Do pwBPD typically ruin vacations and events?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Just wondering if there is any connection between BPD and how fun activities or vacations play out. My now uexBPDgf seemed to go into rage/panic/anger whenever we'd go do something fun for a day, it was worse when we'd go on vacation over night like the Cruise. It seems to be triggered by me when I call her out on her negativity while we're trying to have fun and enjoy our time together. I remeber her going into complete rage because she noticed I was dissapointed and asked me whats wrong, I responded with "just wish you'd be a little less negative" and it was all down hill from there. Just seems like sge sabotaged any vacation we had and time together just going out

[alexeihb]

Just wondering if there is any connection between BPD and how fun activities or vacations play out. My now uexBPDgf seemed to go into rage/panic/anger whenever we'd go do something fun for a day, it was worse when we'd go on vacation over night like the Cruise. It seems to be triggered by me when I call her out on her negativity while we're trying to have fun and enjoy our time together. I remeber her going into complete rage because she noticed I was dissapointed and asked me whats wrong, I responded with "just wish you'd be a little less negative" and it was all down hill from there. Just seems like sge sabotaged any vacation we had and time together just going out

[enlighten me]

Hi Alex

Both my uBPD exs where a nightmare on holiday. My ex wife would spend the whole time being ill and bed ridden. My exgf would get irate when we went away. Our first holiday was the first time I witnessed one of her rages. I almost stopped the car and got out in the middle of traffic. She told me Id better not or else to which I replied or else what. She didn't know what to say or do as it was obviously not the reply she expected. I wish I had kept that attitude up with her.

[CharWood]

mine would be constantly on her phone. Taking selfies and posting them on facebook or instagram. Complaining that people are staring at her. Or complaining about something. She never really took the time to live in the moment and enjoy life. It is like she was disconnected from reality... .she lives in a fantasy world.

Never pleasant going on vacations with someone like this. The first 2 years we were together though we went on vacations and she was not like this, we have actually had some very fun times together. but then again, she didn't have an I-phone for one of those years and managed to stay off of it mostly the other year. It seems like the iphone added to the issue when she dysregulated and started going BPD.

[alexeihb]

mine would be constantly on her phone. Taking selfies and posting them on facebook or instagram. Complaining that people are staring at her. Or complaining about something. She never really took the time to live in the moment and enjoy life. It is like she was disconnected from reality... .she lives in a fantasy world.

Never pleasant going on vacations with someone like this. The first 2 years we were together though we went on vacations and she was not like this, we have actually had some very fun times together. but then again, she didn't have an I-phone for one of those years and managed to stay off of it mostly the other year. It seems like the iphone added to the issue when she dysregulated and started going BPD.

On our cruise vacation, first day there she raged and went off on me in front of everyone, then stormed off into our room. I obviously followed her in because I had no idea what was going on. Trying to talk to her only made things worse, I told her I'll be by the pool when she's ready to talk, as I am walking away she comes out of the room screaming at me, people came out to see whats going on, then she started calling for security saying that she "doesnt feel safe with me" . They gave her another room and told me to stay away  I stayed in my room the entire time in complete agony while she was posting selfies of her self lounging outside all smiles and hapiness. Ughhh... .whyyyyyy

[CharWood]

Wow alexiehb... .that's absolutely ridiculous and I am sorry you endured that after paying for the expense of a nice trip. My ex was always throwing little temper tantrums, though she can be more passive aggressive. She almost ruined our vacation to Key West with similar behavior... .just acting childish, acting out and sulking or ignoring me and taking selfies. Ugh... .why do us nice guys have to fall for such broken, self-involved people?

