Is this normal behavior for someone who BPD?

[PeacefulCareBear]

My boyfriend gets very hot and cold towards me. Pulls me towards him and than pushes me away once we get very close and are intimate with each other. It's as if he's scared of me getting too close to him. He's very open with me and tells me everything pretty much and he never opens up to his best friends. Anytime he needs support, he comes to me and I comfort him.

When he pulls away, he gets very scared and sometimes he'll say a lot of these phrases and I've caught onto the pattern.

"Maybe I should be alone. All I do is hurt people."
"I'd be better off alone."

"I don't care what people think. Whatever... ." but deep down I know he does.

He questions my love for him a lot and often times he'll try to test me and see if I'll leave him or how I'll react to certain things.

Once I walked into the room after using the restroom and he was staring at his TV screen, tearing up, looking as if he was about to cry. When I asked him if he was okay, he said he was "fine." but I knew it was a lie.

I'm a very caring and loving person by nature so I pick up on his moods a lot of the time and I always know when he's angry because he'll be completely silent and won't say anything. It takes him awhile to break out of this angry mood but once he does, he's back to his happy usual self and laughing again. When he comes back and starts laughing and talking to me again, I always kiss his forehead. I just love him and wanted to know if this is normal behavior. Is there a book that I should read so I can know about his behavior more? I just want to support him, but I don't want to be pulled into his moods either. So I think a helpful book would help me understand a little bit more whenever he gets into these mood swings and when he's distancing myself from me.

Any helpful info would be great, thank you!

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[Lost-love-mind]

My boyfriend gets very hot and cold towards me. Pulls me towards him and than pushes me away once we get very close and are intimate with each other. It's as if he's scared of me getting too close to him. He's very open with me and tells me everything pretty much and he never opens up to his best friends. Anytime he needs support, he comes to me and I comfort him.

When he pulls away, he gets very scared and sometimes he'll say a lot of these phrases and I've caught onto the pattern.

"Maybe I should be alone. All I do is hurt people."
"I'd be better off alone."

"I don't care what people think. Whatever... ." but deep down I know he does.


Any helpful info would be great, thank you!

Very Interesting facts similar to my own with my ex pwBPD.
We started dating after meeting online. Very slow progression of intimacy over 2 mos. of dating.
She started sending provacative pics of herself. We sexted the week before the breakup. She set a very provacative BDSM sexting description. We planned a massage for our usual dinner/movie/make out sessions at her place.
Without getting into detail, after the movie she said she was tired. After being married for 20+ yrs to a woman that shut down intimacy with the phrase " I'm tired", I excused myself from intimacy with the exBPD and left.
In a series of e-mails back and forth after that Saturday night she broke up with me saying she felt I wasn't meeting her needs by not offering the massage.
When I analyzed my actions from that night with other men they said that I missed the soft pitch that she gave me and she wanted me to dominate her. That mysoginist bs.

Logically, after discussing it with my therapist to come down to the fact that she wanted to avoid going to the next level of intimacy with me. Both of her ex-husband's that she told me verbally abused her and cheated on her thus leading to her fear of intimacy with me.
 
Turns out my post exBPD therapy led to a  diagnosis is that I have BPD and use narcissism as a defense mechanism to control others from leaving me. Unsure how npd fits with me excusing myself that night, instead of pursuing intimacy that night.

Your fact pattern sounds similar of the avoidance of intimacy.

Be patient.

[PeacefulCareBear]

Very Interesting facts similar to my own with my ex pwBPD.
We started dating after meeting online. Very slow progression of intimacy over 2 mos. of dating.
She started sending provacative pics of herself. We sexted the week before the breakup. She set a very provacative BDSM sexting description. We planned a massage for our usual dinner/movie/make out sessions at her place.
Without getting into detail, after the movie she said she was tired. After being married for 20+ yrs to a woman that shut down intimacy with the phrase " I'm tired", I excused myself from intimacy with the exBPD and left.
In a series of e-mails back and forth after that Saturday night she broke up with me saying she felt I wasn't meeting her needs by not offering the massage.
When I analyzed my actions from that night with other men they said that I missed the soft pitch that she gave me and she wanted me to dominate her. That mysoginist bs.

Logically, after discussing it with my therapist to come down to the fact that she wanted to avoid going to the next level of intimacy with me. Both of her ex-husband's that she told me verbally abused her and cheated on her thus leading to her fear of intimacy with me.
 
Turns out my post exBPD therapy led to a  diagnosis is that I have BPD and use narcissism as a defense mechanism to control others from leaving me. Unsure how npd fits with me excusing myself that night, instead of pursuing intimacy that night.

Your fact pattern sounds similar of the avoidance of intimacy.

Be patient.

Yes, that's very familiar. Anytime we get close after intimacy he gets very weird afterwards. Once I excused myself from the bedroom and he said out loud in a very sleepy state, "Please don't leave me." So I definitely caught on to how he fears being abandoned but at the same time anytime I'm very close to him with loving him or anything, it freaks him out. Many times after a few days he'll message me again on Facebook and tell me how much he misses me. I just continue to be patient and I don't reach out to him too often when he's acting distant and eventually he'll contact me when things settle down with his moods.

