LONG STORY: Four years and three months of agony and ecstasy

[1984bps]

PART ONE

 It's 5.25am and I can't sleep. She is gone and I can't stop thinking about her. Even though she has broken my heart, robbed me of my confidence, and left me penniless, in debt and homeless, all I can feel is the empty space next to me. I miss her so much.

It's going to take a while for you to read all of this, so I'll break it down into chapters. What I need is:

 -   To know whether others agree that members of my partner's family have been making her BPD symptoms worse, as well as interfering and taking too much control over our relationship. I'm also wondering whether her mother also has a mental health problem, and whether her behaviour is normal with other mothers of people with BPD.

  -  To get other people's thoughts and perspectives on this.

  -  To know that what has happened wasn't my fault, even though I could have done better when it came to handling my emotions.

  -  To find out how much of this has been caused by my Borderline partner's disorder and how much has been caused by the effects of life and the nature of romance.

I'll start at the beginning...

2015:
I met her during the greatest summer of my life in 2015. We had spoke online for a month or two and had become very into each other, messaging throughout every day and never running out of conversation. But when we eventually met in person for that first date, I was totally knocked out by her effortless beauty, warm personality and the most incredible smile. We went out for food and drinks a few times that same week, and ended up officially becoming an item on a spontaneous day trip to the beach in Weymouth. We talked and talked, so engaged in each other that we lost track of time, missing our last train home. We must have walked around for hours trying to find a hotel to stay at for the night, but it didn't matter to us, we were just enjoying the fact that we had found each other. I ended up spending £150 on a taxi to take us on that long, late night journey back to her place, and it was worth every penny. During that ride, cuddled together on the back seat, J fell asleep in my arms while 'One Day Like This' played on the radio. I had never known such happiness like it in all my life. I felt like all the troubles I had been through during my life were all meant to happen, I had come through them the other side, and that fate had now given me a reward more special and beautiful than anything I could've even dreamed of.

I was able to be myself when I was with her, not afraid to say or do anything. It was like finding the missing piece to the jigsaw of my life, and we fitted like we were made for each other.

But I knew she had problems. We all do. She told me that her family life had always been complicated, and spent a lot of her life not knowing who her real father was. She also told me that she had been in a series of abusive relationships. I wondered how any man could treat someone so perfect in such a bad way. In reality I think she may have had one or two relationships that were genuinely abusive, and then ended up treating her subsequent partners badly as a result and telling me a different story. However back then, I hung on every word she said. She had enraptured me so much that I thought she was completely incapable of any lies. I often think to myself that when she lies, it's because her mind actually believes it's the truth. I've never seen her as a malicious or dishonest person. And now I know that it is one of the by-products of BPD.

Quote: " Stage 1 – The individual with BPD begins a relationship which seems to move with rapid intensity. A successful first date can lead the individual with BPD into a state of seeing their partner in a perfect and picturesque way..."

When we got together, I was aware that she had been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, but I knew just about enough info to know that bipolar people can still have happy relationships. The first 9 months of our romance were pretty much carefree and relatively problem-free, aside from her leaving her job due to stress and needing some time to rest and recover, plus me having bad experiences with jobs I was doing at the time. None of those things mattered when I knew I would be coming to see her. It was exhilarating, a feeling of being almost dizzy with happiness, and completely lost in a world that was all our own. We did things together that neither of us had done before: horse riding on the beach, climbing London landmarks, getting two stars next to each other in the sky named after us, visiting exhibitions and museums, going to fancy dress parties... we even got a dog. The sex was just as astonishing as the love that I felt for her, and we even tried new things we had never done in that aspect as well. For four years, even during the bad times, it felt like I had died and gone to heaven. The worst times turned out to be when I was fearing that heaven was slipping away and that if it ever ended, I would be dropped back down to earth with a bump.

Although at times she was noticeably more loved-up than at other times, I never felt like the strongest, deepest expressions of her love for me were exaggerations because I felt EXACTLY the same feelings for her. I wanted us to both live forever just so we would never have to say goodbye, and that if there was a next life then I would still love her in that one too. That is still how I feel over four years later, despite everything that has happened since. But every now and again I could sense that she was somehow afraid of losing me, despite that not ever being possible. She was my angel and I would never want her to fly out of my life.

2016:
We'd been together for about 8 or 9 months before she had to move out of her flat due to her landlord letting a relative of her ex move into the flat next door. To be honest I wouldn't feel comfortable with that either. By this point we had our own cat, who J had bought a couple of months after we got together. He was like a little symbol of our love for each other and our love for animals. With there being no properties that would allow pets, J had to move into a place owned by a very snotty landlady who didn't allow pets or smoking. Both the cat and any signs of tobacco had to be hidden at all times, shutters down on all the windows and having to block any gaps around the door to stop the smoke being detected by people in the other flats. It was only supposed to be temporary, but J spent nearly a year and a half trying to find somewhere suitable for her. Add to the fact that she was living on disability benefits because of what doctors diagnosed as anxiety and bipolar disorder, and that made her choice of living place even more limited.

Even though we had to hide pets and make huge efforts to cover up our disregard for the "no smoking" rule, we had some great times in that flat. We still went out together all the time, because we enjoyed doing things together, and doing things apart didn't seem normal anymore. Obviously I would still have to stay in my old hometown to work and make money, but even when I did we would still be thinking about each other and texting throughout the day. No matter what job I did, coming back to her made me feel like the luckiest man in the world. That's a term you'll probably hear a few times here, but it's exactly how she made me feel. Things had been amazing, without even a hint of an argument or serious disagreement in over a year and a half. Then I started to notice that she was complaining of illness more, just small things to start with like colds and headaches. It would still never stop her from wanting to be intimate with me though, sex was always incredible with her. By far the love of my life already, by this point we were planning a family together, and there was no reason for me to even hesitate. Why wait when you feel that life is brilliant but so short?

Quote: "Stage 2 – The relationship is progressing but the individual with BPD becomes hypersensitive to the smallest action or word which can be perceived negatively. Their partner may take longer to respond to messages or calls or make plans with friends before checking with their partner. These small actions become a source of fixation for the individual with BPD as their fear of abandonment and low self-esteem are beginning to whisper that their partner is no longer as interested. The relationship experiences a small fracture in the mind of the BPD sufferer which becomes a source of excessive worry."

Even though I had now found work in J's town and was able to stay over more with her, I would still spend a couple of nights a week away, just to see friends and family and because her landlady's contract stated that two people couldn't live there full time. Either she started having doubts about my devotion to her because I was WILLINGLY going back to my old town every now and again, or the first episode I eventually witnessed was just waiting to be triggered by the slightest little misunderstanding or paranoid thought.

2017:
Over a year and a half, and we've enjoyed two wonderful Christmases together so far. 2017 begins badly when I'm struggling to find work, after leaving my previous workplace when they refused to pay the staff before Christmas. Without her, it would've been a depressing time, but her love always made my world feel whole. Then one night I'm using the laptop, but she's left herself logged in to Facebook. I was just about to log out and open a new screen when my eye just caught these long sexual sentences coming from the chat window. She was online talking to someone else, and even though she was upfront about having a boyfriend, they were clearly enjoying talking about what they'd like to do to each other if they were both in the same place. I had to check I wasn't having some sort of nightmare or that somebody else wasn't using her account. I was devastated, wondering how such an amazing and sweet person could do that to the man who loves her. But I didn't want it end, and I carried on, not letting her know the things I had read, and trying to bottle up every thought of how much she had hurt me. I knew that those actions couldn't have been the actions of the real J, and suddenly realised that her "bipolar" might be a lot more serious than I realised.

Maybe she was trying to send out some sort of veiled call for help. Maybe she had to get all the worries and bad thoughts out of her system, and behaved in a way to cause distress as an excuse to cause trouble, and let loose her demons. Maybe she genuinely thought she was going to lose me, so she was lining up other men as safety nets or as a way of making me jealous. Maybe I just imagined what I saw because I thought someone as amazing as her wouldn't do that to me even if they were having mental health problems. A million different possibilities went through my head when I discovered that she was doing things like that while I was away, and by this point even when I was in the flat with her.

I was numb with shock, but just about managing to get over it. Then I found out that she was doing it again, when she left her phone out without the screen turned off, in a way that was impossible for me not to notice. Had she sensed that I knew what she was doing before, and felt so guilty for it that there was no other way of confessing? One night I ended up upset when she took her phone into the shower with her, thinking that she was video calling someone. I was trying to stop crying before she came out of the shower, but she could tell that I was not feeling good. I spent a long time being half honest with her by telling her my fears that she didn't love me anymore, but not telling the reasons why. So I just had to make out that I sensed something was up but didn't know what. She tried reassuring me that she could never leave the love of her life or ever stop loving me.

But the next day, all of this was still on my mind. She went out to the pub with her cousin one night, probably to have a chat about the first relationship problem she had ever had with me. Feeling like I had to get it off my chest, I messaged her and told her that I knew all about the sort of chats she had been having online with other guys and wanted to know if they were really worth ruining our relationship for. At first she pretended that she didn't have a clue what I was talking about, but the more I told her about what I knew, the less she could deny. We had our first argument, she apologised and swore that she still loved me with all of her heart. But the next day I just needed to go back to my old hometown for a change of scenery to clear my head. I still wanted to be with her, but knew that if I didn't have at least one day away from her that I wouldn't be able to process what I had learned and how to make improvements in our relationship. She even wrote me a letter which I was reading on the bus, telling me how sorry she was and that she hoped I could forgive her. I already had forgiven her, I just needed a bit more time to forget.

Instead, while I was away I started missing her and told her I was sorry for having to go and even apologised for reacting badly to the things I had discovered. As soon as I started telling her how much I missed her already, her tune dramatically changed and she started talking in a really self-defeatist way, saying that everything was a mess. I tried reassuring her that we would move on with our life together, but talking to her suddenly became like talking to a completely different person. Determined for things to keep going badly. Just when I had calmed down and was no longer upset, she sent me a Facebook message the next day saying that she "couldn't do this anymore". The power balance changed: in days I had gone from being massively let down by her online infidelity and needing an apology and reassurance of her love. After she did those things, and I tried reassuring her that I still loved her, she suddenly had a complete change of plan and decided that she didn't want to be with me anymore. Part of me wishes I had never mentioned the sensitive topic to her, but then again another part of me has too much respect for myself to let somebody do that while carrying on doing it. I felt like our relationship was strong enough for us to be honest with each other and becoming even stronger afterwards.

Quote: "People often try to avoid feeling bad about their own unpleasant traits, behaviors, or feelings by attributing them (often in an accusing way) to someone else. This is a common defense mechanism called projection. people with BPD take it to the extreme."

It may have took a break-up and about a week of upsetting messages on Facebook, but we did become stronger afterwards. But before that, there was the panic and total shock when J decided to harm herself and take an overdose. Luckily she was found by the neighbours and taken to hospital, with no damage caused by the pills apart from sickness. But she was in a frightened, deeply ashamed and paranoid state. I had never even dreamed that she would be anything like this, even if I had to experience the worst of her mental health problems. Throughout the hours, she calmed down and asked me if I could ever forgive her. I held her close to me and promised that I would be by her side for good and that she would never have to go through anything alone as long as I was on this earth.
 

