did your ex BPD accuse you of "suffocating" them.. needing "space"?

[FreshAir_Clearskies]

At the time I bought everything she said to me...

It just seemed strange that suddenly she was always complaining of being "suffocated" ... .and "needing space"... .I was feeling like a needy jerk most of the time... as she pushed me away... .making me feel guilty... .

When you are in a new relationship with someone at that level... after a proposal... just moved in together... you would think that its normal to want to spend more time with that person and do things with them... especially if you are splitting time with them ... e.g. in the case of split custody... so they can have quality time with their kids thee days a week and every other weekend...

But the weird thing is... in hindsight we spend little time together... .it wasn't really anything out of the ordinary... we lived together for a year... and it seemed to be more related to her moodwsings and the desire to blame me for them... getting hostile and irritable often... then fault finding... hateful and hurtful...

I overlooked it... but I wonder if BPDs feel suffocated... .

Now... .I finally know the difference from her just not being in love... and feeling "suffocated" ... I want to know if anyone else experienced that... the pushing away in that manner... .did you blame yourself? I mean if a person IS suffocating his partner with a lack of boundaries... yes, I can understand them reacting... that’s normal... .

But this did NOT feel normal... .

[Oy-vey!]

A guy I dated last year who is seriously narcissistic accused me of smothering him.  He couldn't explain it when I asked for examples, but he was definitely commitment phobic and had a real issue with monogamy.  Instead of blaming myself for his feelings, I broke it off.  But, I can relate to those feelings of neediness - not a good thing to feel in what should be a loving relationship (if all things were normal).

[FreshAir_Clearskies]

Good point... .one should not be struggling with neediness in a normal relationship that offers reciprocal love... .

[comingbfoz]

Yes, but it was usually after he was "pulling" me in with his words of adoration and complete devotion. I knew when to expect his need to "pull away" because HE would actually be the one suffocating ME until the switcharoo happened!   >:D

[Aussie John]

Never accused of suffocating them, but in hindsight bloody wish I had!

Wouldn't need this site if I had.

Do you get internet access in prison?

[rponce]

Yes, his behaviour was always bizarre... .but many times we were watching tv, for instance, and he started that he need space and that i was very clingy... .so... .i would leave the room, go to the computer or the kitchen, it didnt matter i just want it to give him so space. after five minutes ( i count it twice) he would be looking for me and saying. why did you leave alone? i miss you!... .told him you are crazy... .you just tell me that you need space. and at the end he would always denied to me telling me he needed space.

[SOOOdone]

yes... .because I wanted him to call if he was coming home late so I wouldn't stay up past 1am or have dinner cold etc. he felt like i had a noose around his neck because I wanted an accountable partner. Interestingly enough, he felt suffocated by me while he was going to massage parlors

And as someone earlier said, initially he was suffocating me... .while sleeping, he would push me and be on top of me until i was wedged between him and the wall or sofa (we slept on the floor basically) and couldn't move. He would literally fall asleep on top of me often (no sex involved, just entrapment), and want me to abandon going running with a friend and run with him (which i didn't fall for).

but at the end, I felt like I was harboring a criminal that came and went and I was the ''pad" he would crash at at night... .but he expected I be there on demand on the weekends.

[MathCoreChick]

yep, got that line.

funny who what he chose to do with his space to avoid being 'suffocated.


the EX also felt that having to work full time and do chores around the house and other mundane responsible things was suffocating as well.

as a matter of fact, the only things that he did that did not stifle him or encroach on his time were drinking and smoking tons of pot.



ps aussie j loved your comment!

[SOOOdone]

MCC... .i hear you on the household chores and working as being suffocating too... .and don julio and pacifico being quite unsuffocating too funny!

I must be getting better. I don't get into writing about what he did and didn't do nearly as much anymore. In fact, I am more interested in what I am having for breakfast tomorrow... .and going on another date with yet another person that has a fulltime job and doesn't live with their mother... .what a concept! there are people out there that don't have severe mental illness that I can have dinner with!

[Im.okay.now]

I must be getting better. I don't get into writing about what he did and didn't do nearly as much anymore. In fact, I am more interested in what I am having for breakfast tomorrow... .and going on another date with yet another person that has a fulltime job and doesn't live with their mother... .what a concept! there are people out there that don't have severe mental illness that I can have dinner with!

That's funny ... i've come to the same conclusion recently ! It's a bit of a strange "re-awakening". But i like it   :P

... .by the way ... .that sarcastic jab at not having a full time job and living with his mother made me laugh.   