[mimi99]

My BPDd24 does not travel well. We have attempted family vacations and she either becomes dysregulated or refuses to go do anything, choosing to sit on the couch the whole trip.  Not fun. She lives with her bf now and they recently went out of town briefly and I notice she posted about not feeling well for the whole trip. Seems to be a BPD thing

[alexeihb]

Wow alexiehb... .that's absolutely ridiculous and I am sorry you endured that after paying for the expense of a nice trip. My ex was always throwing little temper tantrums, though she can be more passive aggressive. She almost ruined our vacation to Key West with similar behavior... .just acting childish, acting out and sulking or ignoring me and taking selfies. Ugh... .why do us nice guys have to fall for such broken, self-involved people?

right? I guess we probably already know why, its the "why did we stay in an emotionaly abusive relationship" so long part that is hard, makes you really look hard into yourself. I guess I am still trying to wrap my head around everything that happened and how I was so hooked. Its been 6 weeks no contact and its brutal

My BPDd24 does not travel well. We have attempted family vacations and she either becomes dysregulated or refuses to go do anything, choosing to sit on the couch the whole trip.  Not fun. She lives with her bf now and they recently went out of town briefly and I notice she posted about not feeling well for the whole trip. Seems to be a BPD thing

same here, she even mentioned when we first started dating that she gets bad anxiety when traveling, I figured thats not a big deal alot of people do, I do too sometimes.

[willtimeheal]

My ex BPD always picked a fight before a vacation. It probably had to do with anxiety about going away but it was like clock work. Vacations we always a nightmare from the moment we left, while we were there, to getting home. Everything was on her time scale. I never understood  why someone would want to sit inside and watch a movie while at the beach. But she did and if I didn't sit in there with her... .oh the  price that was paid. Driving down was horrible... .traffic too fast or slow...   She is hungry or uncomfortable. Just ridiculous. It was worse when she would drink. When she would hit the bottle... .Lord help us all.

[SummerStorm]

I don't know about vacations, but I do know that my former friend BPD is always a mess when she visits her parents, who live in another state.

Birthdays and holidays are also disasters.  She picked a fight with her ex the day after his birthday and hit him for the first time the next day.  She ignored me on her mom's birthday.  Her birthday was the next day.  She robbed her ex and then called me crazy that night. Her new boyfriend's birthday is in a few weeks... .

The one major tale of abuse from an ex supposedly happened in another state, so I'm assuming they were on vacation at the time. 

[SurfNTurf]

I wouldn't know; he won't go on a vacation. They are either too expensive, not enough accrued vacation time, not the right time of year, not the right place, but then talks all the time about places he'd like to visit. We have tons of hotel points and frequent flier miles due to his work travels and my work travels that we never spend on ourselves but whenever his daughter asks him to give points to her mother, his exwife, he generously gives away our points. Maybe I should go on vacay with his ex! LOL!

This year I'm hosting my family at our house. Next year, I may go on vacay on my own.

[wundress]

Mine does this when there are nice family events coming up. Particularly in relation to my family.

Part of it for my pwBPD is that she fears that something nice happening means that some awful will follow. That's learned behaviour. I think with it being a family event she also can't handle the emotions involved so she self sabotages. I wonder also how much of it is bringing the attention back to herself by causing a crisis. In fact, this year when she has had tantrums and refused to go to the theatre etc I have just gone without her which I noticed makes her more angry.

[Reforming]

Yup, my ex could get very disordered when it came to vacations or even family gatherings like weddings.

I think the stress that often accompanies these occasions is a big trigger - the run up to a vacation can often be frantic and pressurised.

I think people with mental health issues are particularly vulnerable to this. On one level they want everything to be perfect and if it isn't then they feel a sense of failure and shame. This is also compounded by the anxiety that if they dysregulate - they'll ruin things.

The end result can often be chaos.

It's also fair to say that a lot of people find vacations stressful. Christmas time has one of the highest rates of martial discord, family breakdown and violence.

Reforming

[naguma]

Her family or vacations she wanted, normally she was fine.

Vacations I wanted, she was horrible.

She's part of one messed up family, NPD matriarch at the top - with her mother second in line (another NPD). My exBPD did fine on these, until the last few years of our relationship when she would go out of her way to provoke me in front of her family (chance to paint me as the bad guy). Her family had always treated me like crap, excluded me from many activities, etc. My ex seemed ok in that environment.

