Please, I need some advice

Hi, I'm a female, non BP. I think my ex- has BP. I was reading a book yesterday and he has 7 of the 9 symptoms. I only dated him for 6 months, but I know him since we were kids and I never saw him in a bad mood or screaming until I started a relationship with him. He was always, quiet and shy. I lost contact with him for the last 20 years, but last summer I got in touch with him again. Weeks later we started dating. The first month, everything was great, but next months, he started acting weird, he would go into a hotel room for days, won't answer the phone to anyone, first I was concerned, because I got use to the man that called me every five minutes to talk to me, but when he was off- duty, he wouldn't talk to me.And if a said anything he would start screaming. I was so scared at the beginning that I tried to end the relationship, but he started making me feel guilty, he said that everybpdy uses him and things like that.Sometimes when he screamed at me and I said that he had no right to treat me that way he said that I needed to grow up, and come to the real world. Deep inside I knew something wasn't right, but I thought I could change him, thinking that he acted that way, because other people hurt him so much. On New Year's Eve, I felt a really sad, because he started wishing good things to everybody and ignored me at all,next day I told him how I felt about that, but instead of talking about it, he started yelling at me, and calling me names, he got so mad, that I got scared and broke up with him.

Later in the afternoon, I got text messages from him treating me really bad, of course I didn't answer. Then He called me, and I didn't pick up the phone. But then I called him back and ask him to stop sending messages, or voicemail because I was going to call the police, he had gone too far with the messages and I got scared. He said that if I call the police he would shoot himself.
I called him and tell him, that I just want him to stop with the messages, that I was mad when I said that, but I would never call the police. Two days later I try to talk to him to see how he feel, but he had the same defensive attitude, he blamed everything on me, that if he knew I was that way he wouldn't go out with me. He remembers everything in a different way, and he blamed me for everything, he even blamed me for things he did. He twisted everything in a way that even his friends told him to keep away from me because I only cause him problems. But they only know what he tells them, and in front of his friends he acts totally different, even when were mad at each other, he's charming in front of them, but when they leave, he starts trating me the same way. I never talk to anyone, not even my family about what i going on, I think he deserves respect and no one has to know he is like that, but at the same I feel that I let him go too far.

I want to keep him away from me, but I want to help him, and don't know what is the best choice. And I think he probably knows that he has a problem, because a month ago he started telling me a few things about that. I know walking away was the right choice, but at the same time I think that before we were a couple, we were friends, and as a friend I think I have to do something.

I still love him so much, when he's not in a bad mood, he's the greatest man I ever date. And we have a lot of things in commom, we enjoyed a lot being together, talked about everything. But the next day was from heaven to hell!.

I would appreciate a lot some advice from both, BP and non BP.

Thanks

Hello, DVR, welcome to the BPD forum. Like you, I started dating a friend 27 years after we had stopped dating. Earlier, she had seemed quite and somewhat shy. After we resumed dating many years later, however, I found that she exhibited the same type of behavior you see in your exBF. I know that you want to help your "friend" but you cannot. For one thing, he is the only person who can fix himself. For another, he is incapable of being a true close friend because, when you are close, you pose a twin threat of abandoment and intimacy. That is why he is only capable of sustaining a casual friendship. For your safety and emotional wellbeing, it is important that you stay away from him.

If you feel you must make some effort to help him, I suggest leaving him a copy of your BPD book -- if you can do it in a way that does not get you enmeshed with him again. Perhaps one of his casual friends will take it to him. With my ex, I dropped a book into a group of things she was taking from our home. (It just made her mad and did absolutely no good but I did feel better for having done it anyway.) Nearly all Nons on this forum -- and most BPDs as well -- recommend terminating the relationship unless he acknowledges he has BPD and is strongly committed to healing himself in a good therapy program targeted to BPDs.

And that is the recommendation for married Nons (without children). For someone like you who is not married and is already out of the relationship, the best thing is to simply stay away. He is incapable of trusting you and won't believe anything you say anyway. Please take care of yourself and stay safe.

I have to agree with DC. One thing that I have learned is that the only way that people can get help is if they want to help themselves.

I would highly recommend the no contact approach, especially in a situation that seems as volatile as the one you are experiencing. If you are having problems (and havent done this already) talk to you family about the problem, it always helps to have an ear to listen.

