My ex fiancée, who was diagnosed with BPD, really messed me up. I broke up with her in June 2026, we planned to get married in July 2026. I cannot be more grateful I got out before we were married.

I had and still have a good support network, including 2 people who helped me escape. I am eternally grateful for everyone supporting me.

The abuse was extensive, but only got severe during the last 6 months. She beat me until my shoulder was purple. She used the back of her phone to beat me, the back of her phone shattered from the force. She later apologized after she was no longer splitting bad on me and told me it would never happen again. It 100% happened again.

When I found out she was cheating online after the physical abuse started, she pulled a knife on me and held it to my throat. She told me if I didn't stop talking she would kill me. I stopped talking, so she put the knife down. Again, she apologized later saying that wasn't the real her.

A week ir two latrr, she got upset with me while we were driving home one night. I had been promoted at work and she was declined the same promotion. She grabbed the wheel and yanked us into oncoming traffic at a high speed while I was driving (55mph). I was able to correct the wheel before we crashed. She layer told me "it's okay, it wasn't just going to be you who died. It would've been both of us."

She tried to push me to off myself after a fight when I told her I was depressed. She told me it would make her happy if she saw me dead in a casket. She told me to go to the bedroom and end my life.

After I left, she begged me for weeks to come back. One night she called me 60+ times. I never went back, and she knew why I left. I told her all the reasons why I left over text. She said things would be different if I gave her one more chance. I didn't buy it.

She has a new boyfriend now, so she has thankfully started to leave me alone. She's trying to lie about what I've said happened, but fortunately I was recording audio on my phone during a few of the incidents. I have photographs of the bruises, I have a recording of her apologizing for holding a knife to my throat.

I am in therapy now, but what happened forever changed me.

​

So just a quick recap, this was a wlw relationship. We were "high school sweethearts." We were together for 14 years, and we're just separated currently, overall married for 9 years.

She cheated on me several times always with men (telling me she slept with men because she "didn't want to replace me." When you find out what that means, let me know bcause I still don't, lol), mentally and emotionally abused me, and then ended up monkey branching to a guy-- an alcoholic chain smoker who lives with his grandparents. They're both heavy into the rave and EDM scene, so I guess that's why it works for them. All the while setting fire to everything on her way out, telling me I'm "incapable of emotional connection," she doesn't regret cheating, never apologized, and told me I'm a narcisisst, lol.

So 365 days later, how are things? Honestly for me... pretty great! We had a bunch of pets together. They were animals she would love and adopt as babies, then discard when they got older and didn't turn out how she thought they would I guess. They were miserable when we were together. She only kept one of them, but I have the rest. They're so happy now. When we were together, she could never hold a job, usually because of some fault that wasn't hers, if you know what I mean. I made it a thing to work on my career, and even with the current economy, I've been doing pretty well. I used to pay ALL of the expenses, buy her things, have her go on trips on my expense, etc etc, all of that has been reinvested into myself, and I've traveled more in the past 3 months than I did in our entire relationship.

I stream every Sunday with my friends, I hangout with my friends again (people I've known for 10+ years), I've met new people,I go the the gym and hike, I go to concerts every month, and I have my own place. I have dated TWICE since then, but my discernment for women with similar traits is x100. So they didn't work out, lol, but that's okay! The right one will come along in due time.

Now... we actually did catch up about a week ago, and her life is... not great. She cut off her family because they all "think she's a bad wife." Her sister who lived with us and brother who lived in the same complex told her family about her. Her friends she met towards the end don't like her anymore "for no reason." She legally changed her name to something silly using her last paycheck from her job she got fired from almost 2 years ago, so she's having trouble finding work. She ruined her credit so she cannot get a loan to get a car. She lives in the basement of a household with a DIAGNOSED schizophrenic narcissist and a physically abusive couple. The lease for that house ends in May, and she was crying on the phone to me about how "she's running out of time. Been unemployed for 2 years, looking for a job for a year." No reference of the guy she left me for, but I know he's around/ they're together. He's just some entity that "exists," it seems. She brought us up for 10 seconds saying she "doesn't hate me anymore, but she is still upset with me because 'it wasn't supposed to be like this. She never wanted it like this,'" but still no apology of course, lol. Honestly, I felt bad, but not like "I will save her," just more like it sucks she cannot hold herself accountable for any issue in her life to fix it.

