I'm going through a horrendous breakup with a pwBPD

[AccomplishedFox]

TW: Suicide, Self-Harm, Depression, EXTREMELY long pos.

Hi all,

I am going through quite possibly the most horrendous break up. Quite frankly, I am so lost and I don’t know what to do.

To preface, A (24 F) suffers from a history of poor mental health, self harm, and has BPD. Despite this, she is the most wonderful person I have ever met. She’s so loving, so so giving, caring, beautiful, she has the most awesome career that she excels in, and we shared so many similar interests. She’s is nothing but perfect.

I met A nearly 3 months ago through Tinder. From the very first message, there was an instant connection between us, and we arranged to meet two days later. It was meant to be a casual one night stand as she works away from home quite often, but what followed was the most intense relationship I have been in.

When we met, the instant connection had just followed. Despite just meeting, it’s almost as if we knew each other for years. After our first encounter, we quickly arranged to meet two days later at mine. This then turned into sleeping over at mine 2-3 times a week, and constantly going on the most wonderful dates despite the distance between us.

I quickly started to fall in love with her, but I always kept this hidden as she made it quite clear she wasn’t ready for a relationship, which was okay, I wanted to take it at pace. However, she would do the most relationship type things ever, some of the actions and words she used to describe me was so intense, I have never been made to feel so special by anyone in my life. The sex was amazing, the dates were amazing, the emotional connection was amazing, she was round mine and with me constantly, I was living on cloud nine. She was the first to take photos of us. I never knew that somebody could have a such a beautiful smile, which was always ear to ear. I can quite possibly say that July was the best month of my life.

It all kinda changed when she realised that she hadn’t had a lot of jobs for August, despite her industry being extremely busy at that time of year (she’s freelance). I tried to be as supportive as I could, and she really appreciated it. At the end of July, she invited me over to the city she was working in for us to go on an evening date and to stay over at her hotel. What followed was the most dramatic evening I’ve ever had.

When she finished work, we met up and went for a lovely meal and drinks. When we were at the bar, she quite literally went on a 5 minute speech non-stop about how much she adores me emotionally, physically, and sexually. I’ve never had anyone describe me the way she did, she was so so passionate. By the end, my jaw dropped, I was left absolutely stunned.

We ended up going back to the hotel and started to get intimate. This however ended up getting overwhelming for her so we stopped and I gave her support. She ended up shooting up from the bed, eyes wide open, and disassociated. Long story short, she ended up self harming to the point where she knocked herself unconscious which resulted me calling an ambulance and spending hours with her at hospital. I was powerless to stop it, I didn’t know what to do. Despite this, I stuck by her. I started researching about BPD and the ways I could support her.

Since then, she became a little distant and the sex stopped, but she was still heavily emotionally intense. We ended up spending 5 days together doing really fun stuff (we had already planned this) and during those 5 days, she told me out of the blue she was falling in love with me.

Throughout August, she went through phases of being hot, then cold, then really hot, then really cold before going back to hot when we weren’t physically together, when we were though, she was so happy. We continued to go on lovely dates, she also planned some really intimate dates, I met her brother, she told me how she wants to make for us to work so badly.

Anyways, end of August comes. Since she’s had a rough time. I spent a month planning a surprise weekend of us doing her favourite things. I had put so much effort, love, and money into planning this weekend. The weekend came, the saturday was amazing, and whilst we were lying in bed she continued telling me how perfect I was, we discussed about christmas and future plans and went to sleep both extremely happy.

Sunday came (the big surprise!) She woke up and was quite distant, but that was okay. We went to London where I had planned for us to do some amazing things together and she was excited. On the train journey there, I caught a fleeting glance on her phone, I read the name (which I ended up misreading) and the content of the texts got me suspicious and this put me on a massive downer (I was cheated twice in my previous relationship). I got moody, and grumpy, and halfway through the surprise I confronted her on it. I got it wrong, it was a text to one of her work contacts about meeting up for work.

She was fuming, ran out, and got the next train back to mine and I followed. I tried to explain, and reason, to no avail. She ended up spending the best part of an hour telling me that she no longer wanted me, that it was all a mistake. When I pointed out of of the intimate things she’s said and everything we’ve done, she told me she doesn’t remember. What hurt the most though, is that she called me a fleeting moment and it absolutely destroyed me, I snapped. I didn’t realise how somebody could flick like a light switch.

I jumped off the train at a random station and she followed me. We spent an hour having a massive argument on the platform, I said some really hurtful things I regret, I have no idea why I said them, they were anything but truth, and she got on the next train crying whilst I had a friend pick me up. This is the first and only argument we’ve ever had, before this, it was perfect.

Two hours later, she came back to mine with a friend to collect her things. I tried reasoning again, told her how much I adored her, to get told that “she’s sorry I feel that way” and left. I was left heartbroken. The exact inverse of everything that she’s told me and promised me, even the night before, she told me she had my back no matter what. When she got home, I was blocked on all platforms.

Two days later, I sent a heartfelt apology email to which I got no response. I called her two days after that, to be told that she doesn’t want to talk to me. I gave it another week and phoned her. It was like a totally different person, like someone else, despite myself being quite calm, she was aggressive down the phone and continued to be hurtful. I've been split and painted blacker than black.

