Suspect my girlfriend of 5 months has BPD

[pelle1212]

I've been in a relationship with this girl for 5 months. Most of the time it has felt great and I've really felt that she has loved me and I've loved her. While we live separately we still spend a lot of days each week together where she usually sleeps over at my place. I've felt that things have been great despite the occasional weirdness from her for example she can often times get fairly upset over minor things and she early on told me that she really want to have kids and almost wanted me to try and make her pregnant straight away which of course was a huge red flag.

We had known each other about 4 months or so through work before we ended up together so there was no rush to get into our relationship and I liked that she took her time to get to know me before getting into a relationship with me. I was ok with taking things slowly but was shocked how fast things went from not even being able to kiss her cheeks to sleeping together which obviously took me by surprise.

Things felt great and we had a ton of fun together doing things. About 3 months into the relationship I do find out that she had been talking to this other guy that she claims she only wanted to be friends with but he wanted more which she found annoying. We would have several talks about this guy and how he wouldn't let her be alone and how he harassed her and I tried to tell her to go to the police if he didn't stop and so forth. I trusted her fully all the time and had always been there for her despite my own short comings due to my own mental health

Fast forward to about a week ago when things really start to go out of hand and this guy had gone home to her place and harassed her and her family and then went home to me and threatened me at my home and I felt it all came out of nowhere. Yes she had kept mentioning him showing up unwelcome and so on but nothing like this had never happened before.

As we decided to go to the police to press charges against this guy my girlfriend told me that she had to say something to be before we got to the police and this is where I pretty much lost it. I decided to call the other guy and talk to him and suddenly it all became clear, she had been in contact with him willingly for several weeks and he sent several screenshots of texts she had sent to him and it was clear she had been playing us both.


My girlfriend has a prior history of mental illness and has suffered from psychosis earlier in her life and has a lot of earlier trauma from her late teens.

In all this I was just so confused, how could she have lied to me all this time and why? I found out through the other guy that she clearly went to him for validation every time I came up short, for example when she was sick and I was ONLY willing to walk her dog, do her shopping and bring some takeout food but NOT stand in her parents kitchen cooking her own food.

It felt like every time I told her anything she remotely didn't like to hear she would get visibly upset and there was never any possibility to compromise. I had to change my life to fit her routines and never the other way around.



At this point I feel bad for her, I still have very wrong feelings and kind/dumb as I am I do believe that she did not intend for this situation to happen. She tells me that she does not have BPD or any other mental condition other than the previous psychosis but I find it hard to believe.
I've read a lot about BPD today and pretty much every symptom is spot on when it comes to her.

She is almost impossible to talk with when it comes to difficult things but she did cry the other day when I visited her and we talked about the way she treated me. This was the first time I had seen her cry and it made me relieved. I felt that she actually felt some kind of shame over the fact that I was showing her such kindness and care despite the things she had done to hurt me.

I've told her that if she really wants to try and save our relationship (which she claims to do) she needs to seek professional help when things calm down so that she can try and learn to handle her emotions and impulses. However she does not seem that receptive to the idea and as usual it's hard to know whether she actually listens to me and means it when she say something.

I want her to be happy and I still love her but I just don't know what to do. Right now it feels like she almost want to move on with our relationship like nothing has happened which makes me kinda crazy. On one hand I really want to try and make it work because I'm afraid of what a worse guy would do, someone that doesn't care about knocking her up the second week of their relationship. But on the other hand I can't stay in a relationship where I know I will most likely get hurt again as this has been downright devastating to me


I hope my ramblings are somewhat coherent despite not being a native english speaker and that someone her might have some kind of advice on what to do

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[kells76]

hey pelle1212, glad you found the group 

There was a lot packed into the 5 month duration of your relationship... a lot. Anyone would be left confused and unsure what to do, after going through what you did. So it's a good thing that you recognize your confusion and lack of clarity, and you decided to reach out for support and feedback.

You're in a good place to take some time, to not rush, and to really think about and work through what you want going forward. It seems like you had a key insight here:

it's hard to know whether she actually listens to me and means it when she say something.