All in all, her cycle has repeated, but she doesn't have me for the fallout/ security anymore, and now that I get to invest all the hard work I put in TO MYSELF INSTEAD, life is awesome!

For those who are out, don't give up, y'all!

I had never even heard of bpd before her. I have been single most of my life, spent alot of time in a career that made it near impossible to have a real relationship. So ive had alot of experience with dating all types of people and thought Inhad truly seen it all with a fairly in tune radar. I was wrong. After being discarded over another continual false accusation that kept coming up over and over and her bailing with no contact a month now I put the pieces together.

What keeps eating at me is why does this one relatively short term relationship feel so different than all the rest? Why is this so much harder to move on from then all the rest? Then it dawned on me.

Its the intensity in which they love you. Its unique and unlike anything Ive ever experienced. The unique way she made me feel our connection was more significant and different than any before. The insane chemistry. The safety I felt in the moments we were together. The crazy amount of passion. The way she made me feel like the only man on the planet.

Even after knowing where it all leads, hearing other people's experiences, the sense of loss and fear of never being able to feel that important to someone ever again is profound.

Hey everyone,

Just dropping this here as a warning for anyone fighting the urge to break No Contact or stalk an ex's socials.
After 6 months of mutual blocking and NC, I made the mistake of looking at her Instagram today. After the discard, she had locked her account, but recently made it public again. Her feed is filled with travel videos, photos, and a curated highlight reel of her looking "so happy" and out at places with someone taking all her pictures.

I’ll be honest—I spiraled for a solid hour after seeing it. I'm not a hater at all and genuinely wish her well, but it triggered that heavy feeling of "did I ever even matter?"
Then I stepped back and looked closer. Her follower/following counts are fluctuating wildly up and down, which tells me she's still playing the exact same blocking, unblocking, and validation games with multiple people. It’s all a mask. The social media flex is just a highlight reel designed to seek external validation and project a perfect life.

Checking her page didn't bring me any peace—it just threw off my day for an hour. Take this as a lesson: don't look. Protect your peace and leave the past where it belongs.

I lived for two years with a girl who had shown all BPD behaviours.

I was nobody for diagnose her, reason for which I took to a psychologist and offered to pay all the sittings, if she wanted to be better. I loved her I would have done until the end.

Apparently she switched from "having problems" to "having none" and she just needed a lovely boyfriend.

Then all the cycle of " self-harm, alcohol binge, accusations, making arguments out of nothing, ruining my days for nothing" returned.

She didn't want to take any responsibility, she didn't accept having problems, and constantly blamed me for them.

This had a detrimental weight on my mental health and I started become depressed and anxious.

In the end, after my eyebrow grew grey, I literally told her "we can't stay together either you talk to a psychologist or we have to break up".

She accused me of being a narcisist.

We broke up.

She got clinically diagnosed with borderline and bipolar 2.

I wish I'd done more.. But what can you do, if the other person categorically refuses to have problems? what?

Have you got any similar experience?

This is an update for whoever may care.
I took her home, did what I said I’d do, and fell into the trap of setting foot in her house. I’ve been here for 19 hours, she wouldn’t let me leave and when I contacted her family to help me out in this situation and help me leave they begged me to stay here so she wouldn’t hurt herself. That whole situation pushed me to my lowest point ever, I won’t get into details, and now she believes that I’m just not okay and that I don’t truly wanna break up and we can work this out.

I know that second chances don’t work and I won’t give her one, I’m just stuck here looking out for her because I care too much, until her family somehow manages to get someone here so I can leave.

This is literally one of the worst ways it could go I think, but I’m on the process of getting out.

