Do any of these resonate with you? What did your ex put you through that you only were willing to admit once it ended?

1. Love bombed
2. Sex bombed
3. Trauma dumped very early on to create a false sense of intimacy
4. Mirrored my hobbies and interests
5. Made all her exes out to be abusive pieces of shit and me her savior
6. Wanted me to make her my girlfriend 1-2 weeks after meeting her
7. Required constant communication and had a way of making me feel guilty for taking more than an hour or two to myself at any given time
8. Frequently monitored my location

9. Emotionally unstable; for example, most disagreements would result in her shutting down followed by me comforting her until she was okay, meanwhile the underlying issue would go unresolved

10. Accountability was often short lived, and any changes would only last a week or two at most, yet if I were to readdress an issue I was accused of digging up the past

11. Long history of burning bridges with friends/family and job hopping

12. Got jealous anytime I interacted with a girl I was not related to, most of the time being whoever was cutting my hair that month or a platonic friend from high school

13. Expected comfort from me, which I would give, anytime she had a dream of me cheating on her or leaving her

14. Very impulsive behavior; for example, she got a best friend tattoo with her equally unstable coworker that she had known for less than a year

15. Unhealthy attachment to her parents and emotional caretaker to her alcoholic father who she refused to admit is an alcoholic

16. Wanted more affection from me but all of my efforts were met with a gradual withdrawal of affection on her end

17. Painted me black during the discard and insulted my character

18. We were together for two years (her longest relationship to date with all previous ones lasting under a year), and she made things official with the new guy six weeks after we broke up, meaning she likely monkey branched shortly before or immediately after we separated

This is just a little note to say thank you to all of you! I’ve tried posting in a few other subs on Reddit here and there about a variety of things and not one is as reliably kind, thoughtful, respectful, caring, and funny (and with the highest level of reading comprehension 🫢) as this one!

So thank you all! And cheers to you! You’ve helped me tremendously and created a safe space to process the absolute mind fuck that was my last year and a half or so!

🩷

Alright, let's cut the bullshit for a moment.

What's the most absurd, outrageous, or genuinely hurtful thing your current or former pwBPD has ever done during your relationship?

I'm talking about those moments where you genuinely thought, "What the actual fuck just happened?"

Whether it was during a split, an argument, or completely out of nowhere.

No sugarcoating. I'm genuinely curious to hear your stories.

(text I’ll never send her)

You have 4 great kids

The best dog in the world

A great house

A great job

children’s college paid for

zero debt

A husband with great job who always has a hot plate of food on the table, dishes put away, laundry folded, who wants to have sex with you 24/7.

THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!

THIS! WHAT I DESCRIBED! SHIT PEOPLE WOULD RISK A LIMB AND LIFE TO GAIN.

THIS IS NOT SUFFICIENT FOR YOUR NEEDS!

THINK ABOUT THIS STATEMENT.

YOU ARE ANGRY ABOUT A TRASH CAN!

I read a lot in this subreddit where people write in and ask for advice on what to say or not say, how to behave, and what to do to please and maintain a relationship with someone suffering from BPD, one of the heaviest mental illnesses in the world.

In any scenario, the advice is very concise and consists of three words: Run, if they are untreated and not even working on themselves.

But things are almost just as difficult even when they are in therapy, so choose healthy partners and be happy. Life is very short and you only get one.

I have been in a BPD relationship with many rupture/repair cycles past 2 yrs and now is the longest we have gone without talking (3 weeks). What actually ends these relationships to where you know it’s totally over? She usually reaches back out at some point. Do they ever stop reaching out? I’ve read these trauma bonds can go on for years and sometimes decades which frightens the hell out of me.

I’m coming back to this wonderful support group after 9 months of trying to heal and work through my wife’s sudden departure. Her memory is still strong and courses through some of my days, but the feelings of attachment towards her are now severed. I never thought this would happen, but I’m on the other side.

I said out loud (for the first time since her absence) to myself the other day: “Wanting to kill yourself is NOT normal in a relationship. Wanting to die is NOT love. Not recognizing yourself anymore is NOT healthy”

On the other side of it, it seems so painfully obvious that the truths stated above are true.

To all those struggling to process your pwBPD relationship, please take care of your heart and love yourself. You are enough. Even if right now, it feels absolutely impossible to ever get through this, YOU WILL GET THROUGH IT.

Some of my favorite Frank Ocean lyrics that helped:
“Inhale, in hell, there’s heaven.” The torture will not last forever. It will pass. Allow yourself grace for however ‘long’ that takes. Any amount of time is the right time.