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[1984bps]

PART TWO

It didn't take long for us to go back to enjoying evenings in and out with each other, and rather than an exciting but frightening period that we had before, we had now worked through problems together and found out more about each other in the process. We felt strong, having found our way back to each other after all the drama that happened during the crisis point of her episode. It felt like the rare kind of true love that would last a lifetime.

It wasn't long before J had officially been re-diagnosed with PTSD as well as Borderline Personality Disorder. Struggling to know and understand the effects of BPD led me to all sorts of websites and forums with other real life accounts of relationships that involve a Borderline partner. The things I read frightened me, but in some ways made perfect sense when a lot of it was already mirroring what had been going on in our relationship and in her head. I feared for myself but feared mainly for her because hugely promising lives can be ripped apart by Borderline Personality Disorder. Yet, I never once had to consider whether I could cope with it. Whatever she went through, I would go through it all with her.

By this point, it had become impossible for her to live in that flat, with her state of mind being made worse by the restrictions placed on her home by her landlady. The whole thing made me angry and bitter towards the entire concept of private landlords/landladys. But now I had found a job that was paying enough, together me and J could just about afford to get a place together that allowed pets, smoking and one non-working partner. The problem was finding one in a town that was getting more popular and more crowded, with prices rising and private landlords taking over most of the town. We viewed places, only to be denied by credit checks and the refusal of J's landlady to give her a good reference. Another deal for a new flat fell through within minutes as the landlady just had a completely unexpected change of mind. We were not having any luck at all on the housing front, in fact it felt like we were cursed. But we still had each other, and that's the only thing that saved us from both being seriously depressed about how much of a struggle the situation had become. Life was trying to kick us down, but we just needed love and the support of one another to fend it off, and that's exactly what we did.

After almost a year and a half of looking, we finally found a place. It was small, but it was just about affordable, and allowed pets.

2018:
As long as I was working, I was able to provide the landlord with reassurance that we could pay the rent despite one of us being on benefits. It was a tiny place, but we made into our own little love nest, and enjoyed having the last laugh by making a home with a pet look far better than her ex-landlady's flat that didn't allow pets. We had quite a healthy love life by that point, still keeping active and showing lots of affection for each other, but still able to do our own things when I was at work or if she was with her Mum. We didn't realise how small the place was until we got a dog, but I tried not to notice it because I thought we would never be able to find a bigger place.

It was the first dog either of us had ever had. It was clearly going to be a bigger responsibility, and we would have to work out ways to keep the dog away from our cat. I also made it clear to J that during the day while I was at work, she could give the dog his exercise for the day since an animal like that takes more time and hard work than any pet either of us had before. I loved that dog since the moment J bought him into my workplace to say hello for the first time. If I was living by myself in a small flat with a cat, a dog would have been out of the question. But as long as it wasn't too recklessly impulsive, I did whatever it took to make her happy. I wanted to make her dreams come true, and giving her the chance to give a dog a home had been a part of her dreams for years.

Up until life put us through the mill, I was a strong, reasoned person who was able to turn negatives into positives. I had my own problems in the past that enabled me relate to how others felt. Meeting J was like finally finding the other half to me that had been missing for all those years. Together we felt like we could take the world on and win.

J was diagnosed with BPD after we had got together. In some ways that felt like fate: had I known about it before meeting her, would I have been willing to take on a relationship that presented so many potential complications? I'm not sure if I would have been prepared for it, and that would have meant missing out on the best years of my life. I am hoping deep down from the bottom of my heart that there will be many more years to come.

When you think of what we've been through, how could there not be any problems? Spending a frustrating year and a half to find a place that allowed pets. Then when we felt like the bad luck was over, there were months of struggling with money thanks to the DWP, followed by an angry and bitter battle to get J the financial support that she was entitled to, after a Personal Independence Payments assessor deemed that she didn't qualify for it. We started smoking weed about two years ago, when we were both frustrated at not being able to find a suitable home. T and L would invite us to their flat and we would all get stoned and watch telly. Back then it wasn't too bad, since we were only smoking in the evenings and only doing it when T and L were with us. Then because of L's paranoia, we all fell out and started smoking it at home instead.

I had two years of working in a job that made me feel like I was a villain by the time I had been there for over a year or so. Not being able to leave that job because we had fought so hard to find our home and couldn't risk not being able to afford it. The fear that quitting that job would have made me "selfish" because I was working for the two of us (four of us if you include the animals). Family members falling out with me over stupid things like politics (a very touchy subject after the hell we had been through with housing and benefits). A Christmas where I was experiencing panic attacks every time I was a minute late for work, afraid that I would lose my job. My manager leaving in the new year, and the company instantly becoming more harsh towards lateness and absence. Feeling so mentally and physically exhausted that I requested an extended period of time off work for my own good in the long term, as well as for the good of the company. The company telling me not to return until I was in a better state of health but at the same time questioning my illness and then using underhand tactics to try and force me out of the job or sack me.

After that came the massive high and excitement of working with a well known contact to make a living in the industry that I have always wanted to work in, as well as making plenty of money from it. By this point we now had a lovely flat, two beautiful pets and I now had a career that was going to make me and J a lot of money. There was a very short period of time when I felt like it was the least we deserved after all the crap we had gone through in the past.


2019:
The future was looking really bright. I had a lovely home in a town I loved, I now had a dream job, and every day, I woke up next to the most beautiful woman in the world.

I thought to myself that there was no point dwelling on the past or complaining about it: we now had a bright future to look forward to. When I was going through this long painful process with my old workplace, I was so scared of telling J that I wanted to leave that job, because that would have affected both of us. She had been given enough to worry about in recent years, and now we were beginning to get settled I just wanted her to be free of worries. I realised that if I had to declare my earnings from my new business as well as continue to work in my old job, then a lot of money would have been deducted from our Universal Credit payment, and it would've been better to carry on living off the profits from my self-made venture. But focusing only on the positives without taking the time to process and deal with the negatives turned out to be a massive mistake.

During February/March I was spending a LOT of time working on promoting and advertising one of our products. My head would often hurt from being on the laptop and phone for too long, and as a result I would smoke more. I knew I was overdoing it, but I also knew that I could turn this opportunity into a major success. I was now my own boss, but the lack of structure to my days and the pressure I had imposed on myself was now causing me to sleep in a lot longer. Around the same sort of time, her mother R seemed to become quite negative about the financial prospects of my business, and may have put worries into J's head. Every time she talk to me, there would be no interest from her in anything else but money and bills, followed by questions about when I would be going back to work. It was partly this that pushed to me to leave that job so I could concentrate on the business more and be more certain about our monthly income without having to worry about a workplace where I was clearly not going to be for a long time. So I jumped ship before I was pushed and while I could afford to.

Around this sort of time, J was still supportive, and proud of me. And I was even prouder for making her proud. I wouldn't have had the faith and confidence to do it if I didn't have someone who I loved as much as J. But during the first few months of the year, I had been through so many highs and lows during such a short time that a part of my subconscious was telling me that some sort of disaster was about to happen.

Not having to deal with my old job was one weight of my mind, but R was starting to act in a way that crossed the line when it came to showing respect for her daughter's partner. One day I overheard her on the phone to the housing association, saying that she was finding it hard to walk up the stairs, and asking if they could move us to a ground floor flat. With absolutely no permission or even checking if it was OK with the person whose work had been paying for our current flat. I felt so disrespected and unappreciated, and like her mother thought that she had the right to more control over my own flat than I had. If they had raised the idea and then mentioned it to me to see what I thought, I wouldn't have minded them then asking if they could start looking for somewhere else. My answer would have probably been no to both, but at least they would've had the common decency to ASK me and give me a say in where we would be living. I didn't raise the issue to them. The person she spoke to on the phone probably thought it was ridiculous (since she isn't the tenant) and most likely would have required my permission to take it any further. It's just the total lack of thought and respect. Would anyone else consider that a normal thing to do?

Nervous breakdowns take on various forms and can often be hard to pinpoint. In hindsight, it would've only take one small thing to trigger it off after all the mixed high and low emotions I had been experiencing. I'm not sure if an actual breakdown took place, but I was in an uncontrollable state of distress and panic for hours, to the point where I was a tired wreck by the early evening. J was unexpectedly admitted to hospital on a day when I was still in bed for some reason. I can probably guess that it would've been because of staying up way too late the previous night working on business stuff. All I can remember is waking up to a message from R saying that J was seriously ill and had been rushed to hospital. I remember feeling massively panicked and then an overwhelming sense of guilt that it was my fault for not getting out of bed and going to the doctors with her. I thought about how I had been her rock in the past but now felt completely helpless, not being able to "save her". By this point they were now at A+E, while I was stuck in a different town with no money to get a bus or train over, and in a state of self-blame. I waited a few hours until my Mum finished work so she could drive me over there, but during those hours all I could think about was how I failed the person I love and what a useless boyfriend I was. I had visions of R thinking the same thing and being angry that I wasn't able to be there.

Something changed in me on that day. When I got to the hospital all I could think was "this is my fault". I even told my Mum later that "she deserves someone better than me" and telling her and R that "She doesn't want to talk to me" and that "she hates me". I felt so tired and exhausted from being in tears for most of the afternoon and I didn't know what to say or do to help. I didn't want her to see me like that but at the same time I had to be there for her. These thoughts were uncontrollable, yet I think there was some sort of psychological reaction that made me act in a clearly odd way as a way of letting Kay know that I was feeling guilty and needed reassurance that this wasn't my fault. I also think sometimes that R does so much that I feel like there's nothing left for me to do, and that more fussing from me would make her feel worse. That certainly felt like the case at the hospital that night.

Quote: Stage 3 – "The individual with BPD resorts to a mentality of pushing their partner as a response to the separation they believe exists in the relationship. Their goal, in most cases, is to create a scenario where their partner “fights” for the relationship and demonstrates a level of concern and affection that removes any previous worry. The BPD sufferer may choose to wait for calls or texts in order to offer the partner an opportunity to prove their dedication and willingness to be in the relationship."

After we got back home, J was tired but pleased to be back with me and the pets. However, after spending a night in hospital, she didn't feel like being intimate when she got back home and into bed with me. Sex was a normal thing for us every night, and kept us both in a healthy and confident vibe. But suddenly she didn't want to do it anymore. She would never say so, it would just be a case of saying goodnight instead of letting the cuddling progress. I thought it was maybe a temporary bit of tiredness at first, but the more nights I had to try and sleep feeling more and more unwanted, the more it made me worry. Why didn't she want to be intimate with me anymore? Without her expressing the desire to want it, I lacked the confidence to try and kickstart things and be intimate with J. We would go to bed, wish each other goodnight and then sleep. A complete change to how things were only weeks, maybe days before. At that point I thought the best thing I could do for her and both of us was to work hard to make a success of my business.