I learned to not act interested in vacations even if I wanted to go. If she had any idea what so ever that I would enjoy myself then she would make it miserable. The absolute worst vacation was when we went to see my family - my best friends wedding, she was "sick" the entire time. However, she managed to set up another vacation after staying at a resort. She was perfectly healthy and happy the entire time. This second vacation was better then my friends honeymoon, that seemed to make my exBPD extremely happy.

Second worse vacation was with a group of my friends to BC - she was 19 at the time and looked forward to drinking at a bar. First two days she was fine, then we got to the day where we planned to go camping - something I really enjoy. While driving north, literally every 30 seconds she would say something to the effect of "let's turn around". She use to go camping with her boyfriend before me who lived in BC, so neither the drive or camping bothered her - accept that it was probably my favorite thing to do. Needless to say, for the next 8 years there were no camping trips.

Vacations are the one time you will see the narcissistic nature of BPD really shine through. I think the thing is, vacation are suppose to be all about them. If you enjoy yourself, then you're not focusing enough on them. If it's a vacation you want, well that's plain mean of you.

[Careca9]

Just wondering if there is any connection between BPD and how fun activities or vacations play out.

seems there is as my ex was triggered a week after booking a vacation and a week before xmas. mine didnt just rage but ended it suddenly and then blocked me from contacting her. i asked the same question on one of my threads and a number of people mentioned that the timing of the trigger could well have been the booking or impending vacation/xmas. seems for a number of people this has also played out around vacations

[Stolen]

The planning for a vacation was maddening.  I was always careful to make her an equal partner in making decisions, but it rarely worked out well.
-------------------------------------------------
Where would you like to go?
Somewhere different.

Ok - like where?
I don't know, but you always want to go somewhere that you like (?).
Ok - so where else would you like to go?

Somewhere different.
OK - what is the phone # for "somewhere different" and I'll make arrangements... .

You always try to make an idiot out of me. You never support my decisions. I hate talking to you... .etc etc etc.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
And that was that.

These circular paths to nowhere could go on for days if I would play along.

[flourdust]

Vacations by ourselves would go really well if I took care of everything. The pattern (that I can see now) is that she felt cared for if I was doing all of the planning and scheduling to make a vacation work. That fed into my own codependent characteristics, as I was demonstrating my value by taking care of her needs.

Vacations with family (especially her family) were risky. She often got into fights with her parents or became offended by members of my family. I tended not to get very involved in these altercations, but she certainly brought the drama.

[peacemountain]

In the three years that we've been married, we've (he asks for and I coordinate) planned 3 vacations. Each one of them has triggered on some of the worst "episodes" for my BPDh.

The first was a week long trip with his family to the coast. The night before we left, I went to buy a narrow car seat for my 2 year old son so that everyone would be comfortable in the back seat on the 10 hour drive. This exploded into a HUGE fight. He wanted to have my son in just the seat belt and I of course said no way in the world would that be happening. It escalated so bad, he told me I could just take my son and go by myself. He would not be going on vacation (even though it was his mom, brother, etc. we were going with). He ended up going, but I received the silent treatment for the first 4 days. He complained the entire time about the weather and about his brother and spent a majority of the time in solitude.

The crazy thing is that he always talks about what a great vacation that was. How we all bonded as a family, how beautiful it was, etc. How he wants to do it again soon. LOL I don't even know what to say?

The second trip was just for the two of us. To go to San Fran and and see the 49'ers and hang out. About a week ahead of time I could see the tension escalating. He ended up cancelling the trip saying he was worried we would somehow catch the ebola virus that was a big scare at the time. I learned to always get trip insurance with him - cancelled plane tickets and football tix were not cheap!

The third was a Disney Land trip. While this one went quite a bit better, he was extremely irritable leading up and during the whole trip. I think prior to leaving he had been giving me the silent treatment for some offence for 2 days.

