Explanation and ever possibility of reconciliation

I have no idea how I'm going to make this brief. I guess I just have to skip most of it and say that I was in a 4.5 year relationship with a BPD woman that ended last month. From reading I guess it was pretty typical, although she still says that I was the only person she ever truly loved and that I was different.

The beginning was intense, but pretty soon she was getting full on, marriage proprosals, talking of kids, breakdown, wierd untrusting behaviour etc.

2 years in I call a break (for space) and she flies into the arms of someone else from work, an emo guy with severely low self esteem. Took me a week but I managed to draw her out of it but only once she he had sex with him, spent the night crying in a bath and had a breakdown. Took a long time to gain trust into her but made me realise what I was dealing with.

Forward 2 more years.
This last year we have had it rough. Although right up until the end she still loved me dearly, hung on my every word and wanted to marry. Although I had been rejected her proprosals all these years due to trust issues, and not being ready, and being wary of her incessant need from the get go, I had started to really think about it and I wanted to.

The breakup:
As I said we had had a pretty depressing six months, there was a lot of push pull behaviour, she would go to her Mums constantly for a few days (2 hour drive away) and return, we needed space, we had ended up living at my parents due to bad circumstance and we never had any space, and were fairly alienated from social interaction. (She has no friends, and mine were in another city).

We spent a year here. In April I think I triggered her massively when after her attempting to buy a lot of things from the supermarket we couldn't afford, I stopped her. She went mute on the journey home, and then unleashed a tirade of insults at me when we arrived at home. I don't normally lose my cool, but I did, and told her to "F**K off you bitch" and slammed the front door on her face. She had left her key inside so she was out there a minute. This was only a few days after her sending me a ring she wanted for when she gets married via email. She still loved me at this point.

Prior to this, I had suggested (And she had agreed) her moving out locally for a bit, so we could have some space, I thought this would help the rs but now I think it may have stirred up the tsunai of what was about to unfold by setting off her fears of abandonment.

I apologised to her but said to her you were pressing my buttons and you know it. She went to her Mums for a week. During this time she went on a dating site and flirted with 2 guys, even to the extent of sending pictures of her in her sports attire. It's not unusual for her to go to her Mums. I would welcome the space sometimes in all honesty. I had triggered her, hard. I realised later that slamming the front door on someone and telling to to gtfo is not the best way to lose it to a BPD person with inherent overwhelming fears of rejection.

The following week she came back, I had been talking for a while about her getting her own place so we can have some space as we never had time alone and I felt that was largely the problem with us, I thought she understood this but I think this was also playing on her fears abandonment.

Anyway, her employer agreed to let her stay in one of the rooms (she worked in a inn/hotel close by). And she agreed to stay there for a week for space, I thought this would be good so that the time we spent together would be meaningful and it would allow us have some space and our own time.

The next day she moved out. Bare in mind it is a minute drive away from my house.
She hugged me 3 times before she left and put her arms around me and didn't want to leave.

The day after this, she works, then goes out with her work colleagues to a local pub. I told her not to drink too much because it triggers he, and makes her do crazy things, even total meltdown where she has had to be hospitalised before. I let her go on her own because I still needed space and did not want to drink. She phones me around midnight, I can't remember what she said, just an update I think but it was generally happy. She promised she wouldn't drink much. But I find out later that she continued to get wasted at the hotel she was staying/working at, with a bar manager who works and also lives there, yeah, I'm wondering wtf happened too.

The next day I phone her and she is completely cold, she has split me. I knew it immediately. She is wishy washy on me coming round, the difference between her attitude towards me from the previous day is markedly black and white.