[MathCoreChick]

In fact, I am more interested in what I am having for breakfast tomorrow... .and going on another date with yet another person that has a fulltime job and doesn't live with their mother... .what a concept! there are people out there that don't have severe mental illness that I can have dinner with!

those would be two of the three requirements all suitors must have before hanging out with the mcc.

2

[elphaba]

YUP... .

He had more freedom than any married guy ever... .had no real responsibilites and could pretty much come and go as he pleased... .spent no time with me or my kids, yet, I was told I was "controlling", "suffocating" him... .weird.

Now he's with someone who reads his email, has all his passwords for everything, intrudes on his life in every way, including his band... .so, it is very very strange.

I think BPD's both want that total closeness but are scared to death of it at the same time - therefore a no-win situation everytime.

[SOOOdone]

it wasn't even sarcastic... .that was the situation with the ex! i just wrote it off as a ''cultural thing''... .mama mia.

[gradient]

never accused of being suffocating, but in the time we lived together i did experience this... .

getting hostile and irritable often... then fault finding... hateful and hurtful...

to an EXTREME degree. as a matter of fact, during the time we lived together, i had to wake up early to have ANY alone time outside of work, and even work was always disrupted by an excessive amount of angry phone calls. so i guess i had the opposite experience.

[OneTrickPony]

Was never accused of suffocating her... .felt suffocated

lots of the time, though. If I wanted to do something on

my own or with a friend, it was as if I were leaving her

out.

I think her "suffocation" came at times when the "relationship"

was about to move to more committed, intimate levels.

For instance, I moved in with her and two days later she

wanted to break it off. Same thing happened on our last

go-round. She told me there's no future in us, I left,

then she told me she was pregnant. I went back, she

told me she was going to abort. Back and forth, back

and forth, back and forth, stop.

So, I think mine was just needy enough not to let me go,

and BPD enough not to really want me around. -OR- she

could have just been using me to prop her up after her

divorce, keep her company, and have someone to play

house with. Who knows? In the end, she is just an

unhappy, seriously unstable woman who walks through

her days clinging to, pushing away from, and mirroring

other people.

It must be a hollow, desperate feeling not to truly know yourself

and only have imitation and impersonation as a life. I wonder

sometimes if all I was shown by this person was a collection

of impressions and behaviors that had been adopted from others

throughout her life and simply replayed like a slideshow in order

to seem like a "real" person?

Just a thought that has crossed my mind.

OTP

[Chili]

I was never accused of suffocating Psycho Man. He would have been perfectly happy to be with me 24/7, never out of his sight. OTOH, I literally felt like I could not breathe when I was with him. He watched every move I made. Anything that he perceived as out of character was questioned and I was constantly accused of lying, hiding, cheating, etc. I think sometimes those who are accused of suffocation by their BPDs might be dealing with projection.

[gradient]

chili,

i had the same experience, and when i did get some time by myself or with friends, the other bp tactics kicked in. the ailments, similar to her current re-engagement, would always get worse. this would lead to a fight over me not caring, which in turn lead to thirty phone calls, disrupting whatever i took time to do. even got a text message while at a concert saying: "i have friends there watching you." i wrote in another post a while back, that in public i could almost feel her eyes staring into my by back. (i still care for her, but your suggestion when i first came to the board to write a list of the craziness when you are struggling with going back, has really helped. it's a weird emotional rollercoaster though.)

[SOOOdone]

of course mine felt suffocated when he moved in or did anything in terms of a commitment... .he was on perfectmatch and probably a host of other sites the entire duration of the relationship and it cramped his style (found out after i threw him out, naturally). it makes sense now, it didn't then.

[FreshAir_Clearskies]

LOL!

"... .by the way ... .that sarcastic jab at not having a full time job and living with his mother made me laugh."

I laughed too... and did not take that personally... as that was me after we broke up... broke... and that essentially was me back at home after 20 years in october... .

[csandra]

Yeah, well my uNPDxh suddenly felt burdened by having to come home for dinner.  I said, "well what time do you WANT to eat ?".  He couldn't commit to a new time.  He too had more freedom than most married men that I knew.

He always told me that I needed to get out and do more but when I did, he always found a way to make me alter my plans. 

Well, 3 years post separation and 1 year post final divorce... .he is living with his girlfriend who does not drive, her daughter and her grandson.  This week he drove 20 miles out of his way(every day) to drive her to work during a snow storm and on his way for HIS radiation treatment for cancer. 

He had the nerve to send me a scathing email that began with "Quit whining about taking care of your own kids".  Our D17 no longer visits him, he has seen her for less than 2 hours in over a month and S20 had seen him twice to watch football.  So you see, it really is all about them.

  He finally got his "space" and he STILL accuses me of suffocating him.  This from a man who told me via email that he has cancer and to whom I have spoken to twice for less than 15 minutes total, in over a year.