This doesn't even take into account the "vacations" where family comes to visit us or we go to see them. Complete meltdowns EVERY single time. It makes me not want to plan or do anything knowing what will happen.

[cubicinch]

my father is a PD. When I was a child he would trigger at the build up to any holidays making it a nightmare. He would find us and drag us out of friends houses. Christmas as well would be unsettling in the build up. Even to this day, everyday tasks such as cutting the grass would trigger a downturn of mood.

[theitcrowd]

mine would be constantly on her phone. Taking selfies and posting them on facebook or instagram. Complaining that people are staring at her. Or complaining about something. She never really took the time to live in the moment and enjoy life. It is like she was disconnected from reality... .she lives in a fantasy world.

Never pleasant going on vacations with someone like this. The first 2 years we were together though we went on vacations and she was not like this, we have actually had some very fun times together. but then again, she didn't have an I-phone for one of those years and managed to stay off of it mostly the other year. It seems like the iphone added to the issue when she dysregulated and started going BPD.

Sounds so similar! Wow it's terrible man!

[Riguez]

Yes, she used to find things to complain bitterly about however much effort I had put into planning the holiday! 

[Mustbeabetterway]

Nightmarish vacations.  The last one we took, I road a bus 400 miles back to the airport instead of riding in the rent car with him driving and yelling, cursing, etc.  supposed to be my dream" vacation.  I actually enjoyed the bus ride more than the rest of the trip.  He didn't want to look at the itinerary, wanted me to plan it, I tried and tried to get him to be involved in planning, but he refused,  I had paid the airfare way in advance and against my better judgement hoped for the best. 

Never again! 

[Beacher]

My ex brought his entire office with him whenever we went away and we had to spend a 1/2 hour in security as they pulled out every cable and opened every little pouch. Ugh. Once a woman security agent gave him a bit of a hard time and he started losing it. Nightmare on the plane. Things got better but he had to bring up the incident after a lovely concert and when I tried to steer the conversation away he became verbally abusive and following me up the street yelling!
The last few months he flipped out after my daughters award dinner, her engagement party and food tasting. Also fathers day( he's estranged from all 3), New Years, Christmas Eve,I just couldn't believe it! Something triggers them.

[TDeer]

This likely explains why my husband's family hasn't been on a trip together in many years.

BPD MIL is already a terror with one day events... .

[badenergytroll]

why do us nice guys have to fall for such broken, self-involved people?

that's life ("force of nature" giving us some tough loving and making us grow a spine the hard way. get over your own issues. fix your own problems. draw boundaries and stick with them. become self-sufficient and resilient. it's like a weight training program for an adult personality. hint: lifting heavy weights is much easier. but if you don't overcome your problems, every time they will come around, and they will, they will slap you ten-fold.

[Tobiasfunke]

Yes. She did. I think they get excited that the vacation or event or trip will help get rid of the emptiness and when it doesn't they rage or saulk or cry because it's a brutal affliction.

[spinnaker17]

I had been dating a woman who I later concluded had BPD.  Things started off great... love bombing... mirroring me... idealization... then a couple cruel comments that I now realize was part of the devaluing process - controlling phase after the honeymoon phase.

she had just divorced a man with kids 3 months prior to me meeting her... .so that was an initial red flag and there were others as I listed above.  I knew something was up but couldn't place my finger on it.

However I knew beyond any doubt she was nuts when we went on a trip to NYC for valentines day.  I had changed the itinerary from my parent's house to a hotel and she went bonkers which I didn't think was big deal... but now I realize it triggered abandonment fears.

Before the trip she was incredibly angry threatening not to go... .she seemed ok a little distant during the day... but things seemed fine.  however when I awoke in the morning I would see her seated in a chair across the room staring at me in rage... (god knows if she was in that chair all night!) . and was seriously creeped out by it... sort of fatal attraction style.  Alarm bells were going off!

