BPD and constant Changing of their minds?

[GreenEyedMonster]

I can relate to the inconsistency. It's so baffling to work hard on a solution or decision with someone (my ex) and then have them tell you soon thereafter that they want something totally different. Again and again and again.

She asked me how to make things right with me after the infidelity came out. I gave her lists that she wrote down: build trust, do what you say you're going to do, don't have contact with the other man/men, erase photos of old lovers from your phone, get into therapy (specifically DBT)... .She agreed up and down that she would these things. Later she had gone back on and/or changed her mind about doing each and everything I required.

It still breaks my heart because of my intense feelings for her but I had to eventually go NC. Today I met a guy who works with the ex that she cheated on me with and it spun me out.

I'm sorry you had to go through this.

I'm convinced one of the reasons these relationships are so damaging to us partners is because they keep us in a constant state of uncertainty, i.e. we never know exactly where we stand.  Being embraced by the pwBPD when we don't know where we stand provides a sense of relief akin to drugs, and we crave that relief of finding out that everything is okay.  It's just uncertainty, relief, uncertainty, relief, uncertainty . . . and on and on.  It's possible to get hooked on a cycle like that.  And then when they leave us, it's uncertainty, and we expect the relief to follow because it always has.  I think that's why so many people on this board are so heartbroken.

It is really hard to go through talking through something with your partner or working out a compromise just to find it all falls apart later.  Most recently, my ex has been threatening to get a restraining order against me.  Ever since our breakup, it's been threat, relief, threat, relief, threat, relief . . . the madness just will not end.

[Larmoyant]

I can so relate to this.The first time it happened to me was in a coffee shop. We’d only just started seeing each other when he decided it wouldn’t work between us. I got a call soon after saying he wanted to meet. I was so relieved because I really liked him. We met and it was all so positive, we could work it out, he loved me, would I like to come over to his for dinner that night, etc. 10 minutes later and I’m not exaggerating he changed his mind again. It wouldn’t work, he couldn’t do this. We parted with me feeling confused and heartbroken. I had no idea what was going on. This scenario played over and over again in different ways. No wonder we’re so wrecked at the end of it. Worse, they don’t seem to stop wanting to replay over and over again. Do they ever go away? Also, how do they live in this constant state of turmoil? I’ve been on the receiving end of it for just two years and I’m in a terrible state. How do they survive?

[Confused108]

I can so relate to this.The first time it happened to me was in a coffee shop. We’d only just started seeing each other when he decided it wouldn’t work between us. I got a call soon after saying he wanted to meet. I was so relieved because I really liked him. We met and it was all so positive, we could work it out, he loved me, would I like to come over to his for dinner that night, etc. 10 minutes later and I’m not exaggerating he changed his mind again. It wouldn’t work, he couldn’t do this. We parted with me feeling confused and heartbroken. I had no idea what was going on. This scenario played over and over again in different ways. No wonder we’re so wrecked at the end of it. Worse, they don’t seem to stop wanting to replay over and over again. Do they ever go away? Also, how do they live in this constant state of turmoil? I’ve been on the receiving end of it for just two years and I’m in a terrible state. How do they survive?

I'm sorry you went thru this. When my ex 1st started doing this with me we were early teens. Me 15 and her 14. At one time she was normal. Until my Mother came btw us. After I tried getting back with her is was yes/ then no. I love you I don't. Fast foreword and if you read then you know the rest . It can literally make a normal person go crazy. All this back and forth stuff. I know it hurts believe me I know it does. I feel because they are not sure about themselves then they are not sure about their decisions then. Lack of self they call it. They just simply don't know who they are.  My ex has not changed! Not one bit! Acts the same way she did when we were teens. In the romantic department I mean. If we think about it painting is black , blocking us on Facebook, cel , email or whatever is really just plain child like behavior. Ppl with BPD are in fact looked at as their actions to a child of 3 yo. Like when they don't get their way they "act out" with us in the receiving end. Now here is a good question. Well k ow that some of us have gone thru the I love you/ I don't. Constantly "changing " their minds. So if they do that then how in the hell do some of these ppl ever get to walk down the aisle? My ex planned her wedding to her ex husband. They dated a year got married and lasted 4 years after that! So she kept" changing" her mind with me like a light switch so how did this guy manage to marry her if she is that way? Is it just done with certain ppl? Good Question!

