Trying to cope with the end of a relationship with a borderline woman

[Paul Baumer]

Hello everyone, how are you? This is more about venting and just putting out some thoughts and feelings out there, because, the relationship is over and there's no solution, unfortunately.

I've dated, on and off, a woman with BPD for the last 4 years. I just really realized/understood she is BPD earlier this year, when she kind of "confessed" it, and mentioned, in a very hesitant way, that she has been treated for this condition some years ago.

I've been reading this web board a little bit, and I think that the biggest red flag was when I originally started talking to this woman. The way she approached me, was by writing to me on my profile online, on Instagram actually, and immediately inviting herself to meet up with me. “Hi, are you single? Could we meet up sometime then?”. It was almost like that. In minutes she was writing the “let’s meet up” phrase.

Everything was so intense. In the next few days, we began talking, and she was being so lovely and full of passion, and I said something like “hey I'm interested in you, but let's slow down a bit”, and she got angry and blocked me. So I had to write to her and say “we are getting to know each other, calm down, it can be good but let's take our time.”

What hurts me the most is how volatile they are. I just wrote to her a message saying that I see her perspective better, and that I love her, and she completely dismissed it and said that she wants to distance herself, and nothing to do with me anymore. This happened because, well we were talking, in good terms last week and I saw her flirting online with another guy, and got angry and wrote to her about it then everything broke down. She broke up with me in April, and I've been trying to reconnect since. It worked a little since last month. But I think it is gone for good now, again.

Through the years, I left her quite a few times after she exploded due to unreasonable reasons. Once we were at a restaurant, and she went to the bathroom, I went to the bathroom as well, and when I got out I didn't find her. So I went outside of the restaurant looking for her, and when I looked through the window she was there inside, looking for me inside the place. So I waved and entered the restaurant again to go and meet her.

Good God, she was absolutely upset and didn't speak with me for the rest of the night. The worst thing is that she had to go and get a bus back to her city immediately after that, so I was taking her to the bus station,  and she was absolutely quiet and angry. It's so weird. I tried to talk to her but she kept being upset, angry and quiet, as if I had done something terrible to her on purpose. As if it wasn’t an accident that we just got lost for a few minutes.

Actually, she mentioned she was treated at a place for borderline people, but didn't admit she has the condition herself. So I had to go and read about it to understand what was happening. She broke up with me around April, like I've mentioned, and I've been trying, and connecting and talking to her ever since. One of the problems is that we live in different cities. So the vast majority of our relationship has been through texts and so on.

She's really good looking, so she keep taking those photos of herself and putting them on Instagram. She gets hundreds of likes. Many people go there and comment and give her praise for her looks and how beautiful she is. She's also constantly complimenting other women, mostly women she never met, on Instagram as well. She has this online relationship with this girl who’s 10 years younger than her, and at each and every photo either of them posts, they both go to each other profiles and write things like “I love you”, “you are so perfect!”, “I’m not doing well after seeing so much beauty!” and other compliments. They had a political militant instagram together, and kept doing a very superficial sort of activism there. They have never met each other, and this has been going on for years now. She's 32 and I find this behavior so weird. I guess what bothers me the most is the feeling of emptiness that this leaves me with. I read here a very good text with description of the lifespan of a relationship with a borderliner, and in the end it seems to them that they just throw you out. It seems that they use you like a piece of tissue, and then discard you.

Now, she insists she doesn't want any contact, almost out of the blue. We were having the most caring and loving conversation up to April, and then as I was explaining to her something, and I was a bit rude and said “do I have to make a drawing of this for you to understand?”, she exploded in violence, anger, and after that it was so hard to reconnect. She blocked me on everything. She constantly did that through the relationship.

I think that the biggest red flag, actually as some other people have said here, is that they are so overwhelmingly passionate in the beginning, and even when you say, and show them that there are some things which are not compatible, they disregard it. I think it is a part of the splitting thing. For instance she was, and is, this extremely active leftist militant online, and I said I didn't like that, and I didn't like the agenda and politicians she was pushing, and that she should look for someone who had the same political views as her, she kept saying I was “demanding someone exactly like yourself”, and being unreasonable.

