I need some insight into my relationship and if my girlfriend has a BPD

[Vampiric]

Hi Everyone on  bpdfamily

As the title states I need some insight into my relationship and if my girlfriend (Ex) maybe suffers from BPD as I have researched and thought about everything to the point where I am so confused and desperately need the input from an outsider/s (Outside of family and friends).

Brief Self History:

Last year in February my father passed away and I regretted not spending more time with my dad. We had a great relationship and did a lot of things together but later on I mostly spent my time in front of the computer and I regret wasting that time and not with my dad. This all made me realize that life is short, apologize to the people you have wronged, cherish relationships and people. Be the best person I can be and get out more. This led me to apologize to a girl that I was cold towards at work, she was very much in love with me at that time and I was cold towards her because of a simple misunderstanding in the past where I thought she blocked me on messaging after our 1st date. We started chatting which led to kissing and dating after a few weeks as our relationship became more romantic.

Now I do want to mention this is my 1st genuine girlfriend, this is my 1st genuine kiss, my 1st intimate relationship and my 1st sexual experience. (Which I think just adds to the confusion as I have no past experience into relationships and what being truly in love is suppose to be like.) And having experienced all this I don’t want to give up too easily and maybe lose the love of my life.

The Relationship:

This girl blew my mind. She is beautiful, she has a great sense of humour, she made time for me, was always available when I asked her out, she is AMAZING in bed, she is fun and playful, she is genuinely interested in me and I feel she truly loves me. I felt this “calm” when I'm with her and that we truly understood each other. I was so happy that my 1st relationship is with this amazing woman. I always prayed to God to send me my soul mate and here she is, even better than I expected and she made me feel like I'm on top of the world. I felt I will start my own life now, my own family with the woman of my dreams. Experiencing all that after losing my father, I thought this can only be God at work and I still do.

There were things that bothered me, she did try to commit suicide 2 times before we met and she still has the scars on her arm and leg of self harm but she seemed like she had everything under control now and was a cheerful positive person. Her father abandoned her mother and her in her teen years and she had to be the emotional support for her mother during all this. This might have been the start of what I believe caused her BPD after doing a lot of research? She doesn't really talk about her father much and the conversation is quickly changed when it hints in that direction (This is true for conversations about previous lovers as well). She is spoiled by her mother and they constantly buy new things. She never finishes a glass of something to drink or food and the left over will eventually be thrown away (Wasteful in my eyes).

I ignored all this and thought she just had a tough childhood. We continued and the relationship was absolutely fantastic when things were good. After 1 month together she even started hinting at getting married (This felt way too quick for me and I told her that). Having children (this was on & off one moment she wants and the next she doesn’t) and starting a life together.

In the time we were together (10 months) we had broken up numerous times and I have lost count (maybe 6/7 times) only to get back together a week or two later. What bothered me the most is these break ups were over trivial things and not important problems. She would get upset over things I myself thought were unreasonable and that she is taking things too personal.

I will give a few examples of the fights we had:

1.   Me, my GF, my friend, his GF went out for dinner one night. I haven't seen my friend in a month and so we were talking man stuff and my GF and his GF were talking and the whole time I was sitting next to my GF and holding her hand or touching her leg. I thought we had a great time but when I took her home she ignored me on the way back and was cold when I dropped her off. She said she felt I ignored her at the dinner. She was also upset that my friends GF kept talking about work while she was jobless (She has been struggling to find a good job and was mostly at home). For a few days I would get cold responses via text and this all felt like she pushed me away.

2.   My friend one day came unannounced to my house and I thought it would be decent to let my GF know that I might be a few minutes late. I was going to visit my GF house and we watch a movie together, but we did not make a specific time. I would just normally go after dinner to her place which is about 7/8. My friend left at 7:30 (20 minutes visit time) and I would have still been there my usual time. She responded to that text saying that she doesn't feel like a priority to me, she has to always wait for me and that I no longer have to come tonight. I stood my ground and said she was unreasonable because if I didn't say my friend was there she would not have known about all this and no fight as I would have been there the same time as any other night. Again I felt pushed away as things were cold between us for the next few days.

3.   Before Christmas we exchanged gifts (Got her a nice new phone as hers was dated & giving issues) as she was going to be with her family on Christmas and we were going to be apart for 2 weeks. So I decided I would put a message on her laptop that auto pops up every day and night with a message while we were apart. I struggled a while and it did not want to work on her laptop and I got frustrated that I wanted to do something nice for her and its not working. I told her lets rather watch a movie together as I’m not getting it right and I’m getting tired. She took this frustration personally and said that I should rather go as she does not want to spend time together when I’m in a bad mood. This was an hour after we exchanged gifts. Again I felt pushed away.

