How ambitious was your ex?

[Nuitari]

I mean career-wise? School and career goals were the most important things for my ex. It was the one aspect of her life where she seemed to have it together. She was studying to be a dentist. Is it common for a pwBPD to have high career goals and actually stay motivated by them while the rest of his/her world is a dysfunctional mess? I know that BPD sufferers often have addictions. Mine really liked sex and drinking. She needed both very often. But I'm not sure these were true addictions for her. I think of addicitions as things that tend to spill over into other aspects of a person's life, thereby sabatoging them. This didn't appear to be the case with my ex, who made school a top priority and never let anything interfere with it. My ex wouldn't hesitate to turn down sex or alcohol if she had to study for a test or write a paper. After a while I began to feel like I was just a tool used to satisfy her sexually while her real love was her school. Not that I think there is anything wrong with valueing school/career goals over relationships. We all have different priorities, and one person's priority is no more "right" or "wrong" than another's.  I'm just wandering if it is typical for people with BPD to have that much drive and focus.

[Akita]

My BPDw has 2 bachelor's degrees.  I don't know if I'd call her driven but she can accomplish a lot if she decides to... .that's the key... .she has to decide to otherwise it's the road of least resistance.  She struggles to follow other people's directions or advice.  She is insubordinate at work in an underhanded way.  She also dislikes nearly all her co-workers and has a hard time collaborating.  Completing tasks her psychologist wants her to do... .completely different story... .she doesn't see the point so she doesn't commit.  She doesn't intentionally NOT do what he suggests... .she just can't seem to break her patterns.  He wants her to own the suggestions even though they were his ideas... .she struggles with that thought process.

[sweet tooth]

Mine was all talk. "I wanna do this. I wanna do that," but it usually disnMt come to fruition. She had a Master's degree.

[KarmasReal]

My exBPD was similar to sweettooths, all talk. Don't get me wrong she was intelligent, well read, but she gave up school, didn't really know her direction, worked mostly easy retail jobs. She would want to start doing all kinds of things, learn a language, play an instrument, etc., she never went through with any of it.

[findingmyselfagain]

I would guess that it varies. Mine seemed relatively ambitious as in she talked a good game. She wanted to breed Great Danes. Not the smallest or easiest breed. I ended up stuck taking care of a 90 pound puppy for a month and a half after we broke up while I waited for her to return the puppy to the breeder. I made it clear to her early on that the dogs would be her responsibility and I would only help if I was free. I probably should have made the four hour trip myself. Oh well. She also wanted a horse farm. Things always seemed great from far off while you could dream. Actual reality is what always kicked her butt somehow. Though her reality wasn't anything like the reality that we experience.

[findingmyselfagain]

One of the few smart decisions I made in the r/s was making her pay the deposit on the dog, because you don't get your money back when you return a dog to a breeder!

[Leonis]

My ex switched between different jobs in the health field since the age of 18 to 25 (now).

She started off as CNA because she wanted to be a nurse, but she couldn't handle the stress dealing with patient's pain, etc.

Then, she took a part-time as pharmacy-tech and decided to pursue medical technologies so she could still be in the field, but not dealing with patients. She also took pre-pharmacy courses. Took her 6 years to eventually get her BS in Med Tech, we met during our internship. Since then, she wondered if she still wanted to pursue pharmacy, masters in med tech, or maybe just stay put. We had combined income of roughly $95k a year.

Earlier this year, she decided to apply to get an associates in sonography in hopes to eventually become an imaging technologist, which would need another bachelor's. Originally, we planned on having me being the sole income in order for her not to be so overworked. We would only have half the income, but definitely livable. Now, she probably has to drop down to part-time, which I don't know if her company offers, or have to tank it out working full-time and going to school.

She definitely puts herself in tough spots for some reason. I recall her parents telling me that she changed jobs often ever since she was old enough to work.