A police report was made that day, for reasons that I do not understand why (apart from her BPD) and a week later I was arrested. After spending 10 hours in a cell, I was released with no charge, which again, has left me completely devastated. I was never pushy, I was always calm, never made demands and I gave what I thought was the appropriate amount of space.

Ever since she left that night, I have been a complete and utter emotional wreck. I’ve been pulled of a bridge by the police, I’ve self harmed twice (I have never ever, self harmed or even seriously thought about it before) and I wake up every day and it’s bleak. I get constant nightmares about her (in terms our memories, or her with someone else). I constantly think about her and everything we’ve done, all of our moments replays vividly in my head.

It’s been three weeks, the outlook hasn’t improved. I’m currently signed off work, nearly lost my career, and my best friend (she’s been amazing, but she’s fed up of this situation). My life before her wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible, but up until that moment A had brought so much colour into my life that I didn’t know what possible. She genuinely made me so so happy, was teaching me things I never knew, and was making me into a better man!

I genuinely don’t understand what’s happened, and how someone can literally go from being so emotionally intense towards me to utterly emotionless. It’s like someone’s flicked a light switch. I know BPD plays a massive factor into this, but I don’t know what to do.

I’ve had relationships before, and not going to lie, dealt with my fair share. I’ve always dealt with breakups and endings appropriately, but nothing has hit this hard before. The relationship was too intense (in a good way) and this has happened too suddenly, it’s given me such emotional whiplash

Talking to friends doesn’t help, they joke about the fact it was “only two months”, but unless someone has been in a relationship with someone with BPD, they have no clue how intense those months can be. Best analogy I’ve got is like being sucked into a tornado, tangoing with each other until they discard you and leave a trail of destruction behind.

But despite everything that’s happened since that night, I would love nothing more but to have A back into my life and continue to support her. I know BPD plays a massive factor into this and it's something that I don't want to hold us back. I adore her with every fibre of my being and I would want nothing more but to continue to be involved her life. I don’t know what to do, any idea I have leads to a dead end.

I’m hoping somebody here can give me advice on how to make amends (if it’s possible) and reignite what we had. Please help!

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[Elitevaz]

All I can do is sympathize. I lasted 10 months, essentially the same thing. Tornado and trail of destruction. Your amazing July was my emotional hell. I still think about her every day. Try to convince myself that I wasn’t in the wrong. I’ve never had such problems with other girls. She’s also the one that made me feel so much alive and needed. You see the ease at which they find people to date. Look how far you got in just 2 days. She can do this multiple times a year. Experience the highs and then bail when the lows happen. She must have been really beautiful. I get you on the light switch though. Mine told me she wanted to marry me and have my kids. That was several months ago. Now it’s silence. Surely some other guy is enjoying her. It’s hard to think that he’s going to be dealing with the disregulation too. I think many of us will think the next person isn’t going to have to deal with the problems. She’ll just magically fix for the next guy and he’ll live our fantasy vision. Pwbpd will leave us with these thoughts that keep us emotionally destroyed. The possibility having another chance destroys the desire to allow someone else in, for fear the pwbpd might decide to come back. Wouldn’t want to miss that chance for atonement.

[BlueNavigator]

I'm glad you posted, I'm sure if you read enough posts here you will see there are many here with similar experiences. My partner was the same way when we met (even before we were officially dating). She told me my eyes were beautiful, I was so intelligent, I was the perfect man and on and on. She wrote me letters, called me on the phone and spoke for hours when we were apart. She could not get enough of my kissing and wanted to go hotter and hotter. For a guy who didn't think he was all that great, I convinced myself she was the only one who would fall this hard in love with me and that I should count myself lucky. We got married and I had seven miserable years before I found this website.

People with BPD move extremely quickly into intimacy, they dive in head first! If you play along you start to feel something called "enmeshment" where you start feeling all their emotions as intense as they do and start to take responsibility for their emotions. You blame yourself for their abuse and immature/childish actions and start to do progressively more ridiculous actions to try to make them happy. The hard truth is that you can't "love them better" as they have to choose to participate in therapy so they can establish their own identity and develop their own ability to regulate their emotions. I had to learn to feel good without a storybook romance girl throwing herself at me to make me feel good about myself before I could stand on my own two feet emotionally and be well enough to set the boundaries that need to be in place for a meaningful relationship.

Keep working on yourself. Realize that the two of you can't be happy together until you can be at least okay apart. If you are "co-dependent" on each other for affection you will be pushing and manipulating each other to serve your own needs instead of sharing from your excess to love and support one another.

[understandBPD]

Sorry to hear your going through this im also new on this forum and i can relate to alot of what your saying only difference is it wasn't 2 months it was 4+ years and its not my girlfriend its my wife.

Take a read of some of my story here : https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=356387.0

The most important thing for you is to not self blame i know all the feelings you've described. I am still in the process of trying to resolve issues with my wife as well and its extremely exhausting.

I will say the people on this forum are extremely helpful and have helped me a lot as well.

[M604V]

I had this whole thing typed out then I deleted it. It just didn’t sound right. It sounded self-righteous and judge mental and that’s the last thing I want do, and it’s the last thing you need to hear. That’s not where I’m coming from at all and I didn’t want to risk you taking it that way.

So all I’ll say is this: do not mistake fire for warmth.