She always feels I don't make her a priority even though I spend every second day with her until 12 at night or even later and spending the whole weekend at her place. 80% of my free time was spent by her side and it felt like that was never enough for her. I made her little handmade gifts with notes when she was away and came back, bought them food and drinks for the road, picnic in the park on the full moon, invited her to come eat with us and a lot of other ways to show my love for her. Even though she didn't directly ask for this it felt like I no longer have time for myself and the things I enjoyed doing like going to gym, playing a game to relax, drawing or working on a DIY project. I gave up all that and it still felt she is unsatisfied. She would text me all day, during work every few minutes and this became overwhelming after a while. My job is already so stressful and I'm struggling to get to everything and now I have this constant texting disrupting my work even more.

She would get upset/ angry about things very easily and take it personal. It felt like I'm walking on egg shells around her and have to edit everything I say and even after that I would not know how she would react to it. She would always have some kind of "problem" with someone, be it at work, be it her mother, her friend, her step father, a person at a restaurant/store or with me. There is always this constant little drama going on in her life and it felt like she tried to make drama when there wasn't any. And when she is upset everyone around gets some of that “anger” and she would basically make it uncomfortable for everyone as you can see she is in a bad mood.If I had a crappy day at work she would take it personal (I'm not taking it out on her, I just go quiet and try to forget about the work day). Sometimes she would straight out ask me what is wrong (even when I was completely happy) and keeps asking me until I get irritated.

She sometimes felt like a different person when her mother was around. She would start swearing around her (not at her) during conversations and would say nasty things that made almost my jaw drop as I didn’t expect that from her. Around me she felt like a better person and she even said to me that “she likes the person she is around me”.

Those are only a few examples of numerous ones I can give. But in short we would start these stupid little fights that end in a breakup, mostly from her side. She would unfriend me on Facebook, remove our (together) profile pictures from text apps, ignore me and only to apologize a few days later and beg for my forgiveness. She would then return to being this amazing girl I fell in love with at the start. But this last breakup I reached the point where I thought things will always be like this, we will always argue over irrational things and breakup, we will never see each others point of view, this is not a healthy relationship and what happens when we have a baby & actually live together. I could not continue on like this. I want a stable relationship, a relationship where I can relax and feel home at (and she does provide that on the good days).

I scoured the internet, reading up on insecurity, clingy ect. I started reading up on self improvement and starting guides to get myself and my side of the relationship right. I began thinking I'm the reason things aren't working, I'm in the wrong and there is something majorly wrong with me. Confused to the point I felt I have gone crazy.

After our last breakup I found out about BPD and the symptoms and she matches a few (not all) of the symptoms in some way or another.

Fear of abandonment - She has a fear of being alone and she has mentioned a few times that she is lonely. Granted a lot of weekends she is home all alone when her mother is away.
Unstable relationships - Her previous romantic relationship was also on & off a few times. I cannot get more info as the subject is changed when I try to discuss it more. Most of her relationships are unstable. The one day she and her mother would get along great and the next she can't stand her. Like I said there always seem to be some kind of drama with someone in her life.
Unclear or unstable self-image - This I'm not sure if she qualifies. She is unhappy with her life and where she is in her life, she wanted to achieve and be more.
Impulsive, self-destructive behaviors - The constant small little arguments and the way she would immediately get upset without giving me time to explain or suggest an alternative, which is followed by pushing me away emotionally (cold and ignoring) during these seems self destructive to me.
Self-harm - As far as I can tell she does not do this physically anymore, the closest would be the way she picks at her lip alot of the time and sometimes causing wounds on her lip. She has told me that she thinks about suicide on different occasions and even hinted at doing it but has never followed through again like before we met.
Extreme emotional swings - She would be very happy and later on something would upset her and this will alter her mood.
Chronic feelings of emptiness - She has mentioned that she is lonely and sad and that she doesn't see the point of her life anymore. She goes to work, comes home to a empty house, sleeps and repeats it all again.
Explosive anger - She has never yelled at me, hit me , thrown stuff around or any other type of physical rage, but it feels that she shows her rage by the arguments we have and the pushing away.
Feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality - This I am also unsure of but I do feel this constant distrust in me from her. She does get jealous easily.