I am so glad that we have this place.  Surely no one else would believe us.  I know that you know that I am not making this up.

[flamingo13]

did your ex BPD accuse you of "suffocating" them... needing "space"?

Yes, and then when she had that 'space', I was accused of not paying attention to her, not caring, etc. When she finally began hooking up with men, the 'suffocating me' indications came in the form of silent treatments, disappearing without cause or warning, and rages leading to a hasty exit. The last one was obviously pretext to go hook up with someone. We (the older children and I) could see it coming as she would get sort of quiet for a while and then very hyper leading to an 'animal in a cage' response right before the rage. It was ugly to watch and even uglier to be married to someone like that.   

ROTFLMAO, Aussie John... .where was your suggestion about a decade ago!  2

[Im.okay.now]

One minute she would be telling me that i was suffocating her and then the next she'd be pissed at me for wanting sit in the back yard by myself? the fun never stopped.   :

[Maggiore]

yes, yes, yes

Didn't yours use the words "put him under pressure"? Apparently I did that all the time: by wanting to spend weekends with him, by wanting him to be affectionate to me... .

Obviously he complaint whenever he felt I did not give him enough attention : by talking to his friend instead of him, by not knowing what he was thinking... .

How dared we?

[Haakonson]

“You’re suffocating me!”, was thrown in my face on many occasions by my uBPD/NPD GF. Usually, it was a prelude to her exiting the house/ responsibilities. By being aggressive she put me on the defensive. Any interest I had about where she was going or what she was doing were portrayed as just another example of my suffocation and control. She would return 4-5 hours later with some vague story but over time she would always drop hints as to what she had done. There was never an admitting to but just enough to keep me off balance. She just always needed to be seen, to be out and about cruising the “Club” scene where she would usually bump into a "friend" best defined as ex lover or new source. She vigorously denied anything inappropriate but always implied the worst.

[hp2cuda]

I heard that and still do all the time! I would ask if/what she had planned for the day and she would go crazy... .If my kids or I would ask if she was working tonight she would go crazy. She came and left has she pleased. My kids would never ask if she was working because of the response.

Not sure why they feel they are trapped all the time? Mental?

Only 1.5 months left for divorce. 

[Unsure1]

Oh my gosh I'm learning so much from these message boards.   My BF hasn't be diagnosed with BPD but he sure does exhibit all the signs.  That's funny about the needy comment, because I even said that the other day.   I'm not needy, before I met him I went out to dinner all the time, spent time with my friends, but since we've been together ( about 9 months) slowly I've lost myself to him.  I decided the past week that I couldn't and did not need to deal with this anymore.   He is constantly saying he needs space, that he lilke "alone" time and like the person that commented,  we had VERY little time together since he has a son that he shares custody with and I also have children so respect the fact that they need to spend quality time together.   But its like I'm just supposed to sit here at home and wait until he decides that he's ready to spend time together.  Its funny how the few good times suck you in, its like you cling to that and hope that it will remain even though you know it won't .  One week he LOVES me , adores me , knows we're going to be together forever, then comes the need for space and very little if any phone calls, then when thats over he's begging me to forgive him, telling me that I KNOW that he loves me .  The way I see it, we haven't been together all that long,  we aren't married,  I know this isn't right,  and it won't be any different, so its best to go.  So why is it so HARD ?  And you can't discuss anything,  when I'd try to tell him how I was feeling, he always made it seem like I was the one with a problem.   Ummm wanting to spend time together and do things together is a NORMAL part of a healty relationship !  I was married for 16 years and we are still friends and I know what a normal relationship is (we just got married young, and then were apart due to the military and we basically grew in different directions, but we're still normal to this day very respectful to each other... .so I know what normal is)  I've had other relationships since my divorce and this is the ONLY one that has been like this... .Ok I'm rambling ... .like I said I've only been trying to have no contact for about 4 days so I'm not out of the woods yet and I think I'm trying to still convince myself I've made the right decision.   And he does work full time, but he lives with his Grandma  ?  ********SIGH ******************

[pseudo_intellect]

hey unsure1,

I'm frequenting these boards because I'm in a similar situation with my boyfriend who has been diagnosed with BPD but hasn't gotten help. He got diagnosed about 7 months into our relationship... and we've been together for a little over 2 years now. We are long distance (he lives in the UK and I live in the US) and only recently did I start looking up symptoms and signs of BPD (along with what to do and what not to do). To my dismay, I have done some things that have negatively enforced his behavior in the past couple months, leading me to the situation that I'm currently in.

Right now, I'm giving him his 'space'. I was supposed to come to see him in two weeks in the U.K. But now I'm not even sure that that will happen or if we are even together. If anyone can help and give advice I would appreciate it.