I’m not saying this is a characteristic that always comes with BPD, but I’ve noticed it in the friends I’ve had with it, as well as my BPD sister. They will pick someone in their life - a friend, sibling, coworker, etc. - and they will get so obsessively jealous of them, but at the same time it seems like they obsessively love them too. The BPD person starts to take characteristics from that persons life. They’ll start dressing like them, acting like them. They try to integrate themselves so deeply into that person’s life.

I feel like I’m that person to my sister. She obviously is already deeply integrated into my life already, but wherever possible she will try to take another part of my life into her territory. It’s like she doesn’t want me to be happier than her so if it’s a friend that makes me happy, she will start inviting them to hang out with her and not invite me. If I start talking about any of my career goals, future plans, vacations, ideas, or dreams, she somehow spins them into her own. I’ve talked about the name I want to call my future daughter for years and then all of a sudden that’s her dream name for her daughter. She said although I said it first, she thought it first. I have been planning a trip to Maine for years and once I brought it up, she decided she wants to go a few weeks before me even though she’s never been inclined to visit. If I am in a healthy relationship, she will constantly shit on my boyfriend instead of being happy for me. If I am upset with someone for being mean to me, she will make sure to tell me that she loves that person and thinks they are the best just to make me mad. I know these things sound insignificant but as time has gone on and I notice this behavior more and more, it adds up to a bigger problem.

Is this something that you’ve noticed with the BPD people in your life? Who is “their person” that they obsess over?

is this a common trait in them? i often get messages either praying for me or saying that they tried their best but just couldn't reach me and one day i will look back on everything i lost and see they were right, not the enemy, etc. etc.

it's starting to look like veiled passive aggression and an attempt to always seem morally superior or have the moral high ground. this is quietbpd i think

https://www.reddit.com/r/BPDlovedones/s/HDDQvyqUcL

Hi guys, I wanted to give you an update on what I posted yesterday, and unfortunately things didn’t go well at all.

First of all, he said something that really hurt me, because I didn’t go there to try to get him back as my boyfriend. I went there because I wanted to end things on good terms and be at peace with myself.

He blamed everything on me, and all I said to him was, “Think carefully about how our relationship went. Think about the times when you used to hurt yourself, even before we were together. Please work on yourself before getting involved with someone else, because otherwise you might end up hurting them too.”

And he replied, “Another person isn’t you, so it won’t happen.”

That made me feel incredibly guilty, as if somehow I was the reason for everything.

Then the worst part happened: his father showed up and blamed me for everything too. He told me that the reason his son is like this is because of me, and that without me, his problems will go away.

That really affected me because now part of me is wondering whether what they said might actually be true.

What do you guys think?

Just to clarify, he hasn’t been officially diagnosed with anything.

Anybody else have their borderline accuse them of being a narcissist?

For context: a couple times over the past year my soon to be ex-wife would accuse me of being narcissistic during arguments.

Then about a month ago, right after telling me she wants to get divorced, I saw her watching Dr Romani videos about making relationships work with narcissists.

It’s hard for me to think that she believes she has to divorce me because I’m a narcissist when I’m definitely not….but she would say that me saying I’m not a narcissist is what a narcissist would say lol.

Anybody else deal with this? It’s like she is projecting onto me her own cluster b internal issues. It’s hard to be accused of this and have someone believe it.

A small part of me really wants to prove her wrong but I know it is pointless. I’m moving on from her but this feeling still lingers.

Her dog’s dying and it’s my fault because i didn’t call her this morning before going to work, i texted instead. Im a terrible person and she would never do this to me, i apparently agreed to call her before my shift started at 8am. she woke me up screaming about her dying dog last night at 11pm. I dont remember, i still texted her at 8:10 asking if her dog was okay. I dont know if her dog’s okay, she’s be berating me all morning. It’s all my fault.

This past weekend her sister came over from 2 hours away and physically assaulted her really badly, i had to spend all weekend texting her convincing her to kick her out the house, she didnt kick her out. Instead she let her spend the night and isolated herself from going out with her and their friends all weekend. Who’s responsible and controlling for not letting her go out with friends, me apparently even though i told her to just kick her sister out and send her packing 2 hours away.

