I've finally accepted the reality of this relationship

[Pricklypickle]

Hi all,
This is my first post about my relationship.

Eight months ago, I (30M) met my amazing, beautiful, smart, funny and good-hearted girlfriend (29F). Within 24 hours of meeting her, she disclosed to me that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

The following months exhibited what I now know to be the typical BPD pattern - a first period of very quick connection, intense romance and sex life, followed by a period of mixed signals, extremely fast progression in the relationship, combined with push and pull behavior. Four months into the relationship, I moved to her country and moved into
an  apartment with her. At this point, I was already suffering immensely from the confusing changes in her behavior (splitting). Our sex life plummeted and we were fighting more and more often. Of course, as all of you know from experience, our fights were not leading us to better understand each other, make compromises, or become closer.

One month ago, I happened to learn about borderline personality disorder, and immediately saw that this should have been the real diagnosis instead of bipolar disorder. I read some of the popular books, I learned that my girlfriend's aggression does not originate from my shortcomings but from her impossible and paradoxical inner turmoil. I learned that I have to set boundaries, that I have to protect myself. Still, I was hoping that if I just learn the right techniques, I can survive in this relationship while this beautiful amazing woman seeks therapy and starts to get better.

We have spent months in insane codependency. Right now, I am spending the weekend alone while she is away - a nice opportunity for me to breathe a bit.

She's a very active and energetic person, but I see now that she constantly sabotages her friendships. She is also very close to sabotaging her current job - she never stays more than a year at the same company.

This week I went through great embarrassment, as she insulted me in her mother tongue to her female cousin in front of my face. I confronted her in our bedroom and physically restrained her because she tried to escape the argument, at which point she called over her cousin and her cousin asked me to release her, as if I was about to inflict physical violence on her.

Yesterday I came to a realization. I always thought that I was extremely loving, supporting, and accepting of my girlfriend in any circumstance. Now I realize that I never actually accepted her at all - I only accepted the mentally healthy version of her I had in my mind. It's extremely sad to say, but the real truth is that my girlfriend is not a good person. She is vindictive, aggressive, hurtful, mean, compulsive, manipulative, and weak.

In a Hollywoodean fashion, I could say that deep inside she is a wonderfully strong and good-willed woman, and eventually she will break through the scars that cause her to behave the way she does. But that is not an acceptance of the current reality.

I have come to accept that my girlfriend is incapable of intimacy and love the way I define them. She also has almost nonexistent capacity for constructive discussions. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that she cannot discuss constructively because she knows how impossibly difficult and painful it is for her to change her behavior. I also realize that I don't provide her with the right things for her situation. I thought that my loving, communicative and supportive approach would help her, but I realized that by maintaining my standards of what I believe a romantic relationship should look like, I am holding her to impossibly high standards relative to her capabilities, which like only causes her more hardship. I now understand that though she doesn't say it, I must make her feel bad by being honest about the anxiety I experience because of our relationship, and the standards of romance and intimacy that I have.

I have not made any decision about the future. I think I have known for a long time that this wouldn't truly work out, but haven't had the courage to leave. I still love her a lot in some sense, and still enjoy some of the things we do together despite the insane nature of our relationship.

PS, I've slowly introduced the idea of BPD to her, and she eventually went through the criteria and recognized 6 out of 9 in herself (excluding self harm and psychotic behavior, though there is some of the latter in my opinion). She used to be in therapy but not while she was with me. She started again prior to my discovery of BPD but quickly stopped. I've searched TFP therapists in our city but so far she's been reluctant to give it a shot.

I am very attached to her, living in a new country (I moved to hers) where I have no family and only now starting to make friends after an initial period of extreme codependence. I get along great with her family - I really love them. We go to her mother's house frequently and I feel more at home there than I've felt with my family most of my life. I'm going to therapy for myself now and I'm trying to make friends, keep working on myself, build myself in terms of career, sport, and self confidence.

I don't really have any specific questions. This is where I am now, and I needed to share it. It's been very painful and very difficult. I've tried to learn and grow from it as much as I can.

I would appreciate any advice, questions, or any kind of comments. Thanks for reading.

