Red flag and sympathy.

[luckyclover]

My ex is BPD and we have been no contact for almost two months after terrible break up. She painted me very black i am the worst person on earth now she say.

I'm wondering beacuse i think now how stupid i was not saw the red flags like i was a wallpaber on her phone before i meet her for first time, she bought a toth brush before we meet, talk about marrige and name on our baby first one month.

Wtf momet she always talked i can never go away or abond her but when she start to NC and i did not know what was happening she said "I really dont know what is the problem our realationship was not so sirius" DO SHE REALLY NOT KNOW what she had said to my about babys, marrige and never go away. Best thing ever happend and looking for my all her live.

Last but not least normal people say sorry to other people if you tell them to go to hell and they are ugly. Will she ever regret that she say that to me. Just say i die tomorrow will she not be sad that the last thing she said to me was i should go to hell?

I'm asking what is your red flag,what the heck moment and sympaty storys?

P.s. sorry for my english

[Ahoy]

You know what, I beat myself up a lot for red flags that in hindsight, I missed. But how can I be expected to miss red flags that I didn't know were red flags!

I talked about marriage/kids early with my ex-wife. Yes now it seems ridiculous, but at the time I was so hooked on her and our Hollywood romance, it all seemed normal!

You might read on this forum that our borderlines gave us a 'gift', I believe they do, although it comes with an extremely high price tag. The gift is knowledge. I have gained immeasurable wisdom into love and relationships, I have gained emotional maturity and I have gained an appreciation of myself as a unique, caring individual who deserves compassion and love from someone, as much as anyone else does on planet earth.

Unfortunately, I am also still deep in recovery from my wife's betrayal. Like I said, the cost for this knowledge is steep.

Perhaps the biggest red flags I ignored were"

-My wife's victim complex (particularly with ex's)

-Her selfishness and superficial empathy

-Walking on eggshells and changing my behavior to adapt to her highly emotional states

Do you honestly think that these red flags were easily detectable? or (like many) you only now recognize them for what they are?

There is unlimited potential for self-development after a breakup such as this. My advice is to use this time not only to heal, but to really look at yourself and see what led you to this relationship and eventually these forums.

Good luck! 

[luckyclover]

Honestly i think the red flags are not very obvious you are so in love that you just think you are in heaven and this will never end. The women you love are planning your future with her. Planning where to live how we live how many children and were we will go to vacation. And for some reason you agree this everything and this is something you have been planning before you meet this girl. It is TO GOOD TO BE TRUE and that is maybe the only red flag i was sometimes thinking about and said that to her. "You are to good to be true" but she just said this happen we have just found our soulmate... .perfect match!

But somehow she also found her soulmate the same day she dumped me.

I will and want to be better persone after all this. This is great but hard experiance but i will survive and be strongar and better persone. P.S. I did not even know 4 months ago this BPD did exist.

[Dhand77]

You know what, I beat myself up a lot for red flags that in hindsight, I missed. But how can I be expected to miss red flags that I didn't know were red flags!

I talked about marriage/kids early with my ex-wife. Yes now it seems ridiculous, but at the time I was so hooked on her and our Hollywood romance, it all seemed normal!

You might read on this forum that our borderlines gave us a 'gift', I believe they do, although it comes with an extremely high price tag. The gift is knowledge. I have gained immeasurable wisdom into love and relationships, I have gained emotional maturity and I have gained an appreciation of myself as a unique, caring individual who deserves compassion and love from someone, as much as anyone else does on planet earth.

Unfortunately, I am also still deep in recovery from my wife's betrayal. Like I said, the cost for this knowledge is steep.

Perhaps the biggest red flags I ignored were"

-My wife's victim complex (particularly with ex's)

-Her selfishness and superficial empathy

-Walking on eggshells and changing my behavior to adapt to her highly emotional states

Do you honestly think that these red flags were easily detectable? or (like many) you only now recognize them for what they are?

There is unlimited potential for self-development after a breakup such as this. My advice is to use this time not only to heal, but to really look at yourself and see what led you to this relationship and eventually these forums.

Good luck! 

Very true Ahoy,

This has been an education I clearly needed in my life. It's been an education about relationships, about human behavior, about boundaries, about emotional maturity and most importantly about myself. Albeit, a really hard education, but an education nonetheless.

