Not realizing it’s BPD

[Cat Familiar]

Someone with emotionally healthy boundaries may initially date someone with BPD, but I think as they get to know the person, they don't feel a match with someone who is constantly violating them.

After I ended my disastrous first marriage, I did a couple of years of counseling, hoping that I wouldn't get entwined with another husband with a personality disorder. Afterwards I dated a very nice man who unfortunately had PTSD from his military service and a young daughter who showed signs of mental illness. I was self-aware enough not to get overly involved and counted my blessings for not doing so as his daughter decompensated greatly some years later.

When I got together with my current husband, I overlooked his over-use of alcohol, believing it was stress-related. His recounting of past issues in terms of victimhood seemed correct, as I knew the people involved. What I didn't see was the overarching patterns. Those I didn't become aware of until much later.

In the meantime, I was enjoying the feeling of being in love and feeling loved by this wonderful man. It didn't occur to me that I was being idealized, as I just chalked it up to being appreciated and recognized by someone who loved me. It came as a shock the first time he suddenly became extremely angry with me, thinking I was siding against him, when I offered an explanation of why his sisters might not be as participatory in his life as he wanted them to be.

It took some years before I felt like he began saying unkind things and violating my boundaries, and really, he didn't do much of that, even at the lowest point in our relationship. I had had such an extreme experience with relentless emotional abuse, occasional physical abuse in my first marriage, that behavior that mildly impinged upon my boundaries didn't trigger my   then.

Now that I recall the early part of our courtship, I think, had I been a more emotionally healthy person, I would have recoiled from the amount of positive feedback, rather than relishing it. It would have made me think that he was obsequious. But I had been so accustomed to being perpetually criticized by my BPD mother, then by my first husband, hearing nice things said about me was like a breath of fresh air--I readily gulped it in.

[Red5]

I was married before too... since age eighteen.

A long story,

So I dated one woman meantime, after the divorce was final ... she taught me a whole lot looking back now...

Should have stayed “in dry dock” after the divorce, from a twenty one year marriage...

But I didn’t, “yahoo personals”... yeah ; (

So I dated the red headed real estate agent, who was also freshly divorced... almost made a big mistake, as she was love bombing me... more like (bomb) hard target penetrator type (ordnance) love bombing... and as I was a loved starved fool, ex-codependent... I almost fell for her expatriations and offers of undying devotions... but as I refused to put hardware on her ring finger, she discarded me, nine months we shagged like two ex cons on furlough... “in the conjugal sense”... I almost let this succubus personality take me... whoa!

Then I met “the one”... the poor distressed... “Snow White”... all her previous BF’s, one fiancée and one ex husband were all terrible black nights... so me, being a savior... a rescuer, a “caregiver”... a ”wounded duck” of a divorcee... I took it upon myself to rescue this poor damsel...

Little did I know or understand... even after two decades of marriage to another “damaged” and radioactive woman, the mother of my three children... whom I’d known since she was sixteen...

I didn’t know Jack $hit...

So here I am, “downrange”... at age fifty three, 

After a crash course in self imposed “head shrinking”...

Wondering what’s next... all the while noting the “time on deck”... 53+... I’m not twenty something... or thirty something anymore...

If anything, I’ve learned a whole lot, that many of my cohorts, comrades...and brothers and sisters will never learn, due to not having passed through the meat grinder, the sausage making room... as they live quiet and peaceful lives, free and devoid of phycological struggles...

They have no clue what awaits... possibly, should things “go south”...

I wouldn’t trade places... I’ve taken the “red pill”... I see the world as it really is now...

Even as I continue to “suffer” and struggle... I am thankful... for what I’ve learned.

As I watch others, whom have not “tasted the fire”... I wonder how these others will be able to cope when the “fire” may find them one day.

Fifty three years old, two marriages, heart broken... tumultuous life events... “what don’t kill you, makes you stronger”.

What ever happens with my current marriage, now separated for almost eight months, and she is stage iv rcc (cancer)... I think I may be done with this “relationship-romance” experiment(s)...

Far to risky, I need to watch out for my three adult children... and ensure I leave them a legacy... other than an “epitaph”.

I read on these threads, men in their sixties... dealing with this...

No... I’m done ; (

Hang in there Cat!

Red5
 

[Cat Familiar]

What I've learned, and it's just a pittance, is similar to that famous quote: "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." I'd restate it in terms of what I've learned here: If we don't take care of our emotional wounds from past relationships, we are likely to re-engage in a relationship with similar problems.