[ForeverDad]

It is what it is.  Bi-polar and Borderline PD have different causes but do have overlapping behaviors.  In past decades it was not uncommon for people with BPD (pwBPD) to be diagnosed with Bi-polar because it was billable to insurance and usually treated with drugs as a chemical imbalance.  On the other hand, BPD was viewed as largely untreatable until Marsha Linehan, herself having suffered with BPD, developed therapies such as Dialectical & Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (DBT and CBT).  Alas, as you've already discovered, applying meaningful therapy in one's life is very hard for a pwBPD.

https://psychcentral.com/blog/marsha-linehan-what-is-dialectical-behavioral-therapy-dbt#1

As you also discovered, the initial surge of excitement and sexual intimacy often fades quickly once a person has entered a committed relationship, in your case when you moved to her country and started living with her.  Whether she recognizes consciously or subconsciously, she knows it would be hard for you to backtrack and so she lets her private (and not so private) patterns reveal themselves.

While you ponder how to respond to these concerning, even scary behaviors, open your eyes to other behaviors that would make her feel you must become even more committed to her, such as her wanting to get married or getting pregnant with your child. It has happened to many here, when we give signals we want to pull away, then suddenly (for example) a baby happens and you're sucked more deeply into her world for the next 20+ years.  It is a real risk, you need to be the one ensuring birth control since you don't want, "Oops I forgot..."

I had been married for over a decade and thought having a child would make my then-spouse happier.  It didn't, it just made the end of the relationship come sooner and vastly more complicated and expensive.

My question is, What do you ponder for your relationship?  Does it have a future, a healthy future?

[Pricklypickle]

While you ponder how to respond to these concerning, even scary behaviors, open your eyes to other behaviors that would make her feel you must become even more committed to her, such as her wanting to get married or getting pregnant with your child. It has happened to many here, when we give signals we want to pull away, then suddenly (for example) a baby happens and you're sucked more deeply into her world for the next 20+ years.  It is a real risk, you need to be the one ensuring birth control since you don't want, "Oops I forgot..."

That's a very important point. My girlfriend would sometimes bring up the subject of marriage of kids, very early into our relationship. Eg she would show my family pictures from apps that generate baby faces based on photos from me and her, and when we'd go on walks she'd point to the municipal building and say "this is where we will get married one day". It used to make me very happy to hear that, but now that I've experienced the degradation of our relationship and read horror stories (from these forums, for example), I've definitely realized that moving in together so early was a mistake, and I'm not making any additional commitment anytime in the near future.

I'll add a bit of questions and doubts that I'm going through at the moment.

I'm going through a lot of pain because of the lack of love that I feel I get from her, and our currently non-existent sex life. When I moved in with her 4 months ago, there was definite splitting and changing of moods, but at least I was able to enjoy a lot of love and affection from her during the "good times". The sex was fine but it was starting to become more infrequent, and eventually she just lost interest in it, and I would have to keep trying to convince her to be intimate. This led to a lot of fighting and she said that the more I'd try to convince her, the less she'd want to ever have sex with me again. These were also times when she sounded very serious when saying that she is going to end the relationship if I keep trying to have sex with her or requesting other sexual favors.

She'd say things such as - she feels no attraction to me, she has zero libido, and she feels no attraction towards anyone. She'd even tell me that she's fine with me having sex with a stranger, or getting my needs met at a "massage salon". Eventually, I just gave up, and stopped asking for anything.

That's also when I learned about BPD and read walking on eggshells. I told myself that I had made myself unattractive as a man by walking on eggshells with her for the past several months, and that perhaps if I leave her alone for a while and start thinking of myself first, she would become attracted by me again and reenter a space where she can be intimate with me. I've been taking care of my needs on my own, because my libido is quite high and if I find no release for several days while sharing a bedroom with this attractive woman, I just go crazy. It's been 5 weeks since we last had sex, and again several weeks before the previous time.

I feel very embarrassed and foolish to write these words. I feel like I'm delusional for staying with a woman who rejects sex with me 7 months into a relationship. I definitely feel like I'm hoping and waiting, and I would be quite bummed out if we break up without having sex again. Also, if I think about the long term (which I almost never do, because it's so hard to be in this relationship day to day), then it will just be torture for me if she's never able to be consistently intimate with me.