Some red flags were right in front of me, that I chose to ignore. More red flags appeared through out the relationship and again I chose to ignore them. I remember in the beginning thinking "I really like this girl, but with her background and how screwed up her life is, there is no way this is going to end well." Well, it obviously DIDN'T end well at all. LOL.

But I've got some red flags for you:

-victim complex

-very forth coming with private information

-abusive drunk mother

-prostitute sister (whom mom was ok with)

-drug addict sister

-heroin addict ex husband

-only had male "friends"

-told me a story of "kicking out" a guy after sex

-jealousy

-accusations and questioning when female friends would like a picture on FB

-every conversation would get warped into her talking about herself

-always miserable

-compulsive lying

-walking on eggshells to not upset her fragile emotional states

-very secretive

-spoke poorly of every person close to her including family, her kids and friends

-searching for "dirt" on me via Google and finding old message board posts circa 2010/2011

-alienating me from friends via subtle guilt trips

I could go on. Believe me. I saw the red flags, there was tons of them, but why did I press forward anyway? I was lonely. I met her at a time when I think I was fairly desperate to get into a relationship. I had been dating women off and on for two years and wanted some kind of stability. Then comes along this very beautiful, blue eyed girl with a screwed up life and then comic book nerd with a hero complex in me, thought he could save her. I was the PERFECT mark for a person with BPD. A co-dependent white knight with loneliness issues.

I saw a ton of red flags, and ignored them all. I had a gut feeling that something was off the ENTIRE time, yet I pressed forward anyway. I knew from THE START that it would end in disaster, and I went ahead anyway. Why? Because I was lonely and I thought I could fix a very sad, and lonely broken girl.

I was WRONG.

Why did you ignore the red flags, lucky clover? What was it inside yourself, that made YOU want to press forward even if your gut knew it was wrong?

[Ahoy]

There are two specific instances during my 16 month engagement to my wife where I remember asking myself "is my fiance a little mental?" I brushed this off as my own musings.

Why didn't I take a step back and REALLY look at her behavior? because I was emotionally underdeveloped. I work with a guy who radiates emotional wisdom, he has very strong boundaries and for one example, when he see's a beautiful woman single at our age (30) his first question is WHY is she single and investigates this fact.

Now I'm not saying that anyone good looking male/female who isn't married at 25 is mentally ill, he is simply asking questions because he knows someone like this would have a lot of male attention. Of course there are countless reasons why they are single, could it be they simply keep choosing bad partners OR is there something deeper that lurks below the surface.

I raced in head first, it was so magical. Too good to be true? sadly in my case yes. I think you both show insight into this subject. I for one will always listen to my gut. Even if it just means a little more scrutiny is warranted (as opposed to running in the opposite direction).

Clover please don't be too hard on yourself. If you get to the end of your life and have made the same mistake a dozen times, by all means go nuts, but I think reflection and analysis (and a few pats on the back) will keep you out of trouble in the future =)

[luckyclover]

Thanks for the answers people. That do really help just talking about it. Because all the time the relationship was good (6 months bad for 3 so 9 months) i was constantly on the phone writing two hear. I was hooked for this 6 motnths is was good but at the same time i did know it could not last for ever. We were always togheter for 6 months. Did ignore my friends and family she was all my attetion. Yes she hooked me completly. Why did i not want to see it. Well i guess i was lonely i maybe think i was burning out to getting a girl. I'm getting old (28 years i know i'm not old).

This was all so good i did just ignore that i did know it will end in horrible way. This was also the best love i have felt and feel how much she was in love with me... .that feeling it was great... .but now she was never in love with me it was all fake?

To good to be true and all that. This have teach me a BIG lesson. I know i will survive but i have to work on it my self    

Ahoy... .I did asked my self this question and did not find out why so perfect lady was single. WHY? She did never talked to me about her ex (red flag) she did just hide them. And i accidendly told her about my ex and she was mentionit all the time. It was bothering her alot i had ex.

[Dhand77]

Thanks for the answers people. That do really help just talking about it. Because all the time the relationship was good (6 months bad for 3 so 9 months) i was constantly on the phone writing two hear. I was hooked for this 6 motnths is was good but at the same time i did know it could not last for ever. We were always togheter for 6 months. Did ignore my friends and family she was all my attetion. Yes she hooked me completly. Why did i not want to see it. Well i guess i was lonely i maybe think i was burning out to getting a girl. I'm getting old (28 years i know i'm not old).