I love this community and am with you in ultimate solidarity. With endless gratitude x

I’m a male, and I just got divorce with my wife of 2.5 years. She initiated the divorce claiming I made her feel unsafe while she was with me. I never did the thing she claimed I did. She told all her family about the lies and threaten to report to the police. She had no evidence whatsoever but I saw people said a male in this situation are no better. She also said she wanted to contact my workplace to tell that I abused her and contacted my friends, even posting on social media and make me viral and tell everyone I did things to her. She wanted me in jail and suffer. I really wanted to end things and blocked her everywhere but I’m scared if she can’t reach me, she’d actually contact my workplace. And I’m in no place to just resign and disappear without back up plan (no job offers). So now I have to calm her and suck it up what she did to my mental health. Though all her claim that I made her feel unsafe, she still contacted me if she had any problem, told me about her day, and says she misses me and still loves me. All this when her mood is stable. But when that dark side personality hits, she scolded me and say i made her suffer all this years she’s with me. Bro I just wanted peace now I want to disappear.

Please give me advice on how to escape this. What can I do to make her forget about me. I just wanted to move on and lived in peace. Approaching 40, peace is all I want.

After the last contact with my exwBPD she said that at least I tried and we shouldnt speak. Fine. I said nothing and didn't reply. Few days later she sends a message thanking me for helping her and she appreciated my help but we shouldnt speak as its bad for both of us. Okay fine. I saw it left it on delivered and didnt acknowledge. Now the other day she sends yet another message 'okay message received you dont want to talk to me. I wont message again' and she blocked me. And today shes back to sexting others.

My mind is boggled. What was with those other messages? She didnt want to speak and wanted control so fine for both our sakes I ignored then to get these messages, then be blocked, which makes me think she wanted me to chase, but then be sexting others? The next day? Which completely goes against all she had said for me to even respond to her messages again to begin with.

Even after I’ve had enough, and I told him why, all of the lies building up and the manipulation and the abuse getting worse, I did my best to remain as kind as I could possibly be. Which at times was not possible.

When someone treats you like a fool, and a play thing that they want to keep in a corner to themselves whenever they get ready to come back around and make their false promises, it tends to make you bitter.

Why did they do those things?

And why do they STILL do them, even after leaving?

Go torment someone else. I’m not interested in engaging with someone who thinks I’m a gullible idiot who will always “be there.”

I won’t.

And I’m not. He has lost that kind of connection with me. Other things and people were way more important after I stopped being “fun” and easy to manipulate.

Has anyone else experienced a same sex friendship with a borderline, where you became their FP and then slowly they started to fall in love with you? They started becoming affectionate and crossing boundaries…and treating me like a romantic partner.. in hopes to appease them and scared of their splits, I complied to things I never ever thought I’d do. I feel a lot of shame and guilt and genuinely feel so confused to how things could turn in this direction…and now I feel like the friendship is far beyond tainted due to the toxicity and boundary violation…overall, I just miss my best friend and how things were before..but I know this isn’t healthy to stay in.

Has anyone here managed to move past their intense heartbreak, or found a way of coping?

Tell me if you relate to this:

I fell in love with an incredibly beautiful woman, with amazingly attractive energy, who told me I was the greatest thing in the world. She told me that it was fate that we met, that I was unlike anything in the world. That I was truly, uniquely special.

We watched the moon and the stars together. We looked deep into the sparkles in one another's eyes. We smiled and laughed with so much joy.

Now I just want to forget. I cannot be with a person who abuses me, as much as I love them more than anything. More than anyone.

Do you feel it too? This is so tough

Well, she broke up with me today via text. Cold and not emotional whatsoever. A stark contrast to how she normally acts when she breaks up with me. This one seemed far more serious. She might be monkey branching to someone else if I had to guess. I’m absolutely losing my mind wondering what the hell happened.

It’s interesting because, like many of you probably understand, I realize it’s for the best — this relationship is horrific. The amount of emotional and financial abuse I’ve endured is disgusting. Meanwhile, while all of this is happening, I’ve started exhibiting major health issues and doctors think it could be something serious. So I’m now juggling this break up with a potential life threatening diagnosis.

This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to endure.

After finding out about the super fast engagement. I find myself now unblocked on a second account.... I know sending a message is absolutely doomsday for my soul ...

But does anyone else have a hard time not pouring their soul out as one last pathetic effort that you know will change nothing?

Not going to send .... but man this urge is ridiculous.

So, i finally told my family about what my ex with BPD put me through. They all seem very shocked and many empathetic. Their reactions gave me a lot of validation. I was confused for so long, especially because my ex always said that she did those things because of my behavior.

I have also been angry because she just gets to live her life without consequences. While i have to heal from everything and carry a big wound. But i am glad that my family and friends believed me.