She is now currently saying things like she misses me, she loves me a lot and afraid we made a mistake by breaking up. All this right before Valentines day. Constantly getting back in touch. I haven’t responded much as I don’t know what to make of all of this and want some kind of answer on how to best proceed. I want to say back I love her, I want to love and care for her, be intimate again but it just feels like I’m being lured with sweet words into this vicious cycle that will lead to same end result again

If she does indeed have BPD it is a heart breaking thought. Her father’s abandonment will now not only have wrecked her childhood but her personality and the rest of her life because relationships will always suffer from this. I just want her to be happy and I don’t want to give up on the relationship but there is no use in continuing this if it will only break us both down. I’m not even aware if she knows she has BPD. Should I ask her or will that make things worse? Should I stay away from her and move on with my life before I get emotionally scarred forever?

As I am typing all of this out I can start feeling the confusion set in again. I’m struggling to make sense of it all.

Please give me your input?

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

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[Mutt]

Hi Vampiric, 



I'd like to welcome you to  bpdfamily. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this. I can see how the behaviors you have described are confusing and distressing.

We're not doctors and and cannot diagnose, only a professional can do that but what we ca look at and set boundaries with are BPD traits.

If she does indeed have BPD it is a heart breaking thought. Her father’s abandonment will now not only have wrecked her childhood but her personality and the rest of her life because relationships will always suffer from this. I just want her to be happy and I don’t want to give up on the relationship but there is no use in continuing this if it will only break us both down. I’m not even aware if she knows she has BPD. Should I ask her or will that make things worse? Should I stay away from her and move on with my life before I get emotionally scarred forever?

I'd say that you have some traits and some of the examples could just be dysfunctional behavior. I'd also like to add that she could have depression. BPD will often have comorbid mental illnesses, more than one mental illness, sometimes several can co-exist. Many pwBPD have an underlying clinical depression.

I'd like compare one of your examples with my experience. A few years ago we were suppose to go to a staff Christmas party. She was emotionally disregulated and I was split black, I didn't know about the disorder at that point, I just told her that we're not going to the party when she's like that an she just say fine and proceeded to leave without me, she stopped in the parking lot because she needed me to get into the party, it was the company that I worked for. She's also had 5 pregnancies, granted three of the kids are mine, I could have worn protection too, her kids are from three different dad's.

I think that you have enough there for traits, the severity and traits are different in everyone, she also gives me the impression that she's the history functioning type. Something else that sticks out for me is that it sounds like she has low self esteem an is hyper critical to rejection perceived or real, that's another core criterion.

We can't tell you what to do, we can listen to you and offer you guidance a support, ultimately it's your call.

[Vampiric]

Thank you very much for your feedback.

It seems like things are over, we aren't talking anymore and she has removed me from all social media.

I felt really bad,two of the last pictures I saw it looked like she picked at her lip again until there is a wound.

I really miss her and the good times. But I guess there isn't all good times all the time and the way you choose to deal with a bad situation will also improve the situation/ determine the outcome. I chose to rationalize things with her and always argue my point to try and make her understand (to teach her if you will). I started seeing only the bad things and the little arguments in our relationship instead of seeing all the good things she did for me and the way she made me feel like i'm on top of the world (She did make me feel terrible when she pushed me away though). I get so easily caught up in the negative.

Maybe its for the best. The next guy she meets might be able to handle all these little things like a man and come out smiling the other side and most importantly make her completely happy, feel safe & secure.

Maybe I'm the problem as I don't have a lot of relationship experience and how to handle all situations. I need to go work on myself. I need to become a better person. I'm just really scared I lost an amazing person out of inexperience and will never get that back.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and respond.

Best of luck to everyone and your relationships.

Kind Regards

[heartandwhole]

Thank you very much for your feedback.

It seems like things are over, we aren't talking anymore and she has removed me from all social media.

Hi Vampiric, how long has it been since you stopped talking? Have you tried to contact her?

heartandwhole

[Vampiric]

Monday morning was the last time messages were exchanged.

[heartandwhole]

Monday morning was the last time messages were exchanged.

That's not so long.  Are you thinking about trying to win her back, or taking a time out to reflect  on things?

[Vampiric]

I honestly don't know what to do.

Everytime I think of trying again an inner voice just screams if it didn't work out the 6/7 times we tried before what will make it work this time round.

Besides some things were said and I was hesitant to show the same amount of love in my words as to not repeat the same cycle again.

I just wish we can talk things out shortly after a misunderstanding but it always seems to escalate into an ignoring game/hurtfull words (never swearing,yelling or screaming, still remains civilized) and a breakup.

[Vampiric]

I think her mother and step father might hate my guts because of this on & off the whole time.

So I'm pretty embarrassed to face them AGAIN which also adds to the situation.

[heartandwhole]

I honestly don't know what to do.

I hear you. That's very natural, after what you've been through. I recommend reading as much as you can on the site, and giving yourself some time to take care of yourself. 

heartandwhole

[Vampiric]

What would you do if you were in my shoes?