That would probably be what you could expect if you decided to return to a relationship with her, unless she voluntarily chose to seek meaningful, long term, BPD-specific treatment.

pelle1212, as I read your story, and heard you wavering between wanting to reconnect with her and realizing it could be devastating to you, this link immediately came to mind:

https://bpdfamily.com/content/what-does-it-take-be-relationship

Give it a read, and let us know what you think, whenever works for you.

-kells76

P.S. no worries at all about English, what you wrote was totally clear!

[PeteWitsend]

...
I want her to be happy and I still love her but I just don't know what to do. Right now it feels like she almost want to move on with our relationship like nothing has happened which makes me kinda crazy. On one hand I really want to try and make it work because I'm afraid of what a worse guy would do, someone that doesn't care about knocking her up the second week of their relationship. But on the other hand I can't stay in a relationship where I know I will most likely get hurt again as this has been downright devastating to me


I hope my ramblings are somewhat coherent despite not being a native english speaker and that someone her might have some kind of advice on what to do

Welcome!  Like Kells said it's good you found this site.  You came to the right place.

As far as what to do... you need to decide what you want out of this relationship, or if you want to end it because it's not going to provide the commitment and stability you want and need.

But I think you need to realize she's shown you who she is.  She's not going to change, and it's extremely likely her behavior is going to repeat itself. 

Also, BPD is not an all-or-nothing disorder.  There are different degrees and characteristics to each person who has it.  And they also may have other disorders or issues (comorbid conditions) in addition to BPD.

I'm not sure what her claim of one time "psychosis" is based on, but in my experience, when a person with pwBPD is dysregulating, it can appear to be similar... they can really lose their grip on reality in the moment. 

Also pwBPD struggle to get help and change because they have an almost pathological need to appear "normal."  They can't admit anything about themselves is wrong, which is really the first step toward successful therapy.

[pelle1212]

hey pelle1212, glad you found the group 

There was a lot packed into the 5 month duration of your relationship... a lot. Anyone would be left confused and unsure what to do, after going through what you did. So it's a good thing that you recognize your confusion and lack of clarity, and you decided to reach out for support and feedback.

You're in a good place to take some time, to not rush, and to really think about and work through what you want going forward. It seems like you had a key insight here:

That would probably be what you could expect if you decided to return to a relationship with her, unless she voluntarily chose to seek meaningful, long term, BPD-specific treatment.

pelle1212, as I read your story, and heard you wavering between wanting to reconnect with her and realizing it could be devastating to you, this link immediately came to mind:

https://bpdfamily.com/content/what-does-it-take-be-relationship

Give it a read, and let us know what you think, whenever works for you.

-kells76

P.S. no worries at all about English, what you wrote was totally clear!

I've read through the text and it was a interesting read. I'm not sure I have what it takes as I'm no the most mentally strong person myself but at this point I have already pretty much told her that I would give her another chance and we have spent a lot of time together the last few days which has been mostly sweet but at certain times bittersweet.

I still feel like she doesn't even understand how badly she hurt me and what a huge betrayal it is to do such a thing which really annoys me whenever I think of it. On the other hand I've felt that I've gotten to know her real self a bit more and been able to get her to feel more secure and relaxed in my company which feels like it's an important step.

I've promised to give her another chance and I probably intend to do that but I've also made it perfectly clear that there will be no more chances. I talked to a therapist just two days ago and she agreed that from what I mentioned that my girlfriend should try and get some help to do some kind of evaluation whether she suffers from BPD or not.
Right now I feel like I'm walking on eggshells and that by not doing everything she wants and the way she wants it to be done I'm risking her getting very upset. She doesn't violently lash out and many times not even verbally at all but rather just go into a bad mood and harbor those feelings inside her. I have however managed to make her actually tell me when certain things annoy her which I feel is at least a step on the way

One last thing that really bothers me that I don't know what to do about is her extremely high sexual drive. I feel like I can't keep up with her and before I knew her she really never seemed like the type. In fact I've recently found out what I had suspected ever since we had sex the first time that she was a virgin when she met me. I'm not the most sexually experienced person but when she wants to rarely do anything other than have sex when in the home I feel completely exhausted and pressured due to my own inability to completely satisfy her.

I appreciate you all taking the time to reply to me as I feel really lost right now and feel that my own emotions are really all over the place