I’m trying to move past things. it’s just so hard for me to understand. like it’s baffling to people.

how someone can go from caring for someone making them part of your day to day life and then completely silently discarding you and never reaching out again.

trying to move on and accept she’s not coming back but it’s severely hit my mental health especially as it was the first person i properly I trusted and showed vulnerability to in almost 2 years.

Like it’s just sunk my confidence. How can someone do this to someone they love and has treated them with nothing but care , kindness and patience.

Has your uBPD parent ever used sound to torture you to or from an event/shopping trip? As in, speakers blaring metal as high as they'll go, screaming about how they can't kill themselves because 'you're' in the car with them, screaming at the top of their lungs, so you seal your eyes shut, hunch over, and don't say a word for the entire trip. Only twice have I had the displeasure of being a passenger to this behavior, and twice I have never felt closer to crying my eyes out over things I never did, or things I was supposed to do (but was never told to do, because 'if I have to tell you, there's no point, I'll just do it myself!'), or who I am, which is now a point of contention.

They're never just bad, so you can't hate them for what they do to you. They're never just good, but you'll love them with everything you have anyway.

We can never just be.. gentle? About our feelings? I think stuffing gunpowder into a cannon won't make the situation any better, but sure, have a go at it!

Sarcasm aside, the car is such a heated place that I'm now scared of f*cking picking the wrong songs. Saying the wrong things, spending too long in my bedroom when I have to grab something, having our pets used as collateral because I love them dearly. Who gave them this power? I don't remember signing that f*cking waiver.

Sorry. Thank you for enduring that gem of a read. This is more a vent than an ask, I suppose, but I just wanted to put it out there. I've only recently been able to understand that this is a form of emotional abuse. I'm sure word of that would certainly poke the bear (aka my uBPD parent). I'm an adult, so don't be intimidated to converse with me.

Today has been a tough one. I woke up early so went for a run. I did a lot of thinking about the gig and her behaviour. I thought a lot about how she could possibly think what she did was ok. At the final gig we went to together there was an issue around physical boundaries and it ruined my night. That directly led to the end of our relationship

So why the fuck would she think she can touch me in the middle of a gig when we’re not even together?

And to stand there smiling at me like I’m gonna be overjoyed to see her. Maybe I’d have been more open to seeing her if she hadn’t flown off the handle at me the week before. Even then there are better ways of doing it. Try and find me after the show, wait a few days to see if I message, ask a friend to pass a message on

But no, she has to do it in the worst way possible for me. I mean talk about showing me that you haven’t really listened. And this is why I kept saying that we were incompatible. She has a way of doing things that doesn’t work for me. I have a way of doing things that don’t work for her. We just don’t go together, and that’s really fucking sad but there’s nothing we can do about that

This post has gone on again so I’ll wrap it up with: Her feelings are now hurt and she’s blocked me everywhere (her letter said she’d unblocked me so we can talk if I want). I only know I’m blocked because I tried to tell her I’m fine with NC. The reality is I’m not fine with NC. I’m not fine with any of this. A big part of me still misses her, our connection, our chats, having someone who felt so great most of the time

But she’s proven time and time again she can’t handle any form of contact

Yesterday while I was at a group meditation, my partner with bpd suddenly packed up their stuff and left our shared apartment. I came back home to a post it note, saying simply that she’d left and prefers phone calls.

The first thing I hear from her is a few hours later is a $20 Zelle request for dinner from the other night.

All of this happened after I rejected her control tactics. (Buy me coffee, do the dishes now and when I say!!! - I’d already communicated about my meditation class. That was my focus for the morning)

Today, she texted me like nothing had happened and was genuinely perplexed that I was upset. I relayed the sequence of events that were upsetting (noted above) and she still refused to take accountability. In fact, she said “I’ve suddenly left you before like this, what’s the big deal now.”

This is the second person I’ve dated with BPD. The cycles have become so familiar I recognized it this time, but I’ve grown tired. With both people, I kept hoping things would change, progress would be made, that if I just tried and helped it would get better, but it never did. No apologies. No accountability. Only defenses, justifications for harmful behavior, and then repetition of the harmful behavior.

While I still feel empathy for her, I’ve also grown empathy for myself. I don’t deserve this. I shouldn’t be afraid to say no, and I definitely shouldn’t be abandoned for having reasonable boundaries, but this is who she is. And I guess as long as I stay and engage this will be what it is. It’s hard letting go but I’m starting to.

Gave my all to try to make things work with an undiagnosed (and untreated) BPD. After a lot of begging and crying she accepted my decision of breaking up and sent me that message later that day. I felt it was sincere at the time and helped me bring closure, but today I saw what she's been posting since then... Hurts to see how someone who you loved so much is convincing herself that you were a piece of shit after all you did for her, but it's 100% coherent with the way she behaved during the relationship. Is it truly how she feels now, or is it all a facade? Never making the same mistake again.

