When did you know that the relationship was doomed?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

When did you know that the relationship was doomed and was never going to work? I knew several months before I made the decision to break up with her. Months ago she had a particularly  bad rage/blame  attack and she verbally abused me for hours. Over some other stresses she is going through or family issues and  I caught the brunt of it.

I didn't live with her so I foolishly stayed there and let her. I've never felt so low. Especially coming from someone who supposedly cared about me. She had acted out before but never this viciously. I wouldn't have treated a friend like that nevertheless someone I was in love with. For all intents and purposes this incident should have ended the relationship but I soldiered on for several months more.

After all of the other times I forgot and forgave or simply explained away her behavior I had reached a breaking point. She made small gestures of apology later but I was numbed to it. I tried to encourage her to seek counseling but she refused thinking of possible stigma. She started 2 more fights,tried to start another but I shut it down, and I was through. She snapped over something insignificant and started blaming me for her life's decisions.
Something in me snapped or broke and I got up and left and that was it. What made me leave?  I felt that I didn't want to be in this situation of fighting and defending myself anymore. We don't really know how long we have and I didn't want to spend anymore of my life doing this.  I've seen her once since then and she found a way of accusing me of something and complaining about her self esteem just for the few minutes we saw each other.

As usual she treated it as if I wronged her. She is the eternal victim.  You can never really win with someone like this.  She could hold grudges for years and could not let anything go.

[Aesir]

When did you know that the relationship was doomed and was never going to work? I knew several months before I made the decision to break up with her. Months ago she had a particularly  bad rage/blame  attack and she verbally abused me for hours. Over some other stresses she is going through or family issues and  I caught the brunt of it.

I didn't live with her so I foolishly stayed there and let her. I've never felt so low. Especially coming from someone who supposedly cared about me. She had acted out before but never this viciously. I wouldn't have treated a friend like that nevertheless someone I was in love with. For all intents and purposes this incident should have ended the relationship but I soldiered on for several months more.

After all of the other times I forgot and forgave or simply explained away her behavior I had reached a breaking point. She made small gestures of apology later but I was numbed to it. I tried to encourage her to seek counseling but she refused thinking of possible stigma. She started 2 more fights,tried to start another but I shut it down, and I was through. She snapped over something insignificant and started blaming me for her life's decisions.
Something in me snapped or broke and I got up and left and that was it. What made me leave?  I felt that I didn't want to be in this situation of fighting and defending myself anymore. We don't really know how long we have and I didn't want to spend anymore of my life doing this.  I've seen her once since then and she found a way of accusing me of something and complaining about her self esteem just for the few minutes we saw each other.

As usual she treated it as if I wronged her. She is the eternal victim.  You can never really win with someone like this.  She could hold grudges for years and could not let anything go.

[ortac77]

I think I have finally realised it never ends until it ends!

They do victim really well, this morning I awoke to the endless cycle of blame again, apparently everything is always my fault or the fault of others. Of course he had a few drinks as well just to help the situation.

So apparently he wants to move out and cant stand living with me, so I say you are free to chose where you live and if you are so unhappy that may be the best choice - that gets translated to you just want to get rid of me, you never cared about me, etc, etc.

Normally I can step away from it and just hear the rantings of someone who is mentally unstable, knowing that they push for abandonment as a test - well to be honest I think I am 'failing the test'.

After 12 years of this I am beginning to see that I am much more than a relationship with somebody who constantly tries to push my buttons and can only see a way forward by splitting up - I am not sure that I am even sad about that as I think I have had it with grief already.

[rosesarered777]

a) Whenever she started devaluing me.
b) Whenever I caught her in large lies and she stared blankly into my eyes when she said it.
c) When she assaulted me out in public and is now gaming the legal system. (Likely our point of no return and most recent event.)

[Kelli Cornett]

While on a trip to Europe she went into a rage on a Tuesday (for nothing) and was relentless and said she was "leaving" - which she didn't but didn't speak to me for about a day and 1/2.

then on Thursday was OK during the day but late evening began crying, vomiting, talking about suicide, self injuring in front of me, panic attack - basically all out crazy and very very frightening... .

Later when she was "calmer" she was like well how do we get past this and I said we need help... .She laughed a malicious laugh, went into the bathroom to vomit again (she also has an eating disorder) and stated... ."I've leave you before I'd go to therapy".

That's when I knew this was not about me, there was nothing I could do and although I was worried for her and traumatized myself I couldn't subject myself to this.

