know who im talking about bc they are THAT SEVERE and not many go that far... .i wish i could talk to someone about them bc they are the ones that are freaking me out the most

[C.Stein]

My ex is uBPD far as I know.  Having learned about BPD after getting discarded, I can look back now and see the multitude of flags.  I should note she is normally very high functioning.  Many of these weren't high frequency events, but it occurred enough to cause me a considerable amount of pain, anguish, anxiety and doubts.  It continually undermined our relationship and my confidence in a future with her.

• Disclosed very personal details about life very quickly



• Physical relationship progressed very quickly



• Speed of relationship over all progressed very quickly. Key to apartment inside 2 weeks, talking marriage within a month.



• Bad-mouthing ex's



• Deception, lies, dishonestly.  Not a lot I hope, but enough to destroy trust.



• Impulsive at times ... .acting on emotions of the moment



• Double standards.  Behaviour that she would never tolerate from me



• Gut instinct that she wasn't being completely honest with me on some things



• Little to no personal accountability or accepting responsibility for actions or resulting consequences in relationship



• Fear of abandonment



• Clingy behaviour



• Poor self-esteem and self-image.  Likes/wants sexual type attention from opposite sex



• Push-Pull.  The most obvious one getting dumped out of the blue, then recycled almost immediately



• Emotional immaturity



• Inconsistent behaviour



• Suicide talk ... .not sure if this was serious talk or just a means to get what she wanted



• Ultimatums and threats.  One example, a veiled threat to cheat on me in the first two weeks



• Inappropriate anger



• Emotional meltdowns that would last 2-3 days



• Identity disturbance



• Selective memory



• Inaccurate memory



• Self-destructive behaviour



• Can be vindictive, which she freely admits



• Impatient at times



• Short fuse



• Gets frustrated easily



• Easily influenced/persuaded ... .looks to others to direct her life



• Misunderstanding things I said and putting words in my mouth



• Inability to recognize I was hurting ... .guess you could call this selective lack of empathy



• At times self-centered and self-absorbed ... .and other times the exact opposite



• Trouble communicating feelings



• Obsessive at times



• Occasional wild mood swings



• Tends to run when things get difficult



• Breaks promises

There's more, but that covers the bulk of it.

Does anyone think my suspicions that she might be suffering from BPD are well founded?

[hopealways]

Everyones red flags are eerily similar. But it really helps to write mine down to refer to when I start missing her, and to read everyone elses.

[Hopeful83]

  guys

Many red flags for me, too. Well in retrospect anyway. Here are just a few of them:

1. He fell for me ridiculously quickly

2. Called me his girlfriend within days of me knowing him

3. Told me he'd been in love five times including me - he was 24 at the time

4. He pulled away from me before we became a couple because a friend of mine made a joke and asked him "what are your intentions for being with my friend?" He freaked out, became distant and cold, then came back to me weeks saying he 'needed' me.

5. Asked me to move in with him within two weeks of us becoming a couple

6. During our early arguments he'd completely ignore me and not talk for three days - and we lived together and it was torturous but he didn't care.

7. The night before his birthday (the first we were going to spend as a couple) he picked a massive argument. The next day, despite all the effort I had made for him he was still frosty with me. When I gave up trying to get him to see sense, I went to spend the evening with a friend. He raged at me on phone, told me we were over. When I got home, he pulled me in his arms and said he couldn't live without me (Jesus, Hopeful, WHY didn't you question all this at the time?)

8. He told me that he could walk away from exes very easily. That he could just switch off his emotions in an instant (sigh).

9. He once tried to pull a practical joke on me, I got jumpy and scared, he overreacted to my reaction and didn't talk to me for four days despite the fact I tried to explain that it wasn't my fault I was startled!

These are just the things that happened during the first few months that we were together. As the relationship progressed, there was a lot more, but by then I was well and truly attached to the guy.

At least if any of this happens to me again I'll be running for the hills faster than you can say BPD!

[Michelle27]

Looking back, there were lots, but I wasn't aware of most of them as being red flags until I learned what I now know about BPD.  I led a pretty sheltered life.

-When we met, I was 6 months out of an abusive marriage.  He said he'd been separated for "awhile".  It was a few years before he admitted it was 3 weeks.

-Massive mirroring. When I talked about my abusive first marriage, he also had stories about his abusive first marriage (all of which I know to be false now). 

-He had to be talked into seeing his son from his first marriage, sometimes after 3 or 4 months went by.  His son was 1 when he and his first wife split.

-VERY fast relationship.  Cried the first time we had sex and put a "ring" (not real) on my left hand within the first week which I wore until he gave me a promise ring about 5 years later.

-Caught an email conversation in which he was planning a trip to Toronto in the first year of the relationship to meet another woman (after telling me he had to go to Toronto for work).  Confused me with the story of him and his friend's emails getting mixed up... .

-raging started on our wedding day

-After planning our child including daily temperature and charting for ovulation for months, when I got pregnant and excitedly told him, he turned white as a ghost, said almost nothing and left for work out of town.

So many more... .

