Question to people who have left a relationship: how did you tell them?

[lpheal]

I normally post on another board, but have a question more appropriate for this one. For people who have left a relationship with a pwBPD, how did you tell them? In person? In a letter? I have been advised by a counselor that in my situation (verbal and occasional physical abuse) I should not tell her in person (but in a letter) if I decided to leave. It seems like the wrong way to do it, but I have to continually remind myself this is a dysfunctional situation.

If anyone is willing to share their experience it would be appreciated.

[FallenOne]

I was with mine for 4 years and in March of 2015 we moved in together... I had always had some sort of instinctual gut feeling that I shouldn't have moved in with her, but I ignored it (bad move) and continued the relationship as things were sometimes really good...

The last few months that we were living together before our lease expired, I was contemplating breaking up with her, but didn't want to deal with all the chaos and drama that would have come from the breakup... Who knows what she would have done. She was already cutting herself, overdosing on pills and in and out of the hospital... She even left one night after an argument, called me, and said she was going to jump off of a bridge (I highly doubt that she was, she probably just went for a walk around the block)...

Sometime in the middle of March last year, she had a psychiatrist appointment, and they forced her to go to inpatient treatment. I saw this as my window of opportunity to breakup with her as she was in a safe environment and there wouldn't have been a chaotic and possibly dangerous blowup...

I drove an hour to the hospital, took her a few items she requested, and told her that I can't deal with this anymore and that she needs to get healthy before thinking about being in a relationship with anyone. I even told her I would still be around...

She said "never speak to me again" and walked away... She had a look in her eye that suggested pure rage and it looked as if she wanted to kill me right there.

She tried to contact me a few times over the next 3 months but I resisted and we were low contact I guess you could say?

We wound up back together 3 months after she was released... .

As of December 19th, she broke up with me, out of nowhere, no explanation, no closure, no nothing, and got a restraining order filed against me for a bunch of fabricated half-truths...

[Aesir]

I was over her house and she got triggered over something dumb.  She had been increasingly taking her problems out on me over the last 2 years and I had enough. I got up and walked out. I've talked to her once since then and that was it. I told her if she wanted to talk sometimes she could call be she hasn't so that's that.

[ShadowA]

I got tossed.
However I found it to be somewhat mutual as I'm drained from the relationship anyways.
I was trying to get friendship as I was hoping for something stable actually. However that blew up in my face, with getting fully replaced and having it rubbed in my face while smear campaign.

It became mutual because after that I was outtie. Told her that in a e-mail, that I agreed fully.
Never got to actually hear from her directly tho, Guess she had too much shame and no honor.

[ForeverDad]

It is often commented here that the core issue with BPD is fear of abandonment.  (NPD is fear of belittling, HPD is need for attention and drama, etc for the other PDs.)  One perspective that may be valid - everyone's relationship and circumstances are at least a little bit different - is the the person fears abandonment so much that the person feels impelled to preemptively blacklist and abandon you first.

Blaming and blame shifting.  That's also why ended relationships are always described as being abusive and that they were victimized.  (If you were told the prior relationships were horrible, you can expect that's how your ended relationship will be described once you're gone.)  Their utter Denial won't allow them to admit their part in the failure.

[Tosquinha]

Mine had her replacement already lined up.  After 7 years together, married 2.5, she made up some crap about not being able to handle the kids.  Turns out she was just shmoozing the next one (her employee, no less).  She insisted we moved and things got worse until me and my kids did.

She's fabricated some story about me breaking in to her house (uh, it's marital property so breaking in?  Seriously? and destroying things) which NEVER happened.  She used this to get sympathy from her new victim and of course it worked.  I've since moved.  I've had friends tell me they've seen her getting a little too close to this employee at a bar and recently I did see an exchange of texts from them both saying they think of each other, nice smiles, can't wait to see you... .all the while she is still trying to keep me in her grasp.

So you know what?  I've blocked all form of communication with her and absolutely will NOT engage with her ever again.  BPD or not, she has boundary issues and she has betrayed me.  She deosn't deserve any explanation from me.  She's moved on.

[lovenature]

You can send a letter, talk on the phone, tell them in person, but don't expect it to be over and certainly don't expect a rational response. A PWBPD makes up their own reality to fit their emotion of the moment, one of the biggest red flags we hear about on here is when they have a history of abusive ex.'s; they so commonly need to be the poor victim.

[love4meNOTu]

It was an email exchange unfortunately. This was before I understood that this was mental illness that we were dealing with.

We never really talked again, not even in our first and last marital counseling session. The therapist could not reach him on any level and I was there with one foot out the door.

We both deserved a better ending, but that's the one we got.

[ForeverDad]

Very often we won't get closure from our disordered person.  So seeking closure from them is unlikely to turn out well.  What to do?  Gift closure to yourself, you did what you could, then Let Go and Move On (or Move Forward).

[tiggerzxc]

I can only suggest you are not with her and have people around who can dispute any and all fabrications about what you have done to them.  They will lie and fabricate to police and you can find yourself paying a lawyer to minimize, not eliminate charges against you.  There is no limit to the malice some BPDs can deliver if they are upset. Please have witnesses to your whereabouts and stay far away once you leave.

[Peterpan]

I told mine in a letter, I had no other choice. He'd told me not to reply if his phone rang, which meant his wife had his phone ( he'd just told me his wife had found out about us) it felt odd that despite her sending me angry texts and me not replying, that she never once called me... .Not once in four weeks.  I went through total hell in that time, me on the day he finally spoke to me by phone on a work matter, I also got really nasty fb and text messages. I never be!Never they were from his wife, not after four weeks of nothing, he calmly asked if I was okay like nothing had happened. I sat in my car in the dark, my face wet from crying and scribbled a letter, then left it on his car knowing no-one else would find it. Wed discussed ways of contact at our last meeting and that was my only way. He'd had three other options but never used them. It completely broke my heart and there was no way I was allowing him to come back casually after his dust settled. I worshipped him, but that was my final boundary.

To this day I don't believe his wife knows about me, I'd asked him a few days before if it ought to stop because he was stringing me along.