It's all too easy to assume the issue resides solely in the person with BPD. Yes, they're the ones who are raging, doing weird self-sabotaging behaviors, being irrational, treating us unkindly, making scenes--the list can go on and on.

But what is within us that we were initially attracted to this person? And when we first began to see odd behavior, why did we continue to participate in the relationship?

Something about this person was compelling and attractive and we hoped, perhaps against our better judgment, that the "wonderful person" would reappear and the "odd stranger" would permanently vanish--if only we loved them enough, we could heal their wounds, we could repair their issues...

We may have told ourselves that we're strong enough to take whatever they may throw at us, we can fix it!   

I certainly did when the "issues" first started cropping up. I've been the person people confide in and have a bit of skill at negotiating win/wins. I thought that I could "talk it out" whatever the issue was and that I'd be able to come to a solution that all parties would endorse. (I didn't do so well on this account with my first BPD husband, but he was BPD on steroids, in addition to possibly ASPD and NPD--and I'd learned a lot since that relationship through counseling, reading, and being reflective and truly honest with myself.)

To my amazement, all my conversational "skills" just made things worse with my husband. I was at a complete loss. He's a very functional person, highly intelligent, accomplished, socially adept, professional. Yet I could not talk with him when he was upset without inciting irrational thinking and behavior.

It wasn't until I landed here and started learning about BPD and new skillsets that I incorporated, that things started to get better. Mostly it got better because I quit making things worse. My biggest self-inflicted issue was JADEing, and of that, Explaining was my biggest crime. I'm just a natural Explainer--I like to think that everyone is on the same page as far as understanding. What didn't occur to me was that when I would do this with my husband, he thought I was "talking down to him," "being on my high horse," "thinking he was stupid," etc.

I'm happy to say that nowadays we seldom have issues. The most recent kerfuffle I'll relate here. It was really about nothing.

We've been getting one of those meal subscription services. It has solved a big issue for both of us. Previously I felt that the burden of cooking was entirely upon my shoulders and I was becoming resentful because I didn't feel appreciated for all the time and effort I put into it. Also we have very different needs. I can get by with dinner being a smoothie, while he often felt that some of the vegetarian meals I cooked weren't "food" because they didn't include meat. I will eat meat, but only if it's antibiotic and hormone-free. He thought I was being overly fussy.

So now we get three meals a week from a company that provides organic produce and meat. We share kitchen responsibilities and he has chosen to cook while I do the prep work and clean the kitchen. This works well for both of us and I appreciate that he is doing a big part of the meal preparation.

The incident I'm referring to happened the other night. I was chopping some green beans and noticed that they weren't particularly tender. I told him that he might want to cook them longer than what was specified in the recipe. Immediately he began feeling attacked--as though I was criticizing his abilities. "I do pretty good cooking these meals. You should at least give me credit and be appreciative."

Inwardly I rolled my eyes. (Is there such a thing?) I regularly give him kudos, but obviously there's never enough--BPD and all that. "I was just talking about the beans being tough. You do a great job." In the past, I would have said more.

We finish eating and as I put the leftovers away, I notice that he hadn't put the Thai Basil on as a garnish. He became aware of that and apologized. I smiled and said, "It will be good on the leftovers."

I'm glad that this is the kind of "incident" I now experience occasionally. Quite different from a few years ago when I first landed here.

Even if I had known about the tools here during my first marriage, I don't think I would have wanted to remain in it. He was too damaged and his behavior was too extreme. Though I again married a pwBPD, this one is kind and thoughtful. I may have not learned enough to avoid entanglement with someone with emotional damage from the family of origin, but I did choose better than the first time.

Red I do hope that you don't make an overgeneralization. Right now you are learning so much and now is not the time, but perhaps in the future you'll find a nice emotionally healthy woman out there. They do exist. They're not unicorns. 

[Red5]

Cat writes...Red I do hope that you don't make an overgeneralization. Right now you are learning so much and now is not the time, but perhaps in the future you'll find a nice emotionally healthy woman out there. They do exist. They're not unicorns.  

I am starting to think I’m an “Alien” Cat !

Dropped off here with Bigfoot by the “mothership”...

For goodness sakes... “beam me up Mr. Scott!”

I need to be sent to “debriefing” 

Red5

P.S.

“You either run with Bigfoot, or you run from Bigfoot!”