Did I hope she'd change her mind about getting help - hell yes!  And I went through 5 more days of "vacation" with two more episodes of rage until she did leave with the statement  "you're a big girl you'll figure out how to get home"

I got an email from her about 2 weeks after "apologizing" and including some lies about "why" but it wasn't truly comprehensive and I think it was baiting...

I didn't respond and got a few emails after that and likewise didn't.  Then a kinda nasty post on FB that she took down after a few hours and nothing since early Nov.

I realized during that trip there was no room for me to have "feelings" or needs, wants - her needs were too all consuming, her being to fragile and while i am strong person I too can be hurt and hearing the person who states they love you rage at you, using vulnerabilities you've shared to now turn on you to intentionally hurt you breaks trust.

Oh I I'm pretty sure she was probably cheating on me or at least looking for sources... there was a "flirty" phone call with the Italian driver after first rage and then flirting with a couple of guys while we were at a restaurant...

[apollotech]

When did you know that the relationship was doomed and was never going to work?

I'd say about 6 to 8 weeks into a 10-11 month relationship. The relationship was in constant disrepair. All emotional effort/energy was being consumed in repairing one crisis after another. I likened it to being in a sinking boat with the only thing available to bail the water out being a teacup---exert constant, massive effort just to keep a broken boat partially floating. The relationship couldn't grow as there was no emotional bank in which to grow the relationship. I threw everything I knew at it and couldn't move the relationship. In the end, I walked out, very exhausted emotionally, mentally, and physically by that point.

[jhkbuzz]

When I realized the affairs were never going to stop.

[Walkabout73]

I´m/was involved somehow with UexBPD GF now for nearly five years. Very few weeks after the start of the relationship I found myself in a situation with that woman, where I experienced myself like in a many years chronic severe damaged marriage, but I continued because of the also positive sides of the relationship and because I didn´t want to give up and to be committed. When I first realized her strange behaviour (attacking, devaluating, projecting) a very few weeks after the start, I thought it was some kind of weird joke; typically that behaviour started at night, between midnight and 2-3 am in the morning… she remembered some minor distractions of the day, e.g. how I had not listen to a shop assistant in the super market closely enough, how I did not do a polite talk with her two daughters at the breakfast table, that my shoes were dirty during the day, how I was inattentive concerning her (e.g. because I planned to go out at night with her while I´m knowing that she worked in the hospital during the day and will be tired in the evening because of that), what an insult it is for here, that I am not changing my lifestyle/ health behaviour, so that I will be more fit, etc. (I think everyone on this board could make a long, long list of such incidents)       

[rj47]

I believe that for a lot of us its difficult to identify a situation or event that was the catalyst for ending the relationship. I recall many situations and impacts over so many years where I thought... .enough! I lost count.

I began to develop genuine fear in later years. She got more violent often bloodying me then laughing sadistically as she scratched, punched and squeezed her neck and arms trying to bruise herself saying she was calling the police. If I tried to leave she would get more violent. If I was able to get out of the house she would punch holes in walls and doors with anything she could find. So many turning points. One sticks in my mind; she texted a male friend one morning after a night of raging that I had raped and choked her. It was bone chilling. She coldly justified the lie saying she wanted someone to feel sorry for her and to "get over it". I knew her condition had become dangerously sociopathic.

It took a long time but chronic FEAR eventually broke me. The FOG I used to erect a nearly impenetrable dam over the decades finally broke.

Several years out in a loving and passionate relationship I wonder if I was more messed up than her. I'm still dismayed at the years I lost believing I was an undeserving, loveless and worthless shell. We wait too long hoping to outlast the demon thinking it will change.

[Keef]

When did you know that the relationship was doomed and was never going to work?

When she brought up the topic of wanting an open relationship again and again and it got obvious she hadn't really thought it through...

When she assaulted me physically this summer.

[TyroneWiggums]

When she brought up the topic of wanting an open relationship again and again and it got obvious she hadn't really thought it through...

When she assaulted me physically this summer.

When she caused me to believe she was taking her life, then laughed about it later because it was her "way of punishing me."

I still have good and bad days, but my reality check from hell is to remember that the woman who told me I was the love of her life the day she left caused me to believe she was going to kill herself to punish me less than a week later.   

[MapleBob]

When did you know that the relationship was doomed and was never going to work?

It's hard to really pinpoint "the moment", but I think I first really felt the inescapable doom when I asked her for emotional support with a difficult professional situation I was going through and she refused (outright) to be supportive ("that's just not my role"   ). As if that wasn't enough, she came to me a few weeks later for emotional support with a roughly analogous situation and I happily talked her through it. Over the next few days it slowly sunk in that she wasn't there for me, but I was there for her, and I realized that that was just not a relationship that was going to work.