Looking for advice

[Unknown88]

My girlfriend has bpd, I was suspecting that a coworker was being flirty inappropriate with her she would constantly talk about him and take up for him he is a older married man.
I found out that she was discussing our relationship with him and he was talking bad about me I confronted her a few days later and she admitted to me that he had been making flirty sexual comments to her for a month that had progressively gotten more vulgar, her excuse for it was that she wanted it to stop but didn’t know how to put a stop to it she went back to work and told me that it had stopped  she lied  it had only  gotten worse she had given him her phone phone number sometime in this time period. if I came to visit her at work it was a uncomfortable environment with the coworker constantly giving me the stink eye my girlfriend swears nothing happened between them and she wanted him to leave her alone but she was spending a inappropriate amount of time with him alone in his office the entire time this was going on ignoring me for hours at a time. months prior to this she gave a different male coworker her number that was also being flirty toward her when I confronted her she lied about how he got her phone number
I’m looking for advise on this should I believe her? She has admitted before that she likes the attention.

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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.

[Steppenwolf]

If it is ok, I would have a few questions. So how do you know your gf has BPD? Is she diagnosed, maybe even in therapy?

As I am more and more starting to find out, BPD is a broad spectrum, and every pwBPD is different.

I can understand that you are feeling hurt by her looking for attention. Even if it is not clear what her motives are, and how she thinks about your relationship, it still can hurt.

What are your goals for yourself and your relationship? From my understanding, pwBPDs need an almost constant stream of validation/attention. Is it possible for you to talk with your gf about how she feels when she gets/does not get this stream of attention? This might be a very touchy subject though, so you should look at some of the resources for validating communication and be very careful with this, so she won't feel rejected or flawed.

[Unknown88]

She has been diagnosed with bpd and has being seeing therapist and getting treatment, my goal is to have a relationship with her it’s just struggle with out trust

[Rev]

She has been diagnosed with bpd and has being seeing therapist and getting treatment, my goal is to have a relationship with her it’s just struggle with out trust

Hey .... just a quick question. Are you or have you even been in therapy?

Because, like Steppenwolf said, BPD is pretty much all over the map, the skills we need are pretty much all over the map too. So therapy for us is not a one size fits all - except that without it the relationship takes us over and creates its own reality (often distorted).

Wow - that's a lot of psycho-babble!!!!!  Let me try that again LOLOLOL

If you are not in therapy, what are your thoughts about trying?


Rev

[Pook075]

I'll just add that trust and open communication is essential in any relationship, and I'm very sorry that you're going through this. My question would be, what would it take for you to trust her?

My BPD ex acted in a similar way throughout our marriage and flirted with virtually everyone because she craved the attention.  Now, that doesn't mean she was cheating on me or anything like that, but it was something that I had to decide whether I accepted or not.  It felt harmless enough so I ultimately let it go.  Only you can decide what's right for you though, whether it's a deal-breaker or not in terms of trusting her.

I'll also back what Rev said by adding that dealing with a BPD relationship is not for the feint of heart since there's a lot of communication skills that are essential for dealing with these types of situations.  You don't want to accuse her of anything and hurt the relationship but at the same time, you must let her know that this hurts you.  That's the sorts of tools you can learn here through the links at the top of the page and speaking with others here.

I do wish you luck and I hope that things work out.

[Steppenwolf]

My BPD ex acted in a similar way throughout our marriage and flirted with virtually everyone because she craved the attention.  Now, that doesn't mean she was cheating on me or anything like that, but it was something that I had to decide whether I accepted or not.  It felt harmless enough so I ultimately let it go.  Only you can decide what's right for you though, whether it's a deal-breaker or not in terms of trusting her.

You don't want to accuse her of anything and hurt the relationship but at the same time, you must let her know that this hurts you. 

Maybe another question for you and the others here. Is she aware she is flirting with people? Or even does she see it at flirting at all? In general: Do you think pwBPDs are aware of this if they do something like this? If she's not aware that others might see her behavior as flirting, it might be very hard for her to relate to you being hurt at all and that might make communication even harder.

My uBPDw doesn't really do this, at least since we have been together. But she often tells me about a party a friend of her's took her to before we met, and then a few days later her friend told her he could not take her to parties again, as literally all the other women were accusing her of flirting with their boyfriends and trying to steal their boyfriends away. To this day, she is totally confused and deeply hurt by this experience, as she tells me she had absolutely no intention of flirting with anyone. She's often asking me to clear up the confusion, but I can't as I wasn't there.

So if it is like that with your gf, you should really try to figure out how she perceives things, as that might not even remotely match how you perceive things. It's often easy to attribute something to lying if it doesn't match what we perceive, but just as often (especially if perceptions can be distorted as in pwBPDs), it might not even be a lie for the other person, as they just see things very differently. But knowing that it is not (or might not be) a lie but rather their own truth can help keep and restore the trust.

[Pook075]

Maybe another question for you and the others here. Is she aware she is flirting with people? Or even does she see it at flirting at all? In general: Do you think pwBPDs are aware of this if they do something like this? If she's not aware that others might see her behavior as flirting, it might be very hard for her to relate to you being hurt at all and that might make communication even harder.

My uBPDw doesn't really do this, at least since we have been together. But she often tells me about a party a friend of her's took her to before we met, and then a few days later her friend told her he could not take her to parties again, as literally all the other women were accusing her of flirting with their boyfriends and trying to steal their boyfriends away. To this day, she is totally confused and deeply hurt by this experience, as she tells me she had absolutely no intention of flirting with anyone. She's often asking me to clear up the confusion, but I can't as I wasn't there.

So if it is like that with your gf, you should really try to figure out how she perceives things, as that might not even remotely match how you perceive things. It's often easy to attribute something to lying if it doesn't match what we perceive, but just as often (especially if perceptions can be distorted as in pwBPDs), it might not even be a lie for the other person, as they just see things very differently. But knowing that it is not (or might not be) a lie but rather their own truth can help keep and restore the trust.

I was married for 24 years and I have a BPD daughter as well, so I have some insight here.  For my wife, she would alternate between saying, "I don't flirt with anyone" to saying "I literally flirt with everyone."  Two opposite statements because sometimes she was aware, sometimes she wasn't.  And I really believe that when she'd disassociate, she'd forget what she had said or done in the past to stick with the new constant.  I mean, she knows she's a huge flirt...but sometimes she just couldn't admit it.

Where this gets more complicated is when she'd flirt with someone, I'd playfully call her on it, and she'd be offended.  Then I was the bad guy for insinuating that she could have done something wrong, and a huge argument ensued.  I knew nothing of BPD at the time so I'd take the bait and it would end up being a blow-out fight.  Sometimes she'd leave, other times she wouldn't talk to me for days, only to profusely apologize later and proceed with the love bombing. 

It's funny but I just now realized that's what was happening, she'd go through the full BPD cycle in maybe 2-5 days time with me...all while not talking to me.  She's quiet BPD.

For my daughter, she wouldn't see her actions as flirting and then get angry at any type of mention of her behavior.  But she'd then take it a step further and say, "Because my person is so bad to me, I have to do that to get attention and feel good about myself.  I don't feel bad about it because it's all my partner's fault for not loving me the right way."

My kid hopped from relationship to relationship and always tried to cast maximum pain on the ex...only to go back to the ex a few months later (and be horrible to her new ex as well).  It was exhausting and painful to watch.  My kid is traditional BPD so you can sort of see the mindset differences.  One is self pity (quiet) and the other is wrath (traditional).

I hope that helps a little bit!