My story

[Melster12]

So here is my story. Please note that instead of manipulation, control or splitting people different colors I use humor (and honesty)to deal with my pain. I’m sorry if I get too silly.  During this entire 6 week experience I literally felt like I was dropped into a different country in which I did not speak the language or understand the culture.

And so we begin. We met on a dating site. We chatted and then moved to texting. RED FLAG.  The first text message “Hmmm…you wanted to talk. Where are you? Are you ignoring me”.  He later in the relationship he would text me like 20 times a day and if I didn’t respond he would do are you ignoring me thing even at work. But, I responded to that first text. Another key phrase was “let your guard down”. What I thought it meant was “lets watch our emotional baggage”.  What he meant was do everything at the pace I set and you don’t complain. He did all of the you are awesome stuff, some future faking but I never take that stuff seriously.  I knew he just said that to lock me down or the guy is super excited.  We chatted and planned our first date. The day of the date the plans changed….to his house.  I declined the date as I was uncomfortable with that arrangement. He was upset but I was like Boy Bye.  About a few days later he returns and turns it around on me saying due to my trust issues we didn’t have the date. LOL! Eventually he gets me to agree to a date with him. By this time we are chatting for a few hours at night as he travels three days for work each week. During these calls he mentions that he is super honest.  Hindsight, you don’t need a superlative in front of honest. Either you are honest or you are not. What are you trying to hide?

We march on. So we had a date planned but he fell and bruised his ribs due to a panic attack.  The “super honest” guy sent me a photo of his prescription bottle for oxy for his ribs.  So here is the part where we fly of the rails….Apparently while he was suffering the from the bruised ribs he was giving me the silent treatment I guess for not coming to his house on the first date. However, the joke was on him because I have a full life, which was disclosed on my profile. My dance card stays full. I had no idea he was silent treatmenting me.  I just let him sleep as he was recovering so I thought. I also texted him updates on the baseball play offs. Which he ignored but I thought that was because he was sleeping. Later he text me telling me that he went out with some girl and gave her flowers on their first date which was the day he was ‘sick with bruised ribs’. He had flowers for me on our first date but I didn’t show up. I guess he told me this to punish me. But if you give flowers to every girl on the first date that makes the whole concept of giving flowers not special and extremely calculated.  I told him to stop wasting my cellphone minutes and give her a call and hung up. I must have taken leave of ALL of my senses as after this I still agreed to a date with him. We have this date and its great…... too great. He opened every door ALL the time. He was extremely intelligent and a great conversationalist. He had several degrees and very confident and successful.  He was opinionated but not overly so. He was quick witted and funny. We had great chemistry and that is what he said to get me to continue to date him. It is rare for me to really like anyone or have such great chemistry. Towards the end of our relationship, if you can call it that, he revealed to me in passing a few tidbits said off the cuff. He has Daddy issues. His Dad was verbally abusive to him, his brothers and his Mom.  He had a bad temper. Undersold! A bad temper is not the same as rage. He also said that when people meet his mom she apologizes for him and his behavior. She also says something is wrong with him. WOW! My mom thinks that I am genius and a model. I am neither. When you don’t have Mom in your corner….Yikes! He also had few friends and no hobbies. How do you NOT have your own interests?  Hindsight. He made me feel sort of like an object. You are the prettiest girl I have ever dated. Your body is perfect, not too big and not too small. He also told me he has joint custody of his son but he had a one-bedroom apartment and I saw no kid stuff.

But we March on…The week of the World Series I go to a bar to watch the first game as I am Cubs fan. During this time I think I am being given the silent treatment but who cares, I am out with my girls watching the Cubs in the World Series!  Anyway he begins to call me repeatedly and either hangs up, calls me a bar girl (still not sure what that is) or he is sick, his head hurts, he has problems. If I don’t answer him he texts me that I have 30 seconds to call him. He called me 17 times in 3 hours. 

We stop Marching….That Wednesday he begins sending me pictures of himself(clean). I had taken some of him on our first date and made like a small photo album. He sends me the pictures with a text  saying GOOD BYE. He then texts me what I can only describe and verbal vomit straight from the depths of hell.  What I could catch was that I was cruel, played mind games, a horrible person and emotionally exhausting. It was like the gates of hell opened up in his mind and he texted every negative thing about me (really about him) he ever thought. But the photo thing was the nail in his coffin.  I was like well-played for a junior high girl. Using my hobby as a weapon against me good times. The chilling fact is that he was smiling so happily in the picture he took which shows exactly how petty labelle and vindictive he is. When people show you who they are believe them.  Adults don’t break up like that. I tried to call him but he would not pick up so I said good bye and good luck to you! And that was two weeks ago. After we broke up I googled controlling, manipulation, silent treatment and gaslighting, projecting, triangulation and BPD popped right up. I am sure I am split so black there is NO WAY I could ever be white again. Thank God! That was the absolute weirdest dating experience I have ever had. I feel so confused as to why someone would treat people this way

[Mutt]

Hi Melster12,

When people show you who they are believe them

I'd like to.welcome you to  bpdfamily   I'm sorry to hear that. I understand how confusing and painful the behaviors are when you're blamed for their bad behaviors and treated like an ends to a means.

We're not professionals and cannot diagnose but what we can look at are BPD traits, a theme that I pick up in your post, maybe others will see different things is emotional immaturity, he could be very emotionally immature and a cornerstone for the disorder is emotional arrested development, a pwBPD lack emotional maturity are at the level equivalent to a young child.

You have a full plate, you have good judgment, you were careful with the red flags, I met my ex on a dating site too, your post reminded me of a dare that we had a couple of weeks after we met, she also invited me to her house on the first date, those are wise words ( in quotes ) A pwBPD act out when they're rejected, they're hyper-sensitive to rejection it's like acid to them. I didn't think we were serious, I did stand her up and went out to a bar with my best friend and she kept calling my cell phone, I picked and the best way to describe it was borderline anger, that was huge red flag, it was on old flip phone, I closed it after our call was finished and liked at my phone and my spider senses went off, but I ignored it.

You can read some of the stories on the divorce board https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=10.0 you were smart and you dodged a bullet.

It helps to talk to people that can relate with you, these s experiences and breakups are like nothing else. Read other discussions, share your experiences with others, we have a lot of material on the site, you can learn a lot about r/s's and about yourself.

Some pwBPD will split their ex black and some don't, some will keep trying or try harder to recycle the r/s. Splitting goes both ways, you may be split for a short while or a long while and at some junction in time you hear from them again.