Eventually she asks me to bring her a mcdonalds because she is hungover and fabreeze because she managed to piss the bed. This is big warning sign to me, the only other time she has pissed herself in 4 and a half years was the very day she came to live with me, like 3.5 years ago. It seems to be when she is under severe emotional stress or triggered. I go round there, she looks awful, she is moody and acting strangely. We hang out for a while, she is treating me strangely cold one minute, then hot the next, I am careful of the situation, I know she's unhinged so I don't press her for the moment. She wants me to stay for the evening, but she had been feeding her employer (a family friend) the victim story of the course of some time, I kind of knew this already as with mother figures she tends to play the victim role even if nothing is going, perhaps to induce sympathy, I've seen her play this behaviour before and had noticed a change in the employers attitude towards me.

It is the employers birthday coincidentially. When the employer goes out around 6pm, she calls my ex gf downstairs and apparently she wants me to leave (obviously feels like I'm an abuser or some $#%^ my ex has fed her). My ex gf comes upstairs and starts shouting at me to leave, like a different person, I am shocked, Wtf is going on? I'm thinking, What #######4, I leave, but before I leave she unleashes a tirade at me, I'm asking why I have to leave, and she goes off, insulting, on the doorstep to this hotel, humiliating.

I know now she did this to justify the #######4 she had been leading her employer on to believe. Her employer is a 60 something lady and probably saw herself as a mummy figure to her, little did she know who she really is.
All this after I bring her food and help her clean up her pissed in bed.

I left obviously, but texted her that it is over. And that just treated me like $#%^. I was extremely angry.

It was beginning to be a very ###$ up week, her behaviour on the whole was bizaare, little did I know at the start of this that I was watching a very mentally unwell person completely unravel and destabilise infront of my very eyes.

The next day (thurs) is a blur, I can't remember this day at all, if we talked or not, or if she came round, I can't remember.

Friday we make up, and she comes back to living at my place.

The weekend is good, everything seems back to normal. On Tuesday night, I decided to look at her phone (I never normally do this but her behaviour had been so odd lately I just did).

I look through her internet history, that is when I found the dating website $#%^. I wake her up immediately and she says it was an ego boost. Yeah right. But I got to admit, when things were bad, I actually did this once too, so I can't be a hypocrite about it, although I never actually spoke to anyone or sent pictures.

I start thinking about whether she cheated on me with her manager that night. She seems flimsy on the details and I don't know if I can trust her. (I asked her countless time about this and she denies it every time. She is very convincing if she is lieing, but the details around the night aren't exactly solid, I still to this day are unsure, she says she has never, ever cheated on me, who knows... I guess I have to take her answer for that, I have asked her a lot, to her face and she has always said a resounding no.)

We are intimate and had sex, to me this was a sign of trust, but now I know how disfunctioned she is I really don't know it meant anything.

Over the rest of the week I try to build trust back between us. I try to understand what's going on with her. I forgive her for the internet dating $#%^. She is infinitely bad at communicating or having any idea of what she is feeling. But by the weekend I've had enough, I press her on matters. My birthday fell on the Friday. Saturday night I push her, I still cannot get anything out of her, which isn't unusual and as far as I remember I tell her basically that the way she is behaving isn't right and that perhaps we shouldn't be together, she takes this badly says she's going back home on Monday. Now this isn't abnormal, we have gone through this push/pull $#%^ many many times.

She writes me notes and we hug and kiss and cry and she drives off on Monday morning. Its a 2 hour drive to her Mums, I fall asleep. I awake to her ringing me, twice. I ignore it because I'm tired and just had enough and we had been up all night, obviously I plan to call her later to talk, and make up, and try to discuss ways to help us. I wake up later and I see a text "I can't take this" around the same time of the calls. I phone her up, now this is where the blur starts, I cannot remember anything from this first day or two. I'm pretty sure she is very cold, misdirecting me and off.