This was all so good i did just ignore that i did know it will end in horrible way. This was also the best love i have felt and feel how much she was in love with me... .that feeling it was great... .but now she was never in love with me it was all fake?

To good to be true and all that. This have teach me a BIG lesson. I know i will survive but i have to work on it my self    

Ahoy... .I did asked my self this question and did not find out why so perfect lady was single. WHY? She did never talked to me about her ex (red flag) she did just hide them. And i accidendly told her about my ex and she was mentionit all the time. It was bothering her alot i had ex.

Lucky,

It got to the point in my relationship, that she was so jealous of exes that I remaind friends with that when I told her a story, and if an ex-gf was in the story. I would change them to "a friend". Meanwhile, all she did was throw her ex-husband under the bus and talk about him ALL THE TIME. It was when after 3 years, I asked her to stop talking about him to me, the mask began to slip. Suddenly, he wasn't that bad of a guy.

About red flags again, ya know the biggest red flag I ignored? Her husband cheats. Her mother cheats. Her sisters cheat. Her half sister cheats. Yet, I blindly expected her to be different. Why? Because my boundaries sucked. I was emotionally immature and THAT is where we can take this very difficult, and very negative experience and use it to better ourselves. We get to use this to educate and learn about ourselves. We are given the gift of self awareness. Sometimes it can be difficult to look deep within our own selves, but perhaps it's a "necessary evil" to move us to the next emotional level and to live fuller, more satisfying lives.

Just know this Luckyclover. No matter what you could have done, it WAS going to implode. The relationship was doomed from the very start. It had an expiration date before it even started. All of her relationships have an expiration dates. YOU didn't fail. Her insecurities and self esteem are what undermined your relationship, it's what undermined my relationship, it's what undermined Ahoy's and everyone else here's relationship. It wasn't you Lucky, never forget that.

[Mars22]

I too overlooked many Red Flags. But, she was so vulnerable that I forged on trying to help her. Because i was committed to her well-being: However... these are few.

#1: She could never talk to me in person when there was any problem or conflict (Of course she started ALL arguments... always). Saying i was too *aggressive* (more frustration actually). Perhaps I was the first time but after that, i learned my lesson. So, I then became more measured and logical. But then, now I just "lecturing her". So, NO Communication!

#2: She would rage at me over text message, long winded texts that were just blaming me for things all the time. things I was doing or NOT doing, or acting... It was monthly and then weekly ritual. Even when i told her we needed to stop "texting emotionally divisive texts", she just continued. By the end of the r/s we just "fought' over email only. Oh btw: She's Social Worker.

#3:She just was out of a 5 year relationship and moved back in with her mother.  She's 35.

#4: Her mother and her are ALWAYS fighting, so she was always in some bad mood. Her mother also treats her like a 12 year old. Would guilt her about staying at my house over nights. So, I barely saw her. She' 35.

#4: There was always some ailments: a Cold, headaches, sinus, jaw pain from grinding her teeth at night. Always going to the doctor.

#5: Moody and always complaining about someone or something; life or work related. SO much drama

#6: She had no real interest in MY life, passions or respected any of my life wisdoms it seemed. Got forbid I gave her any kind of advice.

#7: Showed no real intimacy towards me; hug me or initiate any kind of loving gesture like, spooning up next to me when we'd watch tv or kiss me or be affectionate with me unprovoked. Keeping in mind I was blissfully treating this girl like a princes providing for her every need... finically, emotionally and other wise. She never made me feel even a little desired.

#8: Never wanted to make decision or initiate a plan or any activity. There was no "team" in this relationship.

#9: Super Jealous: Accused me of cheating and looking at other woman all the time. Even one night accused me of hitting on my friends wife while i was sitting next to her a dinner party. Possessive to a fault.

#10: Would drink and her moods would shift and she would become overly sensitive and I would find myself tempering what I would say. Usually ended with being given the silent treatment.

*Bonus*

#11: Her 71 year old, still womanizing father told her when she young that "All men are always looking for the next best thing... "  Now that great advice to tell your only child...



... .those are my top 10.