Quote: "Many people think BPs don’t have empathy. They do—it’s just that their own emotions are so intense they can be oblivious to the emotions of those around them."

[1984bps]

PART THREE

This was also around the same time that J had another health issue that stopped us from being properly intimate for weeks. I felt like this was some sort of unintentional punishment from some higher power, some sort of karma for spending too much time working on my business and not enough time caring for the person I love, yet at the same time I felt like I had to focus on my work so I could turn a negative time into a positive time. I realise now that even I was usually too stoned to balance things out in a healthy way, J had been seeing things in a different way than in reality. In her eyes I was now "on my own in the bedroom all the time", when in fact I was in the bedroom earning us money throughout the day, and would lay down in bed with her and watch telly during the evenings, like we usually did. I must admit, the daytimes and the evenings in were starting to get a bit too frequent, and I had been thinking of places to go and things to do like we did together in the past.

I would let J walk the dog by herself because it gave her something to focus on that didn't always have to involve me. It was the same with when I worked away from home and J would walk the dog during the day, except this time I was at home more often, probably giving the impression that I was being lazy when in fact I was doing a lot of work. For us. I didn't realise until recently that letting her walk the dog by herself had made J think that I didn't want to spend time with her. There were times when she asked me if I wanted to come, but those nights would always coincide with me having to get work done, and I would aim to do all that while she was out so I wasn't ignoring her when she was at home. What I didn't realise was how peaceful and therapeutic a night time walk through the fields was until the first time we went together. It dawned on me that for a year and half, I hadn't done this once, and barely knew my way around our own housing estate.

Quote: "Without education about BPD, family members take their family member’s behavior personally—especially if the BP is of the higher-functioning invisible type. This leads to much unnecessary suffering, because BPD behavior isn’t willful. Think of it this way: Why would anyone choose to be in situations that make them angry, unhappy, or otherwise in distress?"

I think we are both guilty of preferring to ignore the negatives and carry on, but that is how any relationship with a Borderline partner will end up at various points. Only a few weeks ago when I was sat in the living room in tears J asked me what was wrong. I said "I just want the old me back and I just want us to be how we were before." Yet at the time J acted surprised and suggested that nothing had changed. Yet over the last few weeks since, she has been more honest about how she has been feeling. 

In reality, the only way to find out how someone feels is by talking to each other openly, but because of smoking too much and being paranoid about worrying J with my fears, I couldn't. No human is able to properly read the minds of others, even if there are signals. And with BPD, the signals can be very confusing. What we have experienced is a chain reaction of things: J ends up in hospital and I feel like it's my fault. I feel guilty and useless and give off some really mixed signals to J. She thinks that I've stopped caring about her so she isn't in the mood to be intimate with me. Because she's not being intimate with me, I'm feeling unattractive and low. Feeling unattractive eats away at me slowly bit by bit, yet I can't mention my worries to her because of the fear of sounding "selfish", so instead I just bottle it up. J can tell that I'm not acting like my old self, and thinks that I no longer care. As a result, there becomes even less intimacy, and so on...

The stress of these things made my confidence even lower and even more afraid of losing J. Losing her to someone else was also a fear, since in my eyes she is so beautiful that she could outclass supermodels and not even have to wear a touch of make up. She could have anyone she wanted, so why me?

Quote: "Stage 4 – A direct result of their purposeful distancing causes the relationship to spiral downward. While waiting on their partner for an overdramatic declaration of love and dedication that often does not come, they have convinced themselves that their partner is going to leave them. In their mind, the relationship is almost over and they begin visualizing that their relationship is falling apart due to their own actions. They will maintain the appearance of happiness when around their partner, seeking to give what they wish to receive in the relationship. However, in most cases this only furthers the realization that their own needs are not being met, thus driving the feelings of emptiness even further. In most cases, the individual with BPD will not communicate these feelings with their partner."

A lack of proper communication can lead to so many misunderstandings. Add this to a sudden withdrawal from sex, which took away our intimacy. Add the depression it caused on top of other problems I was having. Add two people being at home together all the time, both of them barely going out. Add the tension and trouble caused by an impulsive mother-in-law who has gone too far and become a third person in the relationship. Then add all these things to the whirlwind of emotions caused by Borderline Personality Disorder. Just our luck to find the most incredible love, and then for all these things to come and ruin it. So much so that the most beautiful and loving relationship in the world could end up with both of us in tears and feeling miserable. If it ever led to us losing each other for good, I would never forgive myself knowing that the best days of my life were behind me and that we had let avoidable troubles ruin something so special. But withdrawing almost completely from sex is something that will seriously test even the most understanding, loving and strongest of relationships, and J must have surely known that it was an issue that would lead to me suffering. I didn't even feel like a man anymore. I felt like I just just some sort of deluded admirer of hers who thought he had a chance.

Quote:

"Being supportive of a loved one with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is one thing. Enabling their behaviors is another.

Of course you want to help those who are struggling with BPD symptoms, but sometimes that assistance can cross over the boundary and qualify as enabling. You may not realize that your actions are enabling the destructive behaviors of someone with BPD. You may simply believe you are doing what you can to help them during their time of need.

But enabling may encourage their destructive behaviors, and make the road to recovery even harder. Through your actions, your loved one with BPD may get the feeling that you approve of their behavior, and make them less inclined to seek BPD treatment."


Just when we were finally settling down in a nice home together, this year has put us both through some awful stuff, which when mixed with the success of my business, has caused an unstable rollercoaster of extreme up and down emotions. A horrible experience at an event in June left me shellshocked and feeling like the world was against me. After being pulled out of the crowd, physically assaulted and slammed to the ground in front of thousands of people, I remember sitting outside the venue on a bench in tears. At times like that I really needed J's comfort. Even if the rest of the world was against me, it didn't matter as long as I had her love. I can't blame her or hold it against her, since she had no idea just how much the incident traumatised me. I tried as hard as i could to tone down how I was feeling. But thinking about how I messaged J, desperate for her support and her reply was "Woops ", making me feel like she had no empathy for me. The absence of her support was upsetting. Again, I can't blame her for this since she had no idea just how badly it had affected me. I also can't blame her for it because a lack of compassion is another thing associated with BPD.

For J there has been grief caused by family bereavement: to her I probably seemed like I didn't care enough, yet I had to let J deal with it in her own way because it was such a sensitive issue and because R had suggested that I try and keep things "upbeat" or something to that effect. I couldn't even tell her that I donated money to the funeral fund and I can't figure out why, perhaps embarassment or not wanting to take credit. I was also feeling by this point that she didn't want me around and that she'd snap or get angry for commenting on someone who I never knew or met.

Quote: "Her intense interest in you will subtly transform over time. She still appears to be interested in you, but no longer in what you are interested in. Her interest becomes your exclusive interest in her. This is when you start to notice “something”. Your thoughts, feelings and ideas fascinate her, but more so when they focus on her."

It was so easy to get carried away with my business work, since there were months when we were making thousands. Plus the more bad luck I was having, I needed something positive to focus on and a way of knowing that I was building a future for us. Being at home working all the time meant that because me and J were always in the flat at the same time, we would have no break from each other. There was no longer any point in asking her how her day was or what she had been upto, since I already knew. Because i now had the freedom to stay at home smoking all day, I had no structure or routine to my day. I would have major problems with sleep and would stay in bed all day, feeling too tired and exhausted to face the world. Where I used to go places and take interest in many different things, I had now lost interest in pretty much everything except making money and getting stoned. But the other thing I was still interested in was J. But I was being rejected every time I was in the mood for even just a nice, loving cuddle. When that happens, you feel that sex has become an impossible thing that you are no longer seen worthy of.


Quote: "In retrospect, the withholding was perhaps the most damaging, leaving me to feel as if I had been defective or undesireable.  As time goes on, clarity increases..."

Quote: "It got to the point where just touching her foot with mine on accident made her yank it away. Man, it hurt so much. So, so much. It made me feel like S***. But I don't think she did this consciously to punish or make me feel this way, it was "just" devaluation in full swing."

Quote: "She would tell me that it felt wrong to "give it away for free" when she felt she got nothing in return (at the time she would be under the impression that she was doing too much housework, getting not enough support from me emotionally and being subjected to a myriad of injustices which she would forget about once her mood changed)."

Quote: "Like someone else said, out of everything else she ever did to me, withholding was probably the worst of them all. I could deal with all of the issues she had, but when it came to sex, she made me feel like GARBAGE in more ways than one."

Quote: "I suddenly realised I was being manipulated. I told her that today and she agreed, she said she saw it herself few days ago, although she said she was not doing it fully intentionally."

[1984bps]

PART FOUR

While R was initially very positive and supportive of my business at first, we were suddenly spending a lot more money than we were earning. I was smoking more to relieve the tension and misery of sexual and romantic rejection from the one person who I thought would always want to enjoy the love I gave her. Worse still, because our Universal Credit would get spent so fast, we would be dipping into money from the business account every day for most of the month. Not a problem when you pay it back. But a lot of tension was caused when R was under the impression that we were spending our benefit money on the business. It was in fact the other way round, and I have a feeling that J wasn't telling her the full story. By this point, R had now become in charge of our finances. Giving her the bill money to make sure they were paid seemed ridiculous at our age. But the manic spending and impulsive purchasing associated with J's BPD had led to there never being enough money each month to pay everything. Add to that the £40 we'd be spending on weed. So we'd miss a bill or two. Those things ended up getting us in debt, so having a way to make sure we were paying them off was a good idea. I never raised any objection to R helping us take control of the bill money. Things only got worse when she overstepped the mark again, telling me that J shouldn't pay back any of the money she borrowed from the business. She didn't seem to understand that I had bills and loans of my own to pay back. In August and September, when you add up my average profit from self employment, usually around £600, the £1,285 in Universal Credit, and nearly £600 in other benefits J gets, and that's over £2,400 there each month. All my money would be J's money too, we shared everything without a thought for a care for who's earned what. R claimed that including rent, we were paying nearly £900 in bills every month. But when you think about the £1,500 left for us to spend after the bills, we have certainly not been short on money, just spending massive amounts of it on weed and junk food. Our income isn't an issue, it's our outgoings that are the issue. But the money issues were made worse when her mother was now trying to tell us what we can and can't spend. Again, no other man would have tolerated it.


Quote: "They got this way from dysfunctional relationships with one or both parents. Whether they were ignored, neglected or had a totalitarian parent who projected all their own needs for perfection onto them as children, the facts are they were not loved the way that a child who is emotional healthy was loved. If you want to know which parent it is, it's usually the one who they put on a pedestal today. You'll notice they act like a different person around them, always doing things that almost seek their approval. That's because in their youth, when they don't see the neglect, but view their parents as their hero, they learn to interpret love as a feeling of yearning. Of chasing approval and acceptance. Sure they can tell you all the things they need and want out of a relationship, but this is all subconscious to them."