I do know that I asked her whats going on and I know she strung me along the first week that nothing was. I find out later that the same day she went back to her Mums, literally hours after ringing me. She is organising a date with someone on the website (jumping into another rs, cannot be alone, bpd ), he was also one of the two guys she has spoken to during that week, a policeman (she likes authority figures for some reason, police and army), he was the guy I queried her about as the chat log was incomplete, she told me she had no idea why, no I just think she deleted it. It was about 6 days after the breakup that I found out this stuff, I obviously go nuts, thoughts of this previously happening come flooding in. She doesn't want to see me, and she is completely switched off me, saying she loves me but doesn't love me, saying she hasn't loved me for a year, saying that I let myself go, that I wear boring clothes, that we never socialise and don't have friends (I ######6 had plenty of friends before I met her and she decided to snubb not only every one of my close friends but my whole social scene, and eventually, forcing us to move to an area where we knew noone). All this $#%^ I have never heard before, never been brought up. There was plenty more, she goes from one excuse to the other. I'm try to get through to her that what she is doing is wrong and is a product of her BPD, and asking her how she can drop all emotions for me and her life so quickly, and what she is doing is hurting me. I quickly realise she is being enabled by her mother and is in total QUEEN mode, she is a different person. This is really the start of the ###$ up next 4 weeks to where I am now, which I could write a ######6 novel on. The hardest month of my life, more pain, shame and regret that I could ever imagine, all the while she is absolutely fine and ######6 dandy, unless of course I remind her of her lies and manipulation. She withholds, she verbally abuses me and my family, many times, other times she talks to me like nothing has happened. Complete mind ###$.

The guy she saw went on a date with her, and rejected her, perhaps he saw some red flags. And within days she was talking to this american army guy 3000 miles away and idealising him and within the first week she had already planned to go visit him and thus the start of all this #######4. He ironically shares lots of similarities with me, but is not as handsome, her Mum even referred to him as shrek. But the signs of a rebound are clear and there. I think she picked this guy because firstly it's a LDR online relationship, full of projection and easy for BPD's to sink their hooks into, and also because he reminded her of me, I even asked her this and she didn't deny it. And also because her recent rejection sent her self esteem plunging to big depths, so I guess the unavailability of this guy physically was appealing, and had plenty of time to groom him, he was also lonely, in a desert with other guys, emotionally needy from what I saw, he had like 30 facebook friends, I know this isn't a true measure of anything but seeing as they were wholly made up of his family members and other army guys I'd say this guy was boring as a doormat, and probably has very low self esteem. He was my replacement, ready and willing. She was basically trying to find anybody to fill her void and avoid any feelings of hurt and grief, a borderlines MO.

She wouldn't of told me about any of this unless I had found out, I have my ways. She would of strung me along, lieing to me the whole time.

I think I massively triggered her. We weren't having the best year but the bad times were coming to a close and I know she very much loved me right up until the end, she still hung on my every word, hugged and embraced me constantly and proprosed to me, as normal. I just don't think she could stop herself once it got to a certain point. And consequently she has thrown everything away, all the promises, all the potential, all the love we once had. We were true soul mates. I loved her, I found her beautiful. Thrown it away for nothing? Out of ######6 fear, how weak is that. Everything means nothing to her now and i'm sure it is completely distorted in her mind, the whole 4.5 years, the whole end, me, everything.

Since that day, everything about our relationship and the end of it has slowly turned into a completely different, twisted story in her head. I can't even make out what she thought of it, I realise now that I was completely split to black in her head, before it even ended. And now, 4.5 weeks after that fateful day, I feel like I'm completely forgotten, a distant memory, if any memory at all, a bad one to be avoided. Even after the messy breakup she still said I was the only one she ever really loved and that I was different to everyone she ever met.

I admit I detached, but I was really gaining hope in her as she had displayed some good signs over the previous 6 months and I felt I could trust her more and more and I was going to propose to her. I had put on weight, but I was only a stone or so overweight, nothing I couldn't lose in a month or two, comes off as quick as I put it on with me, due to overeating (I do this when I'm depressed) and I started exercising a few weeks prior to this fallout, for her, and for the future.