[Nuitari]

My ex also wanted to be in the health field. Sense knowing her, she's changed career paths three times. When I met her she wanted to be a physical therapist. Then she decided she liked optometry. Then she decided on dentistry. I honestly thought she would stick with that one. She finished all of her general prerequisite courses (She's very smart. Had a 3.94 GPA), took the dental admissions test, and applied to eight or nine different schools. She unfortunately didn't get accepted into any of them. I think this is largely because she waited so late in the year to apply. By the time the schools received all of her application materials, most of their available slots were already filled. I encouraged her to apply again next time around. I don't know if she's doing this because we don't talk anymore, but I don't expect her to apply again. Her success is very tied to her sense of self-worth, and she took the rejections very personally. It was the most important thing in the world to her but, knowing her, she has probably already detached (just like she's detached from everything else in her life at the first sign of trouble) and has moved on to something else. I consider her a lot smarter than myself, and I have a MS in physics. I know she could be very successful in any field, if she would only commit to one instead of jumping around all over the place and giving up every time she encounters an obstacle.

[sweet tooth]

My exBPD was similar to sweettooths, all talk. Don't get me wrong she was intelligent, well read, but she gave up school, didn't really know her direction, worked mostly easy retail jobs. She would want to start doing all kinds of things, learn a language, play an instrument, etc., she never went through with any of it.

Mine sounds similar to yours. She has a Master's Degree but is way underemployed for education level (and in a different field than her degree). Over the time I knew her she told me she was going to:

-get an MBA

-get a phD in psychology (she dropped out of her phD program when she got divorced... .and it wasn't in psychology)

-take courses at Cornell

-write a children's book with me

-get a job in our state's capital city in her Master's field (which is a 2 hour ride away)

-stay at her job for 5 years

-stay at her job for 1 year and then move on

Guess what? None of it happened. She's still living with her parents (even though she gets child support and could probably afford to move out) and at the same job.

[sweet tooth]

Things always seemed great from far off while you could dream. Actual reality is what always kicked her butt somehow. Though her reality wasn't anything like the reality that we experience.

YES. Exactly

[Wantingtochange]

Mine was a work horse. She worked and worked. I have respect for what she accomplished. She went from nothing to building herself up and becoming financially sound very quickly... .

[GreenEyedMonster]

Mine has a Masters degree but was generally a very unmotivated person.

He wouldn't take direction from anyone in life except his mother, who had passed away a few years before I met him.  I suspect if it weren't for her, he may not have even made it through undergrad.  He had a very enmeshed/emotionally incestuous relationship with her and actually did not lose his virginity until after she died, because she would become so irate if he spent too much time with another woman.  (He was 37   )  If she wanted him to accomplish something, he went after it.  He has no drive on his own.

He worked for ten years in the field he chose for his bachelor's degree and was very talented at it, from what I can see.  He quit that job to get his masters and never got a job in his masters field, in part because of his extreme emotional issues.  He is capable of doing jobs that don't entail having relationships with people.  Jobs that require building a rapport or relationship bring out his paranoia and intimacy issues.  He ended up working for a temp agency, which worked well for him, because he made money without the challenges of dealing with a consistent group of colleagues or a boss.  He has another job now -- I don't know where -- but I can't imagine it's long for this world if it involves knowing and being known.  Relationships are by far his biggest obstacle to achieving anything in life, which is sad, because he is a very intellectually gifted individual.

The only people he seems to trust are a few select family members, and even that is a long shot.

[blackbirdsong]

It is very interesting topic. I was thinking about this a lot during our r/s.

For example, my exGF was very successful during 'controlled' environment.

She was one of the best students in her class, she is extremely intelligent and had great results in college.

Now she regrets her diploma because she founds it not so useful, and it is not a domain that gets you high-paid jobs, altough it is very interesting and 'noble'... .

Also, her 'work' is in totally different domain, so that adds to her opinion how she wasted her time in getting her master degree.

She is also successful in her current domain but it is not so satisfactory because, like I said, she is very inteligent, and current domain doesn't exploit this.

She has a lot of plans: new college, new private business, career switch etc. Lots of planning but zero action... .