"Remember BPD is driven of emotions. Their emotional part of their brain is haywire that it takes over their thought process most of the time. Feelings = Reality to them with little reasoning or logic to sort out what's true and lacking the introspective ability to realize their emotional thought process distorts their reality. In short, love to them = a feeling of yearning, of longing, of chasing. If you actually provide them with security, love, support, reinforcement, and all the healthy aspects of a relationship they may say they need, their early interpretations of what love "feels" like are turned off. When they don't long for, yearn for, or have to chase any longer because you are providing these feelings than they no longer "feel" love and they pull away, stop viewing you as a romantic partner and the sex stops."

Things escalate when your partner is telling the people close to her a different story, and they are not hearing your side of things. If somebody is under the wrong impression, it will affect the way they view you, and it can easily lead to them talking about it to other people, who then get an even more negative impression, and then they would probably tell J that I was no good and that she could do better than me. Which would then make her feel even more negative about me and affect how she would act towards me. The misunderstandings about money with R just highlighted how as a mother, her natural instinct would be to support J above anything else, even if that meant not allowing us to pay the money back into the business. Because my problems at the time were different to J's, and centred around deeply personal things, my partner's mother certainly wasn't the appropriate person to try and deal with them in the right way. All I needed was for her to tell me how she felt and if she still loved me. Every night we told each other that we loved each other and always would, yet I hadn't been seeing a lot of proof during those months.

Quote: "To her, there is always a cause. And the cause is always you. Whether it is the tone of your voice, how you think, how you feel, dress, move or breathe - or "the way you're looking at me," - she will always justify her rage by blaming you for "having to hurt her."

Rage reactions are also unpredictable and unexpected. They happen when you least expect it. And they can become extremely dangerous. It all serves to break you down over time. Your self esteem melts away."


My moods got worse as I stopped taking my medication. At the time things felt so hopeless, and no drugs were going to solve the problem. All I needed was reassurance that the love of my life was still there for me like I had been there for her in the past. We had barely been apart at all in the last few years, and it had come to the point where I needed some time to get a few things sorted and find solutions to where I had been going wrong. I had been looking forward to our yearly holiday ever since the start of the summer, but as it got closer I started feeling more and worried about it. But having been very distant and always busy with work, I knew that if I didn't go on holiday with them, the response would have been "but we never do anything together anymore". I shouldn't have gone on holiday but didn't want to let them down, especially since R had been kind enough to pay for the both of us.

By now, the effects of not taking my medication had began to take a toll. My Mum messaged me a day or so before the holiday asking if I had got my things packed. I told her that i didn't know what i was going to do and that I was feeling so depressed and really didn't feel up to it. A few days later, she was surprised when I told her that I had chosen to go on the holiday. It would have been the perfect opportunity to have a week apart and to have a bit of "me time". I could have stayed at home, looked after the and let J and R enjoy a week away with the dog. People go on holiday to relax, have a break and to escape from their problems But you cannot escape from yourself. We took our problems on holiday with us, and with a wet and miserable week mostly stuck in the caravan, this was a terrible combination. The travelling left me absolutely shattered, especially after a night with very little sleep. There was also the fact that me and J really needed to talk openly and honestly, but R being there made that awkward and difficult.

As soon as I got there, I just wanted to go back home. I was easily annoyed and easily agitated. Instead of being left alone to sleep and sort my head out, there was pressure to get up and go out, and the attempts to motivate me seemed a lot more like forcing than actual help. I felt isolated, and worse still, I felt that R was only trying to get me out of my caravan bed for J's benefit rather than my own. At the time I was also very worried about money, and desperate to keep our business alive. The previous month, R had tried interfering when she reacted dramatically to us paying back £475 out of the £1000 or so we had borrowed from the business account. We would have soon made that £475 back, so paying it back shouldn't have been an issue. Certainly not something your mother-in-law should be getting involved in. What did it have to do with her? Getting too involved in our business again, and crossing the line. This month, we owed more money to the business account and I was actually being TOLD that I wasn't allowed to have the money back apart from £350 which almost covered about half of it. R then told me I should get a "proper job" to make more money, when our income hasn't been the problem. The manic spending and both of our overindulging in weed has been the problem. So is it any wonder I reacted badly? I also got the sense that the way R referred to our weed as "your drugs" suggested that she blamed me for us getting into the habit so excessively. The truth is that the people who introduced us to smoking it were actually members of R's family, rather than me.

Paying back the money to the business should have been so simple. We would have still had hundreds of pounds left over, and all the other bills would have been paid. It would have just been a case of spending the rest of the month living off my business profits. If we spent more than my profits, the we would just pay that back to the business the next month. Simple stuff really. Instead, I was only allowed £350 of it back (we owed at least £900 that month) when I needed at least £475. The £350 had to paid to my business partner, since I have still only given him a few small amounts when he is supposed to have half of all the profits. He's been very kind and understanding about the money side of things. But now being short on money, I had to go £300 overdrawn with my PayPal account to take out some extra cash to live on for the next month. As usual, me and J spent it all quickly. Which meant there was no money for me to buy new stock to sell, and I had orders that had been waiting for dispatch for weeks. Any sales we were making was now going to paying off the PayPal debt.

R interferes with our finances too much, and certainly isn't someone who is good with money. If that was the case then she wouldn't still owe money to payday lenders. She thinks she is always right, and her decisions about our money have now led to us making LESS money this month as a result. Just like I said it would.

Feeling hated by your partner becomes even worse when you start thinking that their Mum also hates you. When I tried to talk to J that week while we were on holiday, we went out for a walk and a talk, but weren't allowed enough time, since J had to get back for one of her television shows. I only had time to talk about the issues with money and the business before we had to head back to the caravan. Yet about half hour later, J still found time to go out and walk the dog on her own, when we could have spent that time communicating and discussing things. R became upset, probably not knowing how to help me and maybe feeling that she had made things worse. I won't lie, she did make things worse. Being shouted at every few minutes when I was in need of rest would annoy anyone. I ended up getting up, putting my dinner in the microwave and telling them to leave me alone. It wasn't even intended in a nasty way. J told me later that I had made R cry. Fact is, R had made me cry that same day, when I was in desperate need of comfort, not pressure. But I wouldn't want her to have felt upset. Nobody apart from J have been able to pull me out of the darkness during those few days, but she didn't want to offer me her comfort, support or understanding. Plus, always knowing that R was on J's side" rather than mine, when there should have been no "sides". In a relationship like ours, there is no "me" or "you", there is only "us". I needed J to talk to me, not to avoid matters like she was doing. It made it even worse that it was her mother coming in to try and talk me into a better mood, when only J would have been able to do that.

Part of me thinks that R is afraid of her daughter growing up and having a life of her own, and has been slowly plotting to take control over our relationship. She can't let go. She causes trouble between J and me, and then when she feels bad about it, she plays on J's sympathy to make her view me as the bad guy.


It felt like a relief to get back home after 7 days of disagreements, low mood and bad weather just to make it seem even worse. By that time we just wanted to relax and enjoy our home comforts again. Straight away we were smoking more stuff and keeping our worries to ourselves, instead of discussing them. Knowing that we were going to have a difficult month money-wise, it was a bit annoying when we went out shopping the next day with a £40 budget, and J was in an impulsive spending mood. She even wanted to spend nearly £10 on a USB plug, which we already had at home. But instead of being sensible and encouraging her to prioritise our money, R seemed to encourage her to spend it on anything she wanted. I got the impression that both of them didn't want me to go shopping with them and that they thought I was being "controlling". In fact all I was trying to do was make J think a bit more sensibly about our money, especially knowing that we would probably be skint again in a matter of days.

The next weekend's shopping trip was done without me even knowing about it. I was left in bed while the two of them went out and came back with things that we never usually buy and without essentials that we have every week. But there were still plenty of energy drinks in the fridge. Not only did everything seem one sided, but with my constant worries about J not wanting me, it felt like I was slowly being cut out of the picture bit by bit. I had just woken up, and not in a great mood. Having arguments when you've just woken up is a terrible thing, especially when you're still half asleep and your brain isn't functioning properly. Words come out so wrong, and so harshly. But I still stand by the fact that going shopping without me seemed very much like another way to provoke me into leaving. Either that or just another example of their thoughtless behaviour.

Seeing J post publicly on Facebook about how unreasonable I had been was not a good move. Because everyone was only hearing her side of the story, all of the comments were against me. A lot of them from people who have never even met me before, let alone able to judge what sort of a person I am. Then comments from her family, making me feel like they were now all against me. Even comments from members of MY own family saying that I was being out of order. And again, I knew that there would've been people messaging her with misinformed advice because they didn't see the full picture.

But despite all this, I wasn't actually angry at her, just really upset. The love that we have for each other means more to me than anything in the world and the thought of losing it just tears me apart. But I can see things from her point of view: when i'm saying unkind, harsh things and accusing her of not caring, of course it's going to seem like anger, or even "nasty" as J described it. Truth is I care so much that I'm more angry with myself, and deeply upset when I feel that I am not making her happy. Another situation that can be completely misunderstood and blown out of proportion when BPD is involved.
 

[1984bps]

PART FIVE

Soon after, we had begun talking about the things that were bothering us and starting to make a bit of progress. Knowing that we had spending too much, we managed to cut down from smoking £20 each every day to just £10. But then a major change happened when both our suppliers suddenly stopped selling. Back then it seemed like the worst time for them to completely cut off our supply, when we had been going through a really tough few weeks. I was having even worse sleep problems, and when I did sleep I would sweat hot and cold, experiencing some really difficult withdrawal symptoms, made even worse by the fact that I was also experiencing side effects from starting my medication again. I was angry because we thought that our seller was in fact still selling it to other people but not to us. One night I went down to the shop at night to get baccy, but needed a longer walk to clear my mind. I even ended up in the field near our place since I needed a secluded open place to shout and scream at the top of my voice to calm some of the tension. I shouted until my throat was hurting, and came back to the flat so exhausted and still in a fragile state of mind.

That night, I still had major problems sleeping, so went into the living room and took some time to think about what changes had to be made. I hated what depression and heavy weed use had turned me into, and I hated the strain that all the events of this year had put on our relationship. I remembered how me and J had been doing perfectly fine before when we didn't smoke weed, and realised all the things that we no longer had the energy or money to do. I also thought about how I was handling running a business, the amount of overworking I had been doing and how being at home working was impacting on our relationship. Even though my work was a dream come true, it no longer felt important compared to the most amazing and special thing in my life, which is J, our home and our little animal family. At first i thought about completely giving the business up, for my own good and to prove to J that she still meant more to me than anything in the world, and that nothing could even come close to the happiness that she has brought into my life.

Quote: "The problem with women who are being treated for their BPD is that they have a hard time comprehending what it feels like to their partner when they being devalued. They imagine it’s possible for their partner to just not take it personally. But sadly, the behaviors involved with devaluing have a devastating effect on romantic partners, and it’s very unlikely that a partner can live through these periods of devaluation without psychological damage."