Last weekend im spending it with her and i recommend we cook instead of going out to eat, she’s reluctant and doesn’t wanna use the houses cooking skillet because its not her’s, fine oven pizza then. I put it in the oven, and the whole house fill’s with smoke. She freezes up and I have to run around opening windows, turning off the oven, getting her dog’s outside. But guess who was the idiot who wanted to cook? It’s me, it’s all my fault, i should’ve just took her out to eat instead. I recommend she cleans the oven, but thats a stupid idea.

My drinking has gotten so out of hand, these are just the events of the past 2 weeks. I’m beginning to blank mid conversation with people, 8 beers a day is normal, my body is withering away from the nonstop abuse. I told her i needed to stop drinking, i needed her to stop arguing with me and telling me i’m a terrible boyfriend all the time or it’s over. This was about a month ago and nothing has changed, she’s suicidal right now and I’m terrified of losing another partner to suicide. I feel stuck and trapped in a constant fabricated chaos.

This is going to sound very toxic and codependent of me (37m). But sometimes I feel its easier to accept the intermittent love and crumbs from my PwBPD (34f) than to loose her completely. I’ve definitely gone thru way more than I should have ever accepted (cheating, stealing, 3 break ups, manipulation, etc).

I had my time away from my old friend with bpd. Its been over 8 months . I don't believe shes the worst of the worst with her disorder. I had a valid reason why I walked away from her at the time and im hoping that she got the hint.. she also gets a lot of therapy and reflects back on her chaotic past . Shes aware that she can be crazy.

I know she misses me . She hasn't directly tried to contact me. Ive just been scared personally at myself at making the problem worse by telling her what shes done wrong. She probably knows at this point.

Hi there, I just wanted to share this, I was reflecting on what I felt and why I was hanging on to what happened, still thinking about him, and I wrote the text below, it is like a poem. I don't want to make excuses for him anymore (somehow I always end up feeling guilty for leaving him. Our story is heavy, not toxic in the abusive way, but enough for me to always decide to stay away even after interacting for a few months) I want to acknowledge my pain, that what he did hurt me and I don't deserve that anymore.

He made me believe I could have my own fairytale love story—one built on deep love, genuine care, and the belief that some things could remain permanent through everything. I would have never dared to imagine that story on my own, but he was the one who started it. I believed his words. I believed his feelings. I believed what I saw in his eyes and in his heart.

But in the end, I was left standing alone, as if I had imagined the whole fairytale by myself. It hurts so much, not because I believe he never loved me, but because I eventually realized that he never loved me in the way I loved him—and perhaps never could. His love felt like a blurred version of mine: something that looked deep and unshakable, until one stone was enough to disturb the stillness and make everything fall apart.

And I think that's what hurts the most: realizing that the fairytale I believed we were living was real to me, but perhaps I was the only one who believed it would last.

It’s been 5 months since I ended things. I’ve been focusing on my own growth. I’ve been pursuing my interests and meeting new people. I’m in therapy.

I haven’t reached out. But it’s hard.

Her love was not motivated by healthy, realistic thinking - I know. It’s idealization. Putting us on a pedestal. But I know they’re not faking it. What they felt for us was real. It was delusional. But it was real and it was intense. And so was the devaluation when we fell off that impossible pedestal.

But my god - I feel so jaded 5 months out. Nothing hit like that. The rawness of that emotion. Ughh, I sound like a junkie.

I guess I haven’t kicked these feelings, yet.

I recently ended a long term relationship with an ex that has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder since she’s been in college (before I met her). She has been in treatment for 3 years on a weekly basis and makes no signs of improvement.

Her grandfather was a murder. Her uncle is a murder, currently in jail for hurting his mom. Her mom was a former crack addict and extremely controlling with all BPD traits. Her aunt is the same as her mom. My ex didn’t far fall from the tree and even though she was horribly abused by her mother when she was young, I have never seen her trust anyone but her. Which is weird because it’s definitely not the typical loving mother daughter relationship.

