List of unacceptable behavior..

[TheRiddler]

Hey everyone,

I took the advice of several people here and put together a list of how I was abused, and general self affirmations.  This is a bit personal, but I hope it helps others as well as me by hearing your reactions. 


We "broke up" and got together all the time... For like an hour or two

":)o you even like me?  I know you want to just ___ me and leave, you don't love me"

"I'm not a robot, I have emotions!"

Didn't mean to stalk you so quick... (She said this at the beginning)

Said how deeply she felt things often

"I miss you when you're not here" in little girl voice

Threatened me / lots of emotional blackmail
"Maybe my next boyfriend will marry me"

Accused me of being a pedophile... Never apologized... I had to convince her

"He's huge" (my penis size) in sarcastic voice to friends, repeatedly

Wanted a Tiffany ring

"Lap of luxury girl," she said constantly.

Not so healthy obsession with stuffed animals and Disney

Looking for a vaguely man-shaped object, not necessarily me (assumption)

Said she wanted to live with me, but she just wanted out of her Mom’s house (the tone she used said it all, staring at her phone while she tries to convincingly tell me she wants to live with me) SHE':) LATER SAY SHE THOUGHT WE WOULD FIGHT TOO MUCH

Put me in charge of apartments so she’d have a scapegoat should i not find something. 

When I would try to explain myself or comfort her when she’d have a problem, she’d start giving me weird looks, feign biting my fingers, and saying, “I know but... ” to stop the flow of logic

not into any form of exercise, except for ballet, which isn’t really exercise, and she fell over

constant mysterious illnesses

"you never commented on my boobs, most guys do" (beginning of r/s)

"you can’t see my underwear even though I saw yours!" (3rd date)

beginning of 2 month “break,” she says we’re not in the same place because we want different things; when it’s discovered we actually want the same things that she’d listed (marriage, etc... ), she wants different things (going from marriage and such to time by herself)

wants horses / cow / could never pay for them

Bad communication; used manipulation and threats instead of speaking wants and needs

I'm not painted black (she was looking for me on LinkedIn)

Expected me to be a mind reader (expected me to propose without a real discussion, outside of vague threats)

Kept bringing up the fact that I lived a short distance away; wouldn’t have gotten with me if she’d known, yet she stayed with me, and continued to complain

Nickname Goldfish... Always picking on my memory, and using it as a means to gaslight (of course you don't remember, goldfish!), and insult

65 year old bf... (Because of my taste in music and film)

Ass slapping, pouted all night after I asked her to stop

Dreams about evil "Mean (my first name)" to manipulate... Real?

Called me a mama's boy

"No other couple I know worries this much about money"

Tesla dealer: "do you see any other girlfriends in here?"

[TheRiddler]

Threatened to break up if I told her I wanted to leave because an argument wasn't going anywhere, got me to stay

Would start crying hysterically at seemingly simple misunderstandings

[pjstock42]

The stuffed animal thing hits close to home, I wonder how many other people's BPD ex did this as well... .

[Rayban]

Don't get the Tesla dealer part.

[TheRiddler]

Don't get the Tesla dealer part.

She got on me because there were no other women in the Tesla dealership.  It's a small thing, but memorable for me.

[TheRiddler]

"I love you more than you love me"... Not sure if that's projection or what...

[MapleBob]

Saying "I love you" and "I really don't care about you/this" in literally the same conversation.

[zonnebloem]

 

Talking about stuffed animals!

With easter my ex, Bd, got a stuffed Easterbunny.

He very much loved to hold it when I wasn't around, to sleep with it.
I remember many years ago, I had a stuffed dog to seek comfort when going to sleep.

We need soo much love... .so much affection.

[TheRiddler]

Saying "I love you" and "I really don't care about you/this" in literally the same conversation

I'm curious, did what mine say strike you as odd?  The thing about me not loving her?

[gotbushels]

Good list TheRiddler.

I have a few of my own.

To give you some confidence that often these needs are not really about you--but instead the BP's pathology--I tell you that I did at least one of those things on the list. She was maybe satisfied with it for a grand total of 2 hours (over several months)? She treated it horrifically.

It was extremely expensive in many ways to me. It took me a long time and a lot of self-searching to learn to look at it as a blessing. In fact, I'm still sore!   

I'm glad you wrote your list out. If your experience is like mine it will help you maintain a sense of reality.

[TheRiddler]

I tell you that I did at least one of those things on the list. She was maybe satisfied with it for a grand total of 2 hours (over several months)? She treated it horrifically.

What thing was that?

[Stripey77]

Sorry, I don't mean to make light of this, really I don't (although I sometimes have to try to laugh because the reality of it all is just to awful) But... .

She wanted a COW?

[gotbushels]

Sorry TheRiddler I'm not sharing that for privacy reasons. The point is to consider not to try to fill that black hole with expensive mistakes. The damage becomes big ticket.

Suppose it's the horse. $1-10? $4 per year maintenance? 2 years before you realise the mistake and sell it? That's $10k easy. I didn't include paying someone to feed it or train it. For 2 hours of her shallow happiness? Then another tantrum?

