Why the blowups? Is reconciling in the future even possible at this point?

[Bluemoon55]

I made a post earlier but I realized it was way too long and thought I’d shorten it! New to the board. I’m confused about what happened with this pwBPD. Known him for almost two years. First year we were getting to know each other and were friends while knowing each other wasn't seeing anyone else. He would always be stressed at work and experienced a few family deaths which I supported him through, and he would tell me that when he got a new job he’d be ready for a relationship, he always held back and felt things had to be perfect and stress-free to be in a relationship. Admittedly, sometimes I felt led on or pushed to the side. Basically for the past three months, after he got a new job and said “let’s have a relationship” his behavior changed and it seemed like some episode that led to full blown outbursts and cutting me off, after I kept pushing for answers due to my disbelief and confusion.

Eventually when he told me let's have a relationship." He seemed a bit vulnerable, told me to text him the next day, which I forgot about. So he texts me for a few days, initiates plans with me. Then as soon as I mention going to see a movie, he flakes out and goes silent for a week. It kept getting worse. It happened again twice more after that and I got really frustrated. The 2nd time, it was after an outburst he had over planmaking. He wanted to go out of town, and was pushing boundaries and went silent for a week again. I pulled him out of it when he was in a chipper mood. He talked about going of town again due to how he was stressed about work and wanted to get away for the weekend. I told him i'd think about it. He kept reaching out and seemed antsy and eager to know and excited to talk to me. I was uncomfortable of the idea of going out of town after no contact and so much confusion. It would have felt I was rewarding him and it felt too much for me.

I told him "let's get coffee instead and take a step back and see what page we are on" He freaked out. He then asked “coffee? May I ask why. What changed? Why are we going from dinner to coffee?” He kept saying “I hate coffeeshops. Can't we do dinner. I feel like we are going backwards. I want to date someone. I don’t want to go to coffee shops forever. I wanna move forward, go do trips and dinners though!” Almost like a child. It took 2 hours to explain to him why until he seemed fine with and told me "okay I get it now." When we got coffee, we talked, and it was going okay,  until I completely shut down. I had a physically bad reaction to all of the anxiety, and back and forth from him. I couldn't speak and it felt uncomfortable to bring it up. He kept asking, "are you okay?" "you seem down." He tried to hold my hand and I would resist. I kept saying i'm fine until the end when I told him all of the issues and how I felt he kept going off on his own and being back and forth with me.

He agreed but he asked, "do you want to see me anymore?" I told him yeah, it's fine, etc, how I still feel we get along but would like it if he communicated better. He agreed and apologized. We agreed to get dinner that weekend. After that day, we txted a little after that night but then a day after, that's when he stopped speaking to me and wouldn't reply to me. A month went by of no contact from him. Eventually he replies a month later, after I go to his home and leave a note. He replied to the note and said he is just busy with work, how there was no need for me to drop by because he is okay. Ouch. I'd try to talk to him here and there after that, and ask him why he had not been returning calls all he said was "been having a tough time." He isn't someone who handles stress well but I was confused at this distance from me, we used to talk almost daily.

Then I ended up calling him 2-3 times on two different days and both times he had huge outbursts/blow ups. I kept pushing, can we just at least meet this week. I really kept feeling if we talked in person, this issue would go away and I was very anxious from the month of no contact, but it got him irritated to the point he started giving excuses "well I have gym tomorrow. wow i am so stressed by this conversation!, I have to go to work soon, wow I don't know if i can meet you" This really hurt me. Until the point he blurts out "i'll be honest, I don't want to be with anyone right now" and that's when all hell broke loose. He kept saying he would txt me later about if he could meet me. So many times I should have said "okay" and give him space. But I couldn't help but to push and feel anxious.