I want to improve myself and try again one last time when I feel renewed as a man, but I fear she won't wait for me to reach that point.

[gotbushels]

Hi Vampiric 

I understand the need you feel for outsider input. The input here was valuable to me as I reached a stage in my relationship where I was realising that friends and family input either made less sense, they couldn't relate to my situation, or the "advice" was ineffective.

Sometimes a woman will make you feel good. The relationship I had made me feel amazing at some times.

My ex used self-harming behaviour. She also had scars on her body.

The relationship I went through had many breakups as well.

I strongly relate to "stupid little fights that end in a breakup, mostly from her side". There were plenty of these in my relationship. I hadn't often encountered these before and I like to understand things, so the first few times I was a party to these were very, very strange to me.

This might have been the start of what I believe caused her BPD after doing a lot of research?

I relate to this. It helped me understand her as a person and counteracted my temptation to vilify my ex because of her traits.

If she does indeed have BPD it is a heart breaking thought. Her father’s abandonment will now not only have wrecked her childhood but her personality and the rest of her life because relationships will always suffer from this.

Yes, when such a thing is passed onto a next generation it is indeed one of the most heartbreaking and tragic events.

As I am typing all of this out I can start feeling the confusion set in again. I’m struggling to make sense of it all.

Yes, trying to make sense of all these things can feel very confusing. There is the content, the issues, your beliefs, her beliefs, your relationship, the intentions of both people. Very entangling. It gets easier because things become less confusing as you become more familiar with the concepts over time.

I encourage you during this time to exercise self-compassion. I think this will be helpful and important to you as you mentioned things like questioning your being a man and a stressful job. Maintaining your sense of self and a relational life that doesn't interfere with your work may be something worthwhile to you while this is all going on. Therefore self-compassion.

I hope you find understanding and peace.

[Vampiric]

Thanks Gotbushels

What happened between you and your ex? Did it eventually make you guys split?

I think I might be beating myself up over this but I also think I'm in the wrong in the way I react to her "little fights", its like I just can't stop myself. When I feel its unreasonable to fight over something stupid I just want to point it out and maybe resolve it to avoid future misunderstandings. I can't just always accept and not do anything about behavior like that, can I? A few guys actually told me this is what they have to do, this is the way their relationship is and they are happy with the little arguments and being the lesser person.

Currently I'm just getting back to the gym, getting enough sleep en trying to do things I enjoy. I miss her a lot though.

[gotbushels]

My ex and I went through a lot of conflict. If you're asking about the BPD causing the separation, then I apologise as I don't have a clear answer to that. Some people with BPD partners have made it work, some have not. Since there are so many possible combinations of traits of a person, then there's no sure-fire outcome of a given pair of people in a relationship.

Regarding the "little fights" between the two of you, it's important that you can see that you feel compelled to go in and do something. Any way you choose to react or handle the situation isn't necessarily wrong. It might not be effective but that doesn't make it wrong. Regarding what your friends said, I think your choices of (1) accept and respond; versus (2) accept and be compliant; I think the choice is iterative. Look at what the issue is about and assess what's meaningful to you.

Yes, I missed my ex too Vampiric. That's normal and expected. 

[Grey Kitty]

You obviously don't know if you will be trying again with her, but if you do, here's something to think about. (Actually, it is worth thinking about for other future relationships--these skills will help you even if you get involved with somebody who isn't mentally ill; they are critical with somebody like her!)

I also think I'm in the wrong in the way I react to her "little fights", its like I just can't stop myself. When I feel its unreasonable to fight over something stupid I just want to point it out and maybe resolve it to avoid future misunderstandings. I can't just always accept and not do anything about behavior like that, can I?

When it comes to fighting over "something little and stupid", I'd like to offer some perspective on your options (and what comes of it):

1. Participate in the fight, and try to "prove she is wrong". You've tried that--the fight just gets bigger until she breaks up. That's because this is invalidating to her and provokes her further.

2. Give in and agree with her. (I can't do that one either. I'm not willing to lie to keep the peace)

3. Refuse to participate in the argument.

If you look at it and see that the "problem" isn't the "little thing", but the fact that you are on the edge of a relationship-ending fight, you can work on the real problem.

Start by not making it worse (Think about what happens when you let the argument continue!) and just take a time out and stay away from her for a while.

If you get better at dealing with conflict, you might see that what she's really upset about has nothing to do with the "little thing" she's going on at you about... .and perhaps you can find a way to ask about and validate, and possibly resolve her real concerns.

[Freakedout66]

I'm sorry you're going through this.  I'm in your shoes.  I guess my question to everyone is whether he should try to win her back or am I being naive in thinking that the BPD should step up and win him back?