[I Am Redeemed]

I didn't know anything about personality disorders when I entered my relationship with stbx ubpdh, but I knew an awful lot about dysfunction. FOO and my own mental health struggles with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders led me to seek out people who matched my own emotional maturity, which was extremely low in my twenties and not much better in my thirties.

I had low self-esteem and I had made a mess of my life. I was trying to rebuild and I was vulnerable. I had just gotten sober for the first time in twelve years, and I was not in any way ready to make choices about relationships. I knew nothing of boundaries and I was emotionally fragile.

These things all contributed to my eagerness to jump into a relationship with a man who (so I thought) was just trying to rebuild his life, like me. I saw red flags in the beginning, but as a person who was exposed to so much dysfunction, I did not have the misgivings about red flags that others might. For all intensive purposes, there was a huge red flag waving over my own head as well (newly sober, fresh out of rehab, in counseling for depression/substance use, minimum wage job, living with my parents). I felt a connection with someone who had made bad choices but was trying to overcome them and who was committed to recovery. I thought we would heal and grow together.

Nope.

I attributed most of the emerging behaviors to the substance use disorder. Even when a person is not actively using, the disorder of addiction/alcoholism manifests in other ways and is characterized by certain "traits", including trouble with accepting life on life's terms, insecurity, anxiety, a tendency to be controlling, manipulation in order to get one's needs met, and problems with regulating emotion. I just thought it would get better the longer we were in recovery. I did not realize that there was something more serious at play. Eventually, he relapsed, and I didn't even see it coming.

When the abusive behaviors started, I thought that if I showed my loyalty and willingness to forgive and help him face his issues, that he would get better. I was reluctant to give up on someone because I mistakenly compared his issues to my own- I had changed, was changing, wanted to change more, and I thought that he did too, and these were just the normal "bumps" that came with struggling to gain one's footing when changing a lifetime of unhealthy patterns. I didn't realize that these patterns were so deep-rooted and pervasive. I kept thinking if he only went to the right counselor, found the right AA/NA meeting and sponsor, found the right church, took the right medication, he could recover. Nothing worked. I didn't know that it was (most likely) BPD (and probably some other comorbid issues) until the r/s had passed the point of no return.

Looking back, I can see that at least two prior bf's had traits of BPD. One r/s lasted six years, was also abusive (not on the scale of my last marriage, but similar) and I also attributed all his issues to substance abuse disorder. The other bf was a very brief r/s and I didn't realize until years later that he most likely has a pd as well. This occurred to me only because I coincidentally started working with his sister fifteen years after we dated, and found out that he has changed zero percent since he was 23 and is still caught in the same destructive patterns.

Will I be able to tell if someone has BPD in the future? I don't know. I do know that I pay attention to red flags now, and I don't brush things off just because they are "familiar" patterns to me. For me, if a behavior is "familiar", then it probably isn't healthy

[I Am Redeemed]

BTW, Cat, internal eye rolling is definitely a real thing. Anyone who has worked in customer service is an expert at it!

[Baglady]

Hi folks,

I also didn't know about personality disorders when I met my exBPDh (heck I didn't know about them until his psychotic break 15 months ago!).  Like Redeemed, however, I did know about dysfunction.  The dynamic in my FOO was that my Mom had some kind of mental illness (not BPD - not sure what) and that my Dad was severely codependent and/or largely absent.  My brothers and I were pitted against each other as children by my mother while my workaholic father worked (7 am to 11 pm every day including weekends with only 4 days off a year running a small business.  A surreal schedule now to me as an adult but I'm guessing he was partly trying to avoid my Mother and the messed up family dynamics too).  To compound matters, my brothers and I were send to Catholic schools where we were all subjected to severe physical/emotional/psychological abuse for years along with our peers (all the adults in the community turned a blind eye to this - they themselves had been through the same or worse).  I also experienced a sexual assault as a teen.

In contrast, putting up with my exBPDh's mood swings, irrational thinking, put-downs, anger outbursts yadda yadda yadda during my decades long marriage was a cakewalk!  His brand of crazy was so much more normal/milder than my FOO dynamics!   It also doesn't help that I work with severely disabled/emotionally disturbed children as part of my job (I routinely get hit, kicked, spit on, slapped, verbally abused frequently by these kids).  

As my therapist likes to remind me - my baseline for normal behavior is so skewed that I was a sitting duck for someone with BPD/NPD traits.

I'm doing so much work on my childhood issues that I'll likely be in therapy for the rest of my days!  

Like Red - I'm done with relationships - I just feel I have more baggage than a Boeing 747.