Aside from the physical side, emotional intimacy has also decreased. Our "good periods" will be characterized by her not criticizing or putting me down, being pleasant to me when we do things together, and doing a lot of stuff together. Now I find myself getting excited when she tells me she loves me, which happens on occasion. I've also reduced my expression of love a lot because it's difficult for me to do it to someone who switches between loving me and not loving me so often.
I'm worried that I may be misinterpreting her fear of loneliness and her eagerness to do things with me as a sign of love.

I keep trying to rationalize her lack of love and affection towards me as a result of her mental condition, but I'm often worried that she's just not into me, but she needs someone to be with her, so she just gives me the bare minimum as long as I don't leave her.

[Pricklypickle]

I keep experiencing the same cycle over and over. Though so many of the circumstances and details of how the cycle is happening have changed, it's still exactly the same cycle - and it's been happening since 2-3 months into our relationship.

When things are good between us, I feel like the charade is seen for what it is - it's clear as day to me that there is nothing wrong with me, and my girlfriend loves me, and that if she ever seems not to love me, or to put me down or ignore me, it's just because she herself is feeling hurt and needs to activate a defense mechanism. In those moments I feel proud of being compassionate and understanding, and I congratulate myself for seeing through this complicated situation and leading it to its best potential.

But then, inevitably, the bad times come back. It's not like the very second that she says something mean to me we switch from good times to bad times. I'll often hear bad things during the good times but I'll be wise enough not to be triggered by them, and the good times will continue. But then, eventually, something pierces through, and before I know it, she does everything against me, and no matter in what way I try to respond to this, the outcome is always bad. When it's bad like this, I suddenly see the real truth - that she no longer does anything for me anymore, that she wouldn't move a pinky for me or come an inch towards me, and that I'm a fool for thinking that her simply tolerating my loving presence during the good times was a sign she loves me.

This is what always happens without fail. Emotionally, I just can't seem to reconcile these two opposing beliefs. In times like these, I tell myself that just the presence of such frequent and intense bad times is reason enough not to continue. A relationship always has good and bad times, but living your life when half of it is bad, and causes a great deal of anxiety and suffering... it's just ludicrous to think that I would go through that...
I hate myself for being such a fool who keeps thinking it's worth it to try to adjust myself some more and see if I can't make it work if I try once more ...

[Pricklypickle]

I think I'm doing way too much thinking, and putting on myself the responsibility of understanding and orchestrating my relationship for both me and my partner. I think I must overcome my fear of confrontation and my fear of being alone or unloved, and just directly express my disappointments and hurt feelings every time they arise. Then either my partner will have to make changes, or our conflicts will just blow up the relationship. No understanding, no rationalizing, no endless suffering caused by tormenting myself with my thoughts.

[Stephen44]

Thank you for sharing this. It's a huge step to come to acceptance. It took me more than five years and even now I'm still not quite there. No matter how much bad I see, I always seem to remember and immediately connect with the good.

I will tell you something that might be hard to hear. This situation will likely only get worse (even if right now it feels like the only way is up), and you are not doing her any favours by staying with her if you have fallen out of love. Try your best to support her and absorb the painful reactions, but I hope that you're able to move on.

Regardless of what you do, remember you are not alone, you are doing your best, and if you're honest with yourself, things will get better eventually. I wish you the best. Feel free to message me directly.

[Pricklypickle]

This situation will likely only get worse (even if right now it feels like the only way is up), and you are not doing her any favours by staying with her if you have fallen out of love.

This is confusing to me. I often read about the fact that BPD is "cured" (ie less than 5 out of 9 BPD criteria) in the majority of people several years after diagnosis, and that it rarely persists as people move through their 30s or 40s. Why should it only get worse?

Just to clear it up, despite my realization that I wasn't as accepting of the real her as I thought I was, I still love her intensely and I feel very attached.

After posting this thread, I decided that the absence of sexual intimacy is a deal breaker for me. I told my girlfriend I cannot be in a romantic relationship without any sexual activity. She said she is disgusted to think about sex and she is not attracted to me. (ps we haven't had sex for a month and a half, since I stopped pushing her). I asked if she would do anything about it, or if she's willing to go to therapy (noting that I also go to therapy, and it should not be just me). She said no again. When I asked her, she also said that she is not so interested in this relationship, and she is just staying until one of us breaks it off.

So I said we will have to break up. It will be difficult to move out because she has a lot of stuff at our place, and I just moved to this country and don't have close friends or family.