I got upset and sent a upset message after he told me he'd get back to me. I called again 2 days after and he blew up. "LOOK. You don't get it. We are on 2 different pages" He got a bit hostile "well I may have to see a friend tomorrow, wow i don't know. you're asking can we be friends? Well i don't want to lead you on, we have 2 ideas of friends, i can't hang out all the time. I may have other job training to focus on and if I get that job, I may move out of state next year, ugh ugh."  That job training came out of nowhere. Then he started yelling at me about how I was repeating myself or not listening to him. How all my txts and calls shut him down. If I txt, how he would get back to me when he isn't busy. So the whole time I thought he was ghosting me, but at that point, he was acting like he would have gotten back to me? My head was spinning at how dissociated he was from me.

The next day it got worse to the point I couldn't control my emotions and lashed out at him and called him unstable because he told me he didn't see the point in closure "I don't want to date you either way, I don't get it." When I was thinking "I thought we were dating?" I felt such a loss and grief over what was happening. I went to his home to apologize for the harsh message because I felt bad and confused and wanted to talk it over. He put it on me that he wrote me off after that. We ended up blocking each other.

So I'm wondering, if possible he felt rejected when I told him how I wanted to get coffee to see what page we were even on and rejected his dinner/out of town ideas since he told me he felt it was going backwards, since that's when I noticed his behavior change and he went quiet for a month even though he acted fine with it at the time. But i'm not sure if it could something that petty.
I wonder if after months of space, if this can be reversed in a way? I almost feel like if I had given him space, and let him calm down, things would not have exploded like that. But if I approach him again, I worry that would fuel him to blame me or act out.

Any advice would be helpful at this point in terms of reconnecting being a possibility or insight into why he acted this way.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[RolandOfEld]

Hi Bluemoon55 and welcome.

The Push / Pull dynamic is a common trait among people with BPD. I'm not saying your friend definitely has BPD, but what you are experiencing fits the dynamic and can be extremely frustrating for the non (person without BPD). This workshop has some great information on how to cope with this kind of relationship.

Perhaps you could start by clarifying your own hopes for this relationship so we can get a clear picture of your side. Do you hope to reconnect with this person as a friend, or do you want to return to a romantic relationship?

Sending you strength,
RolandOfEld

[Radcliff]

We know how frustrating and upsetting it can be to deal with BPD issues, but you've found a supportive community here.  The good news is that you can learn coping tools to keep from making things worse and to make things easier on you.

One of the classic things that can happen to those of us who are searching for a connection with a pwBPD is that we overpursue them, and they pull back.  Which can make us freak out and pursue even harder.  Do you think that may be going on in your case?

Another thing that partners of pwBPD are often bad at is boundaries.  Our pwBPD are often terrible at respecting them, or even understanding them.  Sometimes we toss out boundaries out (if we even knew what they were) in our effort to make our pwBPD happy.  I'm impressed that you are being thoughtful about boundaries, and what you're comfortable with.  Keep it up!  Can you give us an example of a boundary you're really glad you've kept in the last couple of months, and one where you might wish you'd had a better boundary?

RC

[Bluemoon55]

I’ve noticed a lot of push/pull too. I sorta feel like when I apologized for my harsh message as a response to his behavior, I inadvertently rewarded it causing me to be subject to him rather be cutting things off just to prove a point that he is right. I guess I did JADEing.  I feel like I did everything in the book to aggravate and escalate it due to my anxiety.

I sorta do hope to reconnect in the future but we had no contact for a month and he basically said he didn’t want to talk anymore and freaked out at me showing up at his house out of the blue (when I apologized). Before this blow up, we got along and he never disconnected from me like this. I just feel bad that I pushed too much as upset as I am for being treated this way.
I do miss talking to him too.

I can’t really see touching base going well unless it’s months later since he didn’t seem to be thinking straight at all.

I wonder if his decision not to talk anymore (which seemed like a whim and due to emotion deregulation) can be reversed and how I would set boundaries and not be in a position to seem I tolerate his outburst, impulsively ending things, and silent treatment by making contact in the future since he seemed to want to place blame on me for my harsh message that came after his outbursts. I am ashamed to say I didn’t handle the fallout well, took it personally and got anxious. I wish I didn’t lash out at the craziness but I did. So he may not want to have me back in his life.