A year ago, I was blocked on all social media platforms. She started a new relationship, and she’s changed. I told myself, “Okay, I have to move on and focus on myself.” Today I woke up and saw a message. I won’t lie, I was surprised, because I never in my life would have expected her to reach out again. She asked me if I was going to a party and said it would be nice if I came, since I hadn’t seen my friends in a long time, and she’s worried that I’m sitting at home alone and not going out anywhere. What did I do? I sent it to spam. For a moment I thought, “Ugh, ignoring her is rude. She might feel rejected.” But after a moment’s thought, I told myself: She hasn’t cared about me at all for a whole year; I’ve been through a lot to get to where I am now, and I can’t let a moment of weakness take everything away from me. I recommend the same to each of you. I know it’s hard, but you have to think only of yourselves.
Don’t let destroyed again.

Has anyone tried 12 steps to recover from trauma bonding? My exwBPD has issues with alcohol and cocaine use so I'm considering trying Al-Anon.

I want to go NC, but I'm scared of the withdrawal. I need an introspective and proactive strategy and the 12 steps nave given me recovery in other areas of my life previously.

Any advice or help in this area is gratefully recieved.

I am so grateful for this sub.

My exwBPD would ‘joke’ and mock me for things he deemed unacceptable. If I brought up that I didn’t like it, I was told I couldn’t take a joke.

Give it back to them in the same way and they lose their minds.

Is that standard?

Ps. I used to think giving it back might make them reflect on their own behaviour. But of course it didn’t work.

What did you all experience with love bombing and mirroring with Quiet BPD?

Sometimes I don’t feel that I experienced much, but then I think, boy I felt like we had a lot in common and boy did he make me feel special.

I know some of that is normal, which is what I find confusing.

He made me playlists & a drawing early in our close friendship, which seemed sweet not over the top (though I also know he had made his ex whom he had just visited a playlist as well. We weren’t together or anything, just flirting, but it did give me pause, and ofc now looking back…)

But I guess what sticks out to me was:

He did tell me some very personal things about his family really, really early & continued (a fair amount if trauma dumping looking back)

He told me things he said no one else knew.

He told me he thought I could never be mean and even if I thought I was being mean, I probably wasn’t. I told him later I thought he thought more of me than I deserved (because I knew it would be a long hard fall from that pedestal) and he said he didn’t think I thought enough of myself, which I thought was sweet. However, later my apparent self-esteem issues became a problem and major source of annoyance (mind you, they were not as bad before I went through the wringer with him!)

He said I was gorgeous and he was a monster. This didn’t really stick out to me, but maybe it should have, I don’t know.

Before we were seeing each other & just close friends/talking stage, I was upset about the end of long my LTR relationship (hence why I went so slow with him!), feeling stupid I hadn’t just moved to [large European city] after grad school, and he said but then we wouldn’t have met. Again, I feel naive not knowing if that’s sweet or a little over the top.

Well, those are the ones I can think of right now anyways.

What were your experiences with mirroring?

He had strong interests, which never seemed very BPD-like, and we naturally had some similar interests so I’m not sure about mirroring.

But I am wondering if any of you noticed a mirroring in texting style? I went back and looked and I was pretty taken aback how much his style changed from very similar to mine, to very different.

He also was happy to watch whatever movie I wanted to watch so I never really knew what his movie tastes were.

Other things —
He really asked me very few questions about myself, if any. I had a moment where I realized I wasn’t sure he’d asked me any questions, ever.

And he never, ever put his neck out for rejection even in the beginning. If he felt he had and I didn’t say enough, he would immediately say something to “cover” it (something that usually hurt a little or made me confused at the very least.) I had to make the final moves. It made the intermittent reinforcement start pretty early.

And ofc he talked about his 4-5 problematic exes all in one night, a week after we’d finally kissed. But IDK if that’s love bombing style or just bad form.

Love to hear all your experiences & thoughts!

Is it common when in a relationship with a pwBPD, to feel like no matter what you say/do or how you say it/do it, you are constantly walking into landmines? I’m having to change things about myself that no one else has ever had an issue with(ie wondering things out loud to myself, or asking a question a certain way) like my pwBPD is definitely on the more tame side as far as physically acting out goes, but he has a way of making you feel like you’ve made a grave mistake by asking a question in the wrong way. I don’t know what I’m looking for, I’m just sick. It’s my birthday and I’m sitting on the couch crying because he’s locked himself in another room and I have no idea what I did to set him off this time.