Warmly,
B

[AskingWhy]

Now that I recall the early part of our courtship, I think, had I been a more emotionally healthy person, I would have recoiled from the amount of positive feedback, rather than relishing it. It would have made me think that he was obsequious. But I had been so accustomed to being perpetually criticized by my BPD mother, then by my first husband, hearing nice things said about me was like a breath of fresh air--I readily gulped it in.

Cat, I also feel with my second marriage there were certainly red flags.  LIke many of us, this is not my first BPD marriage.

I was only engaged when I felt something was off when H was in the presence of his children, who were then quite young children.  (NPDs and BPDs often see their children as extensions of themselves.)  He would walk arm in arm with his two Ds, with his S on his shoulders while I walked several paces behind like a servant.  I was not invited to walk with one of his children as a wife and life partner.  Of course, I was the one sent to buy ice cream cones, and take the Ds into the women's restroom, but my presence was only like a...servant. To be seen and interacted with when a need arose.  I felt like the fifth wheel.  As the children grew older and into their teens, they abused their father with emotional blackmail (for privileges and money), and also attempted to abuse me by extension; my H did not come to my defence.  (Of course, I put them in their place.) 

I was love bombed during a very brief courtship and we were married in three months.

When he started his rages with me in our first year of marriage (within six months), name calling and breaking things and threatening divorce, I was shocked and did not know H had a mental illness.  I had no idea what to think but knew something, on the gut level, was dreadfully wrong.  His dissociative splits caused him to brandish a broken barbecue grill handle at me, snarling, "You'd better get into the house now, because I am fixing to get really mad!"  He never has raised a hand to me in more than twenty years, but the holes in the wall and broken items are "symbolic violence," such as when a person destroys property or abuses an animal.  (H is almost always loving with the pets except for the time when our little dog was old and dying and soiled her bed.  Then H raged at her and dumped her off her bed when she soiled herself.)

Today, I would never tolerate a man who made me disappear to him in the presence of his children, regardless of their age.  I know now H's first W was surely NPD (their children all seem to be in the NPD and BPD spectrum) but I see how BPDs are attracted to NPDs and codependents.  

My X H, after five years of marriage (he was covertly incested by his M), devalued me, up and left.  He moved to another town and had me served with divorce papers.  One day, he came home and said he didn't love me and left.  I never saw him again.  Six months later, I received my divorce decree. 

Looking at my own FOO, I see how my childhood set me up for these unhealthy marriages.  

[5min]

I had no idea what BPD was until I put in a search for "I feel like I'm walking on egg shells". That lead to Kreger and this place and a lot of learning. Part of my understanding came from reading Harville Hendrix book about Imego. In it he explains that we seek out people who represent the parent we have an issue with (or an amalgam of the two for some). For me, I see now that I had issue with a mother who exhibits some of the BPD traits though not to the magnitude of my wife. I have not resolved those issues with mom and so I found a new relationship (marriage) to resolve those with. My uBPD wife also comes looking for the same - a relationship to work out parental issues in her case with an over controlling mother and a self absorbed not caring father. This also explains the black and white sessions. She projects their traits on me during the black episodes. I get called prideful, full of myself, controlling, not caring, mean, etc. She also projects their ways of thinking on me which explains source of some of the bizarre notions about my thoughts. I regularly tell her I don't think that way to no avail. I've resolved myself to the notion that Hendrix and Gottman both have excellent methods that work for nons who both accept their piece of the problem. In my case, my uBPD wife will not accept anything that puts her in a bad light, identifies her as wrong, or accept and fault, therefore their methods do not have a chance. At 54, if my marriage fails, I am also done with the relational experiments.

[Cat Familiar]

Some common threads in our responses:
1. Family of origin issues have accustomed us to tolerate behavior that others would find unacceptable

2. We excuse away bad behavior, thinking that it may be temporary

3. We try to rescue someone who seems worthy and who has been damaged by others/life circumstances

4. We believe them when they say they're trying to make life improvements

5. We ascribe bad behavior to substance abuse

6. We enjoy the love bombing phase

7. We are willing to forgive (up to a point), in spite of things not changing

8. This often isn't our first rodeo

9. We become aware of working out issues that we didn't resolve with our parents

10. Many of us are now willing to throw in the towel rather than roll the dice on a new relationship in the future

[formflier]

2. We excuse away bad behavior, thinking that it may be temporary

3. We try to rescue someone who seems worthy and who has been damaged by others/life circumstances

4. We believe them when they say they're trying to make life improvements
 
6. We enjoy the love bombing phase

7. We are willing to forgive (up to a point), in spite of things not changing

 

These are the ones that really hit home with me.