There were many more mitigating factors to this breakup period, I know this is long but seriously it is brief description of the fallout if you can believe that.

I think the spiral started for her when I slammed the door in her face. I think the talk of space and her moving out before that also contributed even though she made out like she understood I think it sparked abandonment fears.
I think that was the start of the end, the start of the tidal surge that could not be stopped. And I have been split black ever since. She is like a different person. And particularly hates me and has cut me off, seemingly forever now.

Forgetting her behaviour before the split for a minute, her behaviour since then has been largely vile, callous, calculating and cruel.
I think ever since the talking of her moving out, she has been spiralling into borderline psychosis and she made pre-preemptive moves to avoid being rejected and. And in doing so instigated the end of our relationship which has caused me immeasurable hurt and pain, knowing that it could all be avoided.

I think she's been punishing me over the breakup, and although in some ways it was a mutual decision (I talked her into it because I felt she wasn't treating me right and I wanted her to sort her head out as usual), I really just wanted her to go away and think about us, and her behaviour and reconcile, like what would happen in a normal RS. I had obviously completely forgotten what happened the last time she pulled this sh*t and spiralled out of control which coincidentially was also in April 2 years prior (she goes a bit crazy in April, around my birthday, every year she does something), and I thought we were stronger, again, forgotting about her disorder and being ignorant to it. What happened next was shock to the system.

Funnily enough during the week after returning from her Mums while she was back with me, she tried to order a sky television subscription for us and an tablet + sim card 24 month subscription, totalling £1000 of credit we didn't have. I cancelled it obviously but I think it was an attempt at her to keep us together. Ironically, I had no intention of leaving her, I loved her. If only she knew.

I would like some respective from females afflicted with borderline personality disorder. She is 27, 28 in a few months. She said she always loved me. I have tried to get her back, I've been needy I admit and I fought for her. This has driven me away now to the point she has played the victim to her family, I am the enemy and she has cut all contact.

Is there a hope in hell of getting her back in the future if I remain no contact? Should I get to friend terms with her before initiating no contact?
She is adament that she loves me but doesn't love me like that anymore. She even says she doesn't find me attractive, but that I am very handsome.
She goes hot and cold and I think that depends on her current status with her new 'love interest' as she puts it.
I know she is filling a void and I think she is in Queen mode atm, wants nothing to do with me and would rather forget, and has seemingly forgotten all the love we shared.
Does this sound like I triggered her, and now she is planning to storm ahead with her life, forgetting about me completely?

*bump*
I know it's long but would appreciate a bit of insight from a borderline afflicted female.

silvereyez wrote:*bump*
I know it's long but would appreciate a bit of insight from a borderline afflicted female.

Just out of curiosity is she seeing a therapist (sorry if it's been mentioned) but I had an abusive relationship (not saying yours is) for two years with somebody that it was MUCH like this. Not quite to this extent but a lot of the things you said ring a bell to me. If you and her are both committed to it I would say maybe try a couple's therapy and also seek help for her, too.

It just seems like this relationship has been under search turmoil. Could you ever be able to fully trust her again? In the last relationship I was in it was way too much, we had both done too much. Of course I left because he was constantly physically, mentally, sexually or emotionally abusing me but it just seems that if you were to jump in it again you MAY get the same results. Until she has shown a sincere want to change the dynamics of the relationship. Looking back I would NEVER go back to my past relationship and i'm glad I ended it when I did. However, to completely end that I had to cut off ALL ties, so nothing could be triggering for me (well, at least things that were under control). Again, that's quite a different situation though. Seeing as I have BPD and am in a relationship with what I would consider a pretty emotionally stable man, it's hard to see him giving up on me because I know I can be a lot like what you described. But at the same time you need to be able to be happy for it to work too - so it's really what you're willing to do and if you can see yourself having a healthy happy relationship with this girl.

