Not sure where to start...

[GuyIncognito]

It feels silly posting on this kind of message board, or even reaching out for advice and support because that's always been a struggle for me and I tend to have trouble seeing things as "actually that bad", especially when it comes to my romantic relationships. I guess that's all its own things to work through and I am in therapy/have been, so I'm on the journey.

I guess I'm here because my relationship with my partner ended, a month or two after she started being treated for/was talking openly about BPD with her therapist. She had been curious as to my thoughts on whether she had it and I admitted that it had occurred to me in the past, largely as a result of seeing some very relatable memes. Once we sat down and looked at the criteria, all of them were pretty much spot on. I don't know that she's actually been formally diagnosed at this point, but the pattern is pretty clear and the more I've read about BPD since, the more it has continued to ring true about what I've experienced with her.

But now I'm just sort of at a loss. I've never dealt with this kind of intensity in a person, despite having spent my life with mental health struggles of my own (depression and ADHD mostly), and while some of this has faded since she left to stay with her sister, the situation has pretty well messed with my sense of what's happened/happening in our interactions. While the abuse never turned physical, her verbal abuse got so much worse after the break-up was held to by me (against her insistence that I couldn't just decide our relationship was done), and she ended up throwing and breaking things on a couple separate days before declaring intent to self-harm and grabbing a knife. This would lead to her accepting that going and staying somewhere else was necessary for our mutual safety. Unfortunately, in the time since then, she's continued the verbal abuse and attempts to simply storm her way back into the house, conversations with me, and so on, despite clear boundaries to the contrary. Any actions taken on my part to address her violating those boundaries or acting in unsafe or unstable ways have still been with a desire for her to come out of this okay (beyond obviously the pain of breaking up), so I have not involved the authorities beyond making a few phone calls to make sure I understood my actual legal rights/options in this situation.

I've done my best to create and hold boundaries that feel reasonable and safe, but she's just continually pushed past them, and re-engaging with her only leads to us both being trapped back in that cycle of conflict which then leads to her exploding and/or telling me she's going to kill herself over something I have said or done or won't say or do.

Thankfully, I have a strong support network of friends and family in real life, but they also largely have no experience with this. I don't want to make things worse or harder for her because I do care and love her still, despite it not working for us to live together/remain connected romantically. But every time it feels like things have maybe gotten to a place of stability, the rug gets yanked out from under me again and I can't keep doing it. We're still connected in a few ways, with her close to coming back and moving her things out, and she's still on my insurance.

So yeah, not sure what I'm really asking for here. Maybe some thoughts on ways to keep the distance I very much need without further triggering her abandonment and leading to the suicide/self-harm threats? It feels like she's realized that when all else fails, I will respond to that out of fear that she will really harm herself, and it just leads us back to the same PLEASE READty conversations. It doesn't help that her latest tactic has been to decide I have NPD, and that this explains everything and we're just both dysfunctional and have things to work on, etc. I already feel and have felt like her insistence on projecting her behaviors onto me has worn down a lot of my own sense of what is and isn't happening, so I guess thoughts on how to keep myself (for lack of a better word) "sane" while we're still having to interact would really help too.

[SinisterComplex]

First, welcome  . Get over the silly feeling, this is a safe place and a sanctuary of sorts and this site will legitimately be a phenomenal resource to help you in your healing journey. Ego, pride, being stubborn, and being impatient will just make things worse for you dealing with this stuff. This is something much bigger than the normal person understands and can handle. Dealing with a bpd partner is unequivocally one of the most humbling experiences you can have in life. Doesn't matter how tough, big, strong, etc you think you are...you get brought down to your knees and kicked in the nuts and for some left without a pot to piss in.

Bottom line is that you picked a great forum to open up to. What I will say is that you will not be judged so share as much as you need to and you are comfortable with. Instead of wondering about what you are asking just vent man. Its ok. Unload all the junk and get it off your chest. You will find plenty of members here who will provide support and help you.

I urge you to use this resource and work through your thoughts. This family has your back.

Cheers and best wishes to you!

-SC-

[GaGrl]

You appear to have several situations to resolve that (God forbid) could move to needing a legal resolution.

1) What timeline have you communicated to her regarding removing her property and no longer using her address as "address of record"?