Her mother again got too involved with decisions about our relationship and our home. On a day when the two of us should've been talking and opening up to each other, J invited R around, and they sat in the bedroom together. I was scared that they were both planning to change the locks, and I voiced this fear to J. To try and reassure me, she went out and got another key cut. I didn't need that. I needed to know that she still cared about our life together. The next day, her mother was there again, ringing the buzzer as soon as me and J woke up. I felt trapped in the bedroom, not welcome in my own front room. Again rather than spend time talking with me, J spent the day in the living room talking with R instead. Again, I had no choice in anything, so when they decided that I shouldn't be at the flat anymore, that was the decision made for me. Both J and her mother would message or phone my Mum asking her if she could come and pick me up, and take me away to stay with her for a while. As with many things, I hadn't been asked or even informed of this, I was just sent away like some sort of naughty child.


Quote: "When people get too close, people with BPs feel engulfed. In turn, they distance themselves to avoid feeling controlled. But then BPs feel neglected, even abandoned. So they try to get closer again, and the cycle repeats."

Quote: "You might think that once the non-BP passes the tests (of their loyalty), their borderline family member would feel more secure. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, people with BPD think, “Why would a healthy, normal person take the abuse? There must be something wrong with them."”

So I was now being forced out of the flat that we had spent a long, stressful time searching for, the home that I worked hard to provide us, the place where we should've been perfectly settled. Since J is so close with her mother, you'd think that she'd be able to stay at her house for a few nights a week, just to make things fair. But she claimed that staying at a house with R's husband would have been impossible, and now her old bedroom was taken by a lodger, she'd have to sleep on the sofa.

Quote: "People with BPD push away loved ones due to avoid potential pain. If someone with BPD gets close to someone else, they will often start to create fictional situations or reasons why one of you should leave the relationship. They may abruptly cut off ties, block you on social media, or accuse you of cheating (if monogamous). They do not consciously do this, it’s automatic. It’s almost like muscle memory but with emotions. People with BPD think if they don’t get close to someone else, they can’t get hurt. "

That day, me and J managed to talk about a few of our issues, although being in tears for most of the day had made me unable to get out all the words and emotions that had built up inside me. We both agreed to take a break from each other for the good of our relationship, as well as for the good of our individual selves. But there was also the fact that J told me that it was either a permanent split or a break. The break was the only option. And for sure we certainly needed it. We should have done it a long time before, but I don't think I would have been able to ask for a "break" for the fear of losing her forever, and because I didn't want her having any more doubts about my love for her.

The break was a difficult thing to do, especially since it's a vicious circle: my biggest fear was losing her and not having her by my side, but having a break from each other DID mean not having her by my side, which puts those fears right to the front. However, it also meant that we were finally able to take some time to reflect on things and time to sort ourselves out. Like the guy stopping the weed supply, a little bit of time apart could prove to be a blessing in disguise: for 10 days I managed to find the will power to resist smoking any weed, despite it being easy to get in my home town. I have reconnected with a couple of my oldest friends for the first time in ages. I also realised that it was important to have my family there for me just like J has her Mum there for her, and that I needed to come to my old town a bit more often to balance my life.

Without the weed, my mind gradually got clearer, I no longer relied on it to sleep, and I regained some of the interest in everyday things that I had completely lost all interest in while I was stoned 24/7. At first, I only had to stop smoking weed because I couldn't get it for the first few days. Then I managed to resist it while being able to get it, and being around people smoking it. It wasn't really intended as a full stop quitting of weed forever, more like an exercise of will power to prove to myself that I could be in control of it and smoke it because i wanted to not because i felt like i needed to.

I even managed to get through most of the sad, depressing week that followed. The "break" was not supposed to be a complete brick wall between each other, just a bit more breathing space. For the first 4 days of the break, I wouldn't contact J during the day, trying to respect the need for a break. In the evenings I would chat for a bit, asking her about her day and how our pets were. It was tough not getting the affection I wanted from her but at least she was still talking to me. Obviously, my whole life has grown in the town where we set up our home together. I had to go back there to sort out my monthly expenses report, which needed to be as soon as possible so we would be paid our Universal Credit on time. Having to stay at my Mum's house meant no baths or showers, since there is no hot water there. I hadn't had a bath for at least 4 days. I also needed to pick up more clothes, since all I had was a bundle of things that I had packed into a bag while in a tearful state of heartbreak and shock.

Quote: "Often people with BPD will “test” your relationship by creating fake situations, threatning self-harm, lying, acting out on impulses, or trying to manipulate the relationship. This is automatic but it is something that can 100% be coped with.

The solution for the Partner: The biggest thing to remember is that if your partner is pushing you away, they are actually begging you to hold them closer. I know it sounds silly but when people with BPD push you away, they want you there more than ever. They want to be comforted and secure in the relationship, they want to know you won’t leave.

    The best thing you can do if your partner is pushing you away…is to stay."



A "break" should not involve me losing the right to visit my own home to sort out financial stuff, to see my pets, to pick up clothes and have a bath. I didn't think she'd take that away from me at such a sensitive time. I messaged her on a Monday night to let her know that I would be getting a bus over the next day to sort a few things out and collect a few things. She knew that I would be there at some point. The next day she messaged me asking when I was going to be there, but I had to rush off and get the bus before I had the chance to see or reply to the message. The bus didn't turn up, and I had to wait over an hour for the next one. Without any wifi signal, I couldn't reply to J and tell her that I would be there at about 4-5pm.

The bus got into town at about 4.30. I had just enough time to go to the printers and print off a long letter I had typed for J to read, hoping to make her understand what had caused my depression. I picked up my prescription from the chemists, having just ran out of my Sertraline tablets. To show her I still cared and had no hard feelings, I went and got her a big bunch of flowers too. By the time I had done all of that, I got to the flat at about 6pm. Not a late time considering that J never goes to bed before midnight. She knew I was coming, knew that I had things to do in town, and that I would be there with her at some point. When I got there, things were OK. I had missed her, and we sat down for a while talking about getting used to not having weed, andtalking about the TV soaps which we would usually watch together in the evenings. She didn't seem to have a problem with me having a bath and getting a much-needed change of clothes.

She only started getting weird when I used the oven to cook some dinner. By this point it was about 7.30-8pm, too late for me to get the last train back. Knowing that I still had to sort the monthly accounts out, enquire about jobs and package some unsent orders, I knew that I would have to be in town the next day. There was no point in going back to my temporary accomodation in a different town when I couldn't do any of the things on my "to-do" list while I was there. But I hadn't even thought about getting back, I was just focused on getting myself there in the first place. J didn't even give me the chance to ask if I could stay over for one night on the sofa, which despite being on a "break", shouldn't have been an issue. Instead she asks me when my Mum is going to be picking me up and I tell her that I hadn't thought about or prepared for where I was going to be that night. "So I suppose you'll have to stay here then" she snapped. "We're supposed to be having a break, what's the point in that if you're still here?". If she had given me the chance to ask her, I would've just stayed on the sofa for the night and been up early to get done the things that I needed to do. J went out with the dog during one of the soaps she usually watched, clearly desperate to be away from me, yet I wasn't doing anything to upset her. She told me that she'd be back soon and that her Mum would be coming round to drop off the sleeping pills she had forgotten to give her earlier in the day. But I was then getting messages from my own Mum, saying that both J and R had been bothering her, trying to get her to come over and pick me up again.

I expect the plan was for J to go on a long walk and send her mother round to deal with me instead, the tablets were just another excuse for her to be there. Then they would have my Mum outside ready to take me away again. I wasn't going to stand for that crap any longer. They weren't going to (literally) drive me out of my hometown as well as from the flat I had worked hard to provide for us. I told my Mum not to drive over, to ignore their messages and that I was fed up with them making my choices for me. But while J was clearly still in the "hater phase", being subjected to such unwelcoming behaviour was only going to upset me more and being there would give her another excuse to create more problems. I messaged R and told her that I was going out and that she would have to wait for J to get back. She replied and said OK. I went out on a long walk, determined to stay in my hometown for the night regardless of not being allowed in my own flat. McDonalds closed at 11, so I couldn't stay there all night. My laptop battery was running out and so was my phone. As long as I could stop myself from becoming too cold I would've been ok. Just my luck to be out on the streets during the coldest night of the year so far. A bench on the long main road leading to our flat was the only place where I could lay down. I spent about an hour there just looking up at the stars, wishing for them to send me some luck.

But the cold set in quickly, and I needed somewhere with at least a bit of shelter. Afraid that I would end up getting robbed and assaulted if I slept in the doorway of a shop, the only safe place I could think of was the bin store underneath our block of flats. I found the inner part of a tent that someone had thrown into their bin, and used it to wrap around me to get some warmth. I made a pillow out of the tent bag and some clothes stuffed inside. While feeling like I had been treated like rubbish, then thrown like like a piece of rubbish, I was now sleeping with the rubbish. I might have even managed to get a few minutes of sleep here and then before the cold and misery would wake me up again.

When it got light, I left the bin store and went to get something to eat. Sat in the churchyard with a coffee, wondering what I had done wrong to end up being treated like this. Went into the YMCA to ask for advice and to let them know that I was homeless and having to sleep rough. Knowing I still had to sort the accounts out, apply for jobs online and organise another load of clothes to take back, I had to find a way of letting J know when I would be back at the flat. With no laptop or phone power to message her, I had to put a handwritten note through the letterbox. A couple of hours later, I saw her during my walk back to the flat. The first thing I needed to do was feel some indoor warmth and to rest my blistered feet that had spent hours walking the streets the night before.

[1984bps]

PART SIX

I made sure I stayed in the bedroom to do my bits of work, careful to not offend J with my presence. She was welcome to come in and out as she wanted, and whenever she did I wouldn't force her into conversations about our relationship and the current situation. I was just trying to keep the peace while respecting my own rights. I had probably been there for a couple of hours when J told me that yet again her mother would be coming round. I asked J if she could stay at her Mum's for the night, since I had been expected to do the same. She said no and that it wasn't possible, but at least she had been asked. I hadn't made the decision on her behalf. As soon as R set foot in the flat, she was already causing drama, telling me that if I was around J for any longer, she was going to call the authorities and put herself in psychiatric care. Thing is, I am not the problem. She cannot escape from the roots of her problems, no matter who is or isn't there.

Her mother is naturally a very loud person, and reacts to things in a way that amplifies all the distress and trouble. She has the subtlety of a bulldozer and doesn't think about her words or actions. She will shout and try and shame me into thinking that I don't matter. I tell her that arguing is only going to make things worse. Whereas her tears a few weeks before were out of guilt and trying to get sympathy, I could not stop crying by the point that she was there, not understanding any of my points. She told me to "stop messaging her all the time", when I had only been messaging her a few times in the evenings to make sure everything at home was OK. So by this point her mother was now telling me not to have any contact with the person who I had shared my life with for nearly half a decade. Me and J are trying to overcome our issues, even making arrangements to have relationship counselling. But her mother is pulling her the other way, determined for her adult daughter to be alone and completely in her care again. Unless R changes and lets go a bit, J will never be able to have a functional, normal relationship with anyone. One day her mother won't be there, and who or what is J going to turn to then?