[luckyclover]

Thanks for the answers people. That do really help just talking about it. Because all the time the relationship was good (6 months bad for 3 so 9 months) i was constantly on the phone writing two hear. I was hooked for this 6 motnths is was good but at the same time i did know it could not last for ever. We were always togheter for 6 months. Did ignore my friends and family she was all my attetion. Yes she hooked me completly. Why did i not want to see it. Well i guess i was lonely i maybe think i was burning out to getting a girl. I'm getting old (28 years i know i'm not old).

This was all so good i did just ignore that i did know it will end in horrible way. This was also the best love i have felt and feel how much she was in love with me... .that feeling it was great... .but now she was never in love with me it was all fake?

To good to be true and all that. This have teach me a BIG lesson. I know i will survive but i have to work on it my self    

Ahoy... .I did asked my self this question and did not find out why so perfect lady was single. WHY? She did never talked to me about her ex (red flag) she did just hide them. And i accidendly told her about my ex and she was mentionit all the time. It was bothering her alot i had ex.

Lucky,

It got to the point in my relationship, that she was so jealous of exes that I remaind friends with that when I told her a story, and if an ex-gf was in the story. I would change them to "a friend". Meanwhile, all she did was throw her ex-husband under the bus and talk about him ALL THE TIME. It was when after 3 years, I asked her to stop talking about him to me, the mask began to slip. Suddenly, he wasn't that bad of a guy.

About red flags again, ya know the biggest red flag I ignored? Her husband cheats. Her mother cheats. Her sisters cheat. Her half sister cheats. Yet, I blindly expected her to be different. Why? Because my boundaries sucked. I was emotionally immature and THAT is where we can take this very difficult, and very negative experience and use it to better ourselves. We get to use this to educate and learn about ourselves. We are given the gift of self awareness. Sometimes it can be difficult to look deep within our own selves, but perhaps it's a "necessary evil" to move us to the next emotional level and to live fuller, more satisfying lives.

Just know this Luckyclover. No matter what you could have done, it WAS going to implode. The relationship was doomed from the very start. It had an expiration date before it even started. All of her relationships have an expiration dates. YOU didn't fail. Her insecurities and self esteem are what undermined your relationship, it's what undermined my relationship, it's what undermined Ahoy's and everyone else here's relationship. It wasn't you Lucky, never forget that.

About this ex relationship. I did mention just in the beginning few days after we start to talk. If she have had ex boyfriend. And she answered "Past is in the past" (red flag) She never wanted to talk about it any more nothing i know nothing about her ex. Just i'm ex now and know how her new victim is. I mentioned once "my ex like pasta (for example)"  and after that i could never mention pasta or never eat pasta when i was with her beacuse then i was well almost cheating on her. I was almost like i was cheating on her if i eat pasta. Glued to her brain forever. She remebered that but not remeber the (good) moments i remeber.

When you talk about all her cheating relatives... .i got a question. Why is she BPD what did happen to people who have borderline. She told me she had have diffcult to blend in when she was young and was a tom boy. She told me she not like her mother a lot she talks more to her father. I sure that something between her and her mother is/was wrong.

[HoneyB33]

I definitely have struggled in looking back and feeling so "stupid" for the red flags that I ignored. But the truth is that while I was struggling with these things, I didn't fully have the knowledge to understand that they were warnings. I just saw how angry and frustrated I became, and blamed myself. Like with her hyper-synsativity, I just thought I needed to be more patient and understanding. So while I was exhausted with all of this, I didn't realize that someone making me walk on eggshells was a red flag. I thought I was the one making her walk on egg shells because she was so afraid of my bad moods! It was all completely turned around. I totally internalized her hyper-synastivity as me being the bad guy. My ex went as far in our relationship as trying to convince me that I had BPD. I had never even heard of it. I internalized my reactions to her so much that I accepted the label. That and she was trying SO hard to convince me... .It wasn't until way later that I realized that my supposed "issues" were in direct reaction to her. Ppl tend to have "abandonment" issues when you threaten to throw them away like a piece of trash. Etc. I think the biggest one for me was that my ex made me believe I was abusive because I responded to her with anger. I would get so exhausted with her victim mentality, and "helplessness", but again I just saw this as a reflection upon me, rather than what was causing me to feel this way.

Anyways, in short, what I felt emotionally and mentally didn't yet have the words to define them. So while I knew things were wrong, I felt like I had not way to "prove" it. I can totally relate in always looking back and feeling that anger of "I wish I had ____", but I think we have to just see this as not a push down on us, but as a step up into ourselves, and trusting our gut.