What to do about ex with BPD?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hello everybody, new member here. I'm in a weird situation with my ex and I'm not sure what it all means or what to do. She is diagnosed with bipolar, but since our breakup I've been doing lots of reading and speaking with friends in similar situations, and she certainly has BPD. After reading many examples of their behavior and other peoples' scenarios, it's like reading the story of my last three years.

Rambly backstory... .I met this girl long distance. Cities apart, but not a terribly long distance. When we started dating she came on VERY strong. She latched onto me harder than any other woman I've dated. Very early on she would buy me expensive gifts, call/text me incessantly, tell me I was the love of her life and it was fate, etc. etc. It all seemed unnatural to me, but when I met her I was finally getting over a bad breakup from about 6 months earlier, and it felt amazing to be LOVED again. Here and there she would mention her troubled childhood, her problems, and how genuinely messed up she is. These should have all been red flags for me, but I was getting sucked in and thought I could fix her.

One thing to note, she was ALWAYS bringing up ex boyfriends. Even within the first 15 minutes of meeting her. It seemed like she had an endless supply, and THEY were always the one with the problem. Sometimes a very old ex would creep back into her life seemingly out of nowhere, either via text or Facebook. She would then argue with him and tell me what a fool he is. I would tell her "he's getting you upset. Tell him to leave you alone and block him." She never would, she would just feed it.

Not long after we started dating I was looking for a new place to live, and she jumped on board with the moving plans. I cared about this girl, but it felt like she was just wiggling her way into my life without any sort of natural relationship progression. I felt like there was no room for me to say "no." She began buying expensive furnishings and things for the place, sending me pictures of all of the stuff while I'd be at work. She'd say "Should I get this?" to some expensive item (she didn't have much money in general). I'd come up with a more rational option, and she'd counter with her own justification and buy it anyway. Before long, we had enough things to furnish the entire place... .before I'd even moved in.

Just after getting the place, she took on a temporary second job for about a month and we were unable to see each other. That's when things shifted. I got a text from her asking ":)o you really love me?" I of course said "yes." She said "I don't see it." From there she went on and on telling me her qualms with me. Not with the relationship, but with me. I did everything I could to reassure her, but she kept going on and on. It was at that point I put my guard up around her.

After that she was consistently hot and cold. For that and other reasons, she never ended up moving in with me, which was fuel for her aggression towards me. She would feed me bits of love countered with strong anger. She pressured me hard for marriage and moving things forward, and if I didn't give her the answer she wanted she'd explode at me. She'd threaten breaking up over and over, sometimes going so far as to say, "I'm sorry. We're done." But a day or two later she'd be back to her old nice self. She'd blame me for all of her problems. Sometimes I'd get texts in the early afternoon saying "I'm still in bed. Not doing anything. I'm depressed about my life." Etc. etc. It would always come back to it being my fault for her problems.

We did break up after about a year, and admittedly I was a bit relieved. Over the course of the next month, however, we began talking more and she more or less just settled back into my life. It was okay for a bit, but of course the problems came right back. Over this past summer, another year later, we broke up again for the same reasons. Within a couple of days she would call me begging and pleading to take her back. I finally manned up and told her I'm sick of being accused for all of her own problems, which she apologized for profusely. She said she's hit rock bottom and it's time for her to seek treatment. I said that's good and I encourage that, and once she starts to get well we can revisit this. She demanded that we get back together NOW and work on these problems together. I refused. Not long after that she dangled other men pursuing her over my head, and said if I don't take her back now she's going to go out on dates. I caved, and we were back together.

Fast forward a couple of months later, she up and leaves me. Citing mostly the reasons of past breakups, but also a bit more wishy washy. She demanded that I give my "blessing" to end it, and if I didn't she would make me miserable by cheating on me and telling me about it. Not tempting fate, I thanked her for the relationship, said I love you, and hung up. She texted me some followup things about "I know I'm hurting you, etc.," but I chose to not get sucked into anything. I cut her off cold turkey and didn't respond which she called me out on, but I stayed strong. I haven't reached out to her since, and she hasn't reached out to me either.

This leads me to today. It's been a month since that night. Over the summer I needed to move back home for some family reasons, and we packed up the apartment and got a storage unit to be ready for the next place. I'm still paying for it. All of her apartment things are still up here, along with many personal items. The storage unit is packed to the brim. As a friend of mine put it, "it's a large amount of things to just leave behind... ."

