not sure what to think...

[wheretostart0]

Ill try to make this brief . So I had an intimacy with a girl I worked with I highly suspect of BPD/NPD or maybe both. One day after a few flirty interactions she gave me her number. She began seemingly "chasing" me, after about 2-3 weeks of nothing but texting she finally out of the blue one morning tells me shes coming over. The saga officially begins.

A week later shes back and we have sex. Things went well for the next few months, sex every other time, a lot of fun and she constantly texted and seeked my attention. Shed test me a lot... always bringing up different guys and so on, ect, she wanted a reaction. One day we were "dating" as shed say... the next week we weren't. Few nights I wouldn't hear from her and had a weird feeling she was with another guy.

After the end of the third month she began to pull back but I was hooked, I had a needy moment with her when she cancelled plans for a consecutive time and made a big deal about it. From that point it all went downhill, the sex stopped and shed make excuses, continued to initiate contact but different and distant. And our interactions at work basicly put me in a really needy and weak position, pretty bad. She basicly threw another guy in my face at work but I acted like I didn't notice and walked away. After me really pulling back and a few days of radio silence she finally decided to charm me back, made plans and we had sex after a month of nothing. Problem is nothing ever went back to the honeymoon phase after that, and 7 days later I forget her birthday and was painted black. She wouldn't even look at me and since then its all a blur... .

From then until now over the course of 4-5 months shes stayed in low contact. She cancelled plans tons of times, weve argued alot. Ive said WAY TOO MUCH, this girl picked me apart, and took sex completely off the table. Ive had way too many emotional moments with her. In my eyes it was a loss of attraction and basicly just used me for the attention.

The end of last month after playing it REALLY COOL for a couple months I felt like I was getting the attraction back... she wasn't cancelling plans, and then bam... she did it again. Instead of playing it cool I started a war, was super needy, maybe the biggest ever... she told me "she didn't want a relationship" ect ect. Which I knew already. Tried friendzoning me which I wont agree to. I threw in her face I had been talking to another girl for the second time... she tried to play like she was jealous but I doubt actually was. In my eyes this might have been the last blowup to seal the deal. She contacted me three days later after the smoke cleared basicly saying "hey don't try to make plans".  

I usually never chase her or initiate contact but this past week I initiated contact twice where shes just been super ice cold... .barely says anything... im almost talking to myself... .wont come see me, no shot.

Shes a quiet BPD, VERY quiet... and anything involving feelings is a major turnoff to her. She revealed once in the honeymoon phase she used to harm herself. SUPER insecure about herself.

My plan is to never contact her again. Thing is... I want this girl in my life. Problem is... I think I may have permanently burnt the attraction. Can I turn this around?

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Fr4nz]

If she's BPD, then you want to stay away from her. You can clearly see her dysfunctional "games", so you know the answer... .

[wheretostart0]

She is without a doubt.

She just knows I want to see her badly and move forward. So much miscommunication and she just lacks any empathy whatsoever. She told me we would "move past it"... I was asking for respect and balance and she took it as I was trying to smother her into a relationship, I can't find a middle ground like the early stages. If I text her to explain then I care too much and she won't see me... If I let it linger she won't forget what I said taken the wrong way. I'm cooked  

[Icanteven]

She is without a doubt.

She just knows I want to see her badly and move forward. So much miscommunication and she just lacks any empathy whatsoever. She told me we would "move past it"... I was asking for respect and balance and she took it as I was trying to smother her into a relationship, I can't find a middle ground like the early stages. If I text her to explain then I care too much and she won't see me... If I let it linger she won't forget what I said taken the wrong way. I'm cooked  

I'm on the internet, so please take this thought in the spirit it's given and not as some sort or tough love or snarky comment:  you have three months with this woman; at a minimum, she is into head games and control and using sex as a weapon.  Yet you've spent even longer trying to get back to the nascent stages of an aborted relationship.  So, two questions:

1)  Why?  This is a game to her.  Is it a game to you to get her back so you can prove that you are worthy somehow?

2)  As someone married to an oft-misdiagnosed mentally ill spouse who walked out on our marriage and our children, why do you even want to go near this?  My wife is a former fashion model and a goddess in bed, but if we didn't have children I would have taken it as a blessing when she left.  I hear about love a lot on this board, and I love my wife dearly, but good god why would you want to put yourself through this?  I know in my heart I will almost certainly never be with a woman as beautiful as her for the rest of my life (and I'm still relatively young), and I can't even think of a serious competitor to her prowess in the bedroom, yet that might be ok to get myself and our children away from the craziness.  

They mirror.  They love bomb.  And, at some point, they burn your life to ashes.  You're relatively lucky.  Find an emotionally healthy partner and move forward.

[livednlearned]

Hi wheretostart0,

Welcome and hello  

I'm glad you found the site and sorry for what brings you here. BPD relationships can be so painful, so confusing and it takes real work to figure out what's going on. So often, things are not as they appear. Meanwhile, like you said, you want this girl in your life. There is something about her that touches you deeply. Many of us feel that way about our BPD loved ones.

BPD is an impulse-driven disorder and the girl you describe likely has an unstable sense of self. For some BPD sufferers, there are issues of object-constancy, splitting, black and white thinking, and other cognitive distortions that can be very confusing. Someone here once described BPD as a sort of repository where every grief is stored because negative emotions are never processed and resolved. Each time she feels hurt, you experience the full force of that entire repository of grief. She may not be able to recognize how she works, only that she must get her primal needs met to avoid the intense pain of facing that overwhelming repository of feeling.

And probably most common, something you described really well, is how we ourselves become needy, the exact opposite of what someone with BPD wants and needs -- an emotionally strong partner. It takes a lot of strength to not be emotionally injured by someone who suffers from BPD. And at the same time, many of their behaviors can strip us of our ability to be the strong person they need.

This is a place to work on those skills, and to understand what is happening in the relationship so we can make sense of it.

From what you have described, she pushes you away when you pull her towards you. It may be a good idea to recenter yourself and get back to the headspace you were in when you met -- the super attractive awesome guy you where when the two of you first met. 

Is that something you can do?

[livednlearned]

I was asking for respect and balance and she took it as I was trying to smother her into a relationship

Hey, just saw this ... .a lot of BPD sufferers have a fear of engulfment. They don't tend to have boundaries and so even a hint of control can trigger a fear response. She lacks basic skills to manage what are for her intense feelings, and also lacks the skills to assert normal boundaries. Her response, then, is to reject the whole person in order to preserve a pretty shaky sense of self.

The miscommunication is confusing when you can't see what's happening. It gets much easier when you understand the purpose of validation. We can walk alongside you if those are skills you want to learn and apply.