Hi,

I'll start by saying that I've got BPD, am married, but currently doing marriage counseling to try to fix a bad relationship. So here's my thoughts, with that in mind. That sounds like a very difficult experience all round. It's hard to answer your question because there is no uniform experience of BPD. I lot of what you described could be attributed to BPD. I think though, that whether someone is seeking help makes a huge difference to possibility that a relationship will become more stable. That the push/pull stuff will become less extreme.

It sounds like you really love her and that deep down she probably loves you too. But BPD can make it hard to get close to people. Sabotaging relationships can be pretty common, even when there are really strong feelings of love.

I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but you need to decide on what is best for you. Set your own boundaries for what you are willing to tolerate/how you would like to be treated. It's possible that if you avoid contact and leave things alone for a bit that she will come back. But at some point, the person with BPD needs to seek help for the cycle to stop. Even when they do, it can take a long time to change. I'm not sure if your ex is seeking help? I guess I'm saying that a relationship where one party is continually compromising themselves is not likely to be healthy. It's hard when you love someone, but you can only ever look after your side of the relationship. It's a really hard position to be in. I hope some of that helps.

I spent 2 years getting her help. She started, had one session and gave up. She started comunicating yesterday to me. Because her relationship with this guy overseas has fallen through I suspect. She told me she stopped taking her medication a few weeks ago too.

I think she is looking for another relationship immediately and I don't seem to be an option. She doesn't initiate conversation, but at least she is responding now.
I do love her.
I don't know if she even remembers me now, in any sort of emotional context anyway, as she seems like she's just talking to a friend on the phone.
I know I need to focus on myself. But she is currently single, and I have no idea how to win her back, if that is even possible. Perhaps she needs to have another RS first, like a greener grass sort of thing, but then it will probably be too late.

Are you prepared to go through what it takes to have a committed relationship with this tormented soul? You have an idea of what it's about. A borderline needs someone very available, implying with high tolerance for issues. It may take years before she finds some peace - although there is no typical borderline. Your decision, maybe to make before you resume the relationship?

I am yes.
We already spent 4.5 years together.
Normally I can manage her, but before our breakup I lost myself, and I got depressed.
I think it's over for her now. All I can do is hope, whether that's healthy or not, in time, I will let go I guess.

Okay, first, my reply is going to be a bit different, albeit harsher. So, major trigger warning here. I am a survivor of domestic violence, and so I couldn't read your whole story. I felt really upset by the things you did/said to this woman.

Look, I am not saying she didn't hurt you and that your feelings are not valid, but you made the decision to break her heart and after that, the trust was damaged and things were not the same. Honestly, you need to accept your part in this, as well. If there is any chance of reconciliation, you both need to go to counseling.

Sorry if my reply is seemingly cold, but please, in the future, be responsible for your part and how you treat a person. If you break up with a person, disorder or not, don't expect things to be the same, and don't expect them to come back.

It is absolutely a good idea to end this relationship (considering what you have just stated}...

Within the confines of the relationship I didn't break up with her, I simply offered it as a means to sort her head out, which we had done before.

The things I said/did to this woman pale in comparison to what she did/said to me. She is no puppy, she gives far worse than she got. I have been attacked with a knife, punched, strangled, kicked, etc. All I have ever done for her is help her, give her love, be her rock, and very rarely lost my temper with her. Her on the other hand could sting like a bee with her mouth and very often did, with no reason. So please, don't comment on what I said or did to this woman. She has borderline personality disorder, this causes her to have dysfunctional behaviour, we have known this for a long time and hence certain behaviours are expected.

I don't think it's a good idea to end this relationship. Nothing cannot be overcome in the name of love. She will have these problems with everyone she starts a relationship with and that is sad, but some couples do make a success out of BPD relationships, albeit with a lot of hard work. And yes, I am willing to do that, for her.

But it isn't my hands now, it's up to her and I don't think she's the type of BPD to go back to her past messes, she'd rather run away and start afresh/get another victim.