Once again, her mother makes quick, hasty, impulsive decisions about OUR life. We haven't even broken up yet, and already her Mum is on Facebook asking if there are any flats available that allow pets. How insensitive can you be? I didn't know whether to point out to the rest of Facebook just how controlling and dominant she was in her daughter's relationship. or whether to laugh and point out that even with a working partner, it took J a year and a half to find somewhere suitable. Another mark gets overstepped.

I didn't tell either J or R about sleeping with the rubbish the night before, because despite what they have both done, I didn't want either of them feeling guilty. I contacted my Mum and told her to come and pick me up: at least this time it was MY decision, I wasn't just being sent away against my own will.

We did manage to find time to talk briefly about possible ways to heal. J even admitted that she hadn't been interested in me for a long time, and revealed that things changed on that night back in March when she was in hospital. She let slip that she had started to resent me after I "refused" to hold her hand in hospital. From what I can remember she held out her hand and I didn't notice, and when I did she pulled it away again. I was so frightened and tired that night, I'm surprised I can remember anything. I cannot believe that she took something so small and brief so personally. It has resulted in her judging a whole 4 year relationship on a few seconds of time when we were both in a bad and tired state. Before that I was perfect, her king, and she felt lucky that I came into her life. But as soon as you do something they don't like, rather than seeing you as slightly imperfect, they now see you as simply "bad" as opposed to "good". A million good times are completely forgotten about, while one little issue is focused on before being blown out of proportion and leading to lots of unhealthy, negative effects in the relationship.

"So basically the lack of affection has been because you've been punishing me for not holding your hand once?" I asked her. She said that it wasn't necessarily a matter of her deliberately punishing me, but because "as soon as that happened, I didn't want to know and I couldn't be bothered anymore". Her mind had been working this way now for months, and was now locked into the illusion that I was a bad partner, despite all the things I have given her over the years.

Quote: "Stage 5 – The relationship ends and the partner walks away. In some instances, the individual with BPD will attempt to salvage a broken relationship by attempting to explain or justify why things became so strained. However, this last-minute communication of feelings and struggles rarely allows the relationship to recover as the BPD sufferer has created a distance between themselves and their partners which cannot be undone."

Quote: "Stage 6 – Following the end of the relationship, the individual with BPD will experience extreme emotional mood swings, going from sobbing hysterically to being enraged that their former partner did not try hard enough in their relationship. The emptiness and validated fear of abandonment (which is in many ways self-validated by the individual) become a source of fuel for a burning fire of anger. The individual may lash out at friends or family without provocation. This anger and emotional instability may lead to suicidal thoughts or behaviors."

A couple of days later, we were due to get paid our monthly Universal Credit. J had already been paid her other benefits earlier that week, having plenty of money to play with. I was less fortunate: the income I was making was still paying off the debt on my PayPal account, a debt that J had been half responsible for. A few days before she promised me that she would still send me over my share of the money like she had done before. I thought if anything that she would be able to send me over a bit more money than before, since she only had to shop for herself and the pets. All I did was sent her a polite message on Thursday night asking if she could send over some money as soon as she got it: I still had invoices and wages to pay and needed them done ASAP to take that added weight off my mind. Instead I get an aggressive reply that seems designed to be unreasonable:

J: "I was going anyway, you don't need to tell me"

Me: "can you send at least 450 over? i'm still really short after last month and just want to get that money to the PR company paid off and give a bit to S****** too plus im going to need money to go shopping and stuff while im here x
also gotta pay what we owe on the electric and gas otherwise the flat will get cut off x"

J: "I have to give D (her Stepdad) and Mum money, you'll get your carer's allowance"

At this point I should mention that our total Universal Credit payment is £1285 this month. The "carer's allowance" part is only about £150 of it.

Me: "well if you go into our universal credit account, you'll see we're being paid £1285, which is because i didnt earn that much from the business this month. Usually you'd get about 800-900, so the carers allowance is the least of it
Remember it is a joint claim, which is also why we are getting more x"

I get no reply. She has no excuse for not paying me what I have asked for. She has plenty of money to play with after all the bills, and she has always sent at least a few hundred to my bank every month in the past. She is trying to be difficult because she wants me to hate her as much as she seems to hate me. I'm also sensing that it is her Mother who has told her or encouraged her to only send me £150. So I decide that I need to deal with this, but don't want to start arguments with J. I also wouldn't want to be accused of "messaging her all the time", so I decide to go through R, since she has chosen to take control of everything without thinking of the repercussions. I've always showed respect, friendliness and understanding towards R, but this time she has overstepped the mark numerous times and I need to put boundaries on place. I am going to stand up for myself and not let her carry on taking the piss out of me.

Me: "hi. im trying not to cause trouble or argue with J so i'll talk to you instead because i'm hoping you will be more reasonable than her at the moment. Obviously we are due to be paid tomorrow and by the sounds of it, J is only going to give me £150 when we are getting £1285. and the reason we are getting that much is because some of that is my money that tops up the money my business hasnt made this month. Plus i need to pay the money i wasnt allowed to have back last month, plus the gas and electric bills and have some money to spend obviously. i know she's trying to be unreasonable at the moment to annoy me, but i know that you'll understand it a bit more. I will need £450 this month so if you could make sure i get that sent over then i might just about be able to pay off the debts and bills i have. Thank you x"

R: "I'm in bed at the moment I'll reply later on"

Later that night, and no reply. She's obviously taking her time trying to think of excuses. Next day:

R: "Hi, yes I'll be staying with J till she's settled with her pills,there is a lot of bills to be paid this month, and it is not a case of being allowed any money from last month there wasn't enough as the debts that have been incurred needed to be paid unfortunately it's got to be like this for at least 6 months so that they can be cleared and you'll have more money in the pot Hun"

Me: "sorry but that isnt an answer."

Me: "We are being paid £1285 and i'm only getting £150? that is taking the piss. even last month i only got paid back £350 which left my business in a lot of trouble. and this month i only get £150 while Kay has hundreds of pounds to just blow on whatever she wants?
i knew you would make excuses for her, you are what professionals call an "enabler". She needs boundaries, and she doesnt have any because you are enabling her behaviour and making it worse"

Me: what about the debt she has put me in? spending a ton of my business money that you and her then refused to pay back. I owe money to S***** who has been really kind to us and really understanding about the money. I owe £475 to that company that was due over a month ago but i couldnt pay it because you two spent it all. i have direct debits set up to pay our gas and electric, which is going to get cut off if it isnt paid. And being given £150 of OUR money while she has hundreds and hundreds to spend? not to mention me being kicked out of the flat that i spent years working for. so after paying the gas and electric i am going to be left with about £40 to last me the month, AND i am having to cope with this total heartbreak. And you think that's acceptable? I know youre bound to be biased and on her side but come on..."

Me: "if i acted like that towards J and took all her money, my mum would be ashamed of me and would give me a good telling off. But you just let the BPD thoughts run riot, taking away all the boundaries. You need to be firm with her if there is any chance of her improving"

R: "Unfortunately bills have to be paid, rent,council tax,X3 and all the others after everything has been taken out there is certainly not hundreds left Hun we wish there were . And you don't have to worry about the electric and gas Hun I've sorted it"

Me: "you don't act reasonably and firm with J and the pair of you are now actually stealing my money
STOP MAKING EXCUSES
we have been paid £1285, a lot of which is mine because i havent made as much money from work this month

R: "as I said Hun the money has got to pay yours and J's bills"

Me: "she has also been paid £580 or so in PIP. Thats nearly 1900. The rent and the bills at the very most are about £850. So she's allowed nearly £800 to play with and blow as she likes while i am plunged into debt, homeless, penniless and heartbroken because the girl that i loved is now pretty much dead because her illness has got so bad and she is now being so evil and manipulative towards me
and you think thats fair? she is going to lose everything and you are just accelerating that process"

R: "She has had to pay back money borrowed by both of you from D as well as myself"

Me: "when did you lend us money? Because i certainly didnt see any of it. The £50 she lent from D went on two puches of baccy, the rest went on her energy drinks and other crap. So dont you dare try that one"

Me: "What about the £475 that WE owe to a PR business who can easily take legal action against us? what about the money that i have had to hold back and put off for months which should have been paid to S*****? my debts dont matter then. Also, why am i paying rent for a flat that i have been kicked out of? Do you want me to get lawyers involved in this? because thats what will happen and it wont cost me a thing since one of my relatives works for one of the top law firms in the UK"

No reply.

Me: "see, you have absolutely no valid excuses for this at all
and now youre sat there wracking your brains trying to come up with some more bullPLEASE READ to justify her abusive actions. STOP enabling her illness. When someone is "borderline", enabling her behaviour takes it a step further and you are just letting do whatever she wants. You've already let her ruin my business, break my heart, kick me out of my home, make me sleep in the bin store for the night with the rubbish (which i didnt tell the pair of you because i didnt want you feeling guilty, but now you SHOULD feel guilty) and now you are letting her take all of our universal credit, leaving me in serious trouble. Not only has she overstepped the line, but now you are too."

I think R may have started to realise how bad her and J are going to look when people find out what they have done. She also knows that with emotions high, this could explode into a dangerous situation for both me and J if it isn't sorted. In the end, J messaged me...

J: "I will send you 400 and once bills and rent have gone out I will send more"

Me: "Thank you. We really dont need financial and legal battles as well as all this heartbreak and pain

J: "I don't need or want your thank you's, you got some money now leave me and my mum alone"

That day, she ends a four year relationship by changing her Facebook status to single and removing any pictures of me from her profile. I wonder what the J I used to know would've thought about someone dumping their longterm partner in such a harsh and insensitive way. She certainly wasn't worried about being hurtful. I still can't quite process all of this. I'm still numb with shock, and now stuck alone in my old hometown with lots of bad memories, I feel like I have been condemned to my own personal hell.

[1984bps]

PART SEVEN

I'm trying to keep busy here, going swimming, seeing a few people, and trying to focus on things that I can still do while I have no faith in this world anymore. Which doesn't leave a lot. I feel damaged, like I have aged 50 years in 10 months. For a while I used to have nightmares about losing her, and having to go back to the misery of my old life. Now I am stuck in that nightmare. I'm never going to be able to trust any human being again, knowing that even someone I fitted perfectly with didn't want to be with me. At times, it feels like there is no such thing as love anymore, just hurt and heartbreak.

Quote: "Something that is important to remember is that people with BPD generally do not mean to be abusive. They are reacting in response to emotional pain that they cannot tolerate. However, that does not mean that the recipient of the attack doesn’t still get hurt. Whether the comments are “intentional” or not is irrelevant. To protect your mental health, you need to protect yourself from harm."