I'm trying to understand her logic. Personally, I feel that she's holding a tether to me, that by leaving these things here she'll always have that connection to me if she wants to come back. She even said during the call, "I want to be healthy if I were to want to return to this one day." Also, she has not unfriended me nor any of my friends from Facebook, nor has she taken down any of our dating photos. It sounds insignificant, but after dating her for almost 3 years I can say that it is VERY suspicious of her to not cut that contact. She has a very strict "exes are in the past" attitude (even though she occasionally spoke with the man before me during our relationship).

I've been very strong in my no contact with her, and I'm doing okay. I'm not yet mentally able to deal with reaching out to her to clear out her things because I don't know what she'll throw at me, and as of right now it doesn't seem like I'll be hearing from her any time soon.

So, that's my quandary. To those of you more familiar with the disorder, is she holding a tether to me? Maybe just being lazy or indifferent at the moment, taking advantage of me paying for her things? Honestly, at this point I'm just not sure what to do. I'm comfortable paying for it for at least another month or two, but realistically at some point her and I will have to have a discussion about this.

Thanks in advance for reading this far. I didn't realize how long it had gotten.

[burritoman]

Hello everybody, new member here. I'm in a weird situation with my ex and I'm not sure what it all means or what to do. She is diagnosed with bipolar, but since our breakup I've been doing lots of reading and speaking with friends in similar situations, and she certainly has BPD. After reading many examples of their behavior and other peoples' scenarios, it's like reading the story of my last three years.

Rambly backstory... .I met this girl long distance. Cities apart, but not a terribly long distance. When we started dating she came on VERY strong. She latched onto me harder than any other woman I've dated. Very early on she would buy me expensive gifts, call/text me incessantly, tell me I was the love of her life and it was fate, etc. etc. It all seemed unnatural to me, but when I met her I was finally getting over a bad breakup from about 6 months earlier, and it felt amazing to be LOVED again. Here and there she would mention her troubled childhood, her problems, and how genuinely messed up she is. These should have all been red flags for me, but I was getting sucked in and thought I could fix her.

One thing to note, she was ALWAYS bringing up ex boyfriends. Even within the first 15 minutes of meeting her. It seemed like she had an endless supply, and THEY were always the one with the problem. Sometimes a very old ex would creep back into her life seemingly out of nowhere, either via text or Facebook. She would then argue with him and tell me what a fool he is. I would tell her "he's getting you upset. Tell him to leave you alone and block him." She never would, she would just feed it.

Not long after we started dating I was looking for a new place to live, and she jumped on board with the moving plans. I cared about this girl, but it felt like she was just wiggling her way into my life without any sort of natural relationship progression. I felt like there was no room for me to say "no." She began buying expensive furnishings and things for the place, sending me pictures of all of the stuff while I'd be at work. She'd say "Should I get this?" to some expensive item (she didn't have much money in general). I'd come up with a more rational option, and she'd counter with her own justification and buy it anyway. Before long, we had enough things to furnish the entire place... .before I'd even moved in.

Just after getting the place, she took on a temporary second job for about a month and we were unable to see each other. That's when things shifted. I got a text from her asking ":)o you really love me?" I of course said "yes." She said "I don't see it." From there she went on and on telling me her qualms with me. Not with the relationship, but with me. I did everything I could to reassure her, but she kept going on and on. It was at that point I put my guard up around her.

After that she was consistently hot and cold. For that and other reasons, she never ended up moving in with me, which was fuel for her aggression towards me. She would feed me bits of love countered with strong anger. She pressured me hard for marriage and moving things forward, and if I didn't give her the answer she wanted she'd explode at me. She'd threaten breaking up over and over, sometimes going so far as to say, "I'm sorry. We're done." But a day or two later she'd be back to her old nice self. She'd blame me for all of her problems. Sometimes I'd get texts in the early afternoon saying "I'm still in bed. Not doing anything. I'm depressed about my life." Etc. etc. It would always come back to it being my fault for her problems.

We did break up after about a year, and admittedly I was a bit relieved. Over the course of the next month, however, we began talking more and she more or less just settled back into my life. It was okay for a bit, but of course the problems came right back. Over this past summer, another year later, we broke up again for the same reasons. Within a couple of days she would call me begging and pleading to take her back. I finally manned up and told her I'm sick of being accused for all of her own problems, which she apologized for profusely. She said she's hit rock bottom and it's time for her to seek treatment. I said that's good and I encourage that, and once she starts to get well we can revisit this. She demanded that we get back together NOW and work on these problems together. I refused. Not long after that she dangled other men pursuing her over my head, and said if I don't take her back now she's going to go out on dates. I caved, and we were back together.