I explained that this was important to me and I didn't want to deal with that sort of behavior. But she didn’t care. And also hid the behavior from me later on. But kept doing it, hidden.

But going back to the red flag: It seems that they fall in love, or what they think love is, pretend that there are no problems in any differences, hide it completely and idealize the person. I understand they also lie a lot. She lies about the past, and she lied for years about having stopped with the militancy. She had this Twitter account in which she kept pushing this political agenda, pleasing a group of followers, and it was all hidden. When I confronted her when I found out, she exploded in anger. I get impressed with how aggressive she is. Any disagreement became a war. Anything was about all or nothing. Every discussion became an argument in which she used the most intimate things of my life to try to humiliate me. This could be a discussion about anything. The presidential candidate. The fact she erased her colleagues from a photo she sent me and I said it was unnecessary to do so. A discussion about a fire that happened in a museum. The fact I mentioned she should watch her weight. Anything. It became a war. She wouldn’t stop. Never giving in.

While she still "loved" me, she used to be filled with remorse and super apologetic in the next days. Not anymore.

Another aspect is, I gave her lecture upon lecture (I'm a teacher) on politics, showed her videos, articles, books about social issues that she kept preaching about online, gave her all this information, and she kept going back to the militant thing. I asked her if she thought I was lying, why she couldn’t understand she was wrong and that she should study those issues. By the end, she got a little bit better, but she kept defending genocidal dictators, a good example is of when she posted a photo of Che Guevara years ago, and I asked her to take it off. She eventually did, but the other day I see it and it's back on her profile. So she lied, she had just archived the photo, and decided to put it back recently. This insane insistence on being a political militant, when it's not even related to her profession - she's a recently graduated nurse - it's so weird.

She never introduced me to anyone in her family. Or any of her friends. I don’t even know what her relationship to her “friends” is like. I know she doesn’t have childhood friends. Her relationship with her mother is not good, she has mentioned. But online, she pretends it is.

I'm writing too much and I apologize for this. I know this is kind of a disjointed story. I'm writing as I think. And I'm hurt. I guess what hurts me the most is how abruptly she broke up everything now. She's writing these compliments on Instagram and sending love hearts to this guy in Australia, the other side of the world. A guy that she never saw in her life and it seems they are developing a Instagram romance. The guy is responding. I’m impressed that this guy, who’s in his 40s, and has to kids, allows himself to go with this. She's a pretty girl, and he must be infatuated. I guess is the same thing she did with me. She just told me to never talk to her again, that she feels like dying when she talks to me. This happened when she said “I haven't seen you in over a year and we don't have a relationship anymore”, and I refuted this lie, printed a message from her from earlier this year in which she sends me love hearts and tells me how much she likes me, showing that we still had a relationship this year. Do borderline people lie all the time?

I’ll Just end up with a general question: is this their natural process? Do they love you for a while, maybe a few years, and then discard you like a piece of trash? That's how it feels. She treats me like a monster now, as if I was a horrible person, and when I tried to remember her of the good things, described our connections, she ignores it and treats me as a stalker or something like that. I really wanted her to look for proper help. I know she cuts herself sometimes. She does have scars on her arms, and it has happened this year as well.

Anyway, thanks for reading, it feels really lonely, and I do regret allowing myself to fall in love with someone who's this unpredictable, who won't listen to reason, and who will demonize everything that was so special about us. Do untreated borderline people get better? I don’t think she will look for treatment by herself. It is very heartbreaking and sad.

I’m sorry if this text is a bit convoluted. It’s difficult to explain this entire relationship. I’m quite hurt, just recovering from two weeks of being infected with covid here. And my heart is very broken. I shouldn’t have confronted her about the Australian guy. We were at least on speaking terms until I did that, last week. I had managed to go back to talking to her on a decent level, about art, music and such things. I just saw her sending little hearts to him, and that made me so angry that I wrote her that that was ridiculous. And since then, she said that she doesn’t want to ever speak with me again and that I should move on. And I know I should. But, inside me, I still feel love for her. And I still miss her. It’s very sad. Being in love with someone who is BPD is a black hole. It’s just too painful.