What do I do next? One thing I can take forward with me is that I have learned more:

Things happen for a reason, and if we somehow get through it, all of this could end up making us even stronger and even happier than we have ever been before. Couples don't become stronger when they live normal, uneventful lives with no ups and downs. They become stronger through overcoming major challenges and showing the world that they CAN take it on and win.

Like the things we have faced and overcome before, I know that if any couple can do it then it's us. You have to reach the bottom to rise to the top again, and having learned a lot of lessons from all this, we could rise up even higher than we could possibly imagine.

I have learned things but I am still learning. Even J herself is still learning about the effects of BPD, as well as the other mental health issues she has to deal with.

On days when she seems distant and unhappy for seemingly "no reason", the only thing I can think of that is making her unhappy is being with me. But I'll ask her if she's OK and she'll reply "yeah", but sensing that she isn't really OK has at times triggered a reaction that she must be hiding something that she doesn't want me to know. Yet at the same time, my mind is telling me that I am definitely being paranoid, so I would smoke more to try and calm my mind. There have been lots of times when I have thought "if she loves me so much then why is she so unhappy?", and then overthought the matter in a way that has made my own mind spiral into second-guessing.

My love for the person underneath the BPD often feels like it is more important than my own mental health and state of wellbeing, which is why often I have deliberately avoided raising awkward questions and instead tried to carry on as normal. But if i am not looking after myself, then it's inevitably going to affect to person who I am with.

Quote: "BPD sufferers experience a cycle of behavior in their romantic relationships. In many cases, the individual with BPD is aware of this cycle and of the actions that they engage in which leads to the demise of almost every romantic relationship they begin... For anyone, the right partner can become a source of support, encouragement, and aid in growth and development. Similarly, those with BPD can find supportive romantic partners which will help them to recognize their behavior and break the cycle of BPD typical relationships. In order to disarm this pattern of destructive behavior, it is important to understand the disorder and the cycle itself."

In a lot of cases that I have read about online, most relationships that involve a partner with BPD last a few months at the very most. And yet me and J have been together for over four years. Is this because I am able to separate the real J from the J that is under the grip of her illness? Is it that the "stoned me" cannot separate the two, which is how I coped so well up until we began smoking too much? Time will tell.

What I have learned from the last year is that our relationship needs a healthy balance. A few days apart every now and then is not a sign of weakness or a sign that we shouldn't be together. A bit of space every now and again is something that EVERY couple needs. It is healthy to spend time with family and (the very few) friends that I have. Imagine if J wasn't able to see her Mum in months and if she didn't have any contact with friends. As well as understanding and doing the best I can to meet J's needs, I have only recently learned how vital it is to also respect my own needs. Because if I am falling to pieces mentally, it's clearly going to have a negative impact on the person who I share my life with.

After the initial difficult few days of adjusting to being back in the real world rather than being in a constant haze of smoke, it's been like waking up after months and months of being in a bad dream, and a bit like I am trying to analyse the behaviour of a different person when that person was me.

A little bit of a smoke is just as harmless as a pint of lager every so often, but if you're waking up and drinking, then spending the whole day trying to stay drunk, then waking up the next day focused on where to get your next drink from, I can see now how doing the same with weed is harmful in different ways. I've researched a bit about it over recent days, and clearly it's a thing that has a different effects on different people. But in my case, the damage creeps up on you and takes away your real self bit by bit. It stops you from focusing on important things, causes you to be ashamed to express feelings (both good and bad) and makes you just want to withdraw from the real world. I think J has really been missing the man she fell in love with, because too much work, too many drugs and no healthy life balance caused him to become a shell of his former self. There have been times recently when I've tried lying to myself, tried justifying the weed use because CBD can help with both physical and mental pain... It couldn't have gone on any longer. Last week it seemed like "what are we going to do now we can't get any weed?", now it seems like a necessary fate that happened for a reason: so we could break free of that addiction and get back to living a proper life again, a life where we can afford to go out and do all the things we loved doing together.


Quote: "Even if the person is going to therapy and is trying to make these changes, there will be slip ups. There will be rough times. There may be periods when the person falls right back into old pattern. Changing thought patterns and behavior patterns is a long process and doesn't happen over night."

There has also been the added problem of outside influences only hearing one side of the story, and perhaps given her ill-informed advice that has made her doubt our relationship even more. Again, talking to each other about our worries instead of the usual "Are you OK?" "Yeah", seems so easy now, but seemed impossible back then.

People who know the details don't know how the hell I've coped with all this and not had any form of counselling, advice or guidance. There is also the fact that people don't seek counselling until there is anything wrong: nobody takes counselling just as precaution. The health service struggles to even support the person dealing with the illness, let alone give support to the people around them who are affected by it. BPD is a difficult thing to understand and get your head around: I never 100% will understand it because nobody can, even the person who is experiencing it firsthand. One thing I am sure of is that it can have a deeply damaging effect on partners and family members if they aren't able to understand why somebody so bright and loving can suddenly turn cold and seem like they don't care.


Quote: "For both the individual with BPD and their partner, it can be an exceedingly difficult cycle to break. The individual with BPD may be aware of their pattern of behaviors but feel powerless to stop themselves from perpetuating the cycle of negative behaviors. In many instances, the partner is completely unaware of the mental illness lurking behind the seemingly loving eyes and become confused by this shift in behavior. However, for the BPD sufferer, there are some ways to end this cycle of behavior."

Relationship counselling is something that I am now very happy to do, as long as it helps us: and we need a neutral, an outsider who can help the two of us understand things from a factual, unbiased point of view. No shame in it at all, it should feel the opposite because it shows that we are committed to understanding each other more. I'd also like Kay's own counsellor to read this account of my thoughts and feelings so he can give her the correct advise regarding our relationship. People need to see the whole picture, not just hear the thoughts caused by BPD. I would also like to have a monthly "family therapy" session with her mother present, so she can understand how her interference affects our relationship. She needs to hear the opinions of a professional to understand just how she has handled things the wrong way. All three of us should share our thoughts, and the counsellor will offer his truthful opinions and solutions. This is not just for the benefit of our relationship, but for the benefit of J to see what has been ruining her previous relationships and her identity over the years.

I am not just worried about us losing each other. Especially with Borderline people being likely to seek another relationship straight away, I know that if she doesn't recognise the effects of her disorder and put boundaries in place regarding her mother's control of her life, she will repeat the same cycle with the next partner. And that partner might not react to it as understandingly as I have tried to. She could get seriously hurt. She will go through life losing homes and having to give up many pets as a result. She'll have a lot of trouble having to start from scratch every time, and the next time will always be harder. Every time will leave her deeper in debt as she has to find the money to pay the massive deposits that are required to get a flat these days, leaving debts and bills aside to build up and bite her another day. She will become entirely reliant on her mother for everything, and when the day comes when her Mum is no longer there, she will be truly alone and vulnerable to all sorts of bad people that will identify her as someone to take advantage of. I wanted to make her happy for the rest of her life, since I could see how the love we shared used to get her through so many bad times. I was going to be there to face the bad times with her, working through it as two halves of a couple. Stronger together. In the end, she might regret not having faith in the biggest relationship of her life and wish that she could turn back the clocks to the time where she had everything.

I worry about her future, and worry that if she loses me, then she will lose the only person who has ever come close to understanding aout her problems. I was still willing to spend the rest of his life learning more about BPD, PTSD and severe anxiety affect her way of thinking, while guiding her through it and sticking by her side.

But I don't want it to be too late. I meet people every day in shops, in the street, online, and now at the swimming pool. I don't want to end up meeting someone else and ending any chance of me and J being together again. There is no substitute for J, but it would get to a point where I would feel lonely without her and eventually allow someone else to comfort me. I don't want that. I don't want to make that mistake. And I need J to stop me from making that mistake before it is too late.


Quote: "Communication – Many problems in relationships can be resolved with the right form and timing in communication. If you are struggling with BPD and know you are prone to this pattern of behavior, begin your new relationship by explaining your fears, thoughts, and reactions to these emotional stimuli. Give your partner a chance to understand your own insecurities and allow them to help and reassure you in the relationship rather than setting up some test they are bound to fail."

If we did agree to sort things out, another thing I would want is a healthy work-life balance: Relying solely on internet sales for our income is not enough, and one month could earn us thousands of pounds, the next month could earn us just under £200. The more we need money, the more I am pushing myself to sell mores. Realistically what I need to do is to find a normal day job with a fixed monthly income, and only run the business as a sideline thing for a bit of extra cash. That way I will be earning money like I used to each month but at the same time be doing another job that I love. Even if my "work" just consists of me posting a couple of tweets each day and posting orders to people, then I am still doing work that people value. After thinking about how the huge workloads have affected my life and our relationship, I told J that I was going to completely pack in the business. Realistically, I would soon end up regretting it, and even though I wouldn't ever resent J for it, I wouldn't want her to feel like she was the reason for me giving up on my dreams.

Quote: "Set Boundaries for yourself in your relationship – This is often the most difficult as the internal feelings of loneliness and emptiness almost force you to become overly critical of the smallest changes in behavior from your partner. Remind yourself that your partner cannot possibly devote 100% of their time and energy to appeasing you and that they may not even realize that their behaviors are affecting you this way. When you begin to feel worried or concerned, take a step back and evaluate what is causing you to worry and if it is truly something significant that can be discussed."

To be stronger for her like I used to be, I have to learn not to overthink things, second-guess and read into things that aren't there. I also need to reassure myself that none of this has been entirely "my fault", just like J's mental health struggles are not her fault either. Nobody would willingly choose to have an illness, especially one that affects the people closest to them.

Obviously, there will need to be a few changes when it comes to her mother's involvement in our relationship. It is not a normal or healthy thing for us or herself.

Her mother will carry on in denial, claiming that the damage to our relationship has nothing to do with her BPD, and that it is just because of how she feels about the relationship. But BPD is very much about how the person suffering from it views their relationships. Yet despite this, and despite repeatedly being offered the facts, her mother will continue to deny that J's disorder is what has been ruining her relationships throughout her life. It is the reason she has never been able to settle anywhere. The reason that at the age of just 26, she has had to move home more times than the average person would in their entire life.

Her mother allows J to act on every impulse she has, even when they are likely to lead to disaster. She'll unconditionally agree with her every action, and come up with desperate, far-fetched excuses instead of admitting that her daughter has made a mistake. She feels like she owes her daughter the right to do as she pleases regardless of the consequences and regardless of the hurt it causes to others. She overcompensates because she feels guilty about how J was brought up and for the problems that confusing upbringing has led to in her life.

[1984bps]

PART EIGHT

Her mother allows J to act on every impulse she has, even when they are likely to lead to disaster. She'll unconditionally agree with her every action, and come up with desperate, far-fetched excuses instead of admitting that her daughter has made a mistake. She feels like she owes her daughter the right to do as she pleases regardless of the consequences and regardless of the hurt it causes to others. She overcompensates because she feels guilty about how J was brought up and for the problems that confusing upbringing has led to in her life.