I'm especially  captivated by people trying to improve their circumstance.  My wife was obviously from an "interesting" family and she was (and still is to a point) deliberate about doing things differently from them. 

She was the first to graduate college (lots of attenders...no staying power).  Her degree was in early childhood education and much of her parenting was based on that and deliberately away from what she was raised with.

This last part is especially frustrating now...because how can someone with such a degree not understand that attempting to put a child on a "public trial" to force a confessional is not good.

Hey Cat...good thread.  Lots of stuff to think about here.

Best,

FF

[Ozzie101]

I, too, had never heard of BPD.

I'm a fixer. A people-pleaser. I love to take care of people. It makes me happy. From what I've seen, that's not an uncommon trait for folks around here.

My childhood was very happy and my relationship with most family members was/is great. However, in my teen years, the sister closest in age to me (not quite 2 years younger) developed anorexia, which also affected her moods and behaviors. She lashed out at my parents and at me. Looking back, it was very much a verbally/emotionally abusive situation. As the oldest, I stepped up to help take care of my younger sisters and tried to shield them from things. Anyway, my sister finally got the right kind of help and recovered, as far as I know. But, that experience of living in that environment for 2-3 years probably had more of an impact than I realized.

When I met H, we just clicked. He didn't love bomb me. He wasn't overly effusive or positive with his praise. I had that with another boyfriend and I didn't trust it, so eventually broke it off. What H expressed seemed far more real and realistic. He did complain about his mother and talked about his awful experience with his ex-wife's family and, again, it all sounded reasonable.

Things continued to be fine after we were married, but I noticed he seemed overly sensitive to a lot of things. And he wasn't gelling with my family. He dreaded any get-togethers and when we were together, he'd sit in a corner and glare, basically. Any slights, he would overreact. But he'd usually talk himself down.

Then, a series of emotionally difficult events happened in a short span of time and those episodes of intense anger and hurt multiplied. Whereas before he would just rant, he began to aim them directly at me and make these insane twists of logic to connect anything -- even work-related problems -- to me and my family. I was accused of not caring. Of not trying. Of only marrying him for his money. He threatened divorce over and over. He became emotionally and verbally abusive in a big way.

For a long time, I thought it was all my fault and I'd screwed up. Then, I was digging around online and ended up posting on a mental health help forum and someone mentioned BPD. Found Walking on Eggshells, which led me here.

The advice here has been SO invaluable. I still struggle at times. I have to remind myself not to JADE. (I'm like you, Cat. I was heavy on Explaining. I value an explanation for things. As I've told him, I think there's a difference between explanation and excuse. If I understand why, it's much easier for me to accept things. But he was hearing excuses.) Boundaries are still tricky when he gets into a real mood because I go into fear mode and just fold up on myself, or will be tempted to drop boundaries just to protect myself from his explosion. But I've gotten better about it.

He's gotten so much better -- in part because he realized he had a real problem. He still has no clue about BPD. But his attitude has changed in a big way and he found a therapist with whom he clicked. And the support and tools I got here gave me so much more confidence and strength that I was sorely lacking.

Great thread, Cat. It's so fascinating to read about others' experiences and how they ended up in these relationships. So many similarities. While I came here initially to focus on him and his problems, I've really come to learn that I have my own issues that need to be addressed if things are to continue on the positive path. That's part of what makes this place so wonderful.

[Cat Familiar]

Adding to the list...

11. They've got a college degree/professional career or expertise/high IQ/remarkable ability at their job--how can they be so irrational?

12. We are fixers and people pleasers (similar to #3)

13. We've dealt with traumatic experience/s in our early life

14. We believe the relationship problems are our fault

15. We are accused of not caring

[Cat Familiar]

(I'm like you, Cat. I was heavy on Explaining. I value an explanation for things. As I've told him, I think there's a difference between explanation and excuse. If I understand why, it's much easier for me to accept things. But he was hearing excuses.)

Great distinction, Ozzie. Yes, indeed there's a difference between explanation and excuse, or explanation and justification. Maybe it's because I'm an INTJ that I love to parse those differences and knowing how things happen and why is really important to me. People's intentions matter to me and if the outcome isn't great, knowing that someone was trying to do their best makes me more tolerant than merely judging by the end result.