Thanks for any thoughts. 

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

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

[NonnyMouse]

You don't need to apologise for being 'convoluted,' I thought it was all very coherent! But maybe knowing pwBPD makes us better at unraveling crazy nonsequiturs! No, seriously, it was well written and very clear!

The good news is you've found out the underlying issue after just a few years. There are people here for whom the light hasn't dawned until decades in.

What you haven't mentioned is anything really about her controlling your life and you doubting your own sanity. That's what you've got to look forward to if the relationship continues unchanged. If you've read through this forum you'll see many people who have had access to friends, family, hobbies, etc. forbidden, and who have spent years thinking they and their memories are flawed. And if she is going to change she needs hardcore therapy and a lot of time. Are you that heavily invested?

So those are my initial thoughts.

And I do have advice, but it's maybe too blunt for this forum! Just bear in mind that 'they' say to get over a relationship it takes one month per year of the relationship. So...you could still have a happy Christmas!

[Paul Baumer]

Hello NonnyMouse, thank you very much for your kind reply. It does help. More than I thought it would.

I'm very depressed. She told me to never write to her again, and that if I insist, she would take "actions". It all became very bitter after I confronted her regarding the fact that she's developing this online relationship with this australian instagrammer. She spends a lot of time on instagram, posts many photos of herself on make up looking very attractive, and has many, many followers. Although this has nothing to do with her profession. As I understand she's really developing this on-line relationship with this Australian.

I'm afraid that if I keep writing her she will go to the police or something, but it hurts so much to be discarded this way!

She victimizes herself a lot. Any discussion becomes about how she's being submitted to a horrible person (me) and how she is being "accused" of unreasonable things. Once, last year, she admitted that she plays the victim card, and according to the book on BPD I'm reading (The Essential Family Guide to BPD), this is a recurrent pattern. She was (or is) seeing a therapist, since last year, but I think it's really not enough. She should be treating herself for BPD.

One of the problems is that we always lived far away from each other, so the majority of the relationship has been through texts and so on. I think, in the end, it is impossible to help someone with BPD in this situation, with so much physical distance. Also, in all these 4 years, we only met when she visited me in my city (she shares a house and can't bring guests in, and I live by myself). I also broke up with her a few times when she had major crisis' and became unbearable, saying hateful things, and I spent, specially from 2017-2020, many months without contact with her. The relationship has been "on and off" as I said before. I "gave up" on her, once more, on May 2020, and when we "got back" to talking, in August 2020, she was very reluctant, and it was never the same.

Many times since last August she told me that she had "destroyed" everything she felt for me, and had "thrown her feelings" for me in the trash. And I felt that she was less invested, for sure. Much more willing to break up. Like I read here: it seems they idealize you, adore you, and then gradually, due to the crisis and the break ups and the arguments, they lose interest, and look for another, fresh and new partner, to continue the process?

It's so sad. Many times, in the beginning, she would say she would love me, and then, after a few days, if a discussion happened, she would say she hated me and enter a vortex of hatred and arguments. I couldn't understand what that was, and explained to her that "you can't love and want to move in with a person on monday, and hate them forever and wish them the worst on thursday, and think this is alright! There's something very wrong there!". I didn't know what was happening.

Again, thanks for your message. I haven't been this depressed and disturbed in a long time. I can't feel much taste or smell due to covid as well, I'm just getting over the infection, and I'm having other issues in life. This is making me extremely depressed and making me lose faith in the future and in life, unfortunately. The story with this woman doesn't help. Many things are sad within me right now, and I feel like a burden not only to myself, but to my surroundings as well. There are other reasons (professional ones, even family ones, although I am grateful for the family I have).

Again, I'd like to thank you for your kind words and for reading. Many thanks.

[Jose Maria]

Hey, you're a irritating guy, you care about his political ideas!
Before, I didn't date extreme right-wing extremists like you.
Since I lost a girlfriend for discussing politics in college I realized that it was not worth putting aside my love life for differences that were ultimately outside my circle.
But now I don't pay attention to it, if I like the woman, I simply enjoy her and I internalize her ideas without fighting, you can always learn.

