Living together

[blackbirdsong]

Based on my own experience and based on the many stories here, I believe one of the major triggers occurs when you start living together. I believe that level of closeness really triggers BPD's engulfment fears and rage episodes escalate.

What do you think about this?

Lesson for BlackBirdSong: Never marry someone before you lived with her for significant amount of time. :D

[Lexisdad]

I am of the same belief. Started ivf procedures october 1st and was starting to move in with her and her son. From Oct 1st to the day before the ivf procedure Dec 3rd i experienced rage like ive never seen. 10 seperate incidents including one so stupid as me sitting on the love seat instead of the couch. Thrown out of her house 3 times in that span. I believe moving in and the impending pregnancy sparked major engulfement issues and she ended the relationship and cancelled the ivf the day before the procedure. She has never had any man in a relationship live with her in her 36 years. Yes, they may have stayed over but never moved in. Now looking back that was a major red flag.

[Lexisdad]

I just needed to add this. As a police officer it often crossed my mind what would happen when we moved in together. I never carried my weapon off duty when i was with her. After witnessing the rage she exhibited towatds the end i often wonder what could have happened if she had access to my weapons once i moved in. The rages she displayed towards me were amongst the worst ive seen in any one. Almost every one revolved around either my ex wife or dyllusional jeoulosy that i was having other affairs.

[SummerStorm]

My BPD friend moved in with her now ex-boyfriend on April 25th last year, the day after she started having an affair with me.  Well, she started moving in, at least.  A week later, she was begging me to get an apartment with her because living with him was always supposed to be "temporary."  Then, she changed her mind and made the decision to stay with him and to move across the country with him, to live with her parents. On May 15th, she got into a fight with him.  On May 16th, she hit him for the first time.  All of this went on for a few weeks, and then she tried to kill herself.  Two months later, while they were in the middle of packing and getting ready to move in with her parents, she broke up with him. 

Romantic partners really are the worst for her, but she honestly can't live with anyone.  She lived with a friend a few years ago, and when all was said and done, they weren't friends anymore, and all my BPD friend did was trash the other girl behind her back.  She can't live with her mom because she treats her mom like crap.  She stayed with some close friends of the family a while back, and they couldn't wait to get rid of her. 

[blackbirdsong]

Yes, exactly. I really tried to recognize this pattern from many different sources (even pwBPD stories) and it really is true in many cases.

[Lexisdad]

In my 6 year relationship with her i attempted to move in no less than 15 times. Each time it became a blowout with rage and i didn't move in. I think this time since she was gonna be pregnant i told her i wasn't living 40 minutes away and had to move in. Thats when things really got crazy and she turned into a monster ive never seen before. Yes, she raged often, these were off the chart. My attitude now is i dodged more than a bullet probally an ied and she s nothing more than a verbally abusive headcase. Like her son often told her, "mom, you have more problems with him than a math book"!

[MapleBob]

One of the only times I saw my uBPDex do anything eyebrow-raising in person was when I brought up the idea of living together. We were long distance (in different countries, but not far away) and she wasn't in a position to be able to move, so that task was going to fall to me. I very lightly broached the subject (almost a year into our relationship) of "hey, I could probably move here a lot faster if I was just moving in with you, even for a little while, while job-hunting... ."

She got up all wide-eyed and panicked-looking and left the room, without saying a word. If that's not engulfment fear I don't know what is.