I know for some people, the end result is all that matters. And to put on the lens of feeling rather than thinking, it's likely that hearing about motivation or intention would sound completely irrelevant or like someone was trying to justify or excuse their behavior.

[Red5]

1. Family of origin issues have accustomed us to tolerate behavior that others would find unacceptable.

Add belief system to that... a “parallel circuit” perhaps to family of origin issues,

For me; Judeo Christian upbringing via Grandparents... marriage vows, for better or for worse, sickness and in health, till death us do part,

Except...

Bible verse,

{ Matthew 19 }
(verse 8.) Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. (verse 9.) I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (verse 10.) The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

Wow... verse ten!

This is tough stuff for me, the sex outside marriage was a dealbreaker for me, even after multiple incidents, I stayed in my first marriage, until the bitter ending, the #1 reason for this was my children.

I hang on to things, commitments... I will absorb a lot, but of the four dealbreakers, one being adultery, another is abuse of children... either blood or step, doesn’t matter, that’s a non-starter for me.

That belief system, that’s ingrained... default & hard wired in.

Red5

[Cat Familiar]

Some of us will hang on even when our boundaries are repeatedly violated. I did that in my first marriage, when he had numerous affairs.

I’d made a promise, a vow, a commitment that I intended to keep. I thought if I just forgave and loved him enough that he would realize how important our marriage was, and change his ways. Didn’t happen.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that how he behaved was who he was.

[Cat Familiar]

16. We tolerate over and over our boundaries being violated and hope against all evidence that it won’t happen again

17. We stay due to honoring commitments, whether religious or our own sense of integrity

[I Am Redeemed]

16. We tolerate over and over our boundaries being violated and hope against all evidence that it won’t happen again

I know for me, I had no idea how to set boundaries. I kept thinking that he would just magically begin to respect my boundaries without me having to enforce them. When he didn't, I set about trying to figure out how to make him do that. I didn't make the connection that I was responsible for setting and enforcing the boundary, and that nothing I could say or do would make him respect me if he didn't want to. I fooled myself into thinking that he really wanted to, he just didn't know how.

[Baglady]

For me, until I delved into learning about BPD after the breakdown of my marriage, I'm kind of ashamed to admit that I was completely unfamiliar with the idea of a boundary in a relationship. I was completely unaware of the concept - it's hard to protect one when it's just not something you know about (and I have multiple graduate degrees and I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent ).  

You see, I grew up in a tough, dysfunctional working-class world where no-one expressed these types of emotional concepts or even ever really gave much time to thinking about feelings and/or how to better relate to others.  Who had time for that when putting the next meal on the table and a roof over your head were serious daily concerns? You just kinda got on with things  .  

You can bet your bottom dollar, I'm bringing my son up to speed on all of the relationship concepts that I've learned since my divorce.  I guess that is one huge blessing to come out of the BPD divorce mess !

Warmly,
B

[Enabler]

I think when you come from a healthy family you all have mutual respect for each other, all are looking out for one another (on the whole) and there's an unwritten rule that you don't take too much (resources)... you learn at a young age not to take a massive handful of crisps from the bowl when there's lots of people at the table... it never needed to be said.

I had good knowledge and understanding of boundaries, I just didn't know effective ways of enforcing them... my childhood skills of just pointing things out pleasantly multiple times didn't work. The only things that seemed to work were my very blunt tools of defending my lines with anger. She simply didn't hear/acknowledge/respond to anything other than me shouting at her. Then of course she flips into victim mode. I'd never come across anything like it in my life. That 6m of idealisation was like me flapping around in a giant cold saucepan waiting to be boiled.

Enabler 

[Cat Familiar]

I had good knowledge and understanding of boundaries, I just didn't know effective ways of enforcing them... my childhood skills of just pointing things out pleasantly multiple times didn't work.

Like Baglady, I had no working concept of boundaries in my first marriage. Then, through therapy and reading, I learned about the concept. I've always tried to be kind and thoughtful about my communications with others, so it was shocking when my current husband became offended when I'd ask him to do things like remove his wet clothes from the washer the same day he'd put them in (so that I could use it) or to clean the wooden cutting board instead of leaving it with dried food.

Suddenly I was being "unkind, abusive, cold, ungrateful" etc. I was amazed that he hadn't learned things, like putting a tool back to where he found it--things that seemed like life skills you learn around age 10. And if you hadn't learned it by then, certainly you'd learn these things as a young adult living with roommates?

It wasn't until I learned about BPD that I realized that my requests for more mindful behavior were interpreted as harsh criticisms of who he is.