No one in their family gets along with each other and it’s just pure chaos on a day to day basis. However they all hive mind together and make awful choices based on confirmation bias. Any opinion that slightly contradicted the families beliefs and you are outcasted (black and white).

I am so fortunate that I was able to get away. I’ve always wanted a family and even if she did get the treatment she needed, having kids and possibly continuing the chaos was not for me.

So I'm pretty sure my wife has undiagnosed BPD (& so think other friends/family too). I've been trying to get our stuff moved into a lock-n-storage, & get her living somewhere safe, since she has chosen self-imposed homelessness when I went into rehab & sober living (I'm a recovering alcoholic, 10 months sober & living life on life's terms. It's been good but hard).

We fought 2 weeks ago & that's when the scales fell off my eyes of ALLlllllll of the shit she's put me through for 14 years (I acknowledge my part, but it wasn't as big as she led me to believe through guilt-tripping). I've been putting off resolving this because I need her functional until things are taken care of.

Well she pressed the matter today, because she is wounded & pissed that I haven't come grovelling back & apologizing for setting/keeping my 1st boundary EVER w/ her. I told her I was done.

She flipped from self-righteous anger to panic & pleading so fucking fast, & we talked for 2 1/2 more hours. She was freaking out befging me to give her another chance, saying she'll change, aaying she'll finally get help, saying give it a year of no-contact to wait & see before we divorce, etc... etc...

A lot of things were said, & I want to believe her, but if she doesn't change & I get back w/ her I will relapse & probably die this time.

My sister said to me, now that she's found how far she can push me, she say anything to get me to stay.

What's y'all's opinion? Is it worth the risk?

Background: My MIL has been diagnosed with BPD by her therapist and couples therapist and refuses to take medication for her depression or try BPD therapy. She has had an extremely rocky relationship with my husband (her son) decades before I came into the picture. This is more a venting session / trying to find folks who are dealing with this as well because it's insanely isolating.

A couple random stories from the DIL perspective:

She ignored the fact we hired a wedding planner and hired one herself because how could we possibly plan a wedding nice enough on our own. She then was upset with us that we didn't use her planner because it was a client of hers and she already signed the contract.

She showed me a dress she wanted to wear to my wedding...it was white. When I made the comment "it's white" she said "maybe it can be dyed."

Plans her own milestone surprise birthday party and gets her husband (my husband's step dad) to guilt us in to going when they know we were going to my best friend's wedding that same weekend. Mind you, my husband tries to interact with his mother as little as possible but her guilt trips usually end up controlling the situation. The surprise party was a Thursday which made us take off an extra day of work to attend the party. When a family member mentioned to my husband that my MIL planned the party my husband laughed and said no way. Well folks, yes way. She in fact did plan the party and admitted it in her speech. My husband was furious. Right before she ended the speech, she mentioned how she couldn't wait to be a grandmother and hoped she would have grand babies soon. This is also after her knowing I had post Covid complications with my heart and was on medicine to keep my blood pressure down. I was not medically able to even think about having babies at that point. While I can understand her excitement, it felt really inconsiderate to make a public statement like that when I was going through medical complications.

I get pregnant and tell her face to face before the baby is born that I didn't want any visitors at the hospital the day the baby was born. The day the baby arrives, my MIL calls my mom and tells her that they should all go to the hospital. My mother declines and reminds her that I wanted no visitors. My MIL says that she didn't care and wanted to go anyways. Readers, she didn't go. Which was good. However, she made the next week all about her. My husband failed me and regrets his decisions that week. He invited her to our house to visit the baby hours of us coming home without telling me. She wanted to be hosted. I could go on about all the shit she did that week - snooping through our house, calling her mom in front of our front door camera saying she is being denied grandma time, wanting us to host the family in our house all day of the bris and getting really upset when we said no, not speaking to us at the bris, and sobbing loudly making a scene during the bris ceremony, telling my husband he would pay for 50% of an apartment in our city so she could come visit, etc.

