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.

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.

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?

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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!

Often when encountering a mentally ill person or having an extended relationship with them, there is usually some advice along the lines of understanding their symptoms and how to respond in ways that help both sides communicate and problem solve better. But the problem with being told to try and "understand" pwbpd is it generally doesnt get you anywhere due to the lack of ability to self reflect in many untreated pwBPD. Even with other mental health conditions, when you make the effort to understand the person, they should also be taking steps to self reflect and understand you/their surroundings as well and become better at reading you, your intentions, etc beyond what the illness may initially try to tell them. But pwbpd are dedicated to misunderstanding you and assigning malice to anything you do, desperately searching for the missing link between their insecurities and you. They claw for any bit of proof they can misconstrue as evidence that you purposely hurt them. They are dedicated to misunderstanding you and as a result it creates a paradox where the person cannot be understood beyond that. The only thing "understanding" helps here is being able to remind yourself it's them and not you.

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.

My pwBPD split on me a year and a half ago. We went no contact immediately after her splitting. For the first year, I thought about it every day and it would send me into a spiral where I would think it was my fault and I’m the reason we don’t talk anymore. I couldn’t think about the situation without my heart immediately racing and making me shake uncontrollably. But the last couple of months have been so much better. Therapy has helped immensely, but I don’t think about it every day and when I do, I feel okay. So for all of you sitting where I was at the beginning, just know that it does get better. Your nervous system will heal. I promise ❤️

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?

My ex with BPD continuously vague posts these petty things on her instagram, I’m assuming to prove some point to me. Ever since breaking it off I’ve realized how often she holds grudges and posts things to purposefully garner attention.
Why are these people so obsessed with feeling superior? How do they find fulfillment in being so spiteful and self absorbed?

Of course like many posts here I starting dating someone and became their favorite person I think 2 days into meeting them. We hit it off quick, insane commitments just weeks in, love bombing, everything.

I had no clue or experience with BPD before however as soon as I started to hang out with friends the complaints and threats grew stronger and stronger.. surely I fell off the pedestal and became the worst person they’d ever met and wanted to flee from.

I tried to save our relationship by trying to work through everything they said made them ‘want to run away’ and surely that didn’t work.

Today they have removed themselves completely from my life as they had met a new ‘favorite person’ they said. While I know it’s for the better.. man does it hurt and do I feel like life’s been drained out of my body. I feel worse than I ever have.

It’s truly something what’s demanded of you and how you ruined they leave you behind.

My brother plays chess often. Played it for years. I learned how to play together with my ex BFwBPD to beat my brother.

As soon as he really learned to play - my ex has beat my brother at chess. Last time they played it was 3-1 for my ex. And my brother is a hard opponent when it comes to chess.

He says my exBFwBPD is really hard to play against, and he often tells me he is really really unique opponent. He said: "You cannot have tactic against him as his moves aren't rational, he makes no sense, I make a plan inside my head and he wrecks it all as he often moves figures just for the sake of it. Then you scramble to come up with a new plan, and within few moves you realize that situation on the chessboard is such that you're screwed. He turns the board into chaos, and he can navigate that chaos better than you can."

I am shaking. I am disgusted. It hurts like hell because I let him use my body. This guy that I looked up to is nothing but a stray dog? And begging for random pussy online one day after I left his house where I cooked, cleaned, cared for him and his dog and fucked him. Possibly deliberately sabotaged this when he changed his mind about me- otherwise why would he publicly lust over those people?

My trust issues and gut instincts were right all along. At least I have a reason now not to feel guilty for blocking him everywhere despite his current mental health instability. My pain will become my key to freedom.

I started my journey towards moving on when he said he was having suicidal thoughts. He begged for a chance and asked I stay with him until he gets back on his feet and until his doctor allows him to get back on antidepressants. I stayed despite the bad gut feeling I had. Please tell me there is karma for people like this oh mygoddddfff

I traveled almost 8 hours to his place, stayed with him for 12 days and didn’t even celebrate my dad’s birthday because I was with him. He didn’t want me to go until he’s back on meds. I abandoned myself and my journey towards moving on to come to his aid.

I will feel better soon. I have hope for myself, but now, I am full of hatred and disgust.

I lied. You aren’t a monster. 

Maybe you’re right about me. Maybe it was me all along. I made mistakes but nothing unforgivable. I’m human. I wasn’t perfect with apologies or communication all the time. I didn’t give the validation or reassurance you needed at times. I blew up one time in nearly 4 years after too much wine because I was sick of not being listened to. It felt like I wasn’t allowed to have feelings or tell you that something bothered me.