Fast forward a couple of months later, she up and leaves me. Citing mostly the reasons of past breakups, but also a bit more wishy washy. She demanded that I give my "blessing" to end it, and if I didn't she would make me miserable by cheating on me and telling me about it. Not tempting fate, I thanked her for the relationship, said I love you, and hung up. She texted me some followup things about "I know I'm hurting you, etc.," but I chose to not get sucked into anything. I cut her off cold turkey and didn't respond which she called me out on, but I stayed strong. I haven't reached out to her since, and she hasn't reached out to me either.

This leads me to today. It's been a month since that night. Over the summer I needed to move back home for some family reasons, and we packed up the apartment and got a storage unit to be ready for the next place. I'm still paying for it. All of her apartment things are still up here, along with many personal items. The storage unit is packed to the brim. As a friend of mine put it, "it's a large amount of things to just leave behind... ."

I'm trying to understand her logic. Personally, I feel that she's holding a tether to me, that by leaving these things here she'll always have that connection to me if she wants to come back. She even said during the call, "I want to be healthy if I were to want to return to this one day." Also, she has not unfriended me nor any of my friends from Facebook, nor has she taken down any of our dating photos. It sounds insignificant, but after dating her for almost 3 years I can say that it is VERY suspicious of her to not cut that contact. She has a very strict "exes are in the past" attitude (even though she occasionally spoke with the man before me during our relationship).

I've been very strong in my no contact with her, and I'm doing okay. I'm not yet mentally able to deal with reaching out to her to clear out her things because I don't know what she'll throw at me, and as of right now it doesn't seem like I'll be hearing from her any time soon.

So, that's my quandary. To those of you more familiar with the disorder, is she holding a tether to me? Maybe just being lazy or indifferent at the moment, taking advantage of me paying for her things? Honestly, at this point I'm just not sure what to do. I'm comfortable paying for it for at least another month or two, but realistically at some point her and I will have to have a discussion about this.

Thanks in advance for reading this far. I didn't realize how long it had gotten.

[joel6242]

My exBPD owes me several thousands of dollars and I will probably never see a penny. I tried to help him get into a better life. In the end if he was smoking pot daily, he would be really bad. I also paid for the pot. My thought was to try and get him in school but he choose to be a cook at local 24 hour diner. Of course he found bad friends and in the end cheated on me. When he left I found out the extent of the secret life, I do not think that I could ever trust him again.

I also have his things and this may sound bad, but need to find the courage to through them out. He could get his things through the court system if he really wanted them. It has been over two months now. I am going to give myself more time before acting. This entire situation is very bad and am working to make things good for myself again.

[C.Stein]

Geez dude, in a lot of ways your ex sounds like mine.  

She may be holding a tether to you just like she does with her other ex's.

It is hard to say what she is thinking.  :)o what is best for you.

[burritoman]

Mine was a waitress. She was very outgoing with the customers, but when I was there I'd never see her be overly flirtatious. Then again, one time a regular customer seemed to get the idea that there was something happening between the two of them, leading him to send her lots of angry mixed-message texts. She told me all about this, and I just assumed he was getting the wrong idea. Looking back, I wouldn't be surprised if she had been leading him on to feed her ego.

She would go out to late night bars with "just friends," and I put my full trust in her. Looking back on that I feel like a fool. I never wanted to tell her I have a problem with her night life when I'm not around because I didn't want to be controlling over her and respected her independence. In the end I feel duped and taken advantage of. I'm conflicted, but I feel that she either did cheat on me in the past or wanted to but realized she couldn't because she's in a sexually unfulfilling relationship (because of the distance). For all of her problems she's an empath, and I do believe there is a good amount of loyalty in her that battled her ugly side. I guess in the end I left in an advantageous position, not having the full truth. I'm not sure I could handle that.

The weird thing about the stuff situation is that the first two times we broke up she almost immediately talked about getting a moving truck to come get her things, which of course never happened. I should mention that not all of this is just random stuff. Some of these things are expensive personal items that nobody in their right mind would leave behind. This radio silence is bizarre and confusing. Perhaps if she gets serious with her next victim she'll get comfortable and come get it, and put her new guy in the awkward position of having to help drive across state lines to pick up her second life.

[burritoman]

I had to stop by the storage unit again today with more things, and I'm still not done. I was going through more stuff in the basement tonight and I got very depressed. I don't understand how a person can just walk off and leave a life behind seemingly without a care in the world, then leave me here to pick up the pieces. There are literally thousands of dollars worth of things in that storage unit. It's going to take me at least another month or two to be mentally capable of dealing with her about this.

I don't think even with her BPD that she's cold enough to leave it as "out of sight, out of mind." Meaning "so long as he doesn't say anything about it I'll just let him keep paying for it." In my mind there has to be something below the surface here, but I don't think anybody, even her, can answer that.