Her mother has been handling J's disorder in the wrong way: allowing her to spend and do what she wants without thinking of the consequences. Encouraging her to make impulsive, reckless decisions. Not being able to put any boundaries in place, and not being able to tell J when she is wrong. Believing everything J says, to the point where she is also thinking just like her, even when these thoughts are the product of Borderline Personality Disorder. She has gone from being a kind, funny person to being constantly annoyed and dismissive of me. She means well, but forgets to think of other people in a way that anyone would think was totally disrespectful, taking the liberty of making decisions about our home and our relationship without even bothering to ask me first. She will even take control of our money and tell me that I'm not allowed to pay my bills, they don't matter to her since they're not in J's name. After all, since I quit my "proper job" I no longer deserve the right to have a say in anything. All despite the fact that I work harder in my business than in any other previous job I've had, AND I have been bringing in more money than what I was before. Yet, her mother is unable to think logically and cannot seem to get a grip on the fact that her daughter is in a relationship with another human being, who is entitled to make his own choices, especially when it comes to the home that I worked hard to provide for her daughter.

She sees things in black and white, like J would while having an episode. When me and her were happy, we were the "loveliest couple in the world", as soon as we had problems, R would see our whole time together as a "toxic relationship" (a term used in a meme her mother recently posted on Facebook, whether it was intentional or not).

It feels like she has slowly but completely taken over. Everything has to involve her. I've been reasonable and understanding about this throughout our relationship, while other men would've run a mile. It is not normal or healthy for a mother to be spending so much time with her daughter while her boyfriend is there with her. We never go on holiday unless she is there. When we visit places, me and J are never given our alone time. And most destructively of all, whenever their is a relationship issue or disagreement, she HAS to get involved, causing even more tension and always making matters worse.

I look at what could be the final photo ever taken of me and J. But there aren't two of us in the picture. Her mother is there too. By that point there were no longer just two of us in the relationship. And I'm being squeezed slowly out of the picture because there isn't enough room for three of us. Says it all really. I've been reasonable and fair with R being so close to the partner who I love, and I think of her as part of my family, fall-outs and all. I've tolerated some of the times where she's overstayed her welcome or gone too far with decision making, and acted with the sort of understanding that no other man would find possible. But it's gone too far in recent months. She is 26, not 16. And I'm 35, certainly not the sort of age to be giving up all my rights to choose what I do with our home.

Quote: "Seek Professional Assistance – Living with BPD is similar to living with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and other mental illnesses. It is almost impossible for you to handle without assistance. Find a counselor or therapist who can help you to understand your behavior, identify your triggers, and build your self-confidence and self-worth."

Me and J will start to miss each other and our life together, whether it takes longer for her to come round or not. But if things are going to work again between us, I am going to need to lay down a few boundaries and ask her if there is any chance of both committing to do things for the sake of both our happiness. It's not a list of rules, it's just a few essential things to learn and work on so we can have a healthier and loving life together like we did for the years before.

I'm not banning her from seeing her mother. I have no right to do that, and I wouldn't WANT to impose such a restriction on my partner. I am just asking for her not to get so deeply involved in our relationship, especially when she can be in such denial about what causes our problems. I am asking her to offer the help and support to her daughter, but to also be more understanding about how being overbearing and biased is not helping J's condition, but making her feel like more of an invalid who needs constant mothering.

J has claimed at least twice that her previous ex tried banning her from seeing her Mum. Now I'm guessing that this might not be true at all, but in fact that her ex was also tired of there being three people in the relationship and tried to put some reasonable boundaries in place. If things between me and her aren't fixed, then I too will no doubt be accused of trying to stop her from seeing her Mum. They will twist the whole story and try to paint a picture of me as the abuser without any facts or true stories to refer to. Her ex was also accused of being "emotionally abusive", when he may have just been put into a huge depression due to the lack of affection he was getting and could no longer interact in a happy or mentally healthy manner. He was accused of "financial abuse", when for all I know, he could've been trying to be sensible to stop J from going on hypermanic spending sprees. All this explains why J and her mother have always acted in an awkward, guilty way whenever they have seen or spoke to him, rather than in an "owning it" kind of way that you would treat someone who has actually done wrong.

We've come so far in these four years, whereas we both pretty much had nothing but dreams when we met. At this rate, in another couple of years or so we could have a house and some kids. The long road of life is full of bumps and turns, and I want to experience all of it with her, and try my best to put my personal feelings to one side when it comes to her disorder. Not just for me or for us, but for her. I want her to be happy and I'm the only person who I can trust to do the very best he can for her.

I know that we are both such emotional people, that if anyone can have a "no judging" chat with perspective and honesty then it's us. Again, we could look at what has happened as some sort of fate to learn and grow from. Couples don't become stronger when they're having uneventful lives with no ups or downs. They become stronger when they work through challenges and come out of it the other side with even more love for each other than ever. But we should've had a little break a while ago. In fact we should've had lots of little mini breaks just so we weren't constantly around each other all the time, yet resenting each other because we weren't spending proper time together. By mini breaks I mean simple things like coming over to my old hometown for the night, seeing my mum, seeing a few friends, seeing my cats... It's all part of a healthy balance. I remember the first couple of years when I would have to go back to my old town for a few days because of work, and we would both be counting down the hours until we could see each other again. My Mum says that my Nan and Grandad were only married for all those years because my Grandad worked a lot of hours and they weren't in each other's way all the time. Spending time apart didn't mean that they didn't love each other. They ended up having 5 kids and were together until the very end.

The past few years have been a process of learning more about the effects the disability has on J, but keeping my own feelings bottled up caused so much negativity. I've clearly seen her when the disability "takes hold" and come to terms with the fact that those are not her actions but the actions of the demon controlling her emotions. To an extent I have learned to separate the person from the disability: I don't see her as an unstable or unreasonable person since I know the J underneath is the most wonderful and caring person anyone could meet. There are days when people who don't know her would think that she's a perfectly normal, happy person. Her smile could light up a room and she has a sparkling, effortless sense of humour. She has a heart of gold and her fondness for animals and the people she cares about is a beautiful thing. She is intelligent, thoughtful and creative. Her happy upbeat moments are genuinely contagious: when she is happy, I am happy. I will always remember our first few dates and clearly remember telling her at one point how surprised I was to meet this amazingly sweet and smiley person when I was half afraid that I'd meet someone very downbeat and visibly damaged.

Depression affects even the brightest and most confident minds. Nobody is safe from depression. I wake up every day to the most beautiful girl in the world and feel like the luckiest man on earth. But the more you have to lose, the more scared you get of losing it all.

I have many thoughts buzzing around my brain. One of them is the fact that she must hate me a lot for her to risk losing her home, her pets and her whole life just to be rid of me. Not only do we have the condition of a joint tenancy, but without my earnings, she won't be able to pay the bills. She'll have to end up leaving, and the home I worked hard for will be gone. There will be no chance of finding a place that allows two pets including a dog, let alone one that also allows smoking and single people on benefits. Both the dog and the cat will have to spend the rest of their lives in an animal shelter when they used to have a loving home with two caring owners. She will be left on the streets or will have to find another relationship with someone, just so she can have a bed for the night. I don't want this to happen to the woman I love. I want us to carry on building our home, family and dreams, to give her so much that she can stick two fingers up to the past.

Quote: "Set a visual or verbal cue that you need time alone. This could be a sign to put on your door, a coloured piece of paper to give your partner, or physically removing yourself from the same room as your partner. Take time apart but don’t go on a break. Turn off your phone, go for a walk, or signal some needed individual time... Be honest, be patient, and stay."


Since we met, we have walked hand in hand together through so many good and bad times. Others would not understand if they encountered the change in mood that I have been on the receiving end of. I will probably never fully understand the effects of BPD, but having been with her for so long I have had to do research, read case after case of similar stories and learn to the point where I can love her for who she is, not for what her illness makes her do. I know she is fighting against it, and as long as she is willing to get better, I am always willing to stand by her side throughout every part of that process.


Quote: "You can look through the diagnoses criteria for BPD and think “who would ever want to date someone like this?” but the truth is, when you date someone with BPD you won’t only be dealing with the bad parts of the disorder, people with BPD are empathetic, passionate, loving, loyal, kind, and caring. Once you learn how to cope with the disorder within your relationship you can grow together and live a very happy life. People with BPD actually have a lower divorce rate than the general population."

But at the moment I am feeling like all the help, love and support I have has been thrown back in my face. I worked for us, I borrowed for us, I got in debt for us, I even stole for us. And it still means nothing to her.

Quote: "Most of us know it is not effective to be nasty. However, if you truly adopt a mindful stance toward your partner, you will see that you both of you are doing the same thing.

They think you deserve it. You think your partner deserves it. How could this possibly be resolved unless one (and eventually both) of you steps back mindfully and see that, as Gandhi said, "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"? "

I've had my punishment and been made to suffer. She has proved her point. I've learned another lesson about how to be more empathetic about how Borderline Personality Disorder makes J act. I just wish she'd realise that even though she has been making me suffer and thinking she has won and is in control, my heart knows that she is actually losing control and letting a resolvable problem ruin her best chance at a happy life in the longterm.

She is a clever, beautiful, imaginative and talented 26 year old woman who has the potential to do so much. What she needs is more independence and self-control, but feeling frightened of that responsibility, she hands over control to her mother, who then ends up in a bad mental state herself. Maybe J wants more independence, and subconsciously knows that it's the "apron strings" that she relies on too much. But she is a loving person who could never cut her Mum out of her life. I'd never ask her to do that. All I'd ask was for the two of us to have more control in our relationship, and that a third person never bodes well. Her mind probably doesn't want to think about how her mum gets too involved in her personal life, when she only needs help when it's really required. So instead she wants more independence by cutting her partner out of the picture. Maybe. I'll have to ask her if that might be the case somewhere deep down. And if it is, I'd work with her to make that situation a lot more healthier.

Quote: "This is an example of a couple working together - they both agree to work on these issues independently and together - there is no intimidating mention of BPD vs Non-BPD – it’s just two people building a bridge and ending the unhealthy cycle as a first step. From there they can look to more substantive work.

You can do this and still analyze if they want to stay or leave the relationship..."

Having being given the time to process things, and the endless memories of the many amazing things we have seen and done together, I now feel like I can talk to her in the most open and upfront way. Once again, in a way I feel more like the real me that she used to know and love. The man who wasn't afraid to remind her that she was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. The only difference is that at the moment, I don't know how she feels.

Theres a reason we've been together for over 4 years, while our previous relationships all seemed like small footnotes in comparison. There's a reason why that out of the many people both of us have met along the way, she became the love of my life and I her longest relationship. Weaker couples who have been together for less time have solved problems bigger than ours. If theres a way we can save it then why not? Things will change for the better now we know more about life, and now we know about the things to work on when you get past a certain stage in a partnership.

My heart will always belong to her, and when Im away from her, I genuinely feel that a big part of me is there with her too. THAT is the sort of thing I didn't feel before I met her, before I knew how good love could feel. She taught me that there is someone for everyone, and she will always be the one for me