One night she accused me of wanting her just for convenience and at this point I was just pissed and ripped into her... .she then started talking to some guys at another table and got up and ignored me.  Now I realize this was attention seeking and part of her devaluing process against me... ..and I also knew that the relationship just crossed over into toxic and contempt land and as far as I was concerned it was over... .and it essentially was... .came back home she came by my place the next day looking for make up sex (push pull).  I declined and it was over... she called and texted for 2 months but I avoided any in person contact with her.

So basically the vacation stressed her and her BPD symptoms surfaced big time... .previous to that I had suspicions but now I was convinced there was something seriously wrong and time to end it.  There were other instances too... .suffice it to say I am confident she has BPD... although she has never been formally diagnosed.  only now a year later did I realize I was dealing with a high functioning BPD person who to the outside world seemed fabulous(attractive, intelligent, engaging etc).

btw... .less than one year after meeting me she remarried and was pregnant.

all you need to know -  I dodged a bullet and feel sorry for the guy that wound up with her.

[Lollypop]

We had a successful holiday last summer. I planned and planned!

My BPDs got triggered about time.  He needs to know what's happening and when.  We were on a road trip so with good planning that was a breeze, change of scenery, accommodation ration kept us all in a vibrant mood.

Boat trip went terribly. BPDs threw a fit unable to cope because there was s change in route plan making us 30 minutes behind. He was seasick so I did try and validate but eventually gave up and left him alone.

All day trip white water rafting - triggered from nicotine withdrawal. It never occurred to me or him. He got glummer and glummer but thankfully did apologise to our leader at the end of the day. It could have been solved by a vape but didn't spoil our experience.

9 hour return flight delay. Triggered but he coped.

We all didn't react, coped with his swings. Didn't get embarrassed by his choice of clothes and went with the flow. Flexibility and I made sure we all got fair choice of how we wanted to spend our time.

We bonded and will always be happy we made this family trip.

It can be done!

[Ythisroad]

We never have money for a vacation, but we can barely even go out to eat or grocery shopping with my dBPDh before he snaps about the smallest infraction.  It's always a coin toss on how each outing will turn out... .   

[Turkish]

I had a similar experience on a Pacific Northwest trip (Oregon and Washington), seeing things most people would kill to see.  We would often,  however, have similar conflict going to the mall on a Saturday morning,  not 3 miles away. 

What do you think was the core emotional trigger for the dysregulation?

[Dark horse]

It was difficult to get my BPD husband to go on any vacation.  I think he felt it as a loss of control.  I had to plan vacations that accommodated all his needs for exercise, schedule routine, etc.   He also didn't like to eat in restaurants, it was always take out back to the hotel room to watch tv.  Any disruption in the itinerary clearly struck fear in his heart and led to a rage.  I tried to change our plans for one day in Costa Rica and he screamed at me for 10 minutes, saying "we were in a 3rd world country" and I hadn't considered his concerns at all.   All these constraints really limited the choices we had for vacation options, so alot of them were about going somewhere where we could do one event a day, like a hike or museum visit and then relax by the pool or on the beach. Even though we were "together" on the vacation, he disconnected and did "his stuff" during the downtime.  ONe year, I convinced him to go to Italy, he couldn't even walk next to me on the street as we strolled around... he would walk ahead or follow behind.  If we were at the beach - he would just go walk on the beach by himself, no invitation to join, go to the pool to read (again, no invitation).   

Even on the weekends at home when we had the opportunity to do something together, he would lay around and watch tv and say he felt sick or had a headache.  He always needed to be "doing", preferably something familiar -- I'm guessing to block out all that internal negativity - so down time was uncomfortable.  Down time paired with me, as on a vacation,  provided the perfect opportunity to blame me for all those bad feelings bubbling up-- because I was the only one there.  We had one couple we took vacation with a few times, and when we did... he would usually find a reason to rage about how annoying the wife was.   

It seems to me that BPD's don't like the opportunity for rest and reflection, which goes along with all the other choices they make in their lives to fill the dark void and silence that internal critic.