I've been seeing her doing badly recently - in terms of work, friends etc. She is not meeting many people and seems quite depressed. I asked her if she feels sad about our breakup and she said "I don't feel anything. it's a hassle" and "I'm sad about many other things already (though she wouldn't say what) I said I feel sad, to which she replied "I hope that's the saddest you feel in your life". It's gonna tear me apart with guilt and sadness to see her going through this.

[Cat Familiar]

You are able to see clearly that this is a very troubled woman, and that you are not the cause of her difficulties. That’s a very profound step that many of us take years to comprehend.

One of the challenges in seeing these relationships clearly is that we want to re-experience the wonderful connection we had at the beginning. Unfortunately, the honeymoon phase seldom lasts very long. However, occasionally we can re-experience the kindness and love that drew us to our partner at the outset.

Have you heard of the concept of intermittent reinforcement? It is often compared to the experience of someone using a slot machine. Someone observing an individual gambling on a slot machine and consistently losing money might wonder why they persist. The reason someone keeps gambling and throwing away money is because they occasionally win a small amount. That keeps them playing even when they are losing more frequently than they are winning. Those small wins keep them believing that if they keep playing, they might win big.

It’s the same dynamic with a borderline partner. We remember the good times and continue to persist, thinking that if we keep loving them, showing them we support them, that they will realize we are on their side. Unfortunately, the reality is that no amount of love we can ever provide will fix them.

BPD is a disorder of shame and self loathing. Ironically by showing them we care, we are proving ourselves to be “untrustworthy“ because we are not seeing how fundamentally damaged they feel themselves to be. It’s as if by loving and   accepting them, we are telling them that we have bad judgment.

It is possible for someone with BPD to develop remedial thinking skills that lead them away from the chronic patterns of bad judgment and self-destructive behavior that is typical of BPD. However, therapy is not a quick fix and can take years. Typically most people with BPD seldom want to commit to facing their internal demons as it is too painful and most are unwilling to participate in therapy and those that do seldom stick with it for very long.

Certainly there is a beautiful part to these people that we fall in love with. Many of us are under the delusion that this is their “real self”. Unfortunately that wonderful side is only one dimension of their personality, and we get to see the totality of who they are usually only after we are in a committed relationship.

Knowing what you know about her now, would you have chosen to enter this relationship or to have moved to her country?

[ForeverDad]

This is confusing to me. I often read about the fact that BPD is "cured" (ie less than 5 out of 9 BPD criteria) in the majority of people several years after diagnosis, and that it rarely persists as people move through their 30s or 40s. Why should it only get worse?

That's not what we've seen here.  Of course, this is the Divorcing/Divorced board, so maybe here we're not seeing as many of the better outcomes?

More importantly, diagnosis and subsequent treatment may make the difference.  Many of us here never learn of a diagnosis and many of those problem persons refuse meaningful therapy.

I've often commented that better outcomes are likely if the person with BPD (pwBPD) will engage in meaningful therapy, apply it diligently in one's perceptions, actions and life.  Too often the pwBPD described here is in Denial that one's perceptions does not match reality.  Blaming, Blame Shifting and Fault Finding are hard behaviors to let go.

Oh, and most here never experienced their pwBPD getting a diagnosis.  That is just our own personal observation and conclusion.  In my case, court and all the professionals studiously avoided commenting on mental health.  I went through a two year divorce, then six more years in and out of court with incremental improvements to the parenting order.  I started with no custody and alternate weekends in the temp orders, after eight years I had moved up to full custody and majority parenting time during the school year.  That last change in the order included the magistrate's statement that my ex needed counseling (never diagnosed) but wouldn't order it, the reason stated was in case she couldn't afford it.

Yes, problems with my ex aren't as bad as they were before, but as my son got older and we had a better order — and he is now grown and an adult — there are fewer on-edge triggers.  Even so, I have to be very careful what I say and do when my ex is visiting my son.  Time has passed with son now grown and I have more emotional distance, both reduce the impact on our lives, but the dysfunction still lurks under the surface.

How can it get worse over time?  Much of the poor behaviors are done in private scenarios where the pwBPD feels free to let it all hang out.  The more committed the other person feels, the less risk that poor behaviors will chase the other away.  For example, there is a commitment such as marriage and/or children.  And it can get worse in order to keep the other in line.