I hope all is well and you are staying safe.

Error.

Thanks for your advice DC. One of the reasons I decided to stop the relationship is because I started thinking that I was the one with a problem. I was very self- confidence and lately I noticed I started feeling insecure, and even sometimes I noticed I started acting like him. At the beginning I didn't argue, I just took whatever he said, but one day he really got on my nerves and I started screaming at him too, from that moment we argued almost everyday. Two days after that I called him to apologize, he didn't want to talk, he said I was bad and I hurt him, I said you have been screaming at me for almost 4 months, and I got tired of it. If you want respect, you have to respect other people too. He didn't want to accept my apologize, we argued, and I said ok, it's over, he left some voicemail I didn't answer, he sent me an email saying let's end the fight come and see me I love you. I told him that the relationship was unhealthy for both of us and we can't continue like that, don't call it love. He answered I wouldn't be arguing with you if I didn't love you...he kept sending messages and at the end of the day I was sleeping with him. Next day he would say, you were the one who came here last night I didn't go to your house, you came to mine. I also want to mention that all his ex were "crazy", and his relationships were short, 2 or 3 months.

Thanks error. I don't want to tell my family, I'm the kind of person that keeps problems to myself. And at the begining I said too many good things about him and now I don't feel like saying the opposite. Hours ago I started missing him, and wanted to talk to him. but when I feel that way I open my book and start reading or come here and read the posts to remind myself why broke with him.

Hi dvr. I can relate having recently broken up with a bpd gf. Here's the thing: rationally we know that we have to leave them but unfortunately we have made an emotional investment in them (3 & half years) so it's not always that clinical as flicking a switch. Invariably in a relationship you will find a merger of aspirations & ideals, a shared direction. It can be really debilitating for us nons when the black splitting starts again & one feels like you are being sucked into some sort of abyss.

I too have wanted to renege & give her a call or a text because part of my co dependent self misses her but I know I am outgunned because by contacting her I give her the power to start all over again ie. ignoring me, making me grovel when I did no wrong etc. It can be really hard I know but try & hang tough. It surely cannot be right that one group (bpd"s) can treat another group (nons) with such disrespect & then when things hot up retract into the shell of bpd & whatever protection they perceive it gives them. Reading helps a lot as does this forum.

Thanks heartman for your words. it really helps me sharing my experience with people that had the same situation and undertands how hard is to have a relationship like that. You're right about calling him again, I always did and when I try to talk to him about the way he treated me , he always said "you were the one who called me" like letting me know that I had to accept him that way if I wanted to be with him. I agree with you, I feel it's not fair to let him treat me with disrespect, because he propably has BPD, especially if he behaves different in front of his friends. That means he knows how to control himself whenever he wants. One day I asked him why he treated me different and he answered that he didn't know, that probably it was because he knew me since I was a child and he felt confortable with me. (comfortable- treating me like I wasn't human).
Someone told me this morning, that even his sister is scared of him and she doesn't want him close to her or her family, His ex- separate from him 7 years ago, and she never dated another man, I wonder how hard was her experience with him, that she haven't get involved with another man.

Wow! -- This all struck such a chord with me. For me, it was a woman I met who within a month's time considered me her best friend in the world. And, in the beginning, we seemed to have so much in common and everything was so great that I thought we'd be close friends forever. Then cracks appear and things fell apart five months later. Now we're at a point where she hasn't spoken to me three months since our falling out (all because I told her off at a time when she lied to me and blew me off at a rare time when I really needed a friend because I'd just learned I had to put my cat to sleep). It didn't occur to me until it was over that she might have BDP.

Anyway, I think it's hard to reconcile the two discrete parts of the person. We meet hundreds of people and it's rare to meet someone who seems to share our ideals and interests. We invest our time and emotions, open up and trust the person, listen to all their dramas (and there are a lot of them) and we think we have a relationship that will last. Then a short time later the rug gets pulled out from under us. As non-BDPs we miss the golden moments at the beginning, and hate the feeling that it was probably all a mirage. In my case, my ex-pal, within the past three months, has left her husband and found her "soulmate," and has a set of interests that are completely different from what she had when I knew her. (I got all this information second-hand.) So, what's real? What's not? All of it? None of it? We're just left picking up the pieces; having a few good days and then a few lousy ones.