[Ab123]

How do they live with it / the confusion?

I don't think my exBPDbf processed it as "changing his mind."  If called out on an inconsistency (about our relationship or otherwise) he would find a way to reconcile or fall back on "I was thinking about [what he said before] but I've decided [new conclusion]."  It was confusing as hell for me, because he would state things as absolutes, and he maintained that he "always did what he said he was going to", I just learned that he could conveniently reframe commitments as "thoughts" at will, while noting his reliability each and every time he followed through with a "commitment" that had become inconvenient.   He did this about everything from hobbies, to weekend plans, to financial decisions, to our relationship. 

The hardest one for me to process was, after insisting on integrating our holiday celebrations, including his parents giving my kids presents, when I voiced concerns about sudden mixed messages re commitment to us at the end of December immediately after he realized his adult son needed to move in with him,  he tried to say he hadn't been pressing for deeper intimacy and family integration just  weeks earlier, and that he had just pushed for a joint Christmas because it "was fun."  (Everybody in his family clearly thought something marriage-like was imminent, after 15+ years of him being a bachelor. Even if he was faking it or just playing at commitment, they weren't.  I can't believe that many people would conspire to future fake my young kids.)

In the end, at least regarding us, he acknowledged that he had wanted something different, but said he just wasn't capable. But, he didn't still see it as changing his mind, and instead (illogically) blamed it entirely on external events involving his family.

So, I think, in his mind, it wasn't confusing. In any given moment, he generally had certainty and he simply didn't process the mixed messages he delivered as mixed messages. 

[Confused108]

Exactly! My ex would say hold on let me think? She said this a lot! Then after we would have phone sex she the next day would call me a friend? Well wait I thought last night I was something else?  She then would say she did a lot of thinking today etc etc. it was like she never turned her mind off. She could not commit to anything! But in the same sense I know she committed to plans with a few exs but when it came to me she never could. I just don't get it.

[paperlung]

My ex changes her mind all the time. One moment she may want to have sex with 10 different guys, another moment she wants a boyfriend, another moment she wants to get married, another moment she wants nothing to do with men, another she just wants to die, another she wants to find a job, another she wants a real career, another she wants to run away to some place, and ect. It's impossible to be with someone like her.

[Confused108]

My ex changes her mind all the time. One moment she may want to have sex with 10 different guys, another moment she wants a boyfriend, another moment she wants to get married, another moment she wants nothing to do with men, another she just wants to die, another she wants to find a job, another she wants a real career, another she wants to run away to some place, and ect. It's impossible to be with someone like her.

Are you sure we didn't date the same woman?  Mine went from she hated sex. Everyone she slept with she did t like sleeping with them. Then weeks latter oh some of it was good she said. Then she wanted to get married then told me it was too soon and tried to say I was pushing for it when it was her. Didn't want after she dumped me to have another relationship then her last words to me were her babbling about those future relationships she claimed she did t want and now was telling me in my next relationship  . I just hung up on her.

[MapleBob]

It was confusing as hell for me, because he would state things as absolutes, and he maintained that he "always did what he said he was going to", I just learned that he could conveniently reframe commitments as "thoughts" at will, while noting his reliability each and every time he followed through with a "commitment" that had become inconvenient.   He did this about everything from hobbies, to weekend plans, to financial decisions, to our relationship. 

Wow, that sounds like my ex. She definitely did the "reframing" thing a lot, where she would suddenly have come to the conclusion that she was "in denial" before, or that things "don't matter" that were stated previously with great importance, etc. I honestly think she'd spin one way and try to make a decision, only to start spinning the other way afterwards and recant.

Sometimes I wonder if it isn't also an inability to make decisions about things that are even remotely subjective. Lacking any kind of internal stability, it must be hard to make emotional value-based decisions - hence the back-and-forthing. And when it comes to intimate relationships, a lot of people take "I can't make up my mind about you" to mean "I should end this relationship." When "I can't make up my mind about you" is literally the best a pwBPD can experience, I can see how they'd continually err on the side of caution, almost by default.

That still doesn't explain why mine insisted on sabotaging any moments of peace we had in our "friendship" after the breakup, but it explains some other things... .