Oh and by the way, if your BP decides to use your purchase as a basis for dysregulating, then you'll have to manage her at every new burst. If you don't get it now, you'll get it when your $ is bled out of you like a desiccated apple.

[MapleBob]

Saying "I love you" and "I really don't care about you/this" in literally the same conversation

I'm curious, did what mine say strike you as odd?  The thing about me not loving her?

Oh no, mine said that too. Not at all odd for a pwBPDtraits to think that they're the more invested one in the relationship. I was referring to my ex saying that she "didn't care" repeatedly in a conversation and then closing with basically the equivalent of "love you, take care", which happened over and over again after the discard. Mixed messages, which drives home the point that you don't abuse people and then claim that you love them.

[TheRiddler]

MapleBob:
Gotcha, thanks.

Stripey77:
Yeah, yeah she did.  And she works retail.  I'd brought this up with friends assuming it was a typical thing, but it was always met with dumbfounded expressions.  She completely shut off when it came to discussing the practical side of frigging cow ownership.

[Wood stock]

Hey guys... .can I reverse that scenario for a minute? My BPD ex actually bought me a Tiffany's diamond ring (HE insisted it be that; I had never even THOUGHT about a Tiffany's ring before as I am a simple girl). So... .he proposes; I agree (with reservations); and after I was wearing the ring... .he thought he could behave in any way he wanted because he had put the expensive ring on my finger. Also, every argument resulted in his immediately saying "take the ring off." All a big show--a big power play. I'm still trying to figure out the common thread with BPD individuals and material things.

[balletomane]

I'm still trying to figure out the common thread with BPD individuals and material things.

My ex was the opposite. He had very few possessions and of those he had, not many seemed important to him. He did describe one book he had as "a special book", as it had been a present from the author and was signed by her, but he'd never actually sat down and read it. Most people have a few meaningful souvenirs that they've picked up as they go through life, but he had none. Of the gifts I gave him, only one seemed to be welcomed (and even then he commented that it was the wrong colour - to be fair, he seemed to regret saying that as soon as it had come out of his mouth and reassured me that it was nice). The others were just met with confusion or lack of interest. The final present I gave him, three weeks before I was discarded, was received with mocking laughter and, "What is this supposed to be?" Then he said he was going to put it in the cupboard where he wouldn't have to see it. During our relationship, he never gave me gifts, not on my birthday, not for Christmas. On the day he discarded me in favour of his flatmate he did bring me something, a little badge with an owl on it. He knows I like owls and I think he honestly thought this was a kind gesture of goodwill, accompanying the revelation that he'd been cheating on me with a present.

[TheRiddler]

-Upset when our early sex life wasn't as satisfying for me as she'd have wanted, told me, "sex is what I'm good at" (paraphrasing)

-whenever I was making her friends laugh she'd yell "don't listen to him!" to shut me down, and then give me a weird smile.

[GreenEyedMonster]

I'm having a hard time seeing how wanting an expensive ring or a horse has anything to do with having a personality disorder.  Making threats about leaving you if she doesn't get them, or acting like if you really love her you'll give her these things -- that's different. 

The parts where she can't decide whether or not she wants to be close to you stand out as the real red flags to me.  Those are signs of someone with an unstable sense of self who is emotionally immature.  Some of the rest is just being entitled or having unrealistically expensive taste. 

It's easy to want to ascribe everything you didn't like about this person to a personality disorder or mental illness.  Truth be told, there are a lot of people out there who do things that are strange or frustrating that aren't signs of mental illness.  They are just signs of incompatibility.  One man's trash is another man's treasure.

My ex did similar things, but I'm not sure how much was mental illness.  For example, he worked as a temp and had the ability to turn jobs down on a day to day basis.  He would stay home and build Lego robots rather than go to work, just because he felt like it, when he was living below the federal poverty level.  He has difficulty committing to ideas or courses of action.  Some of the other things he did were just plain annoying, but perhaps not a product of a mental disorder.

[TheRiddler]

GreenEyedMonster

No one's saying they're strictly the behavior of the disordered, but they're definitely questionable behaviors.  I'm well aware of incompatibility, but combined with other things I'd experienced, it seems to fit.

And I'd argue that wanting a horse without any real idea of what it'd take to own one (not to mention the means), are the kind of unrealistic requests pwBPD are known for, from what I read.  At the least, it's a super unreasonable thing for a 30 year old woman living at her mom's house to desire.  And a damn cow.  If you'd like to continue this particular discussion, please pm me.

[balletomane]

There are many things in your list that do throw up massive red flags, but I think GreenEyedMonster has a point. With my ex I normalised his extreme behaviours as a way of coping - for example, when he was verbally abusive, I would say to myself, "Everyone gets snappy sometimes," even though there's a big difference between being impatient and being cruel like that. I think sometimes we use this coping strategy in reverse, so we start to pathologise irritating-but-normal behaviour, reading everything our exes did in light of BPD. When I got to one part of your post - "Not into any form of exercise, except for ballet, which isn’t really exercise, and she fell over" - I did struggle to see how not being sporty or being able to keep her balance when dancing is an example of unacceptable behaviour. That does sound more like a compatibility issue, and like it doesn't belong in the same list as accusing you of being a paedophile or threatening you. I know that evaluating all our exes' behaviour through BPD glasses can feel very liberating at first, especially if you spent a long time denying there was anything bad happening to you or believing that problems were your fault (which so many of us did). But ultimately pathologising everything is just as ineffective for recovery and moving on as normalising their behaviour is, as it's still a skewed way of looking at the situation.