His patterns seems to go in cycles and repeat a lot. After awhile, I began to notice them because they happen so often. His mood swings are unpredictable but when they change, I always seem to pick up on them.

[pearlsw]

Hi PeacefulCareBear,

Welcome to the family! It sounds like you are seeing the early expressions of a push/pull dynamic. It sounds mild now, but it can become more pronounced as you might have noticed reading other's stories here. One tool that may help you with this is validation. I am not sure if you have seen the Workshops yet, but they give a lot of good information about validation as a tool we can use with our partners. I know I have found it interesting/helpful, but it may take some time to get it. Do you think your partner may have others too such as depression? I ask because of the crying. My partner is crying a lot lately and saying similar things - that all he does is hurt people. I am a bit weary of him these days but he needs a strong connection to feel secure so I try to let him be close although I would really like some space to recover from the intensity of his issues and feel lighter and happier. So, I mention that just as a reminder that since you are doing so much of the emotional work of the relationship be sure to take good care of yourself as well. You need all the strength you can pull together to handle another person's emotional sensitivity! 

[PeacefulCareBear]

Hi PeacefulCareBear,

Welcome to the family! It sounds like you are seeing the early expressions of a push/pull dynamic. It sounds mild now, but it can become more pronounced as you might have noticed reading other's stories here. One tool that may help you with this is validation. I am not sure if you have seen the Workshops yet, but they give a lot of good information about validation as a tool we can use with our partners. I know I have found it interesting/helpful, but it may take some time to get it. Do you think your partner may have others too such as depression? I ask because of the crying. My partner is crying a lot lately and saying similar things - that all he does is hurt people. I am a bit weary of him these days but he needs a strong connection to feel secure so I try to let him be close although I would really like some space to recover from the intensity of his issues and feel lighter and happier. So, I mention that just as a reminder that since you are doing so much of the emotional work of the relationship be sure to take good care of yourself as well. You need all the strength you can pull together to handle another person's emotional sensitivity! 

As of right now he pushed away from me again and I know this pattern so often. I'm concentrating on myself and haven't been messaging him. I'm sure my partner has other friends who deal with depression. He seems to worry a lot and he has high anxiety. I'll look at the workshop and read. Is there anything I should look at specifically?

Is there anything that I should say to him or just continue to give him space?

[pearlsw]

Hi PeacefulCareBear,

After reading this again, let me take this in another direction... .Here is some information on the issue of Intimacy: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=79300 I think these core BPD issues of abandonment and intimacy go hand in hand from what I read here.

The validation tools here https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-dont-be-invalidating can help you with developing a way of speaking with someone with emotional sensitivity.

I try to create a very loving home atmosphere with lots of joking, silly songs, affection and encouragement to help my h feel more secure. It helps him feel better, but it also helps me to feel less resentful towards him.

Good luck and tell us what you think as you read this stuff. Does anything jump out or inspire you in the readings? Anything ring particularly true perhaps?

[PeacefulCareBear]

Hi PeacefulCareBear,

After reading this again, let me take this in another direction... .Here is some information on the issue of Intimacy: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=79300 I think these core BPD issues of abandonment and intimacy go hand in hand from what I read here.

The validation tools here https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-dont-be-invalidating can help you with developing a way of speaking with someone with emotional sensitivity.

I try to create a very loving home atmosphere with lots of joking, silly songs, affection and encouragement to help my h feel more secure. It helps him feel better, but it also helps me to feel less resentful towards him.

Good luck and tell us what you think as you read this stuff. Does anything jump out or inspire you in the readings? Anything ring particularly true perhaps?

Thank you. Yes lots of this seemed to ring a bell. When I first met him things were going great and overtime he feared that I was seeing someone else and I kept reassuring him that I wasn't. Things were going very great between us. One day as I was visiting we got into an argument and since I've got home I haven't heard a word from him. He simply cut me off. I've tried texting and he hasn't responded, so I'm simply giving him space until he contacts me. We made up after our argument and it was a simple minor argument if that. I'm not the type of person to yell or raise up my voice.

It's all very confusing to me but I've been reading a lot of helpful info online and articles that I've found on here. He seems to push/pull a lot of the time. Things can be going really great and than things will go back down again and eventually he'll disappear for a bit. He's very stressed out at work and currently he's in debt from doing lots of charges on his credit card. I didn't ask what he was spending his money on at the time, I didn't think it was my place to say anything.

I'm very very supportive of him and understanding. Anytime he's upset or down, I tell him he can always come to me and talk to me. If he's not in the mood to kiss me or hug me, I don't get angry about it. Anytime I try to get close to him, he seems to pull away farther and farther away where he's unreachable. He seems to do this a lot and it's all very common behavior for him. I'm planning on ordering some books on Amazon so I can get more information. Thanks for listening to me. I'll update again later on in the future.

For right now I think it's best for me to focus on myself and do things that I enjoy so I don't think about this any further because anytime he pulls away I get very upset about it. Last night I made sure I went to bed early and got plenty of rest and I'm feeling a lot better than I did yesterday. I just love him so much and want the best for him, but I know his actions are not my responsibility.

I miss him though and I especially miss his cats and kittens. Pluto is my favorite one and always snuggles up with me when he's at work when I'm visiting him.