I wonder if this can be fixed?  If months later and he happens to be in a good mood, if it just depends on that or if he will hold things in personally and make me out to be the bad guy without reflecting on his part.

[RolandOfEld]

I wonder if his decision not to talk anymore (which seemed like a whim and due to emotion deregulation) can be reversed and how I would set boundaries and not be in a position to seem I tolerate his outburst, impulsively ending things, and silent treatment by making contact in the future since he seemed to want to place blame on me for my harsh message that came after his outbursts. I am ashamed to say I didn’t handle the fallout well, took it personally and got anxious. I wish I didn’t lash out at the craziness but I did. So he may not want to have me back in his life.

In the case of someone with BPD, decisions such as cutting off contact are usually based on in the moment emotions and dysregulation. They are therefore close to impossible to anticipate or understand since there is little basis in fact or a consistent emotional viewpoint. In this case it is usually most important that we as the non maintain a reality-based view of the situation and do not get swept up into the other person's emotional tornado.

So I would suggest you put aside attempts to understand or predict his feelings and instead focus on clarifying the events as they stand. Ask yourself reality-orientated questions. Have you been treated respectfully? Has he behaved as an adult in a relationship should, romantic or otherwise? Are his reactions to your own actions reasonable? Did your time with him increase your overall well being, or hamper it?  

~ROE

[Bluemoon55]

Thanks for the reply!

You make a good point. I can’t really figure out why he cut off contact and why he blew up if it was emotion based or else i’ll drive myself crazy. It almost seemed like he knew he couldn’t do or handle much since other people don’t expect much with him so when I kept reaching out or expecting him to do better, he got more upset cause he was likely accustomed to people being attuned to his weaknesses but I kept expecting him to do better and talk to me about and he just blew up. I also wonder if he was acting out of rejection.

Maybe it is better to focus on what is reality based since it is next to impossible to predict his behavior or know what he was thinking. He wasn’t respectful of my feelings. He didn’t acknowledge the relationship at the end. When he wasn’t like this, he was pleasant to be around. But in the past few months since his job chance, I felt like he got very self absorbed, had outbursts over plans he wanted to do, pretended we didn’t have certain serious conversations when something went wrong in his life and he couldn’t handle it to avoid responsibility.

Even so, for some reason I keep feeling if I didn’t push so much and just would have acknowledged the situation factually by telling him “you’ve seemed stressed and not yourself right now so I’m going to give you some space.” I kept telling him “when can we hang out. It’s really important to me” the more he panicked and treated me basically bad.

I wonder if this can blow over in a few months and if so how would I even begin to handle it knowing that he broke contact then yelled at me and I lashed out back. I think my guilt for my own reactions have heightened my ability to get over what happened and I’m basically anxious all the time. If we ever talk again I worry he would isolate my lashing out at his behavior and dismiss what led up to this. He may not even be worth all this but I can’t help but wonder

Any advice appreciated.

[Bluemoon55]

Also to add, what threw me off is basically after no contact for one month, he didn’t end things when I got in touch,, he just seemed checked out but talked about having a tough time. It was when I pushed to meet when he yelled and had a meltdown, to eventually cutting ties. I kept asking if we can meet right away for clarity and he seemed confused and instead of taking my few calls as caring or seeing what hell I was going through in his lack of communication or silence, he raged that I was being too much and claimed I shut him down and eventually said he didn’t want to be with anyone.

When he said that, after, I pushed to meet for closure and stayed friends. I was trying to get a grip on this since I took some personal responsibility for him reacting this way in how I kept insisting he talk to me. In asking for closure his reply was “how will seeing me give you closure? I don’t want to date you either way” to which that completely hurt me when I thinking “I thought we were dating? Due to your no contact you made it a non issue and YOU raged at me” I basically lashed out due to being in shock and ridden by grief.

Basically asking again is reconciling in this situation ever possible without disrespecting myself and how many months would one wait for something like this to blow over. Other times I think maybe he’s a bad person and I crazy for wanting to go back to something that was unhealthy at the end.

[Bluemoon55]

Anyone? Appreciate it in advance