[Paul Baumer]

Hey, you're a irritating guy, you care about his political ideas!
Before, I didn't date extreme right-wing extremists like you.
Since I lost a girlfriend for discussing politics in college I realized that it was not worth putting aside my love life for differences that were ultimately outside my circle.
But now I don't pay attention to it, if I like the woman, I simply enjoy her and I internalize her ideas without fighting, you can always learn.

I don't know where you got the idea I am a "right wing extremist" from. I do draw a line on relationships when a person begins defending dictators and murderers.

[Mr. Kelly]

Hi, Paul…

I can feel your pain. I have felt it, as well. Our paths are quite similar.

I have learned a lot from corresponding with great folks on here… Hopefully, you will, as well.

I suppose there is no easy fix in regards to where your relationship is currently, but we can probably learn what to do and what not to do if there is ever a chance to move forward.

First off… I had a very similar situation, with my recently-estranged girlfriend becoming almost obsessively attached with a political affiliation that I found offensive. It wasn’t as simple that she just believed something differently than I did, which was somewhat difficult enough initially, it was getting to the point where she was taking on the “us versus them”, mentality, which is so prevalent in today’s politics.  I think what eventually happened is that I became one of the “them“, and I am not sure she was entirely able to get over it.

When I first discovered this beginning to happen, it was early in our relationship, and I noticed that a news segment came on TV, and she suddenly became hostile and argumentative and almost nasty regarding perspectives that I felt were valid and worth supporting.  She wouldn’t budge, and it didn’t turn into a discussion, it turned into almost where I had to defend things that I felt were important in life.

It probably took me about a year to get better at letting go of those differences. I learned that trying to convince her if anything is really trying to control her. That goes for so many different areas of relationships. I think I was trying to take on the role of mentor, or teacher, with her, since that is my background, as well. I figured if I could “teach“ her a better way in the world, maybe she would admire that in me and never leave. But, I was trying to control her in that process for that very reason.  We can’t really control our partners. The best we can do is gently convey what we believe to be true and then let it go.

As Jose said in the previous post… We have to learn to love them for who they are and all the choices they make. If we can’t live with those choices, then it may be an incompatibility that is insurmountable. 

What I learned in these situations is that my partners’s unwillingness to validate my own political perspective, or validate many other things in my life, pit me up against parts of myself that were uncomfortable.  I needed her validation, likely because for her to agree with who I am in all areas likely would mean that she would never leave. That was unrealistic on my part. People will be different and have different ideologies. If we can’t live with those ideologies, we are best left to find somebody else with whom we can have those shared values.

Similar to your situation, my lady friend came up with every concoction imaginable as to why it was me that was sabotaging the relationship, even though to me, it made no sense. That is very much a cluster B trait. I think the theory is that people along that spectrum have very little sense of who they are, and they try to draw much of that energy from the others around them. From the political perspective, that’s why my GF was so aligned with a faction that provided her with a sense of belonging… of her and the others battling the big bad government.  I think these ladies find a sense of identity within these kinds of groups, and it gives them a sense that they fit in and gives them a purpose, regardless of the shrapnel that lands in their facility.

Ultimately, I think we have landed in the discard pile, because we have been unable to give them the supply of self identity that they crave. Borderlines and narcissists can’t fill their own emotional needs, and when someone else needs theirs filled through validation or expectation, the PLEASE READ usually hits the fan. That seems to be the case with you, and definitely was the case with me.

In your case, it wouldn’t hurt to disappear for a while. That may send the message to your lady friend that you have the strength to move on without her. There is a chance that when she begins to notice your absence, she may start to wonder why you have disappeared and send you out some breadcrumbs to try to lure you back.  There is always the chance that she is getting her supply elsewhere, so you may be out of luck, as a may I. 

I am learning to rewrite where I am in my life right now, and I’m starting to value the lack of drama and self-doubt that comes with being apart from a very complicated personality. Though I do extremely miss the good parts of her, and maybe even the dreams that came along with being connected with someone in such a profound way.

I wish you all the best in this pursuit.