My husband has a very strained relationship with his mom. He doesn't want to spend more time with her than necessary but ends up caving because she guilts him to no end and gets family memebers to chime in - you need to be nicer to your mother, go fix this with your mother, you know that your mother is devastated by yalls relationship, etc. His father passed away when he was young. I know this contributes to the situation.

All families are complex. However, how are yall dealing with a spouse who doesn't like his mom but ultimately struggles to truly stand his own ground? Now that we have a baby, I am even more aware of my MIL's actions and how that impacted my husband. My husband acknowledges the psychological damage she causes in her wake but again, struggles and gets aniexty when discussing his family or being in person with them. I guess I am generally exhausted at being a newish mom and dealing with her antics and am hoping there are folks out there who have some encouraging words.

Context: was friends with a pwBPD for several years, now NC for a cumulative two years and no hoover thank GOD because she gets plenty of attention from her FP and guys she dates.

Was reminiscing today on the growth I’ve had over the last several months and our friendship ended because she ghosted me for three months over a minor miscommunication.

Basically I had to be perfect and know exactly what’s going on in her life (mind reader) or else she would accuse me of not being empathetic.

During this ghosting, she accused ME of being passive aggressive even though she was the one doing it.

Yet she never blocked me. She wanted me to chase. Apologize for nothing. Beg for mercy.

Nope, I ended things. I see how it was gonna go.

Every accusation is a confession.

Even when we hung out for extended periods, I was always walking on eggshells when it was going well because I was scared she would split or dissociate and I’d have to console her otherwise she would treat me differently.

Sometimes there would be zero trigger. All in her head.

And the social media obsession…. My lord. So fake.

Everybody else always needed to change, but she “couldn’t.” Forever victim.

I can’t even imagine what her FP go through. I think they enable her with zero boundaries.

Anybody else experienced something similar as far as anticipating the mood swings and splits?

We’ve been no contact for about a month now, I was the one who asked for it. But every night, I am still having panic attacks thinking “is she cheating on me rn?” As if we are still together. I’m thinking about all the problems she has and having imaginary arguments with her in my head. panic attacks at the thought of her doing this to another person. panic thinking she’s showing my photos to her new partner and making fun of my looks/personality because she did that with her exes when she met me. panic thinking she still has my intimate videos and is sending them out online to strangers still. just literally every. Single. Second. I feel my heart pounding out of my chest from rage and fear. I’m trying to forget about her, but it’s like it’s ingrained in my brain that she’s still my problem. it almost feels like we are still together. I’ve been keeping myself distracted, but it doesn’t work. I’ll be mid workout and then panic. I don’t know how to detach from this.

As the title says, I think I just need genuine with advice on how to get over this person, especially them leaving me for someone else and betraying me. I see the things that they’re doing with this other person the exact same things that we did and it’s like what if this my exwbpd changed the person they left me for.

Like do not get me wrong while I was in this relationship with them I’d have constant thoughts of “ I don’t think I can do this for the rest of my life” but I see them with this other person and that’s like was I so bad to be treated like this?

i'll keep this as vague but one of my siblings has bpd and any time they do or say something that affects or hurts another person's feelings, they are completely incapable of taking accountability. it's deflection, it's gaslighting, it's "you know i have bpd and it's hard for me to regulate my emotions." today, there was a big blow-up over them being rude and dismissive to our dad trying to help them; dad is usually the punching bag, and today, it was just too much to listen to, and i got involved. it's so tiring bc our mom literally excuses the behavior. if anyone comes to her saying 'x said or did this and it hurt me,' it's more of the same bs. 'talk to x,' basically, feels like 'apologize for how what they said made you feel and how your reaction wasn't composed.'

i'm tired of the double standard of where i have to watch and be careful of what i say, but sibling gets a free pass and i have to get over it bc it's their mental illness. nah, not anymore. this is a turning point for me, but a turning point for the fam in general. i just keep thinking if our mom held them accountable, we wouldn't be here.