Also, I mentioned 'controlled' environment... .By that I mean this:

When you are in high school, college etc you have in advance known requirements you need to fulfil for 'great' success and great results. For an exam you need to learn "this, this and this... .". In large number of cases you can control your success. But when this controlled environment dissapears, when you step in a real life, there are numerous possibilites so a person who does not have a developed self can be confused by this and 'life anxiety' can occur. You realize that you are not controlling the situation because there are too much parameters.

At least, this is my opinion. I realized this because I was looking for similarities between myself and my exGF. I think we both have something similar in this pattern, but she is more severe case because I think I managed to accept that I cannot control everything, I need to choose something and strive in that direction. She wants it all, she cannot accept that she cannot be rich, calm, beautiful, occupied with different interesting things, have a lot of free time, time for herself, spending a lot of time with her friends, famous, have privacy, ... .at the same time. 

[Fr4nz]

In general, BPDs can be divided into two categories: high-functioning and low-functioning. The former can be very successful when it comes to their jobs and friendships, while the latter category usually have big, big issues with commitment and stability.

Mine is, somehow, "borderline" () between high and low functioning, in the sense that she has periods where she's high-functioning (i.e., pretty stable at work), while others where she's definitely low-functioning; in the last 2 years she's been quite low-functioning for what concerns work. As for her intelligence she's very clever - I mean, if she'd want she could strive for a PhD; also, if she commits to something, she's definitely able to shine.

Problem is, she's unable to commit to a specific job for a long time -- in the last 1,5 years she changed something like 4-5 jobs. Motivations are always the same: she gets bored OR she fights with the employer for some reason OR she says that people around her are incompetent (while she pretend to be a genius) OR she blows up everything with some stupid action.

She also still has to get her bachelor degree - mind that she's almost 34 y/o.

In conclusion, I think it's safe to say that many BPDs are actually very clever; problem is, the disorder horribly hampers their potential.

[Nuitari]

I think that is definitely true with my ex. She can't achieve her aspirations because of the disorder. She adopts the same attitude and behavior towards her school and career paths that she does in relationships. She chooses on a particular career path and pursues it vigorously. I really had to admire her drive and determination. She didn't let anything stand in her way. In her mind, this or that career was going to THE thing that solved all of her problems, the thing that was going to give her life meaning and chase away the emptiness she feels. But something inevitably happens that makes her feel not good enough. A college rejecting her application, for example. Then she has to flee from the situation and never look back. In the blink of an eye, she's on to something else. Once a career goal stops making her feel special and does something to let her down, she has to leave it for another one. We see this behavior from borderlines in relationships, but I think the disorder can often show itself as a history of erratic and unpredictable career choices as well.

The weird thing is, when I would ask my ex why she liked this or that field (whatever she was pursuing at the time), she couldn't even tell me. Getting into dental school was the most important thing in the world to her. I asked her once what was it about dentistry that appealed to her. She didn't even know. Her decision to go into dentistry was literally a spur of the moment decision, and then it became her whole world.

[A_RandomWanderer]

Hello fellow forum posters, new here.

My BPDex had grand visions and enthusiasm when entering into something but it seldom lasted. University - dropped out after a few months, Various jobs then just left without ever going back, or fired.

I would class her as an intelligent person, she was not stupid but ultimately she could not seem to hold down anything, and she was reckless in many ways including money.

Last i heard her new found path is going to be training up in the mental health field, a therapist or something. However (and this may make me seem mean spirited) but i find this quite chilling. My initial assumption to this revelation was basically thinking its a way for her to learn how to mask and hide her abusive behavior, with more efficiency.  

Maybe that is just the paranoia in me now, I understand some people may want to pursue this career to hopefully understand themselves better.

[sweet tooth]

Last i heard her new found path is going to be training up in the mental health field, a therapist or something. However (and this may make me seem mean spirited) but i find this quite chilling. My initial assumption to this revelation was basically thinking its a way for her to learn how to mask and hide her abusive behavior, with more efficiency.  

A decent amount of people in the mental health field have mental health problems themselves or are otherwise bizarre.