[Paul Baumer]

Hey thanks for your input. Yeah you know, borderline people are really weird, this disease is really, really evil, and strange, because it’s also a personality trait, or a set of them. And I think that's why we are here. She has this entire online life, which is very strange to me. It seems that to her, having a public image with people who follow her Instagram is more important than most things. It’s probably connected with the fact that BPDs don’t have a clear identity, and also because she wants to be liked. 

And the political thing gets into that, because these people are consistently, and constantly, are trying to show off and prove to one another that they are good and they have the right, the correct, the stylish political positions. It’s grandstanding, basically. Here’s a good definition on what’s happening on the current political/psychological climate.

“Grandstanding is not associated with any particular political out¬ look. People with all sorts of views can and should come together to condemn grandstanding. It’s not a partisan phenomenon. It’s a human phenomenon. If you’re honest with yourself, you can prob¬ably think of times when you were at least tempted to grandstand. (We certainly can.)

A once¬ enthusiastic participant in the online culture wars recently reflected on his history of grandstanding:

-   Every time I would call someone racist or sexist, I would get a rush. That rush would then be reaffirmed and sustained by the stars, hearts, and thumbs ¬up that constitute the nickels and dimes of social media validation. -

This admission is both striking and bizarre. Why do we participate in such rituals? Why do we care whether our moral talk earns tokens of approval from people, many of whom we barely interact with? And why are we willing to throw people under the bus to get that approval?
 
This book is our attempt to make sense of grandstanding, and to tell you what we’ve learned about it over the past five years. Using evidence from the social and behavioral sciences, we’ll explain why people grandstand and why it takes the forms it does. Using the tools of moral philosophy, we’ll argue that grandstanding is a moral problem on all three major moral theories: it has bad consequences; it is a way of failing to treat people with respect; and it is not vir¬tuous.”

it seems that we are the opposite sides of the political spectrum, regarding the conflicts we had with our partners. I mean, as a principle, I'm with your ex regarding government. Government, or any central power, has a tendency to be evil, and you can't control it, that's the history of mankind; concentration of power leads to tyranny.

Now, you can become obsessed with that idea that's for sure, or with any other idea, and just become reactive to it. Maybe that's what happened with your woman, if she became obsessed with what you called “big bad government”. Obsessive people begin to repeat themselves, they become monothematic, then try to explain everything that they see through the same lenses, in this case politics. It could be the case.

 In my case, she studies very little politics, has a worldview based upon memes, leftist slogans and this whole narcissistic “I'm tired and insulted at the inequalities of the world” posing going on. It’s the basic, let’s say, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez position people give before the world. And, as a borderline, it seems to me that she adopted that as her identity. It does give you a social milieu, a group of people to be associated with, and a certain status within that militant arena. And the worst thing is that she doesn't read anything about it, so she doesn't have a particularly well developed or deep perspective on these things. It's just very superficial, and public-image oriented, which, again, I see as a result of the BPD thing.

Once she mentioned that BPDs have a tendency to get better over time. But I read that there’s no consensus regarding this. Some will get better, some won’t, and some will get better at some things and not regarding others. And when the person uses that as an excuse to not get proper treatment, it’s even worse. But, what can I do? Probably just move on with my life and attempt to understand what happened by reflecting and thinking about it.

I am learning to rewrite where I am in my life right now, and I’m starting to value the lack of drama and self-doubt that comes with being apart from a very complicated personality. Though I do extremely miss the good parts of her, and maybe even the dreams that came along with being connected with someone in such a profound way.

I think this is the hardest thing. To miss the good bits, and to know that you've actually connected with someone so disturbed, but also to know that they are damaged - sometimes beyond repair - and disturbed, that they are pretty much unlovable. I don't miss the drama at all, I think much of the self doubt that you mentioned comes from the fact that BPDs don't ever trust people completely, so the relationship with them is always on the edge, fragile.

There's never that mutual trust needed in a relationship in which both say "ok we are together for good in this, and we have to protect each other because the world and life are hostile enough". They simply are not true partners. And, it seems to me, they always see people around them as potential enemies. Even loved ones. Probably specially loved ones. It's very weird.

Again thanks for your input. Appreciated.