I did something that set him off, I kicked him off of my battlenet account by changing the password, because he was ignoring me, and he just messaged me and went off. He talked about how he couldnt give any less of a  about me coming to see him and about how he doesn't love me anymore and he was gonna break up with me for a while now.

I don't think this is extremely legitimate because I've spent less than a couple hours with him over the course of two weeks when we used to talk all day everyday for the first year and a half of our relationship. Only recently that I started going to university (this semester) that our time had to be shortened. Basically, to not rant on, it went from being a conversation of (all caps on his part) Leave me alone, I dont love you, F___ off, Just say okay and accept it and thank me in the future for the good advice to me reasoning with him and getting him to say "thanks for being cool and understanding I guess" This happened after I asked him if it was because of the money and his school and the distance. He said he didn't know.

He often says that I'm annoying (NEW THING in the past couple months) and boring him whenever I bring up stuff in our relationship that kind of criticize how he deals with me or (lack of dealing with me i.e. ignoring me) and our relationship problems). He said he didn't know how he felt and that he needed space so right now... it's been almost two whole days since I've received a single text message or any sign of communication... the most our relationship has ever gone without any contact at all.

I thought It was time to start letting go and giving up untll I saw that he viewed my snapchat story... this is something that's critical because he has NO ONE on snapchat except for ME. So him looking at my story means that he obviously was thinking about me... for me this is a win... Even if he seems to fail to be communicating at least I know he hasn't forgot about me and is still curious about what I am up to and If I'm doing okay without him. In addition to that information in the past month of our relationship getting really bad (and me unknowingly and consistently setting him off and putting him in a bad mood) he stopped looking at my snapchat story. I used to point out that I was happy and it made me happy that he looked at it... and that everytime I look at people who have looked at my story (over 100) I only ever look for his one name. It's very true. The only person who I really care about looking at me or pictures of me or what I'm doing is cameron. That's honestly how much he means to me. Even if I have 10 people texting me... if cameron isn't texting me back or communicating with me I feel like there's no point... It's just not nearly as good of use as my time as spending it with him... .and I think that's something about me that I've conveyed that he really likes (and has used against me to manipulate me with when he completely isolates himself and doesn't text me back on purpose i.e read a text, get annoyed, and then just leave it so I know he read it but DOESNT answer... not even with a d___head remark).

I don't know if I should completely bank of this idea but it happened twice yesterday and It made me smile... .nevertheless he hasnt checked my snapchat stories yet today but I hope I get to see him in december and I hope he realizes (if it is the disorder) that he does love me. I think the important thing to keep in mind during the duration of the conversations and the sessions when they lash out if that YOU CANNOT RETALIATE. THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR YOUR RELATIONSHIP. Stay level headed, and suggest another resolution.

That's what I did... and he's gone through episodes where he's blocked me for a day or two and then gotten back to me and unblocked me and apologized and said he misses me and he loves me and he knows he wants to be with me forever and he doesnt think that he deserves me and he cant ever give me everything that I want and provide for me but he loves me a lot etc etc etc even when he was yelling at me he was doing it like he thought it was a favor for both of us, and maybe it would have been if I wasn't such a stubborn individual but I'm certainly not letting someone who means so much to me and someone that I've spent so much time and money and energy and love on just walk away from my life like that.

I'm glad we're on talking terms now but it's nearing the second day of no contact... and I'm slowly becoming more and more depressed that maybe he actually doesn't love me anymore. Has anyone else had a similar experience or would advise me to do anything specific?

I don't think it would take longer than 3-5 days to receive anything back from him but sometimes he's so proud he wont message me even though he's missing me. I know messaging him isn't the right thing to do and it's just negatively reinforcing his behavior... .but his birthday is on the 8th and I wanted to know if it would be appropriate to message him and say something?

ALSO i wanted to add that I made sure he knew I cared about him at the end of the conversation. That I WAS NOT ready to abandon him and that even though he was being a complete dickhead to me I still cared about him and I wanted to be his friend and I wanted to help him in his life move forward... because even though he feels empty inside and feels worthless I know Cameron's potential and I know what a loving caring individual he can be.

I know he wont do anything too too destructive... .maybe he'll get or has gotten extremely drunk... he seems to love doing that... I'm just worried about him... .

Any advice is welcome... .

ALSO this is my first post :d I've been reading on here for a bit and I decided to make an account finally so I could contribute haha

p.s literally 2 seconds after I posted this I looked at my snapchat story and he looked at it again... .<3<3<3<3

[statsattack]

Got that line to and made me pay for therapy because I felt guilty for bouandries I never broke