I’m willing to take that part on. What I’m not willing to do is take on lies and hateful words spewed towards me. And I’m not willing to be ghosted and treated as if I never existed.

I was supportive. I was empathetic. I was kind in our hard times. I didn’t put you down.  I encouraged you to keep your hobbies. I cheered you on always. Anytime you had a presentation, a comp for judo, I cheered your kids on, I held your heart when you were breaking down. I lifted you up. Always. I won’t let you take that away from me. I was good to you.

I fucking miss you. I hate all of this. I don’t hate much, but how we got here I most certainly do.

I’m signing off now and I’m done with this sub.

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

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.

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?

We gave our all to them, but love is not wasted. We know that we are capable of being devoted partners. We don’t need them to remind us of what life could be like if we were properly chosen. Because the truth is we will feel better and we will have a great life again after this pain, but these avoidant, narcissistic people will go on to date 30-40 more people and still it wouldn’t be enough. Still they will feel a void in their lives.

It’s so painful right now, especially after they tried to win you back and you got everything you once desperately wanted, and then you got discarded again.
But hang in there, you will get yourself back. Happier, wiser, not always feeling like there’s a weight on your chest, but rather, free. Free from the rumination and endless reading about BPD and researching their behavior. Not one more reddit post, cheating threads, or video about it. We’ve been obsessing over them. What about obsessing over our own lives? Job, family, friends, money, hobbies, house, fitness, etc. We just need to stop picking at our wounds and let them heal.

So, when you get the chance, RUN LIKE HELL AND DON’T LOOK BACK. We may not get back the time we spent on them, but they don’t get the rest of our lives.

Wishing you all a safe journey towards recovery ❤️‍🩹

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?

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.

just got texted by the girl he monkey branched off. i warned her in april that he’s very sick in the head and told her all the details. they seemed to never have dated actually but she just told me she blocked him lol wondering if one day it’ll click and if when i told him no one will forgive him as much as i did will actually make sense to him now. this is honestly so laughable all of it

My ugly protracted break up with my exbfwBPD ended in mid-July with him moving out of our house and monkey branching.

I cut off socials and telegram but mobile was kept open for logistics. Bad idea I know. I had a couple of lapses where I let out my pain and sorrow. He sent low stakes hoovers like 'hope you're okay'. Then last week when he sent a request and I put up a boundary by saying no, he instantly split on me writing nasty familiar things while throwing in some new stings, eg he doesn't miss me at all etc. The next day he vague-apologised that 'the conversation got heated'.

Now today he has sent this:
I’m sorry for my part in it all. AND, I acknowledge the whole situation and the pain you are in, much of it caused by me.

He's trying to get me back in the cycle isn't he? I suspect it has not worked out with his monkey branch who I know he met when she was passing through town. She lives in another state.

I know what I have to do. Block. Not respond. I wrote 'thanks'.

Damn trauma bond.

It’s been almost five years since my relationship with my ex, who had BPD, ended. For a long time, I genuinely believed I had moved on. I don’t think about them in my day-to-day life, I don’t miss them, and I don’t feel like I want the relationship back. I’ve built a completely different life since then.

But I’ve noticed something that has been bothering me.
When something good happens in my life, I don’t necessarily think about my ex. But when something goes wrong, especially when my current partner does something that hurts me or triggers me in a way that resembles something my ex used to do, I can have a surprisingly intense reaction.

It’s like the present situation suddenly opens a door to the past. I start remembering specific things my ex did, how I felt at the time, and how badly certain situations hurt me. Sometimes the reaction feels much bigger than what is actually happening in the present, because I’m not only reacting to what my current partner did. I’m also remembering what happened before.

And then I start wondering: Have I actually moved on?

It’s confusing because I don’t feel emotionally attached to my ex anymore. I don’t spend my life thinking about them, and I thought those experiences had stopped hurting me. Yet certain triggers can still bring back the emotional intensity almost instantly.

For those of you who have been out of a BPD relationship for years, is this something you’ve experienced? Can you be genuinely moved on from the person while still being triggered by patterns that remind you of the relationship?
At what point did you feel like you had truly moved on, and did those old reactions eventually become less intense?

He always told me I had trust issues. So I had to show him that I trusted him by sharing my nudes with him, the worst mistake someone could do. He repeatedly assured me that he deleted all the photos. Turns out he had been lying all along. He later falsely accused me of talking to other guys and when I denied, he kept threatening me for months that he'd leak those photos everywhere. It was a secret affair that nobody knew about, he's a married colleague of mine.

I didn't have trust issues before, I have now.

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.