[MakingMyWay]

I like doing stuff like this, its a good way to collect my thoughts and be logical when they slip back in to wanting her back. A lot of the reason I stayed with her is because she was my first relationship and that idealization phase really makes you feel good. My ex was the quiet type.

• When I started dating her she was in a 'numb' phase. She occasionally relapsed into this, but never to the degree of when I first met her



• I was her rescuer, pulled her out of numbness, helped her to stop self harming



• Self harming was still tempting for her, she relapsed a few times.



• Very casual threats of suicide for no apparent reason.



• Intense fear of abandonment. She acknowledged that herself



• Trouble communicating feelings



• Relationship progressed very fast, went from being friends to being deeply in love with me in a matter of days



• Said 'I love you' within a two weeks, I didn't say it back until two weeks after that, but she would often try to trick me into saying it. One example I remember is her texting me from her brothers phone.



• Marriage talk within 4 months



• Insisted I promise to marry her before I had sex with her



• Mirroring. Wasn't exactly sure what she liked, described herself as a blank slate



• Very clear clinging stage.



• Intense jealousy issues that went away when she devalued me



• Needed constant validation.



• Low self esteem



• Internalized a lot of her anger and felt guilty very easily



• Emotions were all over the place. Towards the end, every morning I would wake up and think "What will she be like today"



• When validation was given she wouldn't listen or she would go back to feeling bad about it a few days later. She was gorgeous, but she never believed it no matter how many times you told her.



• Some inappropriate anger but never towards me. Her family were the target of that.



• Overly emotional. Would interpret things the wrong way often.



• Zero accountability



• Relationships in the past were always with "creeps" or "stalkers" who "forced" her in to it. Her first kiss was "stolen" from her etc.



• Lied over tiny things to protect herself. Rarely towards me (as far as I know) but almost every day towards her family

This post is getting way too long, but I could keep going. The thing that was hardest for me was that she understood she was doing these behaviours and I understood them too, but I kept brushing them off because I loved her and thought I would marry her. Being able to identify these red flags has really shown me that as easy as it is to blame her for the relationship failing, there is a lot of work that I need to do as well.

[C.Stein]

Being able to identify these red flags has really shown me that as easy as it is to blame her for the relationship failing, there is a lot of work that I need to do as well.

Perhaps a thread for reflecting on our own personal red flags would be in order.   One thing I have noticed in many threads that most, if not all, blame for a failed/failing relationship with a pwBPD is heaped onto that person.  Now certainly in some cases this may be justifiable, however to not acknowledge our own role and deficiencies in the relationship seems wrong ... .almost BPD like.

[once removed]

its a good idea for a thread, c. stein. if youd like to start it ill be glad to participate .

exploring the red flags that we ignored or overlooked, or didnt recognize (or even subconciousy were drawn to) can be a useful exercise and help recognize our role. for instance, some of the "red flags" were signs of basic incompatibility and getting further involved was me not living my values. you are right that this kind of inventory should avoid blame. if we want to pursue healthier relationships, what we did right, what we did wrong, and what we can do better, all valuable inventory.

in retrospect, virtually all of the problems wed face as a couple were evident quickly.

hopealways, how has what youve been through informed your idea of the kind of relationships youd like to have in the future?

[hopealways]

I would disagree regarding the premise behind recognizing "our role" in the failure of the relationship.  Almost makes it seem that we have any fault for a BPD relationship not working. Sure, we can be blamed for seeing red flags and not running away, or for enabling their torturous behavior by putting up with it, but can we really compare the psychopathy of these disordered individuals with the loving and giving nature of most nons?

Most of those who post on here were kind, loving, nurturing, good hearted empathetic people: which is exactly why they were victimized by the BPD. In contrast, the BPD was, well, we all know how they were: just the opposite.  Our roles in the failure of the relationship cannot even be compared, and to even start to compare them is putting blame on the very victims who have spent a lifetime blaming themselves for everyone else's shortcomings.

So while I agree that we should all work very hard on healing and core work so we are never attracted to Borderlines again, I wouldn't assign any blame to us nons, at least not in the same way the BPD is to blame for their utterly inhumane treatment of those who love them.

[Mutt]

Hi hopealways,

I agree that many members here are kind and compassionate people. BPD psychopathology or not in a relationship, relationships take two people.

-She cheated on her fiance, whom she was living with, for me for 1 year, and claimed it was the first time she ever cheated

-She told me "are you sure you want to be with someone as troubled as I am"

-She said her childhood dream was to come to the USA, marry an old rich guy (I'm not old BTW) who would die and leave her all his money

-She said she dreamed of the devil every night until her early teens and that as a baby she would wake up screaming constantly

-She admits to a history of turbulent relationships, even left one of her "amazing" boyfriends suddenly and without explanation after 1 year

-She said once referring to herself: "I'm so emotionally f****d up. I can feel one thing today and something completely different tomorrow."

which is exactly why they were victimized by the BPD.

I can relate with ignoring many of the red flags at the onset of the relationship, we look at all of the positive attributes in a partner in the honeymoon phase and it's normal to have idealization.

If you take a look at your list of red flags what are your personal boundaries?