2) What information have you received (from HR Benefits?) regarding removing her from your insurance. I'm assuming this is medical insurance? Is she also on any car insurance that you carry?

These two items can be resolved relatively quickly while communicating to her that the relationship is over.

[GuyIncognito]

Thankfully, we're approaching the end of the limbo things have been in since we split up a little over a month ago. She's going to finish packing things here tomorrow, and then she's coming with a moving truck to get everything on Saturday.

And yeah, it's just medical insurance. Problem is, because she's in the middle of intense mental health work all utilizing her current insurance, switching now could PLEASE READ up her ability to participate in the program she's in. Though I don't owe her that, I can't in good conscience throw her off my insurance so long as we can come to a very clear and in writing agreement on the timeline/money aspects of it. If she can't do that, then she will have to figure it out on her own.

She has suggested a conversation about what boundaries we each need while she's here packing tomorrow, so I'm hopeful that we can manage that with relative peace, and she can leave with clear knowledge of what I will and will not accept.

This all has been so damn draining and I'm just ready for it to be over. I hate how easy it is for me to snap or be mean or sarcastic in my thinking with her, even if I still do my best not to say these things out loud. There's such frustration there. I don't hate her, I'm not even really angry with her, because in the end, I know this nonsense is what her brain is doing and she still doesn't have the tools to navigate this well. But I'm tired. I can't keep being a person she reaches out to. I can't keep being drilled over and over and over for the "why" of so many questions she has about things I don't actually think or feel or do. I can't keep listening to her cry and tell me how awful life is without me and how much she loved me and then hours later get pages of angry, aggressive, demanding texts where I must offer apologies I've already offered, explicitly own up to things I didn't do and don't feel, or at least engage in conversation with her again or I'm "triggering" her and she's going to end up hurting herself.

Part of me hates that the truth of it is that if when we broke up, she'd accepted that at face value and we'd been able to take a minute to sort out how to live together while she searched for a new place, I probably wouldn't have been able to stick with it. Hell, if she'd just left and stayed with her sister for a couple weeks, I don't know if I'd have been able to stick with it. I'm poly, and my other partner told me she worried that I would end up going back and forth, maybe for months, before I'd really be able to hold to this need for it to end. For that, I'm endlessly thankful. I've been in this position with her I dunno, a handful of times at least in the last couple years where we'd have a big fight, she'd threaten to end it or say she's just going to leave or not leave but tell me she's never sleeping in bed with me again or we're never having sex again or whatever other thing...and then by the next morning things would be "normal", we'd do a round of apologies, and for a moment, that pit in my stomach would go away. Hell, if she'd just *ever* been able to see a moment of conflict and distress in our relationship and be the one to apologize and mend things and show love and affection and understanding, I might not have been able to walk away. It was only easier this time because we'd had so many recent fights and distance because of some decisions she was making around another relationship, that I was able to feel enough of myself and my needs for long enough to say to myself "You know, we can actually just stop doing this. We don't have to be in this relationship.", and know it was really true.

[GaGrl]

If you terminate her eligibility on your company medical insurance, she will be eligible continue coverage under COBRA for 18 months. Yes, she would pay the full premium rather than the company subsidized amount, but she would continue with the coverage she has now -- just not attached to you.

The sooner you sever those kind of ties, the sooner you can put boundaries in place about your availability and willingness to listen to her questions, complaints, woes, etc.

[SinisterComplex]

If you terminate her eligibility on your company medical insurance, she will be eligible continue coverage under COBRA for 18 months. Yes, she would pay the full premium rather than the company subsidized amount, but she would continue with the coverage she has now -- just not attached to you.

The sooner you sever those kind of ties, the sooner you can put boundaries in place about your availability and willingness to listen to her questions, complaints, woes, etc.

I am going to second this. You have to make a clean break. The longer you keep yourself tied into this the worse off your own personal mental health will be. You have to do the best thing for YOU. Quit worrying about her needs or anything else here. That is not your concern. That is not your responsibility and not your problem.

Once you let some time pass and you can then put boundaries in place and then enforce them then what you do is up to you. In the immediate though...you need to pull the plug ASAP.

Gain some distance. Give yourself a break. Be kind to yourself. Heal.

Cheers and best wishes!

-SC-