[GreenEyedMonster]

balletomane, you captured my point exactly.

The reason I brought it up is because there tends to be a trend on this board to pathologize everything exes do, whether it is part of the diagnostic criteria for BPD or not.  We are not psychologists, and BPD has very clear diagnostic criteria in the DSM.  To add things to that list, as amateurs, based on what we see on message boards or on "recovery" websites that are thinly veiled hate sites directed at people with mental illness is ultimately ill-informed and perpetuates incorrect ideas about the disorder.  There might also be things about our exes that we personally dislike or are not compatible with but are not pathological.  :)isordered or not, people have the right to pursue what they want in a relationship, and sometimes what they want is not us.

There are many people with personality disorders who are immature in certain ways because they haven't grown into emotional adulthood.  You may have noticed that, too.  But you can't say that doing things like playing Pokemon or playing with Legos as an adult makes someone disordered, or is even a red flag -- there are plenty of perfectly healthy individuals who do those things.  Whether or not you find it attractive is up to you.

[TheRiddler]

Guys, it's a list of questionable behaviors, not necessarily borderline ones (though many point that way).  I'm not one to grasp at straws, and there's more than enough evidence to suggest she's BPD, these are just odd things of note.  The fact that you think I think ballet has anything to do with the disorder makes me think you haven't caught the spirit of the thread.   

[GreenEyedMonster]

The fact that you think I think ballet has anything to do with the disorder makes me think you haven't caught the spirit of the thread.  

Expressing opinions like your view that ballet is not "real" exercise is very subjective and seems to be primarily a reflection of your personal preferences and opinions.  I think those of us who are responding to you are having a hard time figuring out how this fits into a conversation about dealing with a BPD breakup.  If that is a turn-off for you in a partner, that is fine, it's your relationship, but the readers here are naturally going to assume you're making a connection to BPD because of the larger context of the discussion.  The thread title "unacceptable behaviors" seems to be a general topic about deal-breaking behavior in pwBPD, but it seems like those of us who assumed so are not understanding your larger point.

[gotbushels]

Hey guys... .can I reverse that scenario for a minute? (... .) Also, every argument resulted in his immediately saying "take the ring off." All a big show--a big power play. I'm still trying to figure out the common thread with BPD individuals and material things.

This is a great opportunity for a learning experience. Our BPs were different sexes. The object was the same--a diamond ring.

My ex took her ring off as a show of power on her way out to go cheat on me. In addition to that, she used to physically try to damage it in front of me.

Pattern: is it that even if we swap the sexes of the parties, but keep the object and the persecutor role the same, the behaviours still match up? Recall--importantly--that the triangle doesn't require more than two parties to operate; roles may oscillate.

[Skip]

... .these are just odd things of note.  

I'm still trying to figure out the common thread with BPD individuals and material things.

I think we get in trouble (mislead ourselves) when we make these random list of behaviors that bothered us and try to tie them to mental illness and generalize them to other peoples experience.

Put me in charge of apartments so she’d have a scapegoat should i not find something.

This type of thing is said a couple of times a day in the offices of 400,000 mental health professionals. This is not an unacceptable behavior related to mental illness, rather it is how we see and interpret things when a relationship trust and communication have broken down in a relationship. If things were good in a relationship, this would be seen differently.

Most people find conflict and contempt to be stressful and react to such conditions by entering the third stage of breakdown, characterized by partner's increasingly defensive behavior. Men in particular (but women too) become hardened by the chronicity of the ongoing conflict, and may react even more acutely during moments when conflict is most heated by becoming overwhelmed and "flooded"; a condition which is psychologically and emotionally quite painful. Over time, partners learn to expect that they are 'gridlocked'; that they cannot resolve their differences, and that any attempts at resolution will result in further overwhelm, hurt or disappointment.
https://bpdfamily.com/content/your-relationship-breaking-down

Why does this matter? Why isn't good to just make these lists and paint the ex black with them?

It matters if you don't want to build your recovery on a foundation of soft mud. This list won't ease your pain and help you cope. Its like the guy who thinks the black spots are skin cancer and make-up is a cure. It's easy to go down that path.

It matters if you want to have a better perspective on relationship dynamics in future relationships. The problem is that when we start believing that this is someone else's dysfunction, we won't be motivated to recognize this for what it is and work to resolve it.

there's more than enough evidence to suggest she's BPD

It might be helpful to drill down on that list - the evidence that suggests that she's got BPD traits. What is it that really tanked the relationship. What part was her? What part was you? What can you learn from that?

The list you have is a start